CHAPTER I

Transcriber's note.

A list of the changes made can be found at the end of the book.

Formatting and special characters are indicated as follows:

[Sidenotes]

_italic_

=bold=

TYPES OF PROSE NARRATIVES

TYPES OF PROSE NARRATIVES

A TEXT-BOOK FOR THE STORY WRITER

BY

HARRIOTT ELY FANSLER

Assistant Professor of English in the University of the Philippines.

Formerly Instructor in English in Western Reserve University at

Cleveland, Ohio

[Illustration]

CHICAGO

ROW, PETERSON & COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1911,

HARRIOTT ELY FANSLER.

PREFACE

Inspiration for any craftsman lies in the history of his art and in a

definite problem at hand. He feels his task dignified when he knows

what has been done before him, and he has a starting point when he can

enumerate the essentials of what he wants to produce. He then goes to

his work with a zest that is in itself creative. There is a popular

misconception, especially in the minds of young people and seemingly

in the minds of many teachers and critics of literature, that geniuses

have sprung full-worded from the brain of Jove and have worked without

antecedents. There could not be to a writer a more cramping idea than

that. It is the aim of the present volume to help dispel that illusion,

and to set in a convenient form before students of narrative the

twofold inspiration mentioned--a feeling for the past and a series of

definite problems.

There has been no attempt at minuteness in tracing the type

developments; though there has been the constant ideal of exactness

and trustworthiness wherever developments are suggested. In other

words, this book is not a scrutiny of origins, but a setting forth of

essentials in kinds of narratives already clearly established. The

analysis that gives the essentials has, of course, the personal element

in it, as all such analyses must have; but the work is the work of one

mind and is at least consistent. Since I have not had the benefit of

other texts on the subject (for there are none that I know of) and

since the inquiry into narrative types with composition in view is thus

made, put together with illustrations, and published for the first

time, it has been my especial aim to exclude everything dogmatic. As

can readily be seen, the details have been worked out in the actual

classroom. The safe thing about the use of such a text by other

instructors is the fact that they and their pupils can test the truth

of the generalizations by first-hand inquiry of their own.

The examples chosen from literature and here printed are specific

as well as typical. They have been selected not only to illustrate

general principles, but for other reasons as well--some for superior

intrinsic worth; some for historical position; all because of possible

inspiration. But none have been selected as models.

The themes written by my present and former pupils are added for the

last reason--as sure reinforcement of the inspiration, as provokers

to action. Often students fail to write because there is held up to

them a model, something complicated and perfect in detail. They feel

their apprenticeship keenly and hesitate to attempt a likeness to a

masterpiece. But, on the other hand, when they get a glimpse of history

and when they see the work of a fellow tyro, they know that an equally

good or even better result is within their reach and so set to work

at once. The productions of pupils under this historical-illustrative

method, wherever it has been tried, have been encouraging. Seldom has

any one failed to present an acceptable piece of work. Once in a while

a "mistake" has been made that has reassured a teacher and a class of

the accuracy of the contamination theory--the historical cross-grafting

or counter influence of types; that is, sometimes in the endeavor

to produce a theme that should vary from those he thought the other

students would write, an earnest worker has unconsciously produced

an example of the next succeeding type to be studied; unconsciously,

because hitherto, of course, the classes have gone forward without a

printed text.

This statement leads to the question, Why publish the literary

examples? Why not merely give the references? Because school and even

town libraries are limited. Twenty-five card-holders can scarcely get

the same volume within the same week. Besides, the plan I consider

good to insure the pupil's thorough acquaintance with the library

accessible to him and with library methods and possibilities is quite

other than this. This book is meant as a work-table guide for the

student and as a time-saver for the teacher; hence all the necessary

material should be immediately at hand. The instructor's concern in

the teaching of narrative writing is just the twofold one mentioned

before--to orientate the young scribbler and to give him a quick and

sure inspiration. After that he is to be left alone to write, and the

fewer the books around him the better.

The bibliography is added for two other classes of persons: those

who desire to make a somewhat further and more minute study of type

developments, and those who wish merely to read extensively or

selectively in the works of fiction and history themselves. The list of

books and authors is intended simply to be helpful, not exhaustive, and

consequently contains, with but few exceptions, only those works that

one might reasonably expect to find in a well-stocked college or city

library.

I confess I hope that some amateur writer out of college or high

school may chance upon the book and be encouraged by it to persevere.

There are many delightful hours possible for one who enjoys

composition, if he can but get a bit of a lift here and there or a

new impulse to an occasionally flagging imagination. All but the very

earliest literature has been produced thus--namely, by a conscious

writing to a type, with an idea either of direct imitation, as in the

case of Chaucer, who gloried in his "authorities;" or of variation and

combination, as in the case of Walpole; or of equaling or surpassing in

excellence, as in the case of James Fenimore Cooper; or of satire and

supersedence, as in the case of Cervantes.

But to go back to the student themes here presented. They were written,

with the exception of two, for regular class credit. These two were

printed in a college paper as sophomore work. A number of the remaining

came out in school publications after serving in the English theme box.

All in all, they are the productions of actual students; from whom,

it is hoped, other young writers may get some help and a good deal of

entertainment. In each case the name of the author is affixed to his

narrative, since he alone is responsible for the merits and faults of

the piece.

In regard to the Filipino pupils no word is necessary: they speak

for themselves. The work here given as theirs is theirs. I have not

treated it in any way different from the way I treat all school

themes, American or other. It is everyday work--criticized by the

instructor, corrected by the pupil, and returned to the English office.

The examples could be replaced from my present stock to the extent

literally of some ten, some twenty, some two hundred fold. Naturally,

of course, as is true of all persons using a foreign language, the

Filipinos mistake idiom more often than anything else, and they write

more fluently than they talk; but there is among them no dearth of

material and no lack of thought. Indeed, the publishers have been

embarrassed by the supply of interesting stories, especially in the

earlier types. The temptation has been to add beyond the limits of

the merely helpful and illustrative and to pass into the realm of the

curious and entertaining. Regardless of literary quality, Filipino

themes have today an historic value; many of them are the first written

form of hitherto only oral tradition.

To say to how great an extent a writer and talker is indebted to

his everyday working library is difficult. Like a sculptor to an

excellent quarry, a teacher can indeed forget to give credit where

credit is due, especially to the more general books of reference such

as encyclopedias and histories of literature--Saintsbury, Chambers,

Ticknor, Jusserand. I would speak of the "Standard Dictionary," that

does all my spelling for me and not a little of my defining; and the

"Encyclopedia Britannica," which in these days of special treatises is

sometimes superciliously passed over, though it offers in its pages not

only much valuable literary information, but some of that information

in the form of very valuable literature. Next to these might be placed

Dunlop's "History of Fiction;" and last, particular and occasional

compilations like Brewer's and Blumentritt's, and criticism like

Murray's, Keightley's and Newbigging's. Then there is the "World's

Great Classics Series." Just how much I owe to these general texts I

cannot perhaps tell definitely; though I am not conscious of borrowing

where I have not given full credit. As I have said before, direct

treatises on my subject are lacking; so I shall have to bear alone the

brunt of criticism on the analysis, or the main body of the book. I

know of no one else to blame.

Grateful acknowledgment is due to my husband, Dean Spruill Fansler,

for long-suffering kindness in answering appeals to his opinion and

for reading the manuscript, compiling the bibliography, and making the

index. Without his generous help I should hardly have found time or

courage to put the chapters together.

In justice to former assistant English instructors in the United States

who have successfully followed earlier unpublished outlines, and to my

colleagues in the University of the Philippines who have been teaching

from the book in manuscript form for nine months, it ought to be said

that, whatever faults the work may have--and I fear they are all too

many--it can hardly be dismissed as an immature and untried theory.

If there should be found any merit in the content of the book in

general, I should like to have that ascribed to the influence of

the department of English and Comparative Literature of Columbia

University, where I had the privilege of graduate study with such

scholars as Ashley Horace Thorndike, William Peterfield Trent and

Jefferson Butler Fletcher.

My chief material debt is to the publishing firms who have very

courteously permitted the reprinting of narratives selected from their

copyrighted editions.

H. E. F.

University of the Philippines, Manila, 1911.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF STORIES xv-xx

INTRODUCTION xxi-xxvi

Part 1. Narratives of Imaginary Events

CHAPTER I. THE PRIMITIVE-RELIGIOUS GROUP 1-82

I. MYTH--Classes of myths: primitive-tribal and

artificial-literary--Myth age not a past epoch--How traditional myths

are collected--How original myths are composed--Difference between

myth and allegory, and myth and legend--Working definition--List of

mythological deities: Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Hindu, Russian, Finnish,

Norse, Filipino--Examples 1

II. LEGEND--Myth and legend compared--Saga--Saint legends--Geoffrey of

Monmouth--Legendary romance--Modern literary legends--How to select

and record a legend of growth--How to write a legend of art--Working

definition--Examples 22

III. FAIRY TALE--Attitude toward fairy stories--Fundamental

characteristics of fairies--Northern fairies and their attributes--Some

literary fairy tales--How to proceed to write a fairy tale--Summary

definition--Partial lists of fairies of different countries:

