It may be as well to give the reader some account of the enormous
extent of the Celtic folk-tales in existence. I reckon these to extend
to 2000, though only about 250 are in print. The former number exceeds
that known in France, Italy, Germany, and Russia, where collection has
been most active, and is only exceeded by the MS. collection of Finnish
folk-tales at Helsingfors, said to exceed 12,000. As will be seen, this
superiority of the Celts is due to the phenomenal and patriotic
activity of one man, the late J. F. Campbell, of Islay, whose _Popular
Tales_ and MS. collections (partly described by Mr. Alfred Nutt in
_Folk-Lore_, i. 369-83) contain references to no less than 1281 tales
(many of them, of course, variants and scraps). Celtic folk-tales,
while more numerous, are also the oldest of the tales of modern
European races; some of them--_e.g._, "Connla," in the present
selection, occurring in the oldest Irish vellums. They include (1)
fairy tales properly so-called--_i.e._, tales or anecdotes _about_
fairies, hobgoblins, &c., told as natural occurrences; (2) hero-tales,
stories of adventure told of national or mythical heroes; (3)
folk-tales proper, describing marvellous adventures of otherwise
unknown heroes, in which there is a defined plot and supernatural
characters (speaking animals, giants, dwarfs, &c.); and finally (4)
drolls, comic anecdotes of feats of stupidity or cunning.
The collection of Celtic folk-tales began in IRELAND as early as 1825,
with T. Crofton Croker's _Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of
Ireland_. This contained some 38 anecdotes of the first class mentioned
above, anecdotes showing the belief of the Irish peasantry in the
existence of fairies, gnomes, goblins, and the like. The Grimms did
Croker the honour of translating part of his book, under the title of
_Irische Elfenmärchen_. Among the novelists and tale-writers of the
schools of Miss Edgeworth and Lever folk-tales were occasionally
utilised, as by Carleton in his _Traits and Stories_, by S. Lover in
his _Legends and Stories_, and by G. Griffin in his _Tales of a
Jury-Room_. These all tell their tales in the manner of the stage
Irishman. Chapbooks, _Royal Fairy Tales_ and _Hibernian Tales_, also
contained genuine folk-tales, and attracted Thackeray's attention in
his _Irish Sketch-Book_. The Irish Grimm, however, was Patrick Kennedy,
a Dublin bookseller, who believed in fairies, and in five years (1866-
71) printed about 100 folk- and hero-tales and drolls (classes 2, 3,
and 4 above) in his _Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts_, 1866,
_Fireside Stories of Ireland_, 1870, and _Bardic Stories of Ireland_,
1871; all three are now unfortunately out of print. He tells his
stories neatly and with spirit, and retains much that is _volkstümlich_
in his diction. He derived his materials from the English-speaking
peasantry of county Wexford, who changed from Gaelic to English while
story-telling was in full vigour, and therefore carried over the
stories with the change of language. Lady Wylde has told many
folk-tales very effectively in her _Ancient Legends of Ireland_, 1887.
More recently two collectors have published stories gathered from
peasants of the West and North who can only speak Gaelic. These are by
an American gentleman named Curtin, _Myths and Folk-Tales of Ireland_,
1890; while Dr. Douglas Hyde has published in _Beside the Fireside_,
1891, spirited English versions of some of the stories he had published
in the original Irish in his _Leabhar Sgeulaighteachta_, Dublin, 1889.
Miss Maclintoch has a large MS. collection, part of which has appeared
in various periodicals; and Messrs. Larminie and D. Fitzgerald are
known to have much story material in their possession.
But beside these more modern collections there exist in old and middle
Irish a large number of hero-tales (class 2) which formed the staple of
the old _ollahms_ or bards. Of these tales of "cattle-liftings,
elopements, battles, voyages, courtships, caves, lakes, feasts, sieges,
and eruptions," a bard of even the fourth class had to know seven
fifties, presumably one for each day of the year. Sir William Temple
knew of a north-country gentleman of Ireland who was sent to sleep
every evening with a fresh tale from his bard. The _Book of Leinster_,
an Irish vellum of the twelfth century, contains a list of 189 of these
hero-tales, many of which are extant to this day; E. O'Curry gives the
list in the Appendix to his MS. _Materials of Irish History_. Another
list of about 70 is given in the preface to the third volume of the
Ossianic Society's publications. Dr. Joyce published a few of the more
celebrated of these in _Old Celtic Romances_; others appeared in
_Atlantis_ (see notes on "Deirdre"), others in Kennedy's _Bardic
Stories_, mentioned above.
