English Fairy Tales Part 27

NORWAY: Asbjornsen, No. 103 (translated in Sir G. Dasent's _Tales from the Field_, p. 30, "Death of Chanticleer").

SPAIN: Maspons, _Cuentos populars catalans_, p. 12; Fernan Caballero, _Cuentos y sefranes populares_, p. 3 ("La Hormiguita").

PORTUGAL: Coelho, _Contes popolares portuguezes_, No. 1.

ROUMANIA: Kremnitz, _Rumanische Mahrchen_, No. 15.

ASIA MINOR: Von Hahn, _Griechische und Albanesische Marchen_, No. 56.

INDIA: Steel and Temple, _Wide-awake Stories_, p. 157 ("The Death and Burial of Poor Hen-Sparrow").

_Remarks_.--These 25 variants of the same jingle scattered over the world from India to Spain, present the problem of the diffusion of folk-tales in its simplest form. No one is likely to contend with Prof.

Muller and Sir George c.o.x, that we have here the detritus of archaic Aryan mythology, a parody of a sun-myth. There is little that is savage and archaic to attract the school of Dr. Tylor, beyond the speaking powers of animals and inanimates. Yet even Mr. Lang is not likely to hold that these variants arose by coincidence and independently in the various parts of the world where they have been found. The only solution is that the curious succession of incidents was invented once for all at some definite place and time by some definite entertainer for children, and spread thence through all the Old World. In a few instances we can actually trace the pa.s.sage-_e.g._, the Shetland version was certainly brought over from Hamburg. Whether the centre of dispersion was India or not, it is impossible to say, as it might have spread east from Smyrna (Hahn, No. 56). Benfey (_Einleitung zu Pantschatantra_, i. 190-91) suggests that this cla.s.s of acc.u.mulative story may be a sort of parody on the Indian stories, ill.u.s.trating the moral, "what great events from small occasions rise." Thus, a drop of honey falls on the ground; a fly goes after it, a bird snaps at the fly, a dog goes for the bird, another dog goes for the first, the masters of the two dogs--who happen to be kings--quarrel and go to war, whole provinces are devastated, and all for a drop of honey! "t.i.tty Mouse and Tatty Mouse" also ends in a universal calamity which seems to arise from a cause of no great importance. Benfey's suggestion is certainly ingenious, but perhaps too ingenious to be true.

XVII. JACK AND HIS SNUFF-BOX.

_Source_.-Mr. F. Hindes Groome, _In Gipsy Tents_, p. 201 _seq._ I have eliminated a superfluous Gipsy who makes her appearance towards the end of the tale _a propos des boltes_, but otherwise have left the tale unaltered as one of the few English folk-tales that have been taken down from the mouths of the peasantry: this applies also to i., ii., xi.

_Parallels_.-There is a magic snuff-box with a friendly power in it in Kennedy's _Fictions of the Irish Celts_, p. 49. The choice between a small cake with a blessing, &c., is frequent (_cf._ No. xxiii.), but the closest parallel to the whole story, including the mice, is afforded by a tale in Carnoy and Nicolaides' _Traditions populaires de l'Asie Mineure_, which is translated as the first tale in Mr. Lang's _Blue Fairy Book_. There is much in both that is similar to Aladdin, I beg his pardon, Allah-ed-din.

XVIII. THE THREE BEARS.

_Source_.--_Verbatim et literatim_ from Southey, _The Doctor, &c._, quarto edition, p. 327.

_Parallels_.--None, as the story was invented by Southey. There is an Italian translation, _I tre Orsi_, Turin, 1868, and it would be curious to see if the tale ever acclimatises itself in Italy.

_Remarks_.--"The Three Bears" is the only example I know of where a tale that can be definitely traced to a specific author has become a folk-tale. Not alone is this so, but the folk has developed the tale in a curious and instructive way, by subst.i.tuting a pretty little girl with golden locks for the naughty old woman. In Southey's version there is nothing of Little Silverhair as the heroine: she seems to have been introduced in a metrical version by G. N., much be-praised by Southey.

Silverhair seems to have become a favourite, and in Mrs. Valentine's version of "The Three Bears," in "The Old, Old Fairy Tales," the visit to the bear-house is only the preliminary to a long succession of adventures of the pretty little girl, of which there is no trace in the original (and this in "The Old, Old Fairy Tales." Oh! Mrs. Valentine!).

I have, though somewhat reluctantly, cast back to the original form.

After all, as Prof. Dowden remarks, Southey's memory is kept alive more by "The Three Bears" than anything else, and the text of such a nursery cla.s.sic should be retained in all its purity.