Northern, Irish and Scotch, Filipino, Russian, Arabian, and

Miscellaneous--Examples 43

IV. NURSERY SAGA--Origin--The brothers Grimm--English nursery

sagas--Distinguishing elements: kind of hero, rhymes, repetition of

situation, supernatural element--A few specific suggestions--Working

definition--Examples 65

CHAPTER II. SYMBOLIC-DIDACTIC GROUP 83-127

I. FABLE--Æsop--Other early fabulists--"Hitopadesa" and

"Panchatantra"--"Reynard the Fox" and bestiaries--Some more writers of

fables--Working definition--Classes of fables: rational, non-rational,

mixed--How to write an original fable--Maxims upon which fables may be

built--Examples 83

II. PARABLE--Distinguishing characteristics--Tolstoy--Suggestions on

writing a parable--Working definition--A list of proverbs that might be

expanded into parables--Examples 101

III. ALLEGORY--Characteristics--Plato's "Vision of Er"--Modern

allegories--Some famous English allegories--Allegory fable, and

parable differentiated--Working definition--How to write an

allegory--Present-day interest in primitive types--Examples 112

CHAPTER III. INGENIOUS-ASTONISHING GROUP 128-254

I. TALE OF MERE WONDER--Definition--Collections of

wonder stories, ancient and modern--Suggestions for

writing--Characteristic elements--Mediæval tales of chivalry--Heroic

romances--Examples 128

II. IMAGINARY VOYAGE WITH A SATIRIC OR INSTRUCTIVE

PURPOSE--Distinguishing elements--Source of the type--Famous

imaginary voyages--Suggestions on how to write

a satiric imaginary voyage--Examples 150

III. TALE OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY AND OF MECHANICAL

INVENTION--Relation to imaginary voyages--Essential

elements--Kind of stories included in this type--Suggestions

on how to write the type--Examples 194

IV. THE DETECTIVE STORY AND OTHER TALES OF PURE

PLOT--The detective story: connection with stories of

ingenuity--Poe and Doyle--Other stories of plot--Romance--A

few suggestions--Examples 225

CHAPTER IV. THE ENTERTAINING GROUP 255-344

I. TALE OF PROBABLE ADVENTURE--Characteristics and definition--How to

write a probable adventure--A warning--Examples 255

II. THE SOCIETY STORY--Definition--Pastoral Romance--Suggestions on

writing a society story--Examples 277

III. THE HUMOROUS STORY--Definition--Fableaux--Picaresque

romance--Difference between a humorous story and a comic

anecdote--Examples 299

IV. THE OCCASIONAL STORY--The spirit of the occasional story--Its

masters--Suggestions for subjects--Examples 313

CHAPTER V. THE INSTRUCTIVE GROUP 345-394

I. THE MORAL STORY--Differentiated from the symbolic-didactic

group--Great authors who have written this type: Hawthorne, Johnson,

Voltaire, Tolstoy, Cervantes--What to put in and what to leave

out--Examples 345

II. THE PEDAGOGICAL NARRATIVE--Definition--Some famous pedagogical

books--Froebel--Examples 361

III. THE STORY OF PRESENT DAY REALISM--What realism is--The realistic

school--Suggestions on characters to treat--Examples 370

CHAPTER VI. THE ARTISTIC GROUP: THE REAL SHORT-STORY 395-478

I. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WEIRD TALE--Origin--The School of Terror--Poe,

Stevenson, Maupassant, and others--Suggestions on writing a weird

tale--Material and method--Form--Examples 398

II. STORY THAT EMPHASIZES CHARACTER AND ENVIRONMENT--Kipling--Mary

E. Wilkins Freeman--Hamlin Garland--Bret Harte--Suggestions

and precautions--The "Character": Overbury and Hall--Novel of

Manners--Trollope's Cathedral Town Studies--Examples 426

III. STORY THAT EMPHASIZES CHARACTER AND EVENTS--Difference between

character-place story and character-events story--Component elements

of this type--A scrapbook suggestion--Other suggestions--Examples 455

Part II. Narratives of Actual Events

CHAPTER VII. PARTICULAR ACCOUNTS 479-556

I. INCIDENT--Definition--How to tell an incident--Examples 480

II. ANECDOTE--Meaning of the term--Ana--Collection of anecdotes--How to

write an original anecdote--Examples 490

III. EYE-WITNESS ACCOUNT--What it is and how to write it--An ancient

eye-witness account--Literary eyewitness accounts--Examples 499

IV. TALE OF ACTUAL ADVENTURE--The one necessary element--Suggestions

for writing--Examples 512

V. THE TRAVELER'S SKETCH--What a traveler's sketch includes--Great

travel books--Fielding's gentle warning--A motto for the

narrator--Examples 530

CHAPTER VIII. PERSONAL ACCOUNTS 557-611

I. JOURNAL AND DIARY--The two distinguished--The range of

journals--"Vida del Gran Tamurlan"--Great diaries--How to write

journal and diary--Examples 557

II. AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND MEMOIRS--Distinction--Cellini, Franklin, and

others--Selection and coherence--Examples 572

III. BIOGRAPHY--Beginning in England of literary biography--Great

biographies in English--Writer and subject--Beginning, emphasis, and

attitude--Outline for a life--Examples 590

CHAPTER IX. IMPERSONAL ACCOUNTS 612-645

I. ANNALS--What annals are--Famous old annals--Stow--Suggestions on

material--Examples 613

II. CHRONICLES--Definition--Froissart, Ayala, "General Chronicle of

Spain"--Saxo Grammaticus--Holinshed--True relations--Examples 626

BIBLIOGRAPHY 647-660

INDEX 661-672

LIST OF STORIES

NARRATIVES OF FICTITIOUS EVENTS

=Myths=

PAGE

The World's Creation and the Birth of Wainamoinen.