Turning to SCOTLAND, we must put aside Chambers' _Popular Rhymes of
Scotland_, 1842, which contains for the most part folk-tales common
with those of England rather than those peculiar to the Gaelic-speaking
Scots. The first name here in time as in importance is that of J. F.
Campbell, of Islay. His four volumes, _Popular Tales of the West
Highlands_ (Edinburgh, 1860-2, recently republished by the Islay
Association), contain some 120 folk- and hero-tales, told with strict
adherence to the language of the narrators, which is given with a
literal, a rather too literal, English version. This careful accuracy
has given an un-English air to his versions, and has prevented them
attaining their due popularity. What Campbell has published represents
only a tithe of what he collected. At the end of the fourth volume he
gives a list of 791 tales, &c., collected by him or his assistants in
the two years 1859-61; and in his MS. collections at Edinburgh are two
other lists containing 400 more tales. Only a portion of these are in
the Advocates' Library; the rest, if extant, must be in private hands,
though they are distinctly of national importance and interest.
Campbell's influence has been effective of recent years in Scotland.
The _Celtic Magazine_ (vols. xii. and xiii.), while under the
editorship of Mr. MacBain, contained several folk- and hero-tales in
Gaelic, and so did the _Scotch Celtic Review_. These were from the
collections of Messrs. Campbell of Tiree, Carmichael, and K. Mackenzie.
Recently Lord Archibald Campbell has shown laudable interest in the
preservation of Gaelic folk- and hero-tales. Under his auspices a whole
series of handsome volumes, under the general title of _Waifs and
Strays of Celtic Tradition_, has been recently published, four volumes
having already appeared, each accompanied by notes by Mr. Alfred Nutt,
which form the most important aid to the study of Celtic Folk-Tales
since Campbell himself. Those to the second volume in particular (Tales
collected by Rev. D. MacInnes) fill 100 pages, with condensed
information on all aspects of the subject dealt with in the light of
the most recent research in the European folk-tales as well as on
Celtic literature. Thanks to Mr. Nutt, Scotland is just now to the fore
in the collection and study of the British Folk-Tale.
WALES makes a poor show beside Ireland and Scotland. Sikes' _British
Goblins_, and the tales collected by Prof. Rhys in _Y Cymrodor_, vols.
ii.-vi., are mainly of our first-class fairy anecdotes. Borrow, in his
_Wild Wales_, refers to a collection of fables in a journal called _The
Greal_, while the _Cambrian Quarterly Magazine_ for 1830 and 1831
contained a few fairy anecdotes, including a curious version of the
"Brewery of Eggshells" from the Welsh. In the older literature, the
_Iolo MS._, published by the Welsh MS. Society, has a few fables and
apologues, and the charming _Mabinogion_, translated by Lady Guest, has
tales that can trace back to the twelfth century and are on the
border-line between folk-tales and hero-tales.
CORNWALL and MAN are even worse than Wales. Hunt's _Drolls from the
West of England_ has nothing distinctively Celtic, and it is only by a
chance Lhuyd chose a folk-tale as his specimen of Cornish in his
_Archaeologia Britannica_, 1709 (see _Tale of Ivan_). The Manx
folk-tales published, including the most recent by Mr. Moore, in his
_Folk-Lore of the Isle of Man_, 1891, are mainly fairy anecdotes and
legends.
From this survey of the field of Celtic folk-tales it is clear that
Ireland and Scotland provide the lion's share. The interesting thing to
notice is the remarkable similarity of Scotch and Irish folk-tales. The
continuity of language and culture between these two divisions of
Gaeldom has clearly brought about this identity of their folk-tales. As
will be seen from the following notes, the tales found in Scotland can
almost invariably be paralleled by those found in Ireland, and _vice
versa_. This result is a striking confirmation of the general truth
that folk-lores of different countries resemble one another in
proportion to their contiguity and to the continuity of language and
culture between them.
Another point of interest in these Celtic folk-tales is the light they
throw upon the relation of hero-tales and folk-tales (classes 2 and 3
above). Tales told of Finn of Cuchulain, and therefore coming under the
definition of hero-tales, are found elsewhere told of anonymous or
unknown heroes. The question is, were the folk-tales the earliest, and
were they localised and applied to the heroes, or were the heroic sagas
generalised and applied to an unknown [Greek: tis]? All the evidence,
in my opinion, inclines to the former view, which, as applied to Celtic
folk-tales, is of very great literary importance; for it is becoming
more and more recognised, thanks chiefly to the admirable work of Mr.
