THE SCIENCE

OF

FAIRY TALES

AN INQUIRY INTO FAIRY MYTHOLOGY. 

BYEDWIN SIDNEY HARTLAND, FELLOW OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES. 

LONDON:WALTER SCOTT, 24, WARWICK LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1891. 

PREFACE. 

The chief object of this volume is to exhibit, in a manner acceptable toreaders who are not specialists, the application of the principles andmethods which guide investigations into popular traditions to a few ofthe most remarkable stories embodying the Fairy superstitions of theCeltic and Teutonic peoples. Some of the subjects discussed have alreadybeen dealt with by more competent inquirers. But even in these cases Ihave sometimes been able to supply additional illustrations of theconclusions previously arrived at, and occasionally, I hope, to carrythe argument a step or two further than had been done before. I havethus tried to render the following pages not wholly valueless tostudents. 

A portion of the book incorporates the substance of some articles whichI contributed to "The Archæological Review" and "Folk-Lore. " But thesehave been to a considerable extent re-written; and it is hoped that inthe process wider and more accurate generalizations have been attained. 

My hearty thanks are due to the various friends whose generousassistance has been recorded in the footnotes, and especially toProfessor Dr. George Stephens, the veteran antiquary of the North, andMr. W. G. Fretton, who have not measured their pains on behalf of onewhose only claim on them was a common desire to pry into the recesses ofthe past. I am under still deeper obligations to Mr. G. L. Gomme, F. S. A. , who has so readily acceded to my request that he would read theproof-sheets, and whose suggestions have repeatedly been of the greatestvalue; and to Mr. Havelock Ellis for the counsel and suggestions whichhis experience has more than once enabled him to give as the book waspassing through the press. 

I have been anxious to enable the reader who cares to do so to verifyevery statement made; but some of them no doubt have escaped reference. Many books are cited again and again, and in similar cases the reader'stime is frequently wasted in searching for the first mention of a book, so as to ascertain its title and other particulars. To avoid the troubleI have so many times experienced in this way, I have put together in anAppendix a list of the principal authorities made use of, indicatingthem by the short title by which they are cited in the footnotes, andgiving sufficient bibliographical details to enable them to beidentified. Classics and works which are in every one's hands I have notthought it necessary to include in the list. 

E. S. H. 

BARNWOOD COURT, GLOUCESTER, _24th October, 1890. _

[Transcriber's Note: Any transcriber's notes are abbreviated in thetext as TN: The caret (^) is used to indicate superscript. ]

CONTENTS. 

 Page CHAPTER I. THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 1

 CHAPTER II. SAVAGE IDEAS 22

 CHAPTER III. FAIRY BIRTHS AND HUMAN MIDWIVES 37

 CHAPTER IV. FAIRY BIRTHS AND HUMAN MIDWIVES (_continued_) 59

 CHAPTER V. CHANGELINGS 93

 CHAPTER VI. ROBBERIES FROM FAIRYLAND 135

 CHAPTER VII. THE SUPERNATURAL LAPSE OF TIME IN FAIRYLAND 161

 CHAPTER VIII. THE SUPERNATURAL LAPSE OF TIME IN FAIRYLAND (_continued_) 196

 CHAPTER IX. THE SUPERNATURAL LAPSE OF TIME IN FAIRYLAND (_continued_) 222

 CHAPTER X. SWAN-MAIDENS 255

 CHAPTER XI. SWAN-MAIDENS (_continued_) 283

 CHAPTER XII. CONCLUSION 333

 APPENDIX 353

 INDEX 367

THE SCIENCE OF FAIRY TALES. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE ART OF STORY-TELLING. 

 The art of story-telling--Unity of human imagination--Definition of Fairy Tales--Variable value of Tradition--Story-telling and the story-teller among various peoples--The connection of folk-tales with folk-songs--Continuity of Tradition--Need of accuracy and good faith in reporting stories. 

The art of story-telling has been cultivated in all ages and among allnations of which we have any record; it is the outcome of an instinctimplanted universally in the human mind. By means of a story the savagephilosopher accounts for his own existence and that of all the phenomenawhich surround him. With a story the mothers of the wildest tribes awetheir little ones into silence, or rouse them into delight. And theweary hunters beguile the long silence of a desert night with the mirthand wonders of a tale. The imagination is not less fruitful in thehigher races; and, passing through forms sometimes more, sometimes less, serious, the art of story-telling unites with the kindred arts of danceand song to form the epic or the drama, or develops under the complexinfluences of modern life into the prose romance and the novel. These intheir various ways are its ultimate expression; and the loftiest geniushas found no fitter vehicle to convey its lessons of truth and beauty. 

But even in the most refined products of the imagination the samesubstances are found which compose the rudest. Something has, of course, been dropped in the process; and where we can examine the process stageby stage, we can discern the point whereat each successive portion hasbeen purged away. But much has also been gained. To change the figure, it is like the continuous development of living things, amorphous atfirst, by and by shooting out into monstrous growths, unwieldy andhalf-organized, anon settling into compact and beautiful shapes ofsubtlest power and most divine suggestion. But the last state containsnothing more than was either obvious or latent in the first. Man'simagination, like every other known power, works by fixed laws, theexistence and operation of which it is possible to trace; and it worksupon the same material, --the external universe, the mental and moralconstitution of man and his social relations. Hence, diverse as may seemat first sight the results among the cultured Europeans and the debasedHottentots, the philosophical Hindoos and the Red Indians of the FarWest, they present, on a close examination, features absolutelyidentical. The outlines of a story-plot among savage races are wilderand more unconfined; they are often a vast unhidebound corpse, but onethat bears no distant resemblance to forms we think more reasonable onlybecause we find it difficult to let ourselves down to the level ofsavage ignorance, and to lay aside the data of thought which have beenwon for us by the painful efforts of civilization. The incidents, makingall due allowance for these differences and those of climate andphysical surroundings, are not merely alike; they are oftenindistinguishable. It cannot, of course, be expected that the charactersof the actors in these stories will be drawn with skill, or indeed thatany attention will be paid to them. Character-study is a latedevelopment. True: we ought not to overlook the fact that we have to dowith barbarous ideals. In a rudimentary state of civilization thepassions, like the arts, are distinguished not by subtlety andcomplexity, but by simplicity and violence of contrast. This may accountto some extent for what seems to us repulsive, inconsistent orimpossible. But we must above all things beware of crediting thestory-teller with that degree of conscious art which is only possible inan advanced culture and under literary influences. Indeed, theresearches which are constantly extending the history of humancivilization into a remoter and remoter past, go everywhere to show thatstory-telling is an inevitable and wholly unconscious growth, probablyarising, as we shall see in the next chapter, out of narratives believedto record actual events. 

I need not stop now to illustrate this position, which is no new one, and the main lines of which I hope will be rendered apparent in thecourse of this volume. But it is necessary, perhaps, to point out that, although these are the premises from which I start, the limitationsimposed by a work of the size and pretensions of this one will not allowme to traverse more than a very small corner of the field here opened toview. It is, therefore, not my intention to attempt any formal proof ofthe foregoing generalizations. Rather I hope that if any reader deem itproper to require the complete evidence on which they rest, he will beled to further investigations on his own behalf. His feet, I can promisehim, will wander along flowery paths, where every winding will bring himfresh surprises, and every step discover new sources of enjoyment. 

The stories with which we shall deal in the following pages are vaguelycalled Fairy Tales. These we may define to be: Traditionary narrativesnot in their present form relating to beings held to be divine, nor tocosmological or national events, but in which the supernatural plays anessential part. It will be seen that literary tales, such as those ofHans Andersen and Lord Brabourne, based though they often are upontradition, are excluded from Fairy Tales as thus defined. Much no doubtmight be said both interesting and instructive concerning thesebrilliant works. But it would be literary criticism, a thing widelydifferent from the scientific treatment of Fairy Tales. The Science ofFairy Tales is concerned with tradition, and not with literature. Itfinds its subjects in the stories which have descended from mouth tomouth from an unknown past; and if reference be occasionally made toworks of conscious literary art, the value of such works is not in theart they display, but the evidence they yield of the existence of giventales in certain forms at periods and places approximately capable ofdetermination: evidence, in a word, which appropriates and fixes apre-existing tradition. But even in this they are inferior in importanceto historical or topographical works, where we frequently meet withrecords of the utmost importance in considering the origin and meaningof Folk-tales. 

Literature, in short, of whatever kind, is of no value to the student ofFairy Tales, as that phrase is here used, save as a witness toTradition. Tradition itself, however, is variable in value, if regard behad alone to purity and originality. For a tribe may conceivably be soisolated that it is improbable that any outside influence can haveaffected its traditions for a long series of generations; or on theother hand it may be in the highway of nations. It may be physically ofa type unique and unalloyed by foreign blood; or it may be the progenyof a mingling of all the races on the earth. Now it is obvious that ifwe desire to reason concerning the wide distribution, or the innate andnecessary character of any idea, or of any story, the testimony of agiven tribe or class of men will vary in proportion to its segregationfrom other tribes and classes: where we can with most probabilityexclude outside influence as a factor in its mental evolution, there weshall gather evidence of the greatest value for the purpose of ourargument. 

Again: some nations have developed the art of story-telling more highlythan others, since some stages of civilization are more favourable tothis development than others, and all nations are not in the same stage. The further question may, therefore, be put whether these various stagesof development may not produce differences of manner instory-telling--differences which may indicate, if they do not cause, deep-seated differences in the value of the traditions themselves. Tomake my meaning clear: a people which requires its story-tellers torelate their stories in the very words in which they have been conveyedfrom time immemorial, and allows no deviation, will preserve itstraditions with the least possible blemish and the least possiblechange. In proportion as latitude in repetition is permitted andinvention is allowed to atone for want of memory, tradition will changeand become uncertain. Such latitude may be differently encouraged bydifferent social states. A social state is part of, and inseparablefrom, the sum total of arts, knowledge, organization and customs whichwe call the _civilization_, or the _stage of civilization_, of a people. It may be worth while to spend a short time in examining the mode ofstory-telling and the requirements of a story-teller among nations indifferent stages of civilization. We shall thus endeavour to appreciatethe differences in the manner of telling, and to ascertain in generalterms how far these differences affect the value of the traditions. 

If we turn first to some of the Celtic nations, we find a social statein which the art of story-telling has received a high degree ofattention. The late Mr. J. F. Campbell, to whom the science of Folkloreowes an incalculable debt, describes a condition of things in theWestern Highlands extremely favourable to the cultivation offolk-tales. Quoting from one of his most assiduous collectors, he saysthat most of the inhabitants of Barra and South Uist are RomanCatholics, unable to speak English or to read or write. Hence it isimprobable that they can have borrowed much from the literature of othernations. Among these people in the long winter nights the recitation oftales is very common. They gather in crowds at the houses of those whoare reputed to be good tale-tellers. Their stories frequently relate tothe exploits of the Ossianic heroes, of whose existence they are as muchconvinced as ordinary English folk are of the existence and deeds of theBritish army in its most recent wars. During the tales "the emotions ofthe reciters are occasionally very strongly excited, and so also arethose of the listeners, almost shedding tears at one time, and givingway to loud laughter at another. A good many of them firmly believe inall the extravagance of these stories. " Another of his collectors, aself-educated workman in the employ of the Duke of Argyll, writing morethan thirty years ago to him, speaks of what used to take place aboutLoch Lomond upwards of fifty years before--that is to say, about thebeginning of the present century. The old people then would pass thewinter evenings telling each other traditional stories. These chieflyconcerned freebooters, and tribal raids and quarrels, and includeddescriptions of the manners, dress and weapons of their ancestors andthe hardships they had to endure. The youngsters also would gather, andamuse themselves with games or the telling of tales of a more romanticcast. But the chief story-tellers appear to have been the tailors andshoemakers, who were literally journeymen, going from house to house insearch of work. As they travelled about, they picked up great numbers oftales, which they repeated; "and as the country people made the tellingof these tales, and listening to hear them, their winter night'samusement, scarcely any part of them would be lost. " In these talesGaelic words were often used which had dropped out of ordinaryparlance, giving proof of careful adherence to the ancient forms; andthe writer records that the previous year he had heard a story toldidentical with one he had heard forty years before from a different manthirty miles away; and this story contained old Gaelic words the meaningof which the teller did not know. A gamekeeper from Ross-shire alsotestified to similar customs at his native place: the assemblies of theyoung to hear their elders repeat, on winter nights, the tales they hadlearned from their fathers before them, and the renown of the travellingtailor and shoemaker. When a stranger came to the village it was thesignal for a general gathering at the house where he stayed, to listento his tales. The goodman of the house usually began with some favouritetale, and the stranger was expected to do the rest. It was a commonsaying: "The first tale by the goodman, and tales to daylight by theguest. " The minister, however, came to the village in 1830, and theschoolmaster soon followed, with the inevitable result of putting an endto these delightful times. [1]

Not very different is the account given by M. Luzel of the _Veillées_ inwhich he has often taken part in Brittany. In the lonely farmhouse afterthe evening meal prayers are said, and the life in Breton of the saintof the day read, all the family assemble with the servants and labourersaround the old-fashioned hearth, where the fire of oaken logs spirts andblazes, defying the wind and the rain or snow without. The talk is ofthe oxen and the horses and the work of the season. The women are attheir wheels; and while they spin they sing love ditties, or ballads ofmore tragic or martial tone. The children running about grow tired oftheir games, and of the tedious conversation of their elders, and demanda tale, it matters not what, of giants, or goblins, or witches--nay, even of ghosts. They are soon gratified; and if an old man, asfrequently happens, be the narrator, he is fortified and rewarded forthe toil by a mug of cider constantly replenished. One such depositaryof tradition is described as a blind beggar, a veritable Homer in woodenshoon, with an inexhaustible memory of songs and tales of every kind. Hewas welcome everywhere, in the well-to-do farmhouse as in the humblecottage. He stayed as long as he pleased, sometimes for whole weeks; andit was with reluctance that he was allowed to leave in order to becomefor a time the charm of another fireside, where he was always awaitedwith impatience. [2]

M. Braga, the Portuguese scholar, quotes an old French writer, Jean leChapelain, as recording a custom in Normandy similar to that ofRoss-shire, that the guest was always expected to repay hospitality bytelling tales or singing songs to his host. And he states that theemigrants from Portugal to Brazil took this custom with them. In GasconyM. Arnaudin formed his collection of tales a few years ago by assistingat gatherings like those just described in Brittany, as well as atmarriages and at various agricultural festivals. [3]

Similar customs existed in Wales within living memory, and in remotedistricts they probably exist to-day. If they do not now continue inEngland, it is at least certain that our forefathers did not differ inthis respect from their neighbours. A writer of the seventeenth century, in enumerating the causes of upholding "the damnable doctrine ofwitchcraft, " mentions: "Old wives' fables, who sit talking and chattingof many false old stories of Witches and Fairies and Robin Goodfellow, and walking spirits and the dead walking again; all of which lyingfancies people are more naturally inclined to listen after than to theScriptures. " And if we go further back we find in chapter clv. Of theprinted editions of the "Gesta Romanorum" an interesting picture ofdomestic life. The whole family is portrayed gathering round the fire inthe winter evenings and beguiling the time by telling stories. Such weare informed was the custom among the higher classes. It was, indeed, the custom among all classes, not only in England but on the Continent, throughout the Middle Ages. The eminent French antiquary, Paul Lacroix, speaks of wakes, or evening parties, where fairy tales and othersuperstitions were propagated, as having a very ancient origin. Hestates that they are still (as we have already seen in Brittany andGascony) the custom in most of the French provinces, and that theyformed important events in the private lives of the peasants. [4]

It is difficult to sever the occasion and mode of the tale-telling fromthe character of the teller; nor would it be wise to do so. And in thisconnection it is interesting to pause for a moment on Dr. Pitré'sdescription of Agatuzza Messia, the old woman from whom he derived solarge a number of the stories in his magnificent collection, and whom heregarded as a model story-teller. I am tempted to quote his account atlength. "Anything but beautiful, " he says, "she has facile speech, efficacious phrases, an attractive manner of telling, whence you divineher extraordinary memory and the sallies of her natural wit. Messiaalready reckons her seventy years, and is a mother, grandmother, andgreat grandmother. As a child, she was told by her grandmother aninfinity of tales which she had learned from her mother, and _she_ inturn from her grandfather; she had a good memory and never forgot them. There are women who have heard hundreds of tales and remember none; andthere are others who, though they remember them, have not the grace ofnarration. Among her companions of the Borgo, a quarter of Palermo, Messia enjoyed the reputation of a fine story-teller; and the more oneheard her, the more one desired to hear. Almost half a century ago shewas obliged to go with her husband to Messina, and lived there sometime: a circumstance, this, worthy of note, since our countrywomen nevergo away from their own district save from the gravest necessity. Returning to her native home, she spoke of things of which the gossipsof the neighbourhood could not speak: she spoke of the Citadel, afortress which no one could take, not even the Turks themselves; shespoke of the Pharos of Messina, which was beautiful, but dangerous forsailors; she spoke of Reggio in Calabria, which, facing the walls ofMessina, seemed to wish to touch hands with them; and she remembered andmimicked the pronunciation of the Milazzesi, who spoke, Messia said, socuriously as to make one laugh. All these reminiscences have remainedmost vivid in her memory. She cannot read, but she knows so many thingsthat no one else knows, and repeats them with a propriety of tongue thatis a pleasure to hear. This is a characteristic to which I call myreaders' attention. If the tale turns upon a vessel which has to make avoyage, she utters, without remarking it, or without seeming to do so, sailors' phrases, and words which only seamen and those who have to dowith seamen are acquainted with. If the heroine arrives, poor anddesolate, at a baker's and takes a place there, Messia's language is socompletely that of the trade that you would believe that the baking ofbread had been her business, whereas at Palermo this occupation, anordinary one in the families of the large and small communes of theisland, is that of professional bakers alone. .. . As a young woman Messiawas a tailoress; when through toil her sight became weakened, she turnedto sewing winter quilts. But in the midst of this work, whereby sheearns her living, she finds time for the fulfilment of her religiousduties; every day, winter and summer, in rain or snow, in the gloamingshe goes to her prayers. Whatever feast is celebrated in the church, sheis solicitous to attend: Monday, she is at the Ponte dell' Ammiragliopraying for the Souls of the Beheaded; Wednesday, you find her at SanGiuseppe keeping the festival of the Madonna della Providenza; everyFriday she goes to San Francesco di Paola, reciting by the way heraccustomed beads; and if one Saturday pass when she ought to go to theMadonna dei Cappuccini, another does not; and there she prays with adevotion which none can understand who has not experienced it. Messiawitnessed my birth and held me in her arms: hence I have been able tocollect from her mouth the many and beautiful traditions to which hername is appended. She has repeated to the grown man the tales she hadtold to the child thirty years before; nor has her narration lost ashade of the old sincerity, vivacity, and grace. The reader will onlyfind the cold and naked words; but Messia's narration consists, morethan in words, in the restless movement of the eyes, in the waving ofthe arms, in the gestures of the whole person, which rises, walks aroundthe room, bends, and is again uplifted, making her voice now soft, nowexcited, now fearful, now sweet, now hoarse, as it portrays the voicesof the various personages, and the action which these areperforming. "[5]

Such a woman as is here described is a born story-teller; and her art, as exhibited in the tales attributed to her in Dr. Pitré's collection, reaches perhaps the highest point possible in tradition. Women areusually the best narrators of nursery tales. Most of the moderncollections, from that of the brothers Grimm downwards, owe theirchoicest treasures to women. In the Panjab, however, Captain Templeascribes to children marvellous power of telling tales, which he statesthey are not slow to exercise after sunset, when the scanty evening mealis done and they huddle together in their little beds beneath thetwinkling stars, while the hot air cools, the mosquito sings, and thevillage dogs bark at imaginary foes. The Rev. Hinton Knowles' collectionwas gathered in Cashmere apparently from men and boys only; but allclasses contributed, from the governor and the pandit down to the barberand the day-labourer, the only qualification being that they should beentirely free from European influence. [6]

But nursery tales told simply for amusement are far from being the onlykind of traditional narrative. Savage and barbarous races, to whom theart of writing is unknown, are dependent upon memory for such records asthey have of their past; and sometimes a professional class arises topreserve and repeat the stories believed to embody these records. Amongthe Maories and their Polynesian kinsmen the priests are the greatdepositaries of tradition. It is principally from them that Mr. Whiteand the Rev. W. W. Gill have obtained their collections. But the oratorsand chiefs are also fully conversant with the narratives; and theirspeeches are filled with allusions to them, and with quotations fromancient poems relating the deeds of their forefathers. The difficulty offollowing such allusions, and consequently of understanding the meaningof the chiefs when addressing him on behalf of their fellow-countrymen, first induced, or compelled, Sir George Grey, when Governor of NewZealand, to make the inquiries whose results are embodied in his work onPolynesian Mythology. The Eskimo of Greenland, at the other end of theworld, divide their tales into two classes: the ancient and the modern. The former may be considered, Dr. Rink says, as more or less theproperty of the whole nation, while the latter are limited to certainparts of the country, or even to certain people who claim to be akin toone another. The art of telling these tales is "practised by certainpersons specially gifted in this respect; and among a hundred peoplethere may generally be found one or two particularly favoured with theart of the _raconteur_, besides several tolerable narrators. " It is thenarrators of the ancient tales "who compose the more recent stories bypicking up the occurrences and adventures of their latest ancestors, handed down occasionally by some old members of the family, andconnecting and embellishing them by a large addition of thesupernatural, for which purpose resort is always had to the sametraditional and mystic elements of the ancient folklore. "[7]

But the art of story-telling has not everywhere given rise to aprofessional class. When the Malagasy receive friends at their houses, they themselves recount the deeds of their ancestors, which are handeddown from father to son, and form the principal topic of conversation. So, too, the savage Ahts of Vancouver Island sit round their firessinging and chatting; "and the older men, we are told, lying andbragging after the manner of story-tellers, recount their feats in war, or the chase, to a listening group. " Mr. Im Thurn has drawn aninteresting picture of the habits at night of the Indian tribes ofGuiana. The men, if at home, spend the greater part of the day in theirhammocks, smoking, "and leisurely fashioning arrowheads, or some sucharticles of use or of ornament. .. . When the day has at last come to anend, and the women have gathered together enough wood for the firesduring the night, they, too, throw themselves into their hammocks; andall talk together. Till far into the night the men tell endless stories, sometimes droning them out in a sort of monotonous chant, sometimesdelivering them with a startling amount of emphasis and gesticulation. The boys and younger men add to the noise by marching round the houses, blowing horns and playing on flutes. There is but little rest to beobtained in an Indian settlement by night. These people sleep, as dogsdo, without difficulty, for brief periods, but frequently andindifferently by day or night as may be convenient. The men, havingslept at intervals during the day, do not need night-rest; the women arenot considered in the matter. At last, in the very middle of theirstories, the party drops off to sleep; and all is quiet for a shortwhile. Presently some woman gets up to renew the fires, or to see tosome other domestic work. Roused by the noise which she makes, all thedogs of the settlement break into a chorus of barks and yelps. Thiswakes the children, who begin to scream. The men turn in their hammocks, and immediately resume their stories, apparently from the point at whichthey left off, and as if they had never ceased. This time it is but ashort interruption to the silence of the night; and before longeverything again becomes quiet, till some new outbreak is caused, muchas was the last. In the very middle of the night there are perhaps somehours of quiet. But about an hour before dawn, some of the men having togo out to hunt, effectually wake everybody about them by playing flutes, or beating drums, as they go to bathe before leaving the settlement. "[8]

But the folk-tale cannot be separated in this inquiry from the folk-songwith which, in its origin and development, it is so closely connected. In India there are, or were until recent years, everywhere professionalbards; and the stories told in Indian villages are frequently thesubstance of the chants of these bards. More than this, the line betweensinging and narration is so faintly drawn, that the bards themselvesoften interpose great patches of prose between the metrical portions oftheir recitations. Fairs, festivals, and marriages all over India areattended by the bards, who are always ready to perform for pay anddrink. Mr. Leland believes the stories he obtained from the ChristianAlgonkins of New England, concerning the ancient heroes of the race andother mythical personages, to have once been delivered as poems fromgeneration to generation and always chanted. The deeds of Maori warriorsare handed down in song; just as we find in Beowulf, the story ofHrothgar's ancestors was sung before his own companions-in-arms by hisgleemen to the accompaniment of some instrument after the mead cup hadgone round. The Roman historian attests the prevalence among the Germantribes of ancient songs, which he expressly mentions as their only kindof memory or record, --thus showing that all their tales, whethermythologic or heroic, were for better preservation cast into metricalform. Some of these, enshrining the deeds of their heroes, were chantedon going into battle, in order to arouse the warriors' courage. And asfar back as the light of history, or of literature, penetrates, not onlythe Teutonic, but also the Celtic nations loved to have their actionscelebrated thus. To a Welsh king his household bard was as necessary ashis domestic chaplain, or his court physician, and in the ancient lawshis duties, his precedence, his perquisites, and even the songs he wasexpected to sing, are minutely prescribed. The bards were organized intoa regular order, or college, with an official chief. They were notmerely singers or poets, but also tale-tellers; and from the Mabinogionwe gather that listening to songs and tales was one of the habitual, ifnot daily pastimes, of a court. [9]

It is needless to follow through the Middle Ages the history of thetroubadour, the minstrel and the jongleur, who played so large part inthe social life of those times. Many of them were retainers of noblemenand kings; but others roamed about from place to place, singing theirlays and reciting their stories (for they dealt in prose as well asverse), very much in the manner of the Indian bards just mentioned. Their stock-in-trade must have been partly traditional and partly oftheir own composition. In this respect they were probably lesshide-bound than their Indian brethren are. For the latter, whetherretainers of the native grandees, as many of them are, or members of thehumbler class of wandering minstrels, are expected to repeat their laysas they have received them. But, although in the main these professionalgentlemen adhere to the traditional words which they know by heart, thetemptation must be very strong to foist at suitable pauses into theirtales impromptu passages--best described in stage language as"gag"--which they think will be acceptable to their audience. Andwhether or not this be actually the case with the Indian bards, we areexpressly told that it is so with the Arab story-teller, and that itaccounts for much of the ribaldry and filth which have become embeddedin the immortal "Nights. " A viol having only one string accompanies thepassages in verse with which the stories are interlarded; and a similarinstrument seems to be used for the like purpose among the orthodoxGuslars of Bosnia and Herzegovina. [10] A description given by SirRichard Burton of a story-teller at the bazaar at Tangier may stand, except as to the external details, for that of an Arab reciterthroughout Northern Africa and the Moslem East. "The market people, " hesays, "form a ring about the reciter, a stalwart man, affecting littleraiment besides a broad waist-belt into which his lower chiffons aretucked, and noticeable only for his shock hair, wild eyes, broad grin, and generally disreputable aspect. He usually handles a short stick;and, when drummer and piper are absent, he carries a tiny tomtom shapedlike an hour-glass, upon which he taps the periods. This Scealuidhe, asthe Irish call him, opens the drama with an extempore prayer, provingthat he and the audience are good Moslems; he speaks slowly and withemphasis, varying the diction with breaks of animation, abundant actionand the most comical grimace: he advances, retires, and wheels about, illustrating every point with pantomime; and his features, voice andgestures are so expressive that even Europeans who cannot understand aword of Arabic, divine the meaning of his tale. The audience standsbreathless and motionless, surprising strangers by the ingenuousness andfreshness of feeling hidden under their hard and savage exterior. Theperformance usually ends with the embryo actor going round for alms, andflourishing in the air every silver bit, the usual honorarium being afew _f'lús_, that marvellous money of Barbary, big coppers worthone-twelfth of a penny. " Another writer, who has published modern Arabfolk-tales, obtained eleven out of twelve from his cook, a man who couldneither read nor write, but possessed an excellent memory. His storieswere derived from his mother and aunts, and from old women whofrequented his early home. The remaining tale was dictated by a sheikhwith some, though small, pretensions to education, and this tale, thoughat bottom a genuine folk-tale, presented traces of literarymanipulation. [11]

The literary touches here spoken of were probably not impromptu. But itmust be admitted that the tendency to insert local colouring and "gag"is almost irresistible amongst the Arabs. Dr. Steere notices it as acharacteristic of the story-tellers of the Swahili, a people of mixedArab and Negro descent at Zanzibar;[12] and it is perhaps inevitable ina professional reciter whose audience, like himself, is restless andvivacious in so high a degree. The only case in which any restraintwould be certain to be felt is where a narrative believed to be ofreligious import is given. Under the influence of religious feeling themost mobile of races become conservative; and traditions of a sacredcharacter are the most likely of all to be handed down unchanged fromfather to son. Directly we get outside the charmed circle of religiouscustom, precept, and story, the awe which has the most powerful effectin preserving tradition intact ceases to work; and we are left to asomewhat less conservative force of habit to retain the old form ofwords and the time-honoured ceremonies. Still this force is powerful;the dislike of voluntary change forbids amendment even of formularieswhich have long ceased to be understood, and have often becomeridiculous because their meaning has been lost. It is by no means anuncommon thing for the rustic story-teller to be unable to explainexpressions, and indeed whole episodes, in any other way than UncleRemus, when called upon to say who Miss Meadows was: "She wuz in detale, Miss Meadows en de gals wuz, en de tale I give you like hi't wer'gun ter me. " Dr. Steere, speaking of a collection of Swahili tales by M. Jablonsky which I think has never been published, tells us that almostall of the tales had "sung parts, " and of some of these even they whosang them could scarcely explain the meaning. Here we may observe theconnection with the folk-song; and it is a strong evidence of adherenceto ancient tradition. Frequently in Dr. Steere's own experience theskeleton of the story seemed to be contained in these snatches of song, which were connected together by an account, apparently extemporized, ofthe intervening history. In these latter portions, if the hypothesis ofextemporization were correct, the words of course would be different, but the substance might remain untouched. I suspect, however, that theextemporization was nothing like so complete as the learned writerimagined, but rather that the tale, as told with song and narrativemingled, was in a state of gradual decay or transition from verse toprose, and that the prose portions were, to almost as great an extent asthe verse, traditional. 

Be this as it may, the tenacity with which the illiterate story-tellergenerally adheres to the substance and to the very words of hisnarrative is remarkable--and this in spite of the freedom sometimestaken of dramatic illustration, and the license to introduce occasionallocal and personal allusions and "gag. " These are easily separable fromthe genuine tale. What Dr. Rink says of the Eskimo story-telling holdsgood, more or less, all over the world. "The art, " he states, "requiresthe ancient tales to be related as nearly as possible in the very wordsof the original version, with only a few arbitrary reiterations, andotherwise only varied according to the individual talents of thenarrator, as to the mode of recitation, gesture, &c. The only realdiscretionary power allowed by the audience to the narrator is theinsertion of a few peculiar passages from other traditions; but even inthat case no alteration of these original or elementary materials usedin the composition of tales is admissible. Generally, even the smallestdeviation from the original version will be taken notice of andcorrected, if any intelligent person happens to be present. Thiscircumstance, " he adds, "accounts for their existence in an unalteredshape through ages; for had there been the slightest tendency tovariation on the part of the narrator, or relish for it on that of theaudience, every similarity of these tales, told in such widely-separatedcountries, would certainly have been lost in the course of centuries. "Here the audience, wedded to the accustomed formularies, is representedas controlling any inclination to variation on the reciter's part. Howfar such an attitude of mind may have been produced by previousrepetitions in the same words we need not inquire. Certain it is thataccuracy would be likely to generate the love of accuracy, and _that_again to react so as to compel adherence to the form of words which theear had been led to expect. Readers of Grimm will remember the anxietybetrayed by a peasant woman of Niederzwehr, near Cassel, that her verywords and expressions should be taken down. They who have studied therecords collectors have made of the methods they have adopted, and theassistance they have received from narrators who have understood andsympathized with their purpose, will not find anything exceptional inthis woman's conduct. [13]

Nor must we overlook the effect of dramatic and pantomimic action. Atfirst sight action, like that of Messia or the Arab reciter, might seemto make for freedom in narration. But it may well be questioned if thisbe so to any great extent. For in a short time certain attitudes, looks, and gestures become inseparably wedded, not only in the actor's mind, but also in the minds of the audience who have grown accustomed to them, with the passages and the very words to which they are appropriate. Theeye as well as the ear learns what to expect, with results proportionedto the comparative values of those two senses as avenues of knowledge. The history of the stage, the observation of our own nurseries, willshow with how much suspicion any innovation on the mode of interpretingan old favourite is viewed. 

To sum up: it would appear that national differences in the manner ofstory-telling are for the most part superficial. Whether told by men tomen in the bazaar or the coffee-house of the East, or by old men orwomen to children in the sacred recesses of the European home, or by mento a mixed assembly during the endless nights of the Arctic Circle, orin the huts of the tropical forest, and notwithstanding the licenseoften taken by a professional reciter, the endeavour to render to theaudience just that which the speaker has himself received from hispredecessors is paramount. The faithful delivery of the tradition is theprinciple underlying all variation of manner; and it is not confined toany one race or people. It is not denied that changes do take place asthe story passes from one to another. This indeed is the inevitableresult of the play of the two counteracting forces just described--theconservative tendency and the tendency to variation. It is the conditionof development; it is what makes a science of Folk-tales both necessaryand possible. Nor can it be denied that some changes are voluntary. Butthe voluntary changes are rare; and the involuntary changes are onlysuch as are natural and unavoidable if the story is to continue itsexistence in the midst of the ever-shifting social organism of humanity. The student must, therefore, know something of the habits, the naturaland social surroundings, and the modes of the thought of the peoplewhose stories he examines. But this known, it is not difficult todecipher the documents. 

There is, however, one caution--namely, to be assured that the documentsare gathered direct from the lips of the illiterate story-teller, andset down with accuracy and good faith. Every turn of phrase, awkward orcoarse though it may seem to cultured ears, must be unrelentinglyreported; and every grotesquery, each strange word, or incomprehensibleor silly incident, must be given without flinching. Any attempt tosoften down inconsistencies, vulgarities or stupidities, detracts fromthe value of the text, and may hide or destroy something from which thestudent may be able to make a discovery of importance to science. Happily the collectors of the present day are fully alive to this need. The pains they take to ensure correctness are great, and theirexperiences in so doing are often very interesting. Happily, too, thestudent soon learns to distinguish the collections whose sincerity iscertain from those furbished up by literary art. The latter may havepurposes of amusement to serve, but beyond that they are ofcomparatively little use. 

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Campbell, vol. I. Pp. Xii. Xiv. Lvii. 

[2] Luzel, "Veillées, " _passim_. 

[3] Introduction to Romero, p. X. ; Arnaudin, p. 5. 

[4] Thomas Ady, "A Candle in the Dark" (1656) (_Cf. _ Aubrey, "Remaines, "p. 67); "Gesta Romanorum, " Introd. , p. Xxv. (E. E. T. S. ); Lacroix, p. 100. 

[5] Pitré, vol. Iv. P. Xvii. 

[6] "Wide-awake Stories, " p. 1; Knowles, p. Ix. 

[7] White, vol. I. P. Vi. ; Sir G. Grey, p. Vii. ; Gill, p. Xx. ; Rink, pp. 83, 85. 

[8] Ellis, "History of Madagascar, " vol. I. P. 264; Sproat, "Scenes andStudies of Savage Life, " p. 51; Im Thurn, pp. 215, 216. 

[9] Temple, "Legends of the Panjab, " vol. I. P. V. ; Thorburn, p. 172;Leland, p. 12; Taylor, p. 306; "Beowulf, " lay 16; Tacitus, "Germania, "cc. , 2, 3; "Ancient Laws and Institutions of Wales" (Public RecordCommission, 1841), pp. 15, 35, &c. 

[10] Burton, "Nights, " vol. X. P. 163; "Revue des Trad. Pop. " vol. Iv. P. 6. In Greece and Albania, however, the viol would seem not to beused. Women are the chief reciters. Von Hahn, vol. I. P. Ix. 

[11] Spitta Bey, p. Viii. 

[12] Steere, pp. V. , vii. 

[13] Rink, p. 85; Grimm, "Märchen, " p. Vii. 

CHAPTER II. 

SAVAGE IDEAS. 

 Sagas and _Märchen_--Fairy Tales based upon ideas familiar to savages--The Doctrine of Spirits--The Doctrine of Transformation--Totemism--Death--Witchcraft--The predominance of imagination over reason in savages--Method of the inquiry. 

Fairy Tales, as defined in the previous chapter, fall under two heads. Under the first we may place all those stories which relate to definitesupernatural beings, or definite orders of supernatural beings, heldreally to exist, and the scenes of which are usually laid in somespecified locality. Stories belonging to this class do not necessarily, however, deal with the supernatural. Often they are told of historicalheroes, or persons believed to have once lived. For instance, thelegends of Lady Godiva and Whittington and his Cat, which, howeverimprobable, contain nothing of the supernatural, must be reckoned underthis head equally with the story of the Luck of Edenhall, or the Maoritale of the Rending asunder of Heaven and Earth. In other words, thisclass is by no means confined to Fairy Tales, but includes all storieswhich are, or at all events have been up to recent years, and in theform in which they come to us, looked upon as narratives of actualoccurrences. They are called _Sagas_. The other class of tales consistsof such as are told simply for amusement, like Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and Puss in Boots. They may embodyincidents believed in other countries, or in other stages ofcivilization, to be true in fact; but in the form in which we have themthis belief has long since been dropped. In general, the reins arethrown upon the neck of the imagination; and, marvellous though thestory be, it cannot fail to find acceptance, because nobody asserts thatits events ever took place, and nobody desires to bring down its flightsto the level either of logic or experience. Unlike the saga, it bindsthe conscience neither of teller nor of listener; its hero or heroinehas no historical name or fame, either national or local; and beinguntrammelled either by history or probability, the one condition the taleis expected to fulfil is to end happily. Stories of this class aretechnically called _Märchen_: we have no better English name for themthan _Nursery Tales_. 

If we inquire which of these two species of tales is the earlier in thehistory of culture, it seems that the priority must be given to sagas. The matter, indeed, is not quite free from doubt, because low down inthe scale of civilization, as among the Ainos of Japan, stories are toldwhich appear to be no more than _märchen_; and because, on the otherhand, it is at all times easier, even for experienced collectors, toobtain sagas than _märchen_. But among the lower races, a vastlypreponderating number of tales recorded by Europeans who have lived withthem on the terms of the greatest intimacy is told to account for thephenomena of nature, or their own history and organization. From manysavage peoples we have no other stories at all; and it is not uncommonto find narratives at bottom identical with some of these told as_märchen_ among nations that have reached a higher plane. In thesecases, at all events, it looks as if the tales, or tales from which theyhad been derived, had been originally believed as true, and, havingceased to be thus received, had continued to be repeated, in a shapemore or less altered, for mere amusement. If we may venture to affirmthis and to generalize from such cases, this is the way in which_märchen_ have arisen. 

But sagas are not only perhaps the most ancient of tales, they arecertainly the most persistent. By their attachment to places and topersons, a religious sanction is frequently given to them, a local andnational pride is commonly felt in preserving them. Thus they areremembered when nursery tales are forgotten; they are more easilycommunicated to strangers; they find their way into literature and soare rendered imperishable. 

Fairy Tales of both these classes are compounded of incidents which arethe common property of many nations, and not a few whereof are known allover the habitable globe. In some instances the whole plot, a more orless intricate one, is found among races the most diverse incivilization and character. Where the plot is intricate, or containselements of a kind unlikely to have originated independently, we may bejustified in suspecting diffusion from one centre. Then it is that thehistory and circumstances of a nation become important factors in theinquiry; and upon the purity of blood and the isolation fromneighbouring races may depend our decision as to the original orderivative character of such a tradition. Sometimes the passage of astory from one country to another can be proved by literary evidence. This is markedly the case with Apologues and Facetious Tales, twoclasses of traditions which do not come within the purview of thepresent work. But the story has then passed beyond the traditionalstage, or else such proof could not be given. In tracing the history ofa folk-tale which has entered into literature, the problem is toascertain how far the literary variations we meet with may have beeninfluenced by pre-existing traditional tales formed upon similar lines. In general, however, it may be safely said of Fairy Tales (with which weare more immediately concerned) that the argument in favour of theirpropagation from a single centre lacks support. The incidents of whichthey are composed are based upon ideas not peculiar to any one people, ideas familiar to savages everywhere, and only slowly modified andtransformed as savagery gives way to barbarism, and barbarism to moderncivilization and scientific knowledge of the material phenomena of theuniverse. The ideas referred to are expressed by races in the lowerculture both in belief and in custom. And many of the tales which nowamuse our children appear to have grown out of myths believed in themost matter-of-fact way by our remote forefathers; while others enshrinerelics of long-forgotten customs and modes of tribal organization. 

There is one habit of thought familiar to savage tribes that to us, trained through long centuries of progressive knowledge, seems in thehighest degree absurd and even incomprehensible. As a matter ofevery-day practice we cannot, if we would, go back to that infantinestate of mind which regards not only our fellow men and women, but allobjects animate and inanimate around us, as instinct with aconsciousness, a personality akin to our own. This, however, is thesavage philosophy of things. To a large proportion of human beings atthe present day beasts and birds, trees and plants, the sea, themountains, the wind, the sun, the moon, the clouds and the stars, dayand night, the heaven and the earth, are alive and possessed of thepassions and the cunning and the will they feel within themselves. Theonly difference is that these things are vastly cleverer and morepowerful than men. Hence they are to be dreaded, to be appeased--ifpossible, to be outwitted--even, sometimes, to be punished. We mayobserve this childish habit of thought in our nurseries to-day when oneof our little ones accidentally runs against the table, and forthwithturns round to beat the senseless wood as if it had voluntarily andmaliciously caused his pain; or when another, looking wistfully out ofwindow, adjures the rain in the old rhyme:

 "Rain, rain, go away! Come again another day!"

Poets, too, and orators in their loftiest moods revert to language andmodes of expression which have no meaning apart from this belief in theconscious animation of every object in the world. They may move us forthe moment by their utterances; but we never take their rapturesliterally. To the savage, however, it is no figure of speech to callupon the sun to behold some great deed, or to declare that the moonhides her face; to assert that the ocean smiles, or that the riverswells with rage, and overwhelms a wayfarer who is crossing it, or anunsuspecting village on its banks. These phrases for him fit the factsof nature as closely as those which record that the man eats or the boyruns. Nay, what would seem incredible to him would be to deny that thesun can see or the moon hide her face, the ocean smile or the riverbecome enraged. Conscious personality and human emotions are visible tohim everywhere and in all things. 

It matters not to the savage that human form and speech are absent. These are not necessary, or, if they are, they can be assumed either atwill or under certain conditions. For one of the consequences, or atleast one of the accompaniments, of this stage of thought is the beliefin change of form without loss of individual identity. The bear whom thesavage meets in the woods is too cunning to appear and do battle withhim as a man; but he could if he chose. The stars were once men andwomen. Sun and moon, the wind and the waters, perform all the functionsof living beings: they speak, they eat, they marry and have children. Rocks and trees are not always as immovable as they appear: sometimesthey are to be seen as beasts or men, whose shapes they still, it maybe, dimly retain. 

It follows that peoples in this stage of thought cannot have, in theoryat all events, the repugnance to a sexual union between man and thelower animals with which religious training and the growth ofcivilization have impressed all the higher races. Such peoples admitthe possibility of a marriage wherein one party may be human and theother an animal of a different species, or even a tree or plant. If theydo not regard it as an event which can take place in their own time andneighbourhood, it does not seem entirely incredible as an event of thepast; and sometimes customs are preserved on into a higher degree ofculture--such as that of wedding, for special purposes, a man to atree--unmistakably bespeaking former, if not present, beliefs. Moreover, tribes in the stage of thought here described, hold themselves to beactually descended from material objects often the most diverse fromhuman form. These are not only animals (beasts, birds, fishes, reptiles, and even insects) or vegetables, but occasionally the sun, the sea, theearth, and other things unendowed with life. Such mythic ancestors areworshipped as divine. This superstition is called _Totemism_, and themythic ancestor is known as the _Totem_. As a people passes graduallyinto a higher stage of culture, greater stress is constantly laid on thehuman qualities of the Totem, until it becomes at length ananthropomorphic god. To such deity the object previously reverenced as aTotem is attached, and a new and modified legend grows up to account forthe connection. 

The belief in metamorphosis involves opinions on the subject of deathwhich are worth a moment's pause. Death is a problem to all men, to thesavage as to the most civilized. Least of any can the savage look uponit as extinction. He emphatically believes that he has something withinhim that survives the dissolution of his outward frame. This is hisspirit, the seat of his consciousness, his real self. As he himself hasa spirit, so every object in the world has a spirit. He peoples theuniverse, as he knows it, with spirits akin to his own. It is to theirspirits that all the varied objects around him, all the phenomenaobservable by day or by night, owe the consciousness, the personality, Ihave already tried to describe. These spirits are separable from thematerial form with which they are clad. When the savage sleeps, hisspirit goes forth upon various adventures. These adventures he remembersas dreams; but they are as veritable as his waking deeds; and he awakeswhen his spirit returns to him. In his dreams he sees his friends, hisfoes; he kills imaginary bears and venison. He knows therefore thatother men's spirits travel while their bodies sleep and undergoadventures like his own, and in company often with his spirit. He knowsthat the spirits of wild animals range abroad and encounter his spirit. What is death but the spirit going forth to return no more? Rocks andrivers perhaps cannot die, or at least their life immeasurably exceedsthat of men. But the trees of the forest may, for he can cut them downand burn them. Yet, inasmuch as it is the nature of a body to have anindwelling spirit, death--the permanent severing of body andspirit--cannot occur naturally: it must be due to the machination ofsome enemy, by violence, by poison, or by sorcery. 

The spirit that has gone forth for ever is not, by quitting its bodilytenement, deprived of power offensive and defensive. It is frequentlyimpelled by hostile motives to injure those yet in the flesh; and itmust, therefore, be appeased, or deceived, or driven away. This is theend and aim of funeral rites: this is the meaning of many periodicalceremonies in which the whole tribe takes part. For the same reason, when the hunter slays a powerful animal, he apologizes and lays theblame on his arrows or his spear, or on some one else. For the samereason the woodman, when he cuts down a tree, asks permission to do soand offers sacrifices, and he provides a green sprig to stick into thestump as soon as the tree falls, that it may be a new home for thespirit thus dislodged. For since the spirit is neither slain, nordeprived of power, by destruction of the body, or by severance from thebody, it may find another to dwell in. Spirits of dead men, like otherspirits, may assume fresh bodies, new forms, and forms not necessarilyhuman. A favourite form is that of a snake: it was as a snake that thespirit of Anchises appeared and accepted the offerings made by his piousson. In their new forms the spirits of the dead are sometimes, as inthis case, kindly, at other times malicious, but always to be treatedwith respect, always to be conciliated; for their power is great. Theycan in their turn cause disease, misfortune, death. 

Another characteristic of the mental condition I am describing must notbe omitted. Connection of thought, even though purely fortuitous, istaken to indicate actual connection of the things represented inthought. This connection is, of course, often founded on association oftime or place, and once formed it is not easily broken. For example, anyobject once belonging to a man recalls the thought of him. Theconnection between him and that object is therefore looked upon as stillexisting, and he may be affected by the conduct shown towards it. Thisapplies with special force to such objects as articles of clothing, andstill more to footprints and to spittle, hair, nail-parings andexcrement. Injury to these with malicious intent will hurt him from whomthey are derived. In the same way a personal name is looked upon asinseparable from its owner; and savages are frequently careful to guardthe knowledge of their true names from others, being content to beaddressed and spoken of by a nickname, or a substituted epithet. Thereason of this is that the knowledge of another's name confers powerover that other: it is as though he, or at least an essential part ofhim, were in the possession of the person who had obtained the knowledgeof his name. It is perhaps not an unfair deduction from the samepremises that endows an image with the properties of its prototype--nay, identifies it with its prototype. This leads on the one hand toidol-worship, and on the other hand to the rites of witchcraft whereinthe wizard is said to make a figure of a man, call it by his name, andthen transfix it with nails or thorns, or burn it, with the object ofcausing pain and ultimately death to the person represented. Nor is avery different process of thought discernible in the belief that byeating human or other flesh the spirit (or at any rate some of thespiritual qualities) formerly animating it can be transferred to theeater. So a brave enemy is devoured in the hope of acquiring hisbravery; and a pregnant woman is denied the flesh of hares and otheranimals whose qualities it is undesirable her children should have. 

To minds guiltless of inductive reasoning an accidental coincidence is asure proof of cause and effect. Travellers' tales are full of examplesof misfortunes quite beyond foresight or control, but attributed by thesavages among whom the narrators have sojourned to some perfectlyinnocent act on their part, or merely to their presence, or to somestrange article of their equipment. Occasionally the anger of the godsis aroused by these things; and missionaries, in particular, havesuffered much on this account. But sometimes a more direct causation isimagined, though it is probably not always easy to distinguish the twocases. Omens also are founded upon accidental coincidences. The mostlively imagination may fail to trace cause and effect between themeeting of a magpie at setting out and a fruitless errand following, orbetween a certain condition of the entrails of an animal sacrificed anda victory or defeat thereafter. But the imagination is not to be beatenthus. If the magpie did not cause failure, at all events it foretold it;and the look of the entrails was an omen of the gain or loss of thebattle. 

Again, a merely fanciful resemblance is a sufficient association toestablish actual connection. Why do the Bushmen kindle great fires intime of drought, if not because of the similarity in appearance betweensmoke and rain-clouds? Such resemblances, to give a familiar instance, have fastened on certain rocks and stones many legends of transformationin conformity with the belief already discussed; and they account for avast variety of symbolism in the rites and ceremonies of nations allover the world. 

The topic is well nigh endless; but enough has been said to enable thereader to see how widely pervasive in human affairs is the belief inreal connection founded on nothing more substantial than association ofthought, however occasioned. Nothing, indeed, is too absurd for thisbelief. It is one of the most fruitful causes of superstition; and itonly disappears very gradually from the higher civilization as thereasoning powers become more and more highly trained. In magic, orwitchcraft, we find it developed into a system, with professionalministers and well-established rules. By these rules its ministersdeclare themselves able to perform all the wonders of transformationreferred to above, to command spirits, to bring distant persons andthings into their immediate presence, to inflict injury and death uponwhom they please, to bestow wealth and happiness, and to foretell thefuture. The terror they have thus inspired, and the horrors wroughtunder the influence of that terror, form one of the saddest chapters ofhistory. [14]

I do not of course pretend that the foregoing is a complete account ofthe mental processes of savage peoples. Still less have I attempted totrace the history of the various characteristics mentioned, or to showthe order of their evolution. To attempt either of these things wouldbe beyond the scope of the present work. I have simply enumerated a fewof the elements in the psychology of men in a low state of culture whichit is needful to bear in mind in order to understand the stories we areabout to examine. In those stories we shall find many impossibilities, many absurdities and many traces of customs repulsive to our modes ofthought and foreign to our manners. The explanation is to be obtained, not by speculations based on far-fetched metaphors supposed to haveexisted in the speech of early races, nor in philological puzzles, butby soberly inquiring into the facts of barbarian and savage life andinto the psychological phenomena of which the facts are the outcome. Theevidence of these facts and phenomena is to be found scattered up anddown the pages of writers of every age, creed and country. On hardly anysubject have men of such different degrees of learning, such various andopposite prejudices, left us their testimony--testimony from the natureof the subject more than ordinarily liable to be affected by prejudice, and by the limitations of each witness's powers of observation andopportunities of ascertaining the truth. But after all deductions forprejudice, mistake, inaccuracy and every other shortcoming, there isleft a strong, an invincible consensus of testimony, honest, independentand full of undesigned corroborations, to the development of the mind ofall races in the lower culture along the lines here indicated. Nay, more; the numerous remains of archaic institutions, as well as ofbeliefs among the most advanced nations, prove that they too have passedthrough the very same stages in which we find the most backward stilllingering--stages which the less enlightened classes even of our owncountrymen at the present day are loth to quit. And the further wepenetrate in these investigations, the more frequent and striking arethe coincidences between the mental phenomena already described whichare still manifested by savage peoples, and those of which the evidencehas not yet disappeared from our own midst. 

Nor need we be surprised at this, for the root whence all thesephenomena spring is the predominance of imagination over reason in theuncivilized. Man, while his experience is limited to a small tract ofearth, and his life is divided between a struggle with nature and hisfellow-man for the permission and the means to live, on the one hand, and seasons of idleness, empty perforce of every opportunity and everydesire for improving his condition, on the other, cannot acquire thematerials of a real knowledge of his physical environment. His only datafor interpreting the world and the objects it contains, so far as he isacquainted with them, are his own consciousness and his own emotions. Upon these his drafts are unbounded; and if he have any curiosity aboutthe origin and government of things, his hypotheses take the shape oftales in which the actors, whatever form they bear, are essentiallyhimself in motive and deed, but magnified and distorted to meet hiswishes or his fears, or the conditions of the problem as presented tohis limited vision. The thought which is the measure of his universe isas yet hardly disciplined by anything beyond his passions. 

Nor does the predominance of the imagination issue only in these talesand in songs--the two modes of expression we most readily attribute tothe imagination. In practical life it issues in superstitiousobservances, and in social and political institutions. Socialinstitutions are sometimes of great complexity, even in the depth ofsavagery. Together with political institutions they supply the model onwhich are framed man's ideas of the relationship to one another and tohimself of the supernatural beings whom he creates; and in turn theyreflect and perpetuate those ideas in ceremonial and other observances. The student of Fairy Tales, therefore, cannot afford to neglect thestudy of institutions; for it often throws a light altogetherunexpected on the origin and meaning of a story. Tradition must, indeed, be studied as a whole. As with other sciences, its division into partsis natural and necessary; but it should never be forgotten that none ofits parts can be rightly understood without reference to the others. ByTradition I mean the entire circle of thought and practice, custom aswell as belief, ceremonies, tales, music, songs, dances and otheramusements, the philosophy and the superstitions and the institutions, delivered by word of mouth and by example from generation to generationthrough unremembered ages: in a word, the sum total of the psychologicalphenomena of uncivilized man. Every people has its own body ofTradition, its own Folklore, which comprises a slowly diminishing part, or the whole, of its mental furniture, according as the art of writingis, or is not, known. The invention of writing, by enabling records tobe made and thoughts and facts to be communicated with certainty fromone to another, first renders possible the accumulation of trueknowledge and ensures a constantly accelerating advance in civilization. But in every civilized nation there are backward classes to whom readingand writing are either quite unknown, or at least unfamiliar; and thereare certain matters in the lives even of the lettered classes whichremain more or less under the dominion of Tradition. Culture, in thesense of a mode of life guided by reason and utilizing the discoveriesand inventions that are the gift of science, finds its way but slowlyamong a people, and filters only sluggishly through its habits, itsinstitutions and its creeds. Surely, however, though gradually itadvances, like a rising tide which creeps along the beach, hereundermining a heap of sand, there surrounding, isolating, and at lastsubmerging a rock, here swallowing up a pool brilliant with livingcreatures and many-coloured weed, there mingling with and overwhelming arivulet that leaps down to its embrace, until all the shore is coveredwith its waters. Meanwhile, he who would understand its course must knowthe conformation of the coast, --the windings, the crags (theircomposition as well as their shape), the hollows, the sands, thestreams; for without these its currents and its force are alikeinexplicable. The analogy must not be pressed too far; but it will helpus to understand why we find a fragment of a custom in one place, aportion of a tale jumbled up with portions of dissimilar tales inanother place, a segment of a superstition, and again a worn and brokenrelic of a once vigorous institution. They are the rocks and the sandswhich the flood of civilization is first isolating, then undermining, and at last overwhelming, and hiding from our view. They are (to changethe figure) survivals of an earlier state of existence, unintelligibleif regarded singly, made to render up their secret only by comparisonwith other survivals, and with examples of a like state of existenceelsewhere. Taken collectively, they enable us to trace the evolution ofcivilization from a period before history begins, and through morerecent times by channels whereof history gives no account. 

These are the premises whence we set out, and the principles which willguide us, in the study on which we are about to enter. The name of FairyTales is legion; but they are made up of incidents whose number iscomparatively limited. And though it would be impossible to dealadequately with more than a small fraction of them in a work like thepresent, still a selection may be so treated as to convey a reasonablyjust notion of the application of the principles laid down and of theresults to be obtained. In making such a selection several interestinggroups of stories, unconnected as between themselves, might be chosenfor consideration. The disadvantage of this course would be thefragmentary nature of the discussions, and consequently of theconclusions arrived at. It is not wholly possible to avoid thisdisadvantage in any mode of treatment; but it is possible to lessen it. I propose, therefore, to deal with a few of the most interesting sagasrelative to the Fairy Mythology strictly so called. We shall thusconfine our view to a well-defined area, in the hope that we may obtainsuch an idea of it as in its main lines at all events may be taken to befairly true to the facts, and that we may learn who really were thesemysterious beings who played so large a part in our fathers'superstitions. As yet, however, we must not be disappointed if we findthat the state of scientific inquiry will not admit of many conclusions, and such as we may reach can at present be stated only tentatively andwith caution. Science, like Mr. Fox in the nursery tale, writes up overall the doors of her palace:

 "Be bold, be bold, but not too bold. "

Many a victim has found to his cost what it meant to disregard thiswarning. 

FOOTNOTES:

[14] I have not thought it necessary to illustrate at length thecharacteristics of savage thought enumerated above. They areexhaustively discussed by Dr. Tylor in "Primitive Culture, " Sir JohnLubbock in "The Origin of Civilization, " Mr. Andrew Lang in "Myth Ritualand Religion, " and some of them by Mr. J. G. Frazer in "Totemism, " andmore recently in "The Golden Bough, " published since these pages werewritten. 

CHAPTER III. 

FAIRY BIRTHS AND HUMAN MIDWIVES. 

 Stories of midwives who have been summoned to the birth of fairies--Human visitors to Fairyland must not eat there--The reason--Fairies' gratitude--The conditions of fairy gifts. 

A tale, the scene of which is laid near Beddgelert, runs, as translatedby Professor Rhys, in this way:--"Once on a time, when a midwife fromNanhwynan had newly got to the Hafodydd Brithion to pursue her calling, a gentleman came to the door on a fine grey steed and bade her come withhim at once. Such was the authority with which he spoke, that the poormidwife durst not refuse to go, however much it was her duty to staywhere she was. So she mounted behind him, and off they went, like theflight of a swallow, through Cwmllan, over the Bwlch, down Nant yr Aran, and over the Gadair to Cwm Hafod Ruffydd before the poor woman had timeeven to say Oh! When they got there, she saw before her a magnificentmansion, splendidly lit up with such lamps as she had never before seen. They entered the court, and a crowd of servants in expensive liveriescame to meet them, and she was at once led through the great hall into abed-chamber, the like of which she had never seen. There the mistress ofthe house, to whom she had been fetched, was awaiting her. She gotthrough her duties successfully, and stayed there until the lady hadcompletely recovered, nor had she spent any part of her life so merrily;there was naught but festivity day and night: dancing, singing, andendless rejoicing reigned there. But merry as it was, she found shemust go, and the nobleman gave her a large purse, with the order not toopen it until she had got into her own house; then he bade one of hisservants escort her the same way she had come. When she reached home sheopened the purse, and, to her great joy, it was full of money; and shelived happily on those earnings to the end of her life. "[15]

It is a long leap from Carnarvonshire to Lapland, where this story istold with no great variation. A clergyman's wife in Swedish Lappmark, the cleverest midwife in all Sweden, was summoned one fine summer'sevening to attend a mysterious being of Troll race and great might, called Vitra. At this unusual call she took counsel with her husband, who, however, deemed it best for her to go. Her guide led her into asplendid building, the rooms whereof were as clean and elegant as thoseof very illustrious folk; and in a beautiful bed lay a still morebeautiful woman, for whom her services were required, and who was noother than Vitra herself. Under the midwife's care Vitra speedily gavebirth to a fair girl, and in a few minutes had entirely recovered, andfetched all sorts of refreshments, which she laid before herbenefactress. The latter refused to eat, in spite of Vitra's reassuringpersuasion, and further refused the money which the Troll-wife pressedupon her. Vitra then sent her home, bidding her look on the table whennext she entered her cowherd's hut and see what she would find there. She thought no more of the matter until the following spring, when onentering the hut she found on the table half a dozen large spoons ofpure silver with her name engraved thereon in neat letters. These spoonslong remained an heirloom in the clergyman's family to testify the truthof the story. A Swedish book, published in 1775, contains a tale, narrated in the form of a legal declaration solemnly subscribed on the12th April 1671 by the fortunate midwife's husband, whose name was PeterRahm, and who also seems to have been a clergyman. On the authority ofthis declaration we are called on to believe that the event recordedactually happened in the year 1660. Peter Rahm alleges that he and hiswife were at their farm one evening late when there came a little man, swart of face and clad in grey, who begged the declarant's wife to comeand help his wife then in labour. The declarant, seeing that they had todo with a Troll, prayed over his wife, blessed her, and bade her inGod's name go with the stranger. She seemed to be borne along by thewind. After her task was accomplished she, like the clergyman's wifejust mentioned, refused the food offered her, and was borne home in thesame manner as she had come. The next day she found on a shelf in thesitting-room a heap of old silver pieces and clippings, which it is tobe supposed the Troll had brought her. [16]

Apart from the need of human aid, common to all the legends with whichwe are dealing, the two points emphasized by these Swedish tales are themidwife's refusal of food and the gratitude of the Troll. In a Swabianstory the Earthman, as he is called, apologizes for omitting to offerfood. In this case the midwife was afraid to go alone with her summoner, and begged that her husband might accompany her. This was permitted; andthe Earthman showed them the way through the forest with his lantern, for it was of course night. They came first to a moss door, then to awooden door, and lastly to a door of shining metal, whence a staircasewent down into the earth, and led them into a large and splendid chamberwhere the Earthwife lay. When the object of their visit was accomplishedthe Earthman thanked the woman much, and said: "You do not relish ourmeat and drink, wherefore I will bestow something else upon thee. " Withthese words he gave her a whole apronful of black coals, and taking hislantern again he lighted the midwife and her husband home. On the wayhome she slily threw away one coal after another. The Earthman saidnothing until he was about to take his leave, when he observed merely:"The less you scattered the more you might have. " After he had gone thewoman's husband remonstrated with her, bidding her keep the coals, forthe Earthman appeared in earnest with his gift. When they reached home, however, she shook out her apron on the hearth, and behold! instead ofcoals, glittering true gold pieces. The woman now sought eagerly enoughafter the coals she had thrown away, but she found them not. [17]

Confining our attention for the moment to the refusal of food, it wouldseem that the Earthman's apology in the foregoing narrative is, as toomany human apologies are, a mere excuse. The real reason for themidwife's abstention was not that fairy food was distasteful, but thatshe durst not touch it, under penalty of never again returning to thelight of day. A Danish tradition tells of a woman who was taken by anelf on Christmas Eve down into the earth to attend his wife. As soon asthe elfwife was delivered her husband took the child away; for if hecould find two newly married persons in the bridal bed, before they hadrepeated their Paternoster, he could, by laying the child between them, procure for it all the good fortune intended for the newly wedded pair. During his absence the elfwife took the opportunity of instructing herhelper as to her conduct when he returned; and the first and chief pointof her advice was to eat nothing that was offered her. The elfwife washerself a Christian woman who had been inveigled down into the dwellingsof the elves; she had eaten, and therefore had never escaped again. Onthe elf's return, accordingly, the midwife refused food, and he said:"They did not strike thee on the mouth who taught thee that. " Laterabbinical writings contain a similar legend of a Mohel, a man whoseoffice it was to circumcise, who was summoned one winter's night by astranger to perform the ceremony upon a child who would be eight daysold the following day. The stranger led him to a lofty mountain, intothe bowels of which they passed, and after descending many flights ofsteps found themselves in a great city. Here the Mohel was taken to apalace, in one of whose apartments was the child's mother lying. Whenshe saw the Mohel she began to weep, and told him that he was in theland of the Mazikin, but that she was a human being, a Jewess, who hadbeen carried away when little from home and brought thither. And shecounselled him to take good heed to refuse everything whether of meat ordrink that might be offered him: "For if thou taste anything of theirsthou wilt become like one of them, and wilt remain here for ever. "[18]

We touch here upon a very ancient and widespread superstition, which wemay pause to illustrate from different parts of the world. A Manx tale, which can be traced back to Waldron, narrates the night adventure of afarmer who lost his way in returning home from Peel, and was led by thesound of music into a large hall where were a great number of littlepeople feasting. Among them were some faces he seemed to know; but hetook no notice of them until the little folk offered him drink, when oneof them, whose features seemed not unknown to him, plucked him by thecoat and forbade him, whatever he did, to taste anything he saw beforehim; "for if you do", he added, "you will be as I am, and return no moreto your family. "[19]

It is necessary for the hero of a Picard story to go and seek the devilin his own abode. The devil of popular imagination, though a terrificogre, is not the entirely Evil One of theologians; and one of his goodpoints in the story referred to is that he has three fair daughters, thefairest of whom is compelled by the hero to help him in overcoming herfather. She accordingly instructs him to eat no meat and to drink nowine at the devil's house, otherwise he will be poisoned. This mayremind us of Kan Püdäi, who in the Altaic ballad descends with his steedto the middle of the earth and encounters various monsters. There thegrass and the water of the mountain forest through which he rode werepoison. In both cases, what is probably meant is, that to eat or drinkis to return no more from these mysterious abodes; and it may be to theintent to obviate any such consequence that Saint Peter, in sending acertain king's son down through a black and stinking hole a hundredtoises deep underground, in a Gascon tale, to fetch Saint Peter's ownsword, provides him with just enough bread in his wallet every morningto prevent his bursting with hunger. An extension of this thoughtsometimes even prohibits the hero from accepting a seat or a bed offeredby way of hospitality on the part of the devil, or the sorceress, towhose dwelling his business may take him, or even to look at the fairtemptress who may seek to entice him to eat. [20]

The meaning of the superstition is not easy to trace, but it should beremembered that in the lower stages of human civilization no distinctionis drawn between supernatural or spiritual beings who have never beenenclosed in human bodies, and the spirits of the dead. Savage philosophymingles them together in one phantasmagoria of grotesquery and horror. The line which separates fairies and ogres from the souls of men hasgradually grown up through ages of Christian teaching; and, broad as itmay seem to us, it is occasionally hardly visible in these stories. Every now and then it is ignored, as in the case of the old friendsfound among the "little people" by the Manx farmer. Less startling thanthese, but quite as much in point, are the women, like some alreadymentioned, who are carried off into Fairyland, where they become wivesand mothers. They can never come back to their old life, though theyretain enough of the "mortal mixture" to require the adventurous humanmidwife to relieve their pains. Accordingly, we need not be surprised ifthe same incidents of story or fibres of superstition attach at one timeto ghosts and at another to the non-human creatures of imagination, orif Hades and Fairyland are often confounded. Both are equally the realmof the supernatural. We may therefore inquire whether eating isforbidden to the chance sojourner in the place of the dead equally as tothe sojourner in Fairyland, if he wish to return to the upper air. Andwe shall find that it is. 

Proserpine ate seven grains of a pomegranate which grew in the ElysianFields, and so was compelled to remain in the Shades, the wife of "thegrisly king. " Thus, too, when Morgan the Fay takes measures to get Ogierthe Dane into her power she causes him to be shipwrecked on a loadstonerock near to Avalon. Escaping from the sea, he comes to an orchard, andthere eats an apple which, it is not too much to say, seals his fate. Again, when Thomas of Erceldoune is being led down by the Fairy Queeninto her realm, he desires to eat of the fruit of certain trees. 

 "He presed to pul the frute with his honde, As man for fode was nyhonde feynte; She seid, Thomas, lat them stande, Or ellis the fiend will the ateynte. If thou pulle the sothe to sey, Thi soule goeth to the fyre of hell Hit cummes never out til doomsday, But ther ever in payne to dwelle. "

An old story preserved for us by Saxo Grammaticus describes the visit ofsome Danish heroes to Guthmund, a giant who rules a delightful landbeyond a certain river crossed by a golden bridge. Thorkill, theirconductor, a Scandinavian Ulysses for cunning, warns his companions ofthe various temptations that will be set before them. They must forbearthe food of the country, and be satisfied with that which they hadbrought with them; moreover, they must keep apart from the natives, taking care not so much as to touch them. In spite, however, ofThorkill's warnings to them, and his excuses in their behalf to theking, some of the heroes fell and were left behind when their friendswere at last allowed to depart. [21] So far we see that the prohibitionand the danger we found extant in the Fairyland of modern folk-talesapply also to the classic Hades; and we have traced them back a long wayinto the Middle Ages in French, British, and Danish traditions relatingto fairies and other supernatural existences, with a special threat ofHell in the case of Thomas of Erceldoune. 

On the other side of the globe the Banks' islanders believe, like theGreeks, in an underground kingdom of the dead, which they call Panoi. Only a few years ago a woman was living who professed to have been downthere. Her object had been to visit her brother, who had recently died. To do this she perfumed herself with water in which a dead rat had beensteeped, so as to give herself a death-like smell. She then pulled up abird's nest and descended through the hole thus made. Her brother, whomof course she found, cautioned her to eat nothing, and by taking hisadvice she was able to return. A similar tale is told of a New Zealandwoman of rank, who was lucky enough to come back from the abode ofdeparted spirits by the assistance of her father and his repeatedcommands to avoid tasting the disgusting food of the dead. Wäinämöinen, the epic hero of the Finns, determined to penetrate to Manala, theregion of the dead. We need not follow in detail his voyage; it willsuffice to say that on his arrival, after a long parley with the maidendaughter of Tuoni, the king of the island, beer was brought to him in atwo-eared tankard. 

 "Wäinämöinen, old and trusty, Gaz'd awhile upon the tankard; Lo! within it frogs were spawning, Worms about its sides were laying. Words in this wise then he utter'd: 'Not to drink have I come hither From the tankard of Manala, Not to empty Tuoni's beaker; They who drink of beer are drowned, Those who drain the can are ruin'd. '"[22]

The hero's concluding words might form a motto for our teetotallers; andin any case his abstinence enabled him to succeed in his errand andreturn. A point is made in the poem of the loathsome character of thebeverage offered him, which thus agrees with the poison referred to insome of the narratives I have previously cited. The natives of theSouthern Seas universally represent the sustenance of spirits as filthyand abominable. A most remarkable coincidence with the description ofTuoni's beer occurs in a curious story told on one of the HerveyIslands, concerning a Mangaian Dante. Being apparently near death, thisman directed that, as soon as the breath was out of his body, acocoa-nut should be cracked, and its kernel disengaged from the shelland placed upon his stomach under the grave-clothes. Having descendedto the Shades, he beheld Miru, the horrible hag who rules them, andwhose deformities need not now be detailed. She commanded him to drawnear. "The trembling human spirit obeyed, and sat down before Miru. According to her unvarying practice she set for her intended victim abowl of food, and bade him eat it quite up. Miru, with evident anxiety, waited to see him swallow it. As Tekanae took up the bowl, to his horrorhe found it to consist of living centipedes. The quick-witted mortal nowrecollected the cocoa-nut kernel at the pit of his stomach, and hiddenfrom Miru's view by his clothes. With one hand he held the bowl to hislips, as if about to swallow its contents; with the other he secretlyheld the cocoa-nut kernel, and ate it--the bowl concealing the nut fromMiru. It was evident to the goddess that Tekanae was actually swallowing_something_: what else could it be but the contents of the fatal bowl?Tekanae craftily contrived whilst eating the nourishing cocoa-nut toallow the live centipedes to fall on the ground one or two at a time. Asthe intended victim was all the time sitting on the ground it was nodifficult achievement in this way to empty the bowl completely by thetime he had finished the cocoa-nut. Miru waited in vain to see herintended victim writhing in agony and raging with thirst. Her practiceon such occasions was to direct the tortured victim-spirit to dive in alake close by, to seek relief. None that dived into that water ever cameup alive; excessive anguish and quenchless thirst so distracting theirthoughts that they were invariably drowned. Miru would afterwards cookand eat her victims at leisure. Here was a new event in her history: thebowl of living centipedes had been disposed of, and yet Tekanaemanifested no sign of pain, no intention to leap into the cooling, butfatal, waters. Long did Miru wait; but in vain. At last she said to hervisitor, 'Return to the upper world' (_i. E. _, to life). 'Only rememberthis--do not speak against me to mortals. Reveal not my ugly form andmy mode of treating my visitors. Should you be so foolish as to do so, you will certainly at some future time come back to my domains, and Iwill see to it that you do not escape my vengeance a second time!'Tekanae accordingly left the Shades, and came back to life"; but he, itis needless to say, carefully disregarded the hag's injunction, or weshould not have had the foregoing veracious account of what happensbelow. [23]

The tortures reserved for Miru's victims cast a weird light on thewarning in the Picard story against eating and drinking what the devilmay offer. But whether poisoning in the latter case would have been thepreliminary to a hearty meal to be made off the unlucky youth by histreacherous host, or no, it is impossible to determine. What the talesdo suggest, however, is that the food buried with the dead byuncivilized tribes may be meant to provide them against the contingencyof having to partake of the hospitality of the Shades, and so affordthem a chance of escaping back to the upper air. But, putting thisconjecture aside, we have found the supposition that to eat of fairyfood is to return no more, equally applicable to the world of the deadas to Fairyland. In seeking its meaning, therefore, we must not besatisfied without an explanation that will fit both. Almost all over theearth the rite of hospitality has been held to confer obligations on itsrecipient, and to unite him by special ties to the giver. And even wherethe notion of hospitality does not enter, to join in a common meal hasoften been held to symbolize, if not to constitute, union of a verysacred kind. The formation of blood relationship, or brotherhood, andformal adoption into a tribe or family (ceremonies well known in thelower culture), are usually, if not always, cemented in this way. Themodern wedding breakfast, with its bridecake, is a survival from a veryancient mode of solemnizing the closest tie of all; and when Proserpinetasted a pomegranate she partook of a fruit of a specially symboliccharacter to signify acceptance of her new destiny as her captor's wife. Hence to partake of food in the land of spirits, whether they are humandead, or fairies, is to proclaim one's union with them and to renouncethe fellowship of mortals. 

