Footnote 36:
“Áb o hawá” = climate: see vol. ii. 4.
Footnote 37:
Galland makes this article a linen cloth wrapped about the skull-cap
or core of the turban.
Footnote 38:
Mr. Coote (_loc. cit._ p. 185) is unable to produce a _puramythe_
containing all of “Ali Bába;” but, for the two leading incidents he
quotes from Prof. Sakellarios two tales collected in Cyprus. One is
Morgiana marking the village doors (p. 187), which has occurred
doubtless a hundred times. The other, in the “Story of Drakos,” is an
ogre, hight “Three Eyes,” who attempts the rescue of his wife with a
party of blackamoors (μαύρους) packed in bales and these are all
discovered and slain.
Footnote 39:
_Dans la forêt_, says Galland.
Footnote 40:
Or “Samsam,” the grain = _Sesamum Orientale_: hence the French,
_Sesame, ouvre-toi!_ The term is cabalistical, like Súlem, Súlam or
Shúlam in the Directorium Vitæ Humanæ of Johannes di Capuâ: Inquit
vir: Ibam in nocte plenilunii et ascendebam super domum ubi furari
intendebam, et accedens ad fenestram ubi radii lune ingrediebantur, et
dicebam hanc coniurationem, scilicet sulem sulem, septies, deinde
amplectebar lumen lune et sine lesione descendebam ad domum, etc. (pp.
24–25) par Joseph Derenbourg, Membre de l’Institut 1^{re} Fascicule,
Paris, F. Vieweg, 67, Rue de Richelieu, 1887.
Footnote 41:
In the text “Jatháni” = the wife of an elder brother. Hindostani, like
other Eastern languages, is rich in terms for kinship whereof English
is so exceptionally poor. Mr. Francis Galtson, in his well-known work
“Hereditary Genius,” a misnomer by the by for “Hereditary Talent,”
felt this want severely and was at pains to supply it.
Footnote 42:
In the text “Thag,” our English “Thug,” often pronounced moreover by
the Briton with the sibilant “th.” It means simply a cheat: you say to
your servant “Tú bará Thag hai” = thou art a precious rascal; but it
has also the secondary meaning of robber, assassin, and the tertiary
of Bhawáni-worshippers who offer indiscriminate human sacrifices to
the Deëss of Destruction. The word and the thing have been made
popular in England through the “Confessions of a Thug” by my late
friend Meadows Taylor; and I may record my conviction that were the
English driven out of India, “Thuggee,” like piracy in Cutch and in
the Persian Gulf, would revive at the shortest possible time.
Footnote 43:
_i.e._ the Civil Governor, who would want nothing better.
Footnote 44:
This is in Galland and it is followed by the H. V.; but it would be
more natural to suppose that of the quarters two were hung up outside
the door and the others within.
Footnote 45:
I am unwilling to alter the time honoured corruption: properly it is
written Marjánah = the “Coralline,” from Marján = red coral, for which
see vols. ii. 100; vii. 373.
Footnote 46:
_i.e._ the “’Iddah,” during which she could not marry. See vol. iii.
292.
Footnote 47:
In Galland he is a _savetier * * * naturellement gai, et qui avait
toujours le mot pour rire_: the H.V. naturally changed him to a tailor
as the Chámár or leather-worker would be inadmissible to polite
conversation.
Footnote 48:
_i.e._ a leader of prayer; the Pers. “Písh-namáz” = fore-prayer, see
vols. ii. 203; iv. 111 and 227. Galland has “ímán,” which can mean
only faith, belief, and in this blunder he is conscientiously followed
by his translators—servum pecus.
Footnote 49:
Galland nails down the corpse in the bier—a Christian practice—and he
certainly knew better. Moreover, prayers for the dead are mostly
recited over the bier when placed upon the brink of the grave; nor is
it usual for a woman to play so prominent a part in the ceremony.
Footnote 50:
See vols. v. 111, ix. 163 and x. 47.
Footnote 51:
Galland is less merciful, “_Aussitôt le conducteur fut déclaré digne
de mort tout d’une voix, et il s’y condamna lui-même_,” etc. The
criminal, indeed, condemns himself and firmly offers his neck to be
stricken.
Footnote 52:
In the text “Lauh,” for which see vol. v. 73.
Footnote 53:
In Arab. “Káma” = he rose, which, in vulgar speech especially in
Egypt, = he began. So in Spitta-Bey’s “Contes Arabes Modernes” (p.
124) “Kámat al-Sibhah dhákat fí yad akhí-h” = the chaplet began (lit.
arose) to wax tight in his brother’s hand. This sense is shadowed
forth in classical Arabic.
Footnote 54:
So in old Arabian history “Kasír” (the Little One), the Arab Zopyrus,
stows away in huge camel-bags the 2,000 warriors intended to surprise
masterful Queen Zebba. Chronique de Tabari, vol. ii. 26. Also the
armed men in boxes by which Shamar, King of Al-Yaman, took Shamar-kand
= Shamar’s-town, now Samarkand. (Ibid. ii. 158.)
Footnote 55:
_i.e._ for a walk, a “constitutional”: the phrase is very common in
Egypt, and has occurred before.
Footnote 56:
These visions are frequent in Al-Islam; see Pilgrimage iii. 254–55. Of
course Christians are not subject to them, as Moslems also are never
favoured with glimpses of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints; the best
proof of their “Subjectivity.”
Footnote 57:
For this word see De Sacy, Chrest. ii. 421. It has already occurred in
The Nights, vol. iii. 295.
Footnote 58:
Not a few pilgrims settle for a time or for life in the two Holy
Places, which are thus kept supplied with fresh blood. See Pilgrimage
ii. 260.
Footnote 59:
_i.e._ Bayt al-Mukaddas, for which see vol. ii. 132.
Footnote 60:
An affidavit amongst Moslems is “litis decisio,” as in the
jurisprudence of mediæval Europe.
Footnote 61:
In Arab folk-lore there are many instances of such precocious
boys—_enfants terribles_ they must be in real life. In Ibn Khall.
(iii. 104) we find notices of a book “Kitáb Nujabá al-Abná” = Treatise
on Distinguished Children, by Ibn Zakaral-Sakalli (the Sicilian), ob.
A.D. 1169–70. And the boy-Kazi is a favourite rôle in the plays of
peasant-lads who enjoy the irreverent “chaff” almost as much as when
“making a Pasha.” This reminds us of the boys electing Cyrus as their
King in sport (Herodotus, i. 114). For the cycle of “Precocious
Children” and their adventures, see Mr. Clouston (Popular Tales, etc.,
ii. 1–14), who enters into the pedigree and affiliation. I must,
however, differ with that able writer when he remarks at the end, “And
now we may regard the story of Valerius Maximus with suspicion, and
that of Lloyd as absolutely untrue, so far as William Noy’s alleged
share in the ‘case.’” The jest or the event happening again and again
is no valid proof of its untruth; and it is often harder to believe in
derivation than in spontaneous growth.
Footnote 62:
In Galland _Ali Cogia, Marchand de Bagdad_, is directly followed by
the _Histoire du Cheval Enchanté_. For this “Ebony Horse,” as I have
called it, see vol. v. p. 32.