From the _Kalevala_ 14

_Students' Themes_--

Origin of the Moon Emanuel Baja 16

The First Cocoanut Tree Manuel Reyes 18

The Lotus Ida Treat 21

=Legends=

Kenach's Little Woman William Canton 28

_Students' Themes_--

A Legend of Gapan Teofilo Corpus 36

Manca: a Legend of the Incas Dorothea Knoblock 38

The Place of the Red Grass Sixto Guico 42

=Fairy Tales=

The Boggart From the English 55

_Students' Themes_--

Cafre and the Fisherman's Wife Benito Ebuen 57

The Friendship of an Asuang and a Duende Emanuel Baja 58

A Tianac Frightens Juan Santiago Ochoa 61

The Black Cloth of the Calumpang Eusebio Ramos 63

=Nursery Tales=

Princess Helena the Fair From the Russian 69

_Students' Themes_--

Juan the Guesser Bienvenido Gonzalez 73

The Shepherd who became King Vicente Hilario 78

=Fables=

Jupiter and the Countryman From the _Spectator_ 90

The Drop of Water (Persian) From the _Spectator_ 91

The Grandee at the Judgment Seat Kriloff 91

The Lion and the Old Hare From the _Hitopadesa_ 92

The Fox and the Crab From the Turkish 93

The Fool who Sells Wisdom From the Turkish 94

The Archer and the Trumpeter From the Turkish 95

_Students' Themes_--

The Courtship of Sir Butterfly Maximo M. Kalaw 96

The Hat and the Shoes José R. Perez 98

The Crocodile and the Peahen Elisa Esguerra 99

The Old Man, his Son, and his Grandson Eutiquiano Garcia 100

=Parables=

The Three Questions Tolstoy 104

_Students' Themes_--

A Master and his Servant Eusebio Ramos 110

The Parable of the Beggar and the Givers Dorothea Knoblock 111

=Allegories=

The Artist Oscar Wilde 120

The House of Judgment Oscar Wilde 120

_Students' Themes_--

The Chain that Binds Elizabeth Sudborough 123

The Love which Surpassed All Other Loves Florence Gifford 125

=Tales of Mere Wonder=

The Story of the City of Brass From the _Arabian Nights_ 132

_Student's Theme_--

The Magic Ring, the Bird, and the Basket Facundo Esquivel 147

=Imaginary Voyages=

Mellonta Tauta Edgar Allan Poe 155

_Student's Theme_--

Busyong's Trip to Jupiter Manuel Candido 173

=Tale of Scientific Discovery and Mechanical Invention=

A Curious Vehicle Alexander Wilson Drake 200

_Students' Themes_--

The Spyglass of the Past Hazel Orcutt 218

Up a Water Spout Edna Collister 221

=Detective Story and Tale of Mere Plot=

Thou Art the Man Edgar Allan Poe 228

_Student's Theme_--

The Picture of Lhasa Hazel Orcutt 248

=Tales of More-or-Less Probable Adventure=

Fight with a Bear Charles Reade 257

_Student's Theme_--

Secret of the Jade Tlaloc Dorothea Knoblock 267

=Society Stories=

The Fur Coat Ludwig Fulda 277

_Student's Theme_--

The Lady in Pink Wilma I. Ball 289

=Humorous Stories=

The Expatriation of Jonathan Taintor Charles Battell Loomis 302

_Students' Themes_--

Kileto and the Physician Lorenzo Licup 307

The Lame Man and the Deaf Family Santiago Rotea 311

=Occasional Stories=

The Lost Child François Coppée 315

_Students' Themes_--

The Peace of Yesterdays Katherine Kurz 334

A Christmas Legend Ida F. Treat 342

=Moral Story=

Jeannot and Colin Voltaire 348

=Pedagogical Narratives=

Gertrude's Method of Instruction Pestalozzi 365

_Student's Theme_--

Lawin-lawinan (a Filipino game) Leopoldo Uichanco 368

=Stories of Present-Day Realism=

The Piece of String Maupassant 374

_Students' Themes_--

A Social Error Ida Treat 382

The Lot of the Poor Agnes Palmer 388

Filipino Fear Walfrido de Leon 390

=Psychological Weird Tales=

The Signal-Man Charles Dickens 403

_Student's Theme_--

Like a Thief in the Night Dorothea Knoblock 420

=Stories That Emphasize Character and Environment=

Muhammad Din Rudyard Kipling 432

_Students' Themes_--

The Fetters Katherine Kurz 436

When Terry Quit Dorothea Knoblock 446

Nora Titay and Chiquito Joaquina E. Tirona 453

=Stories That Emphasize Character and Events=

The Necklace Maupassant 460

_Student's Theme_--

Andong Justo Avila 470

NARRATIVES OF ACTUAL EVENTS

=Incidents=

A Near Tragedy Fielding 482

An Incident before Sadowa: Birds

Divulge Army Secrets Newspaper 483

An Incident Related in a Letter Robert Louis Stevenson 484

_Students' Themes_--

A Hero Dead Ida Treat 485

My First Day at School Máximo Kalaw 487

The Guinatan Prize Leopoldo Faustino 488

=Anecdotes=

Coleridge's Retort 493

An Inevitable Misfortune 494

A Point Needing to be Settled 494

Patience 494

Preaching and Practice 495

Johnson's Dictionary 495

The Boy Kipling 496

Sir Godfrey Kneller Spence 496

Pope and the Trader Spence 497

The Capitan Municipal and the Jokers José Feliciano 497

An Instance of Bamboo Spanish Pilar Ejercito 498

Mr. Taft's Mistake Amando Clements 499

=Eye-Witness Accounts=

The Portuguese Revolution Newspaper 503

_Student's Theme_--

A Contrast Adolfo Scheerer 509

=Tales of Actual Adventures=

The Bear Hunt Tolstoy 514

_Students' Themes_--

Saladin and I Fight an Alupong Cecilio Esquivel 525

I Get Two Beatings Facundo Esquivel 527

The Fall of Juan Gregorio Farrales 528

A Narrow Escape from a Wild Carabao José Cariño 529

=Travellers' Sketches=

On the Way to Talavera George Borrow 534

Smyrna--First Glimpses of the East Thackeray 539

_Student's Theme_--

A Trip from Curimao to Laoag Fernando Maramag 551

=Journals and Diaries=

Extracts from Pepys' Diary 562

_Students' Themes_--

A Diary of Four Days Facundo Esquivel 564

A Journal: Mock Heroic Victoriano Yamzon 567

=Autobiography and Memoirs=

The Life of David Hume, Esq. Written by himself 575

Student autobiography Domingo Guanio 585

What I Remember of the Coming of

the Americans Leopoldo Faustino 588

=Biographies=

Queen Christina Hawthorne 595

_Students' Themes_--

Juan Luna's Life Dolores Asuncion 604

Life of Elizabeth Glade Nellie Barrington 607

The Biography of a Traitor Walfrido de Leon 609

=Annals=

The State of England, in Stephen's Reign _Peterborough Chronicle_ 616

_Students' Themes_--

Annals of Mangaldan Translated by Bernabe

Aquino 621

Annals of Pagsanjan Dolores Zafra 622

=Chronicles=

Rivalry between Two Towns Froissart 630

_Students' Themes_--

A Short History of Ilagan Fernando Maramag 636

Some Incidents of the Rebellion of

1898: A True Relation Marcelino Montemayor 639

INTRODUCTION

There are many interesting possibilities for both the reader and the

writer in a study of narrative types. It is a truism to say that

everybody loves a story. Every race, every nation, every tribe, every

family, has its favorite narratives. Every person has his and likes to

repeat them. Even the driest old matter-of-fact curmudgeon delights

in relating an incident if nothing else. Perhaps he tells you of how

he lost and found again his pocket talisman--a buckeye, maybe, or

a Portuguese _cruzado_. He will assure you that he does not really

believe that the unfortunate events that followed his loss of it

were occasioned by its absence, or the return of good-luck casually

connected with its recovery; but still, he adds, he feels much better

with the old thing in his pocket. "And that was a queer coincidence,

wasn't it?" he insists, starting again over the details of the

happening. So with us all: we all know and love stories, our own or

another person's.

It is a fine thing to write a story. It is good through one's

imagination and skill to entertain one's fellows or through one's

accurate observation of life and history to benefit society. The

narrator has always been honored. In earliest times he was the seer

and prophet, forming the religion of his wandering tribe; later he

was the welcomed guest, for whom alone the frowning castle's gate

stood always open; and after the dark ages, in the time of the

revival-of-the-love-of-written-things, he was the favorite at the

court of favoring princes, who lavished upon him preferment and money

and humbly offered him the laurel crown, their highest tribute. In our

own day his reward surpasses that of kings and presidents. They come to

him, and for immortality invoke his name. In earliest times he composed

in verse so that his story might be remembered and handed down. In

latest times he writes most often in prose--a more difficult medium

to handle with distinction, but one more widely understood and more

readily appreciated than poetry.

Narrative as a general type needs no definition. What pure description

is the ordinary reader might hesitate to assert, or exposition, or

argumentation; but not story: he knows that. Let an author combine

these others with a series of events, let him put them in as aids to

the understanding or as ornaments on the thread of his recital, and

they are accepted without question as elements of narration, be it

prose or verse in form, true or fictitious in content. That is to say,

though a story often contains to some extent all the other forms of

writing too, we think of it as narrative because it carries us along a

course of events. Frequently the teller spends much time in studying

different styles and kinds of description and in analyzing various

devices used to secure definite effects, because he wishes to call

to his aid every bit of skill possible in portraying his characters

and places; but general readers take his fine points of description

and exposition as matters of course and are crudely interested in the

happenings he has to relate. They are unconscious of the fact that

much of their enjoyment comes from knowing how a hero looks, what

his surroundings are, and what his disposition and usual character. A

story-writer gives no small amount of attention also to transcribing

conversations; but the ordinary reader takes these likewise as expected

parts of narrative. But there is one thing that the author and the

reader agree on at the outset as necessary to be settled; namely, the

kind of story to be written or to be read.

It is pleasant to know that there are definite types of narratives

that the world has always loved, and that there are new forms growing

up as civilization becomes more complex. Some of the kinds of stories

discussed in this book are older than the English language, older than

Christianity, older even than the divisions of Aryan speech. They seem

to be inherent forms of all literatures, to be as ancient as thought

and as young as inspiration. They are in use to-day in every tongue.

This book attempts to set forth the distinguishing elements of the

types that have persisted, those matters that a writer must take into

account when producing or a critic when judging. Though its title

emphasizes the fact that now-a-days most persons think of stories

as being always in prose, the book discriminates but little in this

respect. In reality a student of narrative cares hardly at all whether

the vehicle be meter or not. He is concerned with something else.

Language form is rather an accident of the time and the fashion than

anything essential. It is not dependent on the author's personality

even. Chaucer undoubtedly would write in prose to-day, whereas our

modern idealists would certainly have lisped in numbers a hundred

years ago. We study narrative types, therefore, with the idea that

verse tales are but measured and rhythmical expression of the

same forms--sometimes the best, sometimes merely the most popular

expression--but that the development in presentation has been toward

prose, especially for the more psychological and complex material.

On the basis of content, narratives fall naturally into two large

divisions: those that recount imaginary happenings and those that

recount actual happenings. These large divisions in turn fall into

smaller and still smaller groups upon one basis or another--source,

purpose, method, or what not.

Under the division of narratives of fictitious events we notice

six groups, when we are thinking of source and purpose: (1)

the primitive-religious; (2) the symbolic-didactic; (3) the

ingenious-astonishing; (4) the merely entertaining; (5) the

instructive; (6) the artistic. Within these groups come the following

individual types: (1) myth, legend, fairy tale, nursery saga; (2)

fable, parable, allegory; (3) the tale of mere wonder, the imaginary

voyage with a satiric or expository purpose, the tale of scientific

discovery and mechanical invention, the detective story; (4) the

probable adventure, the society story, the humorous and picaresque

story, the occasional story; (5) the moral tale, the pedagogical

narrative, the realistic sketch; (6) the psychological weird tale; the

story that emphasises place and character, the story that emphasizes

events and character.

On the basis of form and of the attitude of the teller, narratives of

actual events fall into three groups. The first set has five types:

incident, anecdote, eye-witness account, traveler's sketch, and the

tale of actual adventure. The second set includes journal and diary,

autobiography and memoirs, biography. The third set is composed of

annals, and chronicles and true relations. Instead of naming these

sets, we might describe them thus: The first is made up of particular

accounts of the doings of the writer and others in chance groups; the

second, of more-or-less extended accounts of the sayings and doings

of individual personages who for the time are important and either

write about themselves or are written about; the third, of impersonal

accounts of the doings of larger or smaller sections of mankind as

units.

Of course, the types fade into one another, and it is only in analyzing

that a person would draw a hard and fast line between any two of them;

but it is permissible to draw this line for the convenience of study

and discussion. After an investigator has learned all the kinds, he may

classify a given story into one or the other group according to the

predominating characteristics, or he may make a group of narratives of

mixed kinds, and consider the various elements.

If he is trying, however, to write also, as well as to study according

to the suggestions of this book, it would be a good plan for him to

endeavor to produce at each attempt a rather more than less pure

example of the type under consideration, so as to get as a result not

only an interesting narrative, but a working model either for criticism

or further production. For a person to have studied carefully an

analysis of a type, to have read a distinct literary example of it,

and to have attempted to put together a narrative that contains the

essential elements, ought to mean that he has in his possession a piece

of knowledge that will be valuable to him all his life, irrespective

of any purely artistic quality of his achievement. That quality will

probably be present much more surely than he at first expects; for a

large part of the excellence of a piece of literature results from

definite knowledge on the part of the writer, a clear aim to produce a

particular kind of composition, and an indefatigable perseverance in

revision of details. By emphasis on knowledge and work one would not

preclude inspiration. Indeed, one would thereby court it; for, as we

all know, it comes usually only to the expert and patient toiler. Even

Robert Burns labored long over his reputedly spontaneous songs. The

thought came to him often at the plough, it is true; but he confesses

that afterwards he spent many hours polishing his lines.

PART I

NARRATIVES OF IMAGINARY EVENTS

TYPES OF PROSE NARRATIVES

CHAPTER I

THE PRIMITIVE-RELIGIOUS GROUP

The traditional types--myth, legend, fairy tale, and nursery saga--are

designated as primitive-religious in order to express the fact

that they grew up in response to the reverent credulity of simple

folk. The myths of all races are the embodiment of their highest

prehistoric religious thinking. The legends are their semi-historical,

semi-religious thinking. The fairy and nursery stories are modified

forms of the other two. Consequently they all belong together in one

group.

I. The Myth

There are two general classes of myths: the primitive-tribal and the

artificial-literary, or myths of growth and myths of art.

From the point of view of ethnology, the myth of growth is primitive

philosophy, and represents racial anthropomorphic thinking concerning

the universe. Anthropomorphic is a term derived from the Greek

ἄνθρωπος, meaning man, and μορφἠ, meaning shape or form, and is used

to describe the tendency of people to represent invisible forces as

having human form (for example, the Deity), or natural forces like

fire and wind as being animate, volitional agents. It is probably true

that, at a very early stage in the development of both the individual

and the race, every object is looked upon as having life; and later,

if any distinction is made between animate and inanimate, spirits are

yet regarded as agents controlling the inanimate and causing changes

therein. A myth of growth is the verbal expression of this attitude of

the mind of a people in its wider and deeper imaginings.

