Celtic Folk and Fairy Tales Part 32

It wasn't long till the gate was thrune open, and the Ould Boy received Tom with bows and sc.r.a.pes, and axed his business.

"My business isn't much," says Tom. "I only came for the loan of that flail that I see hanging on the collar-beam, for the king of Dublin to give a thras.h.i.+ng to the Danes."

"Well," says the other, "the Danes is much better customers to me; but since you walked so far I won't refuse. Hand that flail," says he to a young imp; and he winked the far-off eye at the same time. So, while some were barring the gates, the young devil climbed up, and took down the flail that had the hand-staff and booltheen both made out of red-hot iron. The little vagabond was grinning to think how it would burn the hands o' Tom, but the d.i.c.kens a burn it made on him, no more nor if it was a good oak sapling.

[Ill.u.s.tration:]

"Thankee," says Tom. "Now would you open the gate for a body, and I'll give you no more trouble."

"Oh, tramp!" says Ould Nick; "is that the way? It is easier getting inside them gates than getting out again. Take that tool from him, and give him a dose of the oil of stirrup."

So one fellow put out his claws to seize on the flail, but Tom give him such a welt of it on the side of the head that he broke off one of his horns, and made him roar like a devil as he was. Well, they rushed at Tom, but he gave them, little and big, such a thras.h.i.+ng as they didn't forget for a while. At last says the ould thief of all, rubbing his elbow, "Let the fool out; and woe to whoever lets him in again, great or small."

So out marched Tom, and away with him, without minding the shouting and cursing they kept up at him from the tops of the walls; and when he got home to the big bawn of the palace, there never was such running and racing as to see himself and the flail. When he had his story told, he laid down the flail on the stone steps, and bid no one for their lives to touch it. If the king, and queen, and princess, made much of him before, they made ten times more of him now; but Redhead, the mean scruff-hound, stole over, and thought to catch hold of the flail to make an end of him. His fingers hardly touched it, when he let a roar out of him as if heaven and earth were coming together, and kept flinging his arms about and dancing, that it was pitiful to look at him. Tom ran at him as soon as he could rise, caught his hands in his own two, and rubbed them this way and that, and the burning pain left them before you could reckon one. Well, the poor fellow between the pain that was only just gone, and the comfort he was in, had the comicalest face that you ever see, it was such a mixtherum-gatherum of laughing and crying. Everybody burst out a laughing--the princess could not stop no more than the rest; and then says Tom, "Now, ma'am, if there were fifty halves of you, I hope you'll give me them all."

Well, the princess looked at her father, and by my word, she came over to Tom, and put her two delicate hands into his two rough ones, and I wish it was myself was in his shoes that day!

Tom would not bring the flail into the palace. You may be sure no other body went near it; and when the early-risers were pa.s.sing next morning, they found two long clefts in the stone, where it was after burning itself an opening downwards, n.o.body could tell how far. But a messenger came in at noon, and said that the Danes were so frightened when they heard of the flail coming into Dublin that they got into their s.h.i.+ps and sailed away.

Well, I suppose, before they were married, Tom got some man, like Pat Mara of Tomenine, to learn him the "principles of politeness,"

fluxions, gunnery and fortification, decimal fractions, practice, and the rule of three direct, the way he'd be able to keep up a conversation with the royal family. Whether he ever lost his time learning them sciences, I'm not sure, but it's as sure as fate that his mother never more saw any want till the end of her days.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAN OR WOMAN

BOY OR GIRL

THAT READS WHAT FOLLOWS

3 TIMES

SHALL FALL ASLEEP

AN HUNDRED YEARS

JOHN D BATTEN DREW THIS: AUG 29TH 1891

GOOD-NIGHT. ]

Notes and References

It may be as well to give the reader some account of the enormous extent of the Celtic folk-tales in existence. I reckon these to extend to 2000, though only about 250 are in print. The former number exceeds that known in France, Italy, Germany, and Russia, where collection has been most active, and is only exceeded by the MS. collection of Finnish folk-tales at Helsingfors, said to exceed 12,000. As will be seen, this superiority of the Celts is due to the phenomenal and patriotic activity of one man, the late J. F. Campbell, of Islay, whose _Popular Tales_ and MS. collections (partly described by Mr.