Alfred Nutt, in his _Studies on the Holy Grail_, that the outburst of
European Romance in the twelfth century was due, in large measure, to
an infusion of Celtic hero-tales into the literature of the
Romance-speaking nations. Now the remarkable thing is, how these hero
tales have lingered on in oral tradition even to the present day. (See
a marked case in "Deirdre.") We may, therefore, hope to see
considerable light thrown on the most characteristic spiritual product
of the Middle Ages, the literature of Romance and the spirit of
chivalry, from the Celtic folk-tales of the present day. Mr. Alfred
Nutt has already shown this to be true of a special section of Romance
literature, that connected with the Holy Grail, and it seems probable
that further study will extend the field of application of this new
method of research.
The Celtic folk-tale again has interest in retaining many traits of
primitive conditions among the early inhabitants of these isles which
are preserved by no other record. Take, for instance, the calm
assumption of polygamy in "Gold Tree and Silver Tree." That represents
a state of feeling that is decidedly pre-Christian. The belief in an
external soul "Life Index," recently monographed by Mr. Frazer in his
"Golden Bough," also finds expression in a couple of the Tales (see
notes on "Sea-Maiden" and "Fair, Brown, and Trembling"), and so with
many other primitive ideas.
Care, however, has to be taken in using folk-tales as evidence for
primitive practice among the nations where they are found. For the
tales may have come from another race--that is, for example, probably
the case with "Gold Tree and Silver Tree" (see Notes). Celtic tales are
of peculiar interest in this connection, as they afford one of the best
fields for studying the problem of diffusion, the most pressing of the
problems of the folk-tales just at present, at least in my opinion. The
Celts are at the furthermost end of Europe. Tales that travelled to
them could go no further and must therefore be the last links in the
chain.
For all these reasons, then, Celtic folk-tales are of high scientific
interest to the folk-lorist, while they yield to none in imaginative
and literary qualities. In any other country of Europe some national
means of recording them would have long ago been adopted. M. Luzel,
_e.g._, was commissioned by the French Minister of Public Instruction
to collect and report on the Breton folk-tales. England, here as
elsewhere without any organised means of scientific research in the
historical and philological sciences, has to depend on the enthusiasm
of a few private individuals for work of national importance. Every
Celt of these islands or in the Gaeldom beyond the sea, and every
Celt-lover among the English-speaking nations, should regard it as one
of the duties of the race to put its traditions on record in the few
years that now remain before they will cease for ever to be living in
the hearts and memories of the humbler members of the race.
In the following Notes I have done as in my _English Fairy Tales_, and
given first, the _sources_ whence I drew the tales, then _parallels_ at
length for the British Isles, with bibliographical references for
parallels abroad, and finally, _remarks_ where the tales seemed to need
them. In these I have not wearied or worried the reader with
conventional tall talk about the Celtic genius and its manifestations
in the folk-tale; on that topic one can only repeat Matthew Arnold when
at his best, in his _Celtic Literature_. Nor have I attempted to deal
with the more general aspects of the study of the Celtic folk-tale. For
these I must refer to Mr. Nutt's series of papers in _The Celtic
Magazine_, vol. xii., or, still better, to the masterly introductions
he is contributing to the series of _Waifs and Strays of Celtic
Tradition_, and to Dr. Hyde's _Beside the Fireside_. In my remarks I
have mainly confined myself to discussing the origin and diffusion of
the various tales, so far as anything definite could be learnt or
conjectured on that subject.
Before proceeding to the Notes, I may "put in," as the lawyers say, a
few summaries of the results reached in them. Of the twenty-six tales,
twelve (i., ii., v., viii., ix., x., xi., xv., xvi., xvii., xix.,
xxiv.) have Gaelic originals; three (vii., xiii., xxv.) are from the
Welsh; one (xxii.) from the now extinct Cornish; one an adaptation of
an English poem founded on a Welsh tradition (xxi., "Gellert"); and the
remaining nine are what may be termed Anglo-Irish. Regarding their
diffusion among the Celts, twelve are both Irish and Scotch (iv., v.,
vi., ix., x., xiv.-xvii., xix., xx., xxiv); one (xxv.) is common to
Irish and Welsh; and one (xxii.) to Irish and Cornish; seven are found
only among the Celts in Ireland (i.-iii., xii., xviii., xxii., xxvi);
two (viii., xi.) among the Scotch; and three (vii., xiii., xxi.) among
the Welsh. Finally, so far as we can ascertain their origin, four (v.,
xvi., xxi., xxii.) are from the East; five (vi., x., xiv., xx., xxv.)
are European drolls; three of the romantic tales seem to have been
imported (vii., ix., xix.); while three others are possibly Celtic
exportations to the Continent (xv., xvii., xxiv.) though the, last may
have previously come thence; the remaining eleven are, as far as known,
original to Celtic lands. Somewhat the same result would come out, I
believe, as the analysis of any representative collection of folk-tales
of any European district.