Celtic Fairy Tales Part 32

V. CONAL YELLOWCLAW.

_Source_.--Campbell, _Pop. Tales of West Highlands_, No. v. pp. 105-8, "Conall Cra Bhuidhe." I have softened the third episode, which is somewhat too ghastly in the original. I have translated "Cra Bhuide"

Yellowclaw on the strength of Campbell's etymology, _l.c._ p. 158.

_Parallels_.--Campbell's vi. and vii. are two variants showing how widespread the story is in Gaelic Scotland. It occurs in Ireland where it has been printed in the chapbook, _Hibernian Tales_, as the "Black Thief and the Knight of the Glen," the Black Thief being Conall, and the knight corresponding to the King of Lochlan (it is given in Mr.

Lang's _Red Fairy Book_). Here it attracted the notice of Thackeray, who gives a good abstract of it in his _Irish Sketch-Book_, ch. xvi. He thinks it "worthy of the Arabian Nights, as wild and odd as an Eastern tale." "That fantastical way of bearing testimony to the previous tale by producing an old woman who says the tale is not only true, but who was the very old woman who lived in the giant's castle is almost" (why "almost," Mr. Thackeray?) "a stroke of genius." The incident of the giant's breath occurs in the story of Koisha Kayn, MacInnes' _Tales_, i. 241, as well as the Polyphemus one, _ibid._ 265. One-eyed giants are frequent in Celtic folk-tales (_e.g._ in _The Pursuit of Diarmaid_ and in the _Mabinogi_ of Owen).

_Remarks._--Thackeray's reference to the "Arabian Nights" is especially apt, as the tale of Conall is a framework story like _The 1001 Nights_, the three stories told by Conall being framed, as it were, in a fourth which is nominally the real story. This method employed by the Indian story-tellers and from them adopted by Boccaccio and thence into all European literatures (Chaucer, Queen Margaret, &c.), is generally thought to be peculiar to the East, and to be ultimately derived from the Jatakas or Birth Stories of the Buddha who tells his adventures in former incarnations. Here we find it in Celtdom, and it occurs also in "The Story-teller at Fault" in this collection, and the story of _Koisha Kayn_ in MacInnes' _Argylls.h.i.+re Tales_, a variant of which, collected but not published by Campbell, has no less than nineteen tales enclosed in a framework. The question is whether the method was adopted independently in Ireland, or was due to foreign influences.

Confining ourselves to "Conal Yellowclaw," it seems not unlikely that the whole story is an importation. For the second episode is clearly the story of Polyphemus from the Odyssey which was known in Ireland perhaps as early as the tenth century (see Prof. K. Meyer's edition of _Merugud Uilix maic Leirtis_, Pref. p. xii). It also crept into the voyages of Sindbad in the _Arabian Nights_. And as told in the Highlands it bears comparison even with the Homeric version. As Mr.

Nutt remarks (_Celt. Mag._ xii.) the address of the giant to the buck is as effective as that of Polyphemus to his ram. The narrator, James Wilson, was a blind man who would naturally feel the pathos of the address; "it comes from the heart of the narrator;" says Campbell (_l.c._, 148), "it is the ornament which his mind hangs on the frame of the story."

VI. HUDDEN AND DUDDEN.

_Source._--From oral tradition, by the late D. W. Logie, taken down by Mr. Alfred Nutt.

_Parallels._--Lover has a tale, "Little Fairly," obviously derived from this folk-tale; and there is another very similar, "Darby Darly."

Another version of our tale is given under the t.i.tle "Donald and his Neighbours," in the chapbook _Hibernian Tales_, whence it was reprinted by Thackeray in his _Irish Sketch-Book_, c. xvi. This has the incident of the "accidental matricide," on which see Prof. R. Kohler on Gonzenbach _Sicil. Mahrchen_, ii. 224. No less than four tales of Campbell are of this type (_Pop. Tales_, ii. 218-31). M. Cosquin, in his "Contes populaires de Lorraine," the storehouse of "storiology,"

has elaborate excursuses in this cla.s.s of tales attached to his Nos. x.

and xx. Mr. Clouston discusses it also in his _Pop. Tales_, ii. 229-88.