Alfred Nutt in _Folk-Lore_, i., 369-83) contain references to no less than 1281 tales (many of them, of course, variants and sc.r.a.ps). Celtic folk-tales, while more numerous, are also the oldest of the tales of modern European races; some of them--_e. g._, "Connla," in the present selection, occurring in the oldest Irish vellums. They include (1) fairy tales properly so-called--_i.e._, tales or anecdotes _about_ fairies, hobgoblins, etc., told as natural occurrences; (2) hero-tales, stories of adventure told of national or mythical heroes; (3) folk-tales proper, describing marvellous adventures of otherwise unknown heroes, in which there is a defined plot and supernatural characters (speaking animals, giants, dwarfs, etc.); and finally (4) drolls, comic anecdotes of feats of stupidity or cunning.

The collection of Celtic folk-tales began in IRELAND as early as 1825, with T. Crofton Croker's _Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland_. This contained some 38 anecdotes of the first-cla.s.s mentioned above, anecdotes showing the belief of the Irish peasantry in the existence of fairies, gnomes, goblins and the like. The Grimms did Croker the honour of translating part of his book, under the t.i.tle of _Irische Elfenmarchen_. Among the novelists and tale-writers of the schools of Miss Edgeworth and Lever folk-tales were occasionally utilised, as by Carleton in his _Traits and Stories_, by S. Lover in his _Legends and Stories_, and by G. Griffin in his _Tales of a Jury-Room_. These all tell their tales in the manner of the stage Irishman. Chapbooks, _Royal Fairy Tales_ and _Hibernian Tales_, also contained genuine folk-tales, and attracted Thackeray's attention in his _Irish Sketch-Book_. The Irish Grimm, however, was Patrick Kennedy, a Dublin bookseller, who believed in fairies, and in five years (1866-71) printed about 100 folk and hero-tales and drolls (cla.s.ses 2, 3 and 4 above) in his _Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts_, 1866, _Fireside Stories of Ireland_, 1870, and _Bardic Stories of Ireland_, 1871; all three are now unfortunately out of print. He tells his stories neatly and with spirit, and retains much that is _volkstumlich_ in his diction. He derived his materials from the English speaking peasantry of County Wexford, who changed from Gaelic to English while story-telling was in full vigour, and therefore carried over the stories with the change of language. Lady Wilde has told many folk-tales very effectively in her _Ancient Legends of Ireland_, 1887. More recently two collectors have published stories gathered from peasants of the West and North who can only speak Gaelic. These are an American gentleman named Curtin, _Myths and Folk-Tales of Ireland_, 1890, and Dr. Douglas Hyde who has published in _Beside the Fire_, 1891, spirited English versions of some of the stories he had published in the original Irish in his _Leabhar Sgeulaigheachta_, Dublin, 1889. Miss Maclintock has a large MS.

collection, part of which has appeared in various periodicals; and Messrs. Larminie and D. Fitzgerald are known to have much story material in their possession.

But beside these more modern collections there exist in old and middle Irish a large number of hero-tales (cla.s.s 2) which formed the staple of the old _ollamhs_ or bards. Of these tales of "cattle-liftings, elopements, battles, voyages, courts.h.i.+ps, caves, lakes, feasts, sieges, and eruptions," a bard of even the fourth cla.s.s had to know seven fifties, presumably one for each day of the year. Sir William Temple knew of a north-country gentleman of Ireland who was sent to sleep every evening with a fresh tale from his bard. The _Book of Leinster_, an Irish vellum of the twelfth century, contains a list of 189 of these hero-tales, many of which are extant to this day; E.

O'Curry gives the list in the Appendix to his _MS. Materials of Irish History_. Another list of about 70 is given in the preface to the third volume of the Ossianic Society's publications. Dr. Joyce published a few of the more celebrated of these in _Old Celtic Romances_; others appeared in _Atlantis_ (see notes on "Deirdre") others in Kennedy's _Bardic Stories_, mentioned above.