Footnote 63:
“Bánú” = a lady, a dame of high degree generally, _e.g._ the (Shah’s)
Banu-i-Harem in James Morier (“The Mirza,” iii. 50), who rightly
renders _Pari Banu_ = Pari of the first quality. “Peri” (Parí) in its
modern form has a superficial resemblance to “Fairy;” but this
disappears in the “Pairika” of the Avesta and the “Pairik” of the
modern Parsee. In one language only, the Multání, there is a masculine
form for the word “Pará” = a he-fairy (Scinde, ii. 203). In Al-Islam
these Peris are beautiful feminine spirits who, created after the
“Dívs” (Tabari, i. 7), mostly believe in Allah and the Koran and
desire the good of mankind: they are often attacked by the said Dívs,
giants or demons, who imprison them in cages hung to the highest
trees, and here the captives are visited by their friends who feed
them with the sweetest of scents. I have already contrasted them with
the green-coated pygmies to which the grotesque fancy of Northern
Europe has reduced them. Bánú in Pers. = a princess, a lady, and is
still much used, _e.g._ Bánú-í-Harim, the Dame of the Serraglio, whom
foreigners call “Queen of Persia;” and Árám-Banu = “the calm
Princess,” a nickname. A Greek story equivalent of Prince Ahmad is
told by Pio in _Contes Populaires Grecs_ (No. ii. p. 98) and called Τὸ
χρυσὸ κουτάκι, the Golden box. Three youths (παλλικάρια) love the same
girl and agree that whoever shall learn the best craft (ὅγεος μάθη
πλεὶα καλὴν τέκνην) shall marry her; one becomes an astrologer, the
second can raise the dead, and the third can run faster than air. They
find her at death’s door, and her soul, which was at her teeth ready
to start, goes down (καὶ πά ’ἣ ψυχή της κάτω, ποὔτανε πλειὰ στά δόντια
της).
Footnote 64:
Light of the Day.
Footnote 65:
Galland has “Bisnagar,” which the H. V. corrupts to Bishan-Garh =
Vishnu’s Fort, an utter misnomer. Bisnagar, like Bijnagar,
Beejanuggur, Vizianuggur, etc., is a Prakrit corruption of the
Sanskrit Vijáyanagara = City of Victory, the far-famed Hindu city and
capital of the Narasingha or Lord of Southern India, mentioned in The
Nights, vols. vi. 18; ix. 84. Nicolo de’ Conti in the xvth century
found it a magnificent seat of Empire some fifteen marches south of
the pestilential mountains which contained the diamond mines. Accounts
of its renown and condition in the last generation have been given by
James Grant (“Remarks on the Dekkan”) and by Captain Moore
(“Operations of Little’s Detachment against Tippoo Sultan”). The
latest description of it is in “The Indian Empire,” by Sir William W.
Hunter. Vijáyanagar, village in Bellary district, Madras, lat. 15° 18′
N., long. 76° 30′ E.; pop. (1871), 437, inhabiting 172 houses. The
proper name of this village is _Hampi_, but Vijáyanagar was the name
of the dynasty (?) and of the kingdom which had its capital here and
was the last great Hindu power of the South. Founded by two
adventurers in the middle of the xivth century, it lasted for two
centuries till its star went down at Tálikot in A.D. 1565. For a
description of the ruins of the old city of Vijáyanagar, which covers
a total area of nine square miles, see “Murray’s Handbook for Madras,”
by E. B. Eastwick (1879), vol. ix. p. 235. Authentic history in
Southern India begins with the Hindu kingdom of Vijáyanagar, or
Narsinha, from A.D. 1118 to 1565. The capital can still be traced
within the Madras district of Bellary, on the right bank of the
Tungabhadra river—vast ruins of temples, fortifications, tanks and
bridges, haunted by hyænas and snakes. For at least three centuries
Vijáyanagar ruled over the southern part of the Indian triangle. Its
Rajas waged war and made peace on equal terms with the Mohamadan
sultans of the Deccan. See vol. iv. p. 335, Sir W. W. Hunter’s
“Imperial Gazetteer of India,” Edit. 1881.
Footnote 66:
The writer means the great Bazar, the Indian “Chauk,” which = our
English Carfax or Carfex (Carrefour) and forms the core of ancient
cities in the East. It is in some places, as Damascus, large as one of
the quarters, and the narrow streets or lanes, vaulted over or
thatched, are all closed at night by heavy doors well guarded by men
and dogs. Trades are still localised, each owning its own street,
after the fashion of older England, where we read of Draper’s Lane and
Butchers’ Row; Lombard Street, Cheapside and Old Jewry.
Footnote 67:
The local name of the Patna gauzes. The term was originally applied to
the produce of the Coan looms, which, however, was anticipated in
ancient Egypt. See p. 287 of “L’Archéologie Égyptienne” (Paris, A.
Quantin) of the learned Professor G. Maspero, a most able popular work
by a savant who has left many regrets on the banks of Nilus.
Footnote 68:
The great prototype of the Flying Carpet is that of Sulayman bin Dáúd,
a fable which the Koran (chap. xxi. 81) borrowed from the Talmud, not
from “Indian fictions.” It was of green sendal embroidered with gold
and silver and studded with precious stones, and its length and
breadth were such that all the Wise King’s host could stand upon it,
the men to the left and the Jinns to the right of the throne; and when
all were ordered, the Wind, at royal command, raised it and wafted it
whither the Prophet would, while an army of birds flying overhead
canopied the host from the sun. In the Middle Ages the legend assumed
another form. “Duke Richard, surnamed ‘Richard sans peur,’ walking
with his courtiers one evening in the forest of Moulineaux, near one
of his castles on the banks of the Seine, hearing a prodigious noise
coming towards him, sent one of his esquires to know what was the
matter, who brought him word that it was a company of people under a
leader or King. Richard, with five hundred of his bravest Normans,
went out to see a sight which the peasants were so accustomed to that
they viewed it two or three times a week without fear. The sight of
the troop, preceded by two men, _who spread a cloth on the ground_,
made all the Normans run away, and leave the Duke alone. He saw the
strangers form themselves into a circle on the cloth, and on asking
who they were, was told that they were the spirits of Charles V., King
of France, and his servants, condemned to expiate their sins by
fighting all night against the wicked and the damned. Richard desired
to be of their party, and receiving a strict charge not to quit the
cloth, was conveyed with them to Mount Sinai, where, leaving them
without quitting the cloth, he said his prayers in the Church of St.
Catherine’s Abbey there, while they were fighting, and returned with
them. In proof of the truth of this story, he brought back half the
wedding-ring of a knight in that convent, whose wife, after six years,
concluded him dead, and was going to take a second husband.” (Note in
the Lucknow Edition of The Nights.)
Footnote 69:
Amongst Eastern peoples, and especially adepts, the will of man is not
a mere term for a mental or cerebral operation, it takes the rank of a
substance; it becomes a mighty motive power, like table-turning and
other such phenomena which, now looked upon as child’s play, will
perform a prime part in the Kinetics of the century to come. If a few
pair of hands imposed upon a heavy dinner-table can raise it in the
air, as I have often seen, what must we expect to result when the new
motive force shall find its Franklin and be shown to the world as real
“Vril”? The experiment of silently willing a subject to act in a
manner not suggested by speech or sign has been repeatedly tried and
succeeded in London drawing-rooms; and it has lately been suggested
that atrocious crimes have resulted from overpowering volition. In
cases of paralysis the Faculty is agreed upon the fact that local
symptoms disappear when the will-power returns to the brain. And here
I will boldly and baldly state my theory that, in sundry cases,
spectral appearances (ghosts) and abnormal smells and sounds are
simply the effect of a Will which has, so to speak, created them.
Footnote 70:
The text has “But-Khánah” = idol-house (or room) syn. with “But-Kadah”
= image-cuddy, which has been proposed as the derivation of the
disputed “Pagoda.” The word “Khánah” also appears in our balcony,
origin. “balcony,” through the South-European tongues, the Persian
being “Bálá-khánah” = high room. From “Kadah” also we derive “cuddy,”
now confined to nautical language.
Footnote 71:
Europe contains sundry pictures which have, or are supposed to have,
this property; witness the famous Sudarium bearing the head of Jesus.
The trick, for it is not Art, is highly admired by the credulous.
Footnote 72:
_i.e._ the Hindu Scripture or Holy Writ, _e.g._ “Káma-Shastra” = the
Cupid-gospel.