The other point emphasized in the Swedish tales quoted just now is theTroll's gratitude, as evidenced by his gifts to the successful midwife. Before considering this, however, let us note that these supernaturalbeings do not like to be imposed upon. A German midwife who was summonedby a Waterman, or Nix, to aid a woman in labour, was told by the latter:"I am a Christian woman as well as you; and I was carried off by aWaterman, who changed me. When my husband comes in now and offers youmoney, take no more from him than you usually get, or else he will twistyour neck. Take good care!" And in another tale, told at Kemnitz of theNicker, as he is there called, when he asks the midwife how much he owesher, she answers that she will take no more from him than from otherpeople. "That's lucky for thee, " he replies; "hadst thou demanded more, it would have gone ill with thee!" But for all that he gave her an apronfull of gold and brought her safely home. [24]

A Pomeranian story marks the transition to a type of tale wherein onespecial characteristic of elfin gifts is presented. For in this case, when the mannikin asked the midwife what her charge was, she modestlyreplied: "Oh, nothing; the little trouble I have had does not call forany payment. " "Now then, lift up thy apron!" answered he; and it wasquickly filled with the rubbish that lay in the corner of the room. Taking his lantern, the elf then politely guided her home. When sheshook out the contents of her apron, lo! it was no rubbish which fellon the ground, but pure, shining minted gold. Hitherto she and herfather had been very poor; thenceforth they had no more want their wholelives long. This gift of an object apparently worthless, which turnsout, on the conditions being observed, of the utmost value, is acommonplace of fairy transactions. It is one of the most obviousmanifestations of superhuman power; and as such it has always been afavourite incident in the stories of all nations. We have only to dohere with the gift as it appears in the group under analysis; and inthese cases it presents little variety. In a tale told on the lake ofZug the dwarf fills the woman's apron with something at which he bidsher on no account look before she is in her own house. Her curiosity, however, is uncontrollable; and the moment the dwarf vanishes she peepsinto her apron, to find simply black coals. She, in a rage, flings themaway, keeping only two as evidence of the shabby treatment she had metwith; but when she got home these two were nothing less than preciousstones. She at once ran back to where she had shaken out the supposedcoals; but they were all gone. So a recompense of straws, dust, birchleaves, or shavings becomes, as elsewhere told, pure gold, pure silver, or thalers. Nor is the story confined to Europe. In Dardistan it isrelated that a boy, taken down by a Yatsh, or demon, into an undergroundpalace, is allowed to be present at a Yatsh wedding. He finds theYatshes assembled in great force and in possession of a number ofvaluables belonging to the dwellers in his own village. On his returnhis guide presents him with a sack full of coals, which he empties assoon as he is out of sight. One little piece, however, remains, and istransformed into a gold coin when he reaches home. [25]

Conversely, when the midwife is rewarded with that which seems valuableit turns out worthless. An Irishwoman, in relating a professionalexperience among the Good People, wound up her story as follows: "Theking slipped five guineas into my hand as soon as I was on the ground, and thanked me, and bade me good-night. I hope I'll never see his faceagain. I got into bed, and couldn't sleep for a long time; and when Iexamined my five guineas this morning, that I left in the table-drawerthe last thing, I found five withered leaves of oak--bad scran to thegiver!" This incident recalls the Barber's tale of his fourth brother inthe "Arabian Nights. " This unlucky man went on selling meat to asorcerer for five months, and putting the bright new money in which thelatter paid him into a box by itself; but when he came to open the boxhe found in it nothing but a parcel of leaves, or, as Sir Richard Burtonhas it, bits of white paper cut round to look like coin. Chinesefolklore is full of similar occurrences, which we cannot now stay todiscuss. But, returning to western traditions, there is a way ofcounteracting the elves' transforming magic. The wife of a farmer namedNiels Hansen, of Uglerup, in Denmark, was summoned to attend atroll-wife, who told her that the troll, her husband, would offer her aquantity of gold; "but, " she said, "unless you cast this knife behindyou when you go out, it will be nothing but coal when you reach home". The woman followed her patient's advice, and so continued to carrysafely home a costly present of gold. [26]

The objection of supernatural beings to iron, and its power of undoingtheir charms, will be considered in a future chapter. The good luck ofNiels Hansen's wife offers meantime another subject of interest; for itwas due to her own kindness of heart. A short time before she had beenraking hay in a field, when she caught a large and fat toad between theteeth of her rake. She gently released it, saying: "Poor thing! I seethat thou needest help; I will help thee. " That toad was the troll-wife, and as she afterwards attended her she was horrified to see a hideousserpent hanging down just above her head. Her fright led to explanationsand an expression of gratitude on the part of the troll-wife. Thisincident is by no means uncommon; but a very few examples must sufficehere. Generally the woman's terror is attributed to a millstone hangingover her head. At Grammendorf, in Pomerania, a maid saw, every time shewent to milk the cows, a hateful toad hopping about in the stable. Shedetermined to kill it, and would have seized it one day had it not, inthe very nick of time, succeeded in creeping into a hole, where shecould not get at it. A few days after, when she was again busy in thestable, a little Ulk, as the elves there are called, came and invitedher to descend with him into Fairyland. On reaching the bottom of astaircase with her conductor, she found her services were required foran Ulkwife, whose time was at hand. Entering the dwelling she wasfrightened to observe a huge millstone above her, suspended by a silkenthread; and the Ulk, seeing her terror, told her she had caused himexactly the same, when she chased the poor toad and attempted to killit. The girl was compelled to share in the feast which followed. When itwas over she was given a piece of gold, that she was carefully topreserve; for so long as she did so she would never be in want of money. But her guide warned her at parting never to relate her experience, otherwise the elves would fetch her again, and set her under themillstone, which would then fall and crush her. Whether this was indeedthe consequence of her narrating this very true story we do not know. After some of the beliefs we have been considering in the foregoingpages it is, however, interesting to note that no ill attended hereating and drinking in Fairyland, and that the gold she received did notturn to dross, though it possessed other miraculous qualities whichmight very well have led her to the bad end threatened by the Ulk. Perhaps a portion of the story has been lost. [27]

Sometimes a different turn is given to the tale. A Swabian peasant-womanwas once in the fields with her servant-maid, when they saw a big toad. The woman told her maid to kill it. The latter replied: "No; I won't dothat, and I will stand sponsor for it yet once more. " Not longafterwards she was sent for to become sponsor, and was conducted intothe lake, where she found the toad now in guise of a woman. After theceremony was over, the lake-woman rewarded her with a bushel of straw, and sent by her hand a girdle for her mistress. On the way home the girltried the girdle on a tree to see how it would look, and in a moment thetree was torn into a thousand pieces. This was the punishment devised bythe lake-woman for her mistress, because she had wished to put her todeath while in the form of a toad. The straw was, of course, pure gold;but the girl foolishly cast it all away except a few stalks which clungto her dress. So a countryman who accidentally spilt some hot broth on awitch, disguised as a toad, is presented by her another day with agirdle for his little son. Suspecting something wrong, he tries it onhis dog, which at once swells up and bursts. This is a Saxon saga fromTransylvania; an Irish saga brings us to the same catastrophe. There agirl meets a frog which is painfully bloated, and kicks it unfeelinglyaside, with the words: "May you never be delivered till I am midwife toyou!" Now the frog was a water-fairy dwelling in a lake, into which thegirl soon after was conveyed and compelled to become the fairy'smidwife. By way of reward she is presented with a red cloak, which, onher way home, she hangs up in admiration on a tree. Well was it for herthat she did so, for it set the tree on fire; and had she worn it, asshe meant to do, on the following Sunday at Mass, the chapel itselfwould have been in a blaze. [28]

The fairies' revenge here missed its mark, though calculated on notrifling scale. Indeed, the rewards they bestowed were never nicelybalanced with the good or ill they intended to requite, but wereshowered in open-handed fashion as by those who could afford to belavish. Of this we have already had several instances; a few more may begiven. At Palermo a tale is told of a midwife who was one day cooking inher own kitchen when a hand appeared and a voice cried: "Give to me!"She took a plate and filled it from the food she was preparing. Presently the hand returned the plate full of golden money. This wasrepeated daily; and the woman, seeing the generous payment, became moreand more free with her portions of food. At the end of nine months aknocking was heard at the door; and, descending, she found two giants, who caught her up on their shoulders, and unceremoniously ran off withher. They carried her to a lady who needed her offices, and she assistedto bring into the world two fine boys. The lady evidently was fullyalive to her own dignity, for she kept the woman a proper human month, to the distress of her husband, who, not knowing what had become of her, searched the city night and day, and at last gave her up for dead. Thenthe lady (a fairy princess she was) asked her if she wished to go, andwhether she would be paid by blows or pinches. The poor midwife deemedher last hour was come, and said to herself that if she must die itwould be better to die quickly; so she chose blows. Accordingly theprincess called the two giants, and sent her home with a large sack ofmoney, which enabled her to relinquish business, set up her carriage, and become one of the first ladies in Palermo. Ten years passed; and oneday a grand carriage stopped at her door. A lady alighted and enteredher palace. When she had her face to face, the lady said: "Gossip, doyou know me?" "No, madam. " "What! do you not remember that I am the ladyto whom you came ten years ago, when these children were born? I, too, am she who held out her hand and asked for food. I was the fairies'captive; and if you had not been generous enough to give me to eat, Ishould have died in the night. And because you were generous you havebecome rich. Now I am freed, and here I am with my sons. " The quondammidwife, with tears in her eyes, looked at her, and blessed the momentshe had done a generous act. So they became lifelong friends. [29]

I have given the foregoing tale almost at full length because it hasnot, so far as I know, appeared before in any other than its nativeSicilian dress, and because analogous stories are not common incollections from Mediterranean countries. This rarity is not, I needhardly say, from any absence of the mythological material, and perhapsit may be due to accident in the formation of the collections. If thestory were really wanting elsewhere in Southern Europe, we might bepermitted the conjecture that its presence in Sicily was to be accountedfor by the Norman settlements there. One such story, however, isrecorded from the Island of Kimolos, one of the Cyclades, but withoutthe human captivity in Elfland, without the acts of charity, and withoutthe gratitude. The Nereids of the Kimoliote caves are of a grimmerhumour than the kindly-natured underground folk of Celtic and Teutoniclands, or than the heroine of Palermo. The payment to their human helpis no subject of jest to them. A woman whom they once called in wasroundly told: "If it be a boy you shall be happy; but if it be a girl wewill tear you in four parts, and hang you in this cave. " The unhappymidwife of course determined that it should be a boy; and when a girlarrived she made believe it was a boy, swaddled it up tightly, and wenthome. When, eight days afterwards, the child was unpacked, the Nereids'rage and disappointment were great; and they sent one of their number toknock at her door in the hope that she would answer the first summons. Now to answer the first summons of a Nereid meant madness. Of this thewoman was fully aware; and her cunning cheated them even of theirrevenge. [30]

Sometimes these supernatural beings bestow gifts of a more distinctlydivine character than any of the foregoing. A midwife in Strathspey, onone such occasion, was desired to ask what she would, and it should begranted if in the power of the fairies. She asked that success mightattend herself and her posterity in all similar operations. The gift wasconferred; and her great-grandson still continued to exercise it whenMr. Stewart was collecting the materials for his work on thesuperstitions of the Highlanders, published in 1823. In like manner theMohel, to whose adventure I have already referred, and who wasoriginally an avaricious man, received the grace of benevolence to thepoor, which caused him to live a long and happy life with his family, apattern unto the whole world. The gift was symbolized by therestoration to him of his own bunch of keys, which he found with manyothers in the possession of his uncanny conductor. This personage hadheld the keys by virtue of his being lord over the hearts of those whonever at any time do good: in other words, he was the demon ofcovetousness. Here we have an instance, more or less conscious, of thetendency, so marked in Jewish literature, to parable. But the form ofthe parable bears striking testimony to its origin in a myth common tomany races. The keys in particular probably indicate that the recompenseat one time took the shape of a palladium. This is not at all uncommonin the tales. The Countess Von Ranzau was once summoned from her castleof Breitenburg in Schleswig to the help of a dwarf-woman, and in returnreceived, according to one account, a large piece of gold to be madeinto fifty counters, a herring and two spindles, upon the preservationof which the fortunes of the family were to depend. The gifts arevariously stated in different versions of the tale, but all the versionsagree in attaching to them blessings on the noble house of Ranzau solong as they were kept in the family. The Frau Von Hahnen, in a Bohemianlegend, receives for her services to a water-nix three pieces of gold, with the injunction to take care of them, and never to let them go outof the hands of her own lineage, else the whole family would fall intopoverty. She bequeathed the treasures to her three sons; but theyoungest son took a wife, who with a light heart gave the fairy goldaway. Misery, of course, resulted from her folly; and the race of Hahnenspeedily came to an end. [31]

It is quite possible that the spoons bestowed by Vitra upon theclergyman's wife in Lappmark were once reputed to be the subject of asimilar proviso. So common, forsooth, was the stipulation, that in oneway or other it was annexed to well-nigh all fairy gifts: they broughtluck to their possessor for the time being. Examples of this areendless: one only will content us in this connection; and, like Vitra'sgift, we shall find it in Swedish Lappmark. A peasant who had one daybeen unlucky at the chase, was returning disgusted, when he met a finegentleman who begged him to come and cure his wife. The peasantprotested in vain that he was not a doctor. The other would take nodenial, insisting that it was no matter, for if he would only put hishands upon the lady she would be healed. Accordingly the stranger ledhim to the very top of a mountain, where was perched a castle he hadnever seen before. On entering it he found the walls were mirrors, theroof overhead of silver, the carpets of gold-embroidered silk, and thefurniture of the purest gold and jewels. The stranger took him into aroom where lay the loveliest of princesses on a golden bed, screamingwith pain. As soon as she saw the peasant she begged him to come and puthis hands upon her. Almost stupefied with astonishment he hesitated tolay his coarse hands upon so fair a dame. But at length he yielded; andin a moment her pain ceased, and she was made whole. She stood up andthanked him, begging him to tarry awhile and eat with them. This, however, he declined to do, for he feared that if he tasted the foodwhich was offered him he must remain there. The stranger whom he hadfollowed then took a leathern purse, filled it with small round piecesof wood, and gave it to the peasant with these words: "So long as thouart in possession of this purse money will never fail thee. But if thoushouldst ever see me again, beware of speaking to me; for if thou speakthy luck will depart. " When the man got home he found the purse filledwith dollars; and by virtue of its magical property he became therichest man in the parish. As soon as he found the purse always full, whatever he took out of it, he began to live in a spendthrift mannerand frequented the alehouse. One evening as he sat there he beheld thestranger with a bottle in his hand going round and gathering the dropswhich the guests shook from time to time out of their glasses. The richpeasant was surprised that one who had given him so much did not seemable to buy himself a single dram, but was reduced to this means ofgetting a drink. Thereupon he went up to him and said: "Thou hast shownme more kindness than any other man ever did, and I will willingly treatthee to a little. " The words were scarce out of his mouth when hereceived such a blow on his head that he fell stunned to the ground; andwhen again he came to himself the stranger and his purse were both gone. From that day forward he became poorer and poorer, until he was reducedto absolute beggary. [32]

This story exemplifies every point that had had interested us in thisdiscussion: the need of the Trolls for human help, the refusal of food, fairy gratitude, and the conditions involved in the acceptance ofsupernatural gifts. It mentions one further characteristic of fairynature--the objection to be recognized and addressed by men who areprivileged to see them. But the consideration of this requires anotherchapter. 

FOOTNOTES:

[15] "Y Cymmrodor, " vol. V. P. 70, translated from "Y Brython, " vol. Iv. P. 251. 

[16] Poestion, p. 111; Grimm, "Teut. Myth. " p. 457, note, quoting atlength the declaration from Hülpher, "Samlingen om Jämtland. " Atranslation will be found in Keightley, p. 122. 

[17] Meier, p. 59. 

[18] Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 128, from Thiele, "Danmark's Folkesagn";Keightley, p. 506. 

[19] Waldron, p. 28. 

[20] "Mélusine, " vol. I. P. 446; Radloff, vol. I. P. 78; Bladé, vol. I. P. 161; Cosquin, vol. Ii. P. 10; Cavallius, p. 281; "Revue des Trad. Pop. " vol. Iv. P. 222. 

[21] Child, vol. I. P. 319; "Thomas of Erceldoune, " p. 11 (CambridgeText); Saxo, "Gesta Dan. " l. Viii. 

[22] _Journal of Anthrop. Inst. _ vol. X. P. 282; Shortland, p. 150;"Kalewala, " rune xvi. L. 293. 

[23] Gill, p. 172. 

[24] Keightley, p. 261; Kuhn und Schwartz, p. 93. 

[25] Jahn, p. 72; Keightley, p. 275, quoting Müller, "Bilder und Sagenaus der Schweiz, " p. 119; Birlinger, "Volksthümliches, " vol. I. P. 42;Kuhn, p. 82; Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 128; vol. Iii. P. 54, quotingMüllenhoff, "Sagen, &c. , der Herzogthümer Schleswig, Holstein undLauenburg"; Kuhn und Schwartz, p. 173; Wratislaw, p. 40; Wenzig, p. 198;Liebrecht, p. 100, citing "Results of a Tour in Dardistan", part iii. P. 3. 

[26] Kennedy, p. 106; Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 130, quoting Thiele, "Danmark's Folkesagn. "

[27] Jahn, p. 64; _cf. _ p. 74, where there are two maidens, one of whomhad saved the toad when the other desired to kill it. They standsponsors for the fairy child, and are rewarded with sweepings which turnto gold; also Bartsch, vol. I. P. 50, where a sword is suspended. 

[28] Meier, p. 69; Müller, p. 140; "N. And Q. , " 7th ser. Vol. V. P. 501. 

[29] Pitré, vol. V. P. 23. The story in its present form does not saythat the human food enabled the lady to return from Fairyland, but onlythat it saved her life. Probably, however, an earlier version may haveshown the incident in a more primitive form. 

[30] Bent, p. 46. 

[31] Keightley, p. 388, citing Stewart; Thorpe, vol. Iii. P. 50 _etseq. _, quoting Müllenhoff and Thiele; Grohmann, p. 145; see also Thorpe, vol. Iii. P. 51. 

[32] Poestion, p. 119. 

CHAPTER IV. 

FAIRY BIRTHS AND HUMAN MIDWIVES (_continued_). 

 The magical ointment--Human prying punished by fairies, and by other supernatural beings--Dame Berchta--Hertha--Lady Godiva--Analogous stories in Europe--In the East--Religious ceremonies performed by women only--Lady Godiva a pagan goddess. 

Before we quit the subject of fairy births, we have a few more storiesto discuss. They resemble in their general tenor those already noticed;but instead of one or other of the incidents considered in the previouschapter we are led to a different catastrophe by the introduction of anew incident--that of the Magical Ointment. The plot no longer hingesupon fairy gratitude, but upon human curiosity and disobedience. 

The typical tale is told, and exceedingly well told--though, alas! notexactly in the language of the natives--by Mrs. Bray in her Letters toSouthey, of a certain midwife of Tavistock. One midnight, as she wasgetting into bed, this good woman was summoned by a strange, squint-eyed, little, ugly old fellow to follow him straightway, andattend upon his wife. In spite of her instinctive repulsion she couldnot resist the command; and in a moment the little man whisked her, withhimself, upon a large coal-black horse with eyes of fire, which stoodwaiting at the door. Ere long she found herself at the door of a neatcottage; the patient was a decent-looking woman who already had twochildren, and all things were prepared for her visit. When the child--afine, bouncing babe--was born, its mother gave the midwife someointment, with directions to "strike the child's eyes with it. " Now theword _strike_ in the Devonshire dialect means not to give a blow, but torub, or touch, gently; and as the woman obeyed she thought the task anodd one, and in her curiosity tried the effect of the ointment upon oneof her own eyes. At once a change was wrought in the appearance ofeverything around her. The new mother appeared no longer as a homelycottager, but a beautiful lady attired in white; the babe, fairer thanbefore, but still witnessing with the elvish cast of its eye to itspaternity, was wrapped in swaddling clothes of silvery gauze; while theelder children, who sat on either side of the bed, were transformed intoflat-nosed imps, who with mops and mows were busied to no end inscratching their own polls, or in pulling the fairy lady's ears withtheir long and hairy paws. The nurse, discreetly silent about what shehad done and the wonderful metamorphoses she beheld around her, got awayfrom the house of enchantment as quickly as she could; and thesour-looking old fellow who had brought her carried her back on hissteed much faster than they had come. But the next market-day, when shesallied forth to sell her eggs, whom should she see but the sameill-looking scoundrel busied in pilfering sundry articles from stall tostall. So she went up to him, and with a nonchalant air addressed him, inquiring after his wife and child, who, she hoped, were both as well ascould be expected. "What!" exclaimed the old pixy thief, "do you _see_me to-day?" "See you! to be sure I do, as plain as I see the sun in theskies; and I see you are busy into the bargain, " she replied. "Do youso?" cried he; "pray, with which eye do you see all this?" "With theright eye, to be sure. " "The ointment! the ointment!" exclaimed the oldfellow; "take that for meddling with what did not belong to you: youshall see me no more. " He struck her eye as he spoke, and from thathour till the day of her death she was blind on the right side, thusdearly paying for having gratified an idle curiosity in the house of apixy. [33]

In this tale the midwife acquired her supernatural vision throughgratifying her curiosity; but perhaps in the larger number of instancesit is acquired by accident. Her eye smarts or itches; and withoutthinking, she rubs it with a finger covered with the Magical Ointment. In a Breton variant, however, a certain stone, perfectly polished, andin the form of an egg, is given to the woman to rub the fairy child'seyes. In order to test its virtue she applies it to her own right eye, thus obtaining the faculty of seeing the elves when they renderedthemselves invisible to ordinary sight. Sometimes, moreover, theeye-salve is expressly given for the purpose of being used by the nurseupon her own eyes. This was the case with a doctor who, in a northcountry tale, was presented with one kind of ointment before he enteredthe fairy realm and another when he left it. The former gave him tobehold a splendid portico in the side of a steep hill, through which hepassed into the fairies' hall within; but on anointing one eye with thelatter ointment, to that eye the hill seemed restored to its naturalshape. Similarly in Nithsdale a fairy rewards the kindness of a youngmother, to whom she had committed her babe to suckle, by taking her on avisit to Fairyland. A door opened in a green hillside, disclosing aporch which the nurse and her conductor entered. There the lady droppedthree drops of a precious dew on the nurse's left eyelid, and they wereadmitted to a beautiful land watered with meandering rivulets and yellowwith corn, where the trees were laden with fruits which dropped honey. The nurse was here presented with magical gifts, and when a green dewhad baptized her right eye she was enabled to behold further wonders. On returning, the fairy passed her hand over the woman's eye andrestored its normal powers; but the woman had sufficient address tosecure the wonder-working balm. By its means she retained for many yearsthe gift of discerning the earth-visiting spirits; but on one occasion, happening to meet the fairy lady who had given her the child, sheattempted to shake hands with her. "What ee d' ye see me wi'?" whisperedshe. "Wi' them baith, " answered the matron. The fairy accordinglybreathed on her eyes; and even the power of the box failed afterwards torestore their enchanted vision. A Carnarvonshire story, probablyincomplete, makes no mention of the ointment conferring supernaturalsight; but when the midwife is to be dismissed she is told to rub hereyes with a certain salve, whereupon she at once finds herself sittingon a tuft of rushes, and not in a palace: baby and all had disappeared. The sequel, however, shows that by some means she had retained the powerof seeing fairies, at least with one eye; for when she next went to thetown, lo and behold! busily buying was the elf whose wife she hadattended. He betrayed the usual annoyance at being noticed by the woman;and on learning with which eye she saw him he vanished, never more to belooked upon by her. A tale from Guernsey attributes the magical facultyto some of the child's saliva which fell into the nurse's eye. And astill more extraordinary cause is assigned to it in a tradition fromLower Brittany, where it is said to be due to the sacred bond formedbetween the woman and a masculine elf when she became godmother and hegodfather to the babe. [34]

The effect of the wonder-working salve or water is differently describedin different tales. The fairy maiden Rockflower speaks of it to herlover, in a Breton tale from Saint Cast, as "clearing his eyes like herown. " And this is evidently to be understood in all cases. Accordingly, we find the invariable result is that the favoured mortal beholds swarmsof fairies who were invisible before. But their dwellings, theirclothing, and their surroundings in general suffer a transformation byno means always the same. A hovel or a cavern becomes a palace, whoseinhabitants, however ugly they may be, are attired like princesses andcourtiers, and are served with vessels of silver and gold. On the otherhand a castle is changed by the magical balm into "a big rough cave, with water oozing over the edges of the stones, and through the clay;and the lady, and the lord, and the child, weazened, poverty-bittencrathurs--nothing but skin and bone, and the rich dresses were oldrags. " This is an Irish picture; but in the north of England it is muchthe same. Instead of a neat cottage the midwife perceives the largeoverhanging branches of an ancient oak, whose hollow and moss-growntrunk she had before mistaken for the fireplace, where glow-wormssupplied the place of lamps. And in North Wales, when Mrs. Gampincautiously rubbed an itching eye with the finger she had used to rubthe baby's eyes, "then she saw with that eye that the wife lay on abundle of rushes and withered ferns, in a large cave of big stones allround her, with a little fire in one corner of it; and she also saw thatthe lady was only Eilian, her former servant-girl, whilst with the othereye she beheld the finest place she had ever seen. " More terrible still, in another story, evidently influenced by the Welsh Methodist revival, the unhappy woman beheld "herself surrounded by fearful flames; theladies and gentlemen looked like devils, and the children appeared likethe most hideous imps of hell, though with the other parts of her eyesall looked grand and beautiful as before. "[35]

However disturbing these visions may have been, the nurse was generallydiscreet enough to maintain perfect silence upon them until she got backto the safety of her own home. But it is not very surprising if hertongue sometimes got the better of her, as in a story obtained byProfessor Rhys at Ystrad Meurig. There the heroine said to the elf-ladyin the evening, as she was dressing the infant: "You have had a greatmany visitors to-day. " To this the lady sharply replied: "How do youknow that? Have you been putting the ointment to your eyes?" Thereuponshe jumped out of bed, and blew into her eyes, saying: "Now you will seeno more. " The woman could never afterwards see the fairies, nor was theointment entrusted to her again. So in the Cornish tale of Cherry ofZennor, that young damsel, being hired by a fairy widower to keep housefor him, has the assurance to fall in love with him. She touches her owneyes with the unguent kept for anointing the eyes of her master's littleboy, and in consequence catches her master kissing a lovely lady. Whenhe next attempts to kiss Cherry herself she slaps his face, and, madwith jealousy, lets slip the secret. No fairy widower with anyself-respect could put up with such conduct as this; and Cherry has toquit Fairyland. Her parents had supposed her dead; and when she returnedthey believed at first it was her ghost. Indeed, it is said she wasnever afterwards right in her head; and on moonlight nights, until shedied, she would wander on to the Lady Downs to look for her master. [36]

The earliest writer who mentions a story of this type is Gervase ofTilbury, marshal of the kingdom of Arles, who wrote about the beginningof the thirteenth century. He professes to have himself met with a womanof Arles who was one day washing clothes on the banks of the Rhone, whena wooden bowl floated by her. In trying to catch it, she got out of herdepth and was seized by a Drac. The Dracs were beings who haunted thewaters of rivers and dwelt in the deep pools, appearing often on thebanks and in the towns in human form. The woman in question was carrieddown beneath the stream, and, like Cherry of Zennor, made nurse to hercaptor's son. One day the Drac gave her an eel pasty to eat. Her fingersbecame greasy with the fat; and she happened to put them to one of hereyes. Forthwith she acquired a clear and distinct vision under thewater. After some years she was allowed to return to her husband andfamily; and going early one morning to the market-place of Beaucaire, she met the Drac. Recognizing him at once, she saluted him and askedafter the health of his wife and child. "With which eye do you see me?"inquired the Drac. The woman pointed to the eye she had touched with theeel-fat; and thrusting his finger into it, the Drac vanished fromsight. [37]

The only punishment suffered in these cases is the deprivation of thepower of seeing fairies, or banishment from their society. This seemsmild enough: much more was generally inflicted. The story first quotedrelates what seems to be the ordinary form of vengeance for disregard ofthe prohibition to use the fairy eye-salve, namely, loss of sight in theoffending eye. Spitting or striking is usually the means adopted by theelves to effect this end. Sometimes, however, the eye is torn from itssocket. Whether there is much to choose between these different ways ofundergoing the punishment is doubtful; but it should be noted that thelast-mentioned mode is a favourite one in Brittany, and follows not somuch on recognition as on denunciation by the virtuous mortal of theelf's thieving propensities. "See what thieves these fairies are!" crieda woman who watched one of them putting her hand into the pocket of acountry woman's apron. The fairy instantly turned round and tore out hereye. "Thieves!" bawled another on a similar occasion, with the sameresult. In a Cornish tale a woman is entrusted in her own house with thecare of an elf-child. The child brought remarkable prosperity to thehouse, and his foster-mother grew very fond of him. Finding that acertain water in which she was required to wash his face made it verybright, she determined to try it on her own, and splashed some of itinto her eye. This conferred the gift of seeing the little people, whoplayed with her boy, but had hitherto been invisible to her; and one dayshe was surprised to meet her nursling's father in the market--stealing. Recognition followed, and the stranger exclaimed:

 "Water for elf, not water for self, You've lost your eye, your child, and yourself. "

From that hour she was blind in the right eye. When she got home the boywas gone; and she and her husband, who had once been so happy, becamepoor and wretched. [38]

Here poverty and wretchedness, as well as the loss of an eye, wereinflicted. In a Northumbrian case the foster-parent lost his charge andboth eyes. So in a story from Guernsey, the midwife, on the Saturdayfollowing her attendance on the lady, meets the husband and father in ashop filling his basket to right and left. She at once comprehends theplenty that reigned in his mysterious dwelling. "Ah, you wicked thief, Isee you!" she cried. "You see me; how?" he inquired. "With my eyes, " shereplied. "In that case I will soon put you out of power to play thespy, " he answered. So saying, he spat in her face, and she became blindon the spot. A Danish story also relates that a midwife, who hadinadvertently anointed her eyes with the salve handed to her by theelf-folk for the usual purpose, was going home afterwards and passed bya rye-field. The field was swarming with elves, who were busy clippingoff the ears of rye. Indignantly she cried out: "What are you doingthere?" The little people thronged round her, and angrily answered: "Ifthou canst see us, thus shalt thou be served;" and suiting the action tothe word, they put out her eyes. [39]

Human beings, however, betray their meddling with fairy ointment inother ways than by speech. The following curious story was related ascurrent at his native place, by Dr. Carré of St. Jacut-de-la-Mer, to M. Sébillot. A fisherman from St. Jacut was the last to return one eveningat dusk from the scene of his labours; and as he walked along the wetsand of the seashore, he suddenly came upon a number of sea-fairies in acavern, talking and gesticulating with vivacity, though he could nothear what they said. He beheld them rub their eyes and bodies with asort of pomade, when, lo! their appearance changed, and they wereenabled to walk away in the guise of ordinary women. Hiding carefullybehind a large rock, he watched them out of sight; and then, impelled bycuriosity, he made straight for the cave. There he found what was leftof the pomade, and taking a little on his finger, he smeared it aroundhis left eye. By this means he found himself able to penetrate thevarious disguises assumed by the fairies for the purpose of robbing orannoying mankind. He recognized as one of that mischievous race abeggar-woman whom he saw a few days afterwards going from door to doordemanding charity. He saw her casting spells on certain houses, andpeering eagerly into all, as if she were seeking for something to steal. He distinguished, too, when out in his boat, fish which were real fishfrom fish which were in reality "ladies of the sea, " employed inentangling the nets and playing other tricks upon the seamen. Attendingthe fair of Ploubalay, he saw several elves who had assumed the shapesof fortune-tellers, showmen, or gamblers, to deceive the country folk;and this permitted him to keep clear of their temptations. But as hesmiled to himself at what was going on around him, some of the elves, who were exhibiting themselves on a platform in front of one of thebooths, caught sight of him; and he saw by the anger in their looks thatthey had divined his secret. Before he had time to fly, one of them, with the rapidity of an arrow, struck his clairvoyant eye with a stickand burst it. That is what happened to him who would learn the secretsof the sea-fairies. [40]

Such was the punishment of curiosity; nor is it by fairies alone thatcuriosity is punished. Cranmere Pool on Dartmoor is, we are told, agreat penal settlement for refractory spirits. Many of the formerinhabitants of the parish are supposed to be still there expiating theirghostly pranks. Of the spirit of one old farmer it is related that ittook seven clergymen to secure him. They, however, succeeded at last intransforming him into a colt, which was given in charge to a servant-boywith directions to take him to Cranmere Pool, and there on the brink ofthe pool to slip off the halter and return instantly without lookinground. He did look round, in spite of the warning, and beheld the coltin the form of a ball of fire plunge into the water. But as themysterious beast plunged he gave the lad a parting kick, which knockedout one of his eyes, just as the Calender was deprived of his eye in the"Arabian Nights. " Still worse was the fate that overtook a woman, who, at midnight on New Year's Eve, when all water is turned into wine, wasfoolhardy enough to go to a well. As she bent over it to draw, one cameand plucked out her eye, saying:

 "All water is wine, And thy two eyes are mine. "

A variant of the story relates that the woman herself disappeared, andgives the rhyme as

 "All water is wine, And what is thereby is mine. "[41]

At the end of the last chapter we noted as a characteristic of fairynature the objection to be recognized and addressed by men who areprivileged to see them. We are now able to carry the generalization astep further. For, from the instances adduced in the foregoing pages, itis obviously a common belief that supernatural personages, withoutdistinction, dislike not merely being recognized and addressed, but evenbeing seen, or at all events being watched, and are only willing to bemanifested to humanity at their own pleasure and for their own purposes. In the stories of the Magical Ointment it is not so much the theft asthe contravention of the implicit prohibition against prying into fairybusiness that rouses elfin anger. This will appear more clearly from thefuller consideration of cases like those mentioned in the lastparagraph, in which punishment follows directly upon the act of spying. In Northamptonshire, we learn that a man whose house was frequented byfairies, and who had received many favours from them, became smittenwith a violent desire to behold his invisible benefactors. Accordingly, he one night stationed himself behind a knot in the door which dividedthe living-room of his cottage from the sleeping-apartment. True totheir custom, the elves came to disport themselves on hiscarefully-swept hearth, and to render to the household their usual goodoffices. But no sooner had the man glanced upon them than he becameblind; and so provoked were the fairies at this breach of hospitalitythat they deserted his dwelling, and never more returned to it. InSouthern Germany and Switzerland, a mysterious lady known as DameBerchta is reputed to be abroad on Twelfth Night. She is admittedly therelic of a heathen goddess, one of whose attributes was to be a leaderof the souls of the dead; and as such she is followed by a band ofchildren. For her the peasants on Twelfth Night set a repast, of which, if she be pleased, she and her troop partake. A servant boy at apeasant's farm in the Tirol on one such occasion perceived LadyBerchta's approach, and hid himself behind the kneading-trough to watchwhat she would do. She immediately became aware of his presence as hepeeped through a chink, and called to one of her children to go and stopthat chink. The child went and blew into it, and the boy becamestark-blind. Thus he continued for a year, nor could any doctor helphim, until an old experienced man advised him to go to the same place onthe following Twelfth-tide, and falling down on his knees behind thekneading-trough, to bewail his curiosity. He accordingly did so. DameBerchta came again, and taking pity on him, commanded one of herchildren to restore his sight. The child went and blew once more throughthe chink, and the boy saw. Berchta, however, and her weird troop he sawnot; but the food set out for them had disappeared. [42]

The tradition of the goddess Hertha lingered until recently, andperchance lingers still, in the island of Rügen. She had her dwelling, it is believed, in the Herthaburg; and often yet, in the clearmoonlight, out of the forest which enfolds that hill, a fair lady comessurrounded by her maids to bathe in the lake at its foot. After awhilethey emerge from the waters, and, wrapt again in their long white veils, they vanish flickering among the trees. But to the belated wanderer, ifany such there be, who looks upon this scene, it is a vision of dread;for he is drawn by irresistible might to the lake wherein the white ladyis bathing, to be swallowed up in its depths. And it is said that everyyear the lady must lure one unhappy mortal into the flood. So in theclassic mythology, if Ovid report aright, Actæon met the fearful fate oftransformation into a stag by "gazing on divinity disrobed, " and wastorn in pieces by his own hounds. Hertha was, indeed, according toTacitus, more terrible than Diana, since death was the penalty even whenduty called her slaves to the awful sight. [43]

These traditions have led us away from the Magical Ointment, which thusappears to be only one aspect of the larger theme of the objection onthe part of supernatural beings to human prying. Nor need we regrethaving strayed; for we are brought naturally to one of the mostinteresting of our national legends, namely, that of Lady Godiva; and itwill well repay a little consideration. As generally told to-day itbears an unmistakable resemblance to the foregoing stories; but thereseems some difficulty in classing it with them, because Peeping Tom iswanting in the most ancient version known to us. 

Godiva, properly Godgifu, was an undoubted historical personage, thewife of Leofric, Earl of the Mercians, and mother of the Earls Morcarand Edwin, and of Edith, wife first of Gruffydd, Prince of North Wales, and afterwards of King Harold the Second. The earliest mention of herfamous ride through Coventry is by Roger of Wendover, who wrote in thebeginning of the thirteenth century, or a hundred and fifty years orthereabout after her death. His account of the matter is as follows:"The countess Godiva, who was a great lover of God's mother, longing tofree the town of Coventry from the oppression of a heavy toll, oftenwith urgent prayers besought her husband, that from regard to JesusChrist and His mother, he would free the town from that service, andfrom all other heavy burdens; and when the earl sharply rebuked her forfoolishly asking what was so much to his damage, and always forbade herevermore to speak to him on the subject; and while she, on the otherhand, with a woman's pertinacity, never ceased to exasperate her husbandon that matter, he at last made her this answer: 'Mount your horse, andride naked before all the people, through the market of the town fromone end to the other, and on your return you shall have your request. 'On which Godiva replied: 'But will you give me permission if I amwilling to do it?' 'I will, ' said he. Whereupon the countess, beloved ofGod, loosed her hair and let down her tresses, which covered the wholeof her body like a veil, and then mounting her horse and attended by twoknights, she rode through the market place without being seen, excepther fair legs; and having completed the journey, she returned withgladness to her astonished husband, and obtained of him what she hadasked, for Earl Leofric freed the town of Coventry and its inhabitantsfrom the aforesaid service, and confirmed what he had done by acharter. "[44] According to the more modern version, the inhabitantswere enjoined to remain within doors, and, in the Laureate's words:

 "one low churl, compact of thankless earth, The fatal byword of all years to come, Boring a little auger-hole in fear, Peep'd--but his eyes, before they had their will, Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head, And dropt before him. So the powers who wait On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misus'd. "

It is not my business now to prove that the legend is untrue in fact, orI should insist, first, that its omission by previous writers, who referboth to Leofric and Godgifu and their various good deeds, is strongnegative testimony against it; and I should show, from a calculationmade by the late Mr. M. H. Bloxam, and founded on the record of DomesdayBook, that the population of Coventry in Leofric's time could scarcelyhave exceeded three hundred and fifty souls, all in a greater or lessdegree of servitude, and dwelling probably in wooden hovels each of asingle story, with a door, but no window. [45] There was, therefore, nomarket on the scale contemplated by Roger of Wendover, --hardly, indeed, a town through which Godgifu could have ridden; and a mere toll wouldhave been a matter of small moment when the people were all serfs. Thetale, in short, in the form given by the chronicler, could not have beentold until after Coventry had risen to wealth and importance by means ofits monastery, whereof Godgifu and her husband were the founders. Nobody, however, now asserts that Roger of Wendover's narrative is to betaken seriously. What therefore I want to point out in it is thatGodgifu's bargain was that she should ride naked _before all thepeople_. And this is what the historian understands her to have done;for he states that she rode through the market-place without beingseen, _except her fair legs_, all the rest of her body being covered byher hair like a veil. He tells us nothing about a proclamation to theinhabitants to keep within doors; and of course Peeping Tom is animpossibility in this version of the tale. 

Coventry has for generations honoured its benefactress by a periodicalprocession, wherein she is represented by a girl dressed as nearly likethe countess on her ride as the manners of the day have permitted. Whenthis procession was first instituted, is unknown. The earliest mentionof it seems to be in the year 1678. Its object then was to proclaim theGreat Fair, and Lady Godiva was merely an incident in it. The LansdowneMSS. In the British Museum contain an account of a visit to Coventry bythe "captain, lieutenant, and ancient" of the military company ofNorwich, who travelled in the Midland Counties in August 1634. Thesetourists describe St. Mary's Hall as adorned at the upper end "with richhangings, and all about with fayre pictures, one more especially of anoble lady (the Lady Godiva) whose memory they have cause not to forget, for that shee purchas'd and redeem'd their lost infringed liberties andffreedomes, and obtained remission of heavy tributes impos'd upon them, by undertaking a hard and unseemly task, w'ch was to ride naked openlyat high noone day through the city on a milk-white steed, w'ch shewillingly performed, according to her lord's strict injunction. It maybe very well discussed heere whether his hatred or her love exceeded. Her fayre long hayre did much offend the wanton's glancing eye. " In thisrecord we have no additional fact except the mention of "high noone day"as the time of the journey; for the allusion to "the wanton's glancingeye" is too vague to be interpreted of Peeping Tom, and the writer doesnot refer to any commemorative procession. It has been supposed, therefore, that the carnival times of Charles the Second both begot theprocession and tacked Peeping Tom to the legend. But it is more likelythat the procession is as old as the fair, which was held under acharter of Henry the Third, granted in 1217. Such pageants were notuncommon in municipal life, and were everywhere to the taste of thepeople. Whether Lady Godiva was a primitive part of it is anotherquestion. The mention of the procession in 1678 occurs in a manuscriptvolume of annals of the city, in a handwriting of the period. The entryin question is as follows: "31 May 1678 being the great Fair at Coventrythere was an extraordinary" [Here the bottom of the page is reached; andin turning over the chronicler has omitted a word, for on the top of thenext page we read:] "Divers of the Companies" [_i. E. _, the City Guilds]"set out each a follower, The Mayor Two, and the Sheriffs each one and 2at the publick charge, there were divers Streamers with the Companiesarms and Ja. Swinnertons Son represented Lady Godiva. "[46]

This brief entry is by no means free from ambiguity. Perhaps all that weare warranted in inferring from it is that the annual procession was, that year, of unusual splendour. Whether, as has been conjectured, itwas the first time Lady Godiva had ever made her appearance, thereseems more doubt. Apart from any evidence, there is no improbability insupposing that she may have formed part of earlier processions; thoughit may be that during the period of Puritan ascendency the show had beenneglected and the lady in particular had been discountenanced. If thisbe so, however, it is difficult to account for the manner in which herfigure is referred to by the writer, unless there were some personalreason connected with James Swinnerton, or his son, undiscoverable by usat this distance of time. 

But whatever doubt may exist as to Godiva's share in the earlyprocessions, there appears no less as to the episode of Peeping Tom. Looking out of an upper story of the King's Head, at the corner ofSmithford Street, is an oaken figure called by the name of the notorioustailor. It is in reality a statue of a man in armour, dating no furtherback than the reign of Henry the Seventh; and, as a local antiquarynotes, "to favour the posture of his leaning out of window, the armshave been cut off at the elbows. "[47] This statue, now generallybelieved to have been intended for St. George, could not have been thusappropriated and adapted to its present purpose until its originaldesign had been forgotten and the incongruity of its costume passedunrecognized. This is said to have been in 1678, when a figure, identified with the one in question, was put up in Grey Friars Lane byAlderman Owen. 

It must not be overlooked that there may have been from the first morethan one version of the legend, and that a version rejected by, orperhaps unknown to, Roger of Wendover and the writers who followed himmay have always included the order to the inhabitants to keep withindoors, of which Peeping Tom would seem to be the necessaryaccompaniment. Unfortunately, we have no evidence on this point. Theearliest record of such a version appears in one of the manuscriptvolumes already alluded to. It has not been hitherto printed; and it isso much at variance, alike with the legend preserved in the thirteenthcentury, and the poem of the nineteenth century, that I quote itentire:--"The Franchisment and Freedome of Coventry was purchased inmanner Following. Godiva the wife of Leofric Earle of Chester and Dukeof March requesting of her Lord freedome for this That Towne, obtainedthe same upon condition that she should ride naked through the same; whofor the Love she bare to the Inhabitants thereof, and the perpetuallremembrance of her Great Affection thereunto, performed the same asFolloweth. In the forenoone all householders were Commanded to keep intheir Families shutting their doores and windows close whilst theDutchess performed this good deed, which done she rode naked through themidst of the Towne, without any other Coverture save only her hair. Butabout the midst of the Citty her horse neighed, whereat one desirous tosee the strange Case lett downe a Window, and looked out, for which factor for that the Horse did neigh, as the cause thereof, Though all theTowne were Franchised, yet horses were not toll-free to this day. "[48]

The manuscript in which this passage occurs is copied from an oldermanuscript which appears to have been compiled in the sixteenthcentury. Unfortunately, however, the latter is imperfect, a leaf havingbeen torn out at this very point. We cannot, therefore, say withcertainty that the account of the famous ride was ever comprised in it. But the expressions made use of imply that the windows were closed withshutters rather than glass, and that they were opened by letting downthe shutters, which were either loose or affixed by a hinge to thebottom sills. It is a question exactly at what period glass came intogeneral use for windows in the burgesses' houses at Coventry. Downalmost to the middle of the fifteenth century all glass was imported;and consequently it was not so common in the midlands as near the coast, especially the south-eastern coast. We shall probably be on the safeside if we assume that in the early years of the sixteenth century, atall events, the ordinary dwelling-house at Coventry was no longerdestitute of this luxury. It would seem, therefore, that the story, inthe form here given, cannot be later, and may be much earlier, than thelatter years of the fifteenth century. 

Failing definite evidence to carry us back further, it becomes ofimportance to inquire whether there are any traditions in other placesfrom which we may reason. In the "History of Gloucestershire, " printedby Samuel Rudder of Cirencester in 1779, we read that the parishionersof St. Briavels, hard by the Forest of Dean, "have a custom ofdistributing yearly upon Whitsunday, after divine service, pieces ofbread and cheese to the congregation at church, to defray the expensesof which every householder in the parish pays a penny to thechurchwardens; and this is said to be for the privilege of cutting andtaking the wood in Hudnolls. The tradition is that the privilege wasobtained of some Earl of Hereford, then lord of the Forest of Dean, atthe instance of his lady, upon the same hard terms that Lady Godivaobtained the privileges for the citizens of Coventry. " It appears thatRudder, while in the main accurately relating both custom and tradition, has made the mistake of supposing that the payment was made to thechurchwardens, whereas it was in all probability made to the constableof the castle of St. Briavels as warden of the Forest of Dean. Thecustom is now in a late stage of decadence, and local inquiries havefailed to elicit any further details throwing light on the point underconsideration. [49]

I am not aware of any other European tradition that will bear comparisonwith that of Godiva, but Liebrecht relates that he remembers in hisyouth, about the year 1820, in a German newspaper, a story according towhich a countess frees her husband's subjects from a heavy punishmentimposed by him. She undertakes to walk a certain course clad only in hershift, and she performs it, but clad in a shift of iron. [50] Thecondition is here eluded rather than fulfilled; and the point of thestory is consequently varied. It would be interesting to have the taleunearthed from the old newspaper, and to know where its scene was laid, and whether it was a genuine piece of folklore. 

Eastern tales, however, furnish us repeatedly with incidents in which alady parades the streets of a city, and during her progress all folk arebidden to close their shops and withdraw into their houses on pain ofdeath. The example of the Princess Badroulbadour will occur to everyreader of the "Arabian Nights. " This, however, is by no means a solitaryexample. In the story of Kamar Al-Zaman and the Jeweller's Wife, one ofthe stories of the "Nights" rejected on moral grounds by Lane, buttranslated by Burton, a dervish relates that he chanced one Friday toenter the city of Bassorah, and found the streets deserted. The shopswere open; but neither man nor woman, girl nor boy, dog nor cat was tobe seen. By and by he heard a sound of drums, and hiding himself in acoffee-house, he looked out through a crevice and saw forty pairs ofslave girls, with uncovered heads and faces displayed, come walkingthrough the market, and in their midst a lady riding unveiled andadorned with gold and gems. In front of her was a damsel bearing inbaldric a great sword with haft of emerald and tassels ofjewel-encrusted gold. Pausing close to the dervish, the lady said to hermaidens: "I hear a noise of somewhat within yonder shop; so do ye searchit, lest haply there be one hidden there, with intent to enjoy a look atus while we have our faces unveiled. " Accordingly they searched the shopopposite the coffee-house, and brought forth a man. At the lady'scommand the damsel with the sword smote off his head, and leaving thecorpse lying on the ground, the procession swept on. It turned out thatthe lady was the wife of a jeweller to whom the King of Bassorah wasdesirous of granting a boon, and at her request the boon obtained was aproclamation commanding that all the townsfolk should every Friday enterthe mosques two hours before the hour of prayer, so that none mightabide in the town, great or small, unless they were in the mosques or inthe houses with the doors locked upon them; but all the shops were to beleft open. Then the lady had permission to ride with her slave-womenthrough the heart of the town, and none were to look on her from windowor lattice; and every one whom she found abroad she was at liberty tokill. A similar incident is related in the life of Kurroglú, therobber-poet of Persia, where a beautiful princess passes in statethrough the bazaars every Friday on her way to the mosque, while all themen are banished. [51] Here, again, some one was of course found playingthe spy. 

A version of the incident, which can be traced further back in literaryform than either of the foregoing, occurs in the "Ardshi-Bordshi. " Thisbook is a Mongolian recension of a Sanskrit collection of storiesconcerning Vikramâditya, a monarch who, if he ever lived, seems to haveflourished about the beginning of the Christian era. He was celebrated, like Solomon, for his wisdom and his might; and his name became thecentre of a vast accretion of legends. Some of these legends weretranslated into Mongolian late in the Middle Ages, and formed a smallcollection called after Ardshi-Bordshi, the nominal hero. In the storyto which I wish to direct attention, a certain king has a daughterbearing the name of Sunshine, of whom he was so jealous that if any onelooked upon her his eyes were put out, and the man who entered herapartments had his legs broken. Naturally, the young lady got tired ofbeing thus immured, and complained to her father that, as she had noopportunity of seeing man or beast, the time hung heavily on her hands;and she begged him to let her go out on the fifteenth of the month andlook about her. The king agreed to this; but, the sly old rascal!nothing was further from his intention than to gratify his daughter'slonging for masculine converse. Wherefore he issued a decree that allobjects for sale were to be exposed openly to the view, all cattle to beleft indoors, the men and women were to withdraw into their houses andclose their doors and windows, and if any one came forth he should beseverely punished. On the appointed day, Sunshine, surrounded by herladies, and seated in a brand-new chariot, drove through the town, andviewed the merchandise and goods exposed for sale. The king had aminister, named Moon, who could not restrain his curiosity; and hepeeped at her from a balcony. The princess, as he did so, caught sightof him and made signs to him, which were interpreted by the penetrationof his wife to be an invitation to meet her clandestinely. The wifehardly displayed what most ladies would deem "a proper spirit" inadvising compliance; and the consequence of taking that advice wouldhave been serious trouble both to himself and to the princess, had itnot been for the ready wit of the two women, who got over the difficultyby contriving an ingenious equivocation not unknown in other stories, bywhich the princess cleared herself and her lover on oath. [52]

It is true that in these tales the lady who rides forth is not naked;but to ride openly and unveiled would be thought almost as immodest incountries where strict seclusion is imposed upon women. All these talesinclude the Peeping Tom incident; and it appears, indeed, so obvious acorollary to the central thought of Lady Godiva's adventure that it ishardly likely to have required centuries for its evolution. From sometraditions, however, it is absent. A story belonging to the Cinderellacycle, found at Smyrna, relates that when a certain king desired tomarry his own daughter, the maiden, by the advice of her Fate, demandedas the price of compliance three magnificent dresses. Having obtainedthese, she asked permission to go unseen (like Badroulbadour) to thebath. The king, to gratify her, forbade his subjects on pain of death toopen their shops or to show themselves in the streets while she passedby. She thus got an opportunity of escaping from the city, of which shedid not fail to make use, --greatly, no doubt, to her unnatural father'sdisgust. An Indian tradition also tells us that the inhabitants ofChamba were under the necessity of digging a canal for irrigation, butwhen it was dug, owing to the enchantments of an evil spirit, not adrop of water could be got to flow along its course. A magician at lastfound out that the spell could be dissolved if the beautiful andvirtuous young princess of Chamba would consent to traverse a givendistance of the plain entirely naked, in full view of the populace, andto lose her head when the journey was accomplished. After muchhesitation, her compassion triumphed over her shame; and she undertookthe task. But lo! as she advanced, a thick line of young trees arose toright and left, completely hiding her from cynical eyes. And the shadycanal is shown to-day by the good people of Chamba as one of the mostauthentic monuments of their history. [53]

So far the stories. Concerning which it must be observed that they areevidence that the myth of Lady Godiva is widely diffused in the East, and that the spy is usually, though not always, part of the tale. TheSmyrnoean version must probably be thrown out of the reckoning. It is, asI have already mentioned, a variant of the Cinderella cycle. The problemof the plot is how to get the heroine unseen out of her father'sclutches. This is commonly effected by the simple mechanism of adisguise and a night escape. Other methods, I need not now detail, are, however, sometimes adopted; and the excuse of going to the bath, withthe order to the people to close their shops and keep within doors, would seem to reveal nothing more than the unconscious influence ofAladdin or some other of the Eastern stories. Throwing this out, then, as accidental, an overwhelming proportion of the analogues citedcontains the spy. It would be dangerous to reason on the suppositionthat the proportions of all the Asiatic variants extant correspond withthose of the variants cited; but we are at liberty to assume that alarge number, if not the majority, comprise the incident of PeepingTom. None of them was known in Europe until Galland published histranslation of the "Arabian Nights" in the year 1704--upwards of twocenturies later than the latest period at which the story as given inthe Coventry manuscript can have come into existence. 

But the stories, though they may go a little way to help us in regard tothe incident of Peeping Tom, throw no light on the origin of the legend, or of the procession. Let us therefore turn to one or two curiousreligious ceremonies, which may have some bearing upon it. A potentspell to bring rain was reported as actually practised during theGorakhpur famine of 1873-4. It consisted of a gang of women strippingthemselves perfectly naked, and going out by night to drag the ploughacross a field. The men were kept carefully out of the way, as it wasbelieved that peeping by them would not only vitiate the spell, butbring trouble on the village. It would not be a long step from thisbelief to a story in which peeping was alleged to have taken place withdisastrous effects, either to the village, or (by favour of the deitiesintended to be propitiated) to the culprit himself. At the festival ofthe local goddess in the village of Serúr, in the Southern Mahrattacountry, the third and fourth days are devoted to private offerings. Many women, we are told, on these days walk naked to the temple infulfilment of vows, "but they were covered with leaves and boughs oftrees, and surrounded by their female relations and friends. "[54]

The performance of religious rites by women alone, when men are requiredunder heavy penalties to absent themselves, is, indeed, not veryuncommon in savage life. Nor is it confined to savage life. When Romewas at the height of her civilization and her triumphs, the festival ofthe Bona Dea was rendered notorious by the divorce of Cæsar's wife andby legal proceedings against an aristocratic scoundrel, who, for thepurposes of an intrigue with her, had violated the sacred ceremonies. The Bona Dea, or Good Goddess, was a woodland deity, the daughter andwife of Faunus. Her worship had descended from a remote antiquity; andher annual festival was held in the month of December, and was attendedonly by women. The matrons of the noblest families of Rome met by nightin the house of the highest official of the state to perform thetraditional ceremonies of the goddess, and to pray for the well-being ofthe Roman people. Only women, and those of the most unsullied character, were permitted to attend; and the breach of this rule by Clodius, disguised in woman's garb, constituted a heinous offence against thestate, from the penalties of which he only escaped, if we may believeCicero, by bribing the judges. [55]

At the village of Southam, not far from Coventry, another procession inhonour of Godiva formerly took place. Very little is known about it now, save one singular fact, namely, that there were two Godivas in thecavalcade, and one of them was black. Southam was part of the propertypossessed by Earl Leofric; and it has been suggested that this is enoughto account for the commemoration of Godgifu. It would no doubt be anexcellent reason for affixing her renowned name to a periodical ceremonyalready performed there. But it would hardly be a reason forcommemorating her extortion of privileges in which the inhabitants ofSoutham did not share; and it would leave the black lady unexplained. She may, indeed, have been a mere travesty, though the hypothesis wouldbe anything but free from difficulty. Here, again, if we have recourseto the comparison of ceremonies, we may obtain some light. Among thetribes of the Gold Coast of Africa the wives of men who have gone to warmake a daily procession through the town. They are stark naked, paintedall over with white, and decorated with beads and charms. Any man who isfound in the town is attacked and driven away. And on the occasion of abattle the women imitate the actions the men are thought to beperforming, with guns, sticks, and knives. The Gold Coast is a long wayoff; but not only do black women there paint themselves white in theirsacred rites, white women in Britain have painted themselves, if notblack, at least a dark blue. Pliny records that both matrons andunmarried girls among the Britons in the first century of the Christianera were in the habit of staining themselves all over with the juice ofthe woad; and he adds that, thus rivalling the swarthy hue of theÆthiopians, they go on these occasions in a state of nature. We aresometimes taught that when the English invaded Britain, the natives whomthey found here were all driven out or massacred. There are, however, many reasons for doubting that this wholesale destruction was ascomplete as has been imagined. The name of Coventry betrays in itstermination a Celtic element; and this could hardly have entered into ithad there not been in the neighbourhood a considerable British-speakingpopulation. What is more likely than that at Southam this populationcontinued and preserved its customs, and that one of such customs wasthat very religious rite of which Pliny speaks? Unhappily he tells usnothing about the rite itself, nor the deity in whose honour it wasperformed. But it would not involve a great stretch of fancy to supposethat in the black lady of Southam we have a survival of the performance. It is not too much to say that this explanation would have the merit ofbeing intelligible and adequate. [56]

In all countries ceremonies of a special character are usually dramatic. They represent, or are believed to represent, actions of the divinitiesin whose honour they are performed. The rites of the Bona Dea, we know, were of this kind; and they consequently degenerated into orgies of ashameful character. The Coventry procession is admittedly arepresentation of Godgifu's ride. It is not now, nor has it been so longas we have any records of it--that is to say for two hundredyears--connected with any professed act of worship; but this is notincompatible with its being the long-descended relic of some suchobservance as those I have described. The introduction of Christianitydid not annihilate the older cults. The new religion incorporated someof them; and although the rest were no longer regarded as sacred, thefeeling of obligation remained attached to them for centuries. They weresecularized, and ultimately degraded for the most part into burlesque. Such as were connected with municipal life, or, as we shall see in afuture chapter, with family life, retained a measure of solemnity longafter it had passed away from rites which had been abandoned to anunorganized mob. This is well illustrated by the contrast between theceremonial at Coventry (whatever its origin) and that at St. Briavels. The stronger hand of a municipality would have a restraining powerwanting to that of a village community, or a parish--especially if thelatter had been governed by a lord, who in later times had been shorn ofhis authority, or had ceased to reside among, or take an interest in theaffairs of, his tenantry. Something like this I take to have been thehistory of St. Briavels. There does not appear from Rudder's account tohave been, in his time at least, any pageant commemorative of theachievement of the lady to whom the parishioners reckoned themselves toowe their privileges; nor have I been able to trace one by localinquiries. But the tradition is at St. Briavels unmistakably connectedwith a religious and social rite. The distribution of food on a day ofhigh and holy festival in the church to the congregation, and paid forby a levy upon every householder in the parish, can point to nothingelse than a feast of the whole community as a solemn act of worship. Itsdegeneracy in more recent times has been thus described to me by theRev. W. Taprell Allen:--"For many years it was customary to bring to thechurch on Whitsunday afternoon baskets of the stalest bread and hardestcheese, cut up into small pieces the size of dice. Immediately after theservice the bread and cheese were scrambled for in the church, and itwas a custom to use them as pellets, the parson coming in for his shareas he left the pulpit. About 1857, or perhaps a year or two later, theunseemly custom was transferred from the church to the churchyard, thebread and cheese being thrown down from the church tower. Later on itwas transferred to the road outside the church gates. It now lasts but afew minutes. A few years ago all the roughs of the Forest used to comeover, and there was much drinking and fighting; but now it is verydifferent. The custom has in fact been dying out. " From these laterstages of decay the Godiva pageant was saved by becoming a municipalfestival. And while at St. Briavels we can watch the progress ofdegeneration from a point at which the religious character of theceremony had not quite vanished, down to the most unblushing burlesque, and to its ultimate expulsion from consecrated precincts, --at Coventrywe see but one phase, one moment, at which the rite, if it ever had anytitle to that name, seems to have been photographed and renderedpermanent. 

It is obvious, however, that a feast is not a dramatic representation ofa ride; and the point requiring elucidation is the intimate relation ofthe feast at St. Briavels with a story apparently so irrelevant as thatof the countess' ride. To explain this, we must suppose that the feastwas only part--doubtless the concluding part--of a ceremony, and thatthe former portion was a procession, of which the central figure wasidentical with that familiar to us at Coventry. But such a procession, terminating in a sacred feast, would have had no meaning if the nakedlady represented a creature merely of flesh and blood. It is onlyexplicable on the hypothesis that she was the goddess of a heathen cult, such as Hertha (or Nerthus), whose periodical progress among her subjecttribes is described in a well-known passage by Tacitus, [57] and yetsurvives, as we have seen, in the folklore of Rügen. Now the historiantells us that Hertha was Mother Earth, the goddess of the soil, whoseyearly celebration would appropriately take place in the spring or earlysummer. To her the produce of the land would be ascribed; and in hername and by her permission would all agricultural operations beperformed. Such a goddess it must be who is honoured by the ceremoniesalready noticed in India. Such a goddess, at any rate, was the Bona Dea;and to such a goddess we may readily believe would be ascribed theprivilege of cutting wood. It is quite consistent with this that thepayment by every household at St. Briavels should be made to the wardenof the forest, and that it should be spent by him on the goddess'festival. We are left to surmise what were the tolls and burdens atCoventry, so vaguely referred to by Roger of Wendover. Pigs and horses, we learn from two different sources, were not included in the exemptionsobtained by the countess; and the reason for this in the latter case isaccounted for by the incident of Peeping Tom. 

One other point is worthy of mention: both at St. Briavels and atCoventry the commemoration takes place nearly at the same time of year. The Great Fair at Coventry opens on the day after Corpus ChristiDay--that is to say, the Friday after Trinity Sunday. Corpus Christi Dayitself was the day on which the celebrated Coventry Miracle Plays wereperformed; and the Fair opened the next morning. At the same time ofyear too--namely, on Ascension Day--a custom, for which there is noexplanation in any record, was observed at St. Michael's Church, York, when ale and bread and cheese were yearly given away in the church tothe poor of the parish. [58] Although Ascension Day is separated by threeweeks from Corpus Christi, the movable character of the feasts wouldbridge this gulf without any difficulty; and heathen observances of thesame nature, and referring to the same season, when they had to bereconciled to the Christian calendar, might easily find places in someinstances on one day and in others on another day. Godgifu and herhusband were honoured as founders of the Benedictine monastery atCoventry, which rose upon the ruins of an earlier house of Benedictinenuns founded by Osburg, a lady of the royal house, nearly two hundredyears before. This nunnery had been destroyed in the Danish wars aboutthe year 1016. Consequently, if any legend, or ceremony, was known orpractised at Coventry in connection with some traditional patroness, thename of Godgifu was ready to hand to be identified with it. Through themonastery Coventry first rose to wealth and repute; and the townsfolk onthis score owed a debt of gratitude to the foundress, though there is norecord whether any special day was set apart in her honour. 

On the whole, then, there is ground for supposing that the legend andprocession of Lady Godiva are survivals of a pagan belief and worshiplocated at Coventry; that the legend was concerned with a being awfuland mysterious as Dame Berchta, or Hertha herself; and that the incidentof Peeping Tom was from the first, or at all events from an early date, part of the story. The evidence upon which these conclusions rest may beshortly recapitulated thus:--

1. The absence of historical foundation for the tradition. 

2. The close resemblance between the tradition and other stories andsuperstitions which unquestionably deal with heathen goddesses, such asBerchta and Hertha. 

3. The equally close analogy between the procession and that describedin Eastern stories, which, so far as we know, could not have reachedEngland at the latest period when the procession could possibly havebeen instituted; and between the procession and certain heathen ritespractised not only in the East, but as near home as Rome andGermany, --nay, in Britain itself. 

4. The occurrence of a similar procession at Southam, in the samecounty, having the special feature of a black lady, best explained as asurvival of certain rites practised by the ancient Britons. 

5. The connection between the analogous legend at St. Briavel's and theremains of a sacred communal feast that can hardly be anything else thanthe degraded remnant of a pagan observance. 

The want of historical evidence cannot, of course, be overlooked; but wemust remember that in investigating traditions and traditionalobservances we are dealing with a phase of civilization of which historyonly yields rare and indirect glimpses. It is the absence of directevidence that, not only in the science of Folklore, but also in thephysical sciences, causes resort to the evidence afforded by comparisonof other structures and processes. On the validity of this evidence, andthe reasoning based upon it, nearly all our scientific learning depends. In spite, therefore, of the defects in the historical evidence, and inthe absence of evidence to the contrary, it can scarcely be denied thatthe analogies in both custom and legend here brought together amount toa fairly strong presumption in favour of the conclusions I have venturedto draw from them. 

If I may formulate my conjecture as to the course of developmentactually pursued, it would be something like this. The ceremony atCoventry is a survival of an annual rite in honour of a heathen goddess, from which men were excluded. This rite, like all such, would have beena part of the tribal cult, and intimately associated with the triballife and organization. Side by side with it a myth would have beenevolved, accounting for the performance as a dramatic representation ofan event in the goddess' career. This myth would have been similar inoutline to those recited above, and would have comprised an explanationof the exclusion of men. When Christianity spread through the districtthe inhabitants would still cling to their old custom and their oldmyth, as we know was done elsewhere, because it was bound up with theirsocial life. But, if not violently put down by the rulers of the land, both custom and myth would, little by little, lose their sacredcharacter as the new religion increased in influence, and would becometransformed into municipal ceremonies. This process would be slow, centuries being required for its completion; but it would be aided bythe gradual development of the tribe first into a settled villagecommunity, and thence into a mediæval township. With the loss ofsanctity the reason for prohibiting the attendance of men would vanish;but the tradition of it would be preserved in the incident of the storywhich narrated Peeping Tom's treachery. [59]

FOOTNOTES:

[33] Mrs. Bray, vol. I. P. 174. 

[34] "Revue Celtique, " vol. I. P. 231; Keightley, p. 312, citing "TheLocal Historian's Table-Book, " by M. A. Richardson. Cromek, p. 242; "YCymmrodor, " vol. Iv. P. 209; "Revue des Trad. Pop. " vol. Iii. P. 426;"Revue Celtique, " vol. I. P. 232. 

[35] Sébillot, "Contes, " vol. Ii. P. 34; "Revue des Trad. Pop. " vol. Iii. P. 428; Sébillot, "Litt. Orale, " p. 21; Kennedy, p. 106; Keightley, p. 311; "Y Cymmrodor, " vol. Vi. P. 166; Wirt Sikes, p. 87. This storypurports to be quoted from Howells, p. 349--an impossible reference, seeing that the volume in question only contains 194 pages. Thepeculiarities of Mr. Sikes' authorities, however, need very littlecomment. 

[36] "Y Cymmrodor, " vol. Vi. P. 194; Hunt, p. 120. 

[37] Gerv. Tilb. _Dcc. _ iii. C. 85. 

[38] Sébillot, "Contes, " vol. Ii. P. 42; "Litt. Orale, " p. 23; "Trad. EtSuper. " p. 109. But in these cases the operation was performedpainlessly enough, for the victims were unaware of their loss until theycame to look in the glass. In one of Prof. Rhys' stories the eye ispricked with a green rush; "Y Cymmrodor, " vol. Vi. P. 178: Hunt, p. 83. See also Sébillot, "Contes, " vol. I. P. 119. 

[39] Keightley, p. 310; "Revue des Trad. Pop. " vol. Iii. P. 426; Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 129, quoting Thiele. In another Danish tale given on thesame page, the woman's blindness is attributed to her having divulgedwhat she had seen in Fairyland. 

[40] Sébillot, "Litt. Orale, " p. 24. 

[41] "Choice Notes, " p. 170; Thorpe, vol. Iii. P. 8. The latter form ofthe story seems more usual. See Gredt, pp. 28, 29, where we are plainlytold that the hapless mortals are fetched away by the devil. 

[42] Sternberg, p. 132 (see also Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 12); Von Alpenburg, p. 63. See a similar story in Grimm, "Teut. Myth. " p. 276, from Börner, "Folk-tales of the Orlagau. " In the latter case, however, the punishmentseems to have been inflicted for jeering. 

[43] Jahn, p. 177, quoting Temme, "Volkssagen"; Ovid, "Metam. " l. Iii. Fab. 3; Tacitus, "Germ. " c. 40. 

[44] Roger of Wendover, "Flowers of History, " sub anno 1057. I quotefrom Dr. Giles' translation. 

[45] See his Presidential Address to the Warwickshire Naturalists' andArchæologists' Field Club, 1886. 

[46] MS. Marked D. This entry is an interpolation in a list of mayorsand sheriffs in a different handwriting. There are several suchinterpolations in the volume. Coventry possesses a number of MS. Volumesof annals, one of which (see below) seems to date from the latter partof the sixteenth century, and the rest from the latter part of theseventeenth. In the MS. Marked F. (considered by Mr. W. G. Fretton, F. S. A. , to be in the handwriting of John Tipper, of Bablake, Coventry, aschoolmaster and local antiquary at the end of the seventeenth andbeginning of the eighteenth centuries), and also in the MS. In theBritish Museum (Additional MSS. 11, 364), the entry runs simply:--"1678Michaell Earle (Mercer) Mayor; Francis Clark, George Allatt, Sherriffs. This year y^e severall Companies had new streamers, and attended y^eMayor to proclaim y^e faire, and each company cloathed one boy or two toaugment y^e show. " The latter MS. Elsewhere speaks of the story ofGodiva's ride as "comonly known, and yearly comemorated by the Mayor, Aldermen, and y^e severall companies. "

[47] This statue used to be decked out on the occasion of the processionin the long peruke and neckcloth of the reign of Charles II. See T. Ward, "Collections for the Continuation of Dugdale's Antiquities ofWarwickshire" (2 vols. , fol. MS. , Brit. Mus. , Additional MSS. , Nos. 29, 264, 29, 265), vol. Ii. Fol. 143. 

[48] MS. Marked E, Coventry, seventeenth century. A careful examinationof the language of Roger of Wendover, Matthew Paris, John of Brompton, and Matthew of Westminster, shows that Roger of Wendover's account isthe source of the other three, Matthew Paris copying most closely, andJohn of Brompton most freely. John of Brompton and Matthew ofWestminster omit the escort. Their statement as to Godiva's being unseenrefers to the hair which covered her; and the latter informs us, with atouch of rhetoric, that Leofric regarded it as a miracle. 

[49] Rudder, p. 307. The Rev. W. Taprell Allen, M. A. , Vicar of St. Briavels, has been kind enough to supply me with the correction fromlocal inquiries and intimate acquaintance with the traditions andaffairs of the parish extending over many years. See also "Gent. Mag. Lib. " (Manners and Customs), p. 230. 

[50] Liebrecht, p. 104. 

[51] Burton, "Nights, " vol. Ix. P. 255; Burton, "Supp. Nights, " vol. Iii. P. 570 (Appendix by Mr. W. A. Clouston). Kurroglú flourished in thesecond half of the seventeenth century. 

[52] This story is edited by Jülg in Mongolian and German (Innsbruck, 1867). Miss Busk gives a free adaptation rather than a translation ofthe German version, "Sagas, " p. 315. Prof. De Gubernatis, "Zool. Myth. "vol. I. P. 138, of course interprets it as a sun-myth--an interpretationto which the names Sunshine and Moon, and the date of the adventure (thefifteenth of the month), lend themselves. 

[53] Von Hahn, vol. Ii. P. 225; "Tour du Monde, " vol. Xxi. P. 342, quoted by Liebrecht, p. 105. 

[54] "Panjab N. And Q. " vol. Iii. Pp. 41, 115; "Journal Ethnol. Soc. London, " N. S. , vol. I. P. 98. 

[55] The information relating to the Bona Dea has been collected byPreller, "Röm. Myth. " vol. I. P. 398; and see the authorities he hascited. 

[56] Ellis, p. 226; Pliny, "Nat. Hist. " l. Xxii. C. 1. For theinformation as to the procession at Southam I am indebted to Mr. W. G. Fretton, who formerly lived there. 

[57] "Germania, " c. 40; _cf. _ c. 9. 

[58] Nicholson, p. 32. 

[59] I am indebted to Mr. Samuel Timmins, F. S. A. , and to Mr. W. G. Fretton, F. S. A. , for a great amount of local information and otherassistance which they have spared no pains to render me, and to the TownClerk of Coventry for permission to inspect the invaluable localmanuscripts belonging to the Corporation. 

CHAPTER V. 

CHANGELINGS. 

 The belief in changelings--Precautions against changing--Motives assigned for changing--Attempts frustrated--How changelings may be known--Their physical characteristics--Devices to lead them to betray themselves--Their subsequent treatment--Journey to Fairyland to fetch back the true child--Adult changelings. 

A new-born babe, of all human beings the most helpless, has alwaysroused compassion and care. Nor is it a matter for wonder if itshelplessness against physical dangers have led to the assumption that itis exposed to spiritual or supernatural evils more than its elders. Atall events it seems a widespread superstition that a babe, when first itmakes its appearance in this world, must be protected not merely againstthe natural perils of its condition, but also against enemies of an evenmore subtle and fearful description. The shape taken by thissuperstition in north-western Europe is the belief in Changelings--abelief which I propose to examine in the present chapter. [60]

By the belief in changelings I mean a belief that fairies and otherimaginary beings are on the watch for young children, or (as we shallsee hereafter) sometimes even for adults, that they may, if they canfind them unguarded, seize and carry them off, leaving in their placeone of themselves, or a block of wood animated by their enchantments andmade to resemble the stolen person. Wise mothers take precautionsagainst such thefts. These precautions are tolerably simple, and for themost part display the same general character. First and foremost amongthem is the rite of baptism, whereby the little one is admitted into theChristian Church. Faith in the efficacy of baptism as a protection fromthe powers hostile to man is not less strong among communities nominallyProtestant than among Roman Catholics, and has doubtless operated tobring many children within the pale of the visible Church who mightotherwise have been long in reaching that sacred enclosure. Examples ofthe belief in the power of baptism against the depredations of fairiescould easily be cited from all Protestant countries. Without doing this, we may just pause to note that baptism was also reckoned a remedy fordisease. This is doubtless a relic of the old creed which refers allhuman ailments to witchcraft and other spiritualistic origins. Mr. Henderson, speaking of the notion prevalent in the north of England thatsickly infants never thrive until they are christened, relates a storycommunicated to him by a clergyman, within whose personal knowledge ithad happened. He says: "The infant child of a chimney-sweeper at Thorne, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, was in a very weak state of health, andappeared to be pining away. A neighbour looked in, and inquired if thechild had been baptized. On an answer being given in the negative, shegravely said, 'I would try having it christened. ' The counsel was taken, and I believe with success. " The same belief is found both in North andSouth Wales. It is also testified to by a Scottish clergyman, whomoreover adduces the following conversation as illustrative of it and of"an undefinable sort of awe about unbaptized infants, as well as an ideaof uncanniness in having them without baptism in the house, " which isentertained among the labouring classes in the north-east of Scotland. "Oh, sir, " said the wife of a working man to the minister, on asking himto baptize her child along with others, whose mothers were present, "this registration's the warst thing the queentry ever saw; it sud bedeen awa' wee athegeethir!" "Why?" asked the minister, in astonishmentat the woman's words and earnestness of manner. "It'll pit oot kirsninathegeethir. Ye see the craitirs gets their names, an we jist think thataneuch, an' we're in nae hurry sennin for you. " How far, as thisanecdote dimly suggests, it was the giving of a name which was supposedto protect a child, I cannot say: more probably it was the dedication toGod involved in baptism. This is countenanced by the precaution said tohave been observed in Nithsdale when a pretty child was born toconsecrate it to God, and sue for its protection by "taking the Beuk"and other acts of prayer and devotion. [61]

Putting aside such ceremonies as these which may be supposed distinctlyChristian, there were other charms looked upon as efficacious. Thus inScotland it was deemed highly judicious to keep an open Bible alwaysnear a child, and even to place the holy volume beneath the head of awoman in labour. In some parts of Germany it is enough to lay a singleleaf out of a Bible or prayer-book in the cradle, until by the baptismof the infant the danger of robbery passes away; and a prayer-book isalso placed under the pillow of the newly-made mother, who is at thattime specially liable to fall under the power of the underground folk. Indeed a prayer-book, or the mere repetition of a Paternoster, isequally valuable with a Bible for these purposes; and if, by the neglectof any of these precautions, an opportunity be given to the foe, thechild may yet be saved by the utterance of the name of Jesus Christ atthe moment when the change is being effected. Holy water and the sign ofthe cross, in Ireland, or a rosary blessed by a priest, in Picardy, enjoy a similar reputation. [62]

All these means of prevention are veneered with some sort ofChristianity; but there are others which display Heathenism naked andunblushing. While a child in Mecklenburg remains unbaptized it isnecessary to burn a light in the chamber. Nor is the superstitionconfined to one district: it is common all over Germany and Denmark; itwas once common in England; it is found in Ireland; it is found amongthe Lithuanians on the shores of the Baltic; it was practised by theancient Romans, and appears to be a relic of the sacred characteranciently imputed to fire. In the island of Lewis fire used to becarried round women before they were churched and children before theywere christened, both night and morning; and this was held effectual topreserve both mother and infant from evil spirits, and (in the case ofthe infant) from being changed. The Sad Dar, one of the sacred books ofthe Parsees, contains directions to keep a continual fire in the houseduring a woman's pregnancy, and after the child is born to burn a lampfor three nights and days--a fire, indeed, is declared to be better--"sothat the demons and fiends may not be able to do any damage and harm. "By way of enforcing this precept we are told that when Zoroaster wasborn, a demon came at the head of a hundred and fifty other demons, every night for three nights, to slay him, but they were put to flightby seeing the fire, and were consequently unable to hurt him. [63]

Iron or steel, in the shape of needles, a key, a knife, a pair of tongs, an open pair of scissors, or in any other shape, if placed in thecradle, secured the desired end. In Bulgaria a reaping-hook is placed ina corner of the room for the same purpose. I shall not stay now todiscuss the reason why supernatural beings dread and dislike iron. Theopen pair of scissors, however, it should be observed, has double power;for it is not only of the abhorred metal, --it is also in form a cross. The use of the cross in baptism was probably one of the reasons for theefficacy of that rite against felonious fairies. At all events, over avery wide area the cross is thought a potent protection; nor is thebelief by any means confined to Christian lands. Mr. Mitchell-Innestells us that the fear of changelings exists in China. "To avert thecalamity of nursing a demon, dried banana-skin is burnt to ashes, whichare then mixed with water. Into this the mother dips her finger andpaints a cross upon the sleeping babe's forehead. In a short time thedemon soul returns--for the soul wanders from the body during sleep andis free--but, failing to recognize the body thus disguised, flies off. The true soul, which has been waiting for an opportunity, now approachesthe dormant body, and, if the mark has been washed off in time, takespossession of it; but if not, it, like the demon, failing to recognizethe body, departs, and the child dies in its sleep. "[64] How to hit theexact moment between the flight of the demon and the advent of the truesoul doubtless puzzles many a Chinese mother fully as much as the crosspuzzles the two competing souls. But when she is successful she bafflesthe evil spirit by deceit, of which the cross is made the instrument;though we may well believe that the child is not disguised in this waywithout reference to the cross's inherent sanctity; for it is areligious symbol among nations who never heard the gospel of theCrucified. 