Turning to SCOTLAND, we must put aside Chambers's _Popular Rhymes of Scotland_, 1842, which contains for the most part folk-tales common with those of England rather than those peculiar to the Gaelic-speaking Scots. The first name here in time as in importance is that of J. F. Campbell, of Islay. His four volumes, _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_ (Edinburgh, 1860-2, recently republished by the Islay a.s.sociation), contain some 120 folk and hero-tales, told with strict adherence to the language of the narrators, which is given with a literal, a rather too literal, English version. This careful accuracy has given an un-English air to his versions, and has prevented them attaining their due popularity. What Campbell has published represents only a t.i.the of what he collected. At the end of the fourth volume he gives a list of 791 tales, &c., collected by him or his a.s.sistants in the two years 1859-61; and in his MS. collections at Edinburgh are two other lists containing 400 more tales. Only a portion of these are in the Advocates' Library; the rest, if extant, must be in private hands, though they are distinctly of national importance and interest.

Campbell's influence has been effective of recent years in Scotland.

The _Celtic Magazine_ (vols. xii. and xiii.), while under the editors.h.i.+p of Mr. MacBain, contained several folk and hero-tales in Gaelic, and so did the _Scottish Celtic Review_. These were from the collections of Messrs. Campbell of Tiree, Carmichael, and K. Macleod.

Recently Lord Archibald Campbell has shown laudable interest in the preservation of Gaelic folk and hero-tales. Under his auspices a whole series of handsome volumes, under the general t.i.tle of _Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition_, has been recently published, four volumes having already appeared, each accompanied by notes by Mr. Alfred Nutt, which form the most important aid to the study of Celtic Folk-Tales since Campbell himself. Those to the second volume in particular (Tales collected by Rev. D. MacInnes) fill 100 pages, with condensed information on all aspects of the subject dealt with in the light of the most recent research on the European folk-tales as well as on Celtic literature. Thanks to Mr. Nutt, Scotland is just now to the fore in the collection and study of the British Folk-Tale.

WALES makes a poor show beside Ireland and Scotland. Sikes's _British Goblins_, and the tales collected by Prof. Rhys in _Y Cymmrodor_, vols. ii.-vi., are mainly of our first-cla.s.s fairy anecdotes. Borrow, in his _Wild Wales_, refers to a collection of fables in a journal called _The Greal_, while the _Cambrian Quarterly Magazine_ for 1830 and 1831 contained a few fairy anecdotes, including a curious version of the "Brewery of Eggsh.e.l.ls," from the Welsh. In the older literature, the _Iolo MSS._, published by the Welsh MSS. Society, has a few fables and apologues, and the charming _Mabinogion_, translated by Lady Guest, has tales that can trace back to the twelfth century and are on the border-line between folk-tales and hero-tales.

CORNWALL and MAN are even worse off than Wales. Hunt's _Popular Romances of the West of England_ has nothing distinctively Celtic, and it is only by a chance Lhuyd chose a folk-tale as his specimen of Cornish in his _Archaeologia Britannica_ 1709 (see _Tale of Ivan_). The Manx folk-tales published, including the most recent by Mr. Moore, in his _Folk-Lore of the Isle of Man_, 1891, are mainly fairy anecdotes and legends.

From this survey of the field of Celtic folk-tales it is clear that Ireland and Scotland provide the lion's share. The interesting thing to notice is the remarkable similarity of Scotch and Irish folk-tales.

The continuity of language and culture between these two divisions of Gaeldom has clearly brought about this ident.i.ty of their folk-tales.

As will be seen from the following notes, the tales found in Scotland can almost invariably be paralleled by those found in Ireland, and _vice versa_. The result is a striking confirmation of the general truth that the folk-lores of different countries resemble one another in proportion to their contiguity and to the continuity of language and culture between them.

Another point of interest in these Celtic folk-tales is the light they throw upon the relation of hero-tales and folk-tales (cla.s.ses 2 and 3 above). Tales told of Finn or Cuchulainn, and therefore coming under the definition of hero-tales, are found elsewhere told of anonymous or unknown heroes. The question is, were the folk-tales the earliest, and were they localised and applied to the heroes, or were they heroic sagas generalised and applied to an unknown [Greek: _tis_]? All the evidence, in my opinion, inclines to the former view, which, as applied to Celtic folk-tales, is of very great literary importance; for it is becoming more and more recognised, thanks chiefly to the admirable work of Mr. Alfred Nutt, in his _Studies on the Holy Grail_, that the outburst of European Romance in the twelfth century was due, in large measure, to an infusion of Celtic hero-tales into the literature of the Romance-speaking nations. Now the remarkable thing is, how these hero-tales have lingered on in oral tradition even to the present day. (See a marked case in "Deirdre.") We may, therefore, hope to see considerable light thrown on the most characteristic spiritual product of the Middle Ages, the literature of Romance and the spirit of chivalry, from the Celtic folk-tales of the present day.