Footnote 73:
This shifting theatre is evidently borrowed by Galland from Pliny (N.
H. xxxvi., 24) who tells that in B.C. 50, C. Curio built two large
wooden theatres which could be wheeled round and formed into an
amphitheatre. The simple device seems to stir the bile of the
unmechanical old Roman, so unlike the Greek in powers of invention.
Footnote 74:
This trick is now common in the circuses and hippodromes of Europe,
horses and bulls being easily taught to perform it; but India has as
yet not produced anything equal to the “Cyclist elephant” of Paris.
Footnote 75:
This Arab.-Pers. compound, which we have corrupted to “Bezestein” or
“Bezetzein” and “Bezesten,” properly means a market-place for Baz or
Bazz = cloth, fine linen; but is used by many writers as = Bazar, see
“Kaysariah,” vol. i, 266.
Footnote 76:
The origin of the lens and its applied use to the telescope and the
microscope are “lost” (as the Castle-guides of Edinburgh say) “in the
glooms of antiquity.” Well ground glasses have been discovered amongst
the finds of Egypt and Assyria: indeed much of the finer work of the
primeval artists could not have been done without such aid. In Europe
the “spy-glass” appears first in the Opus Majus of the learned Roger
Bacon (circa A.D. 1270); and his “optic tube” (whence his saying “all
things are known by perspective”), chiefly contributed to make his
wide-spread fame as a wizard. The telescope was popularised by Galileo
who (as mostly happens) carried off and still keeps, amongst the
vulgar, all the honours of invention. Some “Illustrators” of The
Nights confound this “Nazzárah,” the Pers. “Dúr-bín,” or far-seer,
with the “Magic Mirror,” a speculum which according to Gower was set
up in Rome by Virgilius the Magician; hence the Mirror of Glass in the
Squire’s tale; Merlin’s glassie Mirror of Spenser (F. Q. ii. 24); the
mirror in the head of the monstrous fowl which forecast the Spanish
invasion to the Mexicans; the glass which in the hands of Cornelius
Agrippa (A.D. 1520) showed to the Earl of Surrey fair Geraldine “sick
in her bed;” to the globe of glass in The Lusiads; Dr. Dee’s
show-stone, a bit of cannel-coal; and lastly the zinc and copper disk
of the absurdly called “electro-biologist.” I have noticed this matter
at some length in various places.
Footnote 77:
D’Herbelot renders Soghd Samarkand = plain of Samarkand. Hence the old
“Sogdiana,” the famed and classical capital of Máwaránnahr, our modern
Transoxiana, now known as Samarkand. The Hindi translator has turned
“Soghd” into “Sadá” and gravely notes that “the village appertained to
Arabia.” He possibly had a dim remembrance of the popular legend which
derives “Samarkand” from Shamir or Samar bin Afrikús, the Tobba King
of Al-Yaman, who lay waste Soghd-city (“Shamir kand” = Shamir
destroyed); and when rebuilt the place was called by the Arab.
corruption Samarkand. See Ibn Khallikan ii. 480. Ibn Haukal (Kitáb al
Mamálik wa al-Masálik = Book of Realms and Routes), whose Oriental
Geography (xth century) was translated by Sir W. Ouseley (London,
Oriental Press, 1800), followed by Abú ’l-Fidá, mentions the
Himyaritic inscription upon an iron plate over the Kash portal of
Samarkand (Appendix No. iii).
Footnote 78:
The wish might have been highly indiscreet and have exposed the wisher
to the resentment of the two other brothers. In parts of Europe it is
still the belief of the vulgar that men who use telescopes can see
even with the naked eye objects which are better kept hidden; and I
have heard of troubles in the South of France because the villagers
would not suffer the secret charms of their women to become as it were
the public property of the lighthouse employés.
Footnote 79:
“Jám-i-Jamshíd” is a well worn commonplace in Moslem folk-lore; but
commentators cannot agree whether “Jám” be = a mirror or a cup. In the
latter sense it would represent the Cyathomantic cup of the Patriarch
Joseph and the symbolic bowl of Nestor. Jamshíd may be translated
either Jam the Bright or the Cup of the Sun: this ancient King is the
Solomon of the grand old Guebres.
Footnote 80:
This passage may have suggested to Walter Scott one of his
descriptions in “The Monastery.”
Footnote 81:
In the text “Lájawardí,” for which see vols. iii. 33, and ix. 190.
Footnote 82:
In Galland and the H.V. “Prince Husayn’s.”
Footnote 83:
This is the “Gandharba-lagana” (fairy wedding) of the Hindus; a
marriage which lacked only the normal ceremonies. For the Gandharbas =
heavenly choristers see Moor’s “Hindú Pantheon,” p. 237, etc.
Footnote 84:
“Perfumed with amber” (-gris?) says Galland.
Footnote 85:
The Hind. term for the royal levée, as “Selám” is the Persian.
Footnote 86:
Arab. “’Ilm al-Ghayb” = the Science of Hidden Things which, says the
Hadis, belongeth only to the Lord. Yet amongst Moslems, as with other
faiths, the instinctive longing to pry into the Future has produced a
host of pseudo-sciences, Geomancy, Astrology, Prophecy and others
which serve only to prove that such knowledge, in the present
condition of human nature, is absolutely unattainable.
Footnote 87:
In folk-lore and fairy tales the youngest son of mostly three brothers
is generally Fortune’s favourite: at times also he is the fool or the
unlucky one of the family, Cinderella being his counterpart (Mr.
Clouston, i. 321).
Footnote 88:
The parasang (Gr. παρασάγγης), which Ibn Khall. (iii. 315) reduces to
three miles, has been derived wildly enough from Fars or Pars (Persia
proper) sang = (mile) stone. Chardin supports the etymology, “because
leagues are marked out with great tall stones in the East as well as
the West, _e.g._ ad primam (vel secundam) lapidem.”
Footnote 89:
A huge marquee or pavilion-tent in India.
Footnote 90:
The Jinn feminine; see vol. i. 10. The word hardly corresponds with
the Pers. “Peri” and Engl. “Fairy,” a creation, like the “Dív,” of the
so-called “Aryan,” not “Semitic,” race.
Footnote 91:
Galland makes the Fairy most unjustifiably fear that her husband is
meditating the murder of his father; and the Hindí in this point has
much the advantage of the Frenchman.
Footnote 92:
Pers. = “Light of the World;” familiar to Europe as the name of the
Grand Moghul Jehángír’s principal wife.
Footnote 93:
The Arab stirrup, like that of the Argentine Gaucho, was originally
made of wood, liable to break, and forming a frail support for lancer
and sworder. A famous chief and warrior, Abú Sa’íd al-Muhallab (ob.
A.H. 83 = 702) first gave orders to forge footrests of iron.
Footnote 94:
For this Egyptian and Syrian weapon see vol. i. 234.
Footnote 95:
See vol. vii. 93, where an error of punctuation confounds it with
Kerbela,—a desert with a place of pilgrimage. “Samáwah” in Ibn Khall.
(vol. i. 108) is also the name of a town on the Euphrates.
Footnote 96:
Nazaránah prop. = the gift (or gifts) offered at visits by a Moslem
noble or feoffee in India to his feudal superior; and the Kalíchah of
Hindú, Malabar, Goa and the Blue Mountains (p. 197). Hence the
periodical tributes and especially the presents which represent our
“legacy-duty” and the “succession-duty” for Rajahs and Nabobs, the
latter so highly lauded by “The Times,” as the logical converse of the
Corn-laws which ruined our corn. The Nazaránah can always be made a
permanent and a considerable source of revenue, far more important
than such unpopular and un-Oriental device as an income-tax. But our
financiers have yet to learn the A. B. C. of political economy in
matters of assessment, which is to work upon familiar lines; and they
especially who, like Mr. Wilson “mad as a hatter,” hold and hold forth
that “what is good for England is good for the world.” These myopics
decide on theoretical and sentimental grounds that a poll-tax is bad
in principle, which it may be, still public opinion sanctions it and
it can be increased without exciting discontent. The same with the
“Nazaránah;” it has been the custom of ages immemorial, and a little
more or a little less does not affect its popularity.