Spirits whose baleful influences are feared by man are happily easilytricked. To this guilelessness on their part must be attributed anotherstrange method of defeating their evil designs on children. It appearsto be enough to lay over the infant, or on the bed beside the mother, aportion of the father's clothes. A shepherd's wife living near Selkirkwas lying in bed one day with her new-born boy at her side, when sheheard a sound of talking and laughter in the room. Suspecting whatturned out to be the case, she seized in great alarm her husband'swaistcoat, which was lying at the foot of the bed, and flung it overherself and the child. The fairies, for it was they who were the causeof the noise, set up a loud scream, crying out: "Auld Luckie has cheatedus o' our bairnie!" Soon afterwards the woman heard something fall downthe chimney, and looking out she saw a waxen effigy of her baby, stuckfull of pins, lying on the hearth. The would-be thieves had meant tosubstitute this for the child. When her husband came home he made up alarge fire and threw the doll upon it; but, instead of burning, thething flew up the chimney amid shouts of laughter from the unseenvisitors. The suggestion seems to be that the sight of the father'sclothes leads "the good people" to think that he himself is presentwatching over his offspring. Some articles of clothing, however, seem tohave special virtue, such as a right shirt-sleeve or a left stocking, though wherefore is not very clear; and in China, about Canton, afisherman's net is employed with as little apparent reason. In Swedenthe babe is wrapped in red cloth, which we may be allowed to conjectureis intended to cozen the fairies by simulating fire. [65]

Moreover, certain plants are credited with a similar gift. In Germanyorant (whatever that may be), blue marjoram, and black cumin; and inDenmark garlic--nasty enough surely to keep any beings off--and breadare used. The Danes, too, place salt in the cradle or over the door. TheItalians fear not only fairies who rob them of their children, but alsowitches who tear the faces of unbaptized infants. These are both oldsuperstitions, dating in one form or other from classic times. To baulkthe witches of their prey it is in some places customary to keep a lightburning in the chamber at night, and to affix at the door of the housethe image of a saint, hanging to it a rosary and an unravelled napkin;while behind the door are put a jar full of salt and a brush. A twofolddefence is thus built up; for the witch, beholding the image of thesaint and the rosary, will straightway retire; or if these fail to warnher off, she will on entering be compelled to count the grains of salt, the broken threads of the napkin, and the twigs of the brush--a taskthat will keep her occupied from midnight, when at the earliest she candare appear, until dawn, when she must slink away without having beenable to attain her object. Among the Greeks witches are believed to havegreat power. They seek new-born babes to suck their blood or to prickthem to death with sharp instruments. Often they inflict such injuriesthat a child remains for ever a cripple or an invalid. The Nereids ofthe fountains and springs are also on the watch "to exchange one oftheir own fractious offspring for a mortal babe. " Constant watchfulness, and baptism as soon as the Church permits it, are therefore necessary. In England it seems to have been held in former days that witches stolechildren from their cradles before baptism to make an oil or unguent byboiling them to a jelly. A part of this jelly they used to drink, andwith the remainder they rubbed their bodies. This was the orthodox meansof acquiring magical powers. It is a Sicilian belief that the hands ofunbaptized children are used by witches in their sorceries. [66]

As we might expect, the reason why unbaptized babes are held to be soliable to these attacks is that until the initiatory rite has beenperformed they are looked upon as heathen, and therefore peculiarlyunder the dominion of evil spirits. In Sicily and in Spain an infantuntil baptism is called by the opprobrious epithets of _Pagan_, _Turk_, _Moor_, _Jew_. Even women will not kiss it, for to kiss a Moor, at allevents in Spain, is sin; though, on the other hand, to kiss anunbaptized child, if no one else have kissed it, is sovereign againsttoothache. By the Greeks these little innocents are regarded not merelyas not Christians, but as really less human than demoniac in theirnature. This is said, indeed, to be the teaching of the Church. Thelower classes, at least (and, presumably therefore, not long ago theupper classes) believe it firmly; so that an unbaptized babe is called_Drakos_ (feminine, _Drakoula_), that is to say, serpent or dragon. Thisis the same opprobrious title that we found Gervase of Tilbury applyingto the evil spirits infesting the waters of the Rhone; and we cannotdoubt that it is intended to convey an imputation of Satanic nature. [67]The extent of this superstition would form an interesting subject ofinquiry. If it could be established as existing now or formerly amongother Christian nations (and the superstitions of Sicily and Spain justcited point to this) it would help to clear up much of the difficultysurrounding the subject of changelings, especially the motives actuatingboth fairies and witches in their depredations. And, as infant baptismis by no means exclusively a Christian rite, research among heathennations would be equally pertinent. 

Meanwhile the motive usually assigned to fairies in northern stories isthat of preserving and improving their race, on the one hand by carryingoff human children to be brought up among the elves and to become unitedwith them, and on the other hand by obtaining the milk and fosteringcare of human mothers for their own offspring. Doubts have beenexpressed by the German poet and mythologist, Karl Simrock, whether thiswas the primitive motive. He suggests that originally these spirits werelooked upon as wholly beneficent, and even the theft of children wasdictated by their care for the best interests of mankind. Nor does hehesitate to lay it down that the selfish designs just mentioned werefirst attributed to them when with growing enlightenment the feelingmanifested itself that the kindly beings were falling into decay. [68]

It might be sufficient to reply that no spiritual existences imagined bymen in a state of civilization such as surrounded our Celtic andTeutonic forefathers were ever regarded as unswervingly benevolent:caprice and vindictiveness, if not cruelty, are always elements of theircharacter. Beyond this general consideration, however, there is afurther and conclusive answer in the fact that there is no warrant intradition for the supposition that could we penetrate to the oldeststrata of mythical belief we should not discover selfish designs imputedto "the good people. " The distinguished commentator himself is bound toadmit that the belief in their need of human help is entwined in thevery roots of the Teutonic myths. It is, indeed, nothing but themediæval and Teutonic form of tenets common to all the nations uponearth. The changeling superstition and the classic stories of childrenand adults beloved by gods of high and low degree are consistent withthis belief, and inseparable from it. The motive is so farcomprehensible: what is wanted is to know whether any special relations, such as are pointed at by the Greek epithet _Drakos_, were held to existbetween the mysterious world and newly-born babes which would render thelatter more obnoxious to attack than elder children or adults; orwhether, as I have put it at the beginning of this chapter, theirhelplessness alone suggested their exceeding danger. To solve the riddlewe must wait for a larger accumulation of documents. [69]

But in the best regulated families it is not always possible to preventthe abduction from being attempted, and sometimes accomplished, in spiteof every precaution. One night a Welsh woman, waking in a fright in herhusband's absence, missed her baby. She sought for it and caught it uponthe boards above the bed: the fairies had not succeeded in bearing itany further away. Another felt her boy being taken from her arms;whereupon she screamed and held him tightly, and, according to her ownexpression, "God and me were too hard for them. " The child grew up tobecome a famous preacher. A peasant woman in Mecklenburg who ventured tosleep without a light was attacked by an elf-woman. The stranger seizedthe child, but was baffled by the woman's determination; for shestruggled and shrieked for her husband, and when he hurried in with alight the fairy vanished. [70]

Nor is it always the mother who arrests the theft. A trick frequentlyplayed by the dwarfs in Northern Germany on the birth of a child was topinch a cow's ear; and when the animal bellowed and everybody ran out toknow why, a dwarf would slip indoors and effect the change. On one suchoccasion the father saw his infant being dragged out of the room. In thenick of time he grasped it and drew it towards himself. The changelingleft in its place was found in the bed; and this he kept too, defyingthe efforts of the underground folk to regain it. At a place in NorthJutland it happened many years ago in a lying-in room that the mothercould get no sleep while the lights were burning. So her husbandresolved to take the child in his arm, in order to keep strict watchover it so long as it was dark. But, unfortunately, he fell asleep; andon being awakened by a shake of the arm, he saw a tall woman standing bythe bed, and found that he had an infant in each arm. The womaninstantly vanished; and as he had forgotten in which arm he had held hischild, there he lay without knowing which of the two children was hisown. A boy, who was watching his younger sister while his parents wereboth from home, saw a small man and woman come from behind the oven. They told him to give them the little one; and when he refused theystepped to the cradle and endeavoured to take the babe by force. Theboy, however, was strong and bold, and laid about him with suchdetermination that the robbers at length took to flight. On theLithuanian coast of the Baltic substantially the same tale is told withmore humour. There a farmer's boy sleeping in the living-room of thehouse is awakened by the proceedings of two _laumes_, or elves. Theystealthily fetch out of the bedroom the new-born babe and swathe it inswaddling clothes of their own, while they wrap in its clothes theoven-broom. Then they began to quarrel which of them should carry thebroom thus rolled up into the bedroom; and as they were unable to agreethey resolved to carry it together. No sooner had they disappeared intothe inner apartment than the boy leaped out of bed, picked up hismistress' child and took it into his own bed. When the _laumes_ returnedthe infant was not to be found. They were both very angry and began toscold one another: "It's your fault. " "No, it's your fault; didn't Isay, You carry it, while I stay here and keep watch? I said it would bestolen!" While they wrangled thus, kakary ku! crew the cock, and, foiledand enraged, they had to make off. The boy had great difficulty inwakening his mistress, who was in a deep sleep, dreaming a horribledream that a stock of wood had been placed on her breast so that shecould hardly breathe. He told her what had happened, but she would notbelieve it until she saw that she had _two_ children--one to which shehad given birth, the other fashioned out of the oven-broom. [71]

Prayer and the utterance of a holy name are to the full as effectual asphysical strength. A fisherwoman in the north-east of Scotland was onceleft alone in bed with her baby, when in came a little man dressed ingreen, and proceeded to lay hold of the child. The woman knew at oncewith whom she had to do, and ejaculated: "God be atween you an' me!" Outrushed the fairy in a moment, and mother and babe were left withoutfurther molestation. A curious tale is told of two Strathspey smugglerswho were one night laying in a stock of whiskey at Glenlivat when theyheard the child in the cradle give a piercing cry, just as if it hadbeen shot. The mother, of course, blessed it; and the Strathspey ladstook no further notice, and soon afterwards went their way with theirgoods. Before they had gone far they found a fine healthy child lyingall alone on the roadside, and recognized it as their friend's. They sawat once how the affair stood. The fairies had taken away the real infantand left a stock; but owing to the pious ejaculation of the mother, theyhad been forced to drop it. As the urgency of their business did notadmit of their return they took the child with them, and kept it untilthey went to Glenlivat again. On their arrival here they said nothingabout the child, which they kept concealed. In the course ofconversation the woman remarked that the disease which had attacked thelittle one the last time they were there had never left it, and she hadnow scarce any hope of its recovery. As if to confirm her statement, itcontinued uttering most piercing cries. The smugglers thereupon producedthe real babe healthy and hearty, and told her how they had found it. The mother was, of course, pleased to recover it; and the next thing wasto dispose of the changeling. For this purpose the Strathspey lads gotan old creel to put him in and some straw to light under it. Seeing theserious turn matters were likely to take he resolved not to await thetrial, but flew up the smoke-hole and cried out from the top that butfor the guests events would have gone very differently. [72]

Two pixies of Dartmoor, in the shape of large bundles of rags, led awayone of two children who were following their mother homeward. It waseventually found, on a search being made by the neighbours withlanterns, under a certain large oak tree known to be pixy-haunted. Thisis hardly a changeling story, as no attempt was made to foist a falsechild on the parent. A tale from the Isle of Man contains two similarincidents of attempted robbery without replacing the stolen child by oneof superhuman birth. The fairies there adopted artifices like those ofthe North German dwarfs above mentioned. A few nights after a woman hadbeen delivered of her first child a cry of fire was raised, and everyone ran out of the house to see whence it proceeded, leaving thehelpless mother alone with her babe. On returning they found the infantlying on the threshold of the house. The following year, when anotherlittle stranger had presented itself, a noise was heard in an out-houseamong the cattle. Again everybody that was stirring, including thenurse, hurried forth to learn what was the matter, believing that thecattle had got loose. But finding all safe, they came back, only todiscover that the new-born babe had been taken out of bed, as the formerhad been, and on their coming dropped in the middle of the entry. Itmight have been supposed that these two warnings would have been enough;but a third time the trick was played, and then more successfully. Forgetting what had previously happened, all who were in the house ranout one night on hearing a noise in the cow-house--all, that is, exceptthe mother, who could not move, and the nurse, who was sleeping off theeffects of alcohol. The former was lying broad awake and saw her childlifted from the bed by invisible hands and carried clean away. Sheshrieked at once to the nurse, but failed to arouse her; and when herhusband returned, an infant was indeed lying beside her, but a poor, lean, withered, deformed creature, very different from her own. It layquite naked, though the clothes of the true child had been consideratelyleft for it by the ravishers. [73]

One of the difficulties experienced by the fairies on two of the threeoccasions here narrated in making off with the little one occurred atthe door of the house. That they should have tried, repeatedly at allevents, to pass out that way is almost as remarkable as that they shouldhave been permitted more than once to attempt the theft. For thethreshold is a part of the dwelling which from of old has been heldsacred, and is generally avoided by uncanny beings. Wiser, though stilldoomed to failure, were those Irish elves who lifted up a window andhanded the infant out. For it happened that a neighbour who was comingto pay a visit that moment stopped before the house, and exclaimed: "Godkeep all here from harm!" No sooner had she uttered the words than shesaw the child put forth, how, or by whom, she did not know; and withouthesitation she went up and took it away home with her. The next morningwhen she called to see how her friend fared great was the moan made toher over the behaviour of the child--so different from what it had everbeen before--crying all the night and keeping awake its mother, whocould not quiet it by any means. "I'll tell you what you'll do with thebrat, " she replied; "whip it well first, and then bring it to thecross-roads, and leave the fairy in the ditch there for any one to takethat pleases; for I have your child at home safe and sound as he washanded out of the window last night to me. " When the mother heard this, she just stepped out to get a rod; but before she returned thechangeling had vanished, and no one either saw or heard of it again. [74]

Fairies, however, when bent upon mischief, are not always baulked soeasily. They effect the exchange, sometimes in the house, and sometimeswhen the parent is at work in the fields and incautiously puts heroffspring down the while. In these circumstances, grievous as may be thesuspicion arising from the changed conduct of the nursling, it is notalways easy to be sure of what has taken place. Tests, therefore, haveto be applied. Often the appearance is enough. A "mighty big head, " oran abnormally thick head and neck, is in Germany deemed sufficientcredentials from Fairyland; while in a case from Lapland, where the handand foot grew so rapidly as to become speedily nearly half an ell inlength and the child was unable to learn to speak, whereas she readilyunderstood what was said to her, these deviations from the course ofnature were looked upon as conclusive evidence. [75] A reputed changelingshown to Waldron in the Isle of Man early in the last century is thusdescribed: "Nothing under heaven could have a more beautiful face; butthough between five and six years old, and seemingly healthy, he was sofar from being able to walk, or stand, that he could not so much as moveany one joint; his limbs were vastly long for his age, but smaller thanan infant's of six months; his complexion was perfectly delicate, and hehad the finest hair in the world; he never spoke, nor cried, eat scarceanything, and was very seldom seen to smile, but if any one called him afairy-elf, he would frown and fix his eyes so earnestly on those whosaid it, as if he would look them through. His mother, or at least hissupposed mother, being very poor, frequently went out a-charing, andleft him a whole day together. The neighbours, out of curiosity, haveoften looked in at the window to see how he behaved when alone, which, whenever they did, they were sure to find him laughing and in the utmostdelight. This made them judge that he was not without company morepleasing to him than any mortal's could be; and what made thisconjecture seem the more reasonable was, that if he were left ever sodirty, the woman at her return saw him with a clean face, and his haircombed with the utmost exactness and nicety. "[76] Luther tells us thathe saw and touched at Dessau a changed child which was twelve years ofage. The account he gives of the child is that "he had his eyes and allmembers like another child; he did nothing but feed, and would eat asmuch as two clowns or threshers were able to eat. When one touched it, then it cried out. When any evil happened in the house, then it laughedand was joyful; but when all went well, then it cried and was very sad. "So much for the Reformer's testimony of what he saw and was told. Histheories and generalizations are in their way not less interesting thanhis testimony: as might have been expected, they are an adaptation ofthe ordinary superstitions to his own grim scheme of things. "Suchchangelings and killcrops, " he goes on to say, "_supponit Satan in locumverorum filiorum_; for the devil hath this power, that he changethchildren, and instead thereof layeth devils in the cradles, which thrivenot, only they feed and suck: but such changelings live not aboveeighteen or nineteen years. It sometimes falleth out that the childrenof women in child-bed are thus changed, and Devils laid in their stead, one of which more fouleth itself than ten other children do, so thatthe parents are much therewith disquieted; and the mothers in such sortare sucked out, that afterwards they are able to give suck no more. "[77]

Making allowance for the influence of imagination, there can be nodoubt, on comparison of these passages, that the children to whom thecharacter of changelings was ascribed were invariably deformed ordiseased. The delightful author of the "Popular Romances of the West ofEngland" says that some thirty or forty years before the date of writinghe had seen several reputed changelings. And his evidence is expressthat "in every case they have been sad examples of the influence ofmesenteric disease. " After describing their external symptoms, he adds:"The wasted frame, with sometimes strumous swellings, and the unnaturalabdominal enlargement which accompanies disease of mesenteric glands, gives a very sad, and often a most unnatural, appearance to thesufferer. " Professor Rhys' description of a reputed changeling, oneEllis Bach, of Nant Gwrtheyrn, in Carnarvonshire, is instructive asshowing the kind of being accredited among the Welsh with fairy nature. The professor is repeating the account given to him of this poorcreature, who died nearly half a century ago. He tells us: "His fatherwas a farmer, whose children, both boys and girls, were like ordinaryfolks, excepting Ellis, who was deformed, his legs being so short thathis body seemed only a few inches from the ground when he walked. Hisvoice was also small and squeaky. However, he was very sharp, and couldfind his way among the rocks pretty well when he went in quest of hisfather's sheep and goats, of which there used to be plenty thereformerly. Everybody believed Ellis to have been a changeling, and onesaying of his is well known in that part of the country. When strangersvisited Nant Gwrtheyrn, a thing which did not frequently happen, andwhen his parents asked them to their table, and pressed them to eat, hewould squeak out drily: _'B'yta 'nynna b'yta'r cwbwl_, ' that is tosay--'Eating--that means eating all. '" A changeling in Monmouthshire, described by an eye-witness at the beginning of the present century, wassimply an idiot of a forbidding aspect, a dark, tawny complexion, andmuch addicted to screaming. [78]

But a changeling was to be known in other ways than by his physicaldefects; under careful management he might be led to betray himself inspeech or action. A Kirkcudbrightshire tale represents a child as onceleft in charge of a tailor, who "commenced a discourse" with him. "'Will, hae ye your pipes?' says the tailor. 'They're below my head, 'says the tenant of the cradle. 'Play me a spring, ' says the tailor. Likethought, the little man, jumping from the cradle, played round the roomwith great glee. A curious noise was heard meantime outside; and thetailor asked what it meant. The little elf called out: 'It's my folkwanting me, ' and away he fled up the chimney, leaving the tailor moredead than alive. " In the neighbouring county of Dumfries the story istold with more gusto. The gudewife goes to the hump-backed tailor, andsays: "Wullie, I maun awa' to Dunse about my wab, and I dinna ken whatto do wi' the bairn till I come back: ye ken it's but a whingin', screechin', skirlin' wallidreg--but we maun bear wi' dispensations. Iwad wuss ye, ' quoth she, 'to tak tent till't till I come hame--ye sallhae a roosin' ingle, and a blast o' the goodman's tobacco-pipe forbye. 'Wullie was naething laith, and back they gaed the-gither. Wullie sitsdown at the fire, and awa' wi' her yarn gaes the wife; but scarce hadshe steekit the door, and wan half-way down the close, when the bairncocks up on its doup in the cradle, and rounds in Wullie's lug: 'WullieTylor, an' ye winna tell my mither when she comes back, I'se play ye abonny spring on the bagpipes. ' I wat Wullie's heart was like to loup thehool--for tylors, ye ken, are aye timorsome--but he thinks to himsel':'Fair fashions are still best, ' an' 'It's better to fleetch fules thanto flyte wi' them'; so he rounds again in the bairn's lug: 'Play up, mydoo, an' I'se tell naebody. ' Wi' that the fairy ripes amang the cradlestrae, and pu's oot a pair o' pipes, sic as tylor Wullie ne'er had seenin a' his days--muntit wi' ivory, and gold, and silver, and dymonts, andwhat not. I dinna ken what spring the fairy played, but this I ken weel, that Wullie had nae great goo o' his performance; so he sits thinkin' tohimsel': 'This maun be a deil's get, Auld Waughorn himsel' may come torock his son's cradle, and play me some foul prank;' so he catches thebairn by the cuff o' the neck, and whupt him into the fire, bagpipes anda'!"[79]

In Nithsdale the elf-child displays a superhuman power of work. Themother left it on one occasion in the charge of a servant-girl, who satbemoaning herself. "Wer't nae for thy girning face I would knock thebig, winnow the corn, and grun the meal!" "Lowse the cradle band, " criedthe child, "and tent the neighbours, an' I'll work yere wark. " With thathe started up, the wind arose, the corn was winnowed, the outlyers werefoddered, the hand-mill moved around as by instinct, and the knockingmell did its work with amazing rapidity. The lass and the elf meanwhiletook their ease, until, on the mistress's return, he was restored to thecradle and began to yell anew. [80]

Most of the stories of changelings, in fact, assume that, though theoutward characteristics might justify vehement suspicion, yet they werenot absolutely decisive, and that to arrive at certainty the elf must bebrought to betray himself. No great subtlety, however, was needful; forthe stratagem employed varies but little, as the following examples willshow. The child of a married couple in Mecklenburg at two years of agewas no longer than a shoe, but had a mighty big head, and, withal, wasunable to learn to speak. Its parents were led by an old man to suspectthat it had been changed, and their adviser told them: "If you wish tobecome certain, take an empty egg-shell, and in the child's presencepour in new beer and cause it to ferment by means of yeast. If then thechild speak, my conjecture is right. " His counsel was followed, andscarcely had the beer fermented when the child cried out from thecradle:

 "I am as old As Bohemian gold, Yet for the first time now I see Beer in an egg-shell brew'd to be. "

The parents determined to fling the babe into the river the followingnight; but when at midnight they rose for the purpose they found in thecradle a strong, blooming child. In a Welsh tale from Radnorshire theegg-shell is boiled full of pottage in the children's sight (there aretwins in this case) and taken out as a dinner for the reapers whohappened to be cutting the rye and oats. In Glamorganshire the womandeclares she is mixing a pasty for the reapers. An Icelandic legendmakes a woman set a pot containing food to cook on the fire and fastentwigs end to end in continuation of the handle of a spoon until thetopmost one appears above the chimney, when she puts the bowl in thepot. Another woman in a Danish tale engaged to drive a changeling out ofthe house he troubled; and this is how she set about it. In histemporary absence she killed a pig and made a black pudding of it, hide, hair and all. On his return she set it before him, for he was aprodigious eater. He began gobbling it up as usual; but as he ate hisefforts gradually slackened, and at last he sat quite still, eyeing itthoughtfully. Then he exclaimed: "A pudding with hide! and a puddingwith hair! a pudding with eyes! and a pudding with bones in it! Thricehave I seen a young wood spring upon Tiis Lake, but never yet did I seesuch a pudding! The devil will stay here no longer!" And so saying heran off and never returned. [81]

Of these devices, however, the normal one is that of the egg-shells. Sometimes one egg-shell only is employed, sometimes two--a dozen--or anindefinite number. At seaside places, like Normandy and the ChannelIslands, egg-shells are sometimes replaced by shells of shell-fish. [82]In all the stories the end is the same, namely, to excite the curiosityand wonder of the imp to such a pitch that he gives expression to it inlanguage akin to that of the North German or the Danish tale justquoted. The measure of age given in his exclamation is usually that ofthe trees in the forest, or indeed the forest itself. In the instancefrom Mecklenburg, Bohemian gold (_Böhmer Gold_) is made the measure, andthis runs through quite a number of Low Dutch stories. There can belittle doubt, however, that it is a corruption, and that the true formis, as given in a Schleswig-Holstein tale, Bohemian Forest (_BehmerWoelt_). [83] In Hesse Wester Forest (_Westerwald_) is found, and so onin other countries, the narrator in each case referring to some woodwell known to his audience. The Lithuanian elf, or _laumes_, says: "I amso old, I was already in the world before the Kamschtschen Wood wasplanted, wherein great trees grew, and _that_ is now laid waste again;but anything so wonderful I have never seen. " In Normandy the changelingdeclares: "I have seen the Forest of Ardennes burnt seven times, but Inever saw so many pots boil. " The astonishment of a Scandinavian impexpressed itself even more graphically, for when he saw an egg-shellboiling on the fire having one end of a measuring rod set in it, hecrept out of the cradle on his hands, leaving his feet still inside, andstretched himself out longer and longer until he reached right acrossthe floor and up the chimney, when he exclaimed: "Well! seven times haveI seen the wood fall in Lessö Forest, but never till now have I seen sobig a ladle in so small a pot!" And the Danish story I have cited aboverepresents the child as saying that he has seen a young wood thrice uponTiis Lake. [84] The Welsh fairies are curiously youthful compared withthese hoary infants, which is all the more remarkable when the daringexaggerations of Cambrian story-tellers are considered. It is a modestclaim only to have seen the acorn before the oak and the egg before thehen, yet that is all that is put forward. In one of the Lays of Marie deFrance the wood of Brézal is indicated as the spot where the oak wasseen. [85] The formula thus variously used would appear to be a commonone to describe great antiquity, and in all probability itself datesback to a very remote period. 

But changelings frequently conform to the more civilized usage ofmeasuring their age by years. And various are the estimates given us, from fifteen hundred years in the Emerald Isle down to the computation, erring perhaps on the other side, of the young gentleman in the Englishtale, who remarks: "Seven years old was I before I came to the nurse, and four years have I lived since, and never saw so many milk-pansbefore. " A yet more mysterious hint as to her earlier life is dropped byan imp in Brittany. She has been treated to the sight of milk boiling inegg-shells, and cries: "I shall soon be a hundred years old, but I neversaw so many shells boiling! I was born in Pif and in Paf, in the countrywhere cats are made; but I never saw anything like it!"[86] To allright-minded persons this disclosure contained sufficient warrant forher reputed mother to repudiate her as a witch, though cats are no lessintimate with fairies than with conjurers. 

Simrock, in his work on German mythology already cited, inclines to theopinion that the object of the ceremony which the suspected child ismade to witness is to produce laughter. He says: "The dwarf is noover-ripe beauty who must keep her age secret. Rather somethingridiculous must be done to cause him to laugh, because laughter bringsdeliverance. "[87] The problem set before the heroes of many folk-talesis to compel laughter, but that does not seem to be intended in thesechangeling stories. At least I have only met with it in one, and itcertainly is not common. The confession of age which the ceremony drawsforth is really much more. It is a confession that the apparently humanbabe is an imposture, that it belongs in fact to a different race, andhas no claim on the mother's care and tenderness. Therefore it is notalways enough for the fraud to be discovered: active means mustsometimes be taken to rid the family of their supernatural burden andregain their own little one. In Grimm's story, in which the childlaughs, a host of elves comes suddenly bringing back the true andcarrying away the false one; and in many of the German and Northerntales the changeling disappears in one way or other immediately afterits exclamation. We are sometimes even told in so many words that thechangeling had betrayed himself, and the underground folk were obligedto give back the stolen child. And in the Lithuanian story we have citedthe _laumes_ straightway falls sick and dies. [88] Such conduct accordsentirely with the resentment at being recognized which we have in aprevious chapter found to be a characteristic of spiritual existences. It is much more like the dislike of being found out attributed to beingswho are in the habit of walking invisible, than any mystical effect oflaughter. 

If this be so, still less do the stories where it is required actuallyto drive the imp away support the learned German's contention. The meanstaken in these stories are very various. Sometimes it is enough to letthe child severely alone, as once in the Isle of Man where a woman laidher child down in the field while she was cutting corn, and a fairychanged it there and then. The changeling began to scream, but themother was prevented by a man who had been a witness to the transactionfrom picking it up; and when the fairy found that no notice was takenthe true child was brought back. In the island of Lewis the custom wasto dig a grave in the fields on Quarter Day and lay the goblin in ituntil the next morning, by which time it was believed the human babewould be returned. In the north of Germany one is advised not to touchthe changeling with the hands, but to overturn the cradle so that thechild falls on the floor. The elf must then be swept out of the doorwith an old broom, when the dwarfs will come and bring back the stolenchild. Putting it on the dunghill and leaving it there to cry has beenpractised successfully in England; but in Ireland this is only one partof a long and serious ceremony directed by a wizard or "fairy-man. " Indealing with these stories we must always remember that not merely arewe concerned with sagas of something long past, but with a yet livingsuperstition, and that the practices I am about to mention--even themost cruel and the most ridiculous of them--so far respond to the actualbeliefs of the people that instances of their occurrence are quiterecent and well authenticated, as we shall presently see. An anonymousbut well-informed writer describes, as if it were by no means an unusualceremony, that just referred to; and Kennedy gives the same in the shapeof a legend. It seems to consist in taking a clean shovel and seatingthe changeling on its broad iron blade, and thus conveying the creatureto the manure heap. The assistants would then join hands and circleabout the heap thrice while the fairy-man chanted an incantation in theIrish language. At its conclusion all present would withdraw into thehouse, leaving the child where it had been placed, to howl and cry as itpleased. Says Mr. Kennedy: "They soon felt the air around them sweepthis way and that, as if it was stirred by the motion of wings, butthey remained quiet and silent for about ten minutes. Opening the door, they then looked out, and saw the bundle of straw on the heap, butneither child nor fairy. 'Go into your bedroom, Katty, ' said thefairy-man, 'and see if there's anything left on the bed!' She did so, and they soon heard a cry of joy, and Katty was among them in a moment, kissing and hugging her own healthy-looking child, who was waking andrubbing his eyes, and wondering at the lights and all the eagerfaces. "[89]

Whether it was the noise made by the child or the incantation that drewthe "good people's" attention, we are left in doubt by this story. ANorman woman was, however, advised to make her child cry lustily "inorder to bring its _real_ mother to it. " And this is probably themeaning of the many tales in which the elf is beaten, or starved andsubjected to other ill-usage, or is threatened with death. [90] In thePflöckenstein Lake in Bohemia wild women are believed to dwell, who, among other attributes common to elves or fairies, are believed tochange infants. In order to compel a re-exchange, directions are givento bind with a weed growing at the bottom of the lake and to beat with arod of the same, calling out therewithal: "Take thine own and bring memine. " A mother in a Little Russian tale had a baby of extraordinaryhabits. When alone, he jumped out of the cradle, no longer a baby but abearded old man, gobbled up the food out of the stove, and then lay downagain a screeching babe. A wise woman who was consulted placed him on ablock of wood and began to chop the block under his feet. He screechedand she chopped; he screeched and she chopped; until he became an oldman again and made the enigmatical confession: "I have transformedmyself not once nor twice only. I was first a fish, then I became abird, an ant, and a quadruped, and now I have once more made trial ofbeing a human being. It isn't better thus than being among the ants; butamong human beings--it isn't worse!" Here the chopping was evidently athreat to kill. Nor, if we may trust the stories, was this threat alwaysan empty one. The changeling fashioned out of a broom in the Lithuanianstory already cited, was disposed of, by the parish priest's advice, byhewing its head off. The reason given by the holy man was that it wasnot yet four and twenty hours old, and it would not be really aliveuntil the expiration of that time. Accordingly when the neck was severednothing but a wisp of straw was found inside, though blood flowed as ifthere were veins. [91]

But even more truculent methods are represented by the story-tellers asresorted to free the afflicted household. Nothing short of fire isoften deemed sufficient for the purpose. There were various methods ofapplying it. Sometimes we are told of a shovel being made red-hot andheld before the child's face; sometimes he is seated on it and flung outinto the dung-pit, or into the oven; or again, the poker would be heatedto mark the sign of the cross on his forehead, or the tongs to take himby the nose. Or he is thrown bodily on the fire, or suspended over it ina creel or a pot; and in the north of Scotland the latter must be hungfrom a piece of the branch of a hazel tree. In this case we are toldthat if the child screamed it was a changeling, and it was held fast toprevent its escape. Generally, however, it is related that the elfflies up the chimney, and when safely at the top he stops to makeuncomplimentary remarks upon his persecutors. In the Nithsdale storywhich I have already cited, the servant girl at midnight covers up thechimney and every other inlet, makes the embers glowing hot, andundressing the changeling tosses it on them. In answer to its yells thefairies are heard moaning and rattling at the window boards, thechimney-head, and the door. "In the name o' God, bring back the bairn, "she exclaims. In a moment up flew the window, the human child was laidunharmed on the mother's lap, while its guilty substitute flew up thechimney with a loud laugh. [92]

Frightful as this cruelty would seem to every one if perpetrated on themother's own offspring, it was regarded with equanimity as applied to agoblin; and it is not more frightful than what has been actuallyperpetrated on young children, and that within a very few years, underthe belief that they were beings of a different race. Instances need notbe multiplied; it will be enough to show that one of the horriblemethods of disposing of changelings referred to in the last paragraphcame under judicial notice no longer ago than the month of May 1884. Twowomen were reported in the "Daily Telegraph" as having been arrested atClonmel on the 17th of that month, charged with cruelly ill-treating achild three years old. The evidence given was to the effect that theneighbours fancied that the child, who had not the use of his limbs, wasa changeling. During the mother's absence the prisoners accordinglyentered her house and placed the child naked on a hot shovel, "under theimpression that this would break the charm. " As might have beenexpected the poor little thing was severely burnt, and, when the womenwere apprehended, it was in a precarious condition. The prisoners, onbeing remanded, were hooted by an indignant crowd. It might be thoughtthat this was an indication of the decay of superstition, even inIreland, however much to be condemned as an outburst of feeling againstunconvicted and even untried persons. But we must regard it rather as aprotest against the prisoners' inhumanity than against theirsuperstition: in either case, of course, the product of advancingcivilization. For if we may trust the witness of other sagas we find thetrial by fire commuted to a symbolic act, as though men had begun to berevolted by the cruelty, even when committed only on a fairy who hadbeen found out, but were unwilling to abandon their belief in the powerof the exorcism. In the north-east of Scotland, for example, where abeggar, who had diagnosed a changeling, was allowed to try his hand atdisposing of it, he made a large fire on the hearth and held a black henover it till she struggled, and finally escaped from his grasp, flyingout by the "lum. " More minute directions are given by the cunning man ina Glamorganshire tale. After poring over his big book, he told hisdistracted client to find a black hen without a single feather of anyother colour. This she was to bake (not living, but dead, as appears bythe sequel) before a fire of wood (not, as usual, of peat), withfeathers and all intact. Every window and opening was to be closed, except one--presumably the chimney; and she was not to watch the_crimbil_, or changeling, until the hen had been done enough, which shewould know by the falling off of all her feathers. The more knowingwoman, in an Irish story, attributes the fact of the infant's beingchanged to the Evil Eye; and her directions for treatment require themother to watch for the woman who has given it the Evil Eye, inveigleher into the house and cut a piece secretly out of her cloak. This pieceof the cloak was then to be burnt close to the child until the smokemade him sneeze, when the spell would be broken and her own childrestored. The writer who records this tale mentions the following modeof proceeding as a common one, namely: to place the babe in the middleof the cabin and light a fire round it, fully expecting it to be changedinto a sod of turf, but manifestly not intending to do bodily harm to itindependently of any such change. In Carnarvonshire a clergyman iscredited with telling a mother to cover a shovel with salt, mark a crossin the salt, and burn it in the chamber where the child was, judiciouslyopening the window first. [93] It is satisfactory to know that, so far asthe recorded cases go, the ceremony lost nothing of its power by beingthus toned down. 

Fire, however, was not the only element efficacious for turning toflight these troublesome aliens. Water's antagonism to witches isnotorious; and ample use was made of it in the old witch trials. It isequally obnoxious to fairies and their congeners. In a Welsh story fromRadnorshire, when the mother has been by the egg-shell device convincedof the exchange of her own twin children, she takes the goblin twins andflings them into Llyn Ebyr; but their true kinsmen clad in blue trousers(their usual garb) save them, and the mother receives her own again. Inother tales she drops the twins into the river; but in one case thewitch who has been credited with the change bathes the child at amountain spout, or _pistyll_, and exacts a promise from the mother toduck him in cold water every morning for three months. It is not verysurprising to learn that "at the end of that time there was no finerinfant in the Cwm. "[94]

There is an oft-quoted passage in Luther's "Table Talk, " in which herelates that he told the Prince of Anhalt that if he were prince hewould venture _homicidium_ upon a certain changeling with which he hadbeen brought into contact, and throw it into the river Moldaw. The greatReformer was only on a level with his countrymen in their superstitionsin reference to changelings, or Killcrops, as they were then called. Ihave already quoted his opinion of them as devils; and the test of theirtrue nature, which he seems to have thought infallible, was theirinordinate appetite; nor did he attach any value to baptism as a meansof exorcism. One excellent tale he tells on the subject concerns apeasant who lived near Halberstadt, in Saxony. This good man, inaccordance with advice, was taking the child to Halberstadt to be rockedat the shrine of the Virgin Mary, when in crossing a river another devilthat was below in the river called out "Killcrop! Killcrop!" Then, saysLuther, the child in the basket, that had never before spoken one word, answered "Ho, ho!" The devil in the water asked, "Whither art thougoing?" and the child replied, "I am going to Halberstadt to our LovingMother, to be rocked. " In his fright the man threw the basket containingthe child over the bridge into the water, whereupon the two devils flewaway together and cried "Ho, ho, ha!" tumbling themselves one overanother, and so vanished. [95] This may be taken as a type of many astory current in North Germany and the neighbouring Slavonic lands. Itis not, however, unknown in this country. Mr. Hunt has versified aCornish tale in which the mother took her brat to the chapel well toplunge it at dawn and pass it round slowly three times _against_ thesun, as she had been advised to do on the first three Wednesdays in themonth of May. Reaching the top of the hill on one of these occasions, she heard a shrill voice in her ear: "Tredrill, Tredrill! thy wife andchildren greet thee well. " The little one of course replied, much to herastonishment, repudiating all concern for his wife and children, andintimating his enjoyment of the life he was leading, and the spell thatwas being wrought in his behalf. In the end she got rid of him by thehomely process of beating and leaving him on the ground near the oldchurch stile. A Sutherlandshire tradition tells of a child less than ayear old who suddenly addressed his mother in verse as he was beingcarried through a wild glen. Translated, the youth's impromptu lines runthus:--

 "Many is the dun hummel cow (Each having a calf) In the opposite dun glen, Without the aid of dog, Or man, or woman, or gillie, One man excepted, And he grey----"

At that moment his remarks were interrupted by the terrified womanthrowing him down in the plaid which wrapt him, and scampering home, where to her joy she found her true babe smiling in the cradle. [96]

These verses carry us back to the egg-shell episode, from which theconsideration of the means adopted to drive away the intrusive goblinhas diverted us. They contain a vague assertion of age like those thenbefore us, but not a hint of laughter. Nor have we found anythingthroughout the whole discussion to favour Simrock's suggestion, or toshake the opinion that the dissolution of the fairy spell was derivedeither from the vexation of the supernatural folk at their ownself-betrayal, or from the disclosure to the human foster-parents ofthe true state of the facts, and their consequent determination toexorcise the demon. 

It is true we have a few more stories to examine, but we shall find thatthey all confirm this conclusion. The cases we have yet to deal with, except the first, exhibit a different and much more humane treatment ofthe changeling than the foregoing. The case excepted is found inCarnarvonshire, where one infallible method of getting rid of the childwas to place it on the floor and let all present in the house throw apiece of iron at it. The old woman who mentioned this to Professor Rhysconjectured that the object was to convince the _Tylwyth Teg_, or fairypeople, of the intention to kill the babe, in order to induce them tobring the right child back. [97] This would be the same motive as thatwhich threatened death by fire or other ill-usage, in some of theinstances mentioned above. But we could not thus account for therequirement that iron, and only iron, was to be used; and here we have, in fact, a superstition carefully preserved, while its meaning has quitepassed out of memory. In a future chapter we shall examine the attitudeof mythical beings in folklore to metals, and especially to iron; in themeantime we may content ourselves with noting this addition to theexamples we have already met with of the horror with which they regardedit. 

So far from its being always deemed wise to neglect or injure thechangeling, it was not infrequently supposed to be necessary to take thegreatest care of it, thereby and by other means to propitiate its elvishtribe. This was the course pursued with the best results by a Devonshiremother; and a woman at Strassberg, in North Germany, was counselled byall her gossips to act lovingly, and above all not to beat the imp, lesther own little one be beaten in turn by the underground folk. So in aHessian tale mentioned by Grimm, a _wichtel-wife_ caught almost in theact of kidnapping refused to give up the babe until the woman had placedthe changed one to her breast, and "nourished it for once with thegenerous milk of human kind. " In Ireland, even when the child is placedon a dunghill, the charm recited under the direction of the "fairy-man"promises kindly entertainment in future for the "gambolling crew, " ifthey will only undo what they have done. A method in favour in the northof Scotland is to take the suspected elf to some known haunt of itsrace, generally, we are told, some spot where peculiar soughing soundsare heard, or to some barrow, or stone circle, and lay it down, repeating certain incantations the while. What the words of theseincantations are we are not informed, but we learn that an offering ofbread, butter, milk, cheese, eggs, and flesh of fowl must accompany thechild. The parents then retire for an hour or two, or until aftermidnight; and if on returning these things have disappeared, theyconclude that the offering is accepted and their own child returned. [98]

Neither ill-usage nor kindness, neither neglect nor propitiation, wassometimes prescribed and acted upon, but--harder than either--a journeyto Fairyland to fetch back the captive. A man on the island of Rügen, whose carelessness had occasioned the loss of his child, watched untilthe underground dwellers sallied forth on another raid, when he hastenedto the mouth of the hole that led into their realm, and went boldlydown. There in the Underworld he found the child, and thus the robberswere forced to take their own again instead. In a more detailednarrative from Islay, the father arms himself with a Bible, a dirk, anda crowing cock, and having found the hill where the "Good People" hadtheir abode open, and filled with the lights and sounds of festival, heapproached and stuck the dirk into the threshold. The object of this wasto prevent the entrance from closing upon him. Then he steadilyadvanced, protected from harm by the Bible at his breast. Within, hisboy (who was thirteen or fourteen years of age) was working at theforge; but when the man demanded him the elves burst into a loud laugh, which aroused the cock in his arms. The cock at once leaped upon hisshoulders, flapped his wings, and crowed loud and long. The enragedelves thereupon cast the man and his son both out of the hill, and flungthe dirk after them; and in an instant all was dark. It should be addedthat for a year and a day afterwards the boy did no work, and scarcelyspoke; but he ultimately became a very famous smith, the inventor of aspecially fine and well-tempered sword. The changeling himself in one ofLady Wilde's tales directs his foster-mother to Fairyland. The waythither was down a well; and she was led by the portress, an old woman, into the royal palace. There the queen admits that she stole the child, "for he was so beautiful, " and put her own instead. The re-exchange iseffected, and the good woman is feasted with food which the fairiescannot touch, because it has been sprinkled with salt. When she foundherself again at home, she fancied she had only been away an hour: itwas three years. [99]

But it was not always necessary to incur the risk of going as far as theother world. The Glamorganshire woman, whose successful cooking of ablack hen has been already referred to, had first to go at full moon toa place where four roads met, and hide herself to watch the fairyprocession which passed at midnight. There in the midst of the music andthe _Bendith eu mammau_ she beheld her own dear little child. One of themost interesting changeling stories was gravely related in the "IrishFireside" for the 7th of January 1884, concerning a land-leaguer whohad been imprisoned as a suspect under the then latest Coercion Act. When this patriot was a boy he had been stolen by the fairies, one ofthemselves having been left in his place. The parish priest, however, interfered; and by a miracle he caused the elf for a moment todisappear, and the boy to return to tell him the conditions on which hiscaptivity might be ended. The information given, the goblin againreplaced the true son; but the good priest was now able to dealeffectually with the matter. The imp was accordingly dipped thrice inLough Lane (a small lake in the eastern part of Westmeath), when "a curlcame on the water, and up from the deep came the naked form of the boy, who walked on the water to meet his father on shore. The father wrappedhis overcoat about his son, and commenced his homeward march, accompanied by a line of soldiers, who also came out of the lake. Theboy's mother was enjoined not to speak until the rescuing party wouldreach home. She accidentally spoke; and immediately the son dropped atear, and forced himself out of his father's arms, piteously exclaiming:'Father, father, my mother spoke! You cannot keep me. I must go. ' Hedisappeared, and, reaching home, the father found the sprite again onthe hearth. " The ghostly father's services were called into requisitiona second time; and better luck awaited an effort under his directionafter the performance of a second miracle like the first. For this timethe mother succeeded in holding her tongue, notwithstanding that atevery stream on the way home from the lake the car on which the boy wascarried was upset, and he himself fainted. [100] This is declared to havehappened no longer ago than the year 1869. The writer, apparently apious Roman Catholic, who vouches for the fact, probably never heard thetouching tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. 

The foregoing story, as well as some of those previously mentioned, shows that fairy depredations were by no means confined to babes andyoung children. Indeed adults were often carried off; and, although thischapter is already far too long, I cannot close it without brieflyexamining a few such cases. Putting aside those, then, in which boys oryoung men have been taken, as already sufficiently discussed, all theother cases of robbery, as distinguished from seduction or illusion, areconcerned with matrons. The elfin race were supposed to be on the watchfor unchurched or unsained mothers to have the benefit of their milk. Inone instance the captive was reputed to have freed herself by promisingin exchange her husband's best mare under milk, which was retained bythe captors until it was exhausted and almost dead. More usually thestory relates that a piece of wood is carved in the likeness of the ladyand laid in her place, the husband and friends being deceived intobelieving it to be herself. A man returning home at night overhears thesupernatural beings at work. He listens and catches the words: "Mak' itred cheekit an' red lippit like the smith o' Bonnykelly's wife. "Mastering the situation he runs off to the smith's house, and sains thenew mother and her babe. And he is only just in time, for hardly has hefinished than a great thud is heard outside. On going out a piece ofbog-fir is found, --the image the fairies intended to substitute for thesmith's wife. In North German and Danish tales it is the husband whooverhears the conspirators at work, and he often has coolness enough towatch their proceedings on his return home and, bouncing out upon them, to catch them just as they are about to complete their crime. Thus, oneclever fellow succeeded in retaining both his wife and the image alreadyput into her bed, which he thrust into the oven to blaze and crackle inthe sight and hearing of his wife's assembled friends, who supposed hewas burning her until he produced her to their astonished gaze. A talefrom Badenoch represents the man as discovering the fraud from findinghis wife, a woman of unruffled temper, suddenly turned a shrew. So hepiles up a great fire and threatens to throw the occupant of the bedupon it unless she tells him what has become of his own wife. She thenconfesses that the latter has been carried off, and she has beenappointed successor; but by his determination he happily succeeds inrecapturing his own at a certain fairy knoll near Inverness. [101]

It happens occasionally that these victims of elfin gallantry arerescued by other men than their husbands. A smith at work one day hearsa great moaning and sobbing out of doors. Looking out he sees a trolldriving a pregnant woman before him, and crying to her continually: "Alittle further yet! a little further yet!" He instantly springs forwardwith a red-hot iron in his hand, which he holds between the troll andhis thrall, so that the former has to abandon her and take to flight. The smith then took the woman under his protection, and the same nightshe was delivered of twins. Going to the husband to console him for hisloss, he is surprised to find a woman exactly resembling his friend'swife in her bed. He saw how the matter stood, and seizing an axe hekilled the witch on the spot, and restored to the husband his real wifeand new-born children. This is a Danish legend; but there is a Highlandone very similar to it. A man meets one night a troop of fairies with aprize of some sort. Recollecting that fairies are obliged to exchangewhatever they may have with any one who offers them anything, no matterwhat its value, for it, he flings his bonnet to them, calling out: "Mineis yours, and yours is mine!" The prize which they dropped turned out tobe an English lady whom they had carried off, leaving in her place astock, which, of course, died and was buried. The Sassenach woman livedfor some years in the Highlander's house, until the captain in commandof an English regiment came to lodge in his house with his son, whilethe soldiers were making new roads through the country. There the sonrecognized his mother, and the father his wife long mourned asdead. [102]

The death and burial of changelings, though, as here, occurring in thetales, are not often alluded to; and there are grounds for thinking thema special deduction of the Scottish mind. Sometimes the incident isghastly enough to satisfy the devoted lover of horrors. The west ofScotland furnishes an instance in which the exchange was not discovereduntil after the child's apparent death. It was buried in due course; butsuspicion having been aroused, the grave and coffin were opened, and nota corpse but only a wooden figure was found within. A farmer at Kintraw, in Argyllshire, lost his wife. On the Sunday after the funeral, when heand his servants returned from church, the children, who had been leftat home, reported that their mother had been to see them, and had combedand dressed them. The following Sunday they made the same statement, inspite of the punishment their father had thought proper to inflict fortelling a lie on the first occasion. The next time she came the eldestchild asked her why she came, when she said that she had been carriedoff by "the good people, " and could only get away for an hour or two onSundays, and should her coffin be opened it would be found to containnothing but a withered leaf. The minister, however, who ridiculed thestory, refused to allow the coffin to be opened; and when, some littletime after, he was found dead near the Fairies' Hill, above Kintraw, hewas held by many to be a victim to the indignation of the fairy world hehad laughed at. Sir Walter Scott mentions the tale of a farmer's wifein Lothian, who, after being carried off by the fairies, reappearedrepeatedly on Sunday to her children, and combed their hair. On one ofthese occasions the husband met her, and was told that there was one wayto recover her, namely, by lying in wait on Hallowe'en for theprocession of fairies, and stepping boldly out, and seizing her as shepassed among them. At the moment of execution, however, his heartfailed, and he lost his wife for ever. In connection with this, Scottrefers to a real event which happened at the town of North Berwick. Awidower, who was paying addresses with a view to second marriage, wastroubled by dreams of his former wife, to whom he had been tenderlyattached. One morning he declared to the minister that she had appearedto him the previous night, stating that she was a captive in Fairyland, and begged him to attempt her deliverance. The mode she prescribed wasto bring the minister and certain others to her grave at midnight to digup her body, and recite certain prayers, after which the corpse wouldbecome animated and flee from him. It was to be pursued by the swiftestrunner in the parish, and if he could catch it before it had encircledthe church thrice, the rest were to come to his help and hold itnotwithstanding its struggles, and the shapes into which it might betransformed. In this way she would be redeemed. The minister, however, declined to take part in so absurd and indecent a proceeding. [103]

Absurd and indecent it would undoubtedly have been to unearth a deadbody in the expectation of any such result; but it would have beenentirely in harmony with current superstition. The stories and beliefsexamined in the present chapter prove that there has been nosuperstition too gross, or too cruel, to survive into the midst of thecivilization of the nineteenth century; and the exhumation of a corpse, of the two, is less barbarous than the torture by fire of an innocentchild. The flight, struggles, and transformation of a bespelled lady arefound both in _märchen_ and saga: some examples of the latter will comeunder our notice in a future chapter. 

FOOTNOTES:

[60] The belief in changelings is not confined to Europe, though theaccounts we have of it elsewhere are meagre. It is found, as we shallsee further on, in China. It is found also among the natives of thePacific slopes of North America, where it is death to the mother tosuckle the changeling. Dorman, p. 24, citing Bancroft. 

[61] See a curious Scottish ballad given at length, "F. L. Record, " vol. I. P. 235; Henderson, p. 15; "Cymru Fu N. And Q. " vol. Ii. P. 144;Gregor, p. 11 (_cf. _ Harland and Wilkinson, p. 221); Cromek, p. 247. SeeWebster, p. 73, where a witch carries away a child who is not blessedwhen it sneezes. 

[62] Napier, p. 40; "F. L. Journal, " vol. I. P. 56; Kuhn, pp. 365, 196;Knoop, p. 155; "Zeits. F. Volksk. " vol. Ii. P. 33; Kennedy, p. 95;Carnoy, p. 4; "F. L. Journal, " vol. Ii. P. 257. 

[63] Bartsch, vol. I. Pp. 64, 89; vol. Ii. P. 43; Kuhn, p. 195; Knoop, _loc. Cit. _; Jahn, pp. 52, 71; Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 174; "Zeits. F. Volksk. " vol. Ii. _loc. Cit. _ W. Map, Dist. Ii. C. 14; Brand, vol. Ii. P. 8, note; Lady Wilde, vol. I. Pp. 71, 73; Schleicher, p. 93;Tertullian, "Adv. Nationes, " l. Ii. C. 11; Brand, vol. Ii. P. 334 note, quoting Martin, "History of the Western Islands"; Train, vol. Ii. P. 132; "Sacred Books of the East, " vol. Xxiv. P. 277. As to the use offire in China, see "F. L. Journal, " vol. V. P. 225; and generally as tothe efficacy of fire in driving off evil spirits see Tylor, vol. Ii. P. 177. 

[64] Grimm, "Teut. Myth. " p. 468; Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 2, vol. Iii. P. 45; Train, vol. Ii. P. 133; Garnett, pp. 231, 315; "F. L. Journal, " vol. V. P. 225. In Eastern Prussia a steel used for striking a light, ahammer, or anything else that will strike fire, is used. This seems tocombine the dread of steel with that of fire (Lemke, p. 41). 

[65] Grimm, "Teut. Myth. " _loc. Cit. _; Train, vol. Ii. _loc. Cit. _;Henderson, p. 14; "F. L. Journal, " vol. V. P. 224; "Zeits. F. Volksk. "vol. Ii, p. 33; "N. And Q. " 7th ser. Vol. X. P. 185. 

[66] Henderson, _loc. Cit. _; Bartsch, vol. Ii. P. 192; Pitré, vol. Xv. Pp. 154 note, 155; vol. Xvii. P. 102, quoting Castelli, "Credenze edusi"; Horace, "Ep. Ad Pison, " v. 340; Dorsa, p. 146; Wright, "MiddleAges, " vol. I. P. 290; Garnett, p. 70; "Mélusine, " vol. V. P. 90, quoting English authorities. Map, Dist. Ii. C. 14, gives a story ofbabies killed by a witch. St. Augustine records that the god Silvanuswas feared as likely to injure women in child-bed, and that for theirprotection three men were employed to go round the house during thenight and to strike the threshold with a hatchet and a pestle and sweepit with a brush; and he makes merry over the superstition ("De Civ. Dei, " l. Vi. C. 9). 

[67] Pitré, vol. Xii. P. 304, note; vol. Xv. P. 154; "F. L. Españ. " vol. Ii. P. 51; De Gubernatis, "Usi Natal. " p. 219, quoting Bézoles, "LeBaptême. "

[68] Bartsch, vol. I. P. 46; Jahn, p. 89; Grimm, "Teut. Myth. " p. 468;Simrock, p. 418. 

[69] There is another motive for the robbery of a human creature, mentioned only, I think, in the Romance of Thomas the Rhymer, namely, that at certain seasons the foul fiend fetches his fee, or tribute of aliving soul, from among the underground folk. Several difficulties ariseupon this; but it is needless to discuss them until the motive inquestion be found imputed elsewhere than in a literary work of thefifteenth century, and ballads derived therefrom. 

Since the foregoing note was written my attention has been drawn to thefollowing statement in Lady Wilde, vol. I. P. 70: "Sometimes it is saidthe fairies carry off the mortal child for a sacrifice, as they have tooffer one every seven years to the devil in return for the power hegives them. And beautiful young girls are carried off, also, either forsacrifice or to be wedded to the fairy king. " It is easier to generalizein this manner than to produce documents in proof. And I think I amexpressing the opinion of all folklore students when I say that, withall respect for Lady Wilde, I would rather not lay any stress upon hergeneral statements. Indeed, those of anybody, however great anauthority, need to be checked by the evidence of particular instances. Iawait such evidence. 

[70] Sikes, p. 62; _cf. _ Brand, vol. Ii. P. 334 note; Bartsch, vol. I. P. 46. 

[71] Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 175; vol. Iii. P. 43; Kuhn, p. 195; Schleicher, p. 92. 

[72] Gregor, p. 61; Keightley, p. 393; Campbell, vol. Ii. P. 64. 

[73] Hunt, p. 96; Waldron, p. 30. This account was given to the authorby the mother herself. 

[74] Croker, p. 81. See a similar tale in Campbell, vol. Ii. P. 58. Gregor, p. 61, mentions the dog-hole as the way by which children aresometimes carried off. 

[75] Bartsch, vol. I. P. 46; Kuhn, p. 196; Grimm, "Teut. Myth. " p. 468;Poestion, p. 114; Grohmann, p. 113. 

[76] Waldron, p. 29. The same writer gives a similar account of thechangeling mentioned above, p. 107. 

[77] "Colloquia Mensalia, " quoted by Southey, "The Doctor" (London, 1848), p. 621. As to the attribute of greed, _cf. _ Keightley, p. 125. 

[78] Hunt, p. 85; "Y Cymmrodor, " vol. Vi. P. 175; Rev. Edmund Jones, "ARelation of Apparitions, " quoted by Wirt Sikes, p. 56. Thiele relates astory in which a wild stallion colt is brought in to smell two babes, one of which is a changeling. Every time he smells one he is quiet andlicks it; but on smelling the other he is invariably restive and strivesto kick it. The latter, therefore, is the changeling. (Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 177. ) Sir John Maundeville also states that in Sicily is a kind ofserpent whereby men assay the legitimacy of their children. If thechildren be illegitimate the serpents bite and kill them; if otherwisethey do them no harm--an easy and off-hand way of getting rid of them!("Early Trav. " p. 155). 

[79] Campbell, vol. Ii. P. 58; Chambers, p. 70. 

[80] Cromek, p. 246. 

[81] Bartsch, vol. I. P. 42; Sikes, p. 59, quoting from the "CambrianQuarterly, " vol. Ii. P. 86; "Y Cymmrodor, " vol. Vi. P. 209; Arnason's"Icelandic Legends, " cited in Kennedy, p. 89; Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 174, quoting Thiele, "Danmark's Folkesagn samlede. " See also Keightley, p. 125. 

[82] Fleury, p. 60; "Revue des Trad. Pop. " vol. Iii. P. 162. 

[83] Cf. _Böhmen-Gold_, Bartsch, vol. I. P. 22; _Böhmegold_, ibid. P. 47; _Böhmer Gold_, ibid. Pp. 65, 79, and presumably p. 89; _Böhma gold_, Kuhn und Schwartz, p. 30; _Boehman gold_, ibid. P. 31; _böm un gold_(timber and gold), ibid. P. 105; _Boem un holt_ (timber and wood), Jahn, p. 90; _Bernholt in den Wolt_ (firewood in the forest), and _BremerWold_, Müllenhoff, cited Grimm, "Tales, " vol. I. P. 388. Thesevariations while preserving a similar sound are suspicious. 

[84] Grimm, "Tales, " vol. I. Pp. 163, 388; Schleicher, p. 91; Fleury, p. 60; Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 176; quoting Asbjörnsen, "Huldreeventyr, " vol. Ii. P. 165. _Cf. _ Sébillot, "Contes Pop. " vol. Ii. P. 78. 

[85] Sikes, pp. 58, 59; Howells, p. 138; "Y Cymmrodor, " vol. Iv. P. 208, vol. Vi. Pp. 172, 204; Keightley, p. 436. 

[86] Croker, p. 65; "A Pleasant Treatise of Witches, " p. 62, quoted inHazlitt, "Fairy Tales, " p. 372; Sébillot, "Contes, " vol. Ii. P. 76;Carnoy, p. 4; Thorpe, vol. Iii. P. 157; Campbell, vol. Ii. P. 47; "Revuedes Trad. Pop. " vol. Iii. P. 162. _Cf. _ a Basque tale given by Webster, where the Devil is tricked into telling his age (Webster, p. 58). 

[87] Simrock, p. 419. 

[88] Jahn, p. 89; Schleicher, p. 91. 

[89] "Choice Notes, " p. 27; (this seems to have been a commonprescription in Wales: see "Y Cymmrodor, " vol. Vi, pp. 175, 178; and inthe Western Highlands: see Campbell, vol. Ii. P. 64. ) Brand, vol. Ii. P. 335, note; (this seems also to be the case in some parts of Ireland, Lady Wilde, vol. I. P. 70. ) Thorpe, vol. Iii. P. 157; Kennedy, p. 94;"Irish Folk Lore, " p. 45. 

[90] _Beaten_--Lay of Marie de France, quoted Keightley, p. 436;Costello, "Pilgrimage to Auvergne, " vol. Ii. P. 294, quoted Keightley, p. 471; Fleury, p. 62, citing Bosquet, "Normandie Romanesque"; Howells, p. 139; Aubrey, "Remains, " p. 30; Jahn, pp. 98, 101; Kuhn und Schwartz, p. 29; Croker, p. 81. _Starved, beaten, &c. _--Croker, p. 77. _Threatenedto be killed_--Sébillot, "Trad. Et Super. " vol. I. P. 118; "Contes, "vol. I. P. 28, vol. Ii. P. 76; Carnoy, p. 4. 

[91] Grohmann, p. 135; Wratislaw, p. 161; Schleicher, p. 92. 

[92] "Y Brython, " vol. Ii. P. 20; Kennedy, p. 90; Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 174; Napier, p. 40; Lady Wilde, vol. I. Pp. 72, 171; Keightley, p. 393;"Revue des Trad. Pop. " vol. Iii. P. 162; Campbell, vol. Ii. Pp. 47, 61;Croker, p. 65; Chambers, p. 70; "F. L. Journal, " vol. I. P. 56; Gregor, pp. 8, 9; Cromek, p. 246. 

[93] "Daily Telegraph, " 19 May 1884; Gregor, p. 61; Lady Wilde, vol. I. Pp. 38, 173; "Y Cymmrodor, " vol. Vi. P. 209, vol. V. P. 72. 

[94] "Cambrian Quarterly, " vol. Ii. P. 86, quoted, Sikes, p. 59; "YCymmrodor, " vol. Iv. P. 208, vol. Vi. Pp. 172, 203. Mr. Sikes refers toa case in which the child was bathed in a solution of foxglove as havingactually occurred in Carnarvonshire in 1857, but he gives no authority. 

[95] Quoted in Southey, _loc. Cit. _ Müllenhoff relates a similar tale, see Thorpe, vol. Iii. P. 46; also Grohmann, p. 126; Kuhn und Schwartz, p. 30. Bowker, p. 73, relates a story embodying a similar episode, butapparently connected with Wild Hunt legends. See his note, ibid. P. 251. 

[96] Hunt, p. 91; "F. L. Journal, " vol. Vi. P. 182. 

[97] "Y Cymmrodor, " vol. Vi. P. 181. 

[98] Mrs. Bray, vol. I. P. 167; Kuhn, p. 196; Grimm, "Teut. Myth. " p. 468, note; "Irish F. L. " p. 45; Napier, p. 42. 

[99] Jahn, p. 52; Campbell, vol. Ii. P. 47; Lady Wilde, vol. I. P. 119. 

[100] "F. L. Journal, " vol. Ii. P. 91, quoting the "Irish Fireside. "

[101] Gregor, p. 62; Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 139, quoting Thiele; vol. Iii. P. 41, quoting Müllenhoff; Campbell, vol. Ii. P. 67; Cromek, p. 244. 

[102] Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 133, quoting Thiele; Keightley, p. 391, quoting Stewart, "The Popular Superstitions of the Highlanders. "

[103] Napier, p. 41; Lord A. Campbell, "Waifs and Strays, " p. 71;"Border Minstrelsy, " vol. Ii. P. 173. 

CHAPTER VI. 

ROBBERIES FROM FAIRYLAND. 

 The tale of Elidorus--Celtic and Teutonic stories of theft from supernatural beings--The thief unsuccessful--Cases of successful robbery--Robbery from the king of the serpents--Robbery of a drinking-cup, or horn--The horn of Oldenburg and similar vessels--The Luck of Edenhall--The cup of Ballafletcher--These vessels sacrificial and pagan. 