Doubtless after the first or second repetition of a myth, which

some seer of a tribe chants in rude verse, the primitive listener

is confused between fact and fancy. The non-essential incidents

which the narrator adds from sheer love of making up a story are not

distinguished from the incidents that really express the working of

natural forces. So it happens that, in the time between the first

starting up of the account and the analysis and explanation of it

by some philosopher, a narrative handed down from father to son is

believed in, word for word, as religious truth, though gaining details

and losing its original meaning as it goes. As some one has said, it

was because the Greeks had forgotten that Zeus meant _the bright sky_

that they could talk of him as a king ruling a company of manlike

deities on Mount Olympus.

There are many beautiful myths existing to-day in prose and poetry. In

the tribal species, there is the great mass of Greek and Roman early

religious stories and there are the Oriental and the Norse cycles. In

the artificial group there are the later Greek and Roman myths like

those devised by Plato and Plutarch, and there are our more modern

beautiful creations with myth elements like Milton's "Comus" and many

of the poems of Keats, where not only the incidents are newly made

but the deities also. In prose we have the delightful "Wonder Book,"

which Hawthorne prepared for children. We have become so familiar with

"Paradise Lost" that we hardly realize that it is essentially myth--a

great seer's expression of the anthropomorphism of his people. Like a

true bard of old, Milton added much also to his people's thinking on

the universe. How much he added we see fully only when we deliberately

compare the extension and concreteness of his account with the

meagerness of the Hebrew Scriptures.

[Myth age not a past epoch]

An error we are liable to fall into concerning myths is that of

presuming that they are wholly things of the past; that nowadays nobody

believes in them or tells them. In fact, many persons and many tribes

believe in them and tell them. The myth age is not a past epoch, but

a condition of thinking. It is always present somewhere and present

to some extent always among all races. The primitive tribes of the

Philippines believe implicitly in their myths. The Bontoc Igorots,

for example, tell how the Moon woman, Kabigat, cut off the head of a

child of the Sun man, Chal-chal, and thus taught head-hunting to earth

people; some of them tell, too, how Coling, the Serpent Eagle, was

made, and happens to be always hovering over their pueblo. Even the

youngest child knows how the rice-bird came about, and why an Igorot

never harms O-wug, the snake. These stories are being gathered to-day

by American scientists and are being written down for the first time.

The native college students of the Islands have joined in a movement

to preserve the traditions of the more civilized tribes also, and are

industriously putting into written form the stories of their people.

Most of these are not beliefs that are past, but beliefs about the

past--a distinction noteworthy to the student of myths. Little children

of all races are naturally in a myth age, and many of their imaginings

are as beautiful as those of the old Greeks, and, if made known, would

be as contributive to literature, I dare say. Poets are but grown-up

children to whom Nature makes a continued concrete appeal, and they are

always thinking myth-wise, we well know.

So it happens that even the most learned man is willing to listen

to a new myth. All the reader demands is that it shall be either a

scientifically made record of some present tribal belief or a beautiful

and philosophical interpretation of the workings of nature--such a one

as a simple, early pagan, but poetic and essentially refined, mind

might imagine. Plato's myths were advisedly artificial. He deliberately

set out to modify and improve the government of his time by means of

religious stories, and he begged the other philosophers to attempt the

like also. He gave his magnificent "Vision of Er" as an example of what

might be done.

[How traditional myths are collected]

If one wishes to collect traditional myths among a primitive people,

this is in general the way he proceeds: He calls to his aid the

more elderly folk and the little children--those that have time and

inclination to talk. If he can not speak their dialect, he obtains

an interpreter--if possible, one very intimate and sociable with the

tribe. Then he himself tries to get into good fellowship with all,

and to induce free and natural talking. He asks for tales of the sun

and moon, the wind and the rain, grasses, flowers, birds, clouds,

mountain-systems, river-chains, lightning, thunder, and whatever else

their gods have charge of. He asks about the relation of these gods

with the deities of neighboring peoples--which, if any, are to be

feared and why. Then he makes note of as many historical facts as he

can about the tribe--where it first lived, what are the topographical

features of the remote and the immediate places of abode, how powerful

the warriors are, what respect they command from outsiders, what are

considered most honored occupations, and so on. These facts are not

to go explicitly into the story, but are to form the background of

explanation if he cares to seek or give one. Then, too, they may aid

him in making a happy translation of the primitive oral narrative. The

aim of the collector, however, is accuracy rather than beauty, though

beauty may be present in his versions.

[How original myths are composed]

The writer of an original myth, on the other hand, tries to make

his diction as exquisite as he can without affectation. He proceeds

somewhat differently, though with no less forethought. If he wishes to

use gods and goddesses already known, he attempts not to violate the

generally accepted notions of their characteristics. He bears in mind

that the beings of myths are large, ample, superhuman, of the race of

the infinite. Above mortals, they rule mortals or ignore them. The

gods are never petty, though they may be trivial. They belong to the

over-world. They are essential: they make day and night, the coming

of the seasons, the roll of the ocean, the rising and setting of the

constellations. Connected with them too, of course, he knows, are the

lesser events of Nature's activity, the speaking of echo, the blooming

of the slender narcissus at the edge of the pool, the drooping of the

poplars. Hence the writer of a myth of art modifies or adds, but avoids

making radical changes. If he chooses wholly to invent his deities,

he picks out for each a definite phenomenon and keeps it steadily in

mind in order that his created personage may be an appropriate one to

perform the well-known actions of the natural force he is explaining.

He makes the deeds of his beings far-reaching in result and does not

forget to give them euphonious and suggestive names.

[Difference between myth and allegory]

There is a difference between myth and allegory as narratives, although

myth is fundamentally allegorical in the broad sense of the term. The

actors of myth are rather representative than figurative. Being grander

they are at once more simple and dignified than those of allegory. The

gods are not thin abstractions raised to concreteness, but are powerful

forces reduced to the likeness of men.

Pure myth is different from pure legend likewise, though legend may

have gods in it. Legend is generally confined to a particular person

or event, or is connected with a definite spot and a limited result;

whereas myth deals with universal phenomena.

[Working definition of myth]

The collector or composer of myths, accordingly, posits for himself

some such working definition as this: A myth is a story accounting in a

fanciful way for a far-reaching natural phenomenon. The basis on which

the narrator proceeds is emphatically not science, but imagination and

philosophy. He pictures the activities of the universe as the conduct

of personal beings, as gods and goddesses doing good or evil, creating

and destroying, ruling man or ignoring him, punishing and rewarding.

A List of Deities

=Great Greek Deities= =Great Roman Deities=

Zeus Jupiter (king)

Appollon Apollo (the sun)

Ares Mars (war)

Hermes Mercury (messenger)

Poseidon Neptune (ocean)

Hephaistos Vulcan (smith who made the armor of the gods)

Hera Juno (queen)

Demeter Ceres (tillage)

Artemis Diana (moon, hunting)

Athena Minerva (wisdom)

Aphrodite Venus (love and beauty)

Hestia Vesta (home life)

Dionysos Bacchus (wine and revelry)

Eros Cupid (the lad Love)

Pluton Pluto (king of Hades)

Kronos Saturn (Time, who devoured all his children

except Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto)

Juno was the wife of Jupiter, Hera of Zeus, Venus of Vulcan, Aphrodite

of Hephaistos.

Persephone was wife of Pluton, Proserpine was wife of Pluto, Cybele was

wife of Saturn, Rhea was wife of Kronos.

Egyptian Gods

Ra--the sun, usually represented as a hawk-headed man. He protects

mankind, but has nothing in common with men.

Shu--light, a type of celestial force, for he is represented

supporting the goddess of heaven. His consort was Tefnet.

Seb--the god of the earth; Nut was the goddess of heaven. These two

are called "father of the gods."

Osiris--the good principle. He is in perpetual warfare with evil. He

is the source of warmth, life and fruitfulness. Isis, his wife, was

his counterpart in many respects. Osiris became the judge of the

under-world, and Isis was the giver of death.

Horus--the son of Osiris. He avenged his father, who was slain by

Typhon.

Seth, or Typhon--the brother of Osiris, and his chief opponent.

He represented physical evil; he was the enemy of all good. His

consort was Nebti.

Thoth--the god of letters, the clerk of the underworld, and the

keeper of the records for the great judge, Osiris. The chief

moon-god.

Ptah--the Egyptian Hephaestus, the divine architect.

Ma-t--the goddess of truth. She is characterized by the ostrich

feather, the emblem of truth, on her head.

Anubis--the jackal-headed, presided over tombs and mummification.

The Sphinx--a beneficent being who personified the fruit-bearing

earth, and was a deity of wisdom and knowledge.

Hindoo Gods

Dyaus--the most ancient name for the supreme god. Dyaus, the heaven,

married Prithivi, the earth, and they became the father and mother

of the other Hindu gods. Dyaus is also the god of rain.

Indra--the rain-bringer. The son of Dyaus. He is a strong, impetuous

warrior, drives a chariot drawn by pawing steeds, bears a

resistless lance that is lightning.

Vishnu--one name for the sun; second god of the Hindu triad,

literally the Pervader. (Brahma and Siva are the other two of the

trinity.)

Vishnu is represented as being of blue color. His _sacti_, or wife,

is Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth.

Mitra--another name for the sun-god.

Rudra--the father of the storm-gods, the Maruts.

Maruts--the storm gods. "They overturn trees, destroy whole forests,

they roar like lions, are swift as thought. In the Maruts we see

blind strength and fury without judgment."

Vayu--sometimes the wind was thought of as a single personality. He

was called Vayu.

Agni--the fire-god. Considered the messenger between the Hindus and

heaven. He carried their offerings to Dyaus-pitar.

Varuna--the noblest figure of the Vedic religion. The supreme god at

one time. Sometimes he was the All-Surrounder. Later he was ruler

of the seas.

Yama--the judge of the dead. He had a dog with four eyes and wide

nostrils, whom he sent to earth to collect those about to die.