Footnote 97:
Pers. = City-queen.
Footnote 98:
Compare with this tale its modern and popular version _Histoire du
Rossignol Chanteur_ (Spitta-Bey, No. x, p. 123): it contains the
rosary (and the ring) that shrinks, the ball that rolls and the water
that heals; etc. etc. Mr. Clouston somewhere asserts that the History
of the Envious Sisters, like that of Prince Ahmad and the Perí-Banu,
are taken from a MS. still preserved in the “King’s Library,” Paris;
but he cannot quote his authority, De Sacy or Langlès. Mr. H. C. Coote
(loc. cit. p. 189) declares it to be, and to have been, “an enormous
favourite in Italy and Sicily: no folk-tale exists in those countries
at all comparable to it in the number of its versions and in the
extent of its distribution.” He begins two centuries before Galland,
with Straparola (_Notti Piacevoli_), proceeds to Imbriani (_Novellaja
Fiorentina_), Nerucci (_Novelle Montalesi_), Comparetti (_Novelline
Italiane_) and Pitrè (_Fiabe, Novelle e Racconti popolari Italiani_,
vol i.); and informs us that “the adventures of the young girl,
independently of the joint history of herself and her brother, are
also told in a separate _Fiaba_ in Italy. A tale called ‘La Favenilla
Coraggiosa’ is given by Visentini in his _Fiabe Mantovane_ and it is
as far as it is a counterpart of the second portion of Galland’s
tale.” Mr. Coote also finds this story in Hahn’s “Griechische Märchen”
entitled “Sun, Moon and Morning Star”—the names of the royal children.
The King overhears the talk of three girls and marries the youngest
despite his stepmother, who substitutes for her issue a puppy, a
kitten and a mouse. The castaways are adopted by a herdsman whilst the
mother is confined in a henhouse; and the King sees his offspring and
exclaims, “These children are like those my wife promised me.” His
stepmother, hearing this, threatens the nurse, who goes next morning
disguised as a beggar-woman to the girl and induces her to long for
the Bough that makes music, the Magic Mirror, and the bird
Dickierette. The brothers set out to fetch them leaving their shirts
which become black when the mishap befalls them. The sister, directed
by a monk, catches the bird and revives the stones by the Water of
Life and the denouement is brought about by a sausage stuffed with
diamonds. In Miss Stokes’ Collection of Hindu Stories (No. xx.) “The
Boy who had a moon on his brow and a star on his chin” also suggests
the “Envious Sisters.”
Footnote 99:
Pop. “Ghaut” = The steps (or path) which lead down to a
watering-place. Hence the Hindi saying concerning the “rolling
stone”—Dhobi-ka kuttá; na Ghar-ká na Ghát-ká, = a washerwoman’s tyke,
nor of the house nor of the Ghát-dyke.
Footnote 100:
Text “Khatíbah” more usually “Khutbah” = the Friday sermon preached by
the Khatíb: in this the reigning sovereign is prayed for by name and
his mention together with the change of coinage is the proof of his
lawful rule. See Lane, M. E. chap. iii.
Footnote 101:
This form of eaves-dropping, in which also the listener rarely hears
any good of himself is, I need hardly now say, a favourite incident of
Eastern storiology and even of history, _e.g._ Three men met together;
one of them expressed the wish to obtain a thousand pieces of gold, so
that he might trade with them; the other wished for an appointment
under the Emir of the Moslems; the third wished to possess Yusuf’s
wife, who was the handsomest of women and had great political
influence. Yusuf, being informed of what they said, sent for the men,
bestowed one thousand dinars on him who wished for that sum, gave an
appointment to the other and said to him who wished to possess the
lady: “Foolish man! what induced you to wish for that which you can
never obtain?” He then sent him to her and she placed him in a tent
where he remained three days, receiving, each day, one and the same
kind of food. She had him then brought to her and said, “What did you
eat these days past” He replied: “Always the same thing!”—“Well,” said
she, “all women are the same thing.” She then ordered some money and a
dress to be given him, after which, she dismissed him. (Ibn Khallikan
iii. 463–64.)
Footnote 102:
This ruthless attempt at infanticide was in accordance with the
manners of the age nor has it yet disappeared from Rajput-land, China
and sundry over-populous countries. Indeed it is a question if
civilization may not be compelled to revive the law of Lycurgus which
forbade a child, male or female, to be brought up without the
approbation of public officers appointed _ad hoc_. One of the curses
of the XIXth century is the increased skill of the midwife and the
physician, who are now able to preserve worthless lives and to bring
up semi-abortions whose only effect upon the breed is increased
degeneracy. Amongst the Greeks and ancient Arabs the Malthusian
practice was carried to excess. Poseidippus declares that in his day—
A man, although poor, will not expose his son;
But however rich, will not preserve his daughter.
See the commentators’ descriptions of the Wa’d al-Banát or burial of
Mauúdát (living daughters), the barbarous custom of the pagan Arabs
(Koran, chaps. xvi. and lxxxi.), one of the many abominations, like
the murderous vow of Jephtha, to which Al-Islam put a summary stop.
(Ibn Khallikan, iii. 609–616). For such outcast children reported to
be monsters, see pp. 402–412 of Mr. Clouston’s “Asiatic and European
versions of four of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales,” printed by the
Chaucer Society.
Footnote 103:
Hind. Chhuchhundar (_Sorex cærulescens_) which occurs repeatedly in
verse; _e.g._, when speaking of low men advanced to high degree, the
people say:—
Chhuchhúndar-ke sir-par Chambelí-ka tel.
The Jasmine-oil on the musk-rat’s head.
In Galland the Sultánah is brought to bed of _un morceau de bois_; and
his Indian translator is more consequent. Hahn, as has been seen, also
has the mouse but Hahn could hardly have reached Hindostan.
Footnote 104:
This title of Sháhinshah was first assumed by Ardashír, the great
Persian conqueror, after slaying the King of Ispahán, Ardawán. (Tabari
ii. 73.)
Footnote 105:
This imprisonment of the good Queen reminds home readers of the “Cage
of Clapham” wherein a woman with child was imprisoned in A.D. 1700,
and which was noted by Sir George Grove as still in existence about
1830.
Footnote 106:
Arab. Ayyám al-Nifás = the period of forty days after labour during
which, according to Moslem law, a woman may not cohabit with her
husband.
Footnote 107:
A _clarum et venerabile nomen_ in Persia; meaning one of the Spirits
that presides over beasts of burden; also a king in general, the P.N.
of an ancient sovereign, etc.
Footnote 108:
This is the older pronunciation of the mod. (Khusrau) “Parvíz”; and I
owe an apology to Mr. C. J. Lyall (Ancient Arabian Poetry) for terming
his “Khusrau Parvêz” an “ugly Indianism” (The Academy, No. 100). As he
says (Ibid. vol. x. 85), “the Indians did not invent for Persian words
the sounds _ê_ and _ô_, called _majhúl_ (_i.e._ ‘not known in Arabic’)
by the Arabs, but received them at a time when these sounds were
universally used in Persia. The substitution by Persians of _î_ and
_û_ for _ê_ and _ô_ is quite modern.”
Footnote 109:
_i.e._ Fairy-born, the Παρυσάτις (Parysatis) of the Greeks which some
miswrite Παρύσατις.