The earliest writers who allude to the Welsh fairy traditions areGiraldus Cambrensis and Walter Map, two members of that constellation ofliterary men which rendered brilliant the early years of the Plantagenetdynasty. Giraldus, with whom alone we have to do in this chapter, laysthe scene of what is perhaps his most famous story near Swansea, andstates that the adventures narrated occurred a short time before his owndays. The story concerns one Elidorus, a priest, upon whose persistentdeclarations it is founded. This good man in his youth ran away from thediscipline and frequent stripes of his preceptor, and hid himself underthe hollow bank of a river. There he remained fasting for two days; andthen two men of pigmy stature appeared, and invited him to come withthem, and they would lead him into a country full of delights andsports. A more powerful temptation could not have been offered to arunaway schoolboy of twelve years old; and the invitation was speedilyaccepted. He accompanied his guides into a subterranean land, where hefound a people of small stature but pure morals. He was brought into thepresence of the king, and by him handed over to his son, who was then aboy. In that land he dwelt for some time; but he often used to return byvarious paths to the upper day, and on one of these occasions he madehimself known to his mother, declaring to her the nature, manners, andstate of the pigmy folk. She desired him to bring her a present of gold, which was plentiful in that region; and he accordingly stole a goldenball while at play with the king's son, and ran off with it to hismother, hotly pursued. Reaching home, his foot stumbled on thethreshold, and, dropping the ball, he fell into the room where hismother was sitting. The two pigmies who had followed him at once seizedthe ball and made off with it, not without expressing their contempt forthe thief who had returned their kindness with such ingratitude; andElidorus, though he sought it carefully with penitence and shame, couldnever again find the way into the underground realm. [104]

Narratives of the theft of valuables from supernatural beings are foundall the world over. In this way, for example, in the mythology of morethan one nation mankind obtained the blessing of fire. Such tales, however, throw but little light on this one of Elidorus; and it willtherefore be more profitable in considering it to confine our attentionto those generally resembling it current among Celts and Teutons. Theyare very common; and the lesson they usually teach is that honesty isthe best policy--at all events, in regard to beings whose power is notbounded by the ordinary human limitations. Beginning with South Wales, we find one of these tales told by the Rev. Edward Davies, a clergymanin Gloucestershire at the beginning of this century, who was the authorof two curious works on Welsh antiquities, stuffed with useless, becausemisdirected, learning. The tale in question relates to a small lake "inthe mountains of Brecknock, " concerning which we are informed that everyMayday a certain door in a rock near the lake was found open. He whowas bold enough to enter was led by a secret passage to a small island, otherwise invisible, in the middle of the lake. This was a fairy island, a garden of enchanting beauty, inhabited by the _Tylwyth Teg_ (or FairFamily), and stored with fruits and flowers. The inhabitants treatedtheir visitors with lavish hospitality, but permitted nothing to becarried away. One day this prohibition was violated by a visitor, whoput into his pocket a flower with which he had been presented. The FairFamily showed no outward resentment. Their guests were dismissed withthe accustomed courtesy; but the moment he who had broken their behest"touched unhallowed ground" the flower disappeared, and he lost hissenses. Nor has the mysterious door ever been found again. [105]

In both these cases the thief is unsuccessful, and the punishment of hiscrime is the loss of fairy intercourse; perhaps the mildest form whichpunishment could take. But sometimes the _chevalier d'industrie_ islucky enough to secure his spoils. It is related that certain whiteghosts were in the habit of playing by night at skittles on a levelgrass-plot on the Lüningsberg, near Aerzen, in North Germany. Ajourneyman weaver, who was in love with a miller's daughter, but lackedthe means to marry her, thought there could be no harm in robbing theghosts of one of the golden balls with which they used to play. Heaccordingly concealed himself one evening; and when the harmlessspectres came out he seized one of their balls, and scampered away withit, followed by the angry owners. A stream crossed his path, and, missing the plank bridge which spanned it, he sprang into the water. This saved him, for the spirits had no power there; and a merry weddingwas the speedy sequel of his adventure. In like manner a fairy, who, ina Breton saga, was incautious enough to winnow gold in broad daylight ina field where a man was pruning beeches, excited the latter's attentionby this singular proceeding; and the man possessed himself of thetreasure by simply flinging into it a hallowed rosary. In Germany thewater-nix has the reputation of being a good shoemaker. It is relatedthat a man, who once saw a nix on the shore of the March busy at hiswork, threw a rosary upon it. The nix disappeared, leaving the shoe; anda variant states that the shoe was so well made that the owner wore outsuccessively twelve other shoes which he had caused to be made to matchit, without its being any the worse. [106]

We have already seen in the last chapter that the performance ofChristian rites and the exhibition of Christian symbols and sacred bookshave a powerful effect against fairies. But further, the invocation, orindeed the simple utterance, of a sacred name has always been held tocounteract enchantments and the wiles of all supernatural beings who arenot themselves part and parcel of what I may, without offence and forwant of a better term, call the Christian mythology, and who maytherefore at times, if not constantly, be supposed to be hostile to theChristian powers and to persons under their protection. These beliefsare, of course, in one form or another part of the machinery of everyreligion. The tales just quoted are examples of the potency of a symbol. A North German story is equally emphatic as to the value of a holy name. We are told that late one evening a boy saw a great number of haresdancing and leaping. Now hares are specially witch-possessed animals. Ashe stood and watched them one of them sprang towards him and tried tobite his leg. But he said: "Go away! thou art not of God, but of thedevil. " Instantly the whole company vanished; but he heard a dolefulvoice exclaiming: "My silver beaker, my silver beaker!" On reaching homehe told his adventure; and his father at once started back with him tothe place, where they found a silver beaker inscribed with a nameneither they nor the goldsmith, to whom they sold the goblet for a largesum of money, could read. The district whence this story comes furnishesus also with an account of a man who, being out late one night, cameupon a fire surrounded by a large circle of women sitting at a table. Heventured to seat himself among them. Each one had brought something forthe meal; and a man-cook went round them asking each what she had got. When he came to the hero of the story the latter struck him with hisstick, saying: "I have a blow which our Lord God gave the devil. "Thereupon the whole assembly disappeared, leaving nothing behind but thekettle which hung over the fire, and which the man took and longpreserved to testify the truth of his story. A Cornish fisherman wasscarcely less lucky without the protection of a pious exclamation. Forone night going home he found a crowd of "little people" on the beach. They were sitting in a semicircle holding their hats towards one oftheir number, who was pitching gold pieces from a heap into them. Thefisherman contrived to introduce his hat among them without beingnoticed, and having got a share of the money, made off with it. He wasfollowed by the piskies, but had a good start, and managed to reach homeand shut the door upon them. Yet so narrow was his escape that he leftthe tails of his sea-coat in their hands. [107]

Vengeance, however, is sometimes swift and sure upon these robberies. Itis believed in Germany that the king of the snakes is wont to come outto sun himself at noon; and that he then lays aside his crown, a prizefor any one who can seize it. A horseman, coming at the opportunemoment, did so once; but the serpent-king called forth his subjects andpursued him. By the help of his good steed the man succeeded in arrivingat home; and, thankful to have escaped the danger, he patted the beast'sneck as he jumped down, saying: "Faithfully hast thou helped me!" Atthat instant a snake, which had hidden herself unnoticed in the horse'stail, bit the man; and little joy had he of his crime. In another storythe girl who steals the crown is deafened by the cries of her victim;and elsewhere, when the serpent-king is unable to reach the robber, hebatters his own head to pieces in ineffectual rage. Perhaps he deservedhis fate in some of these cases, for it seems he had a foolish liking tolay down his crown on a white cloth, or a white, or blue, silkhandkerchief, --a predilection which the robber did not fail to providehim with the opportunity of gratifying, and of repenting. [108]

Other tales represent the thief as compelled to restore the stolengoods. Thus a man who found the trolls on the Danish isle of Fuurcarrying their treasures out into the air, shot thrice over them, andthereby forced the owners to quit them. He caught up the gold and silverand rode off with it, followed by the chief troll. But after he got intothe house and shut the doors there was such a storming and hissingoutside, that the whole house seemed ablaze. Terrified, he flung the bagwherein he had secured the treasures out into the night. The stormceased, and he heard a voice crying: "Thou hast still enough. " In themorning he found a heavy silver cup, which had fallen behind a chest ofdrawers. Again, a farm servant of South Kongerslev, in Denmark, who wentat his master's instance, on Christmas Eve, to see what the trolls in aneighbouring hill were doing, was offered drink from a golden cup. Hetook the cup, and casting out its contents, spurred his horse from thespot, hotly pursued. On the way back he passed the dwelling of a band oftrolls at enmity with those from whom he had stolen the cup. Counselledby them, he took to the ploughed field, where his pursuers were unableto follow him, and so escaped. The farmer kept the goblet until thefollowing Christmas Eve, when his wife imprudently helped a tatteredbeggar to beer in it. It is not wonderful that both the cup and thebeggar vanished; but we are to understand that the beggar was a troll. Perhaps he was. In Thyholm, a district of Denmark, there is a range oflofty mounds formerly inhabited by trolls. Some peasants who were oncepassing by these mounds prayed the trolls to give them some beer. In amoment a little creature came out and presented a large silver can toone of the men, who had no sooner grasped it than he set spurs to hishorse, with the intention of keeping it. But the little man of the moundwas too quick for him, for he speedily caught him and compelled him toreturn the can. In a Pomeranian story the underground folk forestalledthe intention to rob them on the part of a farmer's boy whose thirstthey had quenched with a can of delicious brown-beer. Having drunk, hehid the can itself, with the object of taking it home when his day'swork was done, for it was of pure silver; but when he afterwards went tolook for it, it had disappeared. [109]

Moreover, ungrateful mortals are sometimes punished, even when they arelucky enough to secure their prize. Thus it is told of a man of Zahren, in Mecklenburg, who was seized with thirst on his way home from Penzlin, that he heard music in a barrow known to be the haunt of the undergroundfolk. People were then on familiar terms with the latter; and the mancried out and asked for a drink. Nor did he ask in vain; for his appealwas at once answered by the appearance of a little fellow with a flaskof delicious drink. After slaking his thirst the man took theopportunity to make off with the flask; but he was pursued by the wholetroop of elves, only one of whom, and he had only one leg, succeeded inkeeping up with him. The thief, however, managed to get over across-road where One-leg could not follow him; and the latter then, making a virtue of necessity, cried out: "Thou mayst keep the flask; andhenceforth always drink thereout, for it will never be empty; but bewareof looking into it. " For some years the elf's injunction was observed;but one day, in a fit of curiosity, the peasant looked into the bottomof the flask, and there sat a horrid toad! The toad disappeared, and sodid the liquor; and the man in a short time fell miserably sick. In aNorse tale, a man whose bride is about to be carried off by Huldre-folk, rescues her by shooting over her head a pistol loaded with a silverbullet. This has the effect of dissolving the witchery; and he isforthwith enabled to seize her and gallop off, not unpursued. One of thetrolls, to retard his flight, held out to him a well-filled golden horn. He took the horn, but cast the liquor away, and rode away with both hornand girl. The trolls, when they found themselves unable to catch him, cried after him in their exasperation: "The red cock shall crow over thydwelling!" And behold! his house stood in a blaze. Similarly, a Swedishtradition relates that one of the serving-men of the lady of Liungby, inScania, one night of Christmas in the year 1490, rode out to inquire thecause of the noise at the Magle stone. He found the trolls dancing andmaking merry. A fair troll-woman stepped forth and offered him adrinking-horn and a pipe, praying he would drink the troll-king's healthand blow in the pipe. He snatched the horn and pipe from her, andspurring back to the mansion, delivered them into his lady's hands. Thetrolls followed and begged to have their treasures back, promisingprosperity to the lady's race if she would restore them. She kept them, however; and they are said to be still preserved at Liungby as memorialsof the adventure. But the serving-man who took them died three daysafter, and the horse on the second day; the mansion has been twiceburnt, and the family never prospered after. On the eve of the first ofMay the witches of Germany hold high revel. Every year the fields andfarmyards of a certain landowner were so injured by these nocturnalfestivities that one of his servants determined to put a stop to themischief. Going to the trysting-place, he found the witches eating anddrinking around a large slab of marble which rested on four goldenpillars; and on the slab lay a golden horn of wondrous form. Thesorceresses invited him to join the feast; but a fellow-servant whom hemet there warned him not to drink, for they only wished to poison him. Wherefore he flung the proffered beverage away, seized the horn, andgalloped home as hard as he could. All doors and gates had been leftopen for him; and the witches consequently were unable to catch him. Thenext day a gentleman in fine clothes appeared and begged his master torestore the horn, promising in return to surround his property with awall seven feet high, but threatening, in case of refusal, to burn hisfarms down thrice, and that just when he thought himself richest. Threedays were allowed to the landowner for consideration, but he declined torestore the horn. The next harvest had hardly been housed when his barnswere in flames. Three times did this happen, and the landowner wasreduced to poverty. By the king's kindness he was enabled to rebuild;and he then made every effort to discover the owner of the horn, sendingit about for that purpose even as far as Constantinople; but no onecould be found to claim it. [110]

Somewhat more courteous was a Danish boy whom an Elf-maiden met andoffered drink from a costly drinking-horn one evening as he rodehomeward late from Ristrup to Siellevskov. He received the horn, butfearing to drink its contents, poured them out behind him, so that, asin several of these stories, they fell on the horse's back, and singedthe hair off. The horn he held fast, and the horse probably needed nosecond hint to start at the top of its speed. The elf-damsel gave chaseuntil horse and man reached a running water, across which she could notfollow them. Seeing herself outwitted, she implored the youth to giveher back the horn, promising him in reward the strength of twelve men. On this assurance he returned the horn to her, and got what she hadpromised him. But the exchange was not very profitable; for with thestrength of twelve men he had unfortunately acquired the appetite oftwelve. Here it may well be thought that the supernatural gift only tookits appropriate abatement. In a story from the north of Scotland the cupwas stolen for the purpose of undoing a certain spell, and washonourably returned when the purpose was accomplished. Uistean, we aretold, was a great slayer of Fuathan, supernatural beings apparently akinto fairies. He shot one day into a wreath of mist, and a beautiful womanfell down at his side. He took her home; and she remained in his housefor a year, speechless. On a day at the end of the year he was benightedin the mountains, and seeing a light in a hill, he drew nigh, and foundthe fairies feasting. He entered the hill, and heard the butler, as hewas handing the drink round, say: "It is a year from this night's nightthat we lost the daughter of the Earl of Antrim. She has the power ofthe draught on her that she does not speak a word till she gets a drinkfrom the cup that is in my hand. " When the butler reached Uistean, hehanded him the cup. The latter, on getting it in his hand, ran off, pursued by the fairies until the cock crew. When he got home, he gavethe lady in his house to drink out of the cup; and immediately herspeech returned. She then told him she was the Earl of Antrim'sdaughter, stolen by the fairies from child-bed. Uistean took back thecup to the hill whence he had brought it, and then restored the lady toher father safe and sound, the fairy woman who had been left in herplace vanishing meantime in a flame of fire. [111]

There are also legends in which a hat conferring invisibility, or aglove, figures; but the stolen article is usually, as in most of theinstances cited above, a cup or a drinking-horn. Many such articles arestill preserved in various parts of Northern Europe. Of these the mostcelebrated are the Luck of Edenhall and the Oldenburg horn. But beforediscussing these I must refer to some other stories, the materialevidence of which is no longer extant. Gervase of Tilbury relates thatin a forest of Gloucestershire there is a glade in the midst whereofstands a hillock rising to the height of a man. Knights and hunters werewont, when fatigued with heat and thirst, to ascend the hillock inquestion to obtain relief. This had to be done singly and alone. Theadventurous man then would say: "I thirst, " when a cupbearer wouldappear and present him with a large drinking-horn adorned with gold andgems, as, says the writer, was the custom among the most ancientEnglish, and containing liquor of some unknown but most deliciousflavour. When he had drunk this, all heat and weariness fled from hisbody, and the cupbearer presented him with a towel to wipe his mouthwithal; and then having performed his office he disappeared, waitingneither for recompense nor inquiry. One day an ill-conditioned knight ofthe city of Gloucester, having gotten the horn into his hands, contraryto custom and good manners kept it. But the Earl of Gloucester, havingheard of it, condemned the robber to death, and gave the horn to KingHenry I. , lest he should be thought to have approved of such wickednessif he had added the rapine of another to the store of his own privateproperty. Gervase of Tilbury wrote near the beginning of the thirteenthcentury. His contemporary, William of Newbury, relates a similar story, but lays its scene in Yorkshire. He says that a peasant coming home lateat night, not very sober, and passing by a barrow, heard the noise ofsinging and feasting. Seeing a door open in the side of the barrow, helooked in, and beheld a great banquet. One of the attendants offered hima cup, which he took, but would not drink. Instead of doing so, hepoured out the contents, and kept the vessel. The fleetness of his beastenabled him to distance all pursuit, and he escaped. We are told thatthe cup, described as of unknown material, of unusual colour and ofextraordinary form, was presented to Henry I. , who gave it to hisbrother-in-law, David, King of the Scots. After having been kept forseveral years in the Scottish treasury it was given by William the Lionto King Henry II. , who wished to see it. [112]

By a fortune somewhat rare, this story, having been written down in thedays of the early Plantagenet kings, has been lately found again amongthe folk in the East Riding. The how, or barrow, where it is now said tohave occurred is Willey How, near Wold Newton, on the Bridlington road, a conspicuous mound about three hundred feet in circumference and sixtyfeet in height. The rustic to whom the adventure happened was aninhabitant of Wold Newton, who had been on a visit to the neighbouringvillage of North Burton, and was belated. Another tale resembling theGloucestershire saga is found in Swabia, though the object of which themysterious benefactor was deprived was not a cup, but a knife. Some farmservants, while at work in the fields, were approached by an unusuallybeautiful maiden clad in black. Every day about nine or ten o'clock inthe morning, and again about four o'clock in the afternoon, she broughtthem a small pitcher of wine and a loaf of snow-white bread--greaterluxuries, probably, to peasants then even than they would be now. Shealways brought a very pretty silver knife to cut the bread, and alwaysbegged them to be sure to give it back to her, else she were lost. Hervisits continued until one of the servants took it into his head to keepthe knife, which he was ungrateful enough to do in spite of her tearsand prayers. Finding all entreaties vain, she uttered piercing cries ofdistress, tore her fair hair, rent her silken clothes, and vanished, never to be seen again. But often you may hear on the spot where sheonce appeared sobs and the sound of weeping. [113]

A Cornish tale relates that a farmer's boy of Portallow was one nightsent to a neighbouring village for some household necessaries. On theway he fell in with some piskies, and by repeating the formula he heardthem use, transported himself with them, first to Portallow Green, thento Seaton Beach, and finally to "the King of France's cellar, " where hejoined his mysterious companions in tasting that monarch's wines. Theythen passed through magnificent rooms, where the tables were laden fora feast. By way of taking some memorial of his travels he pocketed oneof the rich silver goblets which stood on one of the tables. After avery short stay the word was passed to return, and presently he foundhimself again at home. The good wife complimented him on his despatch. "You'd say so, if you only know'd where I've been, " he replied; "I'vebeen wi' the piskies to Seaton Beach, and I've been to the King o'France's house, and all in five minutes. " The farmer stared and said theboy was _mazed_. "I thought you'd say I was mazed, so I brort away thismug to show vor et, " he answered, producing the goblet. With suchundeniable evidence his story could not be any longer doubted. Stealingfrom a natural enemy like the King of France was probably rathermeritorious than otherwise; and the goblet remained in the boy's familyfor generations, though unfortunately it is no longer forthcoming forthe satisfaction of those who may still be sceptical. [114]

This story differs from the others I have detailed, in narrating a raidby supernatural beings on the dwelling of a human potentate--a raid inwhich a human creature joined and brought away a substantial trophy. Inthe seventeenth century there was in the possession of Lord Duffus anold silver cup, called the Fairy Cup, concerning which the followingtradition was related to John Aubrey, the antiquary, by a correspondentwriting from Scotland on the 25th of March 1695. An ancestor of the thenLord Duffus was walking in the fields near his house in Morayshire whenhe heard the noise of a whirlwind and of voices crying: "Horse andHattock!" This was the exclamation fairies were said to use "when theyremove from any place. " Lord Duffus was bold enough to cry "Horse andHattock" also, and was immediately caught up through the air with thefairies to the King of France's cellar at Paris, where, after he hadheartily drunk, he fell asleep. There he was found lying the nextmorning with the silver cup in his hand, and was promptly brought beforethe King, to whom, on being questioned, he repeated this story; and theKing, in dismissing him, presented him with the cup. Where it may be nowI do not know, nor does Aubrey's correspondent furnish us with anydescription of it, save the negative but important remark that it hadnothing engraven upon it beside the arms of the family. [115]

On this vessel, therefore, if it be yet in existence, there is nothingto warrant the name of Fairy Cup, or to connect it with the adventurejust related. Nor does the Oldenburg Horn itself bear any greater marksof authenticity. That famous vessel is still exhibited at the palace ofRosenborg at Copenhagen. It is of silver gilt, and ornamented in pastewith enamel. It bears coats of arms and inscriptions, showing that itwas made for King Christian I. Of Denmark in honour of the Three Kingsof Cologne, and cannot therefore be older than the middle of thefifteenth century. The legend attached to it claims for it a muchgreater antiquity. The legend itself was narrated in Hamelmann's"Oldenburger Chronik" at the end of the sixteenth century, and is evenyet current in the mouths of the Oldenburg folk. Hamelmann dates it inthe year 990, when the then Count of Oldenburg was hunting in the forestof Bernefeuer. He had followed a roe from that forest to the Osenberg, and had distanced all his attendants. It was the twentieth of July, theweather was hot, and the count thirsty. He cried out for a draught ofwater, and had scarcely uttered the words, when the hill opened and abeautiful damsel appeared and offered him drink in this horn. Not likingthe look of the beverage, he declined to drink. Whereupon she pressedhim to do so, assuring him that it would go well with him and histhenceforth, and with the whole house of Oldenburg; but if the countwould not believe her and drink there would be no unity from that timein the Oldenburg family. He had no faith in her words, and poured outthe drink, which took the hair off his horse wherever it splashed him, and galloped away with the horn. [116]

Other drinking-horns, of which precisely analogous tales are told, arestill to be seen in Norway. Of the one at Halsteengaard it is relatedthat the posterity of the robber, down to the ninth generation, wereafflicted, as a penalty, with some bodily blemish. This horn isdescribed as holding nearly three quarts, and as being encircled by astrong gilt copper ring, about three inches broad, on which, in monkishcharacters, are to be read the names of the Three Kings of Cologne, Melchior, Baltazar, and Caspar. It is further ornamented with a smallgilt copper plate, forming the setting of an oval crystal. Another horn, preserved in the museum at Arendal, was obtained in a similar manner. Afather, pursuing his daughter and her lover, was stopped by a troll, andoffered drink in it. Instead of drinking, he cast out the contents, withthe usual result, and put spurs to his horse. He was counselled byanother troll, who was not on good terms with the first, to ride throughthe rye and not through the wheat; but even when his pursuer was impededby the tall rye-stalks, only the crowing of the cock before dawn rescuedhim. The vessel is encircled by three silver gilt rings, bearing aninscription, which seems not quite correctly reported, as follows:"Potum servorum benedic deus alme tuorum reliquam unus benede le unCaspar Melchior Baltazar. "[117]

The legend of which I am treating attaches also to a number of sacredchalices. At Aagerup, in Zealand, is one of these. The thief, nearlyovertaken by the trolls he had robbed, prayed to God in his distress, and vowed to bestow the cup upon the church if his prayer were heard. The church of Vigersted, also in Zealand, possesses another. In thelatter case the man took refuge in the church, where he was besieged bythe trolls until morning. In Bornholm a chalice and paten belonging tothe church are said to have been made out of a cup stolen in the sameway by a peasant whose mother was a mermaid, and who had inherited someportion of her supernatural power; hence, probably, his intercourse withthe trolls, of which he took so mean an advantage. At Viöl, nearFlensborg, in Schleswig, is a beaker belonging to the church, and, likethe chalice at Aagerup, of gold, of which it is narrated that it waspresented full of a liquor resembling buttermilk to a man who was ridingby a barrow where the underground folk were holding high festival. Heemptied and rode off with it in the usual manner. A cry arose behindhim: "Three-legs, come out!" and, looking round, he saw a monsterpursuing him. Finding this creature unable to come up with him, he heardmany voices calling: "Two-legs, come out!" But his horse was swifterthan Two-legs. Then One-leg was summoned, as in the story already citedfrom Mecklenburg, and came after him with gigantic springs, and wouldhave caught him, but the door of his own house luckily stood open. Hehad scarcely entered, and slammed it to, when One-leg stood outside, banging against it, and foiled. The beaker was presented to the churchin fulfilment of a vow made by the robber in his fright; and it is nowused as the communion-cup. At Rambin, on the island of Rügen, is anothercup, the story of which relates that the man to whom it was offered bythe underground folk did not refuse to drink, but having drunk, he keptthe vessel and took it home. A boy who was employed to watch horses bynight on a turf moor near the village of Kritzemow, in Mecklenburg, annoyed the underground folk by the constant cracking of his whip. Onenight, as he was thus amusing himself, a mannikin came up to him andoffered him drink in a silver-gilt beaker. The boy took the beaker, butbeing openly on bad terms with the elves, argued no good to himself fromsuch an offering. So he instantly leaped on horseback and fled, with thevessel in his hand, along the road to Biestow and Rostock. The mannikin, of course, followed, but, coming to a crossway, was compelled to give upthe chase. When the boy reached Biestow much of the liquid, as was to beexpected, had been shaken out of the cup, and wherever on the horse ithad fallen the hair had been burnt away. Glad of escaping this danger, the boy thanked God and handed the vessel over to the church at Biestow. In none of these instances, however, do I find any description of thegoblet. [118]

Fortunately there is one, and that the most celebrated of all the cupsto which a fairy origin has been ascribed, which has been often andaccurately delineated both with pen and pencil. I refer to the Luck ofEdenhall. It belongs to Sir George Musgrave of Edenhall in Cumberland, in the possession of whose family it has been for many generations. Thetradition is that a butler, going to fetch water from a well in thegarden, called St. Cuthbert's Well, came upon a company of fairies attheir revels, and snatched it from them. As the little, ill-used folkdisappeared, after an ineffectual attempt to recover it, they cried:

 "If this glass do break or fall, Farewell the luck of Edenhall!"

The most recent account of it was written in the year 1880, by the Rev. Dr. Fitch, for "The Scarborough Gazette, " from which it has beenreprinted for private circulation in the shape of a dainty pamphlet. Hespeaks of it, from a personal examination, as "a glass stoup, a drinkingvessel, about six inches in height, having a circular base, perfectlyflat, two inches in diameter, gradually expanding upwards till it endsin a mouth four inches across. The material is by no means fine inquality, presenting, as it does on close inspection, several smallcavities or air-bubbles. The general hue is a warm green, resembling thetone known by artists as _brown pink_. Upon the transparent glass istraced a geometric pattern in white and blue enamel, somewhat raised, aided by gold and a little crimson. It will, of course, stand on itsbase, but it would be far from wise to entrust it, when filled, to thissupport. " Dr. Fitch is in accord with the common opinion of antiquariesin pronouncing it to be of Venetian origin, though Mr. Franks thought itSaracenic. He describes the case in which it is kept as evidently madefor it, being of the same shape. "The lid of this case, " he says, "rather unevenly fits the body by overlapping it. There is no hinge; thefastenings are certain hooks or catches, not in good condition; thesecurity and better apposition of the lid is maintained by a piece ofleather, not unlike a modern boot-lace, or thin thong. The case dates, probably, from the fifteenth century, as articles made of similarmaterial, viz. , _cuir bouilli_, softened or boiled leather, were much inuse in that age. This case bears an elegantly varied pattern that hasbeen recognized in an inkstand of Henry the Seventh's, yet extant. Uponthe lid of this case, in very chaste and well-formed characters, is thesacred monogram I. H. S. " These three letters, which do not really form amonogram, have possibly given rise to the surmise, or tradition, thatthe Luck was once used as a sacred vessel. Dr. Fitch goes on to quoteseveral authorities, showing that chalices of glass were sanctioned bythe church, and were, in fact, made and used; and the Luck may have beensuch a vessel. But I can see no sufficient evidence of it. There isnothing to show that the leathern case is of the same date as the glassitself; and it may have been made long afterwards. The earliest mentionof the relic seems to have been by Francis Douce, the antiquary, who wasat Edenhall in 1785, and wrote some verses upon it; nor is there anyauthentic family history attaching to it. The shape of the goblet, itsunsteadiness when full, and the difficulty of drinking from it withoutspilling some of its contents, of which Dr. Fitch had some experience, would point to its being intended rather for convivial than sacreduses. 

The hypothesis of the Luck's having once been a chalice explainsnothing; because, as we have seen, several of the cups alleged to havebeen stolen from supernatural beings are chalices to this day. Moreover, what are we to think of the drinking-horns of which the same tale istold? Some of these already mentioned bear, not indeed the sacredletters, but prayers and the names of the sainted Kings of Cologne, though, unlike the cups, they are not found in churches. Onedrinking-horn, however, was preserved in the cathedral at Wexiö, inSweden, until carried away by the Danes in 1570. This horn, stated to beof three hundred colours, was received by a knight on Christmas morningfrom a troll-wife, whose head he there and then cut off with his sword. The king dubbed him Trolle in memory of the deed, and bestowed on him acoat-of-arms containing a headless troll. [119] How the horn came intothe possession of the cathedral I do not know; but at all events itcould never have been a chalice. 

A silver cup, perhaps still used for sacramental purposes at the parishchurch of Malew, in the Isle of Man, is the subject of the followinglegend. A farmer returning homeward to the parish of Malew from Peel wasbenighted and lost his way among the mountains. In the course of hiswanderings he was drawn by the sound of sweet music into a large hallwhere a number of little people were banqueting. Among them were somefaces he thought he had formerly seen; but he forbore to take any noticeof them. Nor did they take any notice of him until he was offered drink, when one of them, whose features seemed not unknown to him, plucked himby the coat and forbade him, whatever he did, to taste anything he sawbefore him; "for if you do, " he added, "you will be as I am, and returnno more to your family. " Accordingly, when a large silver beaker was putinto his hand, filled with liquor, he found an opportunity to throw itscontents on the ground. The music forthwith ceased, and the companydisappeared, leaving the cup in his hand. On finding his way home, hetold the minister of the parish what had occurred; and the latter, withthe instincts of his profession, advised him to devote the cup to theservice of the Church. We are indebted to Waldron's well-known"Description of the Isle of Man, " originally published in 1731, for thisstory. A later writer, annotating Waldron's work rather more than aquarter of a century ago, refers to the vessel in question as a paten;he states that it was still preserved in the church, and that it boreengraved the legend: "Sancte Lupe ora pro nobis. "[120] There are nofewer than eleven saints named Lupus in the calendar. Whichever of themwas invoked here, the inscription points to a continental origin for thevessel, whether cup or paten, and is not inconsistent with its being ofsome antiquity. 

Mr. Train, who quotes the tradition in his account of the Isle of Man, states that several similar tales had been placed at his disposal byfriends in the island; but it was naturally beneath the dignity of anhistorian to do more than give a single specimen of this "shade ofsuperstition, " as he calls it. He does, however, mention (thoughapparently without being conscious of any close relationship with thecup of Kirk Malew) an antique crystal goblet in the possession, when hewrote, of Colonel Wilks, the proprietor of the Estate of Ballafletcher, four or five miles from Douglas. It is described as larger than a commonbell-shaped tumbler, uncommonly light and chaste in appearance, andornamented with floral scrolls, having between the designs, on twosides, upright _columellæ_ of five pillars. The history of this cup isinteresting. It is said to have been taken by Magnus, the Norwegian Kingof Man, from St. Olave's shrine. On what ground this statement restsdoes not appear. What is really known about the goblet is that havingbelonged for at least a hundred years to the Fletcher family, the ownersof Ballafletcher, it was sold with the effects of the last of the familyin 1778, and was bought by Robert Cæsar, Esq. , who gave it to his niecefor safe keeping. This niece was, perhaps, the "old lady, a connectionof the family of Fletcher, " who is mentioned by Train as havingpresented the cup to Colonel Wilks. The tradition is that it had beengiven to the first of the Fletcher family more than two centuries ago, with the injunction "that as long as he preserved it peace and plentywould follow; but woe to him who broke it, as he would surely be hauntedby the _lhiannan Shee_, " or "peaceful spirit" of Ballafletcher. It waskept in a recess, whence it was never taken except on Christmas andEaster days, or, according to Train's account, at Christmas alone. Then, we are told, it was "filled with wine, and quaffed off at a breath bythe head of the house only, as a libation to the spirit for herprotection. "[121]

Here is no mention of the theft of the goblet unless from St. Olave'ssanctuary; but yet I think we have a glimpse of the real character ofthe cups to which the legend I am discussing attaches. They wereprobably sacrificial vessels dedicated to the old pagan worship of thehouse-spirits, of which we find so many traces among the Indo-Europeanpeoples. These house-spirits had their chief seat on the family hearth;and their great festival was that of the New Year, celebrated at thewinter solstice. The policy of the Church in early and mediæval timeswas to baptize to Christian uses as many of the heathen beliefs andceremonies as possible. The New Year festival thus became united withthe anniversary of the birth of Christ; and it is matter of history thatas the Danes used, previously to their conversion, to drink to Odin andthe Anses, so after that event they were in the habit of solemnlypledging Our Lord, His Apostles and the Saints. Such of the old beliefsand practices, however, as the Church could neither impress with asacred character, nor destroy, lingered on. Among them were thesuperstitions of the fairies and the household spirits; and there isnothing unlikely in the supposition that special vessels were kept forthe ceremonies in which these beings were propitiated. For this purposea horn would serve as well as any goblet; if, indeed, it were notactually preferred, as being older, and therefore more sacred in shapeand material. As these ceremonies gradually fell into desuetude, or wereput down by clerical influence, it would be both natural and inaccordance with policy that the cups devoted to the supposed ritesshould be transferred to the service of the Church. [122] They would allbe old-fashioned, quaint, and, many of them, of foreign and unknownprovenance. Already connected in the minds of the people with the spiritworld, a supernatural origin would be ascribed to them; and gift orrobbery would be the theory of acquisition most readily adopted. Now, theory in a certain stage of culture is indistinguishable fromnarrative. 

In this chapter I have dealt entirely with stolen goods; but, as we haveseen in previous chapters, tales of cups and other articles lent orgiven by elves in exchange for services rendered are by no meansunknown. I cannot, however, recall any of such gifts which are nowextant. It were much to be wished that all the drinking-vessels--nay, all the articles of every kind--to which legends of supernatural originbelong were actually figured and described. Much light would thereby bethrown upon their true history. I will only now point out, with regardto the Luck of Edenhall, and the three horns of Oldenburg, ofHalsteengaard, and of Arendal, of which we have full descriptions, thatwhat we know of them is all in confirmation of the theory suggested. Inparticular, the names of the Three Kings connect the horns with aChristmas, or Twelfth Night, festival, which is exactly what the theoryof the sacrificial nature of these vessels would lead us to expect. Ifwe turn from the actual beakers to the stories, it is surprising howmany of these we find pointing to the same festival. The cup of SouthKongerslev was won and lost on Christmas Eve. The horn and pipe ofLiungby were stolen "one night of Christmas. " It was at Christmas-timethat the Danish boy acquired his supernatural strength by giving back tothe elf-maiden the horn he had taken from her. The Halsteengaard hornand the golden beaker of Aagerup were both reft from the trolls onChristmas Eve, and the horn of Wexiö on Christmas morning. The night ofSt. John's Day is mentioned as the time when the horn now at Arendal wasobtained. The saint here referred to is probably St. John theEvangelist, whose feast is on December the 27th. And in more than onecase the incident is connected with a marriage, which would be anappropriate occasion for the propitiation of the household spirit. Theonly instance presenting any difficulty is that of the cup at KirkMalew; and there the difficulty arises from the name of the saint towhom the cup was apparently dedicated. Nor is it lessened by the numberof saints bearing the name of Lupus. The days on which these holy menare respectively commemorated range through the calendar from January toOctober; and until we know which of them was intended it is useless toattempt an explanation. The question, however, is of small account inthe face of the probability called forth by the coincidences thatremain. 

There is one other matter to which I would call attention, namely, thatwhile stories of the type discussed in the foregoing pages are common toboth Celts and Teutons, the stolen cup is exclusively a Teutonicpossession. More than that, no authentic record of the preservation ofthe relic itself is found save in the homes and conquests of theScandinavian race. Is this to be accounted for by the late date ofChristianity, and, therefore, the more recent survival of heathen ritesamong Teutonic, and especially Scandinavian, peoples?

FOOTNOTES:

[104] Girald. Cambr. , l. I. C. 8. 

[105] Davies, "Mythology, " p. 155. Mr. Wirt Sikes quotes this storywithout acknowledgment, stating that the legend, "varying but little inphraseology, is current in the neighbourhood of a dozen differentmountain lakes. " As if he had collected it himself! (Sikes, p. 45). Compare an Eskimo story of a girl who, having acquired _angakok_ power, visited the _ingnersuit_, or underground folk, "and received presentsfrom them; but while carrying them homewards the gifts were wafted outof her hands and flew back to their first owners" (Rink, p. 460). 

[106] Thorpe, vol. Iii. P. 120, apparently quoting Harry's "Sagen, Märchen und Legenden Niedersachsens"; Sébillot, "Trad. Et Sup. " vol. I. P. 115; "Zeits. F. Volksk. " vol. Ii. P. 415, quoting Vernaleken. 

[107] Kuhn und Schwartz, pp. 305, 306; "Choice Notes, " p. 76. 

[108] Niederhöffer, vol. Iv. P. 130; Bartsch, vol. I. P. 278; Thorpe, vol. Iii. P. 56, quoting Müllenhoff; Birlinger, "Volksthümliches, " vol. I. P. 103; Grimm, "Tales, " vol. Ii. P. 77. A Lusatian tradition quotedby Grimm in a note represents the watersnake-king's crown as not onlyvaluable in itself, but like other fairy property, the bringer of greatriches to its possessor. Ibid. 406. _Cf. _ a Hindoo story to the sameeffect, Day, p. 17; and many other tales. 

[109] Thorpe, vol. Ii. Pp. 148, 146, 121, quoting Thiele, "DanmarksFolkesagn;" Jahn, p. 75. 

[110] Bartsch, vol. I. P. 83 (see also p. 41); Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 6, quoting Faye, "Norske Folkesagn"; ibid. P. 89, quoting Afzelius, "Svenske Folkets Sago-Häfder"; Kuhn und Schwartz, p. 26. 

[111] Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 142, quoting Thiele. See also Keightley, p. 88; Campbell, vol. Ii. P. 97. 

[112] Gerv. Tilb. , Decis. Iii. C. 60; Guil. Neub. "Chronica RerumAnglic. " lib. I. C. 28, quoted by Liebrecht in a note to Gerv. Tilb. 

[113] Nicholson, p. 83. Mr. Nicholson in a letter to me says that he hadthe story as given by him from an old inhabitant of Bridlington, andthat it is current in the neighbourhood. Birlinger, "Volkst. " vol. I. Pp. 3, 5. 

[114] "Choice Notes, " p. 73. 

[115] Aubrey, "Miscellany, " p. 149. 

[116] Thorpe, vol. Iii. P. 128; Kuhn und Schwartz, p. 280. The latter isthe version still found as traditional. Its details are not so full, andare in some respects different. 

[117] Thorpe, vol. Ii. Pp. 15, 14, apparently quoting Faye. Dr. Geo. Stephens of the University of Copenhagen very kindly made a great numberof inquiries for me with a view to obtain information, and, if possible, drawings of the Scandinavian horns and cups, but unhappily with littlesuccess. The answer to his inquiries in reference to the horns ofHalsteengaard and Arendal, sent by Prof. Olaf Rygh, the learned Keeperof the Norwegian Museum at Christiania, will be read with interest. Hesays: "Mr. Hartland's notice of 'Halsteengaard' in Norway doubtlessrefers to a local tale about a drinking-horn formerly in the hands ofthe owner of Holsteingaard, Aal parish, Hallingdal. It was first madepublic in the year 174-, in 'Ivar Wiels Beskriveke over Ringerige ogHallingdals Fogderi, ' in 'Topografisk Journal for Norge, ' Part XXXI. , Christiania, 1804, pp. 179-183. I know nothing more as to the fate ofthis horn than what is said in Nicolaysen's 'Norske Fornlevninger, ' p. 152, that it is said to have been sent to the Bergen Museum in 1845. Should this be so, it will be almost impossible to identify it among themany such horns in that collection. As described by Wiel, it was merelya very simple specimen of the kind with the common inscription JASPAR XMELCHIOR X BALTAZAR. This class of horn was largely imported to Norwayfrom North Germany in the 15th and 16th centuries. 

"Meanwhile I beg to point out that the oldest legend of this kind whichhas come down to us is found in 'Biskop Jens Nilssons Visitatsböger ogReise-optegnelser, udgivne af Dr. Yngvar Nielsen, ' p. 393. It waswritten by the bishop or his amanuensis during his visitation, 1595, inFlatdal parish, Telemarken. What has become of the horn spoken of by thebishop I cannot say. 

"I have no idea of what is meant by Mr. Hartland's reference to Arendal. Possibly it may concern something in the museum there, but of which Inever heard. The printed catalogue of the museum (Arendal, 1882)includes nothing from the middle age or later. "

[118] Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 144, quoting Thiele. Keightley, pp. 109, 111, note; (The latter mentions another theft of a silver jug where the thiefwas saved by crossing running water. ) Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 140; vol. Iii. P. 70, quoting Müllenhoff; Jahn, p. 53; Bartsch, vol. I. P. 60. 

[119] Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 91, quoting Afzelius. 

[120] Waldron, pp. 28, 106. 

[121] Train, vol. Ii. P. 154; and see a note by Harrison to his editionof Waldron, p. 106. The cup is stated by Harrison to have been, when hewrote, in the possession of Major Bacon, of Seafield House. Mrs. Russell, of Oxford, kindly made inquiries for me in the Isle of Man asto its present whereabouts, and that of the cup of Kirk Malew, andinserted a query in _Yn Livar Manninagh_, the organ of the Isle of ManNatural History and Antiquarian Society, but without eliciting anyinformation. 

[122] It is not irrelevant to observe in this connection that several ofthe chalices in Sweden are said to have been presented to the churchesby priests to whom a Berg-woman had offered drink in these very cups orbowls (Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 90, quoting Afzelius). 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE SUPERNATURAL LAPSE OF TIME IN FAIRYLAND. 

 The story of Rhys and Llewelyn--Dancing for a twelvemonth--British variants--Lapse of time among the Siberian Tartars--German and Slavonic stories--The penalty of curiosity and greed--A Lapp tale--The mother leaving her child in the mysterious cave--Rip van Winkle--Eastern variants--King Herla--The Adalantado of the Seven Cities--The Seven Sleepers--King Wenzel and the smith--Lost brides and bridegrooms--The Monk Felix--Visits to Paradise--A Japanese tale. 

In previous chapters we have seen that human beings are sometimes takenby fairies into Fairyland, and that they are there kept for a longer orshorter period, or, it may be, are never permitted to return to earth atall. We have noted cases in which they are led down for temporarypurposes and, if they are prudent, are enabled to return when thosepurposes are accomplished. We have noted other cases in which babes orgrown women have been stolen and retained until their kindred havecompelled restoration. The story cited in the last chapter from Giraldusdescribes a seduction of a different kind. There the visit to Fairylandwas of a more voluntary character, and the hero was able to go to andfro as he pleased. We have also met with tales in which the temptationof food, or more usually of drink, has been held out to the wayfarer;and we have learned that the result of yielding would be to give himselfwholly into the fairies' hands. I propose now to examine instances inwhich temptation of one kind or other has been successful, or in whicha spell has been cast over man or woman, not merely preventing thebewitched person from regaining his home and human society, but alsorendering him, while under the spell, impervious to the attacks of timeand unconscious of its flight. 

These stories are of many types. The first type comes, so far as I know, only from Celtic sources. It is very widely known in Wales, and we maycall it, from its best-known example, the "Rhys and Llewelyn type. " Astory obtained between sixty and seventy years ago in the Vale of Neathrelates that Rhys and Llewelyn were fellow-servants to a farmer; andthey had been engaged one day in carrying lime for their master. As theywere going home, driving their mountain ponies before them in thetwilight, Rhys suddenly called to his companion to stop and listen tothe music. It was a tune, he said, to which he had danced a hundredtimes, and he must go and have a dance now. So he told his companion togo on with the horses and he would soon overtake him. Llewelyn couldhear nothing, and began to remonstrate; but away sprang Rhys, and hecalled after him in vain. Accordingly he went home, put up the ponies, ate his supper and went to bed, thinking that Rhys had only made apretext for going to the alehouse. But when morning came, and still nosign of Rhys, he told his master what had occurred. Search provingfruitless, suspicion fell on Llewelyn of having murdered hisfellow-servant; and he was accordingly imprisoned. A farmer in theneighbourhood, skilled in fairy matters, guessing how things might havebeen, proposed that himself and some others, including the narrator ofthe story, should accompany Llewelyn to the place where he parted withRhys. On coming to it, "Hush!" cried Llewelyn, "I hear music, I hearsweet harps. " All listened, but could hear nothing. But Llewelyn's footwas on the outward edge of the fairy-ring. "Put your foot on mine, David, " he said to the narrator. The latter did so, and so did each ofthe party, one after the other, and then heard the sound of many harps, and saw within a circle, about twenty feet across, great numbers oflittle people dancing round and round. Among them was Rhys, whomLlewelyn caught by the smock-frock, as he came by him, and pulled himout of the circle. "Where are the horses? where are the horses?" criedhe. "Horses, indeed!" said Llewelyn. Rhys urged him to go home and lethim finish his dance, in which he averred he had not been engaged morethan five minutes. It was only by main force they got him away; and thesequel was that he could not be persuaded of the time that had passed inthe dance: he became melancholy, took to his bed, and soon afterdied. [123]

Variants of this tale are found all over Wales. At Pwllheli, ProfessorRhys was told of two youths who went out to fetch cattle and came atdusk upon a party of fairies dancing. One was drawn into the circle; andthe other was suspected of murdering him, until, at a wizard'ssuggestion, he went again to the same spot at the end of a year and aday. There he found his friend dancing, and managed to get him out, reduced to a mere skeleton. The first question put by the rescued manwas as to the cattle he was driving. Again, at Trefriw, Professor Rhysfound a belief that when a young man got into a fairy-ring the fairydamsels took him away; but he could be got out unharmed at the end of ayear and a day, when he would be found dancing with them in the samering. The mode of recovery was to touch him with a piece of iron and todrag him out at once. We shall consider hereafter the reason fortouching the captive with iron. In this way was recovered, after theexpiration of a year and a day, a youth who had wandered into afairy-ring. He had new shoes on at the time he was lost; and he couldnot be made to understand that he had been there more than five minutesuntil he was asked to look at his new shoes, which were by that time inpieces. Near Aberystwyth, Professor Rhys was told of a servant-maid whowas lost while looking for some calves. Her fellow-servant, a man, wastaken into custody on a charge of murdering her. A "wise man, " however, found out that she was with the fairies; and by his directions theservant-man was successful at the end of the usual period of twelvemonths and a day in drawing her out of the fairy-ring at the place whereshe was lost. As soon as she was released and saw her fellow-servant(who was carefully dressed in the same clothes as he had on when sheleft him), she asked about the calves. On their way home she told hermaster, the servant-man, and the others, that she would stay with themuntil her master should strike her with iron. One day, therefore, whenshe was helping her master to harness a horse the bit touched her, andshe disappeared instantly and was never seen from that time forth. Inanother case, said to have happened in Anglesea, a girl got into afairy-circle while looking, with her father, for a lost cow. By a "wiseman's" advice, however, he rescued her by pulling her out of the circlethe very hour of the night of the anniversary of his loss. The firstinquiry she then made was after the cow, for she had not the slightestrecollection of the time she had spent with the fairies. [124]

A ghastly sequel, more frequently found in a type of the storyconsidered later on, sometimes occurs. In Carmarthenshire it is saidthat a farmer going out one morning very early was lost; nor were anytidings heard of him for more than twelve months afterwards, until oneday a man passing by a lonely spot saw him dancing, and spoke to him. This broke the spell; and the farmer, as if waking out of a dream, exclaimed: "Oh dear! where are my horses?" Stepping out of the magicalcircle, he fell down and mingled his dust with the earth. In North Walesa story was generally current a couple of generations since of two mentravelling together who were benighted in a wood. One of them slept, butthe other fell into the hands of the fairies. With the help of awizard's advice, some of his relatives rescued him at the end of a year. They went to the place where his companion had missed him, there foundhim dancing with the fairies and dragged him out of the ring. Theunfortunate man, imagining it was the same night and that he was withhis companion, immediately asked if it were not better to go home. Hewas offered some food, which he began to eat; but he had no sooner doneso than he mouldered away. A similar tradition attaches to a certainyew-tree near Mathafarn in the parish of Llanwrin. One of twofarm-servants was lost at that spot, and found again, a year after, dancing in a fairy-circle. On being dragged out he was asked if he didnot feel hungry. "No, " he replied, "and if I did, have I not here in mywallet the remains of my dinner that I had before I fell asleep?" He didnot know that a year had passed by. His look was like a skeleton; and assoon as he had tasted food he too mouldered away. [125]

In Scotland the story is told without this terrible end. For example, inSutherlandshire we learn that a man who had been with a friend to thetown of Lairg to enter his first child's birth in the session-books, andto buy a keg of whisky against the christening, sat down to rest at thefoot of the hill of Durchâ, near a large hole from which they soonheard a sound of piping and dancing. Feeling curious, he entered thecavern, and disappeared. His friend was accused of murder, but beingallowed a year and a day to vindicate himself, he used to repair at duskto the fatal spot and call and pray. One day before the term ran out, hesat, as usual, in the gloaming by the cavern, when, what seemed hisfriend's shadow passed within it. It was his friend himself, trippingmerrily with the fairies. The accused man succeeded in catching him bythe sleeve and pulling him out. "Why could you not let me finish myreel, Sandy?" asked the bewitched man. "Bless me!" rejoined Sandy, "haveyou not had enough of reeling this last twelvemonth?" But the otherwould not believe in this lapse of time until he found his wife sittingby the door with a yearling child in her arms. In Kirkcudbrightshire, one night about Hallowe'en two young ploughmen, returning from anerrand, passed by an old ruined mill and heard within music and dancing. One of them went in; and nothing was seen of him again until a yearafter, when his companion went to the same place, Bible in hand, anddelivered him from the evil beings into whose power he had fallen. [126]

The captive, however, does not always require to be sought for: he issometimes released voluntarily by his captors. A man who lived atYstradgynlais, in Brecknockshire, going out one day to look after hiscattle and sheep on the mountain, disappeared. In about three weeks, after search had been made in vain for him and his wife had given him upfor dead, he came home. His wife asked him where he had been for thepast three weeks. "Three weeks! Is it three weeks you call three hours?"said he. Pressed to say where he had been, he told her he had beenplaying on his flute (which he usually took with him on the mountain) atthe Llorfa, a spot near the Van Pool, when he was surrounded at adistance by little beings like men, who closed nearer and nearer to himuntil they became a very small circle. They sang and danced, and soaffected him that he quite lost himself. They offered him some smallcakes to eat, of which he partook; and he had never enjoyed himself sowell in his life. Near Bridgend is a place where a woman is said to havelived who was absent ten years with the fairies, and thought she was notout of the house more than ten minutes. With a woman's proverbialpersistency, she would not believe her husband's assurances that it wasten years since she disappeared; and the serious disagreement betweenthem which ensued was so notorious that it gave a name to the placewhere they lived. A happier result is believed to have attended anadventure that foreboded much worse to a man at Dornoch, inSutherlandshire. He was present at a funeral in the churchyard on NewYear's Day, and was so piqued at not being invited, as all the otherswere, to some of the New Year's festivities, that in his vexation, happening to see a skull lying at his feet, he struck it with his staffand said: "Thou seemest to be forsaken and uncared-for, like myself. Ihave been bidden by none; neither have I invited any: I now invitethee!" That night as he and his wife were sitting down alone to supper, a venerable old man entered the room in silence and took his share ofthe delicacies provided. In those days the New Year's feast was kept upfor eleven days together; and the stranger's visit was repeated in thesame absolute silence for six nights. At last the host, alarmed anduneasy, sought the priest's advice as to how he was to get rid of hisunwelcome guest. The reverend father bade him, in laying the bannocks inthe basket for the seventh day's supper, reverse the last-baked one. This, he declared, would induce the old man to speak. It did; and thespeech was an invitation--nay, rather a command--to spend the remainderof the festival with him in the churchyard. The priest, again consulted, advised compliance; and the man went trembling to the tryst. He foundin the churchyard a great house, brilliantly illuminated, where heenjoyed himself, eating, drinking, piping and dancing. After what seemedthe lapse of a few hours, the grey master of the house came to him, andbade him hasten home, or his wife would be married to another; and inparting he advised him always to respect the remains of the dead. Scarcely had he done speaking when the grey old man himself, the guests, the house, and all that it contained, vanished, leaving the man to crawlhome alone in the moonlight as best he might after so long a debauch. For he had been absent a year and a day; and when he got home he foundhis wife in a bride's dress, and the whole house gay with a bridalparty. His entrance broke in upon the mirth: his wife swooned, and thenew bridegroom scrambled up the chimney. But when she got over herfright, and her husband had recovered from the fatigue of his year-longdance, they made it up, and lived happily ever after. [127]

A story of this type has been elaborated by a Welsh writer who is knownas "Glasynys" into a little romance, in which the hero is a shepherdlad, and the heroine a fairy maiden whom he weds and brings home withhim. This need not detain us; but a more authentic story from the Valeof Neath may be mentioned. It concerns a boy called Gitto Bach, orLittle Griffith, a farmer's son, who disappeared. During two whole yearsnothing was heard of him; but at length one morning when his mother, whohad long and bitterly mourned for him as dead, opened the door, whomshould she see sitting on the threshold but Gitto with a bundle underhis arm. He was dressed and looked exactly as when she last saw him, forhe had not grown a bit. "Where have you been all this time?" asked hismother. "Why, it was only yesterday I went away, " he replied; andopening the bundle, he showed her a dress the "little children, " as hecalled them, had given him for dancing with them. The dress was of whitepaper without seam. With maternal caution she put it into the fire. [128]

I am not aware of many foreign examples of this type; but among theSiberian Tartars their extravagant heroes sometimes feast overlong withfriends as mythical as themselves. On one occasion

 "They caroused, they feasted. That a month had flown They knew not; That a year had gone by They knew not. As a year went by It seemed like a day; As two years went by It seemed like two days; As three years went by It seemed like three days. "

Again, when a hero was married the time very naturally passed rapidly. "One day he thought he had lived here--he had lived a month; two days hebelieved he had lived--he had lived two months; three days he believedhe had lived--he had lived three months. " And he was much surprised tolearn from his bride how long it really was, though time seems always tohave gone wrong with him. For after he was born it is recorded that inone day he became a year old, in two days two years, and in seven daysseven years old; after which he performed some heroic feats, atefourteen sheep and three cows, and then lying down slept for seven daysand seven nights--in other words, until he was fourteen years old. In aBreton tale a girl who goes down underground, to become godmother to afairy child, thinks, when she returns, that she has been away but twodays, though in the meantime her god-child has grown big: she has beenin fact ten years. In a Hessian legend the time of absence is sevenyears. [129]

Turning away from this type, in which pleasure, and especially thepleasure of music and dancing, is the motive, let us look at what seemto be some specially German and Slavonic types of the tale. In thelatter it is rather an act of service (sometimes under compulsion), curiosity or greed, which leads the mortal into the mysterious regionswhere time has so little power. At Eldena, in Pomerania, are the ruinsof a monastery and church, formerly very wealthy, under which are saidto be some remarkable chambers. Two Capuchin monks came from Rome manyyears ago, and inquired of the head of the police after a hidden doorwhich led under the ruins. He lent them his servant-boy, who, undertheir direction, removed the rubbish and found the door. It opened atthe touch of the monks, and they entered with the servant. Passingthrough several rooms they reached one in which many persons weresitting and writing. Here they were courteously received; and after agood deal of secret conference between the monks and their hosts, theywere dismissed. When the servant came back to the upper air, he found hehad been absent three whole years. Blanik is the name of a mountain inBohemia, beneath which are lofty halls whose walls are entirelyfashioned of rock-crystal. In these halls the Bohemian hero, the holyKing Wenzel, sleeps with a chosen band of his knights, until some daythe utmost need of his country shall summon him and them to her aid. Asmith, who dwelt near the mountain, was once mowing his meadow, when astranger came and bade him follow him. The stranger led him into themountain, where he beheld the sleeping knights, each one upon his horse, his head bent down upon the horse's neck. His guide then brought himtools that he might shoe the horses, but told him to beware in his workof knocking against any of the knights. The smith skilfully performedhis work, but as he was shoeing the last horse he accidentally touchedthe rider, who started up, crying out: "Is it time?" "Not yet, " repliedhe who had brought the smith thither, motioning the latter to keepquiet. When the task was done, the smith received the old shoes by wayof reward. On returning home he was astonished to find two mowers atwork in his meadow, whereas he had only left one there. From them helearned that he had been away a whole year; and when he opened his bag, behold the old horse-shoes were all of solid gold! On Easter Sunday, during mass, the grey horse belonging to another peasant living at thefoot of the Blanik disappeared. While in quest of him the owner foundthe mountain open, and, entering, arrived in the hall where the knightssat round a large table of stone and slept. Each of them wore blackarmour, save their chief, who shone in gold and bore three herons'feathers in his helm. Ever and anon one or other of the knights wouldlook up and ask: "Is it time?" But on their chief shaking his head hewould sink again to rest. While the peasant was in the midst of hisastonishment he heard a neighing behind him; and turning round he leftthe cavern. His horse was quietly grazing outside; but when he got homeevery one shrank in fright away from him. His wife sat at the table indeep mourning. On seeing him she shrieked and asked: "Where have youbeen for a whole year?" He thought he had only been absent a singlehour. A servant-man driving two horses over the Blanik heard thetrampling of steeds and a battle-march played. It was the knightsreturning from their mimic combat; and the horses he was driving wereso excited that he was compelled to follow with them into the mountain, which then closed upon them. Nor did he reach home until ten years hadpassed away, though he thought it had only been as many days. [130]

We shall have occasion to return to Blanik and its knights. Paralleltraditions attach, as is well known, to the Kyffhäuser, a mountain inThuringia, where Frederick Barbarossa sleeps. A peasant going with cornto market at Nordhausen, drove by the Kyffhäuser, where he was met by alittle grey man, who asked him whither he was going, and offered toreward him if he would accompany him instead. The little grey man ledhim through a great gateway into the mountain till they came at last toa castle. There he took from the peasant his waggon and horses, and ledhim into a hall gorgeously illuminated and filled with people, where hewas well entertained. At last the little grey man told him it was nowtime he went home, and rewarding him bountifully he led him forth. Hiswaggon and horses were given to him again, and he trudged homeward wellpleased. Arrived there, however, his wife opened her eyes wide to seehim, for he had been absent a year, and she had long accounted him dead. It fared not quite so well with a journeyman joiner from Nordhausen, byname Thiele, who found the mountain open, as it is every seven years, and went in. There he saw the Marquis John (whoever he may have been), with his beard spreading over the table and his nails grown through it. Around the walls lay great wine-vats, whose hoops and wood had alikerolled away; but the wine had formed its own shell and was blood-red. Alittle drop remained in the wine-glass which stood before the MarquisJohn. The joiner made bold to drain it off, and thereupon fell asleep. When he awoke again he had slept for seven years in the mountain. [131]

Curiosity and greed caused this man to lose seven years of his life. This is a motive often met with in these stories. A young girl duringthe midday rest left a hayfield in the Lavantthal, Carinthia, to climbthe Schönofen, whence there is a fine view over the valley. As shereached the top she became aware of an open door in the rock. Sheentered, and found herself in a cellar-like room. Two fine black steedsstood at the fodder-trough and fed off the finest oats. Marvelling howthey got there, she put a few handfuls of the oats into her pocket, andpassed on into a second chamber. A chest stood there, and on the chestlay a black dog. Near him was a loaf of bread, in which a knife wasstuck. With ready wit she divined, or recollected, the purpose of thebread; and cutting a good slice she threw it to the dog. While he wasbusy devouring it she filled her apron from the treasure contained inthe chest. But meantime the door closed, and there was nothing for itbut to lie down and sleep. She awoke to find the door wide open, and atonce made the best of her way home. But she was not a little astoundedto learn that she had been gone for a whole year. [132]

A Lapp tale presents this mysterious lapse of time as the sequel of anadventure similar to that of Ulysses with Polyphemus. An old Lapp, having lost his way while hunting, came to a cottage. The door was open;and he entered to remain there the night, and began to cook in a pot hecarried with him the game he had caught that day. Suddenly a witchentered, and asked him: "What is your name?" "Myself, " answered theLapp; and taking a spoonful of the boiling liquid he flung it in herface. She cried out: "Myself has burnt me! Myself has burnt me!" "If youhave burnt yourself you ought to suffer, " answered her companion fromthe neighbouring mountain. The hunter was thus delivered for the momentfrom the witch, who, however, as she went away, exclaimed: "Self hasburnt me; Self shall sleep till the new year!" When the Lapp hadfinished his repast he lay down to repose. On awaking he rummaged in hisprovision-sack: he found its contents mouldy and putrid. Nor could heunderstand this before he got home and learned that he had been missingfor six months. [133]

This story is unlike the previous ones, inasmuch as it represents thesix months' disappearance as in no way due to any enticements, either ofsupernatural beings or of the hero's own passions. Neither music, nordancing, neither greed nor curiosity, led him astray. The aboriginalinhabitants of Japan in like manner tell of a certain man who went outin his boat to fish and was carried off by a storm to an unknown land. The chief, an old man of divine aspect, begged him to stay there for thenight, promising to send him home to his own country on the morrow. Thepromise was fulfilled by his being sent with some of the old chief'ssubjects who were going thither; but the man was enjoined to lie down inthe boat and cover up his head. When he reached his native place thesailors threw him into the water; and ere he came to himself sailors andboat had disappeared. He had been away for a whole year; and the chiefappeared to him shortly afterwards in a dream, revealing himself as nohuman being, but the chief of the salmon, the divine fish; and herequired the man thenceforth to worship him. Curiously similar to theJapanese tale is a tale told to M. Sébillot by a cabin-boy of Saint Castin Brittany. A fisherman caught one day the king of the fishes, in theshape of a small gilded fish, but was persuaded to let him go underpromise to send (such is the popular belief in the unselfishness ofkings) at all times as many of his subjects as the fisherman wanted intohis nets. The promise was royally fulfilled. More than this, when thefisherman's boat was once capsized by a storm the king of the fishesappeared, gave its drowning owner to drink from a bottle he had broughtfor the purpose, and conveyed him under the water to his capital, --abeautiful city whose streets, surpassing those of London in thetraditions of English peasant children, were paved not only with goldbut with diamonds and other gems. The fisherman promptly filled hispockets with these paving-stones; and then the king politely told him:"When you are tired of being with us, you have only to say so. " There isa limit to hospitality; so the fisherman took the hint, and told theking how delighted he should be to remain there always, but that he hada wife and children at home who would think he was drowned. The kingcalled a tunny and commanded him to take the fisherman on his back anddeposit him on a rock near the shore, where the other fishers could seeand rescue him. Then, with the parting gift of an inexhaustible purse, he dismissed his guest. When the fisherman got back to his village hefound he had been away more than six months. In the chapter onChangelings I had occasion to refer to some instances of women beingcarried off at a critical time in their lives. One more such instancemay be added here. Among the Bohemians a mythical female calledPolednice is believed to be dangerous to women who have recently addedto the population; and such women are accordingly warned to keep withindoors, especially at noon and after the angelus in the evening. On oneoccasion a woman, who scorned the warnings she had received, was carriedoff by Polednice in the form of a whirlwind, as she sat in theharvest-field chatting with the reapers, to whom she had brought theirdinner. Only after a year and a day was she permitted to return. [134]

In some of the German and Bohemian tales a curious incident occurs. Beneath the Rollberg, near Niemes, in Bohemia, is a treasure-vault, thedoor of which stands open for a short time every Palm Sunday. A womanonce found it open thus and entered with her child. There she saw anumber of Knights Templars sitting round a table, gambling. They did notnotice her; so she helped herself from a pile of gold lying near them, having first set down her child. Beside the gold lay a black dog, whichbarked from time to time. The woman knew that the third time it barkedthe door would close; wherefore she hastened out. When she bethoughtherself of the child it was too late: she had left it behind in herhaste, and the vault was closed. The following year she returned at thehour when the door was open, and found the little one safe and sound, ineither hand a fair red apple. Frequently in these tales a beautiful ladycomes and ministers to the child during its mother's absence; at othertimes, a man. The treasure of King Darius is believed to be buriedbeneath the Sattelburg in Transylvania. A Wallachian woman, with heryearling babe in her arms, once found the door open and went in. Theresat an old, long-bearded man, and about him stood chests full of silverand gold. She asked him if she might take some of this treasure forherself. "Oh, yes, " answered he, "as much as you like. " She put down thechild and filled her skirts with gold, put the gold outside andre-entered. Having obtained permission, she filled and emptied herskirts a second time. But when she turned to enter a third time the doorbanged-to, and she was left outside. She cried out for her child, andwept--in vain. Then she made her way to the priest and laid her casebefore him. He advised her to pray daily for a whole year, and she wouldthen get her child again. She carried out his injunction; and thefollowing year she went again to the Sattelburg. The door was open, andshe found the babe still seated in the chest where she had put it down. It was playing with a golden apple, which it held up to her, crying:"Look, mother, look!" The mother was astonished to hear it speak, andasked: "Whence hast thou that beautiful apple?" "From the old man, whohas given me to eat too. " The man was, however, no longer to be seen;and as the mother took her child and left the place, the door closedbehind her. [135]

But the most numerous, and assuredly the most weird and interesting, ofthese stories belong to a type which we may call, after the famousPosthumous Writing of Diedrich Knickerbocker, the "Rip van Winkle type. "Here the hero remains under the spell of the supernatural until hepasses the ordinary term of life; and he comes back to find all hisfriends dead and himself nothing but a dim memory. It will be needlesshere to recapitulate the tale of Rip van Winkle himself. Whether anysuch legend really lingers about the Kaatskill mountains I do not know;but I have a vehement suspicion that Washington Irving was indebtedrather to Otmar's "Traditions of the Harz, " a book published at Bremenin the year 1800. In this book the scene of the tale is laid on theKyffhäuser, and with the exception of such embellishments as the keentongue of Dame van Winkle and a few others, the incidents in theadventures of Peter Claus the Goatherd are absolutely the same as thoseof Rip van Winkle. [136]

Of all the variants of this type it is in China that we find the onemost resembling it. Wang Chih, afterwards one of the holy men of theTaoists, wandering one day in the mountains of Kü Chow to gatherfirewood, entered a grotto in which some aged men were playing at chess. He laid down his axe and watched their game, in the course of which oneof them handed him something in size and shape like a date-stone, telling him to put it into his mouth. No sooner had he done so thanhunger and thirst passed away. After some time had elapsed one of theplayers said: "It is long since you came here; you should go home now. "Wang Chih accordingly proceeded to pick up his axe, but found that itshandle had mouldered into dust; and on reaching home he became awarethat not hours, nor days, but centuries had passed since he left it, andthat no vestige of his kinsfolk remained. Another legend tells of ahorseman who, riding over the hills, sees several old men playing a gamewith rushes. He ties his horse to a tree while he looks on at them. In afew minutes, as it seems to him, he turns to depart; but his horse isalready a skeleton, and of the saddle and bridle rotten pieces only areleft. He seeks his home; but that too is gone; and he lies down and diesbroken-hearted. A similar story is told in Japan of a man who goes intothe mountains to cut wood, and watches two mysterious ladies playing atchess while seven generations of mortal men pass away. Both theselegends omit the supernatural food which seems to support life, not onlyin the case of Wang Chih, but also in that of Peter Claus. In anotherChinese tale two friends, wandering in the T'ien-t'ai mountains, areentertained by two beautiful girls, who feed them on a kind ofhaschisch, a drug made from hemp; and when they return they find thatthey have passed seven generations of ordinary men in the society ofthese ladies. Another Taoist devotee was admitted for a while into thenext world, where he was fed on cakes, and, as if he were a dyspeptic, he received much comfort from having all his digestive organs removed. After awhile he was sent back to this world, to find himself muchyounger than his youngest grandson. [137]

Feasts in Fairyland occupy an unconscionable length of time. Walter Map, writing in the latter half of the twelfth century, relates a legendconcerning a mythical British king, Herla, who was on terms offriendship with the king of the pigmies. The latter appeared to him oneday riding on a goat, a man such as Pan might have been described to be, with a very large head, a fiery face, and a long red beard. A spottedfawn-skin adorned his breast, but the lower part of his body was exposedand shaggy, and his legs degenerated into goat's feet. This queer littlefellow declared himself very near akin to Herla, foretold that the kingof the Franks was about to send ambassadors offering his daughter aswife to the king of the Britons, and invited himself to the wedding. Heproposed a pact between them, that when he had attended Herla's wedding, Herla should the following year attend his. Accordingly at Herla'swedding the pigmy king appears with a vast train of courtiers andservants, and numbers of precious gifts. The next year he sends to bidHerla to his own wedding. Herla goes. Penetrating a mountain cavern, heand his followers emerge into the light, not of sun or moon, but ofinnumerable torches, and reach the pigmies' dwellings, whose splendourMap compares with Ovid's description of the palace of the sun. Havinggiven so charming, and doubtless so accurate, a portrait of the pigmyking, it is a pity the courtier-like ecclesiastic has forgotten toinform us what his bride was like. He leaves us to guess that herattractions must have corresponded with those of her stately lord, telling us simply that when the wedding was over, and the gifts whichHerla brought had been presented, he obtained leave to depart, and setout for home, laden, he too, with gifts, among which are enumeratedhorses, dogs, hawks, and other requisites of a handsome outfit forhunting or fowling. Indeed, the bridegroom himself accompanied them asfar as the darkness of the cavern through which they had to pass; and atparting he added to his presentations that of a bloodhound, so small asto be carried, forbidding any of the train to alight anywhere until thehound should leap from his bearer. When Herla found himself once morewithin his own realm he met with an old shepherd, and inquired fortidings of his queen by name. The shepherd looked at him astonished, scarcely understanding his speech; for he was a Saxon, whereas Herlawas a Briton. Nor, as he told the king, had he heard of such a queen, unless it were a queen of the former Britons, whose husband, Herla, wassaid to have disappeared at yonder rock with a dwarf, and never to havebeen seen again. That, however, was long ago, for it was now more thantwo hundred years since the Britons had been driven out and the Saxonshad taken possession of the land. The king was stupefied, for he deemedhe had only been away three days, and could hardly keep his seat. Someof his followers, forgetful of the pigmy king's prohibition, alightedwithout waiting for the dog to lead the way, and were at once crumbledinto dust. Herla and those who were wiser took warning by the fate oftheir companions. One story declared that they were wandering still; andmany persons asserted that they had often beheld the host upon its mad, its endless journey. But Map concludes that the last time it appearedwas in the year of King Henry the Second's coronation, when it was seenby many Welshmen to plunge into the Wye in Herefordshire. [138]

Cases in which dancing endures for a whole twelvemonth have already beenmentioned. This might be thought a moderate length of time for a ball, even for a fairy ball; but some have been known to last longer. Twocelebrated fiddlers of Strathspey were inveigled by a venerable old man, who ought to have known better, into a little hill near Inverness, wherethey supplied the music for a brilliant assembly which lasted in factfor a hundred years, though to them it seemed but a few hours. Theyemerged into daylight again on a Sunday; and when they had learned thereal state of affairs, and recovered from their astonishment at themiracle which had been wrought in them, they went, as was meet, tochurch. They sat listening for awhile to the ringing of the bells; butwhen the clergyman began to read the gospel, at the first word heuttered they both fell into dust. This is a favourite form of the legendin Wales as well as Scotland; but, pathetic and beautiful as the variousversions are, they present no variations of importance. [139]

Often the stranger's festive visit to Fairyland is rounded with a sleep. We have seen this in the instance of Rip van Winkle. Another legend hasbeen put into literary form by Washington Irving, this time from aPortuguese source. It relates the adventures of a noble youth who setout to find an island in which some of the former inhabitants of thePeninsula had taken refuge at the time of the Moorish conquest, andwhere their descendants still dwelt. The island was believed to containseven cities; and the adventurer was appointed by the king of PortugalAdalantado, or governor, of the Seven Cities. He reached the island, andwas received as Adalantado, was feasted, and then fell asleep. When hecame to himself again he was on board a homeward-bound vessel, havingbeen picked up senseless from a drifting wreck. He reached Lisbon, butno one knew him. His ancestral mansion was occupied by others: none ofhis name had dwelt in it for many a year. He hurried to his betrothed, only to fling himself, not, as he thought, at her feet, but at the feetof her great-granddaughter. In cases like this the supernatural lapse oftime may be conceived as taking place during the enchanted sleep, ratherthan during the festivities. According to a Coptic Christian romance, Abimelek, the youthful favourite of King Zedekiah, preserved the prophetJeremiah's life when he was thrown into prison, and afterwards persuadedhis master to give him charge of the prophet, and to permit him torelease him from the dungeon. In reward, Jeremiah promised him that heshould never see the destruction of Jerusalem, nor experience theBabylonish captivity, and yet that he should not die. The sun shouldtake care of him, the atmosphere nourish him; the earth on which heslept should give him repose, and he should taste of joy for seventyyears until he should again see Jerusalem in its glory, flourishing asbefore. Accordingly, going out one day, as his custom was, into theroyal garden to gather grapes and figs, God caused him to rest and fallasleep beneath the shadow of a rock. There he lay peacefully slumberingwhile the city was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar, and during the horrors ofits capture and the whole of the seventy sad years that followed. Whenhe awoke, it was to meet the prophet Jeremiah returning from thecaptivity, and he entered the restored city with him in triumph. But theseventy years had seemed to him but a few hours; nor had he knownanything of what passed while he slumbered. Mohammed in the Koranmentions a story referred by the commentators to Ezra. He is representedas passing by a village (said to mean Jerusalem) when it was desolate, and saying: "How will God revive this after its death?" And God made himdie for a hundred years. Then He raised him and asked: "How long hastthou tarried?" Said the man: "I have tarried a day, or some part of aday. " But God said: "Nay, thou hast tarried a hundred years. Look at thyfood and drink, they are not spoiled; and look at thine ass; for we willmake thee a sign to men. And look at the bones, how we scatter them andthen clothe them with flesh. " And when it was made manifest to him, hesaid: "I know that God is mighty over all. "[140]

Mohammed probably was unconscious that this is to all intents andpurposes the same story as that of the Seven Sleepers, to which herefers in the chapter on the Cave. Some of the phrases he uses are, indeed, identical. As usually told, this legend speaks of seven youthsof Ephesus who had fled from the persecutions of the heathen emperorDecius, and taken refuge in a cave, where they slept for upwards ofthree hundred years. In Mohammed's time, however, it should be noted, the number of the sleepers was undetermined; they were credited with adog who slept with them, like Ezra's ass; and Mohammed's notion of thetime they slept was only one hundred years. One of the wild tribes onthe northern frontier of Afghanistan is said to tell the following storyconcerning a cavern in the Hirak Valley, known as the cave of the SevenSleepers. A king bearing the suspicious name of Dakianus, deceived bythe devil, set himself up as a god. Six of his servants, however, havingreason to think that his claim was unfounded, fled from him and fell inwith a shepherd, who agreed to throw in his lot with theirs and to guidethem to a cavern where they might all hide. The shepherd's dog followedhis master; but the six fugitives insisted on his being driven back lesthe should betray their whereabouts. The shepherd begged that he might gowith them, as he had been his faithful companion for years; but in vain. So he struck the dog with his stick, breaking one of his legs. The dogstill followed; and the shepherd repeated the blow, breaking a secondleg. Finding that the dog continued to crawl after them notwithstandingthis, the men were struck with pity and took it in turns to carry thepoor animal. Arrived at the cave, they all lay down and slept for threehundred and nine years. Assuming the genuineness of the tradition, whichperhaps rests on no very good authority, its form is obviously due toMohammedan influence. But the belief in this miraculous sleep istraceable beyond Christian and Mohammedan legends into the Paganism ofclassical antiquity. Pliny, writing in the first century of our era, alludes to a story told of the Cretan poet Epimenides, who, when a boy, fell asleep in a cave, and continued in that state for fifty-sevenyears. On waking he was greatly surprised at the change in theappearance of everything around him, as he thought he had only slept fora few hours; and though he did not, as in the Welsh and Scottish tales, fall into dust, still old age came upon him in as many days as the yearshe had passed in slumber. [141]

Nor is it only in dancing, feasting, or sleeping that the time passesquickly with supernatural folk. A shepherd at the foot of the Blanik, who missed one of his flock, followed it into a cavern, whence he couldnot return because the mountain closed upon him with a crash. A dwarfcame and led him into a large hall. There he saw King Wenzel sleepingwith his knights. The king awoke, and bade him stay and clean thearmour. One day--perhaps the criticism would be too carping whichinquired how he knew the day from the night--he received permission togo, and a bag which he was told contained his reward. When he reachedthe light of day, he opened the bag and found it filled with oats. Inthe village all was changed, for he had been a hundred years in themountain, and nobody knew him. He succeeded in getting a lodging, and onagain opening his bag, lo! all the grains of oats had turned to goldpieces and thalers, so that he was able to buy a fine house, andspeedily became the richest man in the place. This was a pleasanter fatethan that of the Tirolese peasant who followed his herd under a stone, where they had all disappeared. He presently came into a lovely garden;and there a lady came, and, inviting him to eat, offered to take him asgardener. He readily assented; but after some weeks he began to behomesick, and, taking leave of his mistress, went home. On arrivingthere he was astounded that he knew no one, and no one knew him, save anold crone, who at length came to him and said: "Where have you been? Ihave been looking for you for two hundred years. " Thus saying, she tookhim by the hand and he fell dead; for the crone who had sought him solong was Death. [142]

Save in the legends that tell of a mother leaving her child in themountain from her eagerness to gather treasure, we have encountered butfew instances of women being beguiled. They are, indeed, not so numerousas those where the sterner sex is thus overcome; nor need we be detainedby most of them. A Danish tradition, however, runs that a bride, duringthe dancing and festivities of her wedding-day, left the room andthoughtlessly walked towards a mound where the elves were also makingmerry. The hillock was standing, as is usual on such occasions, on redpillars; and as she drew near, one of the company offered her a cup ofwine. She drank, and then suffered herself to join in a dance. When thedance was over she hastened home. But alas! house, farm, everything waschanged. The noise and mirth of the wedding was stilled. No one knewher; but at length, on hearing her lamentation, an old woman exclaimed:"Was it you, then, who disappeared at my grandfather's brother'swedding, a hundred years ago?" At these words the aged bride fell downand expired. A prettier, if not a more pathetic, story is widely currenton the banks of the Rhine. A maiden who bore an excellent character forpiety and goodness was about to be married. She was fond of roses; andon the wedding morning she stepped into the garden to gather a smallbunch. There she met a man whom she did not know. He admired two lovelyblossoms which she had, but said he had many finer in his garden: wouldshe not go with him? "I cannot, " she said; "I must go to the church: itis high time. " "It is not far, " urged the stranger. The maiden allowedherself to be persuaded; and the man showed her beautiful, beautifulflowers--finer she had never seen--and gave her a wonderful rose ofwhich she was very proud. Then she hastened back, lest she should be toolate. When she mounted the steps of the house she could not understandwhat had happened to her. Children whom she knew not were playing there:people whom she did not recognize were within. And every one ran awayfrom her, frightened to see a strange woman in an antiquatedwedding-dress stand there bitterly weeping. She had but just left herbridegroom to go for a moment into the garden, and in so short a timeguests and bridegroom had all vanished. She asked after her bridegroom, and nobody knew him. At last she told her story to the folk around her. A man said he had bought the house, and knew nothing at all of herbridegroom or her parents. They took her to the parish priest. Hereached his church-books down, and there he found recorded that almosttwo hundred years before, a certain bride on the wedding-day haddisappeared from her father's house. Burdened thus with two centuries oflife, she lingered on a few lonely years, and then sank into the grave;and the good, simple villagers whisper that the strange gardener was noother than the Lord Jesus, who thus provided for His humble child anescape from a union which would have been the source of bitterest woe. After this it is almost an anti-climax to refer to a Scottish tale inwhich a bridegroom was similarly spirited away. As he was leaving thechurch after the ceremony, a tall dark man met him and asked him to comeround to the back of the church, for he wanted to speak to him. When hecomplied, the dark man asked him to be good enough to stand there untila small piece of candle he held in his hand should burn out. Hegood-humouredly complied. The candle took, as he thought, less than twominutes to burn; and he then rushed off to overtake his friends. On hisway he saw a man cutting turf, and asked if it were long since thewedding party had passed. The man replied that he did not know that anywedding party had passed that way to-day, or for a long time. "Oh, therewas a marriage to-day, " said the other, "and I am the bridegroom. I wasasked by a man to go with him to the back of the church, and I went. Iam now running to overtake the party. " The turf-cutter, feeling thatthis could not be, asked him what date he supposed that day was. Thebridegroom's answer was in fact two hundred years short of the realdate: he had passed two centuries in those two minutes which the bit ofcandle took, as he thought, to burn. "I remember, " said he who cut theturf, "that my grandfather used to tell something of such adisappearance of a bridegroom, a story which his grandfather told him asa fact which happened when he was young. " "Ah, well then, I am thebridegroom, " sighed the unfortunate man, and fell away as he stood, until nothing remained but a small heap of earth. [143]

Every reader of Longfellow loves the story of the Monk Felix, soexquisitely told in "The Golden Legend. " Its immediate source I do notknow; but it is certain that the tradition is a genuine one, and hasobtained a local habitation in many parts of Europe. Southey relates itas attached to the Spanish convent of San Salvador de Villar, where thetomb of the Abbot to whom the adventure happened was shown. And he isvery severe on "the dishonest monks who, for the honour of their conventand the lucre of gain, palmed this lay (for such in its origin it was)upon their neighbours as a true legend. " In Wales, the ruined monasteryat Clynnog-Fawr, on the coast of Carnarvonshire, founded by St. Beuno, the uncle of the more famous St. Winifred, has been celebrated by aWelsh antiquary as the scene of the same event, in memory whereof awoodland patch near Clynnog is said to be called Llwyn-y-Nef, the Groveof Heaven. At Pantshonshenkin, in Carmarthenshire, a youth went outearly one summer's morning and was lost. An old woman, Catti Madlen, prophesied of him that he was in the fairies' power and would not bereleased until the last sap of a certain sycamore tree had dried up. When that time came he returned. He had been listening all the while tothe singing of a bird, and supposed only a few minutes had elapsed, though, seventy years had in fact gone over his head. In the Mabinogi ofBranwen, daughter of Llyr, Pryderi and his companions, while bearing thehead of Bran the Blessed, to bury it in the White Mount in London, wereentertained seven years at Harlech, feasting and listening to thesinging of the three birds of Rhiannon--a mythical figure in whomProfessor Rhys can hardly be wrong in seeing an old Celtic goddess. InGermany and the Netherlands the story is widely spread. At the abbey ofAfflighem, Fulgentius, who was abbot towards the close of the eleventhcentury, received the announcement one day that a stranger monk hadknocked at the gate and claimed to be one of the brethren of thatcloister. His story was that he had sung matins that morning with therest of the brotherhood; and when they came to the verse of the 90thPsalm where it is said: "A thousand years in Thy sight are but asyesterday, " he had fallen into deep meditation, and continued sitting inthe choir when the others had departed, and that a little bird had thenappeared to him and sung so sweetly that he had followed it into theforest, whence, after a short stay, he had now returned, but found theabbey so changed that he hardly knew it. On questioning him about hisabbot and the name of the king whom he supposed to be still reigning, Fulgentius found that both had been dead for three hundred years. Thesame tale is told of other monasteries. In Transylvania it is toldconcerning a student of the school at Kronstadt that he was to preach onthe fifteenth Sunday after Trinity in St. John's Church, now known asthe Church of the Franciscans, and on the Saturday previous he walkedout on the Kapellenberg to rehearse his sermon. After he had learned ithe saw a beautiful bird, and tried to catch it. It led him on and oninto a cavern, where he met a dwarf, who showed the astonished andcurious student all the wealth of gold and jewels stored up in thevaults of the mountain. When he escaped again to the upper air the treesand the houses were altered; other and unknown faces greeted him at theschool; his own room was changed--taken by another; a different rectorruled; and in short a hundred years had elapsed since he had gone forthto study his sermon for the next day. The old record-book, bound inpigskin, reposed on the rector's shelves. He took it down: it containedan entry of the student's having quitted the school and not returned, and of the difficulty caused thereby at St. John's Church, where he wasto have preached the following day. By the time the entry was found andthe mystery solved, it was noon. The student was hungry with hishundred-years' fast; and he sat down with the others at the common tableto dine. But he had no sooner tasted the first spoonful of soup than hiswhole frame underwent a change. From a ruddy youth he became an old manin the last stage of decrepitude. His comrades scarce had time to hurryhim upon a bed ere he breathed his last. Some pretty verses, attributedto Alaric A. Watts, commemorate a similar incident, said to havehappened to two sisters who were nuns at Beverley Minister. Theydisappeared one evening after vespers. After some months they were foundin a trance in the north tower. On being aroused they declared they hadbeen admitted into Paradise, whither they would return before morning. They died in the night; and the beautiful monument called the Sisters'Shrine still witnesses to the truth of their story. [144]

From monastic meditations we may pass without any long interval to atype of the story that perhaps appears at its best in M. Luzel'scharming collection of distinctively Christian traditions of LowerBrittany. In this type we are given the adventures of a youth whoundertakes to carry a letter to "_Monsieur le Bon Dieu_" in Paradise. Proceeding by the directions of a hermit, he is guided by a ball to thehermit's brother, who points out the road and describes the variousdifficulties through which he will have to pass. Accordingly he climbsthe mountain before him; and the path then leads him across an aridmeadow filled with fat cattle, and next over a lush pasture tenantedonly by lean and sickly kine. Having left this behind he enters anavenue where, under the trees, youths and damsels richly clad arefeasting and making merry; and they tempt the traveller to join them. The path then becomes narrow and steep, and encumbered with brambles andnettles and stones. Here he meets a rolling fire, but standing firm inthe middle of the path, the fire passes harmlessly over his head. Hardlyhas it gone by, however, when he hears a terrible roar behind him, asthough the sea in all its fury were at his heels ready to engulf him. Heresolutely refuses to look back; and the noise subsides. A thick hedgeof thorns closes the way before him; but he pushes through it, only tofall into a ditch filled with nettles and brambles on the other side, where he faints with loss of blood. When he recovers and scrambles outof the ditch, he reaches a place filled with the sweet perfume offlowers, with butterflies, and with the melody of birds. A clear riverwaters this beautiful land; and there he sits upon a stone and batheshis cruelly torn feet. No wonder he falls asleep and dreams that he isalready in Paradise. Awaking, he finds his strength restored, and hiswounds healed. Before him is Mount Calvary, the Saviour still upon thecross, and the blood yet running from His body. A crowd of littlechildren are trying to climb the mountain; but ere they reach the topthey roll down again continually to the foot, only to recommence thetoil. They crowd round the traveller, and beseech him to take them withhim; and he takes three, one on each shoulder and one by the hand; butwith them he cannot get to the top, for he is hurled back again andagain. Leaving them therefore behind, he climbs with ease, and throwshimself at the foot of the cross to pray and weep. On rising, he seesbefore him a palace that proves to be Paradise itself. St. Peter, thecelestial porter, receives his letter and carries it to its destination. While the youth waits, he finds St. Peter's spectacles on the table andamuses himself by trying them on. Many and marvellous are the thingsthey reveal to him; but the porter comes back, and he hastily takes offthe glasses, fearing to be scolded. St. Peter, however, tells him: "Fearnothing, my child. You have already been looking through my glasses forfive hundred years!" "But I have only just put them on my nose!" "Yes, my child, " returned the door-keeper, "it is five hundred years, and Isee you find the time short. " After this it is a trifle that he spendsanother hundred years looking at the seat reserved for himself inParadise and thinks them only a moment. The Eternal Father's reply tothe letter is handed to him; and since his master and the king who senthim on the errand have both long been dead and in Paradise (though onlower seats than that which he is to occupy), he is bidden to take thereply to his parish prices [TN: priests]. The priest will in return handhim a hundred crowns, which he is to give to the poor, and when thelast penny has been distributed he will die and enter Paradise, toobtain the seat he has been allowed to see. As he makes his way back, one of the hermits explains to him the various sights he beheld and thedifficulties he conquered during his outward journey. I shall not stopto unveil the allegories of this traditional Pilgrim's Progress, whichis known from Brittany to Transylvania, from Iceland to Sicily. OtherBreton tales exist, describing a similar journey, in all of which themiraculous lapse of time is an incident. In one the youth is sent to thesun to inquire why it is red in the morning when it rises. In another amaiden is married to a mysterious stranger, who turns out to be Death. Her brother goes to visit her, and is allowed to accompany her husbandon his daily flight, in the course of which he sees a number ofremarkable sights, each one of them a parable. [145]

A story is told at Glienke, near New Brandenburg, of two friends whomade mutual promises to attend one another's weddings. One was married, and his friend kept his word; but before the latter's turn to marry camethe married man had fallen into want, and under the pressure of need hadcommitted robbery, a crime for which he had been hanged. Shortlyafterwards his friend was about to be married; and his way a few daysbefore, in the transaction of his business, led him past the gallowswhere the body still swung. As he drew near he murmured a Paternosterfor the dead man, and said: "At your wedding I enjoyed myself; and youpromised me to come to mine, and now you cannot come!" A voice from thegallows distinctly replied: "Yes, I will come. " To the wedding feastaccordingly the dead man came, with the rope round his neck, and wasplaced between the pastor and the sacristan. He ate and drank insilence, and departed. As he left, he beckoned the bridegroom to followhim; and when they got outside the village the hanged man said: "Thanksto your Paternoster, I am saved. " They walked a little further, and thebridegroom noticed that the country was unknown to him. They were in alarge and beautiful garden. "Will you not return?" asked the dead man;"they will miss you. " "Oh! let me stay; it is so lovely here, " repliedhis friend. "Know that we are in Paradise; you cannot go with me anyfurther. Farewell!" So saying the dead man vanished. Then the bridegroomturned back; but he did not reach the village for three days. There allwas changed. He asked after his bride: no one knew her. He sought thepastor and found a stranger. When he told his tale the pastor searchedthe church-books and discovered that a man of his name had been marriedone hundred and fifty years before. The bridegroom asked for food; butwhen he had eaten it he sank into a heap of ashes at the pastor's feet. The Transylvanian legend of "The Gravedigger in Heaven" also turns uponan invitation thoughtlessly given to a dead man and accepted. Theentertainment is followed by a counter-invitation; and the gravediggeris forced to pay a return visit. He is taken to Heaven, where, amongother things, he sees at intervals three leaves fall slowly one afteranother from off a large tree in the garden. The tree is the Tree ofLife, from which a leaf falls at the end of every century. He was threehundred years in Heaven and thought it scarce an hour. The Icelandicversion concerns a wicked priest. His unjust ways are reproved by astranger who takes him to the place of joy and the place of torment, andshows him other wonderful things such as the youth in the Breton tale ispermitted to behold. When he is brought back, and the stranger leaveshim, he finds that he has been absent seven years, and his living is nowheld by another priest. [146]

Here, perhaps, is a fitting place to mention the Happy Islands ofEverlasting Life as known to Japanese tradition, though the story canhardly be said to belong to the type we have just discussed, --perhapsnot strictly to any of the foregoing types. A Japanese hero, the wiseVasobiove, it was who succeeded in reaching the Happy Islands, and inreturning to bring sure tidings of them. For, like St. Brendan's Isle inwestern lore, these islands may be visible for a moment and afar off tothe seafarer, but a mortal foot has hardly ever trodden them. Vasobiove, however, in his boat alone, set sail from Nagasaki, and, in spite ofwind and waves, landed on the green shore of Horaisan. Two hundred yearshe sojourned there; yet wist he not how long the period was, there whereeverything remained the same, where there was neither birth nor death, where none heeded the flight of time. With dance and music, inintercourse with wise men and lovely women, his days passed away. But atlength he grew weary of this sweet round of existence: he longed fordeath--an impossible wish in a land where death was unknown. No poison, no deadly weapons were to be found. To tumble down a chasm, or to flingoneself on sharp rocks was no more than a fall upon a soft cushion. Ifhe would drown himself in the sea, the water refused its office, andbore him like a cork. Weary to death the poor Vasobiove could find nohelp. In this need a thought struck him: he caught and tamed a giantstork and taught him to carry him. On the back of this bird he returnedover sea and land to his beloved Japan, bringing the news of the realmof Horaisan. His story took hold of the hearts of his fellow-countrymen;and that the story-tellers might never forget it, it has beenemblazoned by the painters in a thousand ways. Nor can the stranger goanywhere in Japan without seeing the old, old man depicted on his storkand being reminded of his voyage to the Happy Islands. [147]

FOOTNOTES:

[123] Croker, vol. Iii. P. 215. This tale is given by Sikes, p. 70, ofcourse without any acknowledgment. It is also found in Keightley, p. 415. 