Vritva--an evil snake which had stolen some treasure and a maiden,

Ushas. She was rescued by Indra.

Ushas (Ahana)--a pure, white-robed being from whose presence every

dark thing fled away. Ushas never grows old, but she makes others

old. (Same as Eos, Greek; Aurora, Latin.) She is the dawn; is also

known by the name of Dahana.

Rita--a word to signify the all-pervading law of nature. It was the

power that settled the path of the sun. The abode of Rita was in

the east, and finally every good thing traveled in the path of Rita.

Asoura Medhas--the wise living one, the animation of moving mind and

matter. He is the mysterious principle of life, is represented as

one god high over everything. However, he mingles in the affairs of

men.

Surya (same as Gr. Helios)--the special god who dwelt in the body of

the sun.

Savitar--another personification of the sun. He is spoken of as

golden-eyed, golden-tongued and golden-handed.

MINOR DEITIES

Kuvera--the god of riches.

Kamadeva--the god of love, represented as riding on a dove, and armed

with an arrow of flowers and a bow, whose string is formed of bees.

Ganesha--the god of prudence and policy.

Russian Gods

Peroun--Lightning; the chief god.

Svaroga--begetter of fire and of the sun gods. Used also sometimes as

name of chief god.

Dajh'bog--grandfather of the sun.

Kolyada--beneficent spirit who was supposed to visit the farms and

villages in mid-winter and bring fertility to the pent-up herds and

frost-bound seeds. A festival in honor of Kolyada was held about

December 25, the date when the sun was supposed to triumph over the

death in which Nature had gripped him, and to enter again on his

new span of life.

Stribog--wind-god.

Finnish Mythology (derived from Kalevala)

Ahto--god of the sea.

Hisi--evil spirit, also called Lempo. His son was Ahti, another name

for Lemminkainen.

Lowjatar--Tuoni's daughter; mother of the nine diseases.

Mana--also called Tuoni; the god of death.

Manala--also called Tuonela; the Deathland, for it was the abode of

Mana.

Suonetar--the goddess of the veins.

Tapio--the forest-god.

Ukko--the greatest god of the Finns.

Mielikki--the forest-goddess.

Osmotar--the wise maiden who first made beer.

Sampo--the magic mill forged by Ilmarinen, which brought wealth and

happiness to its possessor.

Norse Deities

Odin--the All-father.

Thor--the thunderer.

Baldr--the shining god; he typifies day.

Freyr (Fro)--fruitfulness; the patron of seafarers.

Tyr--the god of war and athletic sports.

Bragi--god of poetry and eloquence.

Hodur--Baldur's twin brother; the god of darkness.

Heimdall--kept the keys of heaven; was the watchman of Asgard.

Ulle--god of the chase and of archery. A fast runner on stilts or

snowshoes.

Mimir--most celebrated of the giants; god of wisdom and knowledge.

Loki--the god of strife and the spirit of evil. He had three cruel

and hateful children: Fenris, a huge wolf; Hel, half black and half

blue, who lived on men's brains and marrow; and Formungard, the

monstrous serpent of Midgard. Loki's wife was Sigura.

Filipino Deities

TAGALOG

Atasip--a demon of the ancient Tagalogs.

Bathala--principal god of the Tagalogs.

Dian Masalanta--the god which was the patron of lovers and the god of

procreation.

Idinale--the god of husbandry.

Lakhanbakor or Lakhanbakod--a god who cured sickness.

Lakambui--a god who first (according to some writers) gave food.

Pasing-tabi sa nono--with this phrase the Tagalogs used to pray

the gods of the fields to allow them to walk on the fields and

cultivate them.

Sinaya--a divinity which the fishermen used to pray to.

Sitan--a kind of evil spirit (a Mohametan word).

Sonat--the pontifex maximus of the ancient Tagalogs.

VISAYAN

Laon--the supreme god.

Makabantog--the god of licentiousness and tumult.

Sigbin--certain familiar spirits, which used to accompany any woman.

They made a bargain with her and served her constantly.

Solad--the Inferno.

Sikabay--Eve, the first woman.

Sikalak--the first man, Adam.

Sinburanen--the god who conducted the souls of the dead consigned to

Hades.

Suigaguran }

Suinuran } gods of the Inferno.

Sumpay }

Tagalabong--spirits who lived in the fields and woods.

Yatangao--a god which made himself visible in the rainbow. Warriors

going to battle invoked this god.

BAGOBOS

Bayguebay--the first woman or Eve.

Damakolen--the god who made the hills and mountains.

Makakoret--the god who created the air.

Makaponquis--the god who created water.

Malibud--the deity (fem.) who created woman.

Mamale--the god who created the earth.

Rioa-Rioa--a horrible and evil being which, suspended from the zenith

like a large pendulum, approaches the earth and devours those men

which his servant Tabankak gives him.

Salibud--the god who taught the first men to cultivate the fields, to

trade, and to practice other industries.

Note: In the Filipino themes a foreign word is italicized only the

first time it appears.

=The World's Creation and the Birth of Wainamoinen=

Long, long ago, before this world was created, there lived a lovely

maiden called Ilmatar, the daughter of the Ether. She dwelt in the

air--there were only air and water then--but at length she grew tired

of always being on high, and came down and floated on the surface of

the water. Suddenly, as she lay there, a mighty storm-wind began to

blow and poor Ilmatar was tossed about helplessly on the waves, until

at length the wind died down, the waves became still, and Ilmatar, worn

out by the violence of the tempest, sank beneath the waters.

Then a magic spell overpowered her, and she swam on and on vainly

seeking to rise above the waters, but always unable to do so. Seven

hundred long weary years she swam thus, until one day she could not

bear the loneliness longer, and cried out: "Woe is me that I have

fallen from my happy home in the air, and cannot now rise above the

surface of the waters. O great Ukko, ruler of the skies, come and aid

me in my sorrow!"

No sooner had she ended her appeal to Ukko than a lovely duck flew

down out of the sky, and hovered over the waters looking for a place

to alight; but it found none. Then Ilmatar raised her knees above the

water, so that the duck might rest upon them; and no sooner did the

duck spy them than it flew towards them and, without even stopping to

rest, began to build a nest upon them.

When the nest was finished, the duck laid in it six golden eggs, and a

seventh of iron, and sat upon to hatch them. Three days the duck sat

on the eggs, and all the while the water around Ilmatar's knees grew

hotter and hotter, and her knees began to burn as if they were on fire.

The pain was so great that it caused her to tremble all over, and her

quivering shook the nest off her knees, and the eggs all fell to the

bottom of the ocean and broke in pieces. But these pieces came together

into two parts and grew to a huge size, and the upper one became the

arched heavens above us, and the lower one our world itself. From the

white part of the egg came the moonbeams, and from the yolk the bright

sunshine.

At last the unfortunate Ilmatar was able to raise her head out of the

waters, and she then began to create the land. Wherever she put her

hand there arose a lovely hill, and where she stepped she made a lake.

Where she dived below the surface are the deep places of the ocean,

where she turned her head towards the land there grew deep bays and

inlets, and where she floated on her back she made hidden rocks and

reefs where so many ships and lives have been lost. Thus the islands

and the rocks and the firm land were created.

After the land was made Wainamoinen was born, but he was not born a

child, but a full-grown man, full of wisdom and magic power. For seven

whole years he swam about in the ocean, and in the eighth he left the

water and stepped upon the dry land. Thus was the birth of Wainamoinen,

the wonderful magician.--From the _Kalevala_.

"Finnish Legends for English Children," by R. Eivind (T. Fisher

Unwin).

_TRIBAL MYTH_

=Origin of the Moon=

South and east of Manila Bay stretches a piece of land, on which there

used to be a large forest surrounded and fringed by the Sierra Madre

mountains on the east, and guarded by the active Taal volcano on the

south. This volcano, which is on a small lake, is said to be always

looking toward the east, shouting with his big mouth the name of _Buan

Buan_, a very beautiful nymph who dwelt once in this deep forest. The

large trees formed towering pillars, the vines and moss that grew wild,

together with the blooming flowers, were ornaments of her court. The

birds, the insects, and all kinds of animals were her subjects.

The people who live now in this land say that in the beginning of the

world there was no such thing as the moon that shines at night. They

assert that the origin of the moon came in this wise:

Many thousands of years ago, when the beautiful nymph Buan was in her

court, a warlike tribe settled on her land of enjoyment. The invaders

began to cultivate the rich soil of this place. Buan, seeing that her

flowers would be destroyed and her birds driven away, fled toward the

west in grief. On the sea she saw a little _banca_ into which she

climbed and in which she drifted along until she came to an island near

where the Sun sleeps.

One afternoon when the Sun was about to hide his last rays, he was met

by the beautiful nymph, who at once said to him, "O Sun, bear me with

you, and I will be your faithful wife forever." Without hesitation

or doubt, the gallant Sun, who had been shining over the earth with

open eyes looking for a wife, took Buan under his golden arm, and they

together, as true lovers, departed.

The Arch-Queen of the Nymphs, ever quarrelsome and jealous, seeing the

departure of Buan, sent lightning and hurled thunderbolts after the two

fleeing lovers. Buan, who was peacefully slumbering on the breast of

her lover, fell down into the water. The Sun in his fright ran away,

and continued his course as usual. Pitied by the gods Buan did not

drown, but floated on the foam of the sea. The Sun lighted the world

the next morning with a great deal of heat and sorrow in his eyes,

searching for his lost sweetheart. Buan, who was hidden in the foam

that floated on the sea, did not come out until evening. By that time

Sun had retired to his wonderful cave beneath the ocean. Buan wandered

about until finally she saw a glittering light within the waves. In her

fright she cried aloud. The Sun, who was suddenly awakened from his

cave by her grief, saw her. With a satisfied heart he took her into his

cave, where they dwelt for a whole night. They sat and talked about

their love. The Sun taught her how to travel across the sky. However,

he asked Buan not to follow him in any of his journeys.

One afternoon Buan was sitting before the door of the cave waiting for

her lover. Longing and sentiment grew strong in her, and she remembered

the past days when she had lived in her forest court. This state of

mind made her come out of the cave, and she rode on the air by magic.