Footnote 110:
In Arab. usually shortened to “Hazár” (bird of a thousand tales = the
Thousand), generally called “’Andalíb:” Galland has _Bulbulhezer_ and
some of his translators debase it to _Bulbulkezer_. See vol. v. 148,
and the Hazár-dastán of Kazwíní (De Sacy, Chrest. iii. 413). These
rarities represent the Rukh’s egg in “Alaeddin.”
Footnote 111:
These disembodied “voices” speaking either naturally or through
instruments are a recognised phenomenon of the so-called
“Spiritualism.” See p. 115 of “Supramundane Facts,” &c., edited by T.
J. Nichols, M.D., &c., London, Pitman, 1865. I venture to remark that
the medical treatment by Mesmerism, Braidism and hypnotics, which was
violently denounced and derided in 1850, is in 1887 becoming a part of
the regular professional practice and forms another item in the long
list of the Fallacies of the Faculty and the Myopism of the
“Scientist.”
Footnote 112:
I may also note that the “Hátif,” or invisible Speaker, which must be
subjective more often than objective, is a commonplace of Moslem
thaumaturgy.
Footnote 113:
It may have been borrowed from Ulysses and the Sirens.
Footnote 114:
Two heroes of the Shahnámeh and both the types of reckless daring. The
monomachy or duel between these braves lasted through two days.
Footnote 115:
The “Bágh” or royal tiger, is still found in the jungles of Mázenderán
and other regions of Northern Persia.
Footnote 116:
In addressing the Shah every Persian begins with the formula
“Kurbán-at básham” = may I become thy Corban or sacrifice. For this
word (Kurbán) see vol. viii. 16.
Footnote 117:
The King in Persia always speaks of himself in the third person and
swears by his own blood and head, soul, life and death. The form of
oath is ancient: Joseph, the first (but not the last) Jew-financier of
Egypt, emphasises his speech “by the life of Pharaoh.” (Gen. xiii. 15,
16).
Footnote 118:
Another title of the Shah, making him quasi-divine, at any rate the
nearest to the Almighty, like the Czar and the Emperor of China. Hence
the subjects bow to him with the body at right angles as David did to
Saul (1 Sam. xxiv. 8) or fall upon the face like Joshua (v. 14).
Footnote 119:
A most improbable and absurd detail: its sole excuse is the popular
superstition of “blood speaking to blood.” The youths being of the
royal race felt that they could take unwarrantable liberties.
Footnote 120:
This is still a Persian custom because all the subjects, women as well
as men, are virtually the King’s slaves.
Footnote 121:
_i.e._ King of kings, the Βασιλεὺς βασιλέων.
Footnote 122:
_Majlis garm karná_, _i.e._, to give some life to the company.
Footnote 123:
In Arabic “’Ilm al-Mukáshafah” = the Science by which Eastern adepts
discover man’s secret thoughts. Of late years it has appeared in
England but with the same quackery and imposture which have ruined
“Spiritualism” as the Faith of the Future.
Footnote 124:
Nor are those which do occur all in the same order: The first in the
Turkish book, “Of ’Ebú-’l-Kásim of Basra, of the ’Emír of Basra, and
of ’Ebú-’l-Faskh of Wásit,” is probably similar to the first in Petis,
“History of Aboulcasem of Basra.” The second, “Of Fadzlu-’llah of
Mawsil (Mosel), of ’Ebú-’l-Hasan, and of Máhyár of Wásit,” is
evidently the seventh in Petis, “History of Fadlallah, Son of Bin
Ortoc, King of Moussel.” The fourth, “Of Ridzwán-Sháh of China and the
Shahristání Lady,” is the second in Petis, “History of King
Razvanschad and of the Princess Cheheristany.” The eleventh, “Of the
Sovereign without a care and of the Vazír full of care,” is the eighth
in Petis, “History of King Bedreddin Lolo and of his Vizier
Altalmulc.” The third, “Of the Builder of Bemm with the two Vazírs of
the king of Kawáshar,” the seventh, “Of the Rogue Nasr and the son of
the king of Khurásán,” and the tenth, “The Three Youths, the Old Man,
and the Daughter of the King,” I cannot, from these titles, recognise
in Petis; while the fifth, “Farrukh-Shád, Farrukh-Rúz, and
Farrukh-Náz,” may be the same as the frame-story of the “Hazár ú Yek
Rúz,” where the king is called Togrul-bey, his son Farrukrouz, and his
daughter Farruknaz, and if this be the case, the Turkish book must
differ considerably from the Persian in its plan.—Although “The
Thousand and One Nights” has not been found in Persian, there exists a
work in that language of which the plan is somewhat similar—but
adapted from an Indian source. It is thus described by Dr. Rieu, in
his Catalogue of Persian MSS. in the British Museum, vol. ii. p. 773:
Tale of Shírzád, son of Gurgahan, emperor of China, and Gulshád,
daughter of the vazír Farrukhzád (called the Story of the Nine
Belvideres). Nine tales told by Gulshad to Shírzád, each in one of the
nine belvideres of the royal palace, in order to save the forfeited
life of her father.
Footnote 125:
A translation of this version, omitting the moral reflections
interspersed, is given by Professor E. B. Cowell in the “Journal of
Philology,” 1876, vol. vi. p. 193. The great Persian mystic tells
another story of a Dream of Riches, which, though only remotely allied
to our tale, is very curious:
_THE FAKÍR AND THE HIDDEN TREASURE._
Notwithstanding the clear evidence of God’s bounty, engendering those
spiritual tastes in men, philosophers and learned men, wise in their
own conceit, obstinately shut their eyes to it, and look afar off for
what is really close to them, so that they incur the penalty of being
“branded on the nostrils” [Kurán, lxviii. 16], adjudged against
unbelievers. This is illustrated by the story of a poor Fakír who
prayed to God that he might be fed without being obliged to work for
his food. A divine voice came to him in his sleep and directed him to
go to the house of a certain scribe and take a certain writing he
should find there. He did so, and on reading the writing found that it
contained directions for discovering a hidden treasure. The directions
were as follows: “Go outside the city to the dome which covers the
tomb of the martyr, turn your back to the tomb and your face towards
Mecca, place an arrow in your bow, and where the arrow falls dig for
the treasure.” But before the Fakír had time to commence the search
the rumour of the writing and its purport had reached the King, who at
once sent and took it away from the Fakír, and began to search for the
treasure on his own account. After shooting many arrows and digging in
all directions the King failed to find the treasure, and got weary of
searching, and returned the writing to the Fakír. Then the Fakír tried
what he could do, but failed to hit the spot where the treasure was
buried. At last, despairing of success by his own unaided efforts, he
cast his care upon God, and implored the divine assistance. Then a
voice from heaven came to him, saying, “You were directed to fix an
arrow in your bow, but not to draw your bow with all your might, as
you have been doing. Shoot as gently as possible, that the arrow may
fall close to you, for hidden treasure is indeed ‘nearer to you than
your neck-vein’” [Kurán, l. 15]. Men overlook the spiritual treasures
close to them, and for this reason it is that prophets have no honour
in their own countries.—_Mr. E. H. Whinfield’s Abridgment of “The
Masnavi-i Ma’navi.”_ (London, 1887.)
Footnote 126:
See Mr. Gibb’s translation (London: Redway), p. 278.
Footnote 127:
“Rem quæ contigit patrum memoriâ ut veram ita dignam relatu et
sæpenumero mihi assertam ab hominibus fide dignis apponam.”
Footnote 128:
Thorpe says that a nearly similar legend is current at Tanslet, on the
island of Alsen.
Footnote 129:
The common tradition is, it was in English rhyme, viz.
“Where this stood
Is another as good;”
or, as some will have it:
“Under me doth lie
Another much richer than I.”
Footnote 130:
Apropos to dreams, there is a very amusing story, entitled “Which was
the Dream?” in Mr. F. H. Balfour’s “Leaves from my Chinese Scrap
Book,” p. 106–7 (London: Trübner, 1887).