[124] "Y Cymmrodor, " vol. Vi. Pp. 174, 157, 196, 187. 

[125] Howells, pp. 141, 145; Sikes, p. 73. I have not been able to traceMr. Sikes' authority for the last story; but his experience and skill inborrowing from other books are so much greater than in oral collectionthat it is probably from some literary source, though no doubt many ofthe embellishments are his own. The foundation, however, appears to betraditional. 

[126] Campbell, vol. Ii. Pp. 63, 55. 

[127] "F. L. Journal, " vol. Vi. P. 191. (This story was told to thepresent writer and Mr. G. L. Gomme by Alderman Howel Walters, ofYstradgynlais, who had it from an old man who knew the hero well andgave implicit credit to the narrative. ) "Trans. Aberd. Eistedd. " p. 227;"F. L. Journal, " vol. Vi. P. 183. A similar tale is referred to inJones' "Account of the Parish of Aberystruth, " 1779, quoted in "ChoiceNotes, " p. 157. 

[128] "Cymru Fu, " p. 177 (a translation is given by Professor Rhys in "YCymmrodor, " vol. V. P. 81); Croker, vol. Iii. P. 208. 

[129] Radloff, vol. I. P. 95, vol. Iv. P. 109; Sébillot, "Contes, " vol. Ii. P. 8; Grimm, "Tales, " vol. I. P. 162. 

[130] Jahn, p. 199; Grohmann, pp. 19, 20, 18. 

[131] Kuhn und Schwartz, pp. 220, 222. 

[132] Rappold, p. 34. 

[133] "Archivio, " vol. Vi. P. 398. 

[134] "F. L. Journal, " vol. Vi. P. 33; "Archivio, " vol. Ix. P. 233Grohmann, p. 112. 

[135] Grohmann, pp. 29, 289, 296, 298; Müller, p. 83. 

[136] See Thorpe's translation of the story, "Yule Tide Stories, " p. 475. 

[137] Dennys, p. 98; Giles, vol. Ii. Pp. 89 note, 85; Brauns, p. 366. 

[138] Map, Dist. I. C. 11. But see below, p. 234. 

[139] Croker, vol. Iii. P. 17; Howells, p. 123; "Y Cymmrodor, " vol. Iv. P. 196, vol. V. Pp. 108, 113. 

[140] "Wolfert's Roost, and other Sketches, " by Washington Irving(London, 1855) p. 225; Amélineau, vol. Ii. P. 111; Koran, c. 2 ("SacredBooks of the East, " vol. Vi. P. 41); "Masnavi i Ma'navi, " p. 214. 

[141] Koran, c. 18 ("Sacred Books of the East, " vol. Ix. P. 14); "IndianN. And Q. " vol. Iv. P. 8, quoting the "Pall Mall Gazette" (The story ofthe Seven Sleepers is also localized at N'gaous in Algeria; Certeux etCarnoy, vol. I. P. 63. ) Pliny, "Nat. Hist. " l. Vii. C. 33. 

[142] Grohmann, p. 16; Schneller, p. 217. 

[143] Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 138; Birlinger, "Volkst. " vol. I. P. 257(_cf. _ Bartsch, vol. I, p. 326, where there is no wedding, and curiosityis the lady's motive for venturing into the fairy cavern); "Celtic Mag. "Oct. 1887, p. 566. 

[144] Southey, "Doctor, " p. 574; "Y Brython, " vol. Iii. P. 111, andCymru Fu, p. 183; Howells, p. 127; "Y Llyvyr Coch, " p. 40 (LadyCharlotte Guest's translation, p. 381); Thorpe, vol. Iii. P. 297, quoting Wolf; Müller, p. 50 (_cf. _ Jahn, p. 96). The reader will notfail to remark the record-book bound in pigskin as a resemblance indetail to Longfellow's version. Thorpe alludes in a note to a Germanpoem by Wegener, which I have not seen. Nicholson, p. 58. 

[145] Luzel, "Légendes Chrét. " vol. I. Pp. 225, 216, 247, 249; "Contes, "vol. I. Pp. 14, 40; _cf. _ Pitré, vol. Vi. P. 1; and Gonzenbach, vol. Ii. P. 171, in neither of which the lapse of time is an incident. Dr. Pitrésays that the tale has no analogues (_riscontri_) outside Sicily; bywhich I understand him to mean that it has not been hitherto found inany other Italian-speaking land. 

[146] Bartsch, vol. I. P. 282; Müller, p. 46; Powell and Magnusson, vol. Ii. P. 37. 

[147] Brauns, p. 146. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE SUPERNATURAL LAPSE OF TIME IN FAIRYLAND

(_continued_). 

 Ossian in the Tir na n'Og--The Island of Happiness--The Mermaid--Thomas of Erceldoune--Olger the Dane--The Sleeping Hero--King Arthur--Don Sebastian--The expected deliverer--British variants--German variants--Frederick Barbarossa--Nameless heroes--Slavonic variants. 

The stories we have hitherto considered, relating to the supernaturallapse of time in fairyland, have attributed the mortal's detention thereto various motives. Compulsion on the part of the superhuman powers, andpleasure, curiosity, greed, sheer folly, as also the performance of justand willing service on the part of the mortal, have been among thecauses of his entrance thither and his sojourn amid its enchantments. Human nature could hardly have been what it is if the supreme passion oflove had been absent from the list. Nor is it wanting, though not foundin the same plenteous measure that will meet us when we come to dealwith the Swan-maiden myth--that is to say, with the group of storiesconcerning the capture by men of maidens of superhuman birth. 

We may take as typical the story of Oisin, or Ossian, as told inIreland. In County Clare it is said that once when he was in the fullvigour of youth Oisin lay down under a tree to rest and fell asleep. Awaking with a start, he saw a lady richly clad, and of more than mortalbeauty, gazing on him. She was the Queen of Tir na n'Og, the Country ofPerpetual Youth. She had fallen in love with Oisin, as the strangeItalian lady is said to have done with a poet of whose existence we aresomewhat better assured than of Oisin's; and she invited him toaccompany her to her own realm and share her throne. Oisin was not longin making up his mind, and all the delights of Tir na n'Og were laid athis feet. In one part of the palace garden, however, was a broad flatstone, on which he was forbidden to stand, under penalty of the heaviestmisfortune. Probably, as is usual in these cases, if he had not beenforbidden, he would never have thought of standing on it. But one dayfinding himself near it, the temptation to transgress was irresistible. He yielded, and stepping on the stone he found himself in full view ofhis native land, the very existence of which he had forgotten till thatmoment. Even in the short space of time since he left it much hadchanged: it was suffering from oppression and violence. Overcome withgrief, he hastened to the queen and prayed for leave to go back, that hemight help his people. The queen tried to dissuade him, but in vain. Sheasked him how long he supposed he had been absent. Oisin told her:"Thrice seven days. " She replied that three times thrice seven years hadpassed since he arrived in Tir na n'Og; and though Time could not enterthat land, it would immediately assert its dominion over him if he leftit. At length she persuaded him to promise that he would return to hiscountry for one day only, and then come back to dwell with her for ever. She accordingly gave him a beautiful jet-black horse, from whose back hewas on no account to alight, or at all events not to allow the bridle tofall from his hand; and in parting she gifted him with wisdom andknowledge far surpassing that of men. Mounting the steed, he soon foundhimself near his former home; and as he journeyed he met a man driving ahorse, across whose back was thrown a sack of corn. The sack had fallena little aside; and the man asked Oisin to assist him in balancing itproperly. Oisin, good-naturedly stooping, caught it and gave it such aheave that it fell over on the other side. Annoyed at his ill-success, he forgot his bride's commands, and sprang from the horse to lift thesack from the ground, letting go the bridle at the same time. Forthwiththe steed vanished; and Oisin instantly became a blind, feeble, helplessold man--everything lost but the wisdom and knowledge bestowed upon himby his immortal bride. [148]

A variant adds some particulars, from which it appears that Oisin wasnot only husband of the queen, but also rightful monarch of Tir na n'Og. For in that land was a strange custom. The office of king was the prizeof a race every seven years. Oisin's predecessor had consulted a Druidas to the length of his own tenure, and had been told that he might keepthe crown for ever unless his son-in-law took it from him. Now theking's only daughter was the finest woman in Tir na n'Og, or indeed inthe world; and the king naturally thought that if he could so deform hisdaughter that no one would wed her he would be safe. So he struck herwith a rod of Druidic spells, which turned her head into a pig's head. This she was condemned to wear until she could marry one of Fin MacCumhail's sons in Erin. The young lady, therefore, went in search of FinMac Cumhail's sons; and having chosen Oisin she found an opportunity totell him her tale, with the result that he wedded her without delay. Thesame moment her deformity was gone, and her beauty as perfect as beforeshe was enchanted. Oisin returned to Tir na n'Og with her; and on thefirst race for the crown he won so easily that no man ever cared todispute it with him afterwards. So he reigned for many a year, until oneday the longing seized him to go to Erin and see his father and his men. His wife told him that if he set foot in Erin he would never come backto her, and he would become a blind old man; and she asked him how longhe thought it was since he came to Tir na n'Og. "About three years, " hereplied. "It is three hundred years, " she said. However, if he must goshe would give him a white steed to bear him; but if he dismounted, ortouched the soil of Erin with his foot, the steed would return thatinstant, and he would be left a poor old man. This inevitablecatastrophe occurred in his eagerness to blow the great horn of theFenians, in order to summon his friends around him. His subsequentadventures with Saint Patrick, interesting though they are, areunimportant for our present purpose. [149]

Perhaps the nearest analogue to this is the Italian Swan-maiden_märchen_, of the Island of Happiness. There a youth sets out to seekFortune, and finds her in the shape of a maiden bathing, whose clotheshe steals, obtaining possession thereby of her book of command, and socompelling her to wed him. But in his absence his mother gives her thebook again, which enables her to return to her home in the Island ofHappiness. Thither her husband goes to seek her, and after a variety ofadventures he is reunited to her. All goes smoothly until he desires tovisit his mother, supposing that he had only been in the island for twomonths, whereas in fact he has been there two hundred years. Fortune, finding he was bent on going, was more prudent than the queen of Tir nan'Og, for she went with him on the magic horse. In their way they metwith a lean woman who had worn out a carriage-load of shoes intravelling. She feigned to fall to the ground to see if Fortune'shusband would lift her up. But Fortune cried out to him: "Beware! thatis Death!" A little further on they met a devil in the guise of a greatlord riding a horse whose legs were worn out with much running. He alsofell from his horse. This was another trap for Fortune's husband; butagain she cried out to him: "Beware!" Then, having reached his ownneighbourhood and satisfied himself that no one knew him, and that noneeven of the oldest remembered his mother, he allowed his wife to leadhim back to the Island of Happiness, where he still dwells withher. [150]

In an Annamite saga a certain king wished to build a town on a site hehad fixed upon. All at once a tree bearing an unknown foliage andstrange flowers sprang up on the spot. It was determined to offer theseflowers to the king; and sentinels were placed to see that no oneplucked the blossoms. A rock still pointed out in the north of Annam wasthe home of a race of genii. A young and lovely maiden belonging to thatrace visited the tree, and was unlucky enough to touch one of theflowers and to cause it to drop. She was at once seized by the guards, but was released at the intercession of a certain mandarin. Themandarin's heart was susceptible: he fell in love with her, and, pursuing her, he was admitted into the abodes of the Immortals andreceived by the maiden of his dreams. His happiness continued until theday when it was his lady's turn to be in attendance on the queen of theImmortals. Ere she left him she warned him against opening the back doorof the palace where they dwelt, otherwise he would be compelled toreturn home, and his present abode would be forbidden to him from thatmoment. He disobeyed her. On opening the door he beheld once more theoutside world, and his family came to his remembrance. The Immortalswho were within earshot drove him out, and forbade him to return. Hethought he had only been there a few days, but he could no longer findhis relatives. No one knew the name he asked for. At last an old mansaid: "There existed once, under the reign of I do not now remember whatsovereign, an old mandarin of the name, but you would have somedifficulty in finding him, for he has been dead three or four hundredyears. " An Esthonian tale represents a mermaid, the daughter of theWater-Mother, as falling in love with a loutish boy, the youngest son ofa peasant, and taking him down to dwell with her as her husband in herpalace beneath the waves. The form in which she appeared to him was awoman's; but she passed her Thursdays in seclusion, which she forbadehim to break, enjoining him, moreover, never to call her Mermaid. Afterlittle more than a year, however, he grew curious and jealous, andyielded to the temptation of peeping through the curtain of her chamber, where he beheld her swimming about, half woman and half fish. He hadbroken the condition of his happiness, and might no longer stay withher. Wherefore he was cast up again on the shore where he had first metthe mermaid. Rising and going into the village he inquired for hisparents, but found that they had been dead for more than thirty years, and that his brothers were dead too. He himself was unconsciouslychanged into an old man. For a few days he wandered about the shore, andthe charitable gave him bread. He ventured to tell his history to onekind friend; but the same night he disappeared, and in a few days thewaves cast up his body on the beach. [151]

The foregoing tales all combine with the characteristics of the groupunder discussion, either those of the Swan-maiden group or those of theForbidden Chamber group. In the myth of the Swan-maidens, as in sometypes of the myth of the Forbidden Chamber, the human hero weds asupernatural bride; and a story containing such an incident seems tohave a tendency to unite itself to one or other of these two groups. This tendency is not, however, always developed. The two ladies in theChinese legend, cited in the last chapter, were neither Swan-maidens norfemale Bluebeards; and this is not the only tale from the Flowery Landin which these superhuman beauties appear without promoting thedevelopment in question. Nor do I find any hint of it in the traditionof Bran Mac Fearbhall, King of Ireland, who was one day lulled asleep bya strain of fairy music. On awaking he found the silver branch of a treeby his side; and a strange lady appeared at his court and invited him toa land of happiness. He handed her the silver branch; and the nextmorning with a company of thirty persons he sailed out on the ocean. Ina few days they landed on an island inhabited only by women, of whom thestrange lady appeared to be the chieftainess. Here Bran Mac Fearbhallremained several ages before returning to his own palace near LoughFoyle. An Arab tale in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris shows us aking's son who in his wanderings lands on a strange island, where hemarries the king's daughter and becomes his father-in-law's vizier. Thecountry was watered by a river which flowed at certain seasons from agreat mountain. Every year it was the vizier's duty to enter the cavern, having first received instructions from the king and a mysterious gift. At the end of an hour he reappeared, followed by the stream, whichcontinued to flow during the time needful for the fertilization of thecountry. When the prince as vizier entered the cavern he found a negro, who led him to his mistress, the queen of a people of Amazons. In herhands was the management of the river; and she had caused theperiodical drought in order to exact a tribute of date-stones which shehad to pass on to an Ifrit, to purchase his forbearance towards her ownsubjects. The prince ingratiates himself with her: she suppresses theperiodical droughts and marries him. After two centuries of wedded lifeshe dies, leaving him ten daughters, whom he takes back, together withconsiderable wealth, to the city formerly governed by his father-in-law, and now by his great-great-grandson. The latter was a hundred years old, and venerable by the side of his great-great-grandfather, over whosehead the years had passed in that enchanted realm without effect. Hemade himself known to his descendant and stayed ten years with him; butwhether he succeeded in marrying off any of his daughters, of ages sovery uncertain, the abstract of the story I have before me does not say. At last he returned to his native land, and reigned there for a longtime. [152]

In the hero of the Island of Happiness we found just now one who, havingreturned to earth for a season, had been taken back again by hissupernatural spouse to a more lasting enjoyment. But he is not alone inhis good fortune. Thomas of Erceldoune, a personage less shadowy thansome of those commemorated in this chapter, is known to have lived inthe thirteenth century. His reputation for prophetic powers has beenwide and lasting. These powers were said to be, like Oisin's, a giftfrom the Fairy Queen. She met him under the Eildon Tree, which stood onthe easternmost of the three Eildon Hills. Having got him into herpower, she took him down with her into Fairyland, where he abode, as hedeemed, for three days, but in reality for three years. At the end ofthat time the lady carries him back to Eildon Tree and bids himfarewell. He asks her for some token whereby he may say that he had beenwith her; and she bestows on him a prophetic tongue that cannot lie, and leaves him with a promise to meet him again on Huntley Banks. Hereboth the old ballads and the older romance desert us; but if we maytrust Sir Walter Scott's report of the tradition current in theneighbourhood, Thomas was under an obligation to return to Fairylandwhenever he was summoned. "Accordingly, while Thomas was making merrywith his friends in the tower of Ercildoune, a person came running in, and told, with marks of fear and astonishment, that a hart and hind hadleft the neighbouring forest, and were, composedly and slowly, paradingthe street of the village. The prophet instantly arose, left hishabitation, and followed the wonderful animals to the forest, whence hewas never seen to return. According to the popular belief, he still'drees his weird' in Fairyland, and is one day expected to revisitearth. In the meanwhile his memory is held in the most profoundrespect. "[153]

In the romance of Ogier, or Olger, the Dane, one of the Paladins ofCharlemagne, it is related that six fairies presided at his birth andbestowed various gifts upon him. Morgan the Fay, the last of the six, promised that after a long and glorious career he should never die, butdwell with her in her castle of Avalon. Wherefore, after he had livedand fought and loved for more than a hundred years, Morgan caused him tobe shipwrecked. All men thought he had perished. In reality Morgan hadtaken this means of bringing him to Avalon, where she met him and put aring on his finger, which restored him to youth, and a golden crown ofmyrtle and laurel on his brow--the crown of forgetfulness. His toils, his battles, even his loves were forgotten; and his heart was filledwith a new devotion, namely, for the fairy queen Morgan. With her hedwelt in pleasures ever new for two hundred years, until there came aday when France and Christendom fell into trouble and danger, and thepeoples cried out for a deliverer. Morgan heard them, and resolved thatOlger must go to fight for them. She lifted the crown from his brow, andhis memory came back. She bade him guard well his ring, and gave him atorch: if that torch were lighted his life would burn out with the lastspark. He returned to France, fought the Paynim and conquered, freeingFrance and Christendom. The widowed queen of France then intrigued tomarry him; but as she was on the point of attaining her purpose Morganappeared and caught him away. In Avalon he still dreams in her arms; andsome day when France is in her direst need, Olger will come back on hisfamous charger to smite and to deliver her. 

Here we come upon another type, the story and the superstition of theexpected deliverer, which is widely scattered through Europe. In thiscountry the most noted example is that of King Arthur, who may fitlygive his name to the type. King Arthur, according to the romances, is, like Olger, in the Island of Avalon, where indeed the romance of Olgerdeclares that the two heroes met. Sir Thomas Malory tells us: "Some menyet say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but hadby the will of our Lord Jesus Christ into another place; and men saythat hee will come againe, and he shall winne the holy crosse. I willnot say that it shall bee so, but rather I will say that heere in thisworld hee changed his life. But many men say that there is written uponhis tombe this verse: Hic jacet Arthurus, rex quondam, rexque futurus. "This is a belief dear to the heart of many an oppressed people. It wastold of Harold that he was not slain at Senlac, and that he would yetcome back to lead his countrymen against the hated Normans. Even ofRoderick, the Last of the Goths, deeply stained as he was with crime, men were loth to believe that he was dead. In the latter part of thesixteenth century, after Don Sebastian had fallen in the ill-fatedexpedition to Morocco, Philip the Second of Spain took advantage of thefailure of the male line on the death of the cardinal-king, Henry, toadd Portugal to his dominions, already too large. His tyranny roused apopular party whose faith was that Don Sebastian was not really dead: hewas reigning in the Island of the Seven Cities, and he would return byand by to drive out the Spaniards and their justly execrated king. Evenin the year 1761 a monk was condemned by the Inquisition as aSebastianist, a believer and a disseminator of false prophecies, --solong did the tradition linger. In the Spanish peninsula, indeed, thesuperstition has been by no means confined to Christians. The Moors whowere left in the mountains of Valentia looked for the return of theirhero Alfatimi upon a green horse, from his place of concealment in theSierra de Aguar, to defend them and to put their Catholic tyrants to thesword. [154]

Oppression nourishes beliefs of this kind. It was under the Romandominion that the Jewish expectation of a Messiah grew to its utmoststrength; and the manifestation of the Messiah was to be preceded by thereappearance of Elijah, a prophet who was not dead but translated toheaven. And strange sometimes are the gods from whom salvation is tocome. Only a few years ago, if we may trust Bishop Melchisedech ofRoumania, there was a Slavonic sect, the object of whose worship wasNapoleon the First. He, said his worshippers, had not really died; hewas only at Irkousk, in Siberia, where, at the head of a powerful, aninvincible, army, he was ready once more to overrun the world. [155]

But, however the belief in a deity, or hero, who is to return some day, may be strengthened by political causes, it is not dependent upon them. Many races having traditions of a Culture God--that is, of a superiorbeing who has taught them agriculture and the arts of life, and led themto victory over their enemies--add that he has gone away from them forawhile, and that he will some day come back again. Quetzalcoatl andViracocha, the culture gods of Mexico and Peru, are familiar instancesof this. In the later Brahminism of India, Vishnu, having alreadyaccomplished nine avatars, or incarnations, for special emergencies inthe past, was yet to have one more avatar for the final destruction ofthe wicked and the restoration of goodness at the end of the presentage; he would then be revealed in the sky seated on a white horse andwielding a blazing sword. I need not specify others: it will be manifestthat the traditions of modern Europe we have been considering containthe same thought. Nor is it unlikely that they have been influenced bythe Christian doctrine of the Second Advent. Many of them have receivedthe polish of literature. The stories of Olger and Arthur, for example, have descended to us as romances written by cultivated men. DonSebastian was the plaything of a political party, if not the symbol ofreligious heresy, for nearly two centuries. In all these stories weencounter the belief that the god or hero is in heaven, or in someremote land. Such a belief is the sign of a civilization comparativelyadvanced. The cruder and more archaic belief is that he sleeps withinthe hills. 

This cruder belief is more familiar in the folklore of Europe than theother. King Arthur was believed to lie with his warriors beneath theCraig-y-Ddinas (Castle Rock) in the Vale of Neath. Iolo Morganwg, awell-known Welsh antiquary, used to relate a curious traditionconcerning this rock. A Welshman, it was said, walking over LondonBridge with a hazel staff in his hand, was met by an Englishman, whotold him that the stick he carried grew on a spot under which werehidden vast treasures, and if the Welshman remembered the place andwould show it to him he would put him in possession of those treasures. After some demur the Welshman consented, and took the Englishman (whowas in fact a wizard) to the Craig-y-Ddinas and showed him the spot. They dug up the hazel tree on which the staff grew and found under it abroad flat stone. This covered the entrance to a cavern in whichthousands of warriors lay in a circle sleeping on their arms. In thecentre of the entrance hung a bell which the conjurer begged theWelshman to beware of touching. But if at any time he did touch it andany of the warriors should ask if it were day, he was to answer withouthesitation: "No; sleep thou on. " The warriors' arms were so brightlypolished that they illumined the whole cavern; and one of them had armsthat outshone the rest, and a crown of gold lay by his side. This wasArthur; and when the Welshman had taken as much as he could carry of thegold which lay in a heap amid the warriors, both men passed out; not, however, without the Welshman's accidentally touching the bell. It rang;but when the inquiry: "Is it day?" came from one of the warriors, he wasprompt with the reply: "No; sleep thou on. " The conjurer afterwards toldhim that the company he had seen lay asleep ready for the dawn of theday when the Black Eagle and the Golden Eagle should go to war, theclamour of which would make the earth tremble so much that the bellwould ring loudly and the warriors would start up, seize their arms, anddestroy the enemies of the Cymry, who should then repossess the islandof Britain and be governed from Caerlleon with justice and peace so longas the world endured. When the Welshman's treasure was all spent he wentback to the cavern and helped himself still more liberally than before. On his way out he touched the bell again: again it rang. But this timehe was not so ready with his answer, and some of the warriors rose up, took the gold from him, beat him and cast him out of the cave. He neverrecovered the effects of that beating, but remained a cripple and apauper to the end of his days; and he never could find the entrance tothe cavern again. Merlin and the charm

 "Of woven paces and of waving hands"

I need not do more than mention. A recess in the rock three mileseastward of Carmarthen, called Merlin's Cave, is generally accredited asthe place where Vivien perpetrated her treachery. Merlin's county ispossessed of another enchanted hero. On the northern side of Mynydd Mawr(the Great Mountain) near Llandilo, is a cave where Owen Lawgoch (Owenof the Red Hand), one of the last chieftains who fought against theEnglish, lies with his men asleep. And there they will lie untilawakened by the sound of a trumpet and the clang of arms on Rhywgoch, when they will arise and conquer their Saxon foes, driving them from theland. A more famous chieftain is the subject of a similar belief in theVale of Gwent. Considerable obscurity overhangs the fate of OwenGlendower. What is certain about him is that he disappeared from historyin the year 1415. What is believed in the Vale of Gwent is that he andhis men still live and lie asleep on their arms in a cave there, called"Gogov y Ddinas, " or Castle Cave, where they will continue until Englandbecome self-debased; but that then they will sally forth to reconquertheir country, privileges, and crown for the Welsh, who shall bedispossessed of them no more until the Day of Judgment. [156]

In other Celtic lands the same superstition occurs. There is a holecalled the Devil's Den at the foot of a mountain in the Isle of Manwhere it was believed in the last century that a great prince who neverknew death had been bound by spells for six hundred years; but none hadever had courage enough to explore the hole. In Sutherlandshire it issaid that a man once entered a cave and there found many huge men allasleep on the floor. They rested on their elbows. In the centre of thehall was a stone table, and on it lay a bugle. The man put the bugle tohis lips and blew once. They all stirred. He blew a second blast, andone of the giants, rubbing his eyes, said: "Do not do that again, or youwill wake us!" The intruder fled in terror, and never found the mouth ofthe cavern again. Earl Gerald of Mullaghmast sleeps with his warriors ina cavern under the castle, or Rath, of Mullaghmast. A long table runsdown the middle of the cave. The Earl sits at the head, and his troopersin complete armour on either side, their heads resting on the table. Their horses, saddled and bridled, stand behind their masters in stallson either side. The Earl was a leader of the Irish; he was very skilfulat weapons, and deep in the black art. He could change himself into anyshape he pleased. His lady was always begging him to let her see him insome strange shape; but he always put her off, for he told her that ifduring his transformation she showed the least fright he would notrecover his natural form till many generations of men were under themould. Nothing, however, would do for the lady but an exhibition of hispowers; so one evening he changed himself into a goldfinch. While he wasplaying with her in this form a hawk caught sight of him and pursuedhim. The hawk dashed itself against a table and was killed; but the ladyhad given a loud scream at seeing her husband's danger, and neithergoldfinch nor Earl did she behold again. Once in seven years the Earlrides round the Curragh of Kildare on a horse whose silver shoes werehalf an inch thick when he disappeared. When they are worn as thin as acat's ear, a miller's son, who is to be born with six fingers on eachhand, will blow his trumpet, the troopers will awake and mount theirhorses and with the Earl go forth to battle against the English; and hewill reign King of Ireland for twoscore years. A horse-dealer once foundthe lighted cavern open on the night the Earl was riding round theCurragh and went in. In his astonishment at what he saw he dropped abridle on the ground. The sound of its fall echoing in the recesses ofthe cave aroused one of the warriors nearest to him; and he lifted uphis head and asked: "Is it time yet?" The man had the wit to say: "Notyet, but soon will;" and the heavy helmet sank down once more upon thetable, while the man made the best of his way out. On Rathlin Islandthere is a ruin called Bruce's Castle. In a cave beneath lie Bruce andhis chief warriors in an enchanted sleep; but some day they will ariseand unite the island to Scotland. Only once in seven years the entranceto the cave is visible. A man discovered it on one of these occasions, and went in. He found himself in the presence of these men in armour. Asabre was half-sheathed in the earth at his feet. He tried to draw it, but every one of the sleepers lifted his head and put his hand on hissword. The intruder fled; but ere the gate of the cavern clanged behindhim he heard voices calling fiercely after him: "Why could we not beleft to sleep?"[157]

The population of the south and west of Yorkshire is largely Celtic. Atradition of Arthur seems to have been preserved among them to theeffect that he and his knights sit spell-bound in the ruins of a castle, believed by the clergyman who communicated it to Mr. Alfred Nutt to beRichmond Castle. Wherever it was, a man named Potter Thompsonpenetrated by chance into the hall, and found them sitting around atable whereon lay a sword and a horn. The man did not venture, like theSutherlandshire intruder, to blow the horn, but turned and fled at once. There, it seems, he made a mistake; for had he done so he would havereleased Arthur from the spell. And as he crossed the threshold again avoice sounded in his ears:--

 "Potter Thompson, Potter Thompson, hadst thou blown the horn, Thou hadst been the greatest man that ever was born. "

He had missed his chance, and could not return into the enchanted hall. By the twelfth century the legend of Arthur had reached Sicily, perhapswith the Normans. Gervase of Tilbury tells us that a boy was in chargeof the Bishop of Catania's palfrey, when it broke loose and ran away. Hepursued it boldly into the dark recesses of Mount Etna, where, on a wideplain full of all delights, he found Arthur stretched on a royal couchin a palace built with wonderful skill. Having explained what broughthim thither, the hero caused the horse to be given up to him, and addedgifts which were afterwards beheld with astonishment by many. Arthurinformed him, moreover, that he had been compelled to remain there onaccount of his wound, which broke out afresh every year. [158]

In Teutonic lands the legends of the sleeping host and the sleepingmonarch are very numerous. Grimm in his Mythology has collected many ofthem. I select for mention a few only, adding one or two not included byhim. Karl the Great lies in the Unterberg, near Salzburg, and also inthe Odenberg, where Woden himself, according to other legends, is saidto be. Siegfried, the hero of the Nibelungen Lied, dwells in themountain fastness of Geroldseck. Diedrich rests in the mountains ofAlsace, his hand upon his sword, waiting till the Turk shall water hishorses on the banks of the Rhine. On the Grütli, where once they met toswear the oath which freed their country, lie the three founders of theSwiss Federation in a cleft of the rock. The Danes have appropriatedOlger, who, Grimm says, really belongs to the Ardennes; and in a vaultedchamber under the castle of Kronburg he sits, with a number of warriorsclad in mail, about a stone table, into which his beard has grown. Aslave who was condemned to death received pardon and freedom oncondition of descending to ascertain what was beneath the castle; for atthat time no one knew, and no one could explain the clashing of armoursometimes heard below. He passed through an iron doorway and foundhimself in the presence of Olger and his men. Their heads rested ontheir arms, which were crossed upon the table. When Olger lifted up hishead the table burst asunder. "Reach me thy hand, " he said to the slave;but the latter, not venturing to give his hand, held out an iron barinstead, which Olger squeezed so that the marks remained visible. Atlength letting it go, he exclaimed: "It gladdens me that there are stillmen in Denmark!"[159]

But of all the great names appropriated by this myth, the one which hasthus been made most famous is that of Frederick Barbarossa. When he wasdrowned in crossing the river Calycadmus in Asia Minor, the peasants ofGermany refused to believe in his death, and constantly expected him toreturn. Poems which go back to the middle of the fourteenth century, orwithin a century and a half of Frederick's death, prove the existence ofa tradition to this effect. More than this, they contain allusions tosome of the details about to be mentioned, and foretell his recovery ofthe Holy Sepulchre. The Kyffhäuser in Thuringia is the mountain usuallypointed out as his place of retreat, though other places also claim thehonour. Within the cavern he sits at a stone table, and rests his headupon his hand. His beard grows round the table: twice already has itmade the circuit; when it has grown round the third time the emperorwill awake. He will then come forth, and will hang his shield on awithered tree which will break into leaf, and a better time will dawn. Gorgeous descriptions are given of the cavern. It is radiant with goldand jewels; and though it is a cavern deep in the earth, it shineswithin like the sunniest day. The most splendid trees and shrubs standthere, and through the midst of this Paradise flows a brook whose verymud is pure gold. Here the emperor's rest is not so profound as mighthave been expected. A strain of music easily seems to rouse him. Ashepherd having once piped to him, Frederick asked: "Fly the ravensround the mountain still?" "Yes, " replied the shepherd. "Then must Isleep another hundred years, " murmured the emperor. The shepherd wastaken into the armoury, and rewarded with the stand of a hand-basin, which turned out to be of pure gold. A party of musicians on their wayhome from a wedding passed that way, and played a tune "for the oldEmperor Frederick. " Thereupon a maiden stepped out, and brought them theemperor's thanks, presenting each of them with a horse's head by way ofremembrance. All but one threw the gift away in contempt. One, however, kept his "to have a joke with his old woman, " as he phrased it, andtaking it home he put it under the pillow. In the morning, when his wifeturned up the pillow to look at it, instead of a horse's head shebrought forth a lump of gold. Other stories are told of persons who havepenetrated into the emperor's presence and been enriched. A shepherdfound the mountain open on St. John's Day, and entered. He was allowedto take some of the horse-meal, which when he reached home he found tobe gold. Women have been given knots of flax, of the same metal. Aswineherd, however, who went in, was less lucky. The emperor'slady-housekeeper made signs to him that he might take some of thetreasure on the table before him; accordingly he stuffed his pocketsfull. As he turned to go out she called after him: "Forget not thebest!" She meant a flower which lay on the table; but he heeded not, andthe mountain, slamming behind him, cut off his heel, so that he died ingreat pain. [160]

Such are a few of the legends relating to the Kyffhäuser; but it shouldbe observed that Frederick Barbarossa's is not the only name given tothe slumbering hero. We have already seen in the last chapter that onetradition calls him the Marquis John. Another dubs him the Emperor Otto;and yet in another Dame Holle is identified with his housekeeper. Nowthis difference in the traditions about names, while they agree in thesubstance of the superstition, indicates that the substance is older andmore important than the names, and that well-known names have becomeaffixed to the traditions as they happened from time to time to strikethe popular imagination. This is confirmed by the fact that in manyplaces where similar traditions are located, no personal name at all isgiven to the hero. In the Guckenberg, near Fränkischgemünden, _anemperor_ disappeared a long time ago with his army. A boy selling rollsonce met an old man, to whom he complained of bad trade. The old mansaid he could show him a place where he could bring his rolls every day;but he must tell no one thereof. So saying, he led the boy into themountain, where there were many people. The emperor himself sat at atable, round which his beard had grown twice: when it has grown roundit once more he will come forth again with all his men. The boy's rollswere bought; and he daily repeated his visit. After a while, however, hecould not pass the ancient coin wherein he was paid. The people in thevillage, grown suspicious, made him confess all; and he could never findhis way to the mountain again. In the "Auersperg Chronicle, " under theyear 1223, it is recorded that from a certain mountain which Grimmidentifies with the Donnersberg (Thor's mountain), near Worms, amultitude of armed horsemen used daily to issue, and thither daily toreturn. A man, who armed himself with the sign of the cross, andquestioned one of the host in the name of Our Lord, was told by him: "Weare not, as you think, phantoms, nor, as we seem, a band of soldiers, but the souls of slain soldiers. The arms and clothing, and horses, because they once were the instruments of sin, are now to us thematerials of our punishment; for what you behold upon us is really onfire, although you cannot perceive it with your bodily eyes. " We saw inan earlier chapter that a story influenced by the Welsh Methodistrevival represented the midwife whose sight was cleared by fairyointment as beholding herself surrounded by flames, and the fairiesabout her in the guise of devils. In the same way here the wondersrecorded by a pious ecclesiastic have taken, though possibly not in thefirst instance from him, a strictly orthodox form, and one calculated topoint a pulpit moral. [161]

Over against the last two legends we may place two from Upper Alsace. Abody of the Emperor Karl the Great's warriors had become so puffed up bytheir successes that at last they pointed their guns and cannon againstheaven itself. Scarcely had they discharged their pieces when the wholehost sank into the earth. Every seventh year they may be seen by nighton their horses, exercising. Concerning them it is said that a baker'sdaughter of Ruffach, in the Ochsenfeld valley, was carrying white breadto the next village, when she met a soldier on a white horse who offeredto lead her to a place where she could sell the bread immediately for agood price. She accordingly followed him through a subterranean passageinto a great camp quite full of long-bearded soldiers, who were all fastasleep. Here she sold all her bread, and was well paid; and for severalyears she continued daily to sell her bread there, so that her fatherbecame a rich man. One day she was ill and unable to go, whereupon shesent her brother, describing the place to him. He found it, but a doorblocked up the passage, and he could not open it. The girl died soonafter, and since then no one has entered the subterranean camp. FromBütow in Pomerania comes a saga similar to that of Olger at Kronburg. Amountain in the neighbourhood is held to be an enchanted castle, communicating by an underground passage with the castle of Bütow. Acriminal was once offered his choice whether to die by the hangman, orto make his way by the passage in question to the enchanted castle, andbring back a written proof from the lord who sat enchanted within it. Hesucceeded in his mission; and the document he brought back is believedto be laid up among the archives of the town. According to anotheraccount a man once met two women who led him into the mountain, where hefound a populous city. They brought him safely back after he had spentsix hours within the mountain. A saga referred to by Grimm relates how ashepherd found in the cavern of the Willberg _a little man_ sitting at astone table through which his beard had grown; and in another threeunnamed malefactors are spoken of. In Sweden there is a story that mayremind us of the Sutherlandshire legend. In a large cleft of themountain of Billingen, in West Gothland, called the Giant's Path, it issaid there was formerly a way leading far into the mountain, into whicha peasant once penetrated, and found a man lying asleep on a largestone. No one knows how he came there; but every time the bell tolls forprayers in Yglunda church, he turns round and sighs. So he will continueuntil Doomsday. [162] In none of these stories is the hero identifiedwith any known historical person. 

Among the Slavonic peoples corresponding sagas are told. In Servia andBulgaria King Marko is the enchanted hero. He is variously held to be ina palace on some mysterious island, or in a mountain not far from theIron Gates. The traveller who crosses the mountain calls to him: "Marko, dost thou live?" and in the echo he believes that Marko gives him areply. "Prince" Marko is also believed by the Serbs to be in themountain Urvina with his horse Sharatz, asleep. His sword is risingslowly out of the mountain. When it is fully disclosed, Marko will awakeand deliver his people. If other accounts may be trusted, however, hehas retired to the Alps since the invention of gunpowder, and now livesas a hermit in a cave. So great pity was it

 "This villainous saltpetre should be digg'd Out of the bowels of the harmless earth. "[163]

The Carpathian hero is Dobocz, the robber chief. He is bespelled by ajealous mistress in a cavern on the Czornahora, where he perpetuallycounts the gold he has hidden. On certain days of the year he comes outwith his followers; and then he has often been seen by the mountaineers. Sometimes he visits his wife in her rock-dwelling by Polansko, where shetoo is enchanted; and on such occasions the nightly festivities may beseen and heard. Bold are they who endeavour to penetrate the depths ofthe mountain where Dobocz dwells. They never return, but are caught bythe robber and added to his band. Strengthened with these reinforcementshis companions will be with him when the charm shall one day be broken, and he will issue forth to take vengeance on the men who betrayed him. Some of the stories of Blanik Mountain, where Wenzel, the king ofBohemia, lies, have been set before the reader. The horses of himselfand his followers stand ever ready saddled; and at midnight the mountainopens, and the king and his knights ride forth to exercise upon theplain. But other heroes than Wenzel dispute with him the honour of beingthe enchanted inhabitant of the Blanik. One clear moonlight night ofspring the burgesses of Jung-Wositz were aroused from their slumbers bythe beating of drums, and the clang of armour, and the trampling ofhorses. Terrified at such a rout, and not knowing what it might mean, they seized their weapons and stood on the defensive. Nor were they alittle surprised to see on the open meadows a troop of horsemen engagedin knightly play. By and by, at the sound of the kettledrum, the troopformed into rank, and vanished into the mountain, which closed behindthem with a crash. The burgesses offered a reward to whomsoever wouldexplore the recesses of the mountain, and bring them sure tidings of theghostly horsemen. Three years passed by ere the task was attempted. Atlast a clever man, Zdenko von Zasmuk, undertook the adventure. He waslucky enough to find the mountain open; and riding in, he came into avast lighted hall where slept on stone benches the knights of themountain, now changed into fine old men with long white beards. Theirsnow-white horses, ready saddled, stood fastened to the piers of thevault. Zdenko accidentally knocked down a spear; and the clangour, echoing round the hall, awakened the men. He explained to them why hehad come, and politely offered, if they wished, to attempt theirdeliverance. Their leader informed him in reply that he was Ulrich vonRosenberg, that he with his companions had fallen gloriously againstChichka, in defence of the city of Litic, and that God, instead ofadmitting them into Paradise, had assigned them an abode in that placeuntil Bohemia should be at its sorest need; then they would sally forth, and bring back peace and happiness to the land. And he enjoined Zdenkoto make this known to the people. So saying, he sank again to sleep. Itis said, moreover, that when the time of which Ulrich spoke shall come, a certain hazel-tree shall begin to blossom, though it will be winter. Aquite different story alleges that it is the Knight Stoymir, who isunder the spell at Blanik. His last struggle against the plunderinghordes which overran the country took place there; and he with all hisband perished. The next morning when the enemy had departed his friendssearched the battlefield, but not a trace could be recovered of theirbodies. It was first thought that the foes had carried them off to beransomed. At night, however, the inhabitants of the neighbourhood wereroused from slumber by the noise of a host; and they beheld the slainheroes exercising and afterwards watering their horses at the beckbefore they returned to the mountain. The herdsman who told theforegoing tale declared that he had been into the mountain, and hadhimself seen Stoymir and his companions in their sleep. There can be nodoubt, therefore, of its truth. [164]

Legends of buried armies occur also at Trzebnica, in Silesia, where thePoles encountered the Turks, and at Matwa in the Prussian province ofPosen. In the former a girl who is admitted into the cavern is warnedagainst touching a bell that, as in the Welsh tale, hangs in theentrance. She cannot resist the temptation to transgress this command, and is ignominiously ejected. In the latter, an old man buys corn forthe troops. Again, in the Carpathians, as in one of the sagas concerningthe Blanik, a smith is summoned to shoe the steeds. The Rev. W. S. Lach-Szyrma, in addition to these stories, gave the Folklore Societysome years ago, from a chap-book of Posen, the following abstract of alegend I have not met with elsewhere: "Once upon a time, in Mazowia, there were seven victorious leaders. After having won a hundred battles, finding their beards had grown white, they ordered their soldiers tobuild in their honour a very high tower. The soldiers built and built, but every day part of the tower tumbled down. This lasted a whole year. The leaders, after supper, assembled at the ruins of the tower. Here, atthe sound of lutes and songs, immediately a tower grew up from the earthto heaven, and on its seven pinnacles shone the seven helmets of theseven leaders. Higher and higher they rose, but brighter and brighterthey shone till they appeared as the seven stars in heaven. The soldierssank down into graves which had been dug round the tower and fellasleep. The tower has melted out of view, but on fine nights we stillsee the seven helmets of the leaders, and the soldiers are sleeping tillthey are wanted. "[165]

FOOTNOTES:

[148] "Choice Notes, " p. 94. 

[149] Curtin, p. 327. See also Kennedy, p. 240, and "F. L. Record, " vol. Ii. P. 15, where the late Mr. H. C. Coote quotes the "Transactions ofthe Ossianic Society. "

[150] Comparetti, vol. I. P. 212. An English version is given by Mr. Coote, "F. L. Record, " vol. Ii. P. 12. Madame D'Aulnoy gives a similarstory in her "Histoire d'Hypolite, Comte de Douglas, " which seems to bethe original of a tale in verse quoted by Mr. Baring-Gould fromDodsley's "Poetical Collection. " See "F. L. Record, " vol. Ii. P. 8;Baring-Gould, p. 547. 

[151] Des Michels, p. 38; Kreutzwald, p. 212. See also my article on"The Forbidden Chamber, " "F. L. Journal, " vol. Iii. P. 193, where therelations of the Esthonian tale to the myth of the Forbidden Chamber arediscussed. 

[152] Dennys, p. 98, "Gent. Mag. Lib. " (Eng. Trad. Lore), p. 22; "Revuedes Trad. Pop. " vol. Iii. P. 566. 

[153] "Thomas of Erceldoune, " _passim_; Child, vol. I. P. 318; "BorderMinstrelsy, " vol. Iii. P. 170. 

[154] Malory, vol. Iii. P. 339; Braga, vol. Ii. P. 238; Liebrecht in anote to Gerv. Tilb. , p. 95, quoting Aznar, "Expulsion de los Moriscos. "

[155] "Athenæum, " No. 2, 400, 25 Oct. 1873, giving an account of BishopMelchisedech's book, entitled "Lipovenismulu, " on the creed and customsof the Raskolnics, or Russian schismatics. 

[156] "Trans. Aberd. Eistedd. , " p. 227, quoting Waring's "Recollectionsof Iolo Morganwg"; Black's "Picturesque Guide to Wales" (1872), p. 279;Howells, p. 104; "Iolo MSS. " (Llandovery, 1848), pp. 68, 454, quotingfrom papers attributed to the Rev. Evan Evans, and said to be, whencopied by Iolo Morganwg, in the possession of Paul Panton, Esq. , ofAnglesea. 

[157] Waldron, p. 68; "F. L. Journal, " vol. Vi. P. 164; Kennedy, p. 172, Lady Wilde, vol. I. P. 161. 

[158] "F. L. Journal, " vol. I. P. 193; Gerv. Tilb. , Dec. Ii. C. 12. SeeMr. Nutt's remarks on these in his admirable "Studies on the Legend ofthe Holy Grail" (London, 1888), pp. 123, 196. 

[159] Grimm, "Teut. Myth. " pp. 953, 955, 961; Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 222, translating Thiele; Certeux et Carnoy, vol. I. P. 65. 

[160] Grimm, "Teut. Myth. , " p. 955; Kuhn und Schwartz, p. 217. See alsoThorpe, vol. Iii. P. 101, translating Kuhn und Schwartz, and Grimm. 

[161] Kuhn und Schwartz, pp. 220, 222; Grimm, "Teut. Myth. " pp. 953, 954. 

[162] Meier, pp. 122, 123; Jahn, p. 248; Grimm, "Teut. Myth. " p. 961;Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 91, from Afzelius. In an Austrian _märchen_ theSleeping Host is a host of serpents. The king slept on a crystal tablein the centre. During the winter serpents are believed to sleep. In thespring the oldest serpent awakes and wakens the others, crying: "It istime" (Vernaleken, p. 113). 

[163] Grohmann, p. 10. Marko was a shepherd, who for a service renderedto a Vila was gifted by her with heroism, beauty, and other good fortune(Krauss, "Volksgl. " p. 103). 

[164] Grohmann, pp. 11, 13, 15. 

[165] "F. L. Record, " vol. Iv. P. 67. Mr. Lach-Szyrma conjectures thatthe seven stars are the stars of _Ursa Major_. 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE SUPERNATURAL LAPSE OF TIME IN FAIRYLAND

(_continued_). 

 The story not an early one--Its weirdest developments European--Stories of short time appearing long--Mohammed's night-journey and its variants--The Sleeping Hero, a heathen god--The Wild Hunt--The Enchanted Princess, a heathen goddess. 

The visits to Fairyland recorded in Chapter VII differ only in onerespect from those mentioned in earlier chapters of this book. Likethem, they are visits of business or of pleasure. Mortals are summonedto perform some service for the mysterious beings whose dwelling isbeneath the earth, such as to stand sponsor to their children, or toshoe their horses; or they go to take a message from this world, or tobring a message back. Or else they are drawn into the regions over whichthe power of the supernatural extends, by curiosity, by the desire ofpleasure, or else by the invitation, or unconsciously by the spell, oftheir superhuman inhabitants. The point at which the visits differ fromthose we have previously considered, and from a hundred others preciselyparallel in all other respects, is in their length. To the entrammelledmortal the visit seems to last but a moment; for while under the fairysway he is unconscious of the flight of time. In other stories deceptionis practised on the sight. The midwife, without the ointment, isdeceived like Thor by Utgard-Loki: nothing is as it appears to her. Parents and husbands are deceived by changelings: they are made tobelieve that images of dead wood are living creatures, or human corpses. In these stories, on the other hand, the magic is directed against thesense of time. A subtler, a weirder, a more awful horror is thus addedto the dread of communion with the supernatural. 

This horror is one arising comparatively late in the history of culture. The idea of time must first grow up and be elaborated. Time is dependenton number. A savage who can barely count beyond five cannot knowanything of stories which deal with the lapse of centuries. Even thevaguer, but shorter, period of a generation will be an idea he cannotgrasp. We have therefore found no such tales in the lower savagery; andeven among the Lapplanders and the Siberian tribes the stories we havebeen able to collect speak only of short periods, such as the transitionfrom autumn to spring, where a man had slept through the winter, and theexpansion of a day into a month, or a year. In these two cases not onlythe phases of the moon and the measurement of time by them, which musthave been early in development, but also the cycle of the seasons hadbeen observed. But the idea lying at the root of this group of tales isas yet only in germ. The full terror of the situation, as exhibited inthe traditions of the more highly organized societies of Europe and ofthe extreme Orient, is unforeseen. For it is in proportion to theorganization of society that such a catastrophe as the loss of years, and thereby of kindred and friends, becomes really dreadful. Indeed, itwould seem to have been reserved for the European nations to put thefinal touches of gloom and horror upon the canvas. It may be sufficientto refer this to the more sombre imagination of Western peoples. But weought not to overlook the influence of the Catholic Church in darkeningthe general tone of the imagination, and particularly the tone of thefairy sagas, by the absolute and unquestioned supremacy she demanded, and the frightful penalties, temporal and spiritual, she invoked uponthose who dared to indulge in cults she was unable to incorporate. Tomen under such an influence, intercourse with fairies would be a thingunholy; and the greater the temptations to it, the severer, they woulddeem, should be the penalties. This is the frame of mind which would, ifwith shuddering, yet without a murmur, acquiesce in the justice of thedoom suffered by Herla, to put an extreme case--a frame of mindundoubtedly countenanced by the equally uncompromising claims of variousforms of Protestantism. But, while reprobating commerce with unhallowedspirits, intercourse with spirits sanctioned by the Church was believedto be almost equally possible, and was encouraged as much as the otherwas denounced. If such intercourse sometimes resulted in severancebetween the favoured mortal and his human friends, this was only anextension of the monastic idea; and, as in that case, the loss was heldto be abundantly compensated by the favour of Heaven and the blissreceived. At all events it is certain, from whatever cause, that thedeepest depths and the loftiest heights of which this story-plot hasbeen found capable, have been reached only under Christian influences. Pliny and Mohammed, the Taoist and the Shintoist, have recorded no talethat sways our emotions like those of Herla, the Aged Bride, and theMonk Felix. 

But the magical power over time operates now and then in the contraryway, by making a short time appear long. A few examples may beinteresting, though they will in no way affect the foregoingconclusions. In the tenth part of a night Mohammed, it will beremembered, was taken up to Paradise on the back of the beast Alborac, and passed through all the seven heavens into the presence of Allahhimself, with whom he had a conversation, which could not have been avery short one, and was then brought back by the way he had gone. Heremained long enough in each heaven to give a full, true and particularaccount of it and of its inhabitants, and performed various other featsduring the journey. Nor will it be forgotten how one of the Sultans oneday expressing doubts on the possibility of so much having happened tothe Apostle in so short a time, a learned doctor of the Mohammedan lawcaused a basin of water to be brought and requested him to dip his headinto it. When the Sultan dipped his head he found himself in a strangecountry, alone and friendless, on the seashore. He made his way to aneighbouring town, obtained employment, became rich, married, livedseven years with his wife, who afterwards, to his great grief, died, andthen he lost all. One day he was wandering in despondency along theseashore, where he had first found himself; and in his despair hedetermined to cast himself into the sea. Scarcely had he done so when hebeheld his courtiers standing around his throne: he was once moreSultan, and the basin of water into which he had dipped his head wasbefore him. He began furiously to reproach the learned doctor forbanishing him from his capital and sending him into the midst ofvicissitudes and adventures for so many years. Nor was it withoutdifficulty that he was brought to believe that he had only just dippedhis head into the water and lifted it out again. 

This type of story is less frequent than the other, but it is known incountries far apart. A stripling, in Pembrokeshire, joined a fairydance, and found himself in a palace glittering with gold and pearls, where he remained in great enjoyment with the fairy folk for many years. One restriction was laid upon him: he was not to drink from a certainwell in the midst of the palace gardens. But he could not forbear. Inthat well swam golden fishes and fishes of all colours. One day theyouth, impelled by curiosity, plunged his hand into the water; but in amoment fishes and all disappeared, a shriek ran through the garden, andhe found himself again on the hillside with his father's flocks aroundhim. In fact, he had never left the sheep, and what seemed to him to beyears had been only minutes, during which the fairy spell had been overhim. In Count Lucanor, a Spanish work of the fourteenth century, is astory of a Dean of Santiago, who went to Don Illan, a magician ofToledo, to be instructed in necromancy. Don Illan made a difficulty, stating that the dean was a man of influence and consequently likely toattain a high position, and that men when they rise forget easily allpast obligations, as well as the persons from whom they received them. The dean, however, protested that, no matter to what eminence heattained, he would never fail to remember and to help his formerfriends, and the magician in particular. This being the bargain, DonIllan led the dean into a remote apartment, first desiring hishousekeeper to procure some partridges for supper, but not to cook themuntil she had his special commands. Scarcely had the dean and his friendreached the room when two messengers arrived from the dean's uncle, thearchbishop, summoning him to his death-bed. Being unwilling, however, toforego the lessons he was about to receive, he contented himself with arespectful reply. Four days afterwards other messengers arrived withletters informing the dean of the archbishop's death, and again at theend of other seven or eight days he learned that he himself had beenappointed archbishop in his uncle's place. Don Illan solicited thevacant deanery for his son; but the new archbishop preferred his ownbrother, inviting, however, Don Illan and his son to accompany him tohis see. After awhile, the deanery was again vacant: and again thearchbishop refused Don Illan's suit, in favour of one of his own uncles. Two years later, the archbishop was named cardinal and summoned to Rome, with liberty to name his successor in the see. Don Illan, pressing hissuit more urgently, was again repulsed in favour of another uncle. Atlength the pope died, and the new cardinal was chosen pope. Don Illan, who had accompanied him to Rome, then reminded him that he had now noexcuse for not fulfilling the promises he had so often repeated to him. The pope sought to put him off; but Don Illan complained in earnest ofthe many promises he had made, none of which had been kept, and declaredthat he had no longer any faith in his words. The pope, much angered, threatened to have Don Illan thrown into prison as a heretic and asorcerer; for he knew that in Toledo he had no other means of supportbut by practising the art of necromancy. Don Illan, seeing how ill thepope had requited his services, prepared to depart; and the pope, as ifhe had not already shown sufficient ingratitude, refused even to granthim wherewith to support himself on the road. "Then, " retorted DonIllan, "since I have nothing to eat, I must needs fall back on thepartridges I ordered for to-night's supper. " He then called out to hishousekeeper and ordered her to cook the birds. No sooner had he thusspoken than the dean found himself again in Toledo, still dean ofSantiago, as on his arrival, for, in fact, he had not stirred from theplace. This was simply the way the magician had chosen to test hischaracter, before committing himself to his hands; and the dean was socrestfallen he had nothing to reply to the reproaches wherewith DonIllan dismissed him without even a taste of the partridges. [166]

A modern folk-tale from Cashmere tells of a Brahmin who prayed to knowsomething of the state of the departed. One morning, while bathing inthe river, his spirit left him and entered the body of the infant childof a cobbler. The child grew up, learned his father's business, married, and had a large family, when suddenly he was made aware of his highcaste, and, abandoning all, he went to another country. There the kinghad just died; and the stranger was chosen in his place, and put uponhis throne. In the course of a few years his wife came to know where hewas, and sought to join him. In this or some other way his peoplelearned that he was a cobbler; and great consternation prevailed onaccount of his low caste. Some of his subjects fled; others performedgreat penances; and some indeed burnt themselves lest they should beexcommunicated. When the king heard all this, he too burnt himself; andhis spirit went and re-occupied the Brahmin's corpse, which still lay bythe riverside. Thereupon the Brahmin got up and went home to his wife, who only said: "How quickly you have performed your ablutions thismorning!" The Brahmin said not a word of his adventures, notwithstandinghe was greatly astonished. To crown all, however, about a weekafterwards a man came to him begging, and said he had eaten nothing forfive days, during which he had been running away from his countrybecause a cobbler had been made king. All the people, he said, wererunning away, or burning themselves, to escape the consequences of suchan evil. The Brahmin, while he gave the man food, thought: "How canthese things be? I have been a cobbler for several years; I have reignedas a king for several years;--and this man confirms the truth of mythoughts. Yet my wife declares I have not been absent from this housemore than the usual time; and I believe her, for she does not look anyolder, neither is the place changed in any way. " Thus were the godsteaching him that the soul passes through various stages of existenceaccording to a man's thoughts, words, and acts, and in the greatHereafter a day is equal to a thousand years, and a thousand years areequal to a day. [167]

We may now turn to the types in which the spell is believed to be stillpowerful over heroes once mighty but now hidden within the hills, or insome far-off land, awaiting in magical sleep, or in more than humandelight, the summons that shall bid them return to succour theirdistressed people in the hour of utmost need. As to the personality ofthese heroes there can be no doubt. Grimm long ago pointed out that thered-bearded king beneath the Kyffhäuser can be no other than Thor, theold Teutonic god of thunder, and that the long beard--sometimesdescribed as white--attributed to other leaders was a token of Woden. The very name of Woden is preserved in the Odenberg, to which several ofsuch legends attach; and the hidden king there is sometimes called Karlthe Great, and sometimes Woden. In other countries Quetzalcoatl andVishnu, we know, are gods of the native cults. Oisin, Merlin, and KingArthur all belong to the old Celtic Pantheon. And if some other sleepingor vanished heroes bear the names of personages who once had a realexistence, they are but decked in borrowed plumes. In short, all theseHidden Heroes are gods of the earlier faiths, vanquished by Christianitybut not destroyed. 

If this be so, it may be inferred that these gods were at one timeconceived as presently active, and that it is only since theintroduction of the new faith that they have been thought to be retiredbeneath the overhanging hills or in the Islands of the Blest. But thiswas not so. In all regions the chief activity of the deities has alwaysbeen placed in the past. Upon the stories told of the deeds of yesterdaythe belief of to-day is founded. Whether it be creation, or strifeagainst evil spirits, or the punishment of men, or the invention of thecivilizing arts, or the endless amours of too susceptible divinities, all is looked upon as past and done. The present is a state of rest, ofsuspension of labour, or at least of cessation of open and visibleactivity. These gods, like men, require an abode. In the later stages ofculture this abode is a Paradise on some more or less imaginarymountain-top, or effectually cut off from men by the magical tempestsof the immeasurable main, or by the supreme and silent heights ofheaven. But this exaltation of ideas took long to reach. At first astrange rock, a fountain, the recesses of a cavern, or the mysteriousdepths of the forest, enshrouded the divinity. In the earlier stages ofsavagery it would be almost truer to say that these _were_ very oftenthe divinity: at least they were often his outward and visible form. Mr. Im Thurn, who has had exceptional opportunities of observing thecharacteristics of the savage mind, and has made exceptionally good useof those opportunities, in describing the animism of the Indians ofGuiana, says: "Every object in the whole world is a being consisting ofbody and spirit, and differs from every other object in no respectexcept that of bodily form, and in the greater or less degree of brutepower and brute cunning consequent on the difference of bodily form andbodily habits. " Then, after discussing the lower animals and plants aseach possessed of body and soul, and particularizing several rocks whichare supposed by the Indians to possess spirits like human beings, hegoes on: "It is unnecessary to multiply instances, further than bysaying that almost every rock seen for the first time, and any rockwhich is in any way abnormal whenever seen, is believed to consist ofbody and spirit. And not only many rocks, but also many waterfalls, streams, and indeed material bodies of every sort, are supposed toconsist each of a body and a spirit as does man; and that not allinanimate objects have this dual nature avowedly attributed to them isprobably only due to the chance that, while all such objects may at anytime, in any of the ways above indicated, show signs of the presence ofa spirit within them, this spirit has not yet been noticed in somecases. "[168] From this belief to that in which the rocks and hills andother inanimate objects are looked upon as having the relation tospirits, not of body and soul, but of dwelling and dweller, is a stepupward, and perhaps a long one. But it is a natural development, and onewhich would inevitably take place as the popular opinion of the power ofcertain spirits grew, and these spirits attracted to themselvessuperstitions and sagas current among the people whose civilization wasby the same slow movement growing too. 

The development spoken of would perhaps be assisted by the erection ofmonuments like piles of stones, or earthen barrows, over the dead. Asformerly in their huts, so now in their graves, the dead would beregarded as the occupiers. Their spirits were still living, and would beseen from time to time haunting the spot. Food would be buried withthem; and sacrifices at the moment of burial and on subsequent occasionswould be offered to them. In process of time among illiterate racestheir identity would be forgotten, and then if the barrows were notlarge enough to attract attention the superstitions which had their seatthere might cease. But if the barrows could not be overlooked, thespirits supposed to haunt them might merge into some other objects ofreverence. In Denmark the barrows are invariably regarded as the hauntof fairies; and this is frequently the case in other countries. [169]When men once became habituated to think of a barrow as not the outwardand visible form of some spirit, but simply its dwelling-place--stillmore, perhaps, if many interments took place within it, so that itbecame the dwelling-place of many spirits--they would be led by an easytransition to think of rocks, fountains, hills, and other naturalobjects in the same way. The spirits once supposed to be their inneridentity would become perfectly separable in thought from them, becausemerely their tenants. Thus the gulf would be bridged between the savagephilosophy of spirits described by Mr. Im Thurn, and the polytheism ofthe higher heathendom, represented by Mexico, Scandinavia, and Greece. 

But whether they travelled by this, or any different road, certain it isthat in the remoter times of the higher heathendom men had arrived nofurther than the belief that certain spots, and preferably certainstriking objects, were the abodes of their gods. This was a doctrinedeveloped directly from that which regarded the more remarkable objectsof nature as the bodies of powerful spirits. Nor was it ever entirelyabandoned; for even after the more advanced and thoughtful of thecommunity had reached the idea of an Olympus, or an Asgard, far removedabove the every-day earth of humanity, the gods still had their temples, and sacred legends still attached to places where events of the divinehistory had happened. Consequently some localities kept their reputationof sanctity. That they were really the abiding-places of the gods thecommon people would not cease to hold, whatever might be taught or heldby those who had renounced that crudity. And, indeed, it may be doubtedwhether anybody ever renounced it altogether. Probably, at all events, most persons would see no difficulty in believing that the god dwelt onthe sacred spot of earth and also at the same time in heaven. They wouldaccept both traditions as equally true, without troubling themselves howto reconcile them. 

But the gods did not always remain in their dwellings. The Wild Hunt, atradition of a furious host riding abroad with a terrific noise ofshouts and horns and the braying of hounds, common to Germany andEngland, has been identified beyond doubt by Grimm with Woden and hishost. We cannot here discuss the subject except in its relations withthe group of stories now under consideration. Woden, it will be borne inmind, is one of the figures of the old mythology merged in the HiddenHero beneath the German hills. Now, nothing is more natural than that, when a company of warriors is conceived as lying ready for a summons, themselves all armed and their steeds standing harnessed at their sides, they should be thought now and then to sally forth. This was the soundwhich surprised the good burgesses of Jung-Wositz when Ulrich vonRosenberg and his train rode out by night upon the plain. In this wayKing Wenzel exercises his followers, and the unfortunate Stoymirvindicated his existence beneath the Blanik notwithstanding his death. In this way too, before a war, Diedrich is heard preparing for battle atone o'clock in the morning on the mountain of Ax. Once in seven yearsEarl Gerald rides round the Curragh of Kildare; and every seventh yearthe host at Ochsenfeld in Upper Alsace may be seen by night exercisingon their horses. On certain days the Carpathian robber issues from hiscavern in the Czornahora. Grimm mentions the story of a blacksmith whofound a gap he had never noticed before in the face of a cliff on theOdenberg, and entering, stood in the presence of mighty men, playingthere at bowls with balls of iron, as Rip van Winkle's friends wereplaying at ninepins. So a Wallachian saga connects the Wild Hunt with amysterious forest castle built by the Knight Sigmirian, who was cursedwith banishment for three hundred years from the society of men forrefusing the daughter of the King of Stones. In the same category wemust put the spectral host in the Donnersberg, and Herla's company, which haunted the Welsh marches, and is described by Walter Map as agreat band of men and women on foot and in chariots, with pack-saddlesand panniers, birds and dogs, advancing with trumpets and shouts, andall sorts of weapons ready for emergencies. Night was the usual time ofHerla's wanderings, but the last time he and his train were seen was atnoon. Those who then saw them, being unable to obtain an answer to theirchallenge by words, prepared to exact one by arms; but the moment theydid so the troop rose into the air and disappeared, nor was it ever seenagain. [170]

This is a different account of Herla from that previously quoted from anearlier part of Map's work; but perhaps, if it were worth while to spendthe time, not altogether irreconcilable with it. The tradition, itshould be observed, appears to have been an English, and not a Welsh, tradition, since the host received the English name of Herlething. Gervase of Tilbury, writing about the same time, reports that Arthur wassaid by the foresters, or woodwards, both in Britain and in Brittany, tobe very often seen at midday, or in the evening moonlight at full of themoon, accompanied by a troop of soldiers, hunters, dogs, and the soundof horns. This is manifestly a Celtic tradition. But these occasions arenot the last on which such appearances have been seen and heard in thiscountry. If we may believe a tract published in 1643, spectral fightshad taken place at Keniton, in Northamptonshire, during four successiveSaturday and Sunday nights of the preceding Christmastide. By those whoare reported to have witnessed the phenomenon--and among them wereseveral gentlemen of credit mentioned by name as despatched by the kinghimself from Oxford--it was taken to be a ghostly repetition of thebattle of Edgehill, which had been fought only two months before on theadjacent fields. The excitement of men's minds during periods ofcommotion has doubtless much to do with the currency of beliefs likethis. Saint Augustine alludes to a story of a battle between evilspirits beheld upon a plain in Campania during the civil wars of Rome. As in the case of Edgehill, the vision was accompanied by all the noisesof a conflict; and indeed the saint goes the length of declaring thatafter it was over the ground was covered with the footprints of men andhorses. On the spot where this is said to have happened an actual battletook place not very long after. [171] These two instances are unconnectedwith the Sleeping Host; but many of the legends explicitly declare theexercises of the host when it emerges from its retirement to consist ofa sham fight. Although the legends containing this account are not allfound among Teutonic peoples, it cannot be deemed irrelevant to drawattention to the fact that similar fights are mentioned as the dailyoccupation of the heroes who attain to Valhalla, just as the nightlyfeasts of that roystering paradise correspond to the refreshmentsprovided for the warriors around the tables of stone in theirsubterranean retreats. Whatever may have been the creed of otherEuropean races, it is hardly to be doubted that in these Germansuperstitions we have an approach to the primitive belief, of which theEddaic Valhalla was a late and idealized development. 

But we may--nay, we must--go further. For in the history of traditionalreligions goddesses have been as popular as gods; and if we are right inseeing, with Grimm, the archaic gods in the Hidden Heroes, some wherewe must find their mates, the corresponding goddesses. We have alreadyhad glimpses of them in Morgan the Fay, in the Emperor Frederick'slady-housekeeper (_ausgeberin_) and in the maid who in another sagaattended on his bidding. The lady-housekeeper is expressly called in onestory Dame Holle. Now Dame Holle herself is the leader of a FuriousHost, or Wild Hunt, and has been identified by Grimm beyond any doubt asa pagan goddess, like Berchta. 