Both these writers are inclined to trace the chief incidents to India.

It is to be observed that one of the earliest popular drolls in Europe, _Unibos_, a Latin poem of the eleventh, and perhaps the tenth, century, has the main outlines of the story, the fraudulent sale of worthless objects and the escape from the sack trick. The same story occurs in Straparola, the European earliest collection of folk-tales in the sixteenth century. On the other hand, the gold sticking to the scales is familiar to us in _Ali Baba_. (_Cf._ Cosquin, _l.c._, i. 225-6, 229).

_Remarks_.--It is indeed curious to find, as M. Cosquin points out, a cunning fellow tied in a sack getting out by crying, "I won't marry the princess," in countries so far apart as Ireland, Sicily (Gonzenbach, No. 71), Afghanistan (Thorburn, _Bannu_, p. 184), and Jamaica (_Folk-Lore Record_, iii. 53). It is indeed impossible to think these are disconnected, and for drolls of this kind a good case has been made out for the borrowing hypotheses by M. Cosquin and Mr. Clouston. Who borrowed from whom is another and more difficult question which has to be judged on its merits in each individual case.

This is a type of Celtic folk-tales which are European in spread, have a.n.a.logies with the East, and can only be said to be Celtic by adoption and by colouring. They form a distinct section of the tales told by the Celts, and must be represented in any characteristic selection. Other examples are xi., xv., xx., and perhaps xxii.

VII. SHEPHERD OF MYDDVAI.

_Source_.--Preface to the edition of "The Physicians of Myddvai"; their prescription-book, from the Red Book of Hergest, published by the Welsh MS. Society in 1861. The legend is not given in the Red Book, but from oral tradition by Mr. W. Rees, p. xxi. As this is the first of the Welsh tales in this book it may be as well to give the reader such guidance as I can afford him on the intricacies of Welsh p.r.o.nunciation, especially with regard to the mysterious _w_'s and _y_'s of Welsh orthography. For _w_ subst.i.tute double _o_, as in "_fool_," and for _y_, the short _u_ in b_u_t, and as near approach to Cymric speech will be reached as is possible for the outlander. It maybe added that double _d_ equals _th_, and double _l_ is something like _Fl_, as Shakespeare knew in calling his Welsh soldier Fluellen (Llewelyn). Thus "Meddygon Myddvai" would be _Anglice_ "Methugon Muthvai."

_Parallels._--Other versions of the legend of the Van Pool are given in _Cambro-Briton_, ii. 315; W. Sikes, _British Goblins_, p. 40. Mr. E.

Sidney Hartland has discussed these and others in a set of papers contributed to the first volume of _The Archaeological Review_ (now incorporated into _Folk-Lore_), the substance of which is now given in his _Science of Fairy Tales_, 274-332. (See also the references given in _Revue Celtique_, iv., 187 and 268). Mr. Hartland gives there an ec.u.menical collection of parallels to the several incidents that go to make up our story--(1) The bride-capture of the Swan-Maiden, (2) the recognition of the bride, (3) the taboo against causeless blows, (4) doomed to be broken, and (5) disappearance of the Swan-Maiden, with (6) her return as Guardian Spirit to her descendants. In each case Mr.

Hartland gives what he considers to be the most primitive form of the incident. With reference to our present tale, he comes to the conclusion, if I understand him aright, that the lake-maiden was once regarded as a local divinity. The physicians of Myddvai were historic personages, renowned for their medical skill for some six centuries, till the race died out with John Jones, _fl._ 1743. To explain their skill and uncanny knowledge of herbs, the folk traced them to a supernatural ancestress, who taught them their craft in a place still called Pant-y-Meddygon ("Doctors' Dingle"). Their medical knowledge did not require any such remarkable origin, as Mr. Hartland has shown in a paper "On Welsh Folk-Medicine," contributed to _Y Cymmrodor_, vol. xii.