For fifteen successive nights she did this, yet she could not see her

old home. Finally she asked her husband to bear her across heaven in

order that she might see her home. The next morning the Sun took Buan

on his back, and they sailed across the sky. The world became dark,

for the sun could not then well illuminate the earth. The gods were

astonished. The Arch-Queen of the Nymphs sent a storm of wind and rain,

which made Buan turn into a soft brilliant mass of light. She was to be

with her husband but once every thirty days. She was also punished by

not being allowed to show herself entirely every night. She could not

sail across heaven for more than thirteen or fourteen days at a time.

--Emanuel Baja.

_TRIBAL MYTH_

=The First Cocoanut Tree and the Creation of Man=

There were three gods, Bathala, Ulilangkalulua, and Galangkalulua.

Bathala, a very large giant, ruled the earth; Ulilangkalulua, a very

large snake, ruled the clouds; and Galangkalulua, a winged head,

wandered from place to place. In fact, each of these gods thought that

he was the only living being in the universe.

The earth was composed of hard rocks. There were no seas and no oceans.

There were also no plants and no animals. It was indeed a very lonely

place. Bathala, its true inhabitant, had often wanted to have some

companions, but he wondered how he could provide these companions with

food, drink, and shelter when there was nothing on the earth but rocks.

What was true of Bathala was also true of Ulilangkalulua. In his

kingdom Ulilangkalulua saw nothing but white clouds. His solitary

condition led him to visit other places. He often came down to the

earth and enjoyed himself climbing high mountains and entering deep

caves.

As he was at the top of a very high hill one day, he saw some one

sitting on a large stone down below him. He was very greatly amazed and

it was a very long time before he could speak. At last he said, "Sir,

tell me who you are."

"I am Bathala, the ruler of the universe," answered the god.

Ulilangkalulua was filled with anger when he heard these words. He

approached Bathala and said, "If you declare yourself to be the ruler

of all things, I challenge you to combat."

A long struggle took place, and after the fighting had continued about

three hours Ulilangkalulua was slain. Bathala burned his body near his

habitation.

Not many years after this event Galangkalulua, the wandering god,

happened to find Bathala's house. Bathala received him and treated him

kindly. Thus, they lived together for many years as true friends.

Unfortunately, Galangkalulua became sick. Bathala did not sleep day and

night for taking care of his friend. When Galangkalulua was about to

die, he called Bathala and said, "You have been very kind to me, and

I have nothing to repay your kindness with. But if you will do what

I tell you, there is a way in which I can benefit you. You once told

me that you had planned to create creatures of the same appearance as

you in order that you might have subjects and companions, and that you

had not been successful because you did not know how you could supply

them with all the necessary things. Now, when I die, bury my body in

Ulilangkalulua's grave. In this grave will appear the thing that will

satisfy you."

Bathala did what Galangkalulua told him, and Galangkalulua's promise

was fulfilled. From the grave grew a plant, whose nut contained water

and meat. Bathala was very anxious to examine the different parts of

the tree because he had never seen such a thing before. He took a nut

and husked it. He found that its inner skin was hard and that the

nut itself resembled the head of his friend, Galangkalulua. It had

two eyes, a flat nose, and a round mouth. Bathala then looked at the

tree itself and discovered that its leaves were really the wings of

Galangkalulua and its trunk the body of his enemy, Ulilangkalulua.

Bathala was now free to carry out his plan. He created the first man

and woman. He built a house for them, the roof and walls of which were

made of the leaves of the cocoanut and the posts of which were cocoanut

tree trunks. Thus lived happily under the cocoanut palm this couple for

many years until the whole world was crowded with their children. These

children still use the cocoanut for food and clothing--the leaves for

making mats, hats, and brooms, and the fiber for rope and other things.

--Manuel Reyes.

_ORIGINAL MYTH_

=The Lotus=

Long ago, when the world was young, the Nile loved a maiden. She was

Isis, daughter of a hundred stars, who, as she nightly climbed the dark

pinnacle of cloud, drew her silver drapery across the stream's dark

bosom. Many were the sighs he breathed throughout the long nights--but

Isis heard him not; for the wind had told her of Osiris, Osiris the

beautiful, the well-beloved, who daily waked the dreaming earth with

his warm kiss. And afterwards Mira, the great Star-Mother, bending from

her gleaming throne, had spoken of Osiris and his glittering steeds,

while Isis listening, yearned for him whom she had never seen, whose

radiance was brighter even than that of Nefra-the-fire-bearer, who,

once in a century, flashed through the still heavens. So Isis heeded

not the Nile, moaning at her feet, for her eyes were ever bent on the

rim of the world, whence would come in rosy haste the heralds of Osiris.

But one morning, when the starry sisters were fleeing, one by one,

to the silent underworld, Isis stayed in the dark cloudland. The

night winds called her to hasten, but she heard them not, and stood

waiting--while above the eastern horizon rose the Hours, streaking

the heavens with their amber veils, and borne along behind them,

Osiris himself, more radiant than her dreams. But Osiris, glad in the

greetings of the jubilant earth, saw only a star-maiden lingering in

her pale robes on the borders of the forbidden Kingdom. Catching up a

barbed shaft, he hurled it shrieking through the air--and Isis fell.

The winds fled in horror from the earth; the air shuddered, and shrank

away; but the Nile, roaming in agony through the fields, stretched

out his mighty arms and, with a great cry, gathered the lifeless

star-maiden to his bosom. And there, where Isis fell, rose a starry

flower, pale, but with the stain of the dawn in its heart.

--Ida F. Treat.

II. The Legend

[Myth and legend compared]

Historically the legend may or may not be a later development than the

myth. The bards may have ascribed the fanciful deeds of the gods to

their tribal heroes, or they may have elevated their tribal heroes into

gods by exaggerating actual adventures into far-reaching phenomena. For

our present study the descent is immaterial; the distinction is all.

In the myth the chief actors are gods; in the legend, men--men endowed

with superhuman strength often, to be sure, but still men, though the

favorites of the gods. The course of events in the typical myth is pure

and absolute imagination; the course of events in the typical legend

is somewhat held down by facts. When the deeds are magnified or wholly

fanciful, the characters are semi-historical; when the events or places

are historical, the chief actors are generally imaginary.

[Saga]

In the myth-legend, or saga, the deeds transcend the ordinarily

credible and the heroes are often directed by superhuman agencies.

Perhaps the oldest examples of this kind are those recorded in the

Sanscrit "Mahabharata" and "Ramayana", and the Persian "Shah Nameh."

In the last occurs the beautiful story of Sohrab and Rustam, who lived

six hundred years before Christ. Firdousi, writing as late as the

first decade of the eleventh century, was therefore working over very

ancient material. Such combinations likewise of older tradition and

later writing are the Anglo-Saxon "Beowulf", the French "Chanson de

Roland", the Spanish "Cid", the Italian "Orlando Furioso" (which is the

French story adapted), the German "Hildebrand", "Waltharilied", and

"Nibelungen Nôt", and the Icelandic "Grettir the Strong" and "Volsunga

Saga". The "Volsunga Saga" as we have it today is prose with some songs

from the "Elder Edda". Legend in its written form as a composition

type we think of as prose, though it may be verse, or prose and verse

combined.

[Saint legends]

To the early church a legend meant the narrative of the life of a saint

or a martyr, especially the account of his triumphs over temptation

and of the miracles he witnessed or performed. Even to-day in some

monasteries such stories are read at meals while the monks eat. It is

interesting to note that the church distinguishes between _legenda_,

things to be read, and _credenda_, things to be believed. What appears

to be the earliest of these legends and the model of the others is said

to have been written by St. John of Damascus, a monk of Syria, who

lived in the eighth century. It is called "Barlaam and Josaphat" and

contains besides the lives of the prince and the prophet many beautiful

parables, one of which Shakespeare immortalized in the casket scene in

the "Merchant of Venice". The life of Josaphat is in turn said to be

the legendary life of the Buddha. There are many beautiful Celtic and

Anglo-Saxon Christian stories of this type. In the Cynewulfian group

of Anglo-Saxon Lives of the Saints, the "Andreas" is considered very

fine. With its account of St. Andrew's miraculous rescue of St. Matthew

from prison among the heathen is a sturdy, realistic description of

a stormy voyage on northern seas. "The Golden Legend", published by

Caxton in 1483, is a translation of a celebrated medieval collection of

lives of the greater saints, composed in Latin by Jacobus de Voragine,

a Dominican archbishop of Genoa, in the thirteenth century.

[Geoffrey of Monmouth]

The great English legendary history and a great source-book of English

literary legend is the _Historia Britonum_ of Geoffrey of Monmouth.

Besides giving us the original story of Lear and many other things in

his record of British rulers down to the Saxon Invasion, this twelfth

century author, building on the meager basis of an unknown Nennius

and possibly a cleric's version of Welsh traditions, started the

magnificent Arthurian cycle on its way. This Latin account joined the

great stream of continental legendary romance, added to it and took

from it, and came back into English in Layamon's "Brut" in the form of

a series of metrical legends for the common people.

[Legendary romance]

That most original and enchanting of all the medieval legendary romance

books, Malory's "Morte Darthur", stands between the old and the new

English fiction in that it has the content of the one and the form

of the other. In it were gathered up the religious element (that had

come in with the tradition of Joseph of Arimathæa), the love element

(of the Launcelot-Guinevere stories), and the national element

(Arthur, his wonderful Excalibur and his knights), and so emphasized,

so incomparably set forth, so shaken together, if you please, that

they combined and stayed together ever afterwards. On the form side,

this work is prose and it is art--the first English prose fiction, so

announced and so taken. It is literary legend. An artist conscious of

his art offered the material not as history or religion, but as a thing

of beauty. The preface states, "And for to pass the time this book

shall be pleasant to read in, but for to give faith and belief that all

is true that is contained herein, ye be at your liberty."

When stories such as these, either by an aim at history or at art,

emphasize what has been believed, they are classed as legend; when they

emphasize magic and combine history in a riotous way for the mere sake

of astonishing, they are classed as wonder tales.