XIX. JACK THE GIANT-KILLER.

_Source_.--From two chap-books at the British Museum (London, 1805, Paisley, 1814). I have taken some hints from "Felix Summerly's" (Sir Henry Cole's) version, 1845. From the latter part, I have removed the incident of the Giant dragging the lady along by her hair.

_Parallels_.--The chap-book of "Jack the Giant-Killer" is a curious jumble. The second part, as in most chap-books, is a weak and late invention of the enemy, and is not _volkstumlich_ at all. The first part is compounded of a comic and a serious theme. The first is that of the Valiant Tailor (Grimm, No. 20); to this belong the incidents of the fleabite blows (for variants of which see Kohler in _Jahrb. rom. eng.

Phil._, viii. 252), and that of the slit paunch (_cf._ Cosquin, _l.c._, ii. 51). The Thankful Dead episode, where the hero is a.s.sisted by the soul of a person whom he has caused to be buried, is found as early as the _Cento novelle antiche_ and Straparola, xi. 2. It has been best studied by Kohler in _Germania_, iii. 199-209 (_cf._ Cosquin, i. 214-5; ii. 14 and note; and Crane, _Ital. Pop. Tales_, 350, note 12). It occurs also in the curious play of Peele's _The Old Wives' Tale_, in which one of the characters is the Ghost of Jack. Practically the same story as this part of Jack the Giant-Killer occurs in Kennedy, _Fictions of the Irish Celts_, p. 32, "Jack the Master and Jack the Servant;" and Kennedy adds (p. 38), "In some versions Jack the Servant is the spirit of the buried man."

The "Fee-fi-fo-fum" formula is common to all English stories of giants and ogres; it also occurs in Peele's play and in _King Lear_ (see note on "Childe Rowland"). Messrs. Jones and Kropf have some remarks on it in their "Magyar Tales," pp. 340-1; so has Mr. Lang in his "Perrault," p.

lxiii., where he traces it to the Furies in Aeschylus' _Eumenides_.

XX. HENNY-PENNY.

_Source_.--I give this as it was told me in Australia in 1860. The fun consists in the avoidance of all p.r.o.nouns, which results in jaw-breaking sentences almost equal to the celebrated "She stood at the door of the fish-sauce shop, welcoming him in."

_Parallels_.--Halliwell, p. 151, has the same with the t.i.tle "Chicken-Licken." It occurs also in Chambers's _Popular Rhymes_, p.

59, with the same names of the _dramatis personae_, as my version. For European parallels, see Crane, _Ital. Pop. Tales_, 377, and authorities there quoted.

XXI. CHILDE ROWLAND.

_Source_.--Jamieson's _Ill.u.s.trations of Northern Antiquities_, 1814, p.

397 _seq._, who gives it as told by a tailor in his youth, _c._ 1770. I have Anglicised the Scotticisms, eliminated an unnecessary ox-herd and swine-herd, who lose their heads for directing the Childe, and I have called the Erlkonig's lair the Dark Tower on the strength of the description and of Shakespeare's reference. I have likewise suggested a reason why Burd Ellen fell into his power, chiefly in order to introduce a definition of "widers.h.i.+ns." "All the rest is the original horse," even including the erroneous description of the youngest son as the Childe or heir (_cf._ "Childe Harold" and Childe Wynd, _infra_, No. x.x.xiii.), unless this is some "survival" of Junior Right or "Borough English," the archaic custom of letting the heirs.h.i.+p pa.s.s to the youngest son. I should add that, on the strength of the reference to Merlin, Jamieson calls Childe Rowland's mother, Queen Guinevere, and introduces references to King Arthur and his Court. But as he confesses that these are his own improvements on the tailor's narrative I have eliminated them.

_Parallels_.--The search for the Dark Tower is similar to that of the Red Ettin, (_cf_. Kohler on Gonzenbach, ii. 222). The formula "youngest best," in which the youngest of three brothers succeeds after the others have failed, is one of the most familiar in folk-tales amusingly parodied by Mr. Lang in his _Prince Prigio_. The taboo against taking food in the underworld occurs in the myth of Proserpine, and is also frequent in folk-tales (Child, i. 322). But the folk-tale parallels to our tale fade into insignificance before its brilliant literary relations.h.i.+ps. There can be little doubt that Edgar, in his mad scene in _King Lear_, is alluding to our tale when he breaks into the lines:

"Childe Rowland to the Dark Tower came...." His word was still: "Fie, foh and fum, I smell the blood of a British man." _King Lear_, act iii.

sc. 4, _ad fin_.