Let us take another story in which the female companion of the enchantedhero appears. Near the town of Garz, on the island of Rügen, lies a lakeby which a castle formerly stood. It belonged to an old heathen king, whose avarice heaped up great store of gold and jewels in the vaultsbeneath. It was taken and destroyed by the Christians, and its owner wastransformed into a great black dog ever watching his treasure. Sometimeshe is still seen in human form with helm, or golden crown, and coat ofmail, riding a grey horse over the city and the lake; sometimes he ismet with by night in the forest, wearing a black fur cap and carrying awhite staff. It is possible to disenchant him, but only if a purevirgin, on St. John's night between twelve and one o'clock, willventure, naked and alone, to climb the castle wall and wander backwardsto and fro amid the ruins, until she light upon the spot where thestairway of the tower leads down into the treasure chamber. Slippingdown, she will then be able to take as much gold and jewels as she cancarry, and what she cannot herself carry the old king will bring afterher, so that she will be rich for the rest of her life. But she mustreturn by sunrise, and she must not once look behind her, nor speak asingle word, else not only will she fail, but she will perish miserably. A princess who was accused of unchastity obtained her father'spermission to try this adventure, in order to prove the falsehood of thecharge against her. She safely gained the vault, which was illuminatedwith a thousand lights. The king, a little grey old man, bestowed thetreasure upon her, and sent a number of servants laden with it to followher. All would have gone well, but unhappily when she had climbed a fewof the old steps she looked round to see if the servants were coming. Atonce the king changed into a great black dog, that sprang upon her withfiery throat and glowing eyes. She just had time to scream out when thedoor slammed to, the steps sank, and she fell back into the vault indarkness. She has sat there now for four hundred years, waiting until apure youth shall find his way down in the same manner on St. John'snight, shall bow to her thrice and silently kiss her. He may then takeher hand and lead her forth to be his bride; and he will inherit suchriches as a whole kingdom cannot buy. [172]

But goddesses do not always play so secondary a part. In a wood inPomerania stands a round, flat hill called the Castle Hill, and at itsfoot lies a little lake known as the Hertha Lake. By its name it is thusdirectly connected with one of the old divinities, like that lake on theisland of Rügen referred to in Chapter IV. And here, too, a mysteriouslady has been seen to wash, a young and lovely maiden, clad inblack--not in secret, as in the former instance, but openly, as if forthe purpose of attracting attention from passers-by, and of being spokento. At last a broad-shouldered workman, named Kramp, ventured to givethe maiden "the time of day, " and to get her into conversation. She toldhim she was a princess, who, with her castle, had been from timeimmemorial enchanted, and that she was still waiting for her deliverer. The mode of loosing the spell was by carrying her on his back in silenceto the churchyard of Wusseken and there putting her down, being carefulnot to look round the while; for, happen what would, he could take noharm, even if it were threatened to tear his head off. He undertook thetask, and had nearly accomplished it without troubling in the leastabout the troops of spirits which followed him, when suddenly, as hedrew near the churchyard, a hurricane arose and took his cap off. Forgetful of his promise, he looked round; and the maiden rose into theair, weeping and crying out that she could never be delivered now. Astory told in Mecklenburg is more picturesque. It concerns the daughterof a lake-king, who leagued himself with other knights against a robber, the owner of a castle called the Glamburg, which was a place of somestrength, being entirely surrounded by the water of the Lake of Glam. The confederates were defeated; and nine large round barrows were raisedthe next day over the slain, among whom was the lake-king. His daughterwept upon her father's grave, and her tears, as they touched the earth, became lovely blue flowers. These flowers still grow upon the loftiestof the nine barrows, while the others are quite destitute of them. Theprincess threw herself that night--it was St. John's night--into thelake; and now every year on St. John's night, between twelve and oneo'clock, a bridge of copper rises out of the lake, and the princessappears upon it, sighing for her deliverance. [173]

The typical form of the tale is as follows: In the Buchenberg by Doberandwells an enchanted princess, who can only be released once in a hundredyears, on St. John's Day between twelve and one. In the year 1818 aservant boy was watching sheep on the eastern side of the Buchenberg theday before St. John's day. About noon a white lady appeared to him andtold him that he could deliver her, if he would, the next day at thesame hour, kiss her. She would then come to him in the form of a toadwith a red band round its neck. The shepherd promised; but the next daywhen he saw the toad he was so horrified that he ran away. A variantrecords the hour as between twelve and one at night, and the form of thelady as a snake which sought to twine round the shepherd's neck. Agreat treasure buried in the hill would have been his had he stood theproof; but now the lady will have to wait until a beech tree shall havegrown up on the spot and been cut down, and of its timber a cradle made:the child that is rocked in that cradle will have power to save her. This is in effect the story told by Sir John Maundeville concerning thedaughter of Hippocrates, the renowned physician, who was said to havebeen enchanted by Diana on the island of Cos, or (as he calls it) Lango, and given with so much of Mr. William Morris' power in "The EarthlyParadise. "[174] "Then listen!" says the damsel in the ruined castle tothe seaman whom she meets--

 "Then listen! when this day is overpast, A fearful monster I shall be again, And thou may'st be my saviour at the last, Unless, once more, thy words are nought and vain; If thou of love and sovereignty art fain, Come thou next morn, and when thou seest here A hideous dragon, have thereof no fear, "But take the loathsome head up in thine hands, And kiss it, and be master presently Of twice the wealth that is in all the lands, From Cathay to the head of Italy; And master also, if it pleaseth thee, Of all thou praisest as so fresh and bright, Of what thou callest crown of all delight. "

 * * * * *

 "Ah, me! to hold my child upon my knees, After the weeping of unkindly tears, And all the wrongs of these four hundred years. "

But the horrible apparition of the dragon was too much for theadventurer's courage:

 "He cried out and wildly at her smote, Shutting his eyes, and turned and from the place Ran swiftly, with a white and ghastly face, "

to die within three days, a raving maniac. And

 "Never any man again durst go To seek her woman's form, and end her wo. "

It would be too tedious to run through even a small proportion of theexamples of this tale, almost innumerable in Germany alone. Fortunately, it will only be necessary to allude to a few of its chief features. Whenthe enchanted princess assumes a monstrous form, the usual ordeal of thewould-be deliverer is to kiss her. A toad or a snake is, perhaps, herfavourite form; but occasionally she is half woman, half toad, or halfwoman, half snake. Further transformations now and then take place, asfrom a snake into a fiery dog, or from a bear into a lion, from a lioninto a snake. Sometimes as a bear alone she threatens her deliverer. Ina Carinthian saga he is to cut three birch rods at the full of the moon, and then wait at the appointed place. The damsel approaches in the guiseof a snake, with a bunch of keys in her mouth, and menaces him, hissingand snorting fire. Unmoved by the creature's rage, he is to strike herthrice on the head with each rod and take the keys from her mouth. Inthe Duchy of Luxemburg the favourite form assumed by the princess isthat of a fire-breathing snake, bearing in her mouth a bunch of keys, ora ring; and the deliverer's task then is to take the keys or ring awaywith his own mouth. It is believed that Melusina, whose story we shalldeal with in the following chapters, is enchanted beneath the Bockfels, a rock near the town of Luxemburg. There she appears every seventh yearin human form and puts one stitch in a smock. When she shall havefinished sewing the smock she will be delivered; but woe then to thetown! for its ruins will be her grave and monument. Men have oftenundertaken her earlier deliverance. This is to be effected at midnight, when she appears as a snake, by taking with the mouth a key from hermouth and flinging it into the Alzet. No one, however, has yet succeededin doing this; and meantime when a calamity threatens the town, whosefaithful guardian she is, she gives warning by gliding round theBockfels uttering loud laments. [175]

But in many of the sagas the princess meets her hero in her own propershape, and then the feat to be performed varies much more. In a Prussiantale she comes out of a deep lake, which occupies the site of aonce-mighty castle, at sunset, clothed in black, and accompanied by ablack dog. The castle belonged to the young lady's parents, who werewicked, though she herself was pious; and it was destroyed on account oftheir evil doings. Since that time she has wandered around, seeking somebold and pious man who will follow her into the depths of the lake, andthus remove the curse. This would seem but another form of the traditionof the lake at the foot of the Herthaburg on the isle of Rügen. Inanother story the lady must be brought an unbaptized child to kiss. Inyet another the deliverer is led down through a dark underground passageinto a brilliantly lighted room, where sit three black men writing at atable, and is bidden to take one of two swords which lie on the tableand strike off the enchanted lady's head. To cut off the head of abewitched person is an effectual means of destroying the spell. So, inthe Gaelic story of the Widow and her Daughters, the heroinedecapitates the horse-ogre, who thereupon returns to his true form as aking's son, and marries her. A large number of parallel instances mighteasily be given; but they would lead us too far afield. The lady of thePrincess Hill, near Warin, in Mecklenburg, has to be held fast frommidnight until one o'clock in spite of all frightful apparitions ofsnakes, dragons, and toads which crowd around and threaten theadventurer. In the same way Peleus, desiring to secure Thetis, had tohold her fast through her various magical changes until she foundresistance useless, and returned to her true form. In a modern Cretantale the hero, by the advice of an old woman, seizes at night a Nereidby the hair and holds her until the cock crows, in spite of her changessuccessively into a dog, a snake, a camel, and fire. The process ofdisenchanting Tam Lin, in the ballad of that name, was for his lady-loveto take him in her arms and hold him, notwithstanding his transformationinto a snake, a bear, a lion, a red-hot iron, and lastly into a "burninggleed, " when he was to be immediately flung into a well. [176]

We have already seen that the task is sometimes to carry the maiden to achurchyard. At the Castle Hill of Bütow she was to be carried to thePolish churchyard and there thrown to the ground with all thedeliverer's might. A castle is said to have stood formerly on the siteof Budow Mill in Eastern Pomerania. An enchanted princess now haunts theplace. She is only to be freed by a bachelor who will carry her insilence, and without looking behind him, around the churchyard; but thespirits which hold her under their spell will seek in every way tohinder her deliverance. On the Müggelsberg is, or was (for it is said tobe now destroyed), a large stone under which a treasure lies. It wascalled the Devil's Altar; and at night it often seemed, from theneighbouring village of Müggelsheim, to be in a blaze; but on drawingnear the fire would vanish from sight. At Köpenick, another village notfar off, it was called the Princesses' Stone, but the lake at the footof the hill was called the Devil's Lake. The stone was said to occupythe site of a castle, now enchanted and swallowed up in the earth. Beneath it a hole ran deep into the mountain, out of which a princesswas sometimes of an evening seen to come, with a casket of pure gold inher hand. He who would carry her thrice round the church of Köpenickwithout looking about him, would win the casket of gold and deliver her. The names of the stone and of the lake, as well as the attendantcircumstances, are strong evidence in favour of the conclusion that wehave in this superstition a relic of heathen times, and a record of somedivinity believed to reside at that spot. A princess, clad in white andhaving a golden spinning-wheel in her hand, was believed to appear onthe Castle Hill at Biesenthal, at midday. Once at midnight she appearedto a gardener who had often heard voices at night summoning him to thecastle garden. At first he was frightened at the vision, but at lengthconsented to carry her to the church, which stands near the hill. Hetook her on his back; but when he entered the churchyard gate hesuddenly met a carriage drawn by coal-black horses, which vomited fire. So terrified was he that he shrieked aloud, whereupon the carriagevanished, and the princess flew away moaning: "For ever lost!" In a casewhere a prince had been enchanted, the feat was to wrestle with himthree nights in succession. [177]

But it was not always that so hard a task was set before the deliverer. To our thinking, it says little for the German way of doing businessthat the difficulty in unspelling the castle near Lossin, and themaiden who dwelt therein, was to buy a pair of shoes without bargainingand cheapening their price, but to pay for them exactly the piece ofmoney which the maiden handed to the youth who undertook the enterprise. In another case a maiden was seen to scour a kettle at a little lake. She was enchanted. The man who beheld her thought the kettle would proveuseful at his approaching wedding, and borrowed it on the expresscondition of returning it at a fixed time. He failed to do so, and theEvil One came and fetched it; and the maiden had to wait longer for herdeliverance. There are stories similar to this of fairies lending sucharticles on this condition. If the condition be not complied with, thefairies are never seen again. Aubrey relates that in the vestry ofFrensham Church, in Surrey, is a great kettle, which was borrowed fromthe fairies who lived in the Borough Hill, about a mile away. It was notreturned according to promise, and though afterwards taken back, it wasnot received, nor since that time had there been any borrowingthere. [178]

A man who was in the habit of meeting in a certain wood an adder, whichalways sneezed thrice as he passed, consulted his parish priest on thesubject. The priest advised him to say the next time, as he would to ahuman friend who sneezed: "God help thee!" The man did so, whereupon theadder shot forth before him with fiery body and terrible rattling, sostartling him that he turned and fled. The snake hurried after him, crying out that it would not hurt him, but that if he would take (not, however, with naked hands) the bunch of keys that hung about its neck, it would then lead the way to a great treasure and make him happy. Heturned a deaf ear to these entreaties; and as he ran away he heard thesnake exclaim that now it must remain enchanted until yon little oaktree had grown great, and a cradle had been made out of the timber: thefirst child that lay in that cradle would be able to deliver it. Thesame incident reappears in another saga, in which some men passingthrough the forest hear a sneeze, and one of them says: "God help thee!"The sneeze and the blessing are repeated; but when the sneeze was hearda third time, the man exclaimed: "Oh, go to the devil!" "I believesomebody is making game of us, " said another. But a mannikin steppedforward and said: "If you had said a third time 'God help thee!' Ishould have been saved. Now I must wait until an acorn falls from yondertree and becomes an oak, and a cradle is made out of its timber. Thechild that comes to lie in that cradle will be able to deliver me. " Inthis case all that was required was a thrice-repeated blessing. Anothercurious means of deliverance is found in a story from Old Strelitz. There an enchanted princess haunted a bridge a short distance from oneof the gates of the town, on the road to Woldegk. Whoever in going overthis bridge uttered a certain word, could unspell her if he wouldafterwards allow her to walk beside him the rest of the way over thebridge without speaking; but the difficulty was that nobody knew whatthe powerful word was. [179]

Two other legends may be noticed on the mode of undoing the spell. TheWhite Lady who haunts the White Tower on the White Hill at Prague wasmarried to a king. She betrayed him, and married his enemy, from whomshe subsequently fled with an officer of his army. She was, however, caught, and walled up in the White Tower. From this she may be deliveredif she can find any one who will allow her to give him three stabs inthe breast with a bayonet without uttering a sound. Once she prevailedon a young recruit, who was placed as sentinel before the magazine ofthe castle, to stand the necessary trial; but on receiving the firstblow he could not forbear crying aloud: "Jesus! Mary! thou hast givenit me!" Another old castle in Bohemia has twelve ladies enchanted by dayas fish in the fountain of the castle garden, and appearing only atnight in their true shape. They can not be disenchanted unless by twelvemen who will remain in the castle for twelve months without once goingoutside the walls. [180]

These bring us to a number of _märchen_ in which the bespelled heroineis released by a youth who suffers torture on her account. TheTransylvanian gipsies tell a tale of a very poor man who, instructed bya dream, climbed a certain mountain and found a beautiful maiden beforea cavern, spinning her own golden hair. She had been sold by herheartless parents to an evil spirit, who compelled her to this labour;but she could be saved if she could find any one willing to undergo insilence, for her sake, an hour's torture from the evil spirit on threesuccessive nights. The man expressed himself ready to make the attempt;he entered the cave, and at midnight a gigantic Prikulich, or evilspirit, appeared, and questioned him as to who he was and what he wantedthere. Failing to get any reply, the Prikulich flung him to the groundand danced about madly on him. The man endured without a moan; and atone o'clock the Prikulich disappeared. The second night the man wasbeaten with a heavy hammer, and so tortured that the maiden had greatdifficulty in persuading him to stand the third proof. While she waspraying him, however, to stay, the Prikulich appeared the third time, and beat him again with the hammer until he was half dead. Then thegoblin made a fire and flung him into it. The poor fellow uttered not asingle sound, in spite of all this torment; and the maiden was saved andwedded her deliverer. This is a tale by no means uncommon. Want of spaceforbids us to follow it in detail, but a few references in the notebelow will enable the reader to do so if he please. Meantime, I willonly say that sometimes the princess who is thus to be rescued isenchanted in the form of a snake, sometimes of a she-goat, sometimes ofa bird; and in one of the stories she herself, in the shape of a monsterlike a hedgehog, comes out of a coffin to tear the hero in pieces. [181]The group is allied, on the one hand, to that of Fearless Johnny who, passing the night in a haunted house, expelled the ghosts, or goblins, which had taken possession of it; on the other hand, to that of theBriar Rose, illustrated by Mr. Burne Jones' series of paintings. 

The Briar Rose, or The Beauty of Sleeping Wood, as it comes to us fromPerrault's hands, is the story of a maiden who was cursed by an offendedfairy to pierce her hand with a spindle and to die of it--a curseafterwards mitigated into a sleep of a hundred years. Every effort wasmade by the king, her father, to avert the doom, but in vain; and for awhole century the princess and all her court remained in the castle in amagical sleep, while the castle itself and all within it were protectedfrom intrusion by an equally magical growth of brambles and thorns, which not only prevented access, but entirely hid it from view. Atlength a king's son found his way in at the very moment the fated periodcame to an end; or, as we have it in other versions, he awakened themaiden with a kiss. In the old stories of the Niblungs and the VolsungsOdin has pricked the shield-maid Brynhild with a sleep-thorn, and thuscondemned her to sleep within the shield-burg on Hindfell. Attracted bythe appearance of fire, Sigurd comes to the shield-burg and, findingBrynhild, releases her from her slumber by ripping up her armour withhis sword. This is chronologically the earliest form of the myth of theEnchanted Princess with which we are acquainted; and it is interwovenwith the very fibres of the Teutonic mythology. It is no wonder, therefore, that the Germans have given it so prominent a place in theirfolklore. So far as now appears it is less conspicuous in the folkloreof the other European races with the exception of the Slaves, and whenit does show itself it shows itself chiefly as a _märchen_. But, although what we know of the folklore of the Teutonic and Slavonic racesmay suggest reasons for this, we must not forget how rarely we candogmatize with safety on national characteristics. To this rule thefolklore of a nation is no exception; nay, rather, the rule applies witha double emphasis to a subject the scientific investigation of which hasso lately begun and has yet achieved so little. 

Declining this speculation, therefore, we turn to a last point in thesagas before us, namely, the propitious time for the disenchantment. Different times of the year are spoken of for this purpose. In somestories it is Advent, or New Year's night, when the lady makes herappearance and may be delivered. In a Pomeranian saga, where a womancursed her seven daughters and they became mice, a woman, who is of thesame age as the mother when she uttered the curse, must come with sevensons of the same ages as the daughters were when they were cursed, onGood Friday at noon, to the thicket where the mice are, and put her sonson a certain round stone there. The seven mice will then return to humanshape; and when the children are old enough they will marry, and becomerich and happy for the rest of their lives. A Carinthian tale requiresthe deliverer to come the next full moon after "May-Sunday"; andMay-night is the date fixed in another case. But the favourite time isSt. John's Day, either at noon or midnight. [182] Some of these days areecclesiastical festivals; but perhaps the only one which has notsuperseded an ancient heathen feast is Good Friday. The policy of theChurch, in consecrating to Christian uses as many as possible of theseasons and customs she found already honoured among the peoples she hadconquered, seized upon their holy days and made them her own. And if thescience of Folklore has taught us anything, it is that the observanceson these converted holy days external to the rites demanded by theChurch are relics of the ceremonies performed in pagan days to pagandeities. In none of these instances has the proof been more conclusivethan in that of St. John's, or Midsummer Day. Grimm, first, withabundant learning, and more recently Mr. Frazer, with a wealth ofillustration surpassing that of Grimm himself, and indeed inaccessiblein his day, have shown that the Midsummer festival was kept in honour ofthe sun; that it consisted of the ceremonial kindling of fire, thegathering and use of floral garlands, the offering of human and othersacrifices, and the performance of sacred dances; and that its objectwas to increase the power of the sun by magical sympathy, to obtain agood harvest and fruitfulness of all creatures, and to purge the sins ofthe people. It was, in fact, the chief ceremony of the year among theEuropean races. 

Prominent among the remnants of these ceremonies continued down tomodern days are the Midsummer bonfires. These were lighted on the topsof mountains, hills, or even barrows. This situation may be thought tohave symbolic reference to the solstice; but probably a still morepowerful reason for it was the already sacred character of such places. But we need hardly consider whether the ceremonies of which the bonfiresare the remnant, were observed on the hill-tops and other high placesbecause the latter were already sacred, or, conversely, the hill topsand other high places were held sacred because of the ceremonies enactedthere; for in either case the sanctity remains. Wells and pools, too, many of them still held sacred, were in various ways the objects ofsuperstition at the Midsummer festival; for which the Church, when shechose to take the practices under her protection, had an ample excuse inSt. John's mission to baptize. [183] Now, whatever spots were the hauntof pagan divinities, there it was doubtless that those divinities wereexpected to appear; and by the same reasoning they would be most likelyto appear during the favoured hours of the holy days. This is exactlywhat we find to be the case with Enchanted Princesses, and, so far asthe days are recorded, with Sleeping Heroes. The heroes lie within thehills, which in many legends are only open on certain days. Theprincesses appear upon the hills, or by the sides of pools, the sites, if we believe the legends, of ancient castles where they dwelt. Once inthe year, or once in a cycle of years, on a certain day, usuallyMidsummer Day or Midsummer Eve, they come to wash, or to fetch water, intheir own form, either compelled or permitted by the terms of the cursethat has bound them; and then it is that mortals are admitted to aninterview and may render them the service of disenchantment. Theinstances in which the days are specified are so frequent we may perhapssuspect that they were originally mentioned in all, but that time andother circumstances have caused them to be forgotten. However this maybe, it is only reasonable to conclude that, in the number of instancesremaining, we have a tradition of the honours long ago paid to thesedegraded divinities on the days appointed for their worship. 

I may be going too far in suggesting that the feats to be performedafford some confirmation of this conclusion; yet it seems to me there ismuch to be said for such an opinion. The appearance of a god in animalform--even in a loathsome animal form--would not derogate from hisessential godhead. Where in these stories the deliverer has to deal withan animal, a kiss is the usual task prescribed. Kissing is a veryancient and well-known act of worship, which survives among us in many apractice of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as in the form of oathtaken daily in our law courts; and it may be that the more repulsive theobject to be kissed, the greater the merit of kissing it. Again, thelady who required to be followed into the depths of a lake may bematched with the goddess Hertha, whose slaves were drowned in theself-same waters wherein they had washed her; nor does it seem moremenial to carry a princess than to wash a goddess. The ceremony ofcarrying may indeed be the relic of a solemn procession, or of a sacreddrama. The words of blessing following on a sneeze need no explanation;and the omission to return at the promised time a borrowed kettle wouldbe more likely to provoke the anger of a god than to retard thedeliverance of a mortal. This is implied by the statement that the devilfetched the kettle himself; and we need have little doubt that in anearlier form the story so described it. I am unable to explain theunknown word which would deliver the lady who haunted the bridge at OldStrelitz, unless it be a reminiscence of an incantation. 

There remain the demand for an unbaptized child to kiss, the torture towhich the heroes of the two Bohemian sagas submit, the requirement inthe Pomeranian tale to place seven brothers on the stone haunted by theseven mice, and lastly the personal violence to the damsel involved instriking her with a birch-rod or a bunch of juniper and in beheadal. Inall these we probably have traces of sacrifice. The offering of aninnocent child is familiar, if not comprehensible, enough to any one whohas the most superficial acquaintance with savage rites. We have alreadyseen that an unbaptized child is regarded as a pagan, and is an objectof desire on the part of supernatural beings. The same reasons whichinduce fairies to steal it would probably render it an acceptableoffering to a pagan divinity. No words need be wasted on the torture, orthe tale of the mice. But the personal violence, if indeed the remnantof a tradition of sacrifice, involves the slaughter of the divinityherself. This might be thought an insuperable objection; but it is notreally so. For, however absurd it may seem to us, it is a verywidespread custom to sacrifice to a divinity his living representativeor incarnation, whether in animal or human form. It is believed in suchcases that the victim's spirit, released by sacrifice, forthwith finds ahome in another body. The subject is too vast and complex to bediscussed here at length; the reader who desires to follow it out can doso in Mr. Frazer's profoundly interesting work on "The Golden Bough. "Assuming, however, the custom and belief, as here stated, to beadmitted, it will be seen that the underlying thought is precisely thatwhich we want in order to explain this mode of disenchantment. For if, on the one hand, what looks like murder be enjoined in a number ofstories for the purpose of disenchanting a bewitched person; and if, onthe other hand, the result of solemnly slaughtering a victim be in factheld to be simply the release of the victim's spirit--nay, if it was theprescribed mode of releasing that spirit--to seek a new, sometimes abetter, abode in a fresh body, we may surely be satisfied that boththese have the same origin. We may then go further, and see in thisunspelling incident, performed, as in the Enchanted Princess stories, inthis way, at a haunted spot, frequently on a day of special sanctity, one more proof that the princess herself was in the earlier shape ofthe traditions no other than a goddess. 

Finally: the myth of the Enchanted Princess has preserved in many of itsvariants a detail more archaic than any in that of the Sleeping Hero, and one which is decisive as to the lady's real status. If Frederickwere to arise and come forth from his sleeping-place, the Kyffhäuseritself would remain. If Arthur were to awake and quit the Castle Rock, the rock itself wherein he lay would still be there. But the lake ormountain haunted by an enchanted maiden often owes its very existence, if not to her, at least to the spell which holds her enthralled. Whenshe is delivered the place will be changed: the lake will give way to apalace; the earth will open and a buried castle will reascend to thesurface; what is now nothing but an old grey boulder will forthwithreturn to its previous condition of an inhabited and stately building;or what is now a dwelling of men will become desolate. One of the bestexamples of this is the superstition I have already cited concerningMelusina. When she finishes her needlework she will be disenchanted, butonly to die; and the ruins of the town of Luxemburg will be her graveand monument. In other words, the existence of the town is bound up withher enchantment, --that is to say, with her life. In the same way thebespelled damsel of the Urschelberg, near Pfullingen, in Swabia, iscalled by the very name of the mountain--the Old Urschel. This can onlybe the survival of a belief in the enchanted lady as the indwellingspirit, the soul, the real life of the spot she haunted: a belief whichgoes back to a deeper depth of savagery than one that regards her as alocal goddess, and out of which the latter would be easilydeveloped. [184]

These considerations by no means exhaust the case; but I have saidenough in support of conclusions anticipated by Grimm's clear-sightedgenius and confirmed by every fresh discovery. Let me, therefore, recapitulate the results of the investigations contained in this and thetwo preceding chapters. We have rapidly examined several types of fairytales in which the hero, detained in Fairyland, is unconscious of theflight of time. These tales are characteristic of a high rather than alow stage of civilization. Connected with them we have found the storyof King Arthur, the Sleeping Hero, "_rex quondam, rex que futurus_, " theexpected deliverer, sometimes believed to be hidden beneath the hills, at other times in a far-off land, or from time to time traversing theworld with his band of attendants as the Wild Hunt. This is a traditionof a heathen god put down by Christianity, but not destroyed in thehearts and memories of the people--a tradition independent of politicalinfluences, but to which oppression is apt to give special and enduringvitality. The corresponding tradition concerning a heathen goddess isdiscovered in the Enchanted Princess of a thousand sagas, whose peculiarhome, if they have one, is in Teutonic and Slavonic countries. 

FOOTNOTES:

[166] Howells, p. 120; "Count Lucanor, " p. 77. 

[167] Knowles, p. 17. 

[168] Im Thurn, pp. 352, 354. _Cf. _ Brett, p. 375. So Leland, p. 3: "TheIndian _m'téoulin_, or magician, distinctly taught that every createdthing, animate or inanimate, had its indwelling spirit. Whatever had an_idea_ had a soul. "

[169] _Cf. _ Grimm, "Teut. Myth. " p. 962, quoting Harry, "Nieders. Sagen"; Jahn, p. 228, quoting Temme. Many of the sanctuaries of theCelts were upon mounds, which were either barrows of the dead, or wereexpressly made for temples; and the god was called in Irish _CennCruaich_, in Welsh _Penn Cruc_ (now _Pen Crûg_), both meaning the Heador Chief of the Mound (Rhys, "Hibbert Lectures, " p. 201). Many mounds inEngland, now crowned by churches, have been conjectured to be old Celtictemples. See an able paper by Mr. T. W. Shore on "CharacteristicSurvivals of the Celts in Hampshire, " _Journ. Anthrop. Inst. _, vol. Xx. P. 9. Mont St. Michel, near Carnac, in Brittany, is a chambered barrowsurmounted by a little chapel. From the relics found in the tomb, aswell as the size of the barrow itself, some person, or persons, ofimportance must have been buried there. The mound may well have been ahaunted, a sacred spot ever since the ashes of the dead and their costlyweapons and ornaments were committed to its keeping far back in theNeolithic age. Instances might easily be multiplied. 

[170] Müller, p. 203; Map, Dist. Iv. C. 13. 

[171] Gerv. Tilb. , Dec. Ii. C. 12; "Book of Days, " vol. I. P. 154;Augustine, "De Civ. Dei, " l. Ii. C. 25. 

[172] Jahn, p. 182, quoting Arndt. 

[173] Knoop, p. 10; Bartsch, vol. I. P. 273. 

[174] Bartsch, vol. I. P. 271; "Early Trav. , " p. 138. 

[175] Bartsch, vol. I. Pp. 269 (citing Niederhöffer, below), 271, 272, 273, 274, 318. In this last case it is a man who is to be saved by akiss from a woman while he is in serpent form. Niederhöffer, vol. I. Pp. 58, 168, vol. Ii. P. 235; Meier, pp. 6, 31, 321; Kuhn und Schwartz, pp. 9, 201; Baring-Gould, p. 223, citing Kornemann, "Mons Veneris, " andPrætorius, "Weltbeschreibung"; Jahn, p. 220; Rappold, p. 135. Gredt, pp. 8, 9, 215, 228, &c. In one of Meier's Swabian tales the princess appearsas a snake and flings herself round the neck of her would-bedeliverer--a woman--who is to strike her lightly with a bunch ofjuniper: Meier, p. 27. In one of Kuhn und Schwartz' collection, wherethe princess becomes a toad, no ceremony is prescribed: Kuhn undSchwartz, p. 9. 

[176] Von Tettau, p. 220; Kuhn, pp. 66, 99; Bartsch, vol. I. P. 272;Jahn, p. 249; Ovid, "Metam. " l. Xi. F. 5; Child, vol. I. Pp. 336 (citingSchmidt, "Volkleben der Neugriechen, " p. 115), 340. 

[177] Knoop, pp. 6, 57; Kuhn, pp. 113, 172; Kuhn und Schwartz, p. 1. Theprohibition to look back was imposed on Orpheus when he went to rescueEurydice from Hades. 

[178] Knoop, pp. 51, 59; Keightley, p. 295, quoting Aubrey's "NaturalHistory of Surrey"; "Gent. Mag. Lib. " (Pop. Supers. ), p. 280. 

[179] Meier, pp. 209, 87; Niederhöffer, vol. Iii. P. 251. 

[180] Grohmann, pp. 56, 50. 

[181] Von Wlislocki, p. 76; Campbell, vol. Ii. P. 293; Luzel, "Contes, "vol. I. Pp. 198, 217; "Annuaire des Trad. Pop. " 1887, p. 53; Pitré, vol. V. Pp. 238, 248; Grundtvig, vol. I. P. 148; Schneller, pp. 103, 109. 

[182] Meier, p. 26; Bartsch, vol. I. Pp. 271, 272, 274; Jahn, p. 185;Rappold, p. 135; Bartsch, vol. I. Pp. 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 283, 308, 318; Niederhöffer, vol. I. P. 168, vol. Ii. P. 235, vol. Iii. P. 171;Knoop, p. 10; Jahn, pp. 182, 185, 206, 207, 217, 220, 221; and manyothers. 

[183] "Gent. Mag. Lib. " (Pop. Superst. ) p. 51; Brand, vol. I. P. 250, note; Pitré, vol. Xii. Pp. 304, 307; Bartsch, vol. Ii. P. 288;"Antiquary, " vol. Xxi. P. 195, vol. Xxii. P. 67. _Cf. _ a legend in whichthe scene haunted by the enchanted lady is a Johannisberg on the top ofwhich is a chapel dedicated to St. John the Baptist, to whichpilgrimages were made and the lady appeared on Midsummer Day (Gredt, pp. 215, 219, 225, 579). 

[184] Von Tettau, p. 220; Kuhn und Schwartz, pp. 9, 200; Meier, pp. 6, 8; Gredt, pp. 7, 228, 281. In another story, quoted by Meier (p. 34), from Crusius' "Schwäb. Chron. ", the enchanted maiden is called "aheathen's daughter"--pointing directly to pagan origin. 

CHAPTER X. 

SWAN-MAIDENS. 

 The _märchen_ of Hasan of Bassorah--The Marquis of the Sun--The feather robe and other disguises--The taboo--The Star's Daughter--Melusina--The Lady of the Van Pool and other variants--The Nightmare. 

The narratives with which we have hitherto been occupied belong to theclass called Sagas. But our discussions of them have led us once andagain to refer to the other class mentioned in the second Chapter--thatof Nursery Tales or _Märchen_. For, as I have already pointed out, thereis no bridgeless gulf between them. We have seen the very same incidentsnarrated in Wales or in Germany with breathless awe as a veritableoccurrence which in India, or among the Arabs, are a mere play of fancy. Equally well the case may be reversed, and what is gravely told at theantipodes as a series of events in the life of a Maori ancestor, may bereported in France or England as a nursery tale. Nay, we need not go outof Europe itself to find the same plot serving for a saga in one landand a _märchen_, detached from all circumstances of time and place, inanother. 

An excellent example of this is furnished by the myth of theSwan-maiden, one of the most widely distributed, and at the same timeone of the most beautiful, stories ever evolved from the mind of man. Asits first type I shall take the tale of Hasan of Bassorah, where it hasbeen treated with an epic grandeur hardly surpassed by any of itscompanions in the famous "Nights, " and perhaps only by one of the lessfamous but equally splendid Mabinogion of old Wales. 

Hasan is a worthless boy who falls under the influence of a Magian, whoprofesses to be an alchemist, and who at length kidnaps him. Having usedhim with great cruelty the Magian takes him fifteen days' journey ondromedaries into the desert to a high mountain, at the foot whereof theold rascal sews him up in a skin, together with a knife and a smallprovision of three cakes and a leathern bottle of water, afterwardsretiring to a distance. One of the vultures which infest the mountainthen pounces on Hasan and carries him to the top. In accordance with theMagian's instructions, the hero, on arriving there, slits the skin, andjumping out, to the bird's affright, picks up and casts down to theMagian bundles of the wood which he finds around him. This wood is themeans by which the alchemy is performed; and having gathered up thebundles the Magian leaves Hasan to his fate. The youth, after despairingof life, finds his way to a palace where dwell seven maidens, with whomhe remains for awhile in Platonic friendship. When they are summonedaway by their father for a two months' absence, they leave him theirkeys, straitly charging him not to open a certain door. He disregardstheir wishes, and finds within a magnificent pavilion enclosing a basinbrimful of water, at which ten birds come to bathe and play. The birdsfor this purpose cast their feathers; and Hasan is favoured with thesight of "ten virgins, maids whose beauty shamed the brilliancy of themoon. " He fell madly in love with the chief damsel, who turns out to bea daughter of a King of the Jann. On the return of the maidens of thepalace he is advised by them to watch the next time the birds come, andto take possession of the feather-suit belonging to the damsel of hischoice, for without this she cannot return home with her attendants. Hesucceeds in doing so, and thus compels her to remain with him andbecome his wife. With her he departs to his own country and settles inBagdad, where his wife bears him two sons. During his temporary absence, however, she persuades her mother-in-law--who, unfortunately for thehappiness of the household, lives with the young couple--to let her havethe feather-suit which her husband has left under her charge. Clad withthis she takes her two boys in her arms and sails away through the airto the islands of Wák, leaving a message for the hapless Hasan that ifhe loves her he may come and seek her there. Now the islands of Wák wereseven islands, wherein was a mighty host, all virgin girls, and theinner isles were peopled by satans and marids and warlocks and varioustribesmen of the Jinn, and whoso entered their land never returnedthence; and Hasan's wife was one of the king's daughters. To reach herhe would have to cross seven wadys and seven seas and seven mightymountains. Undaunted, however, by the difficulties wherewith he isthreatened, he determines to find her, swearing by Allah never to turnback till he regain his beloved, or till death overtake him. By the helpof sundry potentates of more or less forbidding aspect and supernaturalpower, to whom he gets letters of introduction, and who live in gorgeouspalaces amid deserts, and are served by demons only uglier and lessmighty than themselves, he succeeds in traversing the Land of Birds, theLand of Wild Beasts, the country of the Warlocks and the Enchanters, andthe Land of the Jinn, and enters the islands of Wák--there to fall intothe hands of that masterful virago, his wife's eldest sister. After apreliminary outburst against Hasan, this amiable creature pours, as isthe wont of women, the full torrent of her wrath against her erringsister. From the tortures she inflicts, Hasan at length rescues hiswife, with their two sons, by means of a cap of invisibility and a rodconferring authority over seven tribes of the Jinn, which he has stolenfrom two boys who are quarrelling over them. When his sister-in-lawwith an army of Jinn pursues the fugitives, the subjects of the rodovercome her. His wife begs for her sister's life and reconciles herhusband to her, and then returns with her husband to his home in Bagdad, to quit him no more. [185]

Such in meagre outline is this wonderful story. Its variants are legion, and I can only refer to a few of them which are of special interest. Indealing with these I shall confine my attention to the essential pointsof the plot, touching only such details as are germane to the questionsthus evoked. We shall accordingly pass in review the maiden's disguiseand capture, her flight and her recapture; and afterwards turning toother types of the tale, we shall look at the corresponding incidents tobe met with therein, reserving for another chapter the consideration ofthe meaning of the myth, so far as it can be traced. 

The bird whose shape is assumed by the Jinn in the foregoing tale is notspecified; but in Europe, where beauty and grace and purity find so aptan emblem in the swan, several of the most important variants havenaturally appropriated that majestic form to the heroine, and have thusgiven a name to the whole group of stories. In Sweden, for example, weare told of a young hunter who beheld three swans descend on theseashore and lay their plumage aside before they plunged into the water. When he looked at the robes so laid aside they appeared like linen, andthe forms that were swimming in the waves were damsels of dazzlingwhiteness. Advised by his foster-mother, he secures the linen of theyoungest and fairest. She, therefore, could not follow her companionswhen they drew on their plumage and flew away; and being thus in thehunter's power, she became his wife. The hero of a story current amongthe Germans of Transylvania opens, like Hasan, a forbidden door, andfinds three swan-maids bathing in a blue pool. Their clothes arecontained in satchels on its margin, and when he has taken the satchelof the youngest he must not look behind until he has reached home. Thisdone, he finds the maiden there and persuades her to marry him. MikáiloIvanovitch, the hero of a popular Russian ballad, wanders by the sea, and, gazing out upon a quiet bay, beholds a white swan floating there. He draws his bow to shoot her, but she prays him to desist; and risingover the blue sea upon her white wings, she turns into a beautifulmaiden. Surprised with love, he offers to kiss her; but she revealsherself as a heathen princess and demands first to be baptized, and thenshe will wed him. In a Hessian story a forester sees a fair swanfloating on a lonely lake. He is about to shoot it when it warns him todesist, or it will cost him his life. Immediately the swan wastransformed into a maiden, who told him she was bewitched, but could befreed if he would say a Paternoster for her every Sunday for atwelvemonth, and meantime keep silence concerning his adventure. Thetest proved too hard, and he lost her. [186]

The swan, however, by no means monopolizes the honour of concealing theheroine's form. In a Finnish tale from OEsterbotten, a dead fatherappears in dreams to his three sons, commanding them to watch singly bynight the geese on the sea-strand. The two elder are so frightened bythe darkness that they scamper home. But the youngest, despised anddirty, watches boldly, till at the first flush of dawn three geese flythither, strip off their feathers, and plunge, as lovely maidens, intothe water to bathe. Then the youth chooses the most beautiful of thethree pairs of wings he finds on the shore, hides them, and awaitsevents; nor does he give them up again to the owner until she hasbetrothed herself to him. Elsewhere the damsels are described as ducks;but a more common shape is that of doves. A story is current in Bohemiaof a boy whom a witch leads to a spring. Over the spring stands an oldelm-tree haunted by three white doves, who are enchanted princesses. Catching one and plucking out her wings, he restores her to her naturalcondition; and she brings him to his parents, whom he had lost in thesack of the city where they dwelt. The Magyars speak of three pigeonscoming every noontide to a great white lake, where they turn somersaultsand are transformed into girls. They are really fairy-maidens; and a boywho can steal the dress of one of them and run away with it, resistingthe temptation to look back when she calls in caressing tones, succeedsin winning her. In the "Bahar Danush" a merchant's son perceives fourdoves alight at sunset by a piece of water, and, resuming their naturalform (for they are Peries), forthwith undress and plunge into the water. He steals their clothes, and thus compels the one whom he chooses toaccept him as her husband. The extravagance characteristic of the"Arabian Nights, " when, in the story of Janshah, it represents theladies as doves, expands their figures to the size of eagles, with farless effect, however, than where they retain more moderate dimensions. No better illustration of this can be given than the story from SouthSmaland of the fair Castle east of the Sun and north of the Earth, versified so exquisitely in "The Earthly Paradise. " There a peasant, finding that the fine grass of a meadow belonging to him was constantlytrodden down during the summer nights, set his three sons, one afteranother, to watch for the trespassers. The two elder, as usual in thesetales, are unsuccessful, but the youngest keeps wide awake until the sunis about to rise. A rustling in the air, as of birds, then heralds theflight of three doves, who cast their feathers and become fair maidens. These maidens begin to dance on the green grass, and so featly do theystep that they scarce seem to touch the ground. To the watching youth, one among them looked more beautiful than all other women; and hepictured to himself the possession of her as more to be longed for thanthat of every other in the world. So he rose and stole their plumage, nor did he restore it until the king's daughter, the fairest of themall, had plighted her troth to him. [187]

The story is by no means confined to Europe and Asia. The Arawàks, oneof the aboriginal tribes of Guiana, relate that a beautiful royalvulture was once captured by a hunter. She was the daughter of Anuanima, sovereign of a race whose country is above the sky, and who lay asidethere the appearance of birds for that of humanity. Smitten with lovefor the hunter, the captive divested herself of her feathers andexhibited her true form--that of a beautiful girl. "She becomes hiswife, bears him above the clouds, and, after much trouble, persuades herfather and family to receive him. All then goes well, until he expressesa wish to visit his aged mother, when they discard him, and set him onthe top of a very high tree, the trunk of which is covered withformidable prickles. He appeals pathetically to all the living creaturesaround. Then spiders spin cords to help him, and fluttering birds easehis descent, so that at last he reaches the ground in safety. Thenfollow his efforts, extending over several years, to regain his wife, whom he tenderly loves. Her family seek to destroy him; but by hisstrength and sagacity he is victorious in every encounter. The birds atlength espouse his cause, assemble their forces, and bear him as theircommander above the sky. He is at last slain by a valiant young warrior, resembling himself in person and features. It is his own son, born afterhis expulsion from the upper regions, and brought up there in ignoranceof his own father. The legend ends with the conflagration of the houseof the royal vultures, who, hemmed in by crowds of hostile birds, areunable to use their wings, and forced to fight and die in their humanforms. "[188] This tale, so primitive in form, can hardly have travelledround half the globe to the remote American Indians among whom it wasdiscovered. And yet in many of its features it presents the moststriking likeness to several of the versions current in the Old World. 

Sometimes, however, as in the tale of Hasan, the species is leftundescribed. Among the Eskimo the heroine is vaguely referred to as asea-fowl. The Kurds have a strange tale of a bird they call the BirdSimer. His daughter has been ensnared by a giant when she and threeother birds were out flying; but she is at length rescued by two heroes, one of whom she weds. When she becomes homesick she puts on herfeather-dress and flies away. [189]

A Pomeranian saga forms an interesting link between the Swan-maidengroup and the legends of Enchanted Princesses discussed in the lastchapter. A huntsman, going his rounds in the forest, drew near a poolwhich lies at the foot of the Hühnerberg. There he saw a girl bathing;and thinking that she was from the neighbouring village, he picked upher clothes, with the intention of playing her a trick. When she sawwhat he had done, she left the water and hastened after him, begging himto give back her clothes--or at any rate her shift. He, however, was notto be moved; and she then told him she was an enchanted princess, andwithout her shift she could not return. _Now_ he was fully determinednot to give up the precious article of apparel. She was, therefore, compelled to follow him to his hut, where his mother kept house for him. The huntsman there put the shift into a chest, of which he took the key, so that the maiden could not escape; and after some time she acceptedthe position, and agreed to become his wife. Years passed by, andseveral children had been born, when one day he went out, leaving thekey of the chest behind. When the heroine saw this she begged hermother-in-law to open the chest and show her the shift; for, we aretold, the enchanted princess could not herself open the trunk. Shebegged so hard that her mother-in-law at last complied; and no soonerhad she got the shift into her hands than she vanished out of sight. When the husband returned and heard what had happened, he made up hismind to seek her. So he climbed the Hühnerberg and let himself down theopening he found there. He soon arrived at the underground castle. Before its closed gate lay a great black dog, around whose neck a paperhung which conveniently contained directions how to penetrate into thecastle. Following these, he presently found himself in the presence ofthe princess, his wife, who was right glad to see him, and gave him aglass of wine to strengthen him for the task before him; for at midnightthe Evil One would come to drive him out of the castle and prevent thelady's deliverance. At this point, unfortunately, the reciter's memoryfailed: hence we do not know the details of the rescue. But we mayconjecture, from the precedents, that the huntsman had to enduretorture. The issue was that he was successful, the castle ascended outof the earth, and husband and wife were reunited. [190]

This story differs in many important respects from the type; and itcontains the incident, very rare in a modern European saga belonging tothis group, of the recovery of the bride. I shall have occasion torevert to the curious inability of the enchanted princess to open thechest containing the wonderful shift. Meanwhile, let me observe that inmost of the tales the feather-dress, or talisman, by which the bride mayescape, is committed to the care of a third person--usually a kinswomanof the husband, and in many cases his mother; and that the wife as arule only recovers it when it is given to her, or at least when thatwhich contains it has been opened by another: she seems incapable offinding it herself. 

There is another type of the Swan-maiden myth, which appears to be thefavourite of the Latin nations, though it is also to be met with amongother peoples. Its outline may, perhaps, best be given from the nurserytale of the Marquis of the Sun, as told at Seville. The Marquis of theSun was a great gamester. A man played with him and lost all he had, andthen staked his soul--and lost it. The Marquis instructed him, if hedesired to recover it, to come to him when he had worn out a pair ofiron shoes. In the course of his wanderings he finds a struggle going onover a dead man, whose creditors would not allow him to be buried untilhis debts had been paid. Iron Shoes pays them, and one shoe goes topieces. He afterwards meets a cavalier, who reveals himself as the deadman whose debts had been paid, and who is desirous of requiting thatfavour. He therefore directs Iron Shoes to the banks of a river wherethree white doves come, change into princesses, and bathe. Iron Shoes isto take the dress of the smallest, and thus get her to tell him whitherhe has to go. Obeying this direction, he learns from the princess thatthe Marquis is her father; and she shows him the way to his castle. Arrived there, he demands his soul. Before conceding it the Marquis setshim tasks: to level an inconvenient mountain, so that the sun may shineon the castle; to sow the site of the mountain with fruit trees, andgather the fruit of them in one day for dinner; to find a piece of platewhich the Marquis's great-grandfather had dropped into the river; tocatch and mount a horse which is no other than the Marquis himself; andto choose a bride from among the princesses, his daughters. The damselwho had shown Iron Shoes the way to the palace performs the first two ofthese tasks: and she teaches him how to perform the others. For thethird, he has to cut her up and cast her into the river, whence sheimmediately rises whole again, triumphantly bringing the lost piece ofplate. In butchering her he has, however, clumsily dropped a piece ofher little finger on the ground. It is accordingly wanting when sherises from the river; and this is the token by which Iron Shoesrecognizes her when he has to choose a bride; for, in choosing, he isonly allowed to see the little fingers of these candidates formatrimony. He and his bride afterwards flee from the castle; but we neednot follow their adventures now. [191]

In stories of this type doves are the shape usually assumed by theheroine and her comrades; but swans and geese are often found, and in aRussian tale we are even introduced to spoonbills. Nor do the birds Ihave mentioned by any means exhaust the disguises of these supernaturalladies. The stories comprised under this and the foregoing type arenearly all _märchen_; but when we come to other types where sagas becomemore numerous, we find other animals favoured, well-nigh to theexclusion of birds. In the latter types there is no recovery of the wifewhen she has once abandoned her husband. An inhabitant of Unst, one ofthe Shetland Islands, beholds a number of the sea-folk dancing bymoonlight on the shore of a small bay. Near them lie several sealskins. He snatches up one, the property, as it turns out, of a fair maiden, whothereupon becomes his wife. Years after, one of their children finds hersealskin, and runs to display it to his mother, not knowing it was hers. She puts it on, becomes a seal, and plunges into the waters. In Croatiait is said that a soldier once, watching in a haunted mill, saw ashe-wolf enter, divest herself of her skin, and come out of it a damsel. She hangs the skin on a peg and goes to sleep before the fire. While shesleeps the soldier takes the skin and nails it fast to the mill-wheel, so that she cannot recover it. He marries her, and she bears him twosons. The elder of these children hears that his mother is a wolf. Hebecomes inquisitive, and his father at length tells him where the skinis. When he tells his mother, she goes away and is heard of no more. ASutherlandshire story speaks of a mermaid who fell in love with afisherman. As he did not want to be carried away into the sea he, byfair means or foul, succeeded in getting hold of her pouch and belt, onwhich her power of swimming depended, and so retained her on land; andshe became his bride. But we are not surprised to hear that her tail wasalways in the way: her silky hair grew tangled too, for her comb andglass were in the pouch; the dogs teased her, and rude people mockedher. Thus her life was made wretched. But one day in her husband'sabsence the labourers were pulling down a stack of corn. As she watchedthem, weeping for her lost freedom, she espied her precious pouch andbelt, which had been built in and buried among the sheaves. She caughtit and leaped into the sea. [192]

In the last tale there is no change of form: the hero simply possesseshimself of something without which the supernatural maiden has no powerto leave him. Even in the true Hasan of Bassorah type, the magicalchange does not always occur. A variant translated by Jonathan Scottfrom a Syrian manuscript merely enwraps the descending damsels in robesof light green silk. When her robe is taken the chosen beauty is keptfrom following her companions in their return flight. Similar to this isthe Pomeranian saga already cited. In the New Hebrides there is a legendof seven winged women whose home was in heaven, and who came down toearth to bathe. Before bathing, they put off their wings. According tothe version told in Aurora island, Qatu one day, seeing them thusbathing, took the wings of one and buried them at the foot of the mainpost of his house. In this way he won their owner as his wife; and sheso remained until she found her wings again. In modern Greece it isbelieved that Nereids can be caught by seizing their wings, theirclothes, or even their handkerchiefs. The Bulgarians, who have similartales, call the supernatural ladies Samodivas; and they are captured bymeans of their raiment. A number of parallels have been cited fromvarious sources by M. Cosquin, a few of which may be mentioned. ABurmese drama, for instance, sets before us nine princesses of the cityof the Silver Mountain, who wear enchanted girdles that enable them tofly as swiftly as a bird. The youngest of these princesses is caughtwhile bathing, by means of a magical slip-knot. A divine ancestress ofthe Bantiks, a tribe inhabiting the Celebes Islands, came down from thesky with seven companions to bathe. A man who saw them took them fordoves, but was surprised to find that they were women. He possessedhimself of the clothes of one of them, and thus obliged her to marryhim. In a story told by the Santals of India, the daughters of the sunmake use of a spider's thread to reach the earth. A shepherd, whom theyunblushingly invite to bathe with them, persuades them to try which ofthem all can remain longest under water; and while they are in the riverhe scrambles out, and, taking the upper garment of the one whom heloves, flees with it to his home. In another Indian tale, five apsaras, or celestial dancers, are conveyed in an enchanted car to a pool in theforest. Seven supernatural maidens, in a Samoyede _märchen_, are broughtin their reindeer chariot to a lake, where the hero possesses himself ofthe best suit of garments he finds on the shore. The owner prays him togive them up; but he refuses, until he obtains a definite pledge ofmarriage, saying: "If I give thee the garments thou wilt fare up againto heaven. "[193]

In none of these stories (and they are but samples of many) does thefeather dress occur; yet it has left reminiscences which areunmistakable. The variants hitherto cited have all betrayed thesereminiscences as articles of clothing, or conveyance, or in thepardonable mistake of the Bantik forefather at the time of capture. Ishall refer presently to cases whence the plumage has faded entirely outof the story--and that in spite of its picturesqueness--without leavinga trace. But let me first call attention to the fact that, even where itis preserved, we often do not find it exactly how and where we shouldhave expected it. Witness the curious Algonkin tale of "How one of thePartridge's wives became a Sheldrake Duck. " A hunter, we are told, returning home in his canoe, saw a beautiful girl sitting on a rock bythe river, making a moccasin. He paddled up softly to capture her; butshe jumped into the water and disappeared. Her mother, however, wholived at the bottom, compelled her to return to the hunter and be hiswife. The legend then takes a turn in the direction of the Bluebeardmyth; for the woman yields to curiosity, and thus deprives her husbandof his luck. When he finds this out he seizes his bow to beat her. "Whenshe saw him seize his bow to beat her she ran down to the river, andjumped in to escape death at his hands, though it should be by drowning. But as she fell into the water she became a sheldrake duck. " ThePassamaquoddies, who relate this story, have hardly yet passed out ofthe stage of thought in which no steadfast boundary is set between menand the lower animals. The amphibious maiden, who dwelt in the bottom ofthe river, could not be drowned by jumping into the stream; and it isevident that she only resumes her true aquatic form in escaping from herhusband, who, it should be added, is himself called Partridge and seemsto be regarded as, in fact, a fowl of that species. A still moreremarkable instance is to be found among the Welsh of Carnarvonshire, who, it need hardly be said, are now on a very different level ofcivilization from that of the Passamaquoddies. They tell us that whenthe fairy bride of Corwrion quitted her unlucky husband, she at onceflew through the air and plunged into the lake; and one accountsignificantly describes her as flying away _like a wood-hen_. Can ithave been many generations since she was spoken of as actually changinginto a bird?[194]

We may now pass to wholly different types of the tradition. In all thestories where the magical dress appears, whether as a feather-skin, thehide of a quadruped, or in the modified form of wings, a robe, an apron, a veil or other symbol, the catastrophe is brought about by the wife'srecovery, usually more or less accidental, of the article in question. But it is obvious that where the incident of the dress is wanting, theloss of the supernatural bride must be brought about by other means. Insome traditions, the woman's caprice, or the fulfilment of her fate, isdeemed enough for this purpose; but in the most developed stories it iscaused by the breach of a _taboo_. _Taboo_ is a word adopted from thePolynesian languages, signifying, first, something set apart, thenceholy and inviolable, and lastly something simply forbidden. It isgenerally used in English as a verb of which the nearest equivalent isanother curious verb--to boycott. A person or thing _tabooed_ is oneavoided by express or tacit agreement on the part of any class or numberof persons; and _to taboo_ is to avoid in pursuance of such anagreement. In Folklore, however, the word is used in a different andwider sense. It includes every sort of prohibition, from the social orreligious boycott (if I may use the word), to which it would be moreproperly applied, down to any injunction addressed by a supernaturalbeing to the hero or heroine of a tale. Folklore students of theanthropological school are so apt to refer these last prohibitions fortheir origin to the more general prohibitions of the former kind, thatperhaps this indiscriminate use of the word may be held to beg some ofthe questions at issue. It is certain, however, that the scholars whooriginally applied it to what I may call private prohibitions, had nosuch thought in their minds. They found it a convenient term, applicableby no great stretch of its ordinary meaning, and they appropriated itto the purposes of science. I shall therefore use it without scruple asa well recognized word, and without any question-begging intent. 

Having premised so much, I will proceed to set forth shortly the baldertype of the story, where there is no taboo, then the fuller type. Theirrelations to one another will be dealt with in the next chapter. 

An Algonkin legend relates that a hunter beheld a basket descend fromheaven, containing twelve young maidens of ravishing beauty. Heattempted to approach, but on perceiving him they quickly re-entered thebasket and were drawn up again out of his sight. Another day, however, he succeeded, by disguising himself as a mouse, in capturing theyoungest of the damsels, whom he married and by whom he had a son. Butnothing could console his wife for the society of her sisters, which shehad lost. So one day she made a small basket; and having entered it withher child she sang the charm she and her sisters had formerly used, andascended once more to the star from whence she had come. It is addedthat when two years had elapsed the star said to his daughter: "Thy sonwants to see his father; go down, therefore, to the earth and fetch thyhusband, and tell him to bring us specimens of all the animals hekills. " This was done. The hunter ascended with his wife to the sky; andthere a great feast was given, in which the animals he brought wereserved up. Those of the guests who took the paws or the tails weretransformed into animals. The hunter himself took a white feather, andwith his wife and child was metamorphosed into a falcon. [195] I willonly now remark on the latter part of the tale that it is told by thesame race as the Sheldrake Duck's adventures; and if we deem it probablethat the heroine of that narrative simply resumed her pristine form inbecoming a duck, the same reasoning will hold good as to the falconshere. This type of the myth we may call the "Star's Daughter type. "

The other type may be named after Melusina, the famous Countess ofLusignan. The earliest writer to mention the legend which afterwardsbecame identified with her name, was Gervase of Tilbury, who relatesthat Raymond, the lord of a certain castle a few miles from Aix inProvence, riding alone on the banks of the river, unexpectedly met anunknown lady of rare beauty, also alone, riding on a splendidlycaparisoned palfrey. On his saluting her she replied, addressing him byname. Astonished at this, but encouraged, he made improper overtures toher; to which she declined to assent, intimating, however, in the mostunabashed way, that she would marry him if he liked. He agreed to this;but the lady imposed a further condition, namely, that he should neversee her naked; for if once he did so, all the prosperity and all thehappiness with which he was about to be blessed would depart, and hewould be left to drag out the rest of his life in wretchedness. On theseterms they were married; and every earthly felicity followed, --wealth, renown, bodily strength, the love of his fellow-men, and children--boysand girls--of the greatest beauty. But one day his lady was bathing inthe bedroom, when he came in from hunting and fowling, laden withpartridges and other game. While food was being prepared the thoughtstruck him that he would go and see her in her bath. So many years hadhe enjoyed unalloyed prosperity that, if there ever were any force inher threat, he deemed it had long since passed away. Deaf to his wife'spleadings, he tore away the curtain from the bath and beheld her naked;but only for an instant, for she was forthwith changed into a serpent, and, putting her head under the water, she disappeared. Nor ever was sheseen again; but sometimes in the darkness of night the nurses wouldhear her busy with a mother's care for her little children. Gervase addsthat one of her daughters was married to a relative of his own belongingto a noble family of Provence, and her descendants were living at thetime he wrote. [196]

The story, as told of Melusina, was amplified, but in its substancediffered little from the foregoing. Melusina does not forbid her husbandto see her naked, but bargains for absolute privacy on Saturdays. WhenRaymond violates this covenant he finds her in her bath with her lowerextremities changed into a serpent's tail. The lady appears to beunconscious of her husband's discovery; and nothing happens until, in aparoxysm of anger and grief, arising from the murder of one of hischildren by another, he cries out upon her as an odious serpent, thecontaminator of his race. It will be remembered that in the Esthoniantale cited in Chapter VIII the youth is forbidden to call his mistressmermaid; and all goes well until he peeps into the locked chamber, whereshe passes her Thursdays, and finds her in mermaid form. Far away inJapan we learn that the hero Hohodemi wedded Toyotamahime, a daughter ofthe Sea-god, and built a house for her on the strand where she mightgive birth to her child. She strictly forbade him to come near until thehappy event was over: he was to remain in his own dwelling, and on noaccount to attempt to see her until she sent for him. His curiosity, however, was too much for his happiness. He peeped, and saw his wifewrithing to and fro on the floor in the shape of a dragon. He startedback, shocked; and when, later on, Toyotamahime called him to her, shesaw by his countenance that he had discovered the secret she had thoughtto hide from all mankind. In spite of his entreaties she plunged intothe sea, never more to see her lord. Her boy, notwithstanding, was stillthe object of her care. She sent her sister to watch over him, and hegrew up to become the father of the first Emperor of Japan. In a Maoritale the hero loses his wife through prematurely tearing down a screenhe had erected for her convenience on a similar occasion. A Moraviantale speaks of a bride who shuts herself up every eighth day, and whenher husband looks through the keyhole, he beholds her thighs clad withhair and her feet those of goats. This is a _märchen_; and in the end, having paid the penalty of his rashness by undergoing adventures likethose of Hasan, the hero regains his love. A Tirolese _märchen_ tells usof a witch who, in the shape of a beautiful girl, took service with arich man and made a conquest of his son. She wedded him on conditionthat he would never look upon her by candlelight. The youth, like amasculine Psyche, breaks the taboo; and a drop of the wax, falling onher cheek, awakens her. It was in vain that he blew out the taper andlay down. When he awoke in the morning she was gone; but a pair of shoeswith iron soles stood by the bed, with a paper directing him to seek hertill the soles were worn out, and then he should find her again. By theaid of a mantle of invisibility, and a chair which bore him where hewished, he arrived in the nick of time to prevent her marriage withanother bridegroom. The proper reconciliation follows, and her truehusband bears her home in triumph. Not so happy was the hero of aCorsican saga, who insisted on seeing his wife's naked shoulder andfound it nothing but bones--the skeleton of their love which he had thusmurdered. [197]

At the foot of the steep grassy cliffs of the Van Mountains inCarmarthenshire lies a lonely pool, called Llyn y Fan Fach, which is thescene of a variant of Melusina, less celebrated, indeed, but equallyromantic and far more beautiful. The legend may still be heard on thelips of the peasantry; and more than one version has found its way intoprint. The most complete was written down by Mr. William Rees, of Tonn(a well-known Welsh antiquary and publisher), from the oral recitationof two old men and a woman, natives of Myddfai, where the hero of thestory is said to have dwelt. Stated shortly, the legend is to thefollowing effect: The son of a widow who lived at Blaensawdde, a littlevillage about three-quarters of a mile from the pool, was one daytending his mother's cattle upon its shore when, to his astonishment, hebeheld the Lady of the Lake sitting upon its unruffled surface, whichshe used as a mirror while she combed out her graceful ringlets. Sheimperceptibly glided nearer to him, but eluded his grasp and refused thebait of barley bread and cheese that he held out to her, saying as shedived and disappeared:

 "Cras dy fara; Nid hawdd fy nala!" ("Hard-baked is thy bread; It is not easy to catch me!")

An offer of unbaked dough, or _toes_, the next day was equallyunsuccessful. She exclaimed:

 "Llaith dy fara! Ti ni fynna'. " ("Unbaked is thy bread! I will not have thee. ")

But the slightly baked bread, which the youth subsequently took, by hismother's advice, was accepted: he seized the lady's hand and persuadedher to become his bride. Diving into the lake she then fetched herfather--"a hoary-headed man of noble mien and extraordinary stature, buthaving otherwise all the force and strength of youth"--who rose from thedepths with _two_ ladies and was ready to consent to the match, providedthe young man could distinguish which of the two ladies before him wasthe object of his affections. This was no small test of love, inasmuchas the maidens were exactly alike in form and features. One of them, however, thrust her foot a little forward; and the hero recognized apeculiarity of her shoe-tie, which he had somehow had leisure to noticeat his previous interviews. The father admits the correctness of hischoice, and bestows a dowry of sheep, cattle, goats, and horses, butstipulates in the most business-like way that these animals shall returnwith the bride, if at any time her husband prove unkind and strike herthrice without a cause. 

So far Mr. Rees' version. A version published in the "Cambro-Briton" issomewhat different. Three beautiful damsels appear from the pool, andare repeatedly pursued by the young farmer, but in vain. They alwaysreached the water before him and taunted him with the couplet:

 "Cras dy fara, Anhawdd ein dala!"

One day some moist bread from the lake came floating ashore. The youthseized and devoured it; and the following day he was successful incatching the ladies. The one to whom he offers marriage consents on theunderstanding that he will recognize her the next day from among thethree sisters. He does so by the strapping of her sandal; and she isaccompanied to her new home by seven cows, two oxen, and a bull from thelake. A third version presents the maiden as rowing on New Year's Eve upand down the lake in a golden boat with a golden oar. She disappearsfrom the hero's gaze, without replying to his adjurations. Counselled bya soothsayer, who dwells on the mountain, he casts loaves and cheesenight after night from Midsummer Eve to New Year's Eve into the water, until at length the magic skiff again appears, and the fairy, steppingashore, weds her persistent wooer. 

In all three versions the bridegroom is forbidden to strike "threecauseless blows. " Of course he disobeys. According to the"Cambro-Briton" version it happened that one day, preparing for a fair, he desired his wife to go to the field for his horse. Finding herdilatory in doing so, he tapped her arm thrice with his glove, saying, half in jest: "Go, go, go!" The blows were slight, but they were blows;and, the terms of the marriage contract being broken, the damedeparted--she and her cattle with her--back into the lake. The other twoaccounts agree in spreading the blows over a much greater length oftime. Mr. Rees' version relates that once the husband and wife wereinvited to a christening in the neighbourhood. The lady, however, seemedreluctant to go, making the feminine excuse that the distance was toofar to walk. Her husband told her to fetch one of the horses from thefield. "I will, " said she, "if you will bring me my gloves, which I leftin the house. " He went, and, returning with the gloves, found that shehad not gone for the horse, so he jocularly slapped her shoulder withone of the gloves, saying: "Go, go!" Whereupon she reminded him of thecondition that he was not to strike her without a cause, and warned himto be more careful in future. Another time, when they were together at awedding, she burst out sobbing amid the joy and mirth of all around her. Her husband touched her on the shoulder and inquired the cause of herweeping. She replied: "Now people are entering into trouble; and yourtroubles are likely to commence, as you have the second time stricken mewithout a cause. " Finding how very wide an interpretation she put uponthe "causeless blows, " the unfortunate husband did his best to avoidanything which could give occasion for the third and last blow. But oneday they were together at a funeral, where, in the midst of the grief, she appeared in the highest spirits and indulged in immoderate fits oflaughter. Her husband was so shocked that he touched her, saying:"Hush, hush! don't laugh!" She retorted that she laughed "becausepeople, when they die, go out of trouble"; and, rising up, she left thehouse, exclaiming: "The last blow has been struck; our marriage contractis broken, and at an end! Farewell!" Hurrying home, she called togetherall her fairy cattle, walked off with them to the lake, and vanished inits waters. Even a little black calf, slaughtered and suspended on thehook, descended alive and well again to obey his mistress' summons; andfour grey oxen, which were ploughing, dragged the plough behind them asthey went, leaving a well-marked furrow, that remains to this day "towitness if I lie. " The remaining version, with some differences ofdetail, represents the same eccentric pessimism on the lady's part(presumably attributable to the greater spiritual insight of hersupernatural character), as the cause of the husband's not unwarrantedannoyance and of his breach of the agreement. She had borne him threefair sons; and although she had quitted her husband for ever, shecontinued to manifest herself occasionally to them, and gave theminstruction in herbs and medicine, predicting that they and their issuewould become during many generations the most renowned physicians in thecountry. [198]

Such is the legend of the Van Pool. It has a number of variants, both inWales and elsewhere, the examination of which I postpone for thepresent. Hitherto I have been guided in the mention of variants of thismyth chiefly by the desire of showing how one type insensibly mergesinto another. The only type I have now left for examination may becalled the "Nightmare type. " It is allied not so much to the stories ofMelusina and the Lady of the Van Pool as to stories like that of theCroatian wolf-maiden. According to German and Slavonic belief thenightmare is a human being--frequently one whose love has been slighted, and who in this shape is enabled to approach the beloved object. Itslips through the keyhole, or any other hole in a building, and pressesits victim sometimes to death. But it can be caught by quickly stoppingthe hole through which it has entered. A certain man did so one night;and in the morning he found a young and lovely maiden in the room. Onasking her whence she came, she told him from Engelland (angel-land, England). He hid her clothes, married her, and had by her threechildren. The only thing peculiar about her was that she used constantlyto sing while spinning:

 "Now calls my mother (_or_, blows my father) in Engelland, Mary Catharine, Drive out thy swine. "

One day her husband came home and found that his wife had been tellingthe children that she had come as a nightmare from Engelland. When hereproached her for it, she went to the cupboard where her clothes werehidden, threw them over herself, and vanished. Yet she could not quiteforsake her husband and little ones. On Saturdays she came unseen andlaid out their clean clothes; and every night she appeared while othersslept, and taking the baby out of the cradle quieted it at her breast. The allusion to the nightmare's clothes is uncommon; but it is anunmistakable link with the types we have been considering. In othertales she is caught in the shape of a straw; and she is generallyreleased by taking the stopper out of the hole whereby she entered. Theaccount she gives of herself is that she has come out of England, thatthe pastor had been guilty of some omission in the service when she wasbaptized, and hence she became a nightmare, but to be re-christenedwould cure her. She often hears her mother call her. In one story shevanished on being reproached with her origin, and in another on beingasked how she became a nightmare. [199]

An Esthonian tale speaks of a father who found his little boy one nightin an unquiet slumber. He noticed over the bed a hole in the wallthrough which the wind was whistling, and thought it was this which wasdisturbing him. Wherefore he stopped it up; and no sooner had he done sothan he saw on the bed by the boy's side a pretty little girl, whoteased and played with him so that he could not sleep in peace. Thechild was thus forced to stay in the house. She grew up with the otherchildren, and being quick and industrious was beloved by all. Speciallywas she dear to the boy in whose bed she was found; and when he grew uphe married her. One Sunday in church she burst out laughing during thesermon. After the service was over the husband inquired what she waslaughing at. She refused to tell him, save on condition of his tellingher in return how she came into his father's house. When she hadextracted this promise from him, she told him she saw stretched on thewall of the church a great horse-skin, on which the Evil One was writingthe names of all those who slept or chattered in church, and paid noheed to God's word. The skin was at last full of names; and in order tofind room for more the Devil had to pull it with his teeth, so as tostretch it further. In so doing he bumped his head against the wall, andmade a wry face: whereat she, who saw it, laughed. When they got homeher husband pulled out the piece of wood which his father had put intothe hole; and the same instant his wife was gone. The husband wasdisconsolate, but he saw her no more. It was said, however, that sheoften appeared to his two children in secret, and brought them preciousgifts. In Smaland a parallel legend is current, according to which theancestress of a certain family was an elf-maid who came into the housewith the sunbeams through a knot-hole in the wall, and, after beingmarried to the son and bearing him four children, vanished the same wayas she had come. In North Germany it is believed that when seven boys, or seven girls, are born in succession, one among them is a nightmare. Aman who had unknowingly wedded such a nightmare found that shedisappeared from his bed at nights; and on watching her he discoveredthat she slipped through the hole for the strap by which the latch waslifted, returning the same way. So he stopped up the opening, and thusalways retained her. After a considerable time he wanted to use thelatch, and thinking she had forgotten her bad habit and he might safelytake the peg out, he did so; but the next night she was missing, andnever came back, though every Sunday morning the man found clean linenlaid out for him as usual. [200]

A Pomeranian tradition relates the adventure of an officer who was muchtroubled by the nightmare. He caught her in the usual manner and weddedher, although he could not persuade her to say whence she came. Aftersome years she induced her husband to open the holes he had stopped up;and the next morning she had disappeared. But he found written in chalkon the table the words: "If thou wilt seek me, the Commander of Londonis my father. " He sought her in London and found her; and having takenthe precaution to rechristen her he lived happily with her everafter. [201] This is the only instance I have met with where thenightmare-wife is recovered. It would be interesting to know why Englandis assigned as the home of these perturbed spirits. 

FOOTNOTES:

[185] Burton, "Nights, " vol. Viii. P. 7. 

[186] Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 69, quoting Afzelius; Haltrich, p. 15;Hapgood, p. 214; Meier, "Volksmärchen, " p. 39; Baring-Gould, p. 575. Noauthority is given by Mr. Baring-Gould, and I have been unable to tracethe Hessian tale; but I rely on his correctness. He also cites anincoherent Swan-maiden tale from Castrén, of which he manages to makemore sense than I can (Castrén, "Altaischen Völker, " p. 172). In anIrish tale Oengus, the son of the Dagda, falls in love, through a dream, with Caer ib Ormaith, who is one year in the form of a swan and the nextin human shape. After union with her he seems to have undergone the samealternation of form (_Revue Celtique_, vol. Iii. P. 342, from a MS. Inthe British Museum). 

[187] Schreck, p. 35; Vernaleken, pp. 274, 287; Jones and Kropf, p. 95;"Bahar-Danush, " vol. Ii. P. 213 (an abstract of this story will be foundin Keightley, p. 20); Burton, "Nights, " vol. V. P. 344; Steere, p. 349;Cavallius, p. 175, freely translated by Thorpe, "Yule-Tide Stories, " p. 158. Mr. Morris turns the doves into swans. _Cf. _ a South-Slavonic talefrom Varazdina, Krauss, vol. I. P. 409. 

[188] Brett, "Legends and Myths, " p. 29. This legend is told withfurther details by Im Thurn, p. 381. 

[189] Rink, p. 145; Prym und Socin, p. 51. 

[190] Knoop, p. 104. 

[191] "F. L. Españ. " vol. I. P. 187. 

[192] Keightley, p. 169, from Hibbert, "Description of the ShetlandIslands"; Wratislaw, p. 290; "F. L. Journal, " vol. Vi. P. 165. As apoint of resemblance with the Lady of the Van Pool, quoted further on, it may be noted that these seal-women (the legend of their capture is acommon one in the Shetland Islands) had the power to conjure up from thedeep a superior breed of horned cattle, many of whose offspring arestill to be seen (Dr. Karl Blind in "Contemp. Rev. " 1881, quoted by MacRitchie, p. 4). 

[193] Kirby, p. 319; "Arch. Rev. " vol. Ii. P. 90; Schmidt, p. 133; Bent, p. 13; Von Hahn, vol. I. P. 295 (_cf. _ vol. Ii. P. 82); Garnett, p. 352, translating Dozon's "Chansons Populaires Bulgares"; Cosquin, vol. Ii. P. 18. _Cf. _ Ralston, "Tibetan Tales, " p. 53; Landes, p. 123; Comparetti, vol. I. P. 212, translated "F. L. Record, " vol. Ii. P. 12; Grimm, "Tales, " vol. Ii. P. 331; Poestion, p. 55; Vernaleken, p. 274; Pitré, vol. Iv. P. 140; Sastri, p. 80. 

[194] Leland, p. 300. _Cf. _ ibid. P. 140, where the maidens are calledweasels, and ultimately marry stars. "Y Cymmrodor, " vol. Iv. P. 201. Ina tale rendered from the modern Greek by Von Hahn the name Swan-maidenis preserved in the title, though the plumage has disappeared from thetext. Stress can hardly be laid upon this, as the title is no part ofthe tale. Von Hahn, vol. I. P. 131. 

[195] "La Tradition, " March 1889, p. 78, quoting the Abbé Domenech, "Voyage pittoresque dans les déserts du Nouveau Monde, " p. 214. Mr. Farrer gives the same story from "Algic Researches" (Farrer, "PrimitiveManners, " p. 256). 

[196] Gerv. Tilb. Dec. I. C. 15. 

[197] Brauns, p. 138; White, vol. Ii. P. 141; Vernaleken, p. 294;Schneller, p. 23; Ortoli, p. 284. 

[198] "The Physicians of Myddfai--Meddygon Myddfai, " translated by JohnPughe, Esq. , F. R. C. S. , and edited by Rev. John Williams ab Ithel, M. A. (1861), p. Xxi. "Cambro-Briton, " vol. Ii. P. 315; Sikes, p. 40. Mr. Sikes gives no authority for the third version. I have assumed itsgenuineness, though I confess Mr. Sikes' methods are not such as toinspire confidence. 

[199] Jahn, p. 364, _et seqq. _; Knoop, pp. 26, 83, 103; Kuhn, pp. 47, 197, 374; Kuhn und Schwartz, pp. 14, 91, 298; Schleicher, p. 93; Thorpe, vol. Ii. P. 169, quoting Thiele. Note the suggestion of Pope Gregory'spun in the name of the native land of the nightmare. Elsewhere a childbecomes a nightmare who is born on a Sunday and baptized on a Sunday atthe same hour, or one at whose baptism some wicked person has secretlymuttered in response to one of the priest's questions some wrong words, or "It shall become a nightmare" (Lemke, p. 42). Similar superstitionsattached to somnabulism; see Lecky, "History of Rationalism, " vol. I. P. 81, note 2. 

[200] Jannsen, vol. I. P. 53; Thorpe, vol. Iii. P. 70, quoting Afzelius, vol. Ii. P. 29, quoting Müllenhoff. It is a common Teutonic belief thatknot-holes are attributable to elves (Grimm, "Teut. Myth. " p. 461). 

[201] "Am Urds-Brunnen, " vol. Vi. P. 58. 

CHAPTER XI. 

SWAN-MAIDENS (_continued_). 

 The incident of the recovery of the bride not found in all the stories--New Zealand sagas--Andrianòro--Mother-right--The father represented under a forbidding aspect--Tasks imposed on the hero--The Buddhist theory of the Grateful Animals--The feather-robe a symbol of bride's superhuman character--Mode of capture--The Taboo--Dislike of fairies for iron--Utterance of name forbidden--Other prohibitions--Fulfilment of fate--The taboo a mark of progress in civilization--The divine ancestress--Totems and Banshees--Re-appearance of mother to her children--The lady of the Van Pool an archaic deity. 