While on the one side legend shades off into myth and wonder tales,

on the other it shades off into anecdote. A tendency to write legend

instead of fact is always present. As soon as a man or a place becomes

prominent, fictitious stories begin to spring up, founded not only on

what was done, but also on what might have been done. But to persist, a

legendary account must be true to the character and traits of the hero

or town or tribe or race with which it deals; at least, it must be true

to the popular conception of the character. Though innumerable, the

versions of the Faust story, for example, are nevertheless essentially

consistent. Typical legends shading off into history and anecdote are

those about William Tell, Robert the Bruce, Alfred the Great, John

Smith and Pocahontas, and many of the popular tales about Columbus,

Washington, Lincoln, and Rizal.

[Modern literary legends]

There are modern literary legends. An exquisite legend of a place

is "Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving. A terrific French novel

is founded on the legendary idea of the Wandering Jew. A wholesome

boys' story that is often mistaken for history is "The Man Without a

Country." Selma Lagerlöf, who was given the Nobel prize in 1909 for the

most original piece of literature, has written among others a saint's

legend about a hermit who was won to brotherly love by a pair of birds

that built a nest and hatched their young in his outstretched palms as,

keeping a vow, he stood day and night praying heaven to take vengeance

and destroy the sinful world. Allied to this species is one of Count

Tolstoy's most widely read stories. It is built upon an idea current in

all races and appearing in many legends; namely, of an angel sent by

God to live a while among men. But Tolstoy, with his fervent devotion

to the good of the people, has turned his narrative into a parable, and

calls it "What Men Live By." Another beautiful religious narrative, an

art legend tangent to tradition, is Henry Van Dyke's "The Other Wise

Man."

[How to select and record a legend of growth]

It is easy for one to select a place legend. Every town in the world,

I suppose, has stories connected with it that are only typically

true. Almost every prominent topographical feature has an explanatory

narrative current about it. Take any of these popular tales concerning

the cliffs, river, mountain peak, spring, lake, gully, or pictured

rocks of your neighborhood and you have a legend, so long as your

story confines itself to that particular spot, and does not let its

subject be emphatically the result of great natural forces or of the

cause of all subsequent similar formations. In other words, one must

remember that the basis of legend is particular incident, while that

of myth is universal phenomenon; the content of legend is exaggerated

history, while the content of myth is fanciful science. All one needs

to do to record such a place legend is to arrange the details in a

coherent fashion and to write out the sentences in good, clear, simple

English, sticking as close to the original oral account as correct

syntax will allow. If one cares to write about people instead of

places, one follows in general the same directions, being sure not

to fall into mere anecdote or incident, but to have a full, complete

account.

[How to write a legend of art]

To write a literary art legend, an author selects in history some

period that he likes very much or some hero or heroine he has always

admired, and notes down a number of facts that are connected with one

another and with his subject; then he lets his imagination loose upon

them. He uses terms and expressions of the age of which he is writing;

phrases that now appear quaint add a flavor of reality to the tale. But

he is careful, however, not to misuse words and thus commit what the

critics call anachronism, by putting the idioms peculiar to one age or

one people into the mouth of another. An occasional special touch is

good, but too much straining for effect spoils a story. He gets rather

into the mood of simple faith in greatness and goodness, and tells

of brave deeds and generous actions that might well have happened.

Dramatic truth there must be; literal truth, not necessarily. A working

definition runs somewhat like this:

[Working definition]

Legend is a narrative partly true and partly imaginary, about a

particular person, event, place or natural feature; a story that has

the semblance of history, but is in reality almost altogether fanciful,

since the basic fact is amplified, abridged, or wholly changed at the

will of the narrator.

=Kenach's Little Woman=

As the holy season of Lent drew nigh the Abbot Kenach felt a longing

such as a bird of passage feels in the south when the first little

silvery buds on the willow begin here to break their ruddy sheaths,

and the bird thinks tomorrow it will be time to fly over seas to the

land where it builds its nest in pleasant croft or under the shelter

of homely eaves. And Kenach said, "_Levabo oculos_--I will lift up

mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help," for every year

it was his custom to leave his abbey and fare through the woods to the

hermitage on the mountainside, so that he might spend the forty days in

fasting and prayer in the heart of solitude.

Now on the day which is called the Wednesday of Ashes he set out, but

first he heard the mass of remembrance and led his monks to the altar

steps, and knelt there in great humility to let the priest sign his

forehead with a cross of ashes. And on the forehead of each of the

monks the ashes were smeared in the form of a cross, and each time the

priest made the sign he repeated the words, "Remember, man, that thou

art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return."

So with the ashes still in his brow and with the remembrance of the end

of earthly days in his soul, he bent his steps towards the hermitage;

and as he was now an aged man and nowise strong, Diarmait, one of the

younger brethren, accompanied him in case any mischance should befall.

They passed through the cold forest, where green there was none, unless

it were the patches of moss and the lichens on the rugged tree trunks

and tufts of last year's grass, but here and there the white blossoms

of the snowdrops peered out. The dead gray leaves and dry twigs

crackled and snapped under their feet with such a noise as a wood fire

makes when it is newly lighted; and that was all the warmth they had on

their wayfaring.

The short February day was closing in as they climbed among the

boulders and withered bracken on the mountainside, and at last reached

the entrance of a cavern hollowed in the rock and fringed with ivy.

This was the hermitage. The Abbot hung his bell on a thick ivy bough

in the mouth of the caves; and they knelt and recited vespers and

compline; and thrice the Abbot struck the bell to scare away the evil

spirits of the night; and they entered and lay down to rest.

Hard was the way of their sleeping; for they lay not on wool or on

down, neither on heather or bracken, nor yet on dry leaves, but their

sides came against the cold stone, and under the head of each there was

a stone for pillow. But being weary with the long journey, they slept

sound and felt nothing of the icy mouth of the wind blowing down the

mountainside.

Within an hour of daybreak, when the moon was setting, they were

awakened by the wonderful singing of a bird, and they rose for matins

and strove not to listen, but so strangely sweet was the sound in the

keen moonlight morning that they could not forbear. The moon set, and

still in the dark sang the bird, and the gray light came, and the bird

ceased; and when was white day they saw that all the ground and every

stalk of bracken was hoary with frost, and every ivy leaf was crusted

white round the edge, but within the edge it was all glossy green.

"What bird is this that sings so sweet before day in the bitter cold?"

said the Abbot. "Surely no bird at all, but an Angel from heaven waking

us from the death of sleep."

"It is the blackbird, Domine Abbas," said the young monk; "often they

sing thus in February, however cold it may be."

"O soul, O Diarmait, is it not wonderful that the senseless small

creatures should praise God so sweetly in the dark, and in the light

before the dark, while we are fain to lie warm and forget His praise?"

And afterwards he said, "Gladly could I have listened to that singing,

even till tomorrow was a day; and yet it was but the singing of a

little earth wrapped in a handful of feathers. O soul, tell me what

it must be to listen to the singing of an Angel, a portion of heaven

wrapped in the glory of God's love!"

Of the forty days thirty went by, and oftentimes now, when no wind

blew, it was bright and delightsome among the rocks, for the sun was

gaining strength, and the days were growing longer, and the brown trees

were being speckled with numberless tiny buds of white and pale green,

and wild flowers were springing between the boulders and through the

mountain turf.

Hard by the cave there was a wall of rock covered with ivy, and as

Diarmait chanced to walk near it, a brown bird darted out from among

the leaves. The young monk looked at the place from which it had flown,

and behold! among the leaves and the hairy sinews of the ivy there was

a nest lined with grass, and in the nest there were three eggs--pale

green with reddish spots. And Diarmait knew the bird and knew the eggs,

and he told the Abbot, who came noiselessly, and looked with a great

love at the open house and the three eggs of the mother blackbird.

"Let us not walk too near, my son," he said, "lest we scare the mother

from her brood, and so silence beforehand some of the music of the cold

hours before the day." And he lifted his hand and blessed the nest and

the bird, saying, "And He shall bless thy bread and thy water." After

that it was very seldom they went near the ivy.

Now after days of clear and benign weather a shrill wind broke out

from beneath the North Star, and brought with it snow and sleet and

piercing cold. And the woods howled for distress of the storm, and

the gray stones of the mountain chattered with discomfort. Harsh cold

and sleeplessness were their lot in the cave, and as he shivered, the

Abbot bethought him of the blackbird in her nest, and of the wet flakes

driving in between the leaves of the ivy and stinging her brown wings

and patient bosom. And lifting his head from his pillow of stone he

prayed the Lord of the elements to have the bird in His gentle care,

saying,

"How excellent is Thy loving kindness, O God! therefore the children of

men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings."

Then after a little while he said, "Look out into the night, O son, and

tell me if yet the storm be abated."

And Diarmait, shuddering, went to the mouth of the cavern, and stood

there gazing and calling in a low voice, "Domine Abbas! My Lord Abbot!

My Lord Abbot!"

Kenach rose quickly and went to him, and as they looked out the sleet

beat on their faces, but in the midst of the storm there was a space

of light, as though it were moonshine, and the light streamed from

an Angel, who stood near the wall of rock with outspread wings, and

sheltered the blackbird's nest from the wintry blast.

And the monks gazed at the shining loveliness of the Angel, till the

wind fell and the snow ceased and the light faded away and the sharp

stars came out and the night was still.

Now at sundown of the day that followed, when the Abbot was in the

cave, the young monk, standing among the rocks, saw approaching a woman

who carried a child in her arms; and crossing himself, he cried aloud

to her, "Come not any nearer; turn thy face to the forest, and go down."

"Nay," replied the woman, "for we seek shelter for the night, and food

and the solace of fire for the little one."

"Go down, go down," cried Diarmait; "no woman may come to this

hermitage."