Footnote 131:
The story in the Turkish collection, “Al-Faraj ba’d al-Shiddah,” where
it forms the 8th recital, is doubtless identical with our Arabian
version, since in both the King of the Genie figures, which is not the
case in Mr. Gibb’s story.
Footnote 132:
Although this version is not preceded, as in the Arabian, by the Dream
of Riches, yet that incident occurs, I understand, in separate form in
the work of ’Alí ’Azíz.
Footnote 133:
Sir Richard has referred, in note 2, pp. 23, 24, to numerous different
magical tests of chastity etc., and I may here add one more, to wit,
the cup which Oberon, King of the Fairies, gave to Duke Huon of
Bordeaux (according to the romance which recounts the marvellous
adventures of that renowned Knight), which filled with wine in the
hand of any man who was out of “deadly sin” and attempted to drink out
of it, but was always empty in the hands of a sinful man. Charlemagne
was shown to be sinful by this test, while Duke Huon, his wife, and a
companion were proved to be free from sin.—In my “Popular Tales and
Fictions” the subject of inexhaustible purses etc. is treated pretty
fully—they frequently figure in folk-tales, from Iceland to Ceylon,
from Japan to the Hebrides.
Footnote 134:
“The Athenæum,” April 23, 1887, p. 542.
Footnote 135:
See M. Eugène Lévêque’s “Les Mythes et les Légendes de l’Inde et la
Perse” (Paris, 1880), p. 543, where the two are printed side by side.
This was pointed out more than seventy years ago by Henry Weber in his
Introduction to “Tales of the East,” edited by him.
Footnote 136:
Also in the romance of Duke Huon of Bordeaux and the old French
romance of the Chevalier Berinus. The myth was widely spread in the
Middle Ages.
Footnote 137:
Cf. the magic horn that Duke Huon of Bordeaux received from Oberon
King of the Fairies, which caused even the Soudan of Babylon to caper
about in spite of himself; and similar musical instruments in a
hundred different tales, such as the old English poem of “The Friar
and the Boy,” the German tale (in Grimm) of “The Jew among Thorns,”
the “Pied Piper of Hamelin,” &c.
Footnote 138:
Not distantly related to stories of this class are those in which the
hero becomes possessed of some all-bestowing object—a purse, a box, a
table-cloth, a sheep, a donkey, etc.—which being stolen from him he
recovers by means of a magic club that on being commanded rattles on
the pate and ribs of the thief and compels him to restore the
treasure.
Footnote 139:
The Dwarf had told the soldier, on leaving him after killing the old
witch, that should his services be at any other time required, he had
only to light his pipe at the Blue Light and he should instantly
appear before him. The tobacco-pipe must be considered as a recent and
quite unnecessary addition to the legend: evidently all the power of
summoning the Dwarf was in the Blue Light, since he tells the soldier
when he first appears before him in the well that he must obey its
lord and master.
Footnote 140:
Belli signifies famous, or notorious.
Footnote 141:
This young lady’s notion of the “function of Prayer” was, to say the
least, peculiar, in thus addressing her petition to the earth instead
of to Heaven.
Footnote 142:
The gentle, amiable creature!
Footnote 143:
Chamley-bill was, says Dr. Chodzko, a fort built by Kurroglú, the
ruins of which are still to be seen in the valley of Salmas, a
district in the province of Aderbaijan.
Footnote 144:
_i.e._ Kuvera, the god of wealth.
Footnote 145:
The attendants of Kuvera.
Footnote 146:
That every man has his “genius” of good or evil fortune is, I think,
essentially a Buddhistic idea.
Footnote 147:
Such being the case, what need was there for the apparition presenting
itself every morning?—but no matter!
Footnote 148:
Pandit S. M. Natésa Sástrí, in “Indian Notes and Queries,” for March,
1887, says that women swallow large numbers of an insect called
_pillai-púchchi_ (son-insect: _gryllas_) in the hope of bearing sons;
they will also drink the water squeezed from the loin-cloth of a
_sanyásí_ [devotee] after washing it for him!—Another correspondent in
the same periodical, Pandit Putlíbái K. Raghunathjé, writes that Hindú
women, for the purpose of having children, especially a son, observe
the fourth lunar day of every dark fortnight as a fast, and break
their fast only after seeing the moon, generally before 9 or 10 p.m. A
dish of twenty-one small, marble-like balls of rice is prepared, in
one of which is put some salt. The whole dish is then served up to the
woman, and while eating it she should first lay her hands on the ball
containing salt, as it is believed to be a positive sign that she will
be blessed with a son. In that case she should give up eating the
rest, but otherwise she should go on eating till she lays her hands on
the salted ball. The Pandit adds, that the observance of this ball
depends on the wish of the woman. She may observe it on only one,
five, seven, eleven, or twenty-one lunar fourth days, or _chaturthí_.
Should she altogether fail in picking out the salted ball first, she
may be sure of remaining barren all her life long.
Footnote 149:
I am glad to see among Messrs. Trübner and Co.’s announcements of
forthcoming publications Mr. Knowles’ collection of “Folk-Tales of
Kashmír” in popular handy-volume form.
Footnote 150:
A holy man whose austerities have obtained for him supernatural
powers.
Footnote 151:
Also called “Story of the King and his Four Ministers.” There is
another but wholly different Tamil romance entitled the “Alakésa
Kathá,” in which a king’s daughter becomes a disembodied evil spirit,
haunting during the night a particular choultry (or serai) for
travellers, and if they do not answer aright to her cries she
strangles them and vampyre-like sucks their blood.
Footnote 152:
The Pandit informs me that his “Folk-Lore in Southern India” will be
completed at press and issued shortly at Bombay. (London agents,
Messrs. Trübner & Co.)
Footnote 153:
In the “Kathá Sarit Ságara,” Book ii., ch. 14, when the King of Vatsa
receives the hand of Vasavadatta, “like a beautiful shoot lately
budded on the creeper of love,” she walks round the fire, keeping it
to the right, on which Prof. Tawney remarks that “the practice of
walking round an object of reverence, with the right hand towards it,
has been exhaustively discussed by Dr. Samuel Fergusson in his paper,
‘On the ceremonial turn called Desiul,’ published in the Proceedings
of the Royal Irish Academy, for March 1877 (vol i., series ii., No.
12). He shows it to have existed among the ancient Romans as well as
the Celts.... Dr. Fergusson is of opinion that this movement was a
symbol of the cosmical rotation, an imitation of the apparent course
of the sun in the heavens.”
Footnote 154:
The affection of parents for their children is often a blind instinct,
and sometimes selfish, though, after all, there is doubtless truth in
these lines:
“A mother’s love!
If there be one thing pure,
Where all beside is sullied,
That can endure
When all else pass away:
If there be aught
Surpassing human deed, or word, or thought,
It is a mother’s love!”
Footnote 155:
_Surma_ is a collyrium applied to the edges of the eyelids to increase
the lustre of the eyes. A Persian poet, addressing the damsel of whom
he is enamoured, says, “For eyes so intoxicated with love’s nectar
what need is there of surma?”—This part of the story seems to be
garbled; in another text of the romance of Hatim Ta’í it is only after
the surma has been applied to the covetous man’s eyes that he beholds
the hidden treasures.
Footnote 156:
The first part of the story of the Young King of the Black Isles, in
The Nights, bears some analogy to this, but there the paramour is only
“half-killed” and the vindictive queen transforms her husband from the
waist downwards into marble.
Footnote 157:
On the Sources of some of Galland’s Tales. By Henry Charles Coote,
F.S.A., “Folk-Lore Record,” 1881, vol. iii, part 2, p. 186.