I hope I have made clear in the last chapter the connection between thevarious types of the Swan-maiden group of folk-tales. The one idearunning through them all is that of a man wedding a supernatural maidenand unable to retain her. She must return to her own country and her ownkin; and if he desire to recover her he must pursue her thither andconquer his right to her by undergoing superhuman penance or performingsuperhuman tasks, --neither of which it is given to ordinary men to do. It follows that only when the story is told of men who can be conceivedas released from the limitations we have been gradually learning duringthe progress of civilization to regard as essential to humanity--onlywhen the reins are laid upon the neck of invention, --is it possible torelate the narrative of the recovery of the bride. These conditions aretwice fulfilled in the history of a folk-tale. They are fulfilled, first, when men are in that early stage of thought in which thelimitations of man's nature are unknown, when speculations of the kindtouched upon in our second chapter, and illustrated repeatedly in thecourse of this work, are received as undisputed opinions. They arefulfilled again when the relics of these opinions, and the memories ofthe mythical events believed in accordance with such opinions, are stilloperative in the mind, though no longer with the vividness of primitivetimes; when some of them still hold together, but for the most part theyare decaying and falling to pieces, and are only like the faded rags ofa once splendid robe which a child may gather round its puny form andmake believe for the moment that it is a king. To the genuine credulityof the South-Sea Islander, and to the conscious make-believe of the Arabstory-teller and the peasant who repeats the modern _märchen_, allthings are possible. But to the same peasant when relating thetraditional histories of his neighbours, and to the grave mediævalchronicler, only some things are possible, though many more things thanare possible to us. The slow and partial advance of knowledge destroyssome superstitions sooner, others later. Some branches of the tree ofmarvel flourish with apparently unimpaired life long after others havewithered, and others again have only begun to fade. Hence, where theadventures of Tawhaki, the mythical New Zealander, are incredible, thelegend of the origin of the Physicians of Myddfai from the Lady of theLake may still be gravely accepted. Gervase of Tilbury would probablyhave treated the wild story of Hasan's adventures in the islands of Wákas what it is; but he tells us he has seen and conversed with women whohad been captives to the Dracs beneath the waters of the Rhone, while arelative of his own had married a genuine descendant of the serpent-ladyof that castle in the valley of Trets. 

Accordingly, the episode of the recovery of the bride is scarcely everfound in the sagas of modern Europe, or indeed of any nation that hasprogressed beyond a certain mark in civilization. But it is common intheir _märchen_, as well as in the sagas of more backward nations. Inthe sagas of the advanced races, with rare exceptions, the most we getis what looks like a reminiscence of the episode in the occasionalreappearance of the supernatural wife to her children, or as a Banshee. Putting this reminiscence, if it be one, aside for the present, we willfirst discuss some aspects of the bride's recovery. In doing so, thoughthe natural order may seem to be inverted, we shall in effect clear theground for the proper understanding of the main features of the myth. 

Many variants of the legend of Tawhaki are current among the Maories. According to that adopted by Sir George Grey, he was a hero renowned forhis courage, whose fame had reached to heaven. There Tango-tango, amaiden of heavenly race, fell in love with him from report; and onenight she descended to the earth and lay down by his side. She continuedto do this nightly, stealing away again before dawn to her home. Butwhen she found herself likely to become a mother she remained with himopenly; and when her daughter was born she gave her to her husband towash. Evidently he did not like the work, for while carrying out hiswife's instructions, Tawhaki made a very rude remark about the child. Hearing this, Tango-tango began to sob bitterly, and at last rose upfrom her place with the child and took flight to the sky. Her husbanddetermined to seek her. He found his way to the place where a creeperhung down from heaven and struck its roots into the earth. It wasguarded there by a blind old ancestress of his, whom he restored tosight, and from whom he obtained directions how to climb the plant. Arrived in heaven, he disguised himself and had to undergo theindignity--he, a mighty chieftain--of being enslaved by his wife'srelatives, for whom he was compelled to perform menial work. At length, however, he manifested himself to his wife and was reconciled to her. He is still in heaven, and is worshipped as a god. Another versionrepresents a cloud swooping upon the wife and taking her away. Tawhakiendeavoured in vain to follow her by mounting on a kite. A third versionsimply relates that the lady returned to her friends. Her husband, onarriving at the _pa_, or settlement, where she dwelt, found among thechildren his own son, by whom he sent his wife a love-token she hadformerly given him. This led to recognition, and she eventually returnedwith him to his home. A more interesting variant tells us that the fameof the nobleness of Tini-rau was heard by Hine-te-iwaiwa, who determinedto set her cap (or whatever might be its equivalent in her scantycostume) at him. She obtained an interview with him, by a devicerecalling the conduct of the ladies in The Land East of the Sun, for shebroke and destroyed some bathing-pools belonging to the hero. A quest ofthe intruder naturally followed, with the result that Tini-rau took herto live with him. She made short work of her rivals, his elder wives;and all went smoothly until Hine, one unlucky day, asked her husband toperform an operation upon her head as necessary as familiar in somestrata of civilization. In doing this he made disrespectful observationsabout her, when lo! a mist settled down upon them, from the midst ofwhich her elder brother came and took his sister away. Tini-rau, unableto endure her absence, determined to go after his wife, accompanied by aflight of birds, by whose cries he was informed, as he passed onesettlement after another, whether or not his wife was there. At lengthhe discovered her whereabouts, and made himself known to her sister by atoken which Hine understood. Then he came to her, and she announced hisarrival to all the people, who assembled and welcomed him. He abodethere; and when his wife's relatives complained that he did not go andget food, he obtained it in abundance by the exercise of magicalpowers; and so they lived happy ever after. [202]

Now let us turn to the Malagasy tale of the way in which Andrianòroobtained a wife from heaven. There three sisters, whose dwelling-placeis in heaven, frequent a lake in the crystal waters whereof they swim, taking flight at once on the approach of any human being. By a diviner'sadvice the hero changes into three lemons, which the youngest sisterdesires to take; but the others, fearing a snare, persuade her to flyaway with them. Foiled thus, the hero changes into bluish water in themidst of the lake, then into the seed of a vegetable growing by thewaterside, and ultimately into an ant. He is at length successful inseizing the youngest maiden, who consents to be his wife in spite of thedifference of race; for, while her captor is a man living on the earth, her father dwells in heaven, whence the thunderbolt darts forth if hespeak, and she herself drinks no spirits, "for if spirits even touch mymouth I die. " After some time, during his absence, his father and motherforce _tòaka_, or rum, into the lady's mouth, and she dies; but on hisreturn he insists on opening her grave, and, to his joy, finds her aliveagain. But she will not now stay on earth: she must return to her fatherand mother in the sky. They are grieving for her, and the thunder is asign of their grief. Finding himself unable to prevail upon her to stay, he obtains permission to accompany her. She warns him, however, of thedangers he will have to encounter, --the thunderbolt when her fatherspeaks, and the tasks her father will lay upon him. Before he goes heaccordingly calls the beasts and the birds together; he slays oxen tofeed them; he tells them the tests he is about to undergo, and takespromises from them to accomplish the things that trouble him. Obedientto his wife, he displays great humility to his father-in-law; and bythe aid of the lower animals he comes triumphant out of every trial. Thebeasts with their tusks plough up the spacious fields of heaven; thebeasts and birds uproot the giant trees; from the Crocodile Lake thecrocodiles themselves bring the thousand spades; between cattle whichare exactly alike the cattle-fly distinguishes the cows from the calves;and the little fly, settling on the nose of the heroine's mother, enables the hero to point her out among her daughters. The wife's fatheris astonished, and gives his daughter anew to the hero to be his wife, dismissing them with a dower of oxen, slaves and money. [203]

It will be observed that the adventures undergone by Andrianòro inheaven are very different from those of the Maori heroes. Tawhaki andTini-rau have certainly to submit to hardships and indignities beforethey can be reunited to their wives; and they perform actions ofsuperhuman power. But these actions are not performed as the conditionof reunion; nor are the tasks and the indignities laid upon them by anyparental ogre. In fact the parental ogre is as conspicuous by hisabsence from the New Zealand stories as he is by his presence in thoseof Andrianòro and the Marquis of the Sun. How is this to be explained?The reason seems to lie in the different organization of society underwhich the tale attained its present form in either case. At an earlyperiod of civilization, kinship is reckoned exclusively through themother: even the father is in no way related to his children. This is astage hardly ever found complete in all its consequences, but of whichthe traces remain in the customs and in the lore of many nations whohave long since passed from it, becoming, as we might expect, fainterand fewer as it recedes into the distance. Such traces are abundant inMaori tradition; and they point to a comparatively recent emergencefrom female kinship. Among these traces is the omission of the heavyfather from the stories before us. Tango-tango and Hine-te-iwaiwa wereboth maidens of more than mortal race; and presumably their parentswould be conceived of as still alive. But they are not so much asalluded to--a sure sign that there was no paternal authority to whichthese ladies would be accountable. Indeed, if accountable at all, theyare so to the whole circle of their relatives, or to their tribe ingeneral. It is their brothers who assist them in time of need. Tawhakibecomes the slave of his brothers-in-law. To her "people" Hine announcesher husband's arrival: she simply announces it; nor does it appear thatany consent on their part is required. Tini-rau takes his place at onceas a tribesman, and is expected to contribute by his labour and skill tothe sustenance of the whole brotherhood. 

One of the consequences of reckoning descent only through females, whichmay be noticed here, is that the children belong to the mother and themother's family. A trace of this lingers about the story of Tawhaki inthe affront to Tango-tango caused by her husband's offensive remark upontheir little one. In a society where the offspring are the father's, oreven where, as in modern civilized life, they are treated as belongingto both parents and partaking of the nature of both, no such offencecould be taken. Another consequence is that in the organization ofsociety the wife still continues after marriage to reside with, and tobe part of, the community to which she belongs by birth. The man leaveshis father and his mother and cleaves to his wife. Hence it would benatural for her to return home to her own kindred, and for him to seekher and dwell with her there. This is illustrated not only in the Maorilegends just cited, but also in the Arawàk story given in the lastchapter, where the husband is received into the vulture race until hedesires to visit his mother. He is then discarded as if he hadcommitted some unpardonable breach of custom; and he cannot be restoredto his former privileges. Although the Greeks had before the dawn ofhistory ceased to practise mother-right, a trace of it lingers in amodern folk-tale from Epirus. There a man had by the ordinary deviceobtained an elf as a wife; and she bore him a child. After this her ownkinsmen came and begged her to return to them; but she refused on theground that she had a husband and child. "Then bring them with you, "they replied. Accordingly, she took her husband and child, and went backwith them to dwell among the elves. It seems, however, to be felt thatthis was an unusual proceeding; otherwise it would have been needless toplead with the lady to return, and to extend a special invitation tothose whom she would not abandon: an indication, this, that the storyhas been adapted to a higher plane of civilization, in which it was nolonger the custom for the husband to go and dwell among his wife'speople. [204]

On the other hand, Andrianòro's wife lives under patriarchal government. The Malagasy have advanced further on the path of civilization than theMaories; and at the stage of progress they have reached, the father ismuch more like an absolute monarch. In the story referred to, the ladyhad married without her father's consent. Accordingly her marriage isignored, and her lover has to perform a number of services for hisfather-in-law, and so purchase formal consent to their union. Nor willit escape the reader that when the wielder of the thunderbolt at lastgives his daughter to her husband, he dismisses them back to the home ofthe latter. Hasan, too, it will be remembered, returns to Bagdad withhis wife and children, though we probably have a survival of an olderform of the story in his relations with her redoubtable sister. Thislady holds a position impossible in an Arab kingdom. Her father is amere shadow, hardly mentioned but to save appearances; so much moresubstantial is her power and her opposition to the match. The variantsof the Marquis of the Sun are found chiefly among European nations, [205]whose history, institutions, and habits of thought lead them to attachgreat value to paternal authority. In the tasks performed in _märchen_of this type, and the precipitate flight which usually takes place onthe wedding night from the ogre's secret wrath, it would seem that wehave a reminiscence of the archaic institutions of marriage by purchaseand marriage by capture, --both alike incidents of the period whenmother-right (as the reckoning of descent solely through females iscalled) has ceased to exist in a pure form, and society has passed, oris passing, into the patriarchal stage. The Marquis of the Sun type is, therefore, more recent than the other types of the Swan-maidentradition, none of which so uniformly in all their variants recognizethe father's supreme position. [206]

If the tasks and the flight be a reminiscence of purchase and capture, we may find in that reminiscence a reason why nearly all the storiesconcur in representing the father under a forbidding aspect. As hisdaughter's vendor, --her unwilling vendor, --as her guardian from capture, he would be the natural foe of her lover. He is not always so ready asthe Bird Simer to give up to another his rights over her; but perhapsthe Bird Simer's readiness may be partly explained by the husband'shaving already performed the feat of rescuing the maiden from a giant, beside slaying his own brother for her sake. Usually the father is afrightful ogre or giant; not infrequently he is no less a personage thanthe Devil himself. And the contrast between him and his lovely daughterwould be more and more strongly felt as purchase and capture ceased tobe serious methods of bride-winning. Hence, probably, the thought ofreal relationship would be abandoned, and the maiden would often beconceived of as enchanted and captive in the hands of a malevolentbeing. 

We will not now stop to discuss the tasks in detail: we can only affordtime to glance at one of them, namely, that of distinguishing the maidfrom her sisters. There are three chief means by which the lover orhusband is enabled to identify the object of his devotion. Two of thesedepend upon the lady herself: in the one she slily helps her lover; inthe other he recognizes an insignificant peculiarity of her person orattire. The third means is an indication given by one of the loweranimals, which has better means of knowledge than the suitor, dueprobably to its greater cleverness--a quality, as I have already pointedout in Chapter II. , universally credited in a certain stage of cultureto these creatures. We will deal first with the second means. 

The most usual personal idiosyncrasy of the damsel is the want of afinger, or some deformity in it, the result of her previous efforts toaid the hero. Thus, in a Basque tale the lad is set to find a ring lostby the ogre in a river. This is accomplished by cutting up the maidenand throwing the pieces into the stream; but a part of the little fingersticks in his shoe. When he afterwards has to choose between the ogre'sdaughters with his eyes shut, he recognizes his love by the loss of herlittle finger. The giant's daughter, in a West Highland tale, makes aladder with her fingers for her lover to climb a tree to fetch amagpie's eggs; and, in the hurry, she leaves her little finger at thetop. This accident arises sometimes, as in the Marquis of the Sun, fromthe dropping of a piece of flesh on the ground when the hero cuts up hisbeloved; or, according to a story of the Italian Tirol, from spillingsome of her blood. In the latter case, three drops of blood fall intothe lake, instead of the bucket prepared to receive them, and therebyalmost cause the failure of his task. When the magician afterwards leadsthe youth to his daughters and bids him choose, he takes the youngest bythe hand, and says: "I choose this one. " We are not told that there wasany difference in the maidens' hands, but this is surely to be inferred. In the Milanese story of the King of the Sun the hero also chooses hiswife blindfold from the king's three daughters by touching their hands;and here, too, we must suppose previous help or concert, though it hasdisappeared from the text. In a story from Lorraine, John has to takethe devil's daughter, Greenfeather, to pieces to find a spire for thetop of a castle that he is compelled to build; and in putting hertogether again he sets one of her little fingers clumsily. With bandagedeyes he has to find the lady who has assisted him; and he succeeds byputting his hand on hers. The lad who falls into the strange gentleman'shands in a Breton tale, forgets to put the little toe of the girl's leftfoot into the caldron; and when she and her two sisters are led beforehim veiled and clad in other than their ordinary garb, he knows her atonce by the loss of her toe. As it is told in Denmark the enchantedprincess agrees with the king's son to wind a red silken thread aroundher little finger; and by this means he identifies her, though in theform of a little grey-haired, long-eared she-ass, and again of awrinkled, toothless, palsied old woman, into which the sorceress, whosecaptive she is, changes her. In a Swedish story the damsel informs herlover that when the mermaid's daughters appear in various repulsiveforms she will be changed into a little cat with her side burnt and oneear snipped. The Catalonian _märchen_ of Joanescas represents theheroine as wanting a joint of her finger, from her lover having torn offsome of her feathers by accident when he stole her robe. "Monk" Lewis inhis "Journal of a West India Proprietor" gives an Ananci tale in whichthe heroine and her two sisters are changed into black cats: the twolatter bore scarlet threads round their necks, the former a bluethread. [207] According to the Carmarthenshire saga, the lady isrecognized by the strapping of her sandal. 

In several of the stories just cited, and many of their congeners, themaiden forewarns her suitor how she will be disguised, or by what marksshe will be known. Sometimes, however, she makes a sign to him on thespot. The Lady of the Van Pool only thrusts her foot forward that he maynotice her shoe-tie; but Cekanka in a Bohemian tale is bold enough towink at him. In a Russian variant of the Marquis of the Sun, to which Ihave already referred, the hero is in the power of the Water King. Onhis way to that potentate's palace he had, by the advice of the BabaYaga, gone to the seashore and watched until twelve spoonbills alighted, and, turning into maidens, had unrobed for the purpose of bathing. Thenhe had stolen the eldest maiden's shift, to restore it only on herpromise to aid him against her father, the Water King. She redeems thepledge by performing for him the usual tasks, the last of which is tochoose the same bride thrice among the king's twelve daughters. Thefirst time she secretly agrees with him that she will wave herhandkerchief; the second time she is to be arranging her dress; and thethird time he will see a fly above her head. [208]

Here we are led to the third means of recognition. The incident of helprendered by one or more of the lower animals to man is a favourite onein folk-tales; and it has furnished a large portion of the argumentativestock-in-trade of those scholars who contend for their Indian origin. Weare assured that every tale which contains this incident must bereferred to a Buddhist source, or at least has been subjected toBuddhist influence. This theory is supported by reference to thedoctrine of love for all living creatures which Buddha is said to havepromulgated. The command to overcome hatred by love, the precepts ofself-sacrifice and devotion to others' good were not limited in theBuddha's discourses, if those discourses be correctly reported, to ourconduct towards our fellow-men: they included all creation. And theywere enforced by parables which represented good as done in turn to menby all sorts of creatures, even the wildest and the most savage. Storiesof grateful beasts, of the type familiar to us in Androcles and theLion, became favourites among the disciples of the Light of Asia. Scholars, therefore, have told us that wherever a grateful beast thrustshis muzzle into the story, that story must have come from India, andmust have come since the rise of Buddhism. Nay, they go further. Inevery instance where a beast appears as helping the hero, we are taughtto presume that the hero has first helped the beast, even though notrace of such an incident be actually found. It must have been so, otherwise the beast would have had no motive for helping the hero, --and, it may be added, the theorist would have had no ground for claiming thestory as proceeding from a Buddhist source. 

Now all this would have been seen at once to be very poor reasoning, butfor one fact. A number, sufficient to be called large, of parables, haveactually made their way from India to Europe in historic times, andsince the age of Gautama. The literary history of these parables can betraced; and it must be acknowledged that, whatever their origin, theyhave been adopted into Buddhist works and adapted to Buddhist doctrine. Further, it seems demonstrated that some of them have descended into theoral tradition of various nations in Europe, Asia, and even Africa. Butwhen so much as this is conceded, it still fails to account for thespread of the story of the Grateful Beasts and, even more signally, forthe incident of the Beast-helpers where there is no gratitude in thecase. A very slight examination of the incident as it appears in thegroup of legends now before us will convince us of this. 

First of all, let it be admitted that in several of these tales theservice rendered by the brute is in requital for a good turn on the partof the hero. Andrianòro, as we have seen, begins by making friends withvarious animals by means of the mammon of unrighteousness in the shapeof a feast. Jagatalapratâpa, in the narrative already cited from theTamil book translated into English under the title of "The DravidianNights Entertainments, " pursuing one of Indra's four daughters, iscompelled by her father, after three other trials, to choose her outfrom her sisters, who are all converted into one shape. He praysassistance from a kind of grasshopper; and the little creature, inreturn for a previous benefit, hops upon her foot. But it is somewhatcurious, if the theory be true, that even in stories told among peoplesdistinctly under Buddhist influence the gratitude is by no means aninvariable point. Thus the princess in the Burmese drama is betrayed by"the king of flies" to her husband, though the abstract we have of theplay gives us no hint of any previous transaction between the punymonarch and the hero; and it is worthy of note that the Tibetan versionof the same plot given by Mr. Ralston from the Kah-Gyur knows nothing ofthis entomological agency. There the hero is a Bodisat, who, if he doesnot recognize his beloved among the thousand companions who surroundher, at least has a spell the utterance of which compels her to step outfrom among them. It does not appear that Kasimbaha, the Bantikpatriarch, is required to undergo this particular test. But he isindebted to a bird for indicating the lady's residence; a glow-wormplaces itself at her chamber door; and a fly shows him which of a numberof dishes set before him he must not uncover. M. Cosquin, who is anadherent of the Buddhist hypothesis, in relating this instance, iscompelled expressly to say that "one does not see why" these animalsshould render such services. Neither, on M. Cosquin's principle, can onesee why, in the Arawàk story, the spiders should spin cords to help theoutcast husband down from heaven, or the birds take his part against thevulture-folk to enable him to recover his wife. [209] The proof ofBuddhist influence must rest heavily on its advocates here, both onaccount of the absence of motive for gratitude, and of the distance ofthe Arawàk people from India and the utter disparity of civilizations. 

The agency of recognition, when attributed to one of the lower animals, is ordinarily an insect; but the reason is, as often as not, a priorarrangement with the lady, as in the Russian story of the Water King. The Polish _märchen_ of Prince Unexpected follows this line. In it, theprincess warns her lover that she will have a ladybird over her righteye. When a thousand maidens all alike are produced to poor Hans in aBohemian tale, he has no difficulty in selecting the right one; for awitch has bidden him "choose her on whom, from the roof of the chamber, a spider descends. "[210]

These considerations are sufficient to prove that the incident of theHelpful Beasts, as found in the Swan-maiden group of stories, cannot beattributed to a Buddhist origin. 

We have now dealt with an episode of the mythical narrative, necessary, indeed, to its completion, but found only under certain conditions whichI have pointed out. We have seen this episode in two distinct formswhose respective sources we have assigned to two distinct stages ofculture. The form characteristic of the European _märchen_ is apparentlymore barbarous in several respects than that yielded by the islanders ofthe Southern Ocean; but the latter bears testimony to a state of societymore archaic than the other. Presumably, therefore, it represents morenearly the primitive form of the story. 

We turn next to the central incidents. In the previous chapter I havetaken pains to show the unmistakable relation between the differenttypes of the myth, in spite of the omission of the feather-robe, orindeed of any substitute for it. The truth is that the feather-robe isno more than a symbol of the wife's superhuman nature. From the morearchaic variants it is absent; but frequently the true form of the ladyis held to be that of a member of what we contemptuously call "the brutecreation. " Men in savagery, as we have already seen, have quitedifferent feelings from those of contempt for brutes. On the contrary, they entertain the highest respect and even awe for them. They tracetheir descent from some of them; and a change of form from beast to man, or from man to beast, while still preserving individual identity, wouldnot seem at all incredible, or even odd, to them. By and by, however, the number of creatures having these astonishing powers would decrease, as the circle of experience widened. But there would linger a belief inremarkable instances, as at Shan-si, in China, where it is believed thatthere is still a bird which can divest itself of its feathers and becomea woman. Not every swan would then be deemed capable of turning when itpleased into a fair maiden; and when this change happened, it would beattributed to enchantment, which had caused the maiden merely to assumethe appearance of a swan for a time and for a special purpose. Thisoften occurs, as we have seen, in _märchen_, where the contrast betweenthe heroine and her father, or, as it is then often put, her master, isvery strong. It occurs, too, in tales belonging to other types. A_märchen_ told by Dr. Pitré relates that a man had a pet magpie, whichby enchantment had the power of casting its wings and becoming a woman. She always practised this power in his absence; but he came home one dayand found her wings on the chair. He burnt them, and she remainedpermanently a woman and married him. In a saga from Guiana a warlock'sdaughter persuades her father to transform her into a dog that she mayventure near a hunter whom she loves. He accordingly gives her a skin, which she draws over her shoulders, and thus becomes a hound. When thehunter finds her in his hut as a maiden, the charmed skin hanging up andrevealing her secret, he flings the skin into the fire and wedsher. [211]

But enchantment is not the only explanation. The lady may, like Hasan'sbride, be held to belong to a superior race to men, though properly inhuman form. In either case the peltry would be a mere veil hiding thetrue individuality for a while. It would thus acquire a distinct magicalefficacy; so that when deprived of it, the maiden would be unable toeffect the change. A remarkable instance of this occurs in an Arab saga. There a man, at Algiers, puts to death his three daughters, whoafterwards appear to a guitar-player and dance to his playing. As theydance they throw him the rind of the oranges they hold in their hands;and this rind is found the next day changed into gold pieces and intojewels. The following year the maidens appear again to theguitar-player. He manages to get hold of their shrouds, which he burns. They thereupon come back to life, and he weds the youngest of them. Thisis said to have happened no longer ago than sixty years before theFrench conquest of Algiers. [212]

Nothing of the sort is found in the Maori tales. To the natives of NewZealand no change seemed needful: the lady was of supernatural birth andcould fly as she pleased. The same may be said of Andrianòro's wife, notwithstanding that the Malagasy variant, as a whole, bespeaks a higherlevel of culture than the adventures of Tawhaki and Tini-rau. As littledo we find the magical robe in the Passamaquoddy story of the Partridgeand the Sheldrake Duck. The Dyaks of Borneo are unconscious of the needof it in the saga of their ancestral fish, the _puttin_, which wascaught by a man, and when laid in his boat turned into a girl, whom hegave to his son for a bride. The Chinese have endless tales about foxeswhich assume human form; but the fox's skin plays no part in them. Andin a Japanese tale belonging to the group under consideration, the ladychanges into a fox and back again into a lady without any apparatus ofpeltry. [213]

Again, in the nursery tales of the higher races, the dress when castseems simply an article of human clothing, often nothing but a girdle, veil, or apron; and it is only when donned by the enchanted lady, orelf, that it is found to be neither more nor less than a completeplumage. Thence it easily passes into a mere instrument of power, likethe mermaid's belt and pouch in the Scottish story, or the book ofcommand in the _märchen_ of the Island of Happiness, and is on its wayto final disappearance. 

The maiden's capture is effected in those types of the tale where theenchanted garment is worn, by the theft of the garment. These cases willnot detain our attention: we will pass at once to the discussion ofthose where there is no transformation to be effected or dreaded. Perhaps the most interesting of all are the Welsh sagas; and of thesenot the least remarkable is the suit by offerings of food. Andrianòrotried this device in the Malagasy story; but it was unsuccessful. In aCarnarvonshire analogue from Llanberis, the youth entices his belovedinto his grasp by means of an apple:[214] in the Van Pool variants theoffering assumes almost a sacramental character. Until the fairy maidenhas tasted earthly bread, or until her suitor has eaten of the foodwhich sustains her, he cannot be united to her. Here we are reminded onthe one hand of the elfin food considered in a former chapter, topartake of which sealed the adventurer's fate and prevented him for everfrom returning to his human home; and on the other hand of the ceremonyof eating together which among so many nations has been part of themarriage rites. 

Walter Map relates a curious story of Llangorse Lake having affinitiesfor the Land East of the Sun, and still more with one of the Maorisagas. Wastin of Wastiniog watched, the writer tells us, three clearmoonlit nights and saw bands of women in his oat-fields, and followedthem until they plunged into the pool, where he overheard themconversing, and saying to one another: "If he did so and so, he wouldcatch one of us. " Thus instructed, he of course succeeded in capturingone. Here, as in many of the stories, the lady has obviously designsupon the mortal of opposite sex, and deliberately throws herself in hisway. But she lays a taboo upon him, promising to serve him willingly andwith all obedient devotion, until that day he should strike her in angerwith his bridle. After the birth of several children he was unfortunateenough on some occasion, the details of which Walter Map has forgotten, to break the condition; whereupon she fled with all her offspring, ofwhom her husband was barely able to save one before she plunged with therest into the lake. This one, whom he called Triunnis Nagelwch, grew up, and entered the service of the King of North Wales. At his royalmaster's command, Triunnis once led a marauding expedition into theterritory of the King of Brecknock. A battle ensued, when he wasdefeated and his band cut to pieces. It is said that Triunnis himselfwas saved by his mother, and thenceforth dwelt with her in the lake. "But, indeed, " adds the truth-loving Walter, "I think it is a lie, because a delusion of this kind is so likely to account for his body nothaving been found. "[215]

In spite, however, of such unwonted incredulity, Map, having once begunby telling this story, proceeds to tell another like it, which he seemsto have no difficulty in believing. The second tale concerns a hero ofthe Welsh border, Wild Edric, of whose historic reality as one of theEnglish rebels against William the Conqueror there is ample proof. Itappears that Edric, returning from hunting, lost his way in the Forestof Dean, and accompanied only by one boy, reached about midnight a largehouse which turned out to be a drinking-shop, such as the English, Mapsays, call a _guildhouse_. On approaching it he saw a light, and lookingin, he beheld a number of women dancing. They were beautiful incountenance, bigger and taller than ordinary women. He noticed one amongthem fairer than the rest, and (Walter, perhaps, had Fair Rosamund inhis mind when he says) more to be desired than all the darlings ofkings. Edric rushed round the house and, finding an entrance, dashed inand with the help of his boy dragged her out, despite a furiousresistance in which the nails and teeth of her companions madethemselves felt. She brooded in sullen silence for three whole days; buton the fourth day she exclaimed to her new master: "Bless you, mydearest, and you will be blessed too, and enjoy health and prosperityuntil you reproach me on account of my sisters, or the place, or thegrove whence you have snatched me away, or anything connected with it. For the very day you do so your happiness will forsake you. I shall betaken away; and you will suffer repeated misfortune, and long for yourown death. " He pledged himself to fidelity; and to their splendidnuptials nobles came from far and near. King William heard of thewonder, and bade the newly wedded pair to London, where he was thenholding his court, that he might test the truth of the tale. They provedit to him by many witnesses from their own country; but the chieftestimony was that of the lady's superhuman beauty; and he dismissedthem in admiration to their home. After many years of happiness Edricreturned one evening late from hunting, and could not find his wife. Hespent some time in vainly calling for her before she came. "Of course, "he began, angrily, "you have not been detained so long by your sisters, have you?" The rest of his wrath fell upon the empty air; for at themention of her sisters she vanished. And neither her husband'sself-reproaches, nor his tears, nor any search could ever find heragain. [216]

A point far more interesting than the actual mode of capture is thetaboo. The condition on which the heroine remains with her captor-spouseis, in stories of the Hasan of Bassorah type, his preservation of thefeather-garb; in those of the Melusina type (with which we are nowdealing), his observance of the taboo. In the tales just cited fromWalter Map we have two important forms of the taboo, and in the legendof Melusina herself we have a third. The latter is an example of theordinary objection on the part of supernatural beings to be seenotherwise than just how and when they please, which we have dealt within a previous chapter; and little need be added to what I have alreadysaid on the subject. The other two are, however, worth someconsideration. 

In the account of Wastin of Wastiniog we are told that he was forbiddento strike his wife with the bridle. Let us compare this prohibition withthat of the fairy of "the bottomless pool of Corwrion, " in UpperArllechwedd, Carnarvonshire, who wedded the heir of the owner ofCorwrion. The marriage took place on two conditions--first, that thehusband was not to know his wife's name, though he might give her anyname he chose; and, second, that if she misbehaved towards him, he mightnow and then beat her with a rod, but that he should not strike her withiron, on pain of her leaving him at once. "This covenant, " saysProfessor Rhys in repeating the tale, "was kept for some years, so thatthey lived happily together, and had four children, of whom the twoyoungest were a boy and a girl. But one day, as they went to one of thefields of Bryn Twrw, in the direction of Penardd Gron, to catch a pony, the fairy wife, being so much nimbler than her husband, ran before himand had her hand in the pony's mane in no time. She called out to herhusband to throw her a halter; but instead of that he threw towards hera bridle with an iron bit, which, as bad luck would have it, struck her. The wife at once flew through the air, and plunged headlong intoCorwrion Lake. The husband returned sighing and weeping towards BrynTwrw (Noise Hill), and when he reached it, the _twrw_ (noise) there wasgreater than had ever been heard before, namely, that of weeping after'Belene'; and it was then, after he had struck her with iron, that hefirst learnt what his wife's name was. "[217]

The perusal of this saga will raise a suspicion that the original formof the taboo in Wastin's case was a prohibition against striking withiron, and that the prohibition was eventually infringed by means of abridle. Whether the alteration was due to a blunder on Map's part inrelating the story is of no importance; but the suspicion will be raisedto a certainty by turning to some other sagas in Professor Rhys'admirable collection. It is related at Waenfawr, near Carnarvon, that ayouth broke, like Wild Edric, into a dance of the fairies on the banksof the Gwyrfai, near Cwellyn Lake, one moonlit night, and carried off amaiden. She at first refused to wed him, but consented to remain hisservant. One evening, however, he overheard two of her kindred speakingof her, and caught her name--Penelope. When she found that he had learnther name she gave way to grief: evidently she now knew that her fate wassealed. On his importunity being renewed, she at length consented tomarry him, but on the condition that he should not strike her with iron. Here again the taboo was broken by the flinging of a bridle whilechasing a horse. A similar tale was related in the vale of Beddgelert, wherein the stolen lady would only consent to be the servant of herravisher if he could find out her name. When he had discovered it, sheasked in astonishment; "O mortal, who has betrayed my name to thee?"Then, lifting up her tiny folded hands, she exclaimed: "Alas! my fate, my fate!" Even then she would only marry him on condition that if everhe should touch her with iron she would be free to leave him and returnto her family. Catastrophe, as before. In a variant the maiden, pressedby her human lover, promises to marry, provided he can find out hername. When he succeeds in doing this she faints away, but has to submitto her doom. In doing so, she imposes one more proviso: he is not totouch her with iron, nor is there to be a bolt of iron, or a lock, ontheir door. The servant-girl, in another story cited in Chapter VII. , who was rescued from Fairyland, could only stay, it will be remembered, in her master's service so long afterward, as he forebore to strike herwith iron; and the fatal blow was struck accidentally with a bit. [218]

Mr. Andrew Lang has remarked, following Dr. Tylor, that in this taboothe fairy mistress is "the representative of the stone age. " This is so;and the reason is, because she belongs to the realm of the supernatural. When the use of metals was discovered, stone implements were discardedin ordinary life; but for ages afterwards knives of stone were used forreligious purposes. There is evidence, for instance, that the Hebrews, to seek no further, employed them in some of their sacred rites; analtar of stone was forbidden to be hewn; and when King Solomon built thetemple, "there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron heardin the house while it was in building. " Although there may be no directevidence of such a practice among the Cymric Britons, they were probablyno exception to the rule, which seems to have been general throughoutthe world; and the Druids' custom of cutting the mistletoe with agolden, not with an iron, sickle, points in this direction. Theretention of stone instruments in religious worship was doubtless dueto the intense conservatism of religious feeling. The gods, having beenserved with stone for so long, would be conceived of as naturallyobjecting to change; and the implements whose use had continued throughso many revolutions in ordinary human utensils, would thereby haveacquired a divine character. Changes of religion, however, brought intime changes even in these usages. Christianity was bound to no specialreverence for knives and arrowheads of flint; but they seem to have beenstill vaguely associated with the discarded deities, or their allies, the Nymphs and Oreads and Fairies of stream or wood or dell, and withthe supernatural generally. A familiar example of this is the name ofElfbolts given by the country people in this and other lands to theseold-world objects, whenever turned up by the harrow or the spade. Nowthe traditional preference on the part of supernatural beings for stoneinstruments is only one side of the thought which would, as its reverseside, show a distinct abhorrence by the same mythical personages formetals, and chiefly (since we have long passed out of the bronze age)for iron. Not only do witches and spirits object to the horseshoe; axesand iron wedges are equally distasteful to them--at all events inDenmark. So in Brittany, when men go to gather the _herbe d'or_, amedicinal plant of extraordinary virtue, they go barefooted, in a whiterobe and fasting, and no iron may be employed; and though all thenecessary ceremonies be performed, only holy men will be able to findit. The magical properties of this plant, as well as the rites requisiteto obtain it, disclose its sacredness to the old divinities. It shinesat a distance like gold, and if one tread on it he will fall asleep, andwill come to understand the languages of birds, dogs, and wolves. [219]

In previous chapters we have already had occasion to note this dislikefor iron and steel. Hence the placing of scissors and fire-steel in anunchristened babe's cradle. Hence the reason for the midwife's casting aknife behind her when she left the troll's dwelling laden with hisgifts; and for the Islay father's taking the precaution of striking hisdirk into the threshold when he sought his son in the fairy hill. So, too, in Sweden people who bathed in the sea were gravely advised to castinto it close to them a fire-steel, a knife, or the like, to prevent anymonster from hurting them. The bolts and locks to which the fairy ofBeddgelert objected would have prevented her free passage into and outof the house. 

In the Pomeranian saga quoted in the last chapter, the enchantedprincess is unable to open the trunk which contains her magical shift:she must wait for another to open it and give her the garment. In thesame way Hasan's bride could not herself go to the chest and get herfeather-dress. The key was committed to her mother-in-law's care, andwas forced from the old woman by Zubaydah, the Caliph's wife; nor did itever come into the fairy's hands, for her dress was fetched for her byMasrur at Zubaydah's bidding. It is not unlikely that the reason for thesupernatural wife's difficulty in these and analogous cases is the metallock and key. But we must not forget that the robe is not always lockedup in a chest. Sometimes it is hidden in a hole in the wall, sometimesin a stack of corn, sometimes beneath the main-post of the wooden hut inwhich the wedded pair are dwelling. Moreover, we must not leave out ofaccount that in the Nightmare type the wife cannot herself take thewooden stopper out of the hole through which she entered; but directlyit is removed by another she vanishes. These things go to show that suchsupernatural beings cannot themselves undo charms expressly performedagainst them. So evil spirits cannot penetrate a circle drawn around himby one who invokes them. So, too, the sign of the cross is an efficientprotection against them; and it is therefore made upon churches andaltars at the time of consecration. 

But the stipulation made by the lady of Corwrion was twofold. Not onlywas her bridegroom to forbear striking her with iron, but he was noteven to know her name. It is so difficult for us to put ourselves intothe mental attitude of savages, that we do not understand the objectionthey almost all entertain to the mention of their names. The objectionitself is, however, well known and widely spread; but it is not alwaysmanifested in exactly the same form. In some cases a man only refuses toutter his own name, while he will utter another's name readily enough. Sometimes it is deemed an unpardonable thing to call another by name; hemust be addressed, or spoken of by an epithet. And frequently a man'sreal name is a profound secret, known only to himself, all othersknowing him only by some epithet or title. Sometimes it is onlyforbidden to relatives by marriage to speak one another's names. Thus invarious ways etiquette has prescribed a number of customs limiting theutterance of names among savage and barbarous peoples all the worldover. The origin of these rules and customs seems to have been the dreadof sorcery. A personal name was held to be a part of its owner; and, just as the possession of a lock of another's hair, or even a paring ofhis nail, was believed to confer power over him, so was the knowledge ofhis name. Similarly men in the lower culture have a great fear of havingtheir likenesses taken; and everybody is familiar with the belief that awitch, who has made a waxen image and given it the name of any one whomshe wants to injure, can, by sticking pins in it, or melting it in aflame, inflict pain, and even death, upon the person whom the dollrepresents. [220]

Illustrations of this superstition might easily be multiplied from everynation under heaven. But we need not go so far afield; for if we comparethe taboo in the story of Corwrion with the other stories I have citedfrom the same county, we shall have no difficulty in satisfyingourselves as to its meaning. It can only belong to the stage of thoughtwhich looks with dread on the use that may be made of one's name by anenemy, --a stage of thought in which the fairy might naturally fear for aman of another race, albeit her husband, to become possessed of her realname. What else can we infer from the evident terror and grief withwhich the captive ladies hear their names from their suitors' lips? Itis clear that the knowledge of the fairy's name conferred power over herwhich she was unable to resist. This is surely the interpretation alsoof the Danish tale of a man from whom a Hill-troll had stolen no fewerthan three wives. Riding home late one night afterwards, he saw a greatcrowd of Hill-folk dancing and making merry; and among them herecognized his three wives. One of these was Kirsten, his best beloved, and he called out to her and named her name. The troll, whose name wasSkynd, or Hurry, came up to him and asked him why he presumed to callKirsten. The man explained that she had been his favourite wife, andbegged him with tears to give her back to him. The troll at lastconsented, but with the proviso that he should never hurry (_skynde_)her. For a long time the condition was observed; but one day, as she wasdelayed in fetching something for her husband from the loft, he criedout to her: "Make haste (_skynde dig_), Kirsten!" And he had hardlyspoken the words when the woman was gone, compelled to return to thetroll's abode. Here we have the phenomenon in a double form; for notonly does the husband regain his wife from the troll by pronouncing hername, but he loses her once more by inadvertently summoning her captor. It is a German superstition that a mara, or nightmare, can beeffectually exorcised if the sufferer surmises who it is, and instantlyaddresses it by name. [221] We can now understand how, in theCarmarthenshire story mentioned in Chapter VII. , the farmer was rescuedfrom the fairies under whose spell he had been for twelve months. A mancaught sight of him dancing on the mountain and broke the spell byspeaking to him. It must have been the utterance of his name that drewhim out of the enchanted circle. 

Returning, however, to the legend of Wastin, we may observe how muchnarrower and less likely to be infringed is the taboo imposed on himthan that imposed on the youth of Blaensawdde. Yet the lady of the VanPool, whatever her practice, had in theory some relics of old-fashionedwifely duty. She did not object to the chastisement which the laws ofWales allowed a husband to bestow. A husband was permitted to beat hiswife for three causes; and if on any other occasion he raised his handagainst her, she had her remedy in the shape of a _sarâd_, or fine, tobe paid to her for the disgrace. But a _sarâd_ would not satisfy thisproud lady; nothing less than a divorce would meet the case. ThePartridge's wife, as we have seen, was still more exacting: she declinedto be struck at all. In the same way the fish who had become a girl, inthe Dyak story, cautioned her husband to use her well; and when hestruck her she rushed back screaming into the water. In another Bornoesetradition, which is quoted by Mr. Farrer, the heroine is taken up to thesky because her husband had struck her, there having been no previousprohibition. [222] A different sort of personal violence is resented inthe Bantik legend cited above. There the husband is forbidden to tearout one white hair which adorns Outahagi, his wife's head. He disobeysafter she has given birth to a son; and she vanishes in a tempest andreturns to the sky, where her husband is forced to seek her again. 

The stipulation made by Wild Edric's bride is still more arbitrary, according to our notions, than these. Her husband was forbidden toreproach her on account of her sisters, or the place from which hesnatched her away. In other words, he was forbidden to charge her withher supernatural character. When Diarmaid, the daughter of KingUnderwaves, comes in the form of a beggar to Fionn and insists onsharing his couch, she becomes a beautiful girl, and consents to marryhim on condition that he does not say to her thrice how he found her. Ina variant, the hero, going out shooting, meets with a hare, which, whenhard pressed by the dogs, turns into a woman. She promises to wed him onhis entering into three vows, namely, not to ask his king to a feastwithout first letting her know (a most housewifely proviso), not to castup to her in any company that he found her in the form of a hare, andnot to leave her in the company of only one man. Both these are WestHighland tales; and in the manner of the taboo they closely resemblethat given by Map. In an Illyrian story, a Vila is by a youth found onemorning sleeping in the grass. He is astonished at her beauty, andplants a shade for her. When she wakes she is pleased, and asks what hewants for such kindness. He asks nothing less than to take her to wife;and she is content, but, avowing herself a Vila, forbids him to utterthat name, for if he should do so she must quit him at once. Keats hasglorified one of these stories by his touch; and it was a true instinctthat guided him to make Lamia's disappearance follow, not on Apollonius'denunciation of her real character, but on the echo of the words "Aserpent!" by her astounded husband, Lycius. What matter that thephilosopher should make a charge against her? It was only when her loverrepeated the foul word that she forsook him. The nightmare-wife in oneof the stories mentioned in the last chapter vanishes, it will beremembered, on being reproached with her origin, and in another on beingasked how she became a nightmare; and the lady in the Esthonian talewarns her husband against calling her Mermaid. In this connection it isobvious to refer to the euphemistic title Eumenides, bestowed by theGreeks on the Furies, and to the parallel names, Good People and FairFamily, for fays in this country. In all these cases the thought isdistinguishable from that of the Carnarvonshire sagas; for the offenceis not given by the utterance of a personal name, but by incautious useof a generic appellation which conveys reproach, if not scorn. [223]

The heroine of a saga of the Gold Coast was really a fish, but was inthe form of a woman. Her husband had sworn to her that he would notallude in any way to her home or her relatives; and, relying on thispromise, his wife had disclosed her true nature to him and taken himdown to her home. He was kindly received there, but was speared by somefishermen, and only with difficulty rescued by his new relatives, whoenjoined him when he returned to earth with his wife to keep thespearhead carefully concealed. It was, however, found and claimed by itsowner; and to escape the charge of theft the husband reluctantlynarrated the whole adventure. No evil consequences immediately ensuedfrom this breach of his vow. But he had lately taken a second wife; andshe one day quarrelled with the first wife and taunted her with being afish. Upbraiding her husband for having revealed the secret, the latterplunged into the sea and resumed her former shape. So in the Pawneestory of The Ghost Wife, a wife who had died is persuaded by her husbandto come back from the Spirit Land to dwell again with himself and herchild. All goes well until he takes a second wife, who turns outill-tempered and jealous of the first wife. Quarrelling with her oneday, she reproaches the latter with being nothing but a ghost. The nextmorning when the husband awoke, his first wife was no longer by hisside. She had returned to the Spirit Land; and the following night bothhe and the child died in their sleep--called by the first wife toherself. [224] These sagas bring us back to that of Melusina, whodisappears, it will be recollected, not when the count, her husband, breaks the taboo, but when, by calling her a serpent, he betrays hisguilty knowledge. 

A name, indeed, is the cause of offence and disappearance in many otherof these stories. The chieftain of the Quins, who owned the Castle ofInchiquin on the lake of that name, near the town of Ennis in Ireland, found in one of the many caves of the neighbourhood a lady who consentedto become his bride, only stipulating that no one bearing the name ofO'Brien should be allowed to enter the castle gate. When thisprohibition was infringed she sprang through a window with her childinto the lake. The property has long since passed into the hands of theO'Briens; and amid the ruins of the castle the fatal window is stillshown nearly as perfect as when the supernatural lady leaped through itinto the waters. It may be safely said that the primitive form of thetaboo has not come down to us in this tale, and that it owes itspresent form to the fact that the O'Briens have acquired the estatesonce owned by the Quins. Probably the utterance of some hateful name wasforbidden. But whatever name may have been able to disturb theequanimity of the Lady of Inchiquin, we are now familiar enough withthese superstitions to understand why a holy name should be tabooed bythe goat-footed fairy wife of Don Diego Lopez in the Spanish talenarrated by Sir Francis Palgrave. "Holy Mary!" exclaimed the Don, as hewitnessed an unexpected quarrel among his dogs, "who ever saw the like?"His wife, without more ado, seized her daughter and glided through theair to her native mountains. Nor did she ever return, though sheafterwards, at her son's request, supplied an enchanted horse to releaseher husband when in captivity to the Moors. In two Norman variants thelady forbids the utterance in her presence of the name of Death. [225]

These high-born heroines had, forsooth, highly developed sensibilities. The wife of a Teton (the Tetons are a tribe of American natives)deserted him, abandoned her infant to her younger brother's care, andplunged into a stream, where she became what we call a mermaid, --and allbecause her husband had scolded her. In another American tale, where thewife was a snake, she deserted him from jealousy. A Tirolese saga speaksof a man who had a wife of unknown extraction. She had bidden him, whenever she baked bread, to pour water for her with his right hand. Hepoured it once with the left, to see what would happen. He soon saw, tohis cost; for she flew out of the house. The Queen of Sheba, accordingto a celebrated Arab writer, was the daughter of the King of China and aPeri. Her birth came about on this wise. Her father, hunting, met twosnakes, a black one and a white, struggling together in deadly combat. He killed the black one, and caused the white one to be carefullycarried to his palace and into his private apartment. On entering theroom the next day, he was surprised to find a lovely lady, who announcedherself as a Peri, and thanked him for delivering her the day beforefrom her enemy, the black snake. As a proof of her gratitude she offeredhim her sister in marriage, subject, however, to the proviso that heshould never question her why she did this or that, else she wouldvanish, never to be seen again. The king agreed, and had every reason tobe pleased with his beautiful bride. A son was born to them; but thelady put it in the fire. The king wept and tore his beard, but saidnothing. Then a daughter of singular loveliness--afterwards Balkis, Queen of Sheba--was born: a she-bear appeared at the door, and themother flung her babe into its jaws. The king tore out not only hisbeard, but the hair of his head, in silence. A climax, however, camewhen, in the course of a war, he and his army had to effect a sevendays' march across a certain desert. On the fifth day came the queen, alarge knife in her hand, and, slitting the provision-bags and thewaterskins, strewed the whole of the food upon the ground, and broughtthe king and his army face to face with death. Her husband could nolonger restrain himself from questioning her. Then she told him that hisvizier, bribed by the enemy, had poisoned the food and water in order todestroy him and his army, and that his son had a constitutional defectwhich would have prevented him from living three days if she had not puthim in the fire. The she-bear, who was no other than a trusty old nurse, brought back his daughter at her call; but the queen herselfdisappeared, and he saw her no more. The Nereid in the Cretan talereferred to in Chapter IX obstinately refused to speak, although herlover had fairly conquered her. But after she bore him a son, the oldwoman of whom he had previously taken counsel advised him to heat theoven and threaten his mistress that if she would not speak he wouldthrow the boy into it. The Nereid seized the babe, and, crying out: "Letgo my child, dog!" tore it from his arms and vanished. It is related byApollodorus that Thetis, who was also a Nereid, wished to make her sonimmortal. To this end she buried him in fire by night to burn out hishuman elements, and anointed him with ambrosia by day. Peleus, herhusband, was not informed of the reason for this lively proceeding; and, seeing his child in the fire, he called out. Thetis, thus thwarted, abandoned both husband and child in disgust, and went back to her nativeelement. In the great Sanskrit epic of the Mahábhárata we are told thatKing Sántanu, walking by a riverside one day, met and fell in love witha beautiful girl, who told him that she was the river Ganges, and couldonly marry him on condition that he never questioned her conduct. Tothis he, with a truly royal gallantry, agreed; and she bore him severalchildren, all of whom she threw into the river as soon as they wereborn. At last she bore him a boy, Bhíshma; and her husband begged her tospare his life, whereupon she instantly changed into the river Gangesand flowed away. Incompatibility of temper, as evidenced by three simpledisagreements, was a sufficient ground of divorce for the fairy of LlynNelferch, in the parish of Ystradyfodwg, in Glamorganshire, from herhuman husband. In a variant of the Maori sagas, to which I have morethan once referred, the lady quits her spouse in disgust because heturns out _not_ to be a cannibal, as she had hoped from his truculentname, Kai-tangata, or man-eater. Truly a heartrending instance ofmisplaced confidence![226]

Many of these stories belong to the Star's Daughter type, --that is tosay, are wanting in the taboo. But in every variant of the Swan-maidengroup, to whatsoever type it may belong, the catastrophe is inevitablefrom the beginning. Whether or not it depends on the breach of anexplicit taboo, it is equally the work of doom. A legend of the Loo-ChooIslands expresses this feeling in its baldest form. A farmer sees abright light in his well, and, on drawing near, beholds a woman divingand washing in the water. Her clothes, strange in shape and of a ruddysunset colour, are hanging on a pine-tree near at hand. He takes them, and thus compels her to marry him. She lives with him for ten years, bearing him a son and a daughter. At the end of that time her fate isfulfilled; she ascends a tree during her husband's absence, and, havingbidden her children farewell, glides off on a cloud and disappears. Bothin its approximation to the Hasan of Bassorah type and in itsattributing the separation of husband and wife to fate, this tale agreesremarkably with the Lay of Weyland Smith, where we are told: "From thesouth through Mirkwood, to fulfil their fates, the young fairy maidensflew. The southern ladies alighted to rest on the sea-strand, and fellto spinning their goodly linen. First Allrune, Cear's fair daughter, took Egil to her bright bosom. The second, Swanwhite, took Slagfin. ButLathgund, her sister, clasped the white neck of Weyland. Seven wintersthey stayed there in peace, but the eighth they began to pine, the ninththey must needs part. The young fairy maidens hastened to Mirkwood tofulfil their fates. " A Vidyádhari, too, who, in the Kathá-sarit-ságara, is caught in the orthodox manner, dwells with a certain ascetic untilshe brings forth a child. She then calmly remarks to her holy paramour:"My curse has been brought to an end by living with you. If you desireto see any more of me, cook this child of mine with rice and eat it; youwill then be reunited to me!" Having said this, she vanished. Theascetic followed her directions, and was thus enabled to fly after her. In one of the New Zealand variants we are told that the time came forWhai-tiri to return to her home. The same thing is indicated to the wifein a Tirolese tale by means of a voice, which her husband hears as hepasses through the forest. The voice cried: "Tell Mao that Mamao isdead. " When he repeated this to his wife she disappeared; and he neversaw or heard of her after. In view of these narratives there can belittle doubt as to the meaning of the Arab tradition of the she-demon, from whom one of the clans was descended. Her union with their humanfather came suddenly to an end when she beheld a flash oflightning. [227]

The Star's Daughter, however, returned to the sky because she washomesick. Nor is she the only heroine of these tales who did so; buthomesick heroines are not very interesting, and I pass to one who had anobler reason for quitting her love. The saga is told at Rarotonga of agirl of dazzling white complexion who came up out of a fountain and wascaught. She became the wife of a chief. It was the custom of theinhabitants of the world from which she came to perform the Cæsareanoperation on females who were ready to give birth; so that the birth ofa child involved the mother's death. When she found on the earth, to hersurprise, that by allowing nature to take its course the mother as wellas the child was saved, she persuaded her husband to go with her to thelower world to endeavour to put a stop to the cruel custom. He was readyto accompany her; but after five several efforts to dive with herthrough the fountain to the regions below he was obliged to abandon theattempt. Sorrowfully embracing each other, the "peerless one" said: "Ialone will go to the spirit-world to teach what I have learnt from you. "At this she again dived down into the clear waters, and was never moreseen on earth. [228]

It will not have escaped the reader's attention, that among the morebackward races the taboo appears generally simpler in form, or is absentaltogether. Among most, if not all, of the peoples who tell storieswherein this is the case, the marriage bonds are of the loosestdescription; and there is, therefore, nothing very remarkable in thesupernatural bride's conduct. We might expect to find that as advancesare made in civilization, and marriage becomes more regarded, the reasonfor separation would become more and more complex and cogent. Am I goingtoo far in suggesting that the resumption by the bride of her bird orbeast shape marks a stage in the development of the myth beyond theStar's Daughter type; and the formal taboo, where the human figure isnot abandoned, a stage later still? In our view, indeed, the taboo isnot less irrational, as a means of putting an end to the marriage, thanthe retrieved robe or skin. But we forget how recent in civilization isthe sanctity of the marriage-tie. Even among Christian nations divorcewas practised during the Middle Ages for very slight reasons, despitethe authority of popes and priests. In Eastern countries the husband hasalways had little check on his liberty of putting away a wife for anycause, or no cause at all; and, though unrecognized by the religiousbooks, which have enforced the husband's rights with so stern asanction, this liberty on his part may have been counter-balanced, oftener than we think, by corresponding liberty on the wife's part. Beyond doubt this has been so in India, where it is effected by meansof marriage settlements. In Bengal, for instance, a bridegroom issometimes compelled to execute a deed in which he stipulates never toscold his wife, the penalty being a divorce; and deeds are not unknownempowering the wife to get a divorce if her husband ever so much asdisagree with her. [229] This is incompatibility of temper with avengeance! Even the fairy of Llyn Nelferch was willing to put up withtwo disagreements; and no taboo in story has gone, or could go, further. 

Moreover, some of the taboos are such as the etiquette of variouspeoples would entirely approve, though breaches of them might not bevisited so severely as in the tales. I have already pointed out that theLady of the Van Pool would have had a legal remedy for blows withoutcause. The romance lies in the wide interpretation she gave to theblows, and their disproportionate punishment. These transfer thehearer's sympathies from the wife to the husband. Precisely parallelseems to be the injunction laid upon Hohodemi, by Toyotamahime, daughterof the Sea-god. I know not what may be the rule in Japan; but it isprobably not different from that which obtains in China. There, as welearn from the Li Kì, one of the Confucian classics, a wife inToyotamahime's condition would, even among the poor, be placed in aseparate apartment; and her husband, though it would be his duty to sendtwice a day to ask after her, would not see her, nor apparently enterher room until the child was presented to him to be named. Curiouslyenough the prohibition in the Japanese tale is identical with thatimposed by Pressina, herself a water-fay, the mother of Melusina, according to the romance of Jean d'Arras written at the end of thefourteenth century. Melusina and the Esthonian mermaid laid down anotherrule: they demanded a recurring period during which they would be freefrom marital intrusion. India is not Europe; but it cannot be thoughtquite irrelevant to observe that much more than this is commonly securedto a bride in many parts of India. For by the marriage settlement it isexpressly agreed that she is to go to her father's house as often as shelikes; and if her husband object, she is empowered in the deed to bringan action against him for false imprisonment. [230]

Here we may leave the subject of the taboo. Something, however, must besaid on the Swan-maiden as divine ancestress. But first of all, let meadvert to one or two cases where divinity is ascribed withoutprogenitorship. The Maori heroine and her husband are worshipped. Theydo not appear to be considered actual parents of any New Zealand clan;but the husband at all events would be deemed one of the same blood. Passing over to New Guinea, we find a remarkable saga concerning themoon. The moon is a daughter of the earth, born by the assistance of anative of the village of Keile, about twenty miles to the eastward ofPort Moresby. A long while ago, digging deeper than usual, he came upona round, smooth, silvery, shining object, which, after he had got it outand lifted it up, grew rapidly larger and larger until it floated away. He set out to search for it; nor did he desist until one day he cameupon a large pool in the river and found a beautiful woman bathing. Onthe bank lay her grass petticoat where she had cast it off. He sat downupon it; and when her attention was attracted to him by his dogs, theyrecognized one another. She was the moon, and he was the man who had dugher up out of the earth; and he claimed her as his wife. "If I marryyou, " she replied, "you must die; but as you have touched my clothes youmust die in any case, and so for one day I will marry you, and then youmust go home to your village and prepare for death. " Accordingly theywere married for one day; and the man then went home, made his funeralfeast and died. The moon in due course married the sun, as it was herdoom to do; but his intolerable jealousies rendered their union sowretched that they at last agreed to see as little of one another aspossible. This accounts for their conduct ever since. An Annamite legendrelates that a woodcutter found some fairies bathing at a lovelyfountain. He took possession of the raiment of one, and hid it at thebottom of his rice-barn. In this way he compelled its owner to becomehis wife; and they lived together happily for some years. Their son wasthree years old when, in her husband's absence, she sold their stock ofrice. On clearing out the barn her clothes were found. She bade farewellto the child, left her comb stuck in his collar, donned her clothes andflew away. When her husband returned and learned how matters stood, hetook his son and repaired to the fountain, where happily they fell inwith some of his wife's servants who were sent thither to draw water. Engaging them in conversation, he caused his son to drop the comb intoone of the water-jars. By this means his wife recognized them, and sentan enchanted handkerchief which enabled him to fly and follow herservants to her home. After awhile she sent him and her son back to theearth, promising to get permission in a short time to return and livewith them. By the carelessness of one of her servants, however, bothfather and son were dropped into the sea and drowned. Apprised of thecatastrophe by ravens, the fairy transformed her servant, by way ofpunishment, into--or according to a variant, became herself--the morningstar, while father and son became the evening star. And now the morningstar and the evening star perpetually seek one another, but never againcan they meet. [231]

Turning to the instances where ancestry is claimed, we find that thechiefs of the Ati clan are descended from "the peerless one" ofRarotonga. The Arawàk Indians of Guiana reckon descent in the femaleline. One of their families takes its name from its foremother, thewarlock's daughter who was provided with the dogskin mentioned on aprevious page. Another family deduces its name and pedigree from anearth-spirit married to one of its ancestors; but it does not appearwhether any Swan-maiden myth attaches to her. The fish _puttin_ issacred among the Dyaks. On no account will they eat it, because theywould be eating their relations, for they are descended from the ladywhose first and last form was a _puttin_. In other words, the _puttin_is their totem. A family of the town of Chama on the Gold Coast claimsin like manner to be descended from the fish-woman of whose story I havegiven an outline; and a legend to the same effect is current at theneighbouring town of Appam; nor in either instance do the members of thefamily dare to eat of the fish of the kind to which they believe theirancestress belonged. The totem superstition is manifest in the case ofthe Phoenician, or Babylonian, goddess Derceto, who was represented aswoman to the waist and thence downward fish. She was believed to havebeen a woman, the mother of Semiramis, and to have thrown herself indespair into a lake. Her worshippers abstained from eating fish; thoughfish were offered to her in sacrifice, and golden fish suspended in hertemple. Melusina was the mother of the family of Lusignan. She used toappear and shriek on one of the castle towers as often as the head ofthe family, or a King of France, was to die, or when any disaster wasabout to happen to the realm, or to the town of Luxemburg. She was alsothe author of certain presages of plenty or famine. Similar legends aretold of the castles of Argouges and Rânes in Normandy. If the IrishBanshee tales could be minutely examined, it is probable that they wouldresolve themselves into stories of supernatural ancestresses. To theVila of the Illyrian story, and the fairy of Sir Francis Palgrave'sSpanish story, noble families attribute their origin. A family in theTirol is descended from the lady who insisted on her husband's pouringwater with his right hand; and the members of a noble Greek family havethe blood of a Nereid in their veins. [232]

Though the heroine of the Van Pool might never return to her husband, she was drawn back to earth by the care of her three sons, who, by meansof her instructions, became celebrated physicians. On one occasion sheaccompanied them to a place still called Pant-y-Meddygon (the hollow, ordingle, of the physicians), and there pointed out to them the variousherbs which grew around, and revealed their medicinal virtues. It isadded that, in order that their knowledge should not be lost, thephysicians wisely committed the same to writing for the benefit ofmankind throughout all ages. A collection of medical recipes purportingto be this very work still exists in a manuscript preserved at JesusCollege, Oxford, which is now in course of publication by Professor Rhysand Mr. J. Gwenogvryn Evans, and is known as the Red Book of Hergest. Anedition of the "Meddygon Myddfai, " as this collection is called, waspublished by the Welsh MSS. Society thirty years ago, with an Englishtranslation. It professes to have been written under the direction ofRhiwallon the Physician and his sons Kadwgan, Gruffydd, and Einion; andthey are called "the ablest and most eminent of the physicians of theirtime and of the time of Rhys Gryg, their lord, and the lord of Dinevor, the nobleman who kept their rights and privileges whole unto them, aswas meet. " This nobleman was Prince of South Wales in the early part ofthe thirteenth century; and his monumental effigy is in the cathedralof St. David's. Mr. Gwenogvryn Evans, than whom there is no higherauthority, is of opinion that the manuscript was written at the end ofthe fourteenth century--that is to say, about two hundred years afterthe date at which the marriage between the youth of Blaensawdde and hisfairy love is alleged to have taken place; and it is believed by theeditor of the published volume to be a copy of a still more ancientmanuscript now in the British Museum. Yet it contains no reference tothe legend of the Van Pool. The volume in question includes a transcriptof another manuscript of the work, which is ascribed in the colophon toHowel the Physician, who, writing in the first person, claims to be"regularly descended in the male line from the said Einion, the son ofRhiwallon, the physician of Myddfai, being resident in Cilgwryd, inGower. " This recension of the work is much later in date than theformer. A portion of it cannot be older than the end of the fifteenthcentury; and the manuscript from which it was printed was probably theresult of accretions extending over a long period of time, down to theyear 1743, when it was copied "from the book of John Jones, Physician ofMyddfai, the last lineal descendant of the family. " The remedies itcontains, though many of them are antique enough, and superstitiousenough, are of various dates and sources; and, so far from beingattributed to a supernatural origin, they are distinctly said to "havebeen proved to be the best and most suitable for the human body throughthe research and diligent study of Rhiwallon" and his three sons. Thenegative evidence of the "Meddygon Myddfai, " therefore, tends to showthat the connection of the Van Pool story with the Physicians is ofcomparatively recent date. [233]

And yet it is but natural (if we may use such an expression) that amythical creature like the Lady of the Lake should be the progenitor ofan extraordinary offspring. Elsewhere we have seen her sisters thetotems of clans, the goddesses of nations, the parents of great familiesand renowned personages. Melusina gave birth to monsters of ugliness andevil, [234] and through them to a long line of nobles. So the heroine ofthe Llanberis legend had two sons and two daughters, all of whom wereremarkable. The elder son became a great physician, and all hisdescendants were celebrated for their proficiency in medicine. Thesecond son was a Welsh Tubal-cain. One of the daughters invented thesmall ten-stringed harp, and the other the spinning wheel. "Thus, " weare told, "were introduced the arts of medicine, manufactures, music, and woollen work!" If, then, there were a family at Myddfai celebratedfor their leechcraft, and possessed of lands and influence, as we knowwas the fact, their hereditary skill would seem to an ignorant peasantryto demand a supernatural origin; and their wealth and material powerwould not refuse the additional consideration which a connection withthe legend of the neighbouring pool would bring them. 

But for all that the incident of the reappearance by the mother to herchildren may have been part of the original story. The Carnarvonshirefairies of various tales analogous to that of the Van Pool are recalledby maternal love to the scenes of their wedded life; and the haplessfather hears his wife's voice outside the window chanting pathetically:

 "If my son should feel it cold, Let him wear his father's coat; If the fair one feel the cold, Let her wear my petticoat!"

Whatever he may have thought of these valuable directions, they hardlyseem to us sufficient to have brought the lady up from "the bottomlesspool of Corwrion" to utter. There is more sense in the mother's song ina Kaffir tale. This woman was not of purely supernatural origin. She wasborn in consequence of her (human) mother's eating pellets given her bya bird. Married to a chief by whom she was greatly beloved, it wasnoticed that she never went out of doors by day. In her husband'sabsence her father-in-law forced her to go and fetch water from theriver for him in the daytime. Like the woman by the waters of the Rhone, she was drawn down into the river. That evening her child criedpiteously; and the nurse took it to the stream in the middle of thenight, singing:

 "It is crying, it is crying, The child of Sihamba Ngenyanga; It is crying, it will not be pacified. "

The mother thereupon came out of the water, and wailed this song as sheput the child to her breast:

 "It is crying, it is crying, The child of the walker by moonlight. It was done intentionally by people whose names are unmentionable. [235] They sent her for water during the day. She tried to dip with the milk-basket, and then it sank. Tried to dip with the ladle, and then it sank. Tried to dip with the mantle, and then it sank. "

The result of the information conveyed in these words was her ultimaterecovery by her husband with the assistance of her mother, who was askilful sorceress. [236]

A Finnish tale belonging to the Cinderella group represents the heroineas changed into a reindeer-cow by an ogress who takes her place as wifeand mother. But her babe will not be comforted; so a woman, to whosecare he is committed, carries him into the forest, and sings thefollowing incantation:

 "Little blue eyes, little red-fell, Come thou thine own son to suckle, Feed whom thou hast given birth to! Of that cannibal nought will he, Never drinks from that bloodsucker; For her breasts to him are loathsome, Nor can hunger drive him to them. "

The reindeer cannot withstand this appeal. She casts her skin, and comesin human form to suckle her child. This results, after two repetitionsin the husband's burning the reindeer hide and clasping her in his arms. But, like Peleus, he has to hold her fast in spite of varioustransformations, until he has overcome the charm and has her once morein her pristine shape![237]

It was not strength so much as boldness and tenacity that conqueredhere. In the Kaffir story the husband's first attempt to pull his wifeout of the water by sheer force failed. Thus, too, in one of theTirolese stories already mentioned the husband lies in wait for his wifewhen she returns, as usual, to comb her little girl's hair on aSaturday. He catches her by the arm as she enters; and she tells himthat if he can hold her for a little while she must stay: otherwise shewill never come again. All his strength is, however, too little tostruggle successfully with her. The mother's visits to her children are, indeed, a frequent sequel to the story; and occasionally the tie whichcompels her to return is taken advantage of by the forsaken husband toobtain possession of her again. But fraud, not force, is the meansemployed, as in the Lapp story of the Maiden out of the Sea, where themermaid's clothes are once more confiscated. In a legend of Llyn yDywarchen (the Lake of the Sod), not very far from Beddgelert, thewater-nymph subsequently appears to her husband, conversing with himfrom a floating turf while he stands on the shore. Here the motive ofthe reappearance is the unusual one of conjugal, rather than parental, affection. [238]

I must not omit to add that the first Sunday in August is kept in theneighbourhood of the Van Pool as the anniversary of the fairy's returnto the lake. It is believed that annually on that day a commotion takesplace in the lake; its waters boil to herald the approach of the ladywith her oxen. It was, and still is (though in decreasing force), thecustom for large numbers of people to make a pilgrimage to witness thephenomenon; and it is said that the lady herself appears in mermaid formupon the surface, and combs her tresses. I have little doubt that inthis superstition we have the relic of a religious festival in honour ofan archaic divinity whose abode was in the lake. She has, perhaps, onlyescaped being an enchanted princess by being a Welsh rather than aGerman goddess. If the mermaid form be of genuine antiquity, --aboutwhich I confess to a lurking suspicion, --it is another bond with theScottish stories, with Melusina and with Derceto. [239]

We have now considered the principal points of the myth. Thefeather-robe, or skin, we found absent from all its more archaicexamples. There, no change of form occurs, or when it does occur it isaccomplished by simple transformation. When present, the robe is a meresymbol of the lady's superhuman nature, or else the result ofenchantment. These are more recent types, and are all, or nearly all, _märchen_. In the later sagas, such as those of Melusina and the Lady ofthe Van Pool, it is again absent; though relics of the change of formfrequently remain. 

Capture of the Swan-maiden proper is effected by theft of her robe: inother types either by main force, or more frequently with her consent, more or less willingly given, or by her own initiative. 

We then passed to the more important subject of the taboo. The taboo, strictly speaking, only appears where the peltry is absent. Several ofits forms correspond with rules of antique etiquette. Others recallspecial points connected with savage life, such as the dislike of ironand steel, and the prejudice against the mention of a personal name. Other prohibitions are against reproaching the wife with her origin, against reminding her of her former condition, or against questioningher conduct or crossing her will. But whether the taboo be present orabsent, the loss of the wife is equally inevitable, equally foreseenfrom the beginning. It is the doom of the connection between a simpleman and a superhuman female. Even where the feather-robe is absent thetaboo is not always found. Among savages the marriage-bond is often veryloose: notably in the more backward races. And among these thesuperhuman wife's excuse for flight is simpler; and sometimes it is onlyan arbitrary exercise of will. The taboo grows up with the advance incivilization. 

Lastly, we considered the Swan-maiden as divine ancestress. We found herresident in heaven, we found her worshipped, we found her as the totemof a clan. The totemistic stories are widely spread, --so widely, indeed, as to afford a presumption that we have in them a clue to the wholemeaning of the myth. For not only have we the complete totemistic form, as among the Dyaks and the tribes of the Gold Coast; but we find thesuperstition fading through the goddess Derceto into modern sagas of thesupernatural mother of a family, who to her sometimes owe extraordinarypowers, and over whose fate she continually watches. 

Here, then, our study of this beautiful myth must close. I am far fromsuggesting that the subject is exhausted. On the contrary, it is solarge and so complex that I have rigidly abstained from anything morethan a very imperfect examination of its principal features. On some ofthe points here partially discussed I shall have something more to addin our final chapter, when discussing certain theories on the fairybeliefs. 

FOOTNOTES:

[202] Grey, p. 66; Taylor, p. 138; White, vol. I. Pp. 95, 115, _etseqq. _, vol. Ii. P. 127, _et seqq_. 

[203] "F. L. Journal, " vol. I. P. 202; "Revue des Trad. Pop. " vol. Iv. P. 305. 

[204] Von Hahn, vol. Ii. P. 78. In illustration of these remarks onmarital relations in a society where female kinship only is recognized, let me quote the following paragraph concerning Maori customs. TheMaories, it must be borne in mind, have only recently emerged from thisstage; and many relics of it remain. 

"Sometimes the father simply told his intended son-in-law he might comeand live with his daughter; she was thenceforth considered his wife, helived with his father-in-law, and became one of the tribe, or _hapu_, towhich his wife belonged, and in case of war, was often obliged to fightagainst his own relatives. So common is the custom of the bridegroomgoing to live with his wife's family, that it frequently occurs, when herefuses to do so, she will leave him, and go back to her relatives;several instances came under my notice where young men have tried tobreak through this custom, and have so lost their wives" (Taylor, p. 337). 

[205] Not entirely: see Burton, "Suppl. Nights, " vol. Vi. P. 363; "F. L. Journal, " vol. I. P. 284; Sastri, p. 148. 

[206] In speaking of a type as more or less recent than another, it mustbe recollected that I am not speaking of chronological order, but of theorder of development. For aught we know, the story of the Marquis of theSun may as a matter of date be actually older, could we trace it, thanthe far more archaic story of Tawhaki. But the society in which it tookshape was more advanced than that disclosed in the Maori legend. 

[207] Webster, p. 120; Campbell, vol. I. P. 25; "Mélusine, " vol. I. P. 446; "F. L. Españ. " vol. I. P. 187; Schneller, p. 71; Imbriani, p. 411;Cosquin, vol. I. Pp. 9, 25; Sébillot, "Contes, " vol. I. P. 197;Grundtvig, vol. I. P. 46; Cavallius, p. 255; Maspons y Labros, p. 102;"F. L. Journal, " vol. I. P. 284, quoting Lewis. 

[208] Waldau, p. 248; Ralston, "R. F. Tales, " p. 120, from Afanasief. 

[209] Compare the assistance rendered by the birds to Tini-rau, _suprà_, p. 286. The Eskimo hero is conveyed to his wife on a salmon's tail(Rink, p. 145). Where is the Buddhist pedigree of this incident, or theevidence of Buddhist influence which produced it?

[210] Sastri, p. 80; Cosquin, vol. Ii. Pp. 19, 18; Ralston, "TibetanTales, " p. 72; "F. L. Journal, " vol. Ii. P. 9; Vernaleken, p. 280. 

[211] "F. L. Journal, " vol. Vii. P. 318; Pitré, vol. Iv. Pp. 391, 410. Avariant given by Prof. De Gubernatis is nearly allied to the Cinderellagroup ("Novelline, " p. 29); Brett, p. 176. 

[212] Basset, p. 161, quoting Bresnier, "Cours de langue Arabe. " In aMaya story given by Dr. Brinton, the husband prevents his wife'stransformation in a different way--namely, by throwing salt ("F. L. Journal, " vol. I. P. 251). 

[213] "Journ. Ethnol. Soc. " N. S. , vol. Ii. P. 26; Giles, _passim_;Brauns, p. 388. 

[214] "Y Cymmrodor, " vol. V. P. 94. 

[215] Map, Dist. Ii. C. 11. 

[216] Map, Dist. Ii. C. 12. 

[217] "Y Cymmrodor, " vol. Iv. P. 201. Nothing turns on the actual namesin these stories; they have been evidently much corrupted, --probablypast all recognition. 

[218] Ibid. P. 189; vol. V. Pp. 59, 66; vol. Vi. P. 196. 

[219] Pliny l. Xvi. C. 95; Thorpe, vol. Ii. Pp. 275, 277; Stephens, p. 248, citing the "Barzas Breiz. "

[220] The above paragraphs had scarcely been written when the Londonpapers (June 1890) reprinted extracts from a letter in the _VossischeZeitung_ relating the adventures of Dr. Bayol, the Governor of Kotenon, who was recently imprisoned by the bloodthirsty King of Dahomey. Theking was too suspicious to sign the letter written in his name to thePresident of the French Republic. In all probability he was unwilling tolet the President have his sign manual, for of course M. Carnot wouldhave no hesitation in bewitching him by its means. 

[221] Keightley, p. 121, quoting from Thiele; Thorpe, vol. Iii. P. 155. 

[222] Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales (Public Record Comm. , 1841)pp. 44, 252. (The Dimetian code was the one in force at Myddfai; butthat of Gwynedd was similar in this respect. ) Farrer, p. 256. 