On the other hand, the Swan-Maiden type of story is widespread through the Old World. Mr. Morris' "Land East of the Moon and West of the Sun,"

in _The Earthly Paradise_, is taken from the Norse version. Parallels are acc.u.mulated by the Grimms, ii. 432; Kohler on Gonzenbach, ii. 20; or Blade, 149; Stokes' _Indian Fairy Tales_, 243, 276; and Messrs.

Jones and Koopf, _Magyar Folk-Tales_, 362-5. It remains to be proved that one of these versions did not travel to Wales, and become there localised. We shall see other instances of such localisation or specialisation of general legends.

VIII. THE SPRIGHTLY TAILOR.

_Source._--_Notes and Queries_ for December 21, 1861; to which it was communicated by "Cuthbert Bede," the author of _Verdant Green_, who collected it in Cantyre.

_Parallels_.--Miss Dempster gives the same story in her Sutherland Collection, No. vii. (referred to by Campbell in his Gaelic list, at end of vol. iv.); Mrs. John Faed, I am informed by a friend, knows the Gaelic version, as told by her nurse in her youth. Chambers' "Strange Visitor," _Pop. Rhymes of Scotland_, 64, of which I gave an Anglicised version in my _English Fairy Tales_, No. x.x.xii., is clearly a variant.

_Remarks_.--The Macdonald of Saddell Castle was a very great man indeed. Once, when dining with the Lord-Lieutenant, an apology was made to him for placing him so far away from the head of the table. "Where the Macdonald sits," was the proud response, "there is the head of the table."

IX. DEIRDRE.

_Source_.--_Celtic Magazine_, xiii. pp. 69, _seq_. I have abridged somewhat, made the sons of Fergus all faithful instead of two traitors, and omitted an incident in the house of the wild men called here "strangers." The original Gaelic was given in the _Transactions of the Inverness Gaelic Society_ for 1887, p. 241, _seq._, by Mr. Carmichael.

I have inserted Deirdre's "Lament" from the _Book of Leinster_.

_Parallels_.--This is one of the three most sorrowful Tales of Erin, (the other two, _Children of Lir_ and _Children of Tureen_, are given in Dr. Joyce's _Old Celtic Romances_), and is a specimen of the old heroic sagas of elopement, a list of which is given in the _Book of Leinster_. The "outcast child" is a frequent episode in folk and hero-tales: an instance occurs in my _English Fairy Tales_, No. x.x.xv., and Prof. Kohler gives many others in _Archiv. f. Slav. Philologie_, i.

288. Mr. Nutt adds tenth century Celtic parallels in _Folk-Lore_, vol.

ii. The wooing of hero by heroine is a characteristic Celtic touch. See "Connla" here, and other examples given by Mr. Nutt in his notes to MacInnes' _Tales_. The trees growing from the lovers' graves occurs in the English ballad of _Lord Lovel_ and has been studied in _Melusine_.

_Remarks_.--The "Story of Deirdre" is a remarkable instance of the tenacity of oral tradition among the Celts. It has been preserved in no less than five versions (or six, including Macpherson's "Darthula") ranging from the twelfth to the nineteenth century. The earliest is in the twelfth century, _Book of Leinster_, to be dated about 1140 (edited in facsimile under the auspices of the Royal Irish Academy, i. 147, _seq._). Then comes a fifteenth century version, edited and translated by Dr. Stokes in Windisch's _Irische Texte_ II., ii. 109, _seq._, "Death of the Sons of Uisnech." Keating in his _History of Ireland_ gave another version in the seventeenth century. The Dublin Gaelic Society published an eighteenth century version in their _Transactions_ for 1808. And lastly we have the version before us, collected only a few years ago, yet agreeing in all essential details with the version of the _Book of Leinster_. Such a record is unique in the history of oral tradition, outside Ireland, where, however, it is quite a customary experience in the study of the Finn-saga. It is now recognised that Macpherson had, or could have had, ample material for his _rechauffe_ of the Finn or "Fingal" saga. His "Darthula" is a similar cobbling of our present story. I leave to Celtic specialists the task of settling the exact relations of these various texts. I content myself with pointing out the fact that in these latter days of a seemingly prosaic century in these British Isles there has been collected from the lips of the folk a heroic story like this of "Deirdre," full of romantic incidents, told with tender feeling and considerable literary skill. No other country in Europe, except perhaps Russia, could provide a parallel to this living on of Romance among the common folk. Surely it is a bounden duty of those who are in the position to put on record any such utterances of the folk-imagination of the Celts before it is too late.