Footnote 158:
See Thorpe’s “Yule Tide Stories,” Bohn’s ed., pp. 481–486.—Thorpe says
that “for many years the Dummburg was the abode of robbers, who slew
the passing travellers and merchants whom they perceived on the road
from Leipsig to Brunswick, and heaped together the treasures of the
plundered churches and the surrounding country, which they concealed
in subterranean caverns.” The peasantry would therefore regard the
spot with superstitious awe, and once such a tale as that of Ali Baba
got amongst them, the robbers’ haunt in their neighbourhood would soon
become the scene of the poor woodcutter’s adventure.
Footnote 159:
A Persian poet says:
“He who violates the rights of the bread and salt
Breaks, for his wretched self, head and neck.”
Footnote 160:
Miss Busk reproduces the proper names as they are transliterated in
Jülg’s German version of those Kalmuk and Mongolian Tales—from which a
considerable portion of her book was rendered—thus: Ardshi Bordshi,
Rakschasas, etc.; but drollest of all is “Ramajana” (Ramayana), which
is right in German but not in English.
Footnote 161:
The apocryphal gospels and the Christian hagiology are largely
indebted to Buddhism; _e.g._, the Descent into Hell, of which there is
such a graphic account in the Gospel of Nicodemus, seems to have been
adapted from ancient Buddhist legends, now embodied in the opening
chapters of a work entitled, “Káranda-vyúha,” which contain a
description of the Boddhisattva Avalokiteswara’s descent into the hell
Avíchi, to deliver the souls there held captive by Yama, the lord of
the lower world. (See a paper by Professor E. B. Cowell, LL.D., in the
“Journal of Philology,” 1876, vol. vi. pp. 222–231.) This legend also
exists in Telugu, under the title of “Sánanda Charitra,” of which the
outline is given in Taylor’s “Catalogue Raisonné of Oriental MSS. in
the Government Library, Madras,” vol. ii. p. 643: Sánanda, the son of
Purna Vitta and Bhadra Datta, heard from _munis_ accounts of the pains
of the wicked, and wishing to see for himself, went to Yama-puri. His
coming had been announced by Nárada. Yama showed the stranger the
different lots of mankind in a future state, in details. Sánanda was
touched with compassion for the miseries that he witnessed, and by the
use of the five and six lettered spells he delivered those imprisoned
souls and took them with him to Kailasa. Yama went to Siva and
complained, but Siva civilly dismissed the appeal.—Under the title of
“The Harrowing of Hell,” the apocryphal Christian legend was the theme
of a Miracle Play in England during the Middle Ages, and indeed it
seems to have been, in different forms, a popular favourite throughout
Europe. Thus in a German tale Strong Hans goes to the Devil in hell
and wants to serve him, and sees the pains in which souls are
imprisoned standing beside the fire. Full of pity, he lifts up the
lids and sets the souls free, on which the Devil at once drives him
away. A somewhat similar notion occurs in an Icelandic tale of the Sin
Sacks, in Powell and Magnússon’s collection (second series, p. 48).
And in T. Crofton Croker’s “Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South
of Ireland,” ed. 1828, Part ii. p. 30 ff., we read of Soul Cages at
the bottom of the sea, containing the spirits of drowned sailors,
which the bold hero Jack Docherty set free.
Footnote 162:
The Rabbins relate that among the Queen of Sheba’s tests of Solomon’s
sagacity she brought before him a number of boys and girls apparelled
all alike, and desired him to distinguish those of one sex from those
of the other, as they stood in his presence. Solomon caused a large
basin of water to be fetched in, and ordered them all to wash their
hands. By this expedient he discovered the boys from the girls, since
the former washed merely their hands, while the latter washed also
their arms.
Footnote 163:
Dr. W. Grimm, in the notes to his “Kinder und Hausmärchen,” referring
to the German form of the story (which we shall come to by-and-by),
says, “_The Parrot_, which is the fourth story in the Persian _Touti
Nameh_, bears some resemblance to this”—the _Parrot_ is the reciter of
all the stories in the collection, not the title of this particular
tale.
Footnote 164:
To Sir Richard Burton’s interesting note on the antiquity of the lens
and its applied use to the telescope and microscope may be added a
passage or two from Sir William Drummond’s “Origines; or, Remarks on
the Origin of several Empires, States, and Cities,” 1825, vol. ii. p.
246–250. This writer appears to think that telescopes were not unknown
to the ancients and adduces plausible evidence in support of his
opinion. “Moschopalus,” he says, “an ancient grammarian, mentions four
instruments with which the astronomers of antiquity were accustomed to
observe the stars—the _catoptron_, the _dioptron_, the _eisoptron_,
and the _enoptron_.” He supposes the catoptron to have been the same
with the astrolabe. “The dioptron seems to have been so named from a
tube through which the observer looked. Were the other two instruments
named from objects being reflected in a mirror placed within them?
Aristotle says that the Greeks employed mirrors when they surveyed the
celestial appearances. May we not conclude from this circumstance that
astronomers were not always satisfied with looking through empty
tubes?” He thinks the ancients were acquainted with lenses and has
collected passages from various writers which corroborate his opinion,
besides referring to the numerous uses to which glass was applied in
the most remote ages. He goes on to say:
“Some of the observations of the ancients must appear very
extraordinary, if magnifying glasses had never been known among them.
The boldness with which the Pythagoreans asserted that the surface of
the moon was diversified by mountains and valleys can hardly be
accounted for, unless Pythagoras had been convinced of the fact by the
help of telescopes, which might have existed in the observatories of
Egypt and Chaldea before those countries were conquered and laid waste
by the Persians. Pliny (L. 11) says that 1600 stars had been counted
in the 72 constellations, and by this expression I can only understand
him to mean the 72 dodecans into which the Egyptians and Chaldeans
divided the zodiac. Now this number of stars could never have been
counted in the zodiac without the assistance of glasses. Ptolemy
reckoned a much less number for the whole heavens. The missionaries
found many more stars marked in the Chinese charts of the heavens than
formerly existed in those which were in use in Europe. Suidas, at the
word ὕαλος (glass), indicates, in explaining a passage in
Aristophanes, that burning mirrors were occasionally made of glass.
Now how can we suppose burning mirrors to have been made of glass
without supposing the magnifying powers of glass to have been known?
The Greeks, as Plutarch affirms, employed metallic mirrors, either
plane, or convex, or concave, according to the use for which they were
intended. If they could make burning mirrors of glass, they could have
given any of these forms to glass. How then could they have avoided
observing that two glasses, one convex and the other concave, placed
at a certain distance from each other, magnified objects seen through
them? Numerous experiments must have been made with concave and convex
glasses before burning mirrors made of glass could have been employed.
If astronomers never knew the magnifying powers of glass, and never
placed lenses in the tubes of the dioptrons, what does Strabo (L. 3,
c. 138) mean when he says: ‘Vapours produce the same effects as the
tubes in magnifying objects of vision by refraction?’”
Mr. W. F. Thompson, in his translation of the “Ahlák-i Jalaly,” from
the Persian of Fakír Jání Muhammad (15th century), has the following
note on the Jám-i Jámshíd and other magical mirrors: “Jámshíd,” the
fourth of the Kaianian dynasty, the Solomon of the Persians. His cup
was said to mirror the world, so that he could observe all that was
passing elsewhere—a fiction of his own for state purposes, apparently,
backed by the use of artificial mirrors. Nizámí tells that Alexander
invented the steel mirror, by which he means, of course, that improved
reflectors were used for telescopy in the days of Archimedes, but not
early enough to have assisted Jámshíd, who belongs to the fabulous and
unchronicled age. In the romance of Beyjan and Manija, in the “Shah
Náma,” this mirror is used by the great Khosrú for the purpose of
discovering the place of the hero’s imprisonment:
“The mirror in his hand revolving shook,
And earth’s whole surface glimmered in his look;
Nor less the secrets of the starry sphere,
The what, the when, the how depicted clear,
From orbs celestial to the blade of grass,
All nature floated in the magic glass.”