"How canst thou say that, O monk?" said the woman. "Was the Lord Christ

any worse than thou? Christ came to redeem woman no less than to redeem

man. Not less did He suffer for the sake of woman than for the sake of

man. Women gave service and tendance to Him and His Apostles. A woman

it was who bore Him, else had men been left forlorn. It was a man who

betrayed Him with a kiss; and woman it was who washed His feet with

tears. It was a man who smote Him with a reed, but a woman who broke

the alabaster box of precious ointment. It was a man who thrice denied

Him; a woman stood by His cross. It was a woman to whom He first spoke

on Easter morn, but a man thrust his hand into His side and put his

finger in the prints of the nails before he would believe. And not less

than men do women enter the heavenly kingdom. Why, then, shouldst thou

drive my little child and me from thy hermitage and thy hospitality?"

Then Kenach, who had heard all that was said, came forth from the cave,

and blessed the woman. "Well hast thou spoken, O daughter; come, and

bring the small child with thee." And turning to the young monk, he

said, "O soul, O son, O Diarmait, did not God send His Angel out of

high heaven to shelter the mother bird? And was not that, too, a little

woman in feathers? But now hasten, and gather wood and leaves, and

strike fire from the flint, and make a hearth before the cave, that

the woman may rest and the boy have the comfort of the bright flame."

This was soon done, and by the fire sat the woman eating a little

barley bread; but the child, who had no will to eat, came round to the

old man, and held out two soft hands to him. And the Abbot caught him

up from the ground to his breast, and kissed his golden head, saying,

"God bless thee, sweet little son, and give thee a good life and a

happy, and strength of thy small body, and if it be His holy will,

length of glad days; and ever mayest thou be a gladness and deep joy to

thy mother."

Then, seeing that the woman was strangely clad in an outland garb of

red and blue and that she was tall, with a golden-hued skin and olive

eyes, arched, very black eyebrows, aquiline nose, and a rosy mouth, he

said, "Surely O daughter, thou art not of this land of Erinn in the

sea, but art come out of the great world beyond?"

"Indeed, then, we have traveled far," replied the woman; "as thou

sayest, out of the great world beyond. And now the twilight deepens

upon us, and we would sleep."

"Thou shalt sleep safe in the cave, O daughter, but we will rest here

by the embers. My cloak of goat's hair shalt thou have, and such dry

bracken and soft bushes as may be found."

"There is no need," said the woman, "mere shelter is enough," and she

added in a low voice, "Often has my little son had no bed wherein he

might lie."

Then she stretched out her arms to the boy, and once more the little

one kissed the Abbot, and as he passed by Diarmait he put the palms of

his hands against the face of the young monk, and said laughingly, "I

do not think thou hadst any ill-will to us, though thou wert rough and

didst threaten to drive us away into the woods."

And the woman lifted the boy on her arm, and rose and went towards the

cavern; and when she was in the shadow of the rocks she turned towards

the monks beside the fire and said, "My son bids me thank you."

They looked up, and what was their astonishment to see a heavenly glory

shining about the woman and her child in the gloom of the cave. And in

his left hand the child carried a little golden image of the world, and

round his head was a starry radiance, and his right hand was raised in

blessing.

For such a while as it takes the shadow of a cloud to run across a

rippling field of corn, for so long the vision remained; and then it

melted into the darkness, even as a rainbow melts away into the rain.

On his face fell the Abbot, weeping for joy beyond words; but Diarmait

was seized with fear and trembling till he remembered the way in which

the child had pressed warm palms against his face and forgiven him.

The story of these things was whispered abroad, and ever since, in

that part of Erinn in the sea, the mother blackbird is called Kenach's

Little Woman.

And as for the stone on which the fire was lighted in front of the

cave, rain rises quickly from it in mist, and leaves it dry, and snow

may not lie upon it, and even in the dead of winter it is warm to

touch. And to this day it is called the Stone of Holy Companionship.

--William Canton.

"W. V.'s Golden Legend" (Dodd, Mead & Co.).

=A Legend of Gapan=

In the early part of December, in the year 1889, a poor man named

Carlos left the town where he lived to go to Gapan, about twenty miles

distant.

Day was beginning to break as Carlos reached the foot of a hill, which

he was just about to climb, when he heard the sound of music. Looking

upward to find whence the sound came, he saw a bright white cloud. From

the center of this cloud shone a ray of light, forming a circle in

which were all the colors of the rainbow.

Carlos could scarcely believe his eyes, till he heard a sweet voice

call his name. He hastened to climb the hill, and at the top found a

very beautiful woman, around whom shone a light that made the stones

and bushes sparkle like gems.

When the man had drawn near, our Blessed Lady--for it was she--told him

that she wished a church to be built on that spot, and bade him go to

Gapan and tell this fact to the priest. On reaching the town, Carlos

went straight to the priest, and related what the Blessed Virgin had

confided to him.

"I believe you," said the priest, "but to be still more certain, ask

her who sends you for some sign by which we may know that she is really

the Mother of God."

Afterwards Carlos went to the spot where the Blessed Mother was

waiting for him. As soon as he saw her, he immediately threw himself at

her feet, and told her what the priest had said. With great tenderness

our Lady bade him come to her the next day, saying she would give him

the sign for which the priest had asked.

Carlos came the next day. "Go now," said the Blessed Virgin, "to the

top of the hill, and gather the roses that are blooming there. Put them

in your handkerchief, and bring them to me; I will tell you what to do

with them."

Though Carlos believed that there were no roses there, he obeyed

without a word. How great, then, was his surprise to find a garden rich

with flowers! Filling his handkerchief with roses, he hurried back to

the Blessed Virgin.

Our Lady took the roses in her pure hands, and letting them drop back

into the handkerchief, said to Carlos, "Present these roses to the

priest, and say that they are the proof of the command I give you. Do

not show any one what you carry, and open your handkerchief only in the

presence of the priest."

Thanking the Blessed Virgin, Carlos started once more for the town.

When he reached the convent and was brought before the priest, he

opened his handkerchief to show the sign that was to prove his words,

and fresh, sweet-smelling roses, wet with dew, fell to the floor, while

on the handkerchief itself appeared a beautiful picture of the Mother

of God.

"The Blessed Virgin is here," said the father, and then he knelt before

the picture and gave praise to God. The miraculous handkerchief was

placed in the church of Gapan, where it remained until a suitable

chapel was built on the very top of the hill, as our Lady desired.

--Teofilo P. Corpus.

=A Legend of the Incas=

"We will rest here for a time, Uira." The hollow-eyed, tired-looking

youth dismounted from his burro. His companion Uira, a short,

swarthy-skinned Peruvian, turned and gazed down the mountainside whence

they had come, upon the flat roofs of Quito, which seemed like a dream

city, so lovely did the distance make it. "It is beautiful, is it not,

Juan? My home, the home of the Incas, the most ancient city in all the

land?"

"Yes, indeed, it is beautiful, and, Uira, while we rest, you shall

tell me a tale of your people; some pretty legend of the Incas. I

think nothing else would so thoroughly refresh me." Now Juan could by

no exercise of ingenuity have touched a more responsive chord in the

nature of his friend.

"Well, what shall it be, Juan? You have never heard the story of Manca,

have you? It may not be what you would call a pretty legend; yet I

think you would like it," said Uira, readily complying.

"Very well, I know I cannot help but enjoy it," said Juan, as he

settled himself comfortably, with dried leaves for a couch and a tree

stump for a pillow.

"Well," began Uira, his gaze still on the town below them.

"Uira, you're not beginning right; you should say many, many, years

ago." The fine-featured Spanish boy looked mischievously at the stolid

descendant of the Incas.

"You perhaps have heard," went on Uira, discouraging flippancy by

disregarding it, "of the story of Attahualpa; at least you have known

something of it from the histories you have studied; how, before he

died, the mighty Huayan Capar divided his kingdom between his two

sons, Attahualpa and Huascar, half-brothers, giving to Attahualpa

the northern region, Quito, which your geography calls Ecuador; how

Huascar, arrogant in his newly-acquired greatness, demanded tribute

from Quito. You know how Attahualpa angrily refused; how he came at

the head of a great army to the seat of his brother's power, defeated

Huascar, and taking from the conquered man kingdom and freedom, left

him only his life. Then the Spaniards, curses on them all----"

"You forget that I am proud of my Spanish blood, Uira," the lad

interrupted, his cheeks flushing with resentment.

"Ah, yes, Juan, I forgot. Forgive my hasty speech and unintended

insult. But to go on, the Spaniards, mad with lust for gold, marched

with armies legion in number. If you do not know, boy, how many legion

is, look at the tree tops above you; the leaves are countless; they are

legion. The invaders, with the Pizarro at their head, burned our homes,

desecrated our temples, and captured Attahualpa, who, elated with his

conquest, was returning to Quito. The Attahualpa, the records say,

collected in one room and gave the Pizarro the wealth of the Incas; and

your traditions tell you that in fear of his own life, Pizarro put his

captive to death. This is the story of Attahualpa as you have been

taught it.

But I will now tell you what it is given only the few in whose veins

still flows the blood of the Incas to know. Huayan had a daughter

Manca, whose name is not written in the annals. She was sister to

Attahualpa, and in her heart was all the mighty pride of the Incas.

Oh, how she loved the name of her race! How she rejoiced in their

conquests, their prowess! How she delighted to look upon the gold in

the temples, and think that it was all part of the prosperity of her

people! There was a woman, Juan, perhaps not beautiful, I cannot say,

well worthy to bear the name of an Incan.

How she wept when Pizarro, with his Spanish followers, seized

Attahualpa! But do not think that it was for fear that she wept, Juan.

It was for injured pride; for sorrow that she was to lose her dearest

friend, her brother.

But when the loyal girl found that Attahualpa, a ruler, a conqueror

of men, and most of all, an Incan, was bargaining for his life with a

roomful of gold as the price, she prayed to the gods she worshiped, to

take her brother to the spirit world, before he should place this blot

upon the nation. She--heroine that she was--would rather a thousand

times have lost her companion than have had him coward enough to buy

his life thus. Day and night she pondered and prayed, and planned ways

by which she might ward off so awful an outrage against Incan pride.

After a week of despair and vain thought, while Attahualpa was robbing

the shrines of their ornaments to fill the great chamber chosen by the

Spanish general, Manca determined that since she could not by pleading

with Attahualpa or by playing upon his love for his sister or his

country or even for his gods, move him from his purpose, she would at

least save him from himself.