X. MUNACHAR AND MANACHAR.

_Source_.--I have combined the Irish version given by Dr. Hyde in his _Leabhar Sgeul._, and translated by him for Mr. Yeats' _Irish Folk and Fairy Tales_, and the Scotch version given in Gaelic and English by Campbell, No. viii.

_Parallels_.--Two English versions are given in my _Eng. Fairy Tales_, No. iv., "The Old Woman and her Pig," and x.x.xiv., "The Cat and the Mouse," where see notes for other variants in these isles. M. Cosquin, in his notes to No. x.x.xiv., of his _Contes de Lorraine_, t. ii. pp.

35-41, has drawn attention to an astonis.h.i.+ng number of parallels scattered through all Europe and the East (_cf._, too, Crane, _Ital.

Pop. Tales_, notes, 372-5). One of the earliest allusions to the jingle is in _Don Quixote_, pt. 1, c. xvi.: "Y asi como suele decirse _el gato al rato, et rato a la cuerda, la cuerda al palo_, daba el arriero a Sancho, Sancho a la moza, la moza a el, el ventero a la moza." As I have pointed out, it is used to this day by Bengali women at the end of each folk-tale they recite (L. B. Day, _Folk-Tales of Bengal_, Pref.).

_Remarks_.--Two ingenious suggestions have been made as to the origin of this curious jingle, both connecting it with religious ceremonies: (1) Something very similar occurs in Chaldaic at the end of the Jewish _Hagada_, or domestic ritual for the Pa.s.sover night. It has, however, been shown that this does not occur in early MSS. or editions, and was only added at the end to amuse the children after the service, and was therefore only a translation or adaptation of a current German form of the jingle; (2) M. Ba.s.set, in the _Revue des Traditions populaires_, 1890, t. v. p. 549, has suggested that it is a survival of the old Greek custom at the sacrifice of the Bouphonia for the priest to contend that _he_ had not slain the sacred beast, the axe declares that the handle did it, the handle transfers the guilt further, and so on.

This is ingenious, but fails to give any reasonable account of the diffusion of the jingle in countries which have had no historic connection with cla.s.sical Greece.

XI. GOLD TREE AND SILVER TREE.

_Source_.--_Celtic Magazine_, xiii. 213-8, Gaelic and English from Mr.

Kenneth Macleod.

_Parallels_.--Mr. Macleod heard another version in which "Gold Tree"

(anonymous in this variant) is bewitched to kill her father's horse, dog, and c.o.c.k. Abroad it is the Grimm's _Schneewittchen_ (No. 53), for the Continental variants of which see Kohler on Gonzenbach, _Sicil.

Mahrchen_, Nos. 2-4, Grimm's notes on 53, and Crane, _Ital. Pop.

Tales_, 331. No other version is known in the British Isles.

_Remarks_.--It is unlikely, I should say impossible, that this tale, with the incident of the dormant heroine, should have arisen independently in the Highlands; it is most likely an importation from abroad. Yet in it occurs a most "primitive" incident, the bigamous household of the hero; this is glossed over in Mr. Macleod's other variant. On the "survival" method of investigation this would possibly be used as evidence for polygamy in the Highlands. Yet if, as is probable, the story came from abroad, this trait may have come with it, and only implies polygamy in the original home of the tale.