[223] Campbell, vol. Iii. P. 403; Mac Innes, p. 211; Wratislaw, p. 314. _Cf. _ a similar story told by a peasant to Dr. Krauss' mother no longerago than 1888, as having recently happened at Mrkopolje: he "knew theparties!" (Krauss, "Volksgl. " p. 107). 

[224] Ellis, p. 208; Grinnell, p. 129. 

[225] "Choice Notes, " p. 96; _cf. _ Jahn, p. 364, cited above, p. 279. (Kennedy relates the story of the Lady of Inchiquin differently. According to him the husband was never to invite company to the castle. This is probably more modern than the other version. Kennedy, p. 282. )Keightley, p. 458, quoting the _Quarterly Review_, vol. Xxii. SirFrancis Palgrave, though an accurate writer, was guilty of theunpardonable sin of invariably neglecting to give his authorities. Ibid. P. 485, quoting Mdlle. Bosquet, "La Normandie Romanesque. "

[226] "Journal Amer. F. L. " vol ii. P. 137; vol. I. P. 76; Schneller, p. 210; "Rosenöl, " vol. I. P. 162; Child, vol. I. P. 337, quoting Schmidtand Apollodorus; "Panjab N. & Q. , " vol. Ii. P. 207. (In this form thestory is found as a tradition, probably derived from the Mahábhárata. )"Trans. Aberd. Eistedd. " p. 225; White, vol. I. P. 126. 

[227] Dennys, p. 140; "Corpus Poet. Bor. " vol. I. P. 168;"Kathá-sarit-ságara, " vol. Ii. P. 453, _cf. _ p. 577; White, vol. I. P. 88; Schneller, p. 210; Robertson Smith, p. 50. 

[228] Gill, p. 265. 

[229] "Indian N. & Q. " vol. Iv. P. 147. 

[230] "Sacred Books of the East, " vol. Xxvii. Pp. 471, 475, 476; "IndianN. & Q. " vol. Iv. P. 147. 

[231] Romilly, p. 134; Landes, p. 123. 

[232] Bent, p. 13. The Nereids in modern Greek folklore are conceived inall points as Swan-maidens. They fly through the air by means of magicalraiment (Schmidt, p. 133). 

[233] See my article on the "Meddygon Myddfai, " entitled "Old Welsh FolkMedicine, " "Y Cymmrodor, " vol. Ix. P. 227. 

[234] A certain German family used to excuse its faults by attributingthem to a sea-fay who was reckoned among its ancestors; Birlinger, "AusSchwaben, " vol. I. P. 7, quoting the "Zimmerische Chronik. "

[235] Namely, her husband's father, whose name she was not permitted byetiquette to utter. See above, p. 309. 

[236] Theal, p. 54. The Teton lady who became a mermaid was summoned, bysinging an incantation, to suckle her child; "Journal Amer. F. L. " vol. Ii. P. 137. 

[237] Schreck, p. 71. 

[238] Poestion, p. 55; "Cymru Fu, " p. 474. 

[239] "Y Cymmrodor, " vol. Iv. P. 177, vol. Vi. P. 203. I have also madeinquiries at Ystradgynlais, in the neighbourhood of the lake, theresults of which confirm the statements of Professor Rhys'correspondents; but I have failed to elicit any further information. 

CHAPTER XII. 

CONCLUSION. 

 Retrospect--The fairies of Celtic and Teutonic races of the same nature as the supernatural beings celebrated in the traditions of other nations--All superstitions of supernatural beings explicable by reference to the conceptions of savages--Liebrecht's Ghost Theory of some Swan-maiden myths--MacRitchie's Finn Theory--The amount of truth in them--Both founded on too narrow an induction--Conclusion. 

We have in the preceding pages examined some of the principal groups oftales and superstitions relating to Fairies proper, --that is to say, theElves and Fays of Celtic and Teutonic tradition. 

Dealing in the first instance with the sagas found in this country, orin Germany, our investigations have by no means ended there; for inorder to understand these sagas, we have found occasion to refer againand again to the _märchen_, as well as the sagas, of other Europeannations, --nay, to the traditions of races as wide apart from our own ingeographical position and culture, as the South Sea Islanders, theAinos, and the Aborigines of America. And we have found among peoples inthe most distant parts of the globe similar stories and superstitions. Incidentally, too, we have learned something of the details of archaicpractices, and have found the two great divisions of Tradition, --beliefand practice, --inseparably interwoven. 

I do not pretend to have touched upon all the myths referring toFairies, as thus strictly defined; and the Kobolds and Puck, theHousehold Spirits and Mischievous Demons, have scarcely been so much asmentioned. Want of space forbids our going further. It is hoped, however, that enough has been said, not merely to give the readers anidea of the Fairy Mythology correct as far as it goes, but, beyond that, to vindicate the method pursued in the investigation, as laid down inour second chapter, by demonstrating the essential identity of humanimagination all over the world, and by tracing the stories with which wehave been dealing to a more barbarous state of society and a morearchaic plane of thought. It now remains, therefore, to recall what wehave ascertained concerning the nature and origin of the Fairies, andbriefly to consider two rival theories. 

We started from some of the ascertained facts of savage thought andsavage life. The doctrine of Spirits formed our first proposition. Thiswe defined to be the belief held by savages that man consists of bodyand spirit; that it is possible for the spirit to quit the body and roamat will in different shapes about the world, returning to the body as toits natural home; that in the spirit's absence the body sleeps, and thatit dies if the spirit return not; further, that the universe swarms withspirits embodied and disembodied, because everything in the world has aspirit, and all these spirits are analogues of the human spirit, havingthe same will and acting from the same motives; and that if by chanceany of these spirits be ejected from its body, it may continue to existwithout a body, or it may find and enter a new body, not necessarilysuch an one as it occupied before, but one quite different. The doctrineof Transformation was another of our premises: that is to say, thebelief held by savages in the possibility of a change of form whilepreserving the same identity. A third premise was the belief inWitchcraft, or the power of certain persons to cause the transformationsjust mentioned, and to perform by means of spells, or symbolic actionsand mystical words, various other feats beyond ordinary human power. Andthere were others to which I need not now refer, all of which wereassumed to be expressed in the tales and songs, and in the social andpolitical institutions, of savages. Along with these, we assumed thehypothesis of the evolution of civilization from savagery. By this Imean that just as the higher orders of animal and vegetable life havebeen developed from germs which appeared on this planet incalculableages ago; so during a past of unknown length the civilization of thehighest races of men has been gradually evolving through the variousstages of savagery and barbarism up to what we know it to-day; and soevery nation, no matter how barbarous, has arisen from a lower stagethan that in which it is found, and is on its way, if left to itsnatural processes, to something higher and better. This is an hypothesiswhich does not, of course, exclude the possibility of temporary andpartial relapses, such as we know have taken place in the history ofevery civilized country, any more than it excludes the possibility ofthe decay and death of empires; but upon the whole it claims thatprogress and not retrogression is the law of human society. Thedifferent stages of this progress have everywhere left their mark on thetales and songs, the sayings and superstitions, the social, religiousand political institutions--in other words, on the belief andpractice--of mankind. 

Starting from these premises, we have examined five groups, or cycles, of tales concerning the Fairy Mythology. We have found Fairyland veryhuman in its organization. Its inhabitants marry, sometimes amongthemselves, sometimes into mankind. They have children born to them; andthey require at such times female assistance. They steal children frommen, and leave their own miserable brats in exchange; they steal women, and sometimes leave in their stead blocks of wood, animated by magicalart, or sometimes one of themselves. In the former case the animationdoes not usually last very long, and the women is then supposed to die. Their females sometimes in turn become captive to men. Unions thusformed are, however, not lasting, until the husband has followed thewife to her own home, and conquered his right to her afresh by somegreat adventure. This is not always in the story: presumably, therefore, not always possible. On the other hand, he who enters Fairyland andpartakes of fairy food is spell-bound: he cannot return--at least formany years, perhaps for ever--to the land of men. Fairies are gratefulto men for benefits conferred, and resentful for injuries. They neverfail to reward those who do them a kindness; but their gifts usuallyhave conditions attached, which detract from their value and sometimesbecome a source of loss and misery. Nor do they forget to revengethemselves on those who offend them; and to watch them, when they do notdesire to be manifested, is a mortal offence. Their chief distinctionfrom men is in their unbounded magical powers, whereof we have hadseveral illustrations. They make things seem other than they are; theyappear and disappear at will; they make long time seem short, or shorttime long; they change their own forms; they cast spells over mortals, and keep them spell-bound for ages. 

All these customs and all these powers are asserted of the Fairiesproperly so called. And when we look at the superstitions of other racesthan the Celts and Teutons, to which our inquiries have been primarilydirected, we find the same things asserted of all sorts of creatures. Deities, ancestors, witches, ghosts, as well as animals of every kind, are endowed by the belief of nations all over the world with powersprecisely similar to those of the Fairies, and with natures and socialorganizations corresponding with those of men. These beliefs can only bereferred to the same origin as the fairy superstitions; and all ariseout of the doctrine of spirits, the doctrine of transformations, and thebelief in witchcraft, held by savage tribes. 

But here I must, at the risk of some few repetitions, notice a theory onthe subject of the Swan-maiden myth enunciated by Liebrecht. Thatdistinguished writer, in his book on Folklore, devotes a section to theconsideration of the group which has occupied us in the last twochapters, and maintains, with his accustomed wealth of allusion and hisaccustomed ingenuity, that some at least of the Swan-maidens are nothingmore nor less than ghosts of the departed, rescued from the kingdom ofdarkness for a while, but bound to return thither after a short respitehere with those whom they love. Now it is clear that if Swan-maidentales are to be resolved into ghost stories, all other supernaturalbeings, gods and devils as well as fairies and ghosts, will turn out tobe nothing but spectres of the dead. A summary of his argument, and ofthe reasons for rejecting it, will, therefore, not only fill up anyserious gaps in our discussion of the main incidents of the myth inquestion; but it will take a wider sweep, and include the whole subjectof the present volume. 

His argument, as I understand it, is based, first, on the terms of thetaboo. The object of the taboo, he thinks, is to avoid any remark beingmade, any question being asked, any object being presented, which wouldremind these spirits of their proper home, and awaken a longing theycannot withstand to return. There is an old Teutonic legend of a knightwho came in a little boat drawn by a swan to succour and wed adistressed lady, on whom he laid a charge never to ask whence he came, or in what country he was born. When she breaks this commandment theswan reappears and fetches him away. So the nightmare-wife, as we haveseen, in one of the tales vanishes on being asked how she became anightmare. Again, the fay of Argouges disappears on the name of Deathbeing mentioned in her presence. A fair maiden in an Indian tale, who isfound by the hero in the neighbourhood of a fountain, and bears the nameof Bheki (Frog), forbids her husband ever to let her see water. When sheis thirsty and begs him for water, the doom is fulfilled on his bringingit to her. A similar tale may be added from Ireland, though Liebrechtdoes not mention it. A man who lived near Lough Sheelin, in CountyMeath, was annoyed by having his corn eaten night after night. So he satup to watch; and to his astonishment a number of horses came up out ofthe lake driven by a most beautiful woman, whom he seized and induced tomarry him. She made the stipulation that she was never to be allowed tosee the lake again; and for over twenty years she lived happily withhim, till one day she strolled out to look at the haymakers, and caughtsight of the distant water. With a loud cry she flew straight to it, andvanished beneath the surface. [240]

Liebrecht's next reason is based upon the place where the maiden isfound, --a forest, or a house in the forest. In this connection he refersto the tavern, or drinking-shop, on the borders of the forest, whereWild Edric found his bride, and points to a variant of the story, alsogiven by Walter Map, in which she is said, in so many words, to havebeen snatched _from the dead_. [241] The forest, he fancies, is the placeof the dead, the underworld. Lastly, he gives numerous legends of theMiddle Ages, --some of which found their way into the "Decameron, " thatgreat storehouse of floating tales, and other literary works ofimagination, as well as into chronicles, --and instances from more modernfolklore, wherein a mistress or wife dies, or seems to die, and isburied, yet is afterwards recovered from the tomb, and lives to wed, ifa maiden, and to bear children. He supports these by references to thevampire superstitions, and to the case of Osiris, who returned afterdeath to Isis and became the father of Horus. And, following Uhland, hecompares the sleep-thorn, with which Odin pricked the Valkyrie, Brynhild, and so put her into a magic slumber, to the stake which wasdriven into the corpse suspected of being a vampire, to prevent itsrising any more from the grave and troubling the living. 

Now it may be admitted that there is much that is plausible, much eventhat is true, in this theory. It might be urged in its behalf that (aswe have had more than one occasion in the course of this work to know)Fairyland is frequently not to be distinguished from the world of thedead. Time is not known there; and the same consequences of permanentabode follow upon eating the food of the dead and the food of thefairies. Further, when living persons are stolen by fairies, mere deadimages are sometimes left in their place. These arguments, and such asthese, might well be added to Liebrecht's; and it would be hard to saythat a formidable case was not made out. And yet the theory fails totake account of some rather important considerations. Perhaps thestrongest point made--a point insisted on with great power--is that ofthe taboo. The case of the lady of Argouges is certainly very striking, though, taken by itself, it is far from conclusive. It might very wellbe that a supernatural being, in remaining here, would be obliged tosubmit to mortality, contrary perhaps to its nature; and to remind it ofthis might fill it with an irresistible impulse to fly from so horriblea fate. I do not say this is the explanation, but it is as feasible asthe other. In the Spanish story it was not the utterance of the name ofDeath, but of a holy name--the name of Mary--which compelled the wife toleave her husband. Here she was unquestionably regarded by Spanishorthodoxy, not as a spirit of the dead, but as a foul fiend, able toassume what bodily form it would, but bound to none. The prohibition ofinquiry as to the bride's former home may arise not so much from adesire to avoid the recollection, as from the resentment of impertinentcuriosity, which we have seen arouses excessive annoyance insupernatural bosoms. The resentment of equally impertinent reproaches, or a reminiscence of savage etiquette that avoids the direct name, mayaccount at least as well for other forms of the taboo. Liebrechtsuggests most ingeniously that assault and battery must strike theunhappy elf still more strongly than reproaches, as a difference betweenher present and former condition, and remind her still moreimportunately of her earlier home, and that this explains theprohibition of the "three causeless blows. " It may be so, though thereis no hint of this in the stories; and yet her former condition need nothave been that of a ghost of the dead, nor her earlier home the tomb. Byfar the greater number of these stories represent the maiden as awater-nymph; but it is the depths of the earth rather than the waterwhich are commonly regarded as the dwelling-place of the departed. Moreover, the correspondence I have tried to point out between theetiquette of various peoples and the taboo, --such, for instance, as theban upon a husband's breaking into his wife's seclusion at a delicatemoment in his family history, --would remain, on Liebrecht's theory, purely accidental. Nor would the theory account for the absence of ataboo in the lower savagery, nor for the totemistic character of thelady, nor, least of all, for the peltry which is the most picturesque, if not the most important, incident in this group of tales. 

In fact, the only direct evidence for Liebrecht's contention is thevariant of Wild Edric's legend alluded to by Map. His words are, speaking of Alnoth, Edric's son, a great benefactor of the see ofHereford: "The man whose mother vanished into air openly in the sight ofmany persons, being indignant at her husband's reproaching her that hehad carried her off by force from among the dead (_quod cam a mortuisrapuisset_). " Upon this it is to be observed that the expression heremade use of cannot be regarded as one which had accidentally dropped outof the narrative previously given; but it is an allusion to anindependent and inconsistent version, given in forgetfulness that thewriter had already in another part of his work related the story atlarge and with comments. There he had explicitly called Alnoth--the heirand offspring of a devil (_dæmon_), and had expressed his wonder thatsuch a person should have given up his whole inheritance (namely, themanor of Ledbury North, which he made over to the see of Hereford ingratitude for the miraculous cure of his palsy) to Christ in return forhis restored health, and spent the rest of his life as a pilgrim. Mediæval writers (especially ecclesiastics) were in a difficulty indescribing fairies. They looked upon them as having an objectiveexistence; and yet they knew not how to classify them. Fairies werecertainly neither departed saints nor holy angels. Beside these twokinds of spirits, the only choice left was between devils and ghosts ofthe wicked dead, or, at most, of the dead who had no claims toextraordinary goodness. They did not believe in any other creatureswhich could be identified with these mysterious elves. It is no wonder, therefore, if they were occasionally perplexed, occasionallyinconsistent, sometimes denouncing them as devils, at other timesdismissing them as ghosts. [242]

This is what seems to have happened to Map. In the two chaptersimmediately preceding, he has given two legends illustrating each hornof the dilemma. One of these relates the marriage of HennoWith-the-Teeth, who found a lovely maiden in a grove on the coast ofNormandy. She was sitting alone, apparelled in royal silk, and weeping. Her beauty and her tears attracted the gallant knight, to whom, inresponse to his questions, she told a cock-and-bull story about herfather having brought her, all unwilling as she was, by sea to bemarried to the King of France; but having been driven by a storm on theshore, she said she had landed, and then her father had taken advantageof a sudden change of wind to sail away, leaving her to her fate. Hennowas an easy conquest: he took her home and married her. Unluckily, however, he had a mother who had her suspicions. She noticed that herfair daughter-in-law, though she went often to church, always upon sometrumpery excuse came late, so as to avoid being sprinkled with holywater, and as regularly left before the consecration of the elements. Sothis virtuous old vixen determined to watch one Sunday morning; and shediscovered that after Henno had gone to church, his wife, transformedinto a serpent, entered a bath, and in a little while, issuing upon acloth which her maid had spread out for her, she tore it into pieceswith her teeth before resuming human form. The maid afterwards wentthrough the like performance, her mistress waiting upon her. All thiswas in due course confided to Henno, who, in company with a priest, unexpectedly burst in the next time upon his wife and her servant, andsprinkled them with holy water. Mistress and maid thereupon with a greatyell bounded out through the roof and disappeared. 

Clearly these ladies were devils: no other creatures with self-respectwould be guilty of such transformations and such constant disregard ofthe proprieties at church. Ghosts get their turn in Map's othernarrative. It concerns a man whose wife had died. After sorrowing longfor her death, he found her one night in a deep and solitary dale amid anumber of women. With great joy he seized her, and, carrying her off, lived with her again for many years and had a numerous progeny. Not afew of her descendants were living when Map wrote, and were known as_the children of the dead woman_. This, of course, is not a Swan-maidenstory at all. At the end of Chapter V. I have referred to some similartales; and what we learned during our discussion of the subject ofChangelings may lead us to suspect that we have here in an imperfectform a story of the exchange of an adult woman for a lifeless image, andher recovery from the hands of her ravishers. This is by no means thesame plot as that of the stories recounted by Liebrecht in which thewife or the betrothed is rescued from the grave. Those stories, at leastin warm climates where burials are hurried, and in rude ages whenmedical skill is comparatively undeveloped, are all within the bounds ofpossibility. There does not appear in them any trace ofmythology, --hardly even of the supernatural; and he would be a bold manwho would deny that a substratum of fact may not underlie some of them. To establish their relationship with the group we are now considering, links of a much more evident character are wanting. The fact that theyare traditional is not of itself sufficient. The fairy of the Forest ofDean had not revived after death, or supposed death; nor had she beenrecovered from supernatural beings who had stolen her away. Map'saccount, to whatever his expression _from the dead_ may point, isinconsistent with either the one or the other. Rather she was stolenfrom her own kindred, to become the wife of him who had won her by hisown right arm. 

But a single instance, and that instance either inconsistent with theanalogous traditions, or unable to supply a cogent or consistentexplanation of them, is not a very safe basis for a theory. What is itworth when it is inconsistent even with the theory itself? Indeed, ifit were consistent with the theory, we might match it with anotherinstance wholly irreconcilable. Mikáilo Ivanovitch in the Russian balladmarries a Swan-maiden, who, unlike some of the ladies just mentioned, insists upon being first baptized into the Christian faith. She makesthe stipulation that when the one of them dies the other shall go livinginto the grave with the dead, and there abide for three months. Sheherself dies. Mikáilo enters the grave with her, and there conquers adragon which comes to feast on the dead bodies. The dragon is compelledto fetch the waters of life and death, by means of which the hero bringshis dead love back to life. Marya, the White Swan, however, provedherself so ungrateful that after awhile she took another husband, andtwice she acted the part of Delilah to Mikáilo. The third time she triedit he was compelled in self-defence to put an end to her wiles bycutting off her head. This is honest, downright death. There is nomistaking it. But then it is impossible that Marya, the White Swan, wasa mere ghost filched from the dead and eager to return. Yet the story ofMarya is equally a Swan-maiden story, and is just as good to build atheory on as Map's variant of Wild Edric. [243]

In replying, however, to the arguments of so learned and acute a writeras Liebrecht, it is not enough to point out these distinctions andinconsistencies: it is not enough to show that the terms of the taboo donot warrant the construction he has put upon them, nor that he hasfailed to account for very significant incidents. If he has mistaken themeaning of the legends, we should be able to make clear the source ofhis error. It arises, I hold, from an imperfect apprehension of thearchaic philosophy underlying the narratives. Liebrecht's comparisonsare, with one exception, limited to European variants. His premises werethus too narrow to admit of his making valid deductions. Perhaps evenyet we are hardly in a position to do this; but at all events thesources of possible error are diminished by the wider area we are ableto survey, and from the evidence of which we reason. We have comparedthe stories, both mediæval and modern, mentioned by Liebrecht, with_märchen_ and sagas told among nations outside European influence invarious degrees of civilization, down to the savagery of Kaffirs andDyaks. We have succeeded in classifying their differences, and in spiteof them we have found all the tales in substantial agreement. They areall built on the same general plan; the same backbone of thought runsthrough them; and between them all there is no greater divergence thanthat which in the physical realm separates mammal from bird, or birdfrom reptile. It is inevitable to conclude that even the most recentlydiscovered folk-tale of them has come to us from a distant period whenour forefathers were in the same rude state as Dyaks and South SeaIslanders. No actual adventure of Wild Edric or Raymond of Lusignan gaverise to these stories. English patriot and Burgundian Count were onlythe names whereon they fastened, --the mountains which towered above theplain and gathered about their heads the vapours already floating in theatmosphere. We must therefore go back far beyond the Middle Ages tolearn in what manner we are to understand these stories, --back to thestate of savagery whence the inhabitants of Europe had long emerged whenMap and Gervase wrote, but of which the relics linger among us even yet. 

The necessarily meagre exposition of some of the most salientcharacteristics of savage thought with which we started has beenillustrated and its outlines filled in to some extent in the course ofthe subsequent discussions. I need not, therefore, do more than drawattention as briefly as possible to those characteristics that arerelevant here. First and foremost, we have found some of theSwan-maiden tales boldly professing to account for the worship oftotems; and so thoroughly does totemism appear to be ingrained in themyth that there is some reason for thinking that here we have a clue tothe myth's origin and meaning. But the intellect to which totemism is acredible theory draws no line of demarcation between humanity and thelife and consciousness it recognizes in the whole encircling universe. To it, accordingly, a story of union between a man and a fish, a swan ora serpent, involves no difficulty. When advancing knowledge, and withknowledge repulsion from such a story, begins to threaten it, anotherbelief advances to its defence. For nothing is easier to creatures asclever as the lower animals than a change of form. They can, wheneverthey please, assume the appearance of man or woman: it is as natural tothem as the shape under which they are usually seen. Again, the lifethat swarms about the savage philosopher does not always manifest itselfvisibly. It is often unseen. The world is filled with spirits, of whomsome have inhabited human bodies, others have not. To the savage theyare all alike; for those who have not hitherto inhabited human bodiesmay do so at will, or may inhabit other bodies, either animal orvegetable, and those who have once done so may do so again. 

All these--Totemism, the equality and essential identity of naturebetween man and all other objects in the universe, the doctrine ofTransformation, the doctrine of Spirits--are phases of savage thought, every one of which has been incorporated in the myth of theSwan-maidens, and every one of which, except one special and verylimited development of the doctrine of Spirits, is ignored inLiebrecht's theory. The theory is, indeed, an admirable illustration ofthe danger of reasoning without a sufficiently wide area of induction. Liebrecht's mistake on the present occasion was twofold: he only dealtwith one or, at most, two types of the myth; and he ignored the savagevariants. Had he taken into consideration other types--such as Hasan, the Marquis of the Sun, the Star's Daughter;--had he been aware of thesavage variants all over the world, he would not have formed a theory soinconsistent with the facts, and so little fitted to solve the problemspropounded, not merely by the phenomena of the Swan-maiden group, but bythose of other tales in which supernatural beings intervene. 

In reasoning by induction, the greater the number of facts taken intoaccount, the greater the probability of sound reasoning; and thereforethe greater the number of facts a theory will explain, the more likelyit is to be true. Had Liebrecht's theory touched only the Swan-maidengroup, it would have been more convenient to discuss it in the lastchapter. But inasmuch as its truth would involve much wider issues, itseemed better to reserve it to be dealt with here. For if the theory bevalid for Melusina, the Lady of the Van Pool, and other water-nymphs, itis valid also for the "water-woman" who, in a Transylvanian story, dweltin a lake in the forest between Mehburg and Reps. She had two sons, whose father was a man, and the younger of whom became king of thatland. But when the Saxon immigration took place the incomers cut downthe wood; the lake dried up, and as it dried up, the lives of thewater-spirit and her son gradually sank lower and lower, and at lastwere extinguished with the extinction of the lake. [244] Now I willventure to say that this story is to be explained satisfactorily on notheory yet broached, unless it be the theory that we have in it asurvival of the savage doctrine of Spirits. Least of all it is to beexplained by any adaptation of what I may call the Ghosttheory, --namely, that the water-spirit and her son were already thespirits of dead human beings. 

Leaving this one example of the value of Liebrecht's theory, as appliedto water-spirits, to stand for all, I turn to another order of beingswith supernatural powers referred to several times in the foregoingpages: I mean Witches. I adduced in Chapter X. A Tirolese tale, avariant of the Melusina type, wherein the wife was a witch. It will havebeen obvious to every reader that the tale is simply that of Cupid andPsyche with the parts reversed; and I might urge that Cupid and thewitch were beings of precisely the same nature. Waiving this for themoment, however, no one will deny that the witch takes the place of theSwan-maiden, or fairy, in other stories of the group. But perhaps it maybe suggested that the name _witch_ (_Angana_, _Hexe_) has got into thestory by accident; and that not a witch in our sense of the word, but aghost from the dead, is really meant. There might be something to besaid for this if there were any substantial distinction to be madebetween ghosts and witches and fairies. In the tales and superstitionsdiscussed in the present volume we have found no distinction. Whether itbe child-stealing, transformation, midnight meetings, possession andgift of enchanted objects, spell-binding, or whatever function, orhabit, or power be predicted of one, it will be found to be common tothe three. I conclude, therefore, that they are all three of the samenature. This is what a consideration of the superstitions of savageswould lead me to expect. The belief in fairies, ghosts, and witches is asurvival of those superstitions. It is, of course, not found in equalcoherence, equal strength of all its parts, equal logic (if I may soexpress it) everywhere. We must not be surprised if, as it is graduallypenetrated by the growing forces of civilization, it becomesfragmentary, and the attributes of these various orders of supernaturalbeings begin to be differentiated. They are never completely so; and theproof of this is that what is at one place, at one time, or by onepeople, ascribed to one order, is at another place, at another time, orby another people, ascribed to another order. The nature of theclassical deities was identical too; and hence Cupid and the witch ofthe Tirolese tale are the masculine and feminine counterparts of thesame conception. 

Lastly, a few words must be expended on a totally different theorylately put forward by Mr. MacRitchie. This theory is not altogether anew one; it has been before the world for many years. But Mr. MacRitchiehas, first in "The Archæological Review, " and since then moreelaborately in a separate book, entitled "The Testimony of Tradition, "worked it out and fortified it with an array of arguments philological, historical, topographical, and traditional. He claims to haveestablished that the fairies of the Celtic and Teutonic races areneither more nor less than the prehistoric tribes whom they conqueredand drove back, and whose lands they now possess. He identifies thesemysterious beings with the Picts of Scotland, the Feinne of the ScottishHighlands and of Ireland, and the Finns and Lapps of Scandinavia. And hesuggests that the Eskimo, the Ainos, and I know not what other dwarfishraces, are relics of the same people; while Santa Klaus, the patronsaint of children, is only a tradition of the wealthy and beneficentcharacter borne by this ill-used folk. Primarily his arguments areconcerned with Scotland and Ireland. He builds much on the howes orbarrows, called in Scotland Picts' houses, which in both countries bearthe reputation of being the haunt of fairies or dwarfs, and some ofwhich seem to have been in fact dwelling-places. He quotes Dr. KarlBlind to show that Finns intermarried with the Shetlanders, and thatthey were believed to come over in the form of seals, casting asidetheir sealskins when they landed. In this connection he relates how theFinn women were captured by taking possession of their sealskins, without which they could not get away from their captors. He also showsthat illimitable riches and magical powers were ascribed to the Pictsand to the Finns, and that the Lapps were pre-eminent in witchcraft. 

I shall leave it to Celtic scholars to deal with Mr. MacRitchie'sremarkable etymologies and with his historical arguments, confiningmyself to one or two observations on the traditional aspect of thetheory. Now I should be the last to undervalue any traces of history tobe found in tradition. I have elsewhere drawn attention to theimportance of the study of this element in folk-tales;[245] and I amquite ready to admit that nothing is more likely than the transfer tothe mythical beings of Celtic superstition of some features derived fromalien races. Savages and barbarians are in the habit of imputing tostrangers and foes in greatly extended measure the might of witchcraftthey claim for themselves. And the wider the differences betweenthemselves and the foreigners, the more mysterious to them are thehabits and appearance of the latter, and the more powerful do theybelieve them. All this might account for many details that we are toldconcerning the dwarfs, the Picts, the Finns, or by whatever other namesthe elvish race may have been known to Scots and Irishmen. But furtherthan this I cannot go with Mr. MacRitchie. I hold his error, like thatof Liebrecht already discussed, to be founded on too narrow aninduction. This volume will have been written in vain, as it appearsthat for Mr. MacRitchie the vastly more important works of Dr. Tylor andMr. Andrew Lang have been written in vain, unless I have made it clearthat the myths of nations all over the world follow one general law anddisplay common characteristics. I am not astonished to find the Shetlandtale of marriage with a seal-woman reproduced on the Gold Coast andamong the Dyaks of Borneo. But Mr. MacRitchie ought to be very muchastonished; for he can hardly show that the historical Finns were knownin these out-of-the-way places. It seems to me natural to find that inScotland and Ireland fairies dwelt in barrows, and in Annam and Arabiain hills and rocks; and that both in this country and in the far Eastthey inveigled unhappy mortals into their dwellings and kept them forgenerations--nay, for centuries. That the Shoshone of California shoulddread their infants being changed by the Ninumbees, or dwarfs, in thesame way as the Celts of the British Islands, and the Teutons too, dreaded their infants being changed, does not seem at all incredible tome. That to eat the food of the dead in New Zealand prevents a livingman from returning to the land of the living, just as Persephone wasretained in Hades by partaking of the pomegranate, and just as to eatthe food of fairies hinders the Manx or the Hebrew adventurer fromrejoining his friends on the surface of the earth, is in no wayperplexing to me. But all these things, and they might be multipliedindefinitely, must be very perplexing to Mr. MacRitchie, if he be notprepared to prove that Annamites and Arabs, Hebrews and Shoshone, NewZealanders and classical Greeks alike, were acquainted with the Pictsand the Finns, and alike celebrated them in their traditions. 

The truth Mr. MacRitchie does not reckon with is, that no theory willexplain the nature and origin of the fairy superstitions which does notalso explain the nature and origin of every other supernatural beingworshipped or dreaded by uncivilized mankind throughout the world. Anduntil he shall address himself to this task, however ingenious hisguesses, however amusing his philology, however delightfully wild hisliterary and historical arguments, he will not succeed in convincing anyserious student. 

Here then we must pause. Obvious are the differences between the nationsof mankind: differences of physical conformation, --that is to say, ofrace; divergences of mental and moral development, --that is to say, ofcivilization. Hitherto the task attempted by folklore has been to showthat underlying all these differences there is a broad foundation ofcommon agreement; that distinctions of race do not extend to mental andmoral constitution; that the highest nation on the ladder of culture hasclimbed from the same rung on which the lowest are yet standing; andthat the absurd and incongruous customs and institutions and the equallyabsurd and impossible stories and beliefs found imbedded in thecivilization of the more advanced nations are explicable, and explicableonly, as relics of the phases wherethrough those nations have passedfrom the depths of savagery. 

If it be admitted in general terms that the evidence collected andmarshalled up to the present time has established among sure scientificfacts so much of the past of humanity, this achievement is but thebeginning of toil. A wide field has been opened to the student for thecollection and arrangement of details, before the true meaning of many astrange custom and stranger tale will be thoroughly understood. I havetried to do something of the kind in the foregoing pages. But beyondthis there is the more delicate investigation of the ethnic element infolklore. Can we assign to the various races their special shares in thedevelopment of a common tradition? Can we show what direction each racetook, and how and why it modified the general inheritance?

On the other hand, it is not asserted that the status of savagery wasthe primitive condition of men. Of course it may have been. But if not, there is work to be done in endeavouring to ascertain what lies behindit. The questions started from this point wander across the border offolklore into pure psychology; but it is a psychology based not uponintrospection and analysis of the mind of the civilized man, developedunder the complex influences that have been acting and reacting duringuntold years of upward struggling, always arduous and often cruel, but apsychology which must be painfully reconstructed from the simplest andmost archaic phenomena disclosed by anthropological research. Who cansay what light may not thus be thrown as well on the destiny as on theorigin of mankind?

FOOTNOTES:

[240] Liebrecht, p. 54; "F. L. Journal, " vol. Vii. P. 312. 

[241] Map, Dist. Iv. C. 10. 

[242] The sect of the Cabalists, indeed, believed in the existence ofspirits of nature, embodiments or representatives of the four elements, which they called respectively gnomes, sylphs, salamanders, and ondines. To this strange sect some of the savage opinions on the subject ofspirits seem to have been transmitted in a philosophical form fromclassical antiquity. They taught that it was possible for thephilosopher by austerity and study to rise to intercourse with theseelemental spirits, and even to obtain them in marriage. But the orthodoxregarded the Cabalists as magicians and their spirits as foul incubi. See Lecky, "History of Rationalism, " vol. I. P. 46. 

[243] Hapgood, p. 214. 

[244] Müller, p. 33. 

[245] "Folklore, " vol. I. Pp. 113, 116. 

APPENDIX. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST OF SOME OF THE WORKS REFERRED TO IN THE FOREGOINGPAGES. 

_Aberd. Eistedd. _ See _Trans. Aberd. Eistedd_. 

ALPENBURG. See Von Alpenburg. 

AMÉLINEAU. Contes et Romans del' Égypte Chrétienne par E. Amélineau. 2vols. Paris, 1888. 

_Amer. F. L. _ See _Journal Amer. F. L_. 

_Am Urds-Brunnen. _ Am Urds-Brunnen. Mittheilungen für Freundevolksthümlich-wissenschaftlicher Kunde. 6 vols. [The first two volumesentitled _Am Urds-Brunnen_, _Organ des Vereins für Verbreitungvolksthümlich-wissenschaftlicher Kunde_. ] Rendsburg, 1881-89. 

_Antiquary. _ The Antiquary, a Magazine devoted to the study of the Past. 22 vols. London, 1880-90, still proceeding. 

_Archivio. _ Archivio per lo studio delle Tradizioni Popolari RivistaTrimestrale diretta da G. Pitré e S. Salomone-Marino. 9 vols. Palermo, 1882-90, still proceeding. 

_Arch. Rev. _ The Archæological Review. 4 vols. London, 1888-90. 

ARNAUDIN. Contes Populaires recueillis dans la Grande Lande le Born lesPetites Landes et le Marensin par Félix Arnaudin. Paris, 1887. 

AUBREY, _Miscellanies. _ Miscellanies upon various subjects. By JohnAubrey, F. R. S. 4th edition. London, 1857. 

---- _Remaines. _ Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme. By John Aubrey, R. S. S. 1686-87. Edited and annotated by James Britten, F. L. S. London, 1881. (Folk-Lore Society. )

_Bahar-Danush. _ Bahar-Danush; or Garden of Knowledge. An OrientalRomance. Translated from the Persic of Einaiut Oollah. By JonathanScott. 3 vols. Shrewsbury, 1799. 

BARING-GOULD. Curious Myths of the Middle Ages. By S. Baring-Gould, M. A. New edition. London, 1869. 

BARTSCH. Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Mecklenburg. Gesammelt undherausgegeben von Karl Bartsch. 2 vols. Wien, 1879-80. 

BASSET. Contes Populaires Berbères recueillis, traduits et annotés parRené Basset. Paris, 1887. 

BENT. The Cyclades, or Life among the Insular Greeks. By J. TheodoreBent, B. A. London, 1885. 

BIRLINGER, _Aus Schwaben. _ Aus Schwaben Sagen, Legenden, Aberglauben, Sitten, Rechtsbräuche, Ortsneckereien, Lieder, Kinderreime Neue Sammlungvon Anton Birlinger. 2 vols. Wiesbaden, 1874. 

---- _Volksthümliches. _ Volksthümliches aus Schwaben. Herausgegeben vonDr. Anton Birlinger. 2 vols. And Wörterbüchlein. Freiburg im Breisgau, 1861-62. 

BLADÉ. Contes Populaires de la Gascogne par M. Jean-François Bladé. 3vols. Paris, 1886. 

_Border Minstrelsy. _ Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border: consisting ofHistorical and Romantic Ballads, collected in the Southern Counties ofScotland. 3rd edition. 3 vols. Edinburgh, 1806. 

BOWKER. Goblin Tales of Lancashire. By James Bowker, F. R. G. S. I. London, N. D. 

BRAGA. Ethnographia Portugueza. O Povo Portuguez nos seus Costumes, Crenças e Tradições por Theophilo Braga. 2 vols. Lisboa, 1886. 

BRAND. Observations on Popular Antiquities: chiefly illustrating theorigin of our vulgar Customs, Ceremonies, and Superstitions. By JohnBrand, M. A. , F. And Sec. S. A. Arranged and revised, with additions byHenry Ellis, F. R. S. , Sec. S. A. 2 vols. London, 1813. 

BRAUNS. Japanische Märchen und Sagen gesammelt und herausgegeben vonDavid Brauns. Leipzig, 1885. 

BRAY. See Mrs. Bray. 

BRETT. The Indian Tribes of Guiana: their condition and habits. By theRev. W. H. Brett. London, 1868. 

---- _Legends and Myths. _ Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indians ofBritish Guiana. Collected and edited by the Rev. William Henry Brett, B. D. London, N. D. 

_Brython. _ See _Y Brython_. 

BURTON, _Nights. _ A plain and literal translation of the Arabian Nights'Entertainments, now entitled The Book of the Thousand Nights and aNight, with introduction, explanatory notes, &c. By Richard F. Burton. 10 vols. Privately printed. 1885. 

---- _Suppl. Nights. _ Supplemental Nights to The Book of the ThousandNights and a Night with notes anthropological and explanatory by RichardF. Burton. 6 vols. Privately printed. 1886-88. 

BUSK, _Sagas. _ Sagas from the Far East; or Kalmouk and MongolianTraditionary Tales. With historical preface and explanatory notes by theauthor of Patrañas, &c. [Miss R. H. Busk]. London, 1873. 

CAMPBELL. Popular Tales of the West Highlands orally collected with atranslation by J. F. Campbell. 4 vols. Edinburgh, 1860-62. 

CAMPBELL, Lord A. See Lord A. Campbell. 

CARNOY. Littérature Orale de la Picardie par E. Henry Carnoy. Paris, 1883. 

CASTRÉN, _Altaischen Völker. _ M. Alexander Castrén's EthnologischeVorlesungen über die Altaischen Völker nebst Samojedischen Märchen undTartarischen Heldensagen. Herausgegeben von Anton Schiefner. St. Petersburg, 1857. 

CAVALLIUS. Schwedische Volkssagen und Märchen. Nach mündlicherUeberlieferung gesammelt und herausgegeben von Gunnar Olof HylténCavallius und George Stephens. Mit Varianten und kritischen Anmerkungen. Deutsch von Carl Oberleitner. Wien, 1848. 

CERTEUX ET CARNOY. Contributions au Folk-Lore des Arabes. L'AlgérieTraditionnelle Légendes, Contes, &c. , par A. Certeux et E. Henry Carnoy. First vol. Only published. Paris, 1884. 

CHAMBERS. Popular Rhymes of Scotland. Robert Chambers. London, 1870. 

CHILD. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads edited by Francis JamesChild. Boston, U. S. A. Privately printed. [The prospectus is dated 1882. It announced "about 8 parts": only six of these (making three volumes)have been issued to date. ]

_Choice Notes. _ Choice Notes from "Notes and Queries. " Folk Lore. London, 1859. 

COMPARETTI. Novelline Popolari Italiane pubblicate ed illustrate daDomenico Comparetti. First vol. Only published. Roma, 1875. 

_Corpus Poet. Bor. _ Corpus Poeticum Boreale. The Poetry of the OldNorthern Tongue from the earliest times to the thirteenth century. Edited by Gudbrand Vigfusson, M. A. , and F. York Powell, M. A. 2 vols. Oxford, 1883. 

COSQUIN. Emmanuel Cosquin. Contes Populaires de Lorraine comparés avecles Contes des autres Provinces de France et des Pays Étrangers. 2 vols. Paris, N. D. 

_Count Lucanor. _ Count Lucanor; or The Fifty Pleasant Stories ofPatronio. Written by the Prince Don Juan Manuel and first done intoEnglish by James York, M. D. , 1868. London, 1888. 

CROMEK. Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song with Historical andTraditional Notices relative to the Manners and Customs of thePeasantry, now first published by R. H. Cromek, F. A. S. Ed. London, 1810. Reprint: Paisley, 1880. 

CURTIN. Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland by Jeremiah Curtin. London, 1890. 

_Cymmrodor. _ See _Y Cymmrodor_. 

_Cymru Fu. _ "Cymru Fu"; yn cynwys Hanesion, Traddodiadau, yn nghydaChwedlau a Dammegion Cymreig (oddiar lafar gwlad a gweithiau y prifawduron). Wrexham, N. D. [Preface dated October 1862. ]

_Cymru Fu N. And Q. _ Cymru Fu: Notes and Queries relating to the pastHistory of Wales and the Border Countries. 2 vols. Cardiff, 1887-90, still proceeding. 

DAVIES, _Mythology. _ The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids byEdward Davies, author of Celtic Researches. London, 1809. 

DAY. Folk-Tales of Bengal by the Rev. Lal Behari Day. London, 1883. 

DE GUBERNATIS, _Novelline. _ Le Novelline di Santo Stefano raccolte daAngelo De Gubernatis. Torino, 1869. 

---- _Usi Natal. _ A. De Gubernatis. Storia comparata degli Usi Nataliziin Italia e presso gli altri-popoli Indo-Europei. Milano, 1878. 

---- _Zool. Myth. _ Zoological Mythology or The Legends of Animals byAngelo De Gubernatis. 2 vols. London, 1872. 

DENNYS. The Folk-Lore of China, and its affinities with that of theAryan and Semitic Races. By N. B. Dennys, Ph. D. , F. R. G. S. London, 1876. 

DES MICHELS. Contes Plaisants Annamites traduits en Français pour lapremière fois par Abel Des Michels. Paris, 1888. 

DORMAN. The Origin of Primitive Superstitions and their Development, &c. , among the Aborigines of America. By Rushton M. Dorman. Philadelphia, 1881. 

DORSA. La Tradizione Greco-Latina negli usi e nelle credenze popolaridella Calabria citeriore per Vincenzo Dorsa. 2a edizione. Cozenza, 1884. 

_Early Trav. _ Early Travels in Palestine, edited by Thomas Wright Esq. , M. A. , F. S. A. , &c. London, 1848. 

ELLIS. The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa. Theirreligion, manners, customs, laws, language, &c. By A. B. Ellis. London, 1887. 

FARRER. Primitive Manners and Customs. By James A. Farrer. London, 1879. 

_F. L. Españ. _ Folk-Lore Español. Biblioteca de las TradicionesPopulares Españolas. 11 vols. Sevilla, 1883-90, still proceeding. 

_Folk-Lore. _ Folk-Lore, a quarterly Review of Myth, Tradition, Institution, and Custom. London, 1890, still proceeding. [Organ of theFolk-Lore Society. ]

_F. L. Journal. _ The Folk-Lore Journal. 7 vols. London, 1883-89. [Organof the Folk-Lore Society. ]

_F. L. Record. _ The Folk-Lore Record. 5 vols. N. D. [1878-82. Organ ofthe Folk-Lore Society. ]

FLEURY. Littérature Orale de la Basse-Normandie (Hague et Val-de-Saire)par Jean Fleury. Paris, 1883. 

GARNETT. The Women of Turkey and their Folklore by Lucy M. J. Garnett. The Christian Women. London, 1890. 

_Gent. Mag. Lib. _ The Gentleman's Magazine Library: being a classifiedcollection of the chief contents of the Gentleman's Magazine from 1731to 1868. Edited by George Lawrence Gomme, F. S. A. 11 vols. London, 1883-90, still proceeding. [Vols. Not numbered, but distinguished by thetitle of their contents. ]

GERV. TILB. Des Gervasius von Tilbury Otia Imperialia. In einer Auswahlneu herausgegeben und mit Anmerkungen begleitet von Felix Liebrecht. Hannover, 1856. 

_Gesta Romanorum. _ Gesta Romanorum translated from the Latin by the Rev. Charles Swan, revised and corrected by Wynnard Hooper, B. A. London, 1877. 

GILES. Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. Translated and annotatedby Herbert A. Giles. 2 vols. London, 1880. 

GILL. Myths and Songs from the South Pacific. By the Rev. William WyattGill, B. A. London, 1876. 

GIRALD. CAMBR. The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales, translated by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Bart. , in The Historical Works ofGiraldus Cambrensis, edited by Thomas Wright Esq. , M. A. , F. S. A. London, 1887. 

GONZENBACH. Sicilianische Märchen. Aus dem Volksmund gesammelt von LauraGonzenbach. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1870. 

GREDT. Sagenschatz des Luxemburger Landes. Gesammelt von Dr. N. Gredt. Luxemburg, 1885. 

GREGOR. Notes on the Folk-Lore of the North-East of Scotland. By theReverend Walter Gregor, M. A. London, 1881. (Folk-Lore Society. )

GREY. See Sir G. Grey. 

GRIMM, _Märchen. _ Kinder- und Haus-Märchen gesammelt durch die BrüderGrimm. 17te Auflage. Berlin, 1880. 

---- _Tales. _ Grimm's Household Tales. With the author's notes translatedfrom the German and edited by Margaret Hunt. 2 vols. London, 1884. 

---- _Teut. Myth. _ Teutonic Mythology by Jacob Grimm translated from thefourth edition with notes and appendix by James Steven Stallybrass. 4vols. With continuous pagination. London, 1880-88. 

GRINNELL. Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk Tales with notes on the Origin, Customs, and Character of the Pawnee People by George Bird Grinnell. NewYork, 1889. 

GROHMANN. Sagen aus Böhmen gesammelt und herausgegeben von Dr. JosefVirgil Grohmann. Prag, 1883. 

GRUNDTVIG. Dänische Volksmärchen von Svend Grundtvig. Übersetzt vonWillibald Leo. Neue Ausgabe. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1885. 

GUBERNATIS. See De Gubernatis. 

HAHN. See Von Hahn. 

HALTRICH. Deutsche Volksmärchen aus dem Sachsenlande in Siebenbürgen. Gesammelt von Josef Haltrich. 4te Auflage. Wien, 1885. 

HAPGOOD. The Epic Songs of Russia by Isabel Florence Hapgood. New York, N. D. [Preface dated August 1885. ]

HARLAND and WILKINSON. Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, &c. By John Harland, F. S. A. , and T. T. Wilkinson, F. R. A. S. London, 1873. 

HAZLITT, _Fairy Tales. _ Fairy Tales, Legends and Romances illustratingShakespeare and other Early English writers to which are prefixed twopreliminary dissertations by Joseph Ritson. [Edited by W. C. Hazlitt. ]London, 1875. 

HENDERSON. Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of Englandand the Borders. New Edition. By William Henderson. London, 1879. (Folk-Lore Society. )

HOWELLS. Cambrian Superstitions, comprising Ghosts, Omens, Witchcraft, Traditions, &c. By W. Howells. Tipton, 1831. 

HUNT. Popular Romances of the West of England or the Drolls, Traditionsand Superstitions of Old Cornwall collected and edited by Robert Hunt, F. R. S. 3rd edition, revised and enlarged. London, 1881. 

IMBRIANI. La Novellaja Fiorentina fiabe e novelline stenografate inFirenze dal dettato popolare da Vittorio Imbriani. Ristampa accresciutedi molte novelle inedite, &c. , nelle quali è accolta La NovellajaMilanese dello stesso raccoglitore. Livorno, 1877. 

IM THURN. Among the Indians of Guiana being sketches chieflyanthropologic from the interior of British Guiana. By Everard F. ImThurn, M. A. London, 1883. 

_Indian N. And Q. _ Indian Notes and Queries (late "Panjab Notes andQueries"), a Monthly Periodical conducted by Captain R. C. Temple andothers. 7 vols. Allahabad, 1883-90, still proceeding. 

_Irish Folk Lore_, or _Irish F. L. _ Irish Folk Lore: Traditions andSuperstitions of the Country; with humorous tales. By "Lageniensis. "Glasgow, N. D. [Preface dated April 1870. ]

JAHN. Volkssagen aus Pommern und Rügen. Gesammelt und herausgegeben vonDr. Ulrich Jahn. Stettin, 1886. 

JANNSEN. Märchen und Sagen des estnischen Volkes gesammelt und übersetztvon Harry Jannsen. Two series. 1st ser. Dorpat, 1881: 2nd ser. Riga, 1888. 

JONES and KROPF. The Folk-Tales of the Magyars. Collected by Kriza, Erdélyi, Pap and others. Translated and edited by the Rev. W. HenryJones and Lewis L. Kropf. London, 1889. (Folk-Lore Society. )

_Journal. Amer. F. L. _ The Journal of American Folk-Lore. 3 vols. Boston, 1888-90, still proceeding. [Organ of the American Folk-LoreSociety. ]

_Kalewala. _ Kalewala, des National-Epos der Finnen, nach der zweitenAusgabe ins Deutsche übertragen von Anton Schiefner. Helsingfors, 1852. 

_Kathá Sarit Ságara. _ The Kathá Sarit Ságara, or Ocean of the Streams ofStory translated from the original Sanskrit by C. H. Tawney, M. A. 2vols. Calcutta, 1880-84. 

KEIGHTLEY. The Fairy Mythology, illustrative of the Romance andSuperstition of various Countries by Thomas Keightley. New Edition, revised and greatly enlarged. London, 1882. 

KENNEDY. Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts. Collected and narratedby Patrick Kennedy. London, 1866. 

KIRBY. The New Arabian Nights. Select Tales, not included by Galland orLane. Translated and edited by W. F. Kirby. London, N. D. 

KNOOP. Volkssagen, Erzählungen, Aberglauben, Gebräuche und Märchen ausdem östlichen Hinterpommern. Gesammelt von Otto Knoop. Posen, 1885. 

KNOWLES. Folk-Tales of Kashmir. By the Rev. J. Hinton Knowles. London, 1888. 

KRAUSS. Sagen und Märchen der Südslaven. Zum grossen Teil ausungedruckten Quellen von Dr. Friedrich S. Krauss. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1883-84. 

---- _Volksgl. _ Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Südslaven. Vorwiegend nach eigenen Ermittlungen von Dr. Friedrich S. Krauss. Münster i W. 1890. 

KREUTZWALD. Ehstnische Märchen. Aufgezeichnet von Friedrich Kreutzwald. Aus dem Ehstnischen übersetzt von F. Löwe. Halle, 1869. 

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LADY WILDE. Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms and Superstitions of Ireland. By Lady Wilde. 2 vols. London, 1887. 

LA CROIX. Manners Customs and Dress during the Middle Ages and duringthe Renaissance Period by Paul La Croix (Bibliophile Jacob). 4ththousand. London, 1876. 

LANDES. Contes et Légendes Annamites par A. Landes. Saigon, 1886. 

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LIEBRECHT. Zur Volkskunde. Alte und neue Aufsätze von Felix Liebrecht. Heilbronn, 1879. 

_Llyvyr Coch. _ See _Y Llyvyr Coch_. 

Lord A. CAMPBELL, _Waifs and Strays. _ Waifs and Strays of CelticTradition. I. Argyllshire Series. Edited by Lord Archibald Campbell. London, 1879. 

LUZEL, _Contes. _ Contes Populaires de Basse-Bretagne par F. M. Luzel. 3vols. Paris, 1887. 

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MACRITCHIE. The Testimony of Tradition by David MacRitchie. London, 1890. 

MALORY. La Mort d' Arthure. The History of King Arthur and of theKnights of the Round Table. Compiled by Sir Thomas Malory, Knt. Editedfrom the text of the edition of 1634 by Thomas Wright Esq. , M. A. , F. S. A. 2nd edition. 3 vols. London, 1866. 

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MICHELS. See Des Michels. 

MRS. BRAY. The Borders of the Tamar and the Tavy; their Natural History, &c. , by Mrs. Bray. New Edition. 2 vols. London, 1879. 

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NICHOLSON. Folk Lore of East Yorkshire. By John Nicholson. London, 1890. 

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_Panjab N. And Q. _ See _Indian N. And Q_. 

PITRÉ. Biblioteca delle Tradizioni Popolari Siciliane per cura diGiuseppe Pitré. 18 vols. Palermo, 1871-88. 

POESTION. Lappländische Märchen, Volkssagen, Rätsel und Sprichwörter. Nach lappländischen, norwegischen und schwedischen Quellen von J. C. Poestion. Wien, 1886. 

POWELL and MAGNUSSON. Icelandic Legends (collected by Jón Arnason)Translated by George E. J. Powell and Eiríkr Magnusson. 2nd series. London, 1866. 

PRELLER, _Röm. Myth. _ Römische Mythologie von L. Preller. 3te Auflage. 2vols. Berlin, 1881-83. 

PRYM UND SOCIN. Kurdische Sammlungen. Erzählungen und Lieder imdialekte des Tûr 'Abdîn. Gesammelt, herausgegeben und übersetzt vonEugen Prym und Albert Socin. St. Petersburg, 1887. [A second part, bySocin only, consisting of tales and songs in the dialect of Bohtan, hassince been published, 1890. ]

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---- _Tibetan Tales. _ Tibetan Tales derived from Indian Sources. Translated from the Tibetan of the Kah-Gyur by F. Anton von Schiefner. Done into English from the German by W. R. S. Ralston, M. A. London, 1882. 

RAPPOLD. Sagen aus Kärnten. Zusammengestellt und theilweise neu erzähltvon Professor J. Rappold. Augsburg, 1887. 

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RINK. Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo by Dr. Henry Rink. Translatedfrom the Danish by the author. Edited by Dr. Robert Brown. Edinburgh, 1875. 

ROBERTSON SMITH. Lectures on the Religion of the Semites. First Series. The Fundamental Institutions. By W. Robertson Smith, M. A. , LL. D. Edinburgh, 1889. 

ROMERO. Contos Populares do Brazil collegidos pelo Dr. Sylvio Romero. Lisboa, 1885. 

ROMILLY. From my Verandah in New Guinea Sketches and Traditions by HughHastings Romilly, C. M. G. London, 1889. 

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RUDDER. A New History of Gloucestershire. Cirencester, Samuel Rudder, 1779. 

SASTRI. The Dravidian Nights Entertainments: being a translation ofMadanakamarajankadai. By Pandit S. M. Natesa Sastri. Madras, 1886. 

SAXO, _Gesta Dan. _ Saxonis Grammatici Gesta Danorum, herausgegeben vonAlfred Holder. Strassberg, 1886. 

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SCHMIDT. Griechische Märchen, Sagen und Volkslieder gesammelt, übersetztund erläutert von Bernhardt Schmidt. Leipzig, 1877. 

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SCHRECK. Finnische Märchen übersetzt von Emmy Schreck. Weimar, 1887. 

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---- _Litt. Orale. _ Littérature Orale de la Haute Bretagne par PaulSébillot. Paris, 1881. 

---- _Trad. Et Super. _ Traditions et Superstitions de la Haute Bretagnepar Paul Sébillot. 2 vols. Paris, 1882. 

SHORTLAND. Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders: withillustrations of their manners and customs. By Edward Shortland, M. A. 2nd edition. London, 1856. 

SIKES. British Goblins: Welsh Folk-Lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends andTraditions. By Wirt Sikes. London, 1880. 

SIMROCK. Handbuch der Deutschen Mythologie mit Einschluss dernordischen. Von Karl Simrock. 3te Auflage. Bonn, 1869. 

SIR G. GREY. Polynesian Mythology, and Ancient Traditional History ofthe New Zealand Race, as furnished by their Priests and Chiefs. By SirGeorge Grey. London, 1855. 

SPITTA BEY. Contes Arabes Modernes recueillis et traduits par GuillaumeSpitta-Bey. Leide, 1883. 

STEERE. Swahili Tales, as told by natives of Zanzibar. With an Englishtranslation. By Edward Steere, LL. D. London, 1870. 

STEPHENS. The Literature of the Kymry: being a critical essay on thehistory of the Language and Literature of Wales during the twelfth andtwo succeeding centuries. By Thomas Stephens. 2nd edition. London, 1876. 

STERNBERG. The Dialect and Folk-Lore of Northamptonshire. By ThomasSternberg. London, 1851. 

TAYLOR. Te Ika a Maui; or New Zealand and its Inhabitants. By the Rev. Richard Taylor, M. A. , F. G. S. 2nd edition. London, 1870. 

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TETTAU. See Von Tettau. 

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THORBURN. Bannú; or, Our Afghan Frontier. By S. S. Thorburn. London, 1876. 

THORPE. Northern Mythology, comprising the principal popular traditionsand superstitions of Scandinavia, North Germany, and the Netherlands. Compiled by Benjamin Thorpe. 3 vols. London, 1851-52. 

---- _Yule-Tide Stories. _ Yule-Tide Stories. A collection of Scandinavianand North German Popular Tales and Traditions. Edited by BenjaminThorpe. London, 1853. 

_Tradition. _ See _La Tradition_. 

_Trad. Pop. Revue des. _ See _Revue des Trad. Pop_. 

TRAIN. An Historical and Statistical Account of the Isle of Man, fromthe earliest times to the present date. By Joseph Train, F. S. A. Scot. 2vols. Douglas, 1845. 

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TYLOR. Primitive Culture: Researches into the development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom. By Edward B. Tylor. 2 vols. London, 1871. 

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_Volkskunde. _ See _Zeits. F. Volkskunde_. 

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WALDRON. A Description of the Isle of Man by George Waldron, Gent. Edited by William Harrison, Esq. Douglas, 1865. 

WEBSTER. Basque Legends: collected chiefly in the Labourd by Rev. Wentworth Webster, M. A. 2nd edition. London, 1879. 

WENZIG. Westslawischer Märchenschatz. Deutsch bearbeitet von JosephWenzig. Neue Ausgabe. Leipzig, 1886. 

WHITE. The Ancient History of the Maori, his Mythology and Traditions byJohn White. 4 vols. Wellington, 1887-89, still proceeding. 

_Wide Awake Stories. _ Wide Awake Stories. A collection of tales told bylittle children, between sunset and sunrise, in the Panjab and Kashmir. By F. A. Steel and R. C. Temple. Bombay, 1884. 

WILDE. See Lady Wilde. 

WIRT SIKES. See Sikes. 

WLISLOCKI. See Von Wlislocki. 

WRATISLAW. Sixty Folk-Tales from exclusively Slavonic sources. Translated, with brief introductions and notes, by A. H. Wratislaw, M. A. London, 1889. 

WRIGHT, _Middle Ages. _ Essays on subjects connected with the Literature, Popular Superstitions and History of England in the Middle Ages. ByThomas Wright, M. A. , F. S. A. 2 vols. London, 1846. 

_Y Brython. _ Y Brython: Cylchgrawn Llenyddol Cymru; dan olygiad y Parch. D. Silvan Evans. 5 vols. Tremadog, 1858-63. 

_Y Cymmrodor. _ Y Cymmrodor, embodying the Transactions of theCymmrodorion Society of London. 10 vols. London, 1877-90, stillproceeding. 

_Y Llyvyr Coch. _ Y Llyvyr Coch o Hergest. Y gyvrol I. The Text of theMabinogion and other Welsh Tales from the Red Book of Hergest edited byJohn Rhys, M. A. And J. Gwenogvryn Evans. Oxford, 1887. 

 The Mabinogion, from the Welsh of the Llyfr Coch o Hergest (The Red Book of Hergest) in the Library of Jesus College, Oxford. Translated, with notes, by Lady Charlotte Guest. London, 1877. 

_Zeits. F. Volksk. _ Zeitschrift für Volkskunde in Sage und Mär, Schwankund Streich, Lied, Rätsel und Sprichwörter, Sitte und Brauchherausgegeben von Dr. Edmund Veckenstedt. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1889-90, still proceeding. 

INDEX. 

 Actæon, 71

 Afghan legend, 183

 Alsatian tales, 213, 216

 American Indians, Tales of North, 268, 271, 314, 315

 Ananci tale, 294

 Animism, 25

 Annamite tales, 200, 323

 Arabian Nights Entertainments, 50, 69, 79, 84, 255, 260, 267

 Arab tales (_see_ Arabian Nights Entertainments), 202, 300, 316, 319

 Ardshi-Bordshi, 81

 Arthur, King, 205, 207, 211, 212, 234

 Art of Story-telling, 1, 5, 20. In Western Highlands, 5; Brittany, 7; Portugal, Brazil, Gascony, Wales, England, 8; France, Sicily, 9; Panjab, 11; Cashmere, New Zealand, Polynesia, Greenland, 12; among the Malagasy, Ahts, Indian tribes of Guiana, 13; in India, 14; among the Algonkins, ancient Germans, Anglo-Saxons, ancient Welsh, 15; Arabs, Guslars, 16; Swahilis, 17; Eskimo, 12, 19

 Ascension Day, 90

 Aubrey, John, 148, 244

 Bahar Danush, 260

 Ballafletcher, Cup of, 156

 Bantik. _See_ Celebes

 Bards, Welsh, 15

 Baptism, superstitions concerning, 94, 101

 Barrows, haunted, 141, 142, 146, 231

 Basque tale, 293

 Berchta, Dame, 70, 90

 Blanik mountain, 184, 219, 220

 Blood relationship among savages, 47

 Bohemian tales, 56, 119, 175, 184, 219, 245, 251, 260, 294

 Bona Dea, 84, 87

 Bornoese tales, 300, 311, 324

 Breton tales, 61, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67, 116, 138, 174, 190, 192, 293

 Briar Rose, 247

 Buddhist influence on tales, 295, _et seqq. _

 Bulgarian tales. _See_ Slavonic

 Burmese tale, 267, 297

 Burton, Sir Richard F. (_see_ Arabian Nights Entertainments), 16

 Cabalists, the, a mediæval sect, 341

 Carinthian tales, 173, 240

 Cashmere, tales from. _See_ Indian

 Celebes Islands, tale from, 267, 297

 Changelings, 93, _et seqq. _

 Chinese superstitions, 97, 98

 Chinese tales, 177, 178, 299, 300

 Christening. _See_ Baptism

 Christmas, 141, 142, 157, 159

 Coals turned to gold, 49

 Cologne, Three Kings of, 149, 150

 Coptic tale, 181

 Corpus Christi Day, 89

 Corsican tale, 274

 Cosquin, Emmanuel, 267, 297

 Coventry, _See_ Godiva

 Cretan tales, _See_ Greek

 Cyclades, tale from, _See_ Greek

 Danish superstitions, 96, 99, 231

 Danish tales, 40, 44, 50, 56, 67, 103, 114, 130, 131, 140, 141, 144, 151, 185, 213, 294

 Dardistan, tale from, 49

 Davies, Rev. Edward, 136

 Dean, Forest of, _See_ Forest

 Death, savage belief on, 27

 Derceto, a Phoenician goddess, 324

 Devil, the, 42, 47, 69, 263, 280

 Diana, 71

 Diedrich, 213, 233

 Dobocz, the robber chief, 218, 233

 Dracs of the Rhone, 65, 100

 Duffus, story of Lord, 148

 Dyak, _See_ Bornoese

 Edenhall, _See_ Luck

 Edgehill, Battle of, 235

 Edric the Wild, 302, 338, 340

 Eggshells, changelings detected by, 153, _et seqq. _, 125

 Elidorus, tale of, 135

 English superstitions, 96, 100, 205

 English tales, 59, 61, 63, 64, 66, 68, 69, 106, 116, 124, 126, 139, 145, 146, 147, 178, 189, 211, 234, 244

 Epimenides, tale of, 183

 Eskimo tales, 137, 262

 Esthonian tales, 201, 273, 280

 Etiquette of various nations, 309, 321

 Ezra, 182

 Fairy Births and Human Midwives, 37, _et seqq. _, 59, _et seqq. _

 Fairyland, 43, 47, 161, 196, 222

 Fairy Tales, definition of, 3; divisions of, 22; principles of explanation of, 32

 Feather-robe, 258, 267, 268, 298, 300, 301

 Females, kinship through, _See_ Kinship

 Finnish tales, 259, 329

 Fire, superstitions respecting, 96, 97

 Forest of Dean, 78

 Folktale (_See_ Art of Story-telling), connection with folk-song, 14; how to be reported, 21

 Frazer J. G. , 31, 249, 252

 Frederick Barbarossa, 172, 213

 French superstitions, 96

 French tales (_See_ Breton), 42, 47, 65, 114, 119, 272, 293, 324, 342

 Frog, Fairy as, _See_ Toad. 

 Gaelic tales, _See_ Scottish

 Gerald, Earl, 210, 233

 German superstitions, 95, 96, 99, 108, 140, 143, 279, 281

 German tales (_See_ Alsatian, Pomeranian, Rügen, Swabian, Transylvanian), 48, 103, 113, 114, 118, 124, 126, 130, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142, 143, 149, 152, 172, 177, 185, 188, 192, 212, 214, 215, 216, 217, 238, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 259, 281, 327

 Gervase of Tilbury, 65, 100, 145, 212, 234, 272, 284

 Giraldus Cambrensis, 135

 Gloucestershire (_See_ Forest of Dean, St. Briavels), 145

 Godiva, legend of Lady, 71, _et seqq. _

 Gold Coast, custom at, 86

 Gold Coast, tales of, 313, 324

 Gold, fairy, turns to dross, 50

 Grateful animals, _See_ Buddhist

 Gratitude, fairy, 48, 218, 312, 316

 Greek superstitions, 99, 100

 Greek tales, 55, 82, 242, 267, 269, 290, 317

 Grey, Sir George, 12, 285

 Grimm, 120, 140, 212, 213, 216, 233

 Guiana, tales from, 261, 289, 297, 299, 324

 Guernsey, tales from, 62, 66, 114

 Hades, food of, must not be eaten, 43, 44, 45, 47

 Harold II. , King, 72, 205

 Hasan of Bassorah, tale of, 255, 291

 Hebrew tale, 41, 55

 Helpful beasts, _See_ Buddhist

 Herla, King, tale of, 178, 234

 Hero, the Hidden, the Sleeping, 205 _et seqq. _, 228, 235

 Hertha, a German goddess, 71, 89, 90

 Hindoo customs, tales, _See_ Indian

 Highland tales, _See_ Scottish

 Holle, Dame, 215, 236

 Icelandic tales, 113, 193

 Imagination among savages, 2, 33

 Im Thurn, Everard, 13, 230

 Indian customs, 84

 Indian tales, 82, 227, 268, 296, 317, 318, 338

 Iolo Morganwg, 207

 Irish superstitions, 96, 121, 123, 210, 211

 Irish tales, 50, 52, 63, 107, 116, 118, 122, 128, 196, 198, 202, 210, 211, 259, 314, 324, 338

 Iron, dislike of supernatural beings to, 50, 97, 126, 164, 306

 Irving, Washington, 177, 181

 Italian superstitions, 99

 Italian tales (_see_ Corsican, Sicilian, Tirolese), 199, 293

 Japanese tales, 174, 178, 194, 273, 301

 Jewish tales, _See_ Hebrew

 Jeremiah the prophet, 181 [TN: out of alphabetical order]

 Kaffir tale, 328

 Kan Püdäi, 42

 Kathá-sarit-ságara, 318

 Keats, 313

 Kinship through females, 228, _et seqq. _

 Kirk Malew, Cup of, 155

 Koran, _See_ Mohammed

 Kurdish tale, 262, 292

 Kurroglú, the robber-poet, 80

 Kyffhäuser, 172, 214, 215, 229

 Lady Wilde, _See_ Wilde

 Lapp superstitions, 108

 Lapp tales, 38, 57, 173, 329

 Liebrecht, Felix, 79; his Ghost Theory, 337

 Lithuanian superstitions, 96

 Lithuanian tales, 104, 120, 220, 221

 Li Kì, a Chinese classic, 321

 Loo Choo Islands, tale from, 318

 Longfellow, 187

 Luck of Edenhall, 153

 Luther on Changelings, 109, 124

 Luxemburg, 240, 253, 324

 Luzel, F. M. , 7, 190

 Mabinogion, 188

 MacRitchie, David, his Finn Theory, 349, _et seqq. _

 Mahábhárata, 317

 Magyar tale, 260

 Malagasy tale, 287

 Malory, Sir Thomas, 205

 Manx superstitions, 108, 210

 Manx tales, 41, 106, 117, 155

 Maori customs, 290

 Maori tales, 45, 274, 285, 288, 289, 317, 319

 Map, Walter, 178, 234, 302, 338, 340, 341

 Marko, Prince, _or_ King, tale of, 218

 Marquis of the Sun, tale of, 264, 291, 293

 Marriage settlements, Indian, 321, 322

 Maundeville, Sir John, 111, 239

 Meddygon Myddfai, 325

 Melusina, 240, 253, 272, 273, 321, 324, 327

 Merlin, 209

 Messia, the Sicilian story-teller, 9

 Metamorphosis, 26, 31

 Midsummer Day, _See_ St. John's Day

 Midwives, adventures of, _See_ Fairy Births

 Minstrel in Middle Ages, 15

 Mohammed, 182, 224

 Mohel, adventure of a, 41, 55

 Moravian tale, 274

 Morgan the Fay, 43, 204

 Morris, William, 239, 260, 261

 Mother-right, _See_ Kinship

 Myddfai, Physicians of, _See_ Meddygon

 Names, Savage feeling about, 309

 Napoleon I. , 206

 Nereids, 55, 99, 242, 267, 317, 325

 Netherlands, tale from, 188

 New Guinea, tale from, 322

 New Year's Eve and Night, 69, 248

 New Zealand, _See_ Maori

 Nightmare, the, 278, _et seqq. _

 Norwegian tales. _See_ Scandinavian

 Odin, _See_ Woden

 Ogier the Dane, _See_ Olger

 Ointment, Magical, 59, _et seqq. _

 Oisin, 196, 198

 Oldenburg Horn, 149

 Olger the Dane, 43, 204, 213

 Omens, 30

 Osburg, foundress of nunnery at Coventry, 90

 Ossian, _See_ Oisin

 Ovid, 71

 Owen Glendower, 209

 Owen Lawgoch, 209

 Parsees, _See_ Sad Dar

 Peeping Tom, _See_ Godiva

 Peleus, _See_ Thetis

 Perrault, 247

 Pitré, Dr. , 9, 53, 192

 Pliny, 86, 183

 Pomeranian tales, 48, 51, 141, 217, 237, 242, 243, 251, 262, 281

 Polynesian tales, 44, 45, 267, 319, 324

 Portuguese superstition, 206

 Portuguese tale, 181

 Princess, the Enchanted, 237, _et seqq. _, 262

 Proserpine, 43, 48

 Revenge, Fairy, 52, 59, _et seqq. _, 65, _et seqq. _

 Rhys, Professor, 37, 64, 66, 110, 163, 164, 188, 231, 325, 330

 Rip van Winkle, 177

 Robberies from Fairyland, 135, _et seqq. _

 Roger of Wendover, _See_ Godiva

 Roman superstition, 96

 Russian tales, 119, 259, 265, 294, 298, 344

 Rügen, Island of, tales from, 71, 89, 127, 152, 236

 Sad Dar, a sacred book of Parsees, 96

 Samoyede tale, 268

 Savage ideas, 22; evidence of, 32

 Savages, imagination among, 2

 Saxo Grammaticus, 44

 Scandinavian tales (_see_ Icelandic, Danish), 38, 115, 142, 150, 155, 217, 258, 281, 294, 318

 Scottish superstitions, 94, 95, 96, 127, 133

 Scottish tales, 55, 61, 98, 105, 111, 112, 118, 120, 121, 122, 125, 127, 130, 131, 132, 144, 148, 165, 166, 167, 180, 186, 241, 266, 293, 312

 Sebastian, Don, 206

 Sébillot, Paul, 67

 Seven Sleepers, the, 182

 Siberian tales, 42, 169

 Sicilian superstitions, 100, 111

 Sicilian tales, 53, 192, 212, 299

 Siegfried, _or_ Sigurd, 212, 247

 Sikes, Wirt, 64, 123, 137, 165, 278

 Simrock, Karl, 101, 116

 Slavonic superstitions, 206, 279

 Slavonic tales (_see_ Bohemian, Russian, Lithuanian), 218, 266, 267, 298, 312

 Southam, procession at, 85

 Southey, 187

 Spanish superstitions, 100, 205

 Spanish tales, 187, 226, 264, 294, 315, 325, 339

 Spirits, doctrine of, 25, 42

 St. Augustine, 100, 235

 St. Briavels, custom at, 78, 87

 Stephens, Professor Dr. Geo. , 150

 St. John's Day, 214, 236, 238, 248

 Story-telling, Art of, _See_ Art

 Stoymir, the Knight, 220, 233

 Swabian tales, 39, 52, 147, 244, 245, 253

 Swan-maidens, 202, 255, _et seqq. _, 283, _et seqq. _, 337

 Swedish tales, _See_ Scandinavian

 Swiss tale, 49

 Taboo, 270, 302, 304, 305, 306, 309, 311, 312, 318, 320, 337

 Tacitus, 15, 71, 89

 Tam Lin, ballad of, 242

 Tawhaki and Tango-tango, tale of, 285, _et seqq. _

 Thetis, 242, 317, 329

 Thomas of Erceldoune, 43, 102, 103

 Time, supernatural lapse of, 161, _et seqq. _, 196, _et seqq. _, 222, _et seqq. _

 Tini-rau, tale of, 286, _et seqq. _

 Tir na n 'Og, _See_ Oisin

 Tirolese tales, 70, 184, 274, 293, 315, 325, 329, 348

 Toad or frog, fairy as (_see_ Princess), 51, 52, 53, 338

 Totemism, 27, 324, 331, 346

 Tradition, definition of, 34

 Traditions, variable value of, 4, 24

 Transformations, doctrine of, 26, 31

 Transylvanian tales, 52, 176, 189, 246, 258, 347

 Ulrich von Rosenberg, 220, 233

 Van Pool, Lady of the, 274, 325, 330

 Vikramâditya, 81

 Vitra, 38

 Wäinämöinen, 45

 Waldron, Geo. , 41, 108, 156

 Wastin of Wastiniog, tale of, 302

 Welsh superstitions, 110, 126, 207, 209

 Welsh tales, 37, 62, 63, 103, 113, 115, 122, 123, 126, 128, 135, 136, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 187, 188, 207, 209, 225, 269, 274, 294, 301, 302, 304, 305, 317, 325, 327, 330

 Wenzel, King, 184, 219

 Western Highlands, story-telling in, 5

 Weyland Smith, 318

 Wilde, Lady, 102, 128

 Wild Edric, _See_ Edric

 Wild Hunt, the, 233, 234, 236

 William of Newbury, 146

 Witchcraft, 29

 Witches, 99, 143, 173, 336, 348

 Woden, 212, 233, 247, 339

 Yatsh, _or_ demon, wedding, 49

 York, custom at, 90

 Yorkshire, 189, 211

 Zoroaster, 96

UNWIN BROTHERS, THE GRESHAM PRESS, CHILWORTH AND LONDON.