[Footnote: "British" for "English." This is one of the points that settles the date of the play; James I. was declared King of Great _Britain_, October 1604. I may add that Motherwell in his _Minstrelsy_, p. xiv. note, testifies that the story was still extant in the nursery at the time he wrote (1828).]

The latter reference is to the cry of the King of Elfland. That some such story was current in England in Shakespeare's time, is proved by that curious _melange_ of nursery tales, Peele's _The Old Wives' Tale_.

The main plot of this is the search of two brothers, Calypha and Thelea, for a lost sister, Delia, who has been bespelled by a sorcerer, Sac.r.a.pant (the names are taken from the "Orlando Furioso"). They are instructed by an old man (like Merlin in "Childe Rowland") how to rescue their sister, and ultimately succeed. The play has besides this the themes of the Thankful Dead, the Three Heads of the Well (which see), the Life Index, and a transformation, so that it is not to be wondered at if some of the traits of "Childe Rowland" are observed in it.

But a still closer parallel is afforded by Milton's _Comus_. Here again we have two brothers in search of a sister, who has got into the power of an enchanter. But besides this, there is the refusal of the heroine to touch the enchanted food, just as Childe Rowland finally refuses.

And ultimately the bespelled heroine is liberated by a liquid, which is applied to her _lips and finger-tips_, just as Childe Rowland's brothers are unspelled. Such a minute resemblance as this cannot be accidental, and it is therefore probable that Milton used the original form of "Childe Rowland," or some variant of it, as heard in his youth, and adapted it to the purposes of the masque at Ludlow Castle, and of his allegory. Certainly no other folk-tale in the world can claim so distinguished an offspring.

_Remarks_.--Distinguished as "Childe Rowland" will be henceforth as the origin of _Comus_, if my affiliation be accepted, it has even more remarkable points of interest, both in form and matter, for the folklorist, unless I am much mistaken. I will therefore touch upon these points, reserving a more detailed examination for another occasion.

First, as to the form of the narrative. This begins with verse, then turns to prose, and throughout drops again at intervals into poetry in a friendly way like Mr. Wegg. Now this is a form of writing not unknown in other branches of literature, the _cante-fable_, of which "Auca.s.sin et Nicolette" is the most distinguished example. Nor is the _cante-fable_ confined to France. Many of the heroic verses of the Arabs contained in the _Hamasa_ would be unintelligible without accompanying narrative, which is nowadays preserved in the commentary. The verses imbedded in the _Arabian Nights_ give them something of the character of a _cante-fable_, and the same may be said of the Indian and Persian story-books, though the verse is usually of a sententious and moral kind, as in the _gathas_ of the Buddhist Jatakas. Even as remote as Zanzibar, Mr. Lang notes, the folk-tales are told as _cante-fables_.

There are even traces in the Old Testament of such screeds of verse amid the prose narrative, as in the story of Lamech or that of Balaam. All this suggests that this is a very early and common form of narrative.

Among folk-tales there are still many traces of the _cante-fable_. Thus, in Grimm's collection, verses occur in Nos. 1, 5, 11, 12, 13, 15, 19, 21, 24, 28, 30, 36, 38_a_, _b_, 39_a_, 40, 45, 46, 47, out of the first fifty tales, 36 per cent. Of Chambers' twenty-one folk-tales, in the _Popular Rhymes of Scotland_ only five are without interspersed verses.

Of the forty-three tales contained in this volume, three (ix., xxix., x.x.xiii.) are derived from ballads and do not therefore count in the present connection. Of the remaining forty, i., iii., vii., xvi., xix., xxi., xxiii., xxv., x.x.xi., x.x.xv., x.x.xviii., xli. (made up from verses), xliii., contain rhymed lines, while xiv., xxii., xxvi., and x.x.xvii., contain "survivals" of rhymes ("let me come in--chinny chin-chin"; "once again ... come to Spain;" "it is not so--should be so"; "and his lady, him behind"); and x. and x.x.xii. are rhythmical if not rhyming. As most of the remainder are drolls, which have probably a different origin, there seems to be great probability that originally all folk-tales of a serious character were interspersed with rhyme, and took therefore the form of the _cante-fable_. It is indeed unlikely that the ballad itself began as continuous verse, and the _cante-fable_ is probably the protoplasm out of which both ballad and folk-tale have been differentiated, the ballad by omitting the narrative prose, the folk-tale by expanding it. In "Childe Rowland" we have the nearest example to such protoplasm, and it is not difficult to see how it could have been shortened into a ballad or reduced to a prose folk-tale pure and simple.

