For some general remarks on the English Folk-Tale and previous
collectors, I must refer to the introductory observations added to the
Notes and References of _English Fairy Tales_, in the third edition.
With the present instalment the tale of English Fairy Stories that are
likely to obtain currency among the young folk is complete. I do not
know of more than half-a-dozen "outsiders" that deserve to rank with
those included in my two volumes which, for the present, at any rate,
must serve as the best substitute that can be offered for an English
Grimm. I do not despair of the future. After what Miss Fison (who, as I
have recently learned, was the collector of _Tom Tit Tot_ and _Cap o'
Rushes_), Mrs. Balfour, and Mrs. Gomme have done in the way of
collecting among the folk, we may still hope for substantial additions
to our stock to be garnered by ladies from the less frequented portions
of English soil. And from the United States we have every reason to
expect a rich harvest to be gathered by Mr. W.W. Newell, who is
collecting the English folk-tales that still remain current in New
England. If his forthcoming book equals in charm, scholarship, and
thoroughness his delightful _Games and Songs of American Children_, the
Anglo-American folk-tale will be enriched indeed. A further examination
of English nursery rhymes may result in some additions to our stock. I
reserve these for separate treatment in which I am especially
interested, owing to the relations which I surmise between the folk-tale
and the _cante-fable_.
Meanwhile the eighty-seven tales (representing some hundred and twenty
variants) in my two volumes must represent the English folk-tale as far
as my diligence has been able to preserve it at this end of the
nineteenth century. There is every indication that they form but a
scanty survival of the whole _corpus_ of such tales which must have
existed in this country. Of the seventy European story-radicles which I
have enumerated in the Folk-Lore Society's _Handbook_, pp. 117-35, only
forty are represented in our collection: I have little doubt that the
majority of the remaining thirty or so also existed in these isles, and
especially in England. If I had reckoned in the tales current in the
English pale of Ireland, as well as those in Lowland Scots, there would
have been even less missing. The result of my investigations confirms me
in my impression that the scope of the English folk-tale should include
all those current among the folk in English, no matter where spoken, in
Ireland, the Lowlands, New England, or Australia. Wherever there is
community of language, tales can spread, and it is more likely that
tales should be preserved in those parts where English is spoken with
most of dialect. Just as the Anglo-Irish Pale preserves more of the
pronunciation of Shakespeare's time, so it is probable that Anglo-Irish
stories preserve best those current in Shakespeare's time in English. On
the other hand, it is possible that some, nay many, of the Anglo-Irish
stories have been imported from the Celtic districts, and are positively
folk-translations from the Gaelic. Further research is required to
determine which is English and which Celtic among Anglo-Irish
folk-tales. Meanwhile my collection must stand for the nucleus of the
English folk-tale, and we can at any rate judge of its general spirit
and tendencies from the eighty-seven tales now before the reader.
Of these, thirty-eight are _märchen_ proper, _i.e._, tales with definite
plot and evolution; ten are sagas or legends locating romantic stories
in definite localities; no less than nineteen are drolls or comic
anecdotes; four are cumulative stories: six beast tales; while ten are
merely ingenious nonsense tales put together in such a form as to amuse
children. The preponderance of the comic element is marked, and it is
clear that humour is a characteristic of the English _folk_. The legends
are not of a very romantic kind, and the _märchen_ are often humorous in
character. So that a certain air of unromance is given by such a
collection as that we are here considering. The English folk-muse wears
homespun and plods afoot, albeit with a cheerful smile and a steady
gaze.
Some of this effect is produced by the manner in which the tales are
told. The colloquial manner rarely rises to the dignified, and the
essence of the folk-tale manner in English is colloquial. The opening
formulæ are varied enough, but none of them has much play of fancy.
"Once upon a time and a very good time it was, though it wasn't in my
time nor in your time nor in any one else's time," is effective enough
for a fairy epoch, and is common, according to Mayhew (_London Labour_.
iii.), among tramps. We have the rhyming formula:
Once upon a time when pigs spoke rhyme,
And monkeys chewed tobacco,
And hens took snuff to make them tough,
And ducks went quack, quack, quack Oh!
on which I have variants not so refined. Some stories start off without
any preliminary formula, or with a simple "Well, there was once a ----".
A Scotch formula reported by Mrs. Balfour runs, "Once on a time when a'
muckle folk were wee and a' lees were true," while Mr. Lang gives us
"There was a king and a queen as mony ane's been, few have we seen and
as few may we see." Endings of stories are even less varied. "So they
married and lived happy ever afterwards," comes from folk-tales, not
from novels. "All went well that didn't go ill," is a somewhat cynical
formula given by Mrs. Balfour, while the Scotch have "they lived happy
and died happy, and never drank out of a dry cappie."
In the course of the tale the chief thing to be noticed is the
occurrence of rhymes in the prose narrative, tending to give the
appearance of a _cante-fable_. I have enumerated those occurring in
_English Fairy Tales_ in the notes to _Childe Rowland_ (No. xxi.). In
the present volume, rhyme occurs in Nos. xlvi., xlviii., xlix., lviii.,
lx., lxiii. (see Note), lxiv., lxxiv., lxxxi., lxxxv., while lv., lxix.,
lxxiii., lxxvi., lxxxiii., lxxxiv., are either in verse themselves or
derived from verse versions. Altogether one third of our collection
gives evidence in favour of the _cante-fable_ theory which I adduced in
my notes to _Childe Rowland_. Another point of interest in English
folk-narrative is the repetition of verbs of motion, "So he went along
and went along and went along." Still more curious is a frequent change
of tense from the English present to the past. "So he gets up and went
along." All this helps to give the colloquial and familiar air to the
English fairy-tale not to mention the dialectal and archaic words and
phrases which occur in them.
But their very familiarity and colloquialism make them remarkably
effective with English-speaking little ones. The rhythmical phrases
stick in their memories; they can remember the exact phraseology of the
English tales much better, I find, than that of the Grimms' tales, or
even of the Celtic stories. They certainly have the quality of coming
home to English children. Perhaps this may be partly due to the fact
that a larger proportion of the tales are of native manufacture. If the
researches contained in my Notes are to be trusted only i.-ix., xi.,
xvii., xxii., xxv., xxvi., xxvii., xliv., l., liv., lv., lviii., lxi.,
lxii., lxv., lxvii., lxxviii., lxxxiv., lxxxvii. were imported; nearly
all the remaining sixty are home produce, and have their roots in the
hearts of the English people which naturally respond to them.
In the following Notes, I have continued my practice of giving (1)
_Source_ where I obtained the various tales. (2) _Parallels_, so far as
possible, in full for the British Isles, with bibliographical references
when they can be found; for occurrences abroad I generally refer to the
list of incidents contained in my paper read before the International
Folk-Lore Congress of 1891 and republished in the _Transactions_, 1892,
pp. 87-98. (3) _Remarks_ where the tale seems to need them. I have
mainly been on the search for signs of diffusion rather than of
"survivals" of antiquarian interest, though I trust it will be found I
have not neglected these.