Mr. Alfred Nutt has already shown this to be true of a special section of Romance literature, that connected with the Holy Grail, and it seems probable that further study will extend the field of application of this new method of research.

The Celtic folk-tale again has interest in retaining many traits of primitive conditions among the early inhabitants of these isles which are preserved by no other record. Take, for instance, the calm a.s.sumption of polygamy in "Gold-tree and Silver-tree." That represents a state of feeling that is decidedly pre-Christian The belief in an eternal soul, "Life Index," recently monographed by Mr. Frazer in his "Golden Bough," also finds expression in a couple of the tales (see notes on "Sea-Maiden" and "Fair, Brown, and Trembling"), and so with many other primitive ideas.

Care, however, has to be taken in using folk-tales as evidence for primitive practice among the nations where they are found. For the tales may have come from another race--that is, for example, probably the case with "Gold-tree and Silver-tree" (see Notes). Celtic tales are of peculiar interest in this connection, as they afford one of the best fields for studying the problem of diffusion, the most pressing of the problems of the folk-tales just at present, at least in my opinion. The Celts are at the further-most end of Europe. Tales that travelled to them could go no further, and must therefore be the last links in the chain.

For all these reasons, then, Celtic folk-tales are of high scientific interest to the folk-lorist, while they yield to none in imaginative and literary qualities. In any other country of Europe some national means of recording them would have long ago been adopted. M. Luzel, _e. g._, was commissioned by the French Minister of Public Instruction to collect and report on the Breton folk-tales. England, here as elsewhere, without any organized means of scientific research in the historical and philological sciences, has to depend on the enthusiasm of a few private individuals for work of national importance. Every Celt of these islands or in the Gaeldom beyond the sea, and every Celt-lover among the English-speaking nations, should regard it as one of the duties of the race to put its traditions on record in the few years that now remain before they will cease for ever to be living in the hearts and memories of the humbler members of the race.

In the following Notes I have done as in my _English Fairy Tales_, and given, first, the _sources_ whence I drew the tales, then, _parallels_ at length for the British Isles, with bibliographical references for parallels abroad, and finally, _remarks_ where the tales seemed to need them. In these I have not wearied or worried the reader with conventional tall talk about the Celtic genius and its manifestations in the folk-tale; on that topic one can only repeat Matthew Arnold when at his best, in his _Celtic Literature_. Nor have I attempted to deal with the more general aspects of the study of the Celtic folk-tale. For these I must refer to Mr. Nutt's series of papers in _The Celtic Magazine_, vol. xii., or, still better, to the masterly introductions he is contributing to the series of _Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition_, and to Dr. Hyde's _Beside the Fireside_. In my remarks I have mainly confined myself to discussing the origin and diffusion of the various tales, so far as anything definite could be learnt or conjectured on that subject.

Before proceeding to the Notes, I may "put in," as the lawyers say, a few summaries of the results reached in them. Of the twenty-six tales, twelve (i., ii., v., viii., ix., x., xi., xv., xvi., xvii., xix., xxiv.) have Gaelic originals; three (vii., xiii., xxv.) are from the Welsh; one (xxii.) from the now extinct Cornish; one an adaptation of an English poem founded on a Welsh tradition (xxi., "Gellert"); and the remaining nine are what may be termed Anglo-Irish. Regarding their diffusion among the Celts, twelve are both Irish and Scotch (iv., v., vi., ix., x., xiv.-xvii., xix., xx., xxiv.); one (xxv.) is common to Irish and Welsh; and one (xxii.) to Irish and Cornish; seven are found only among the Celts in Ireland (i.-iii., xii., xviii., xxii., xxvi.); two (viii., xi.) among the Scotch; and three (vii., xiii., xxi) among the Welsh. Finally, so far as we can ascertain their origin, four (v., xvi., xxi., xxii.) are from the East; five (vi., x., xiv., xx., xxv.) are European drolls; three of the romantic tales seem to have been imported (vii., ix., xix.); while three others are possibly Celtic exportations to the Continent (xv., xvii., xxiv.), though the last may have previously come thence; the remaining eleven are, as far as known, original to Celtic lands. Somewhat the same result would come out, I believe, as the a.n.a.lysis of any representative collection of folk-tales of any European district.