Footnote 165:
We have been told this king had _three_ daughters.
Footnote 166:
See in “Blackwood’s Magazine,” vol. iv., 1818, 1819, a translation,
from the Danish of J. L. Ramussen, of “An Historical and Geographical
Essay on the trade and commerce of the Arabians and Persians with
Russia and Scandinavia during the Middle Ages.”—But learned
Icelanders, while England was still semi-civilized, frequently made
very long journeys into foreign lands: after performing the pilgrimage
to Rome, they went to Syria, and some penetrated into Central Asia.
Footnote 167:
This, of course, is absurd, as each was equally interested in the
business; but it seems to indicate a vague reminiscence of the
adventures of the Princes in the story of The Envious Sisters.
Footnote 168:
There is a _naïveté_ about this that is peculiarly refreshing.
Footnote 169:
This recalls the fairy Meliora, in the romance of Partenopex de Blois,
who “knew of ancient tales a countless store.”
Footnote 170:
In a Norwegian folk-tale the hero receives from a dwarf a magic ship
that could enlarge itself so as to contain any number of men, yet
could be carried in the pocket.
Footnote 171:
The Water of Life, the Water of Immortality, the Fountain of Youth—a
favourite and wide-spread myth during the Middle Ages. In the romance
of Sir Huon of Bordeaux the hero boldly encounters a griffin, and
after a desperate fight, in which he is sorely wounded, slays the
monster. Close at hand he discovers a clear fountain, at the bottom of
which is a gravel of precious stones. “Then he dyde of his helme and
dranke of the water his fyll, and he had no sooner dranke thereof hut
incontynent he was hole of all his woundys.” Nothing more frequently
occurs in folk-tales than for the hero to be required to perform three
difficult and dangerous tasks—sometimes impossible, without
supernatural assistance.
Footnote 172:
“Say, will a courser of the Sun
All gently with a dray-horse run?”
Footnote 173:
_Ting_: assembly of notables—of udallers, &c. The term survives in our
word hus_tings_; and in _Ding_-wall—_Ting_-val; where tings were held.
Footnote 174:
The last of the old Dublin ballad-singers, who assumed the respectable
name of Zozimus, and is said to have been the author of the ditties
wherewith he charmed his street auditors, was wont to chant the legend
of the Finding of Moses in a version which has at least the merit of
originality:
“In Egypt’s land, upon the banks of Nile,
King Pharoah’s daughter went to bathe in style;
She took her dip, then went unto the land,
And, to dry her royal pelt, she ran along the strand.
A bulrush tripped her, whereupon she saw
A smiling baby in a wad of straw;
She took it up, and said, in accents mild—
_Tare an’ agurs, girls! which av yez owns this child?_”
The Babylonian analogue, as translated by the Rev. Prof. A. H. Sayce,
in the first vol. of the “Folk-Lore Journal” (1883), is as follows:
“Sargon, the mighty monarch, the King of Aganè, am I. My mother was a
princess; my father I knew not; my father’s brother loved the
mountain-land. In the city of Azipiranu, which on the bank of the
Euphrates lies, my mother, the princess, conceived me; in an
inaccessible spot she brought me forth. She placed me in a basket of
rushes, with bitumen the door of my ark she closed. She launched me on
the river, which drowned me not. The river bore me along, to Akki, the
irrigator, it brought me. Akki, the irrigator, in the tenderness of
his heart, lifted me up. Akki, the irrigator, as his own child brought
me up. Akki, the irrigator, as his gardener appointed me, and in my
gardenership the goddess Istar loved me. For 45 years the kingdom I
have ruled, and the black-headed (Accadian) race have governed.”
Footnote 175:
This strange notion may have been derived from some Eastern source,
since it occurs in Indian fictions; for example, in Dr. Rájendralála
Mitra’s “Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepál,” p. 304, we read that
“there lived in the village of Vásava a rich householder who had born
unto him a son with a jewelled ring in his ear.” And in the
“Mahábhárata” we are told of a king who had a son from whose body
issued nothing but gold—the prototype of the gold-laying goose.
Footnote 176:
Connected with this romance is the tale of “The Six Swans,” in Grimm’s
collection—see Mrs. Hunt’s English translation, vol. i. p. 192.
Footnote 177:
Mahbúb: a piece of gold, value about 10 francs; replaces the _dinár_
of old tales. Those in Egypt are all since the time of the Turks: 9,
7, or 6½ frs. according to issue—_Note by Spitta Bey_.
Footnote 178:
Here again we have the old superstition of “blood speaking to blood,”
referred to by Sir Richard, _ante_, p. 531, note 3. It often occurs in
Asiatic stories. Thus in the Persian “Bakhtyár Náma,” when the adopted
son of the robber-chief is brought with other captives, before the
king (he is really the king’s own son, whom he and the queen abandoned
in their flight through the desert), his majesty’s bowels strangely
yearned towards the youth, and in the conclusion this is carried to
absurdity: when Bakhtyár is found to be the son of the royal pair,
“the milk sprang from the breasts of the queen,” as she looked on
him—albeit she must then have been long past child-bearing!
Footnote 179:
The enchanted pitcher does duty here for the witches’ broomstick and
the fairies’ rush of European tales, but a similar conveyance is, I
think, not unknown to Western folk-lore.
Footnote 180:
In a Norse story the hero on entering a forbidden room in a troll’s
house finds a horse with a pan of burning coals under his nose and a
measure of corn at his tail; and when he removes the coals and
substitutes the corn, the horse becomes his friend and adviser.
Footnote 181:
M. Dozon does not think that Muslim customs allow of a man’s marrying
three sisters at once; but we find the king does the same in the
modern Arab version.
Footnote 182:
London: Macmillan and Co., p. 236 ff.
Footnote 183:
This recalls the biblical legend of the widow’s cruse, which has its
exact counterpart in Singhalese folk-lore.
Footnote 184:
This recalls the story of the herd-boy who cried “Wolf! wolf!”
Footnote 185:
Again the old notion of maternal and paternal instincts; but the
_children_ don’t often seem in folk-tales, to have a similar impulsive
affection for their unknown parents.
Footnote 186:
_Colotropis gigantea_.
Footnote 187:
Rákshasas and rákshasís are male and female demons, or ogres, in the
Hindú mythology.
Footnote 188:
Literally, the _king of birds_, a fabulous species of horse remarkable
for swiftness, which plays an important part in Tamil stories and
romances.
Footnote 189:
Here we have a parallel to the biblical legend of the passage of the
Israelites dryshod over the Red Sea.
Footnote 190:
Demons, ogres, trolls, giants, _et hoc genus omne_, never fail to
discover the presence of human beings by their keen sense of smelling.
“Fee, faw, fum! I smell the blood of a British man,” cries a giant
when the renowned hero Jack is concealed in his castle. “Fum! fum!
sento odor christianum,” exclaims an ogre in Italian folk-tales.
“Femme, je sens la viande fraîche, la chair de chrétien!” says a giant
to his wife in French stories.
Footnote 191:
In my “Popular Tales and Fictions” a number of examples are cited of
life depending on some extraneous object—vol. i. pp. 347–351.
Footnote 192:
In the Tamil story-book, the English translation of which is called
“The Dravidian Nights’ Entertainments,” a wandering princess, finding
the labour pains coming upon her, takes shelter in the house of a
dancing-woman, who says to the nurses, “If she gives birth to a
daughter, it is well [because the woman could train her to follow her
own ‘profession’], but if a son, I do not want him;—close her eyes,
remove him to a place where you can kill him, and throwing a bit of
wood on the ground tell her she has given birth to it.”—I daresay that
a story similar to the Bengalí version exists among the Tamils.
Footnote 193:
It is to be hoped we shall soon have Sir Richard Burton’s promised
complete English translation of this work, since one half is, I
understand, already done.
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