The subject-matter of "Childe Rowland" has also claims on our attention especially with regard to recent views on the true nature and origin of elves, trolls, and fairies. I refer to the recently published work of Mr. D. MacRitchie, "The Testimony of Tradition" (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.)--_i.e._, of tradition about the fairies and the rest.

Briefly put, Mr. MacRitchie's view is that the elves, trolls, and fairies represented in popular tradition are really the mound-dwellers, whose remains have been discovered in some abundance in the form of green hillocks, which have been artificially raised over a long and low pa.s.sage leading to a central chamber open to the sky. Mr. MacRitchie shows that in several instances traditions about trolls or "good people" have attached themselves to mounds, which have afterwards on investigation turned out to be evidently the former residence of men of smaller build than the mortals of to-day. He goes on further to identify these with the Picts--fairies are called "Pechs" in Scotland--and other early races, but with these ethnological equations we need not much concern ourselves. It is otherwise with the mound-traditions and their relation, if not to fairy tales in general, to tales _about_ fairies, trolls, elves, etc. These are very few in number, and generally bear the character of anecdotes. The fairies, etc., steal a child, they help a wanderer to a drink and then disappear into a green hill, they help cottagers with their work at night but disappear if their presence is noticed; human midwives are asked to help fairy mothers, fairy maidens marry ordinary men or girls marry and live with fairy husbands. All such things may have happened and bear no such _a priori_ marks of impossibility as speaking animals, flying through the air, and similar incidents of the folk-tale pure and simple. If, as archaeologists tell us, there was once a race of men in Northern Europe, very short and hairy, that dwelt in underground chambers artificially concealed by green hillocks, it does not seem unlikely that odd survivors of the race should have lived on after they had been conquered and nearly exterminated by Aryan invaders and should occasionally have performed something like the pranks told of fairies and trolls.

Certainly the description of the Dark Tower of the King of Elfland in "Childe Rowland," has a remarkable resemblance to the dwellings of the "good folk," which recent excavations have revealed. By the kindness of Mr. MacRitchie, I am enabled to give the reader ill.u.s.trations of one of the most interesting of these, the Maes-How of Orkney. This is a green mound some 100 feet in length and 35 in breadth at its broadest part.

Tradition had long located a goblin in its centre, but it was not till 1861 that it was discovered to be pierced by a long pa.s.sage 53 feet in length, and only two feet four inches high, for half of its length. This led into a central chamber 15 feet square and open to the sky.

Now it is remarkable how accurately all this corresponds to the Dark Tower of "Childe Rowland," allowing for a little idealisation on the part of the narrator. We have the long dark pa.s.sage leading into the well-lit central chamber, and all enclosed in a green hill or mound.

It is of course curious to contrast Mr. Batten's frontispiece with the central chamber of the How, but the essential features are the same.

Even such a minute touch as the terraces on the hill have their bearing, I believe, on Mr. MacRitchie's "realistic" views of Faerie. For in quite another connection Mr. G. L. Gomme, in his recent "Village Community"

(W. Scott), pp. 75-98, has given reasons and examples for believing that terrace cultivation along the sides of hills was a practice of the non-Aryan and pre-Aryan inhabitants of these isles. [Footnote: To these may be added Iona (_cf._ Duke of Argyll, _Iona_, p. 109).] Here then from a quarter quite unexpected by Mr. MacRitchie, we have evidence of the a.s.sociation of the King of Elfland with a non-Aryan mode of cultivation of the soil. By Mr. Gomme's kindness I am enabled to give an ill.u.s.tration of this.

Altogether it seems not improbable that in such a tale as "Childe Rowland" we have an idealised picture of a "marriage by capture" of one of the diminutive non-Aryan dwellers of the green hills with an Aryan maiden, and her re-capture by her brothers. It is otherwise difficult to account for such a circ.u.mstantial description of the interior of these mounds, and especially of such a detail as the terrace cultivation on them. At the same time it must not be thought that Mr. MacRitchie's views explain all fairy tales, or that his identifications of Finns = Fenians = Fairies = Sidhe = "Pechs" = Picts, will necessarily be accepted. His interesting book, so far as it goes, seems to throw light on tales about mermaids (Finnish women in their "kayaks,") and trolls, but not necessarily, on fairy tales in general. Thus, in the present volume, besides "Childe Rowland," there is only "Tom t.i.t Tot" in his hollow, the green hill in "Kate Crackernuts," the "Cauld Lad of Hilton,"

and perhaps the "Fairy Ointment," that are affected by his views.