I. CONNLA AND THE FAIRY MAIDEN.

_Source._--From the old Irish "Echtra Condla chaim maic Cuind Chetchathaig" of the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_ ("Book of the Dun Cow"), which must have been written before 1106, when its scribe Maelmori ("Servant of Mary") was murdered. The original is given by Windisch in his _Irish Grammar_. p. 120, also in the _Trans. Kilkenny Archaeol.

Soc._ for 1874. A fragment occurs in a Rawlinson MS., described by Dr.

W. Stokes, _Tripart.i.te Life_, p. x.x.xvi. I have used the translation of Prof. Zimmer in his _Keltische Beitrage_, ii. (_Zeits. f. deutsches Altertum_, Bd. x.x.xiii., 262-4). Dr. Joyce has a somewhat florid version in his _Old Celtic Romances_, from which I have borrowed a touch or two. I have neither extenuated nor added aught but the last sentence of the Fairy Maiden's last speech. Part of the original is in metrical form, so that the whole is of the _cante-fable_ species, which I believe to be the original form of the folk-tale (_Cf. Eng.

Fairy Tales_, notes, p. 240, and _infra_, p. 257).

_Parallels._--Prof. Zimmer's paper contains three other accounts of the _terra repromissionis_ in the Irish sagas, one of them being the similar adventure of Cormac, the nephew of Connla, or Condla Ruad as he should be called. The fairy apple of gold occurs in Cormac Mac Art's visit to the Brug of Manannan (Nutt's _Holy Grail_, 193).

_Remarks._--Conn, the hundred-fighter, had the head-kings.h.i.+p of Ireland 123-157 A. D., according to the _Annals of the Four Masters_, i., 105. On the day of his birth the five great roads from Tara to all parts of Ireland were completed: one of them from Dublin is still used. Connaught is said to have been named after him, but this is scarcely consonant with Joyce's identification with Ptolemy's _Nagnatai_ (_Irish Local Names_, i., 75). But there can be little doubt of Conn's existence as a powerful ruler in Ireland in the second century. The historic existence of Connla seems also to be authenticated by the reference to him as Conly, the eldest son of Conn, in the Annals of Clonmacnoise. As Conn was succeeded by his third son, Art Enear, Connla was either slain or disappeared during his father's lifetime. Under these circ.u.mstances it is not unlikely that our legend grew up within the century after Conn--_i. e._, during the latter half of the second century.

As regards the present form of it, Prof. Zimmer (_l. c._ 261-2) places it in the seventh century. It has clearly been touched up by a Christian hand, who introduced the reference to the day of judgment and to the waning power of the Druids. But nothing turns upon this interpolation, so that it is likely that even the present form of the legend is pre-Christian--_i. e._, for Ireland, pre-Patrician, before the fifth century.

The tale of Connla is thus the earliest fairy tale of modern Europe.

Besides this interest it contains an early account of one of the most characteristic Celtic conceptions, that of the earthly Paradise, the Isle of Youth, _Tir na n-Og_. This has impressed itself on the European imagination; in the Arthuriad it is represented by the Vale of Avalon, and as represented in the various Celtic visions of the future life, it forms one of the main sources of Dante's _Divina Commedia_. It is possible, too, I think, that the Homeric Hesperides and the Fortunate Isles of the ancients had a Celtic origin (as is well known, the early place-names of Europe are predominantly Celtic).

I have found, I believe, a reference to the conception in one of the earliest pa.s.sages in the cla.s.sics dealing with the Druids. Lucan, in his _Pharsalia_ (i, 450-8), addresses them in these high terms of reverence:

Et vos barbaricos ritus, moremque sinistrum, Sacrorum, Druidae, positis repetistis ab armis, Solis nosse Deos et coeli numera vobis Aut solis nescire datum; nemora alta remotis Incolitis lucis. Vobis auctoribus umbrae, Non tacitas Erebi sedes, Ditisque profundi, Pallida regna petunt: _regit idem spiritus artus_ _Orbe alio_: longae, canitis si cognita, vitae Mors media est.