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THE SCIENCE
OF
FAIRY TALES
AN INQUIRY INTO FAIRY MYTHOLOGY.
BY
EDWIN SIDNEY HARTLAND,
FELLOW OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES.
LONDON:
WALTER SCOTT,
24, WARWICK LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1891.
PREFACE.
The chief object of this volume is to exhibit, in a manner acceptable to
readers who are not specialists, the application of the principles and
methods which guide investigations into popular traditions to a few of
the most remarkable stories embodying the Fairy superstitions of the
Celtic and Teutonic peoples. Some of the subjects discussed have already
been dealt with by more competent inquirers. But even in these cases I
have sometimes been able to supply additional illustrations of the
conclusions previously arrived at, and occasionally, I hope, to carry
the argument a step or two further than had been done before. I have
thus tried to render the following pages not wholly valueless to
students.
A portion of the book incorporates the substance of some articles which
I contributed to "The Archæological Review" and "Folk-Lore." But these
have been to a considerable extent re-written; and it is hoped that in
the process wider and more accurate generalizations have been attained.
My hearty thanks are due to the various friends whose generous
assistance has been recorded in the footnotes, and especially to
Professor Dr. George Stephens, the veteran antiquary of the North, and
Mr. W. G. Fretton, who have not measured their pains on behalf of one
whose only claim on them was a common desire to pry into the recesses of
the past. I am under still deeper obligations to Mr. G. L. Gomme,
F.S.A., who has so readily acceded to my request that he would read the
proof-sheets, and whose suggestions have repeatedly been of the greatest
value; and to Mr. Havelock Ellis for the counsel and suggestions which
his experience has more than once enabled him to give as the book was
passing through the press.
I have been anxious to enable the reader who cares to do so to verify
every statement made; but some of them no doubt have escaped reference.
Many books are cited again and again, and in similar cases the reader's
time is frequently wasted in searching for the first mention of a book,
so as to ascertain its title and other particulars. To avoid the trouble
I have so many times experienced in this way, I have put together in an
Appendix a list of the principal authorities made use of, indicating
them by the short title by which they are cited in the footnotes, and
giving sufficient bibliographical details to enable them to be
identified. Classics and works which are in every one's hands I have not
thought it necessary to include in the list.
E. S. H.
BARNWOOD COURT, GLOUCESTER,
_24th October, 1890._
[Transcriber's Note: Any transcriber's notes are abbreviated in the
text as TN: The caret (^) is used to indicate superscript.]
CONTENTS.
Page
CHAPTER I.
THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 1
CHAPTER II.
SAVAGE IDEAS 22
CHAPTER III.
FAIRY BIRTHS AND HUMAN MIDWIVES 37
CHAPTER IV.
FAIRY BIRTHS AND HUMAN MIDWIVES (_continued_) 59
CHAPTER V.
CHANGELINGS 93
CHAPTER VI.
ROBBERIES FROM FAIRYLAND 135
CHAPTER VII.
THE SUPERNATURAL LAPSE OF TIME IN FAIRYLAND 161
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SUPERNATURAL LAPSE OF TIME IN FAIRYLAND (_continued_) 196
CHAPTER IX.
THE SUPERNATURAL LAPSE OF TIME IN FAIRYLAND (_continued_) 222
CHAPTER X.
SWAN-MAIDENS 255
CHAPTER XI.
SWAN-MAIDENS (_continued_) 283
CHAPTER XII.
CONCLUSION 333
APPENDIX 353
INDEX 367
THE SCIENCE OF FAIRY TALES.
CHAPTER I.
THE ART OF STORY-TELLING.
The art of story-telling--Unity of human imagination--Definition
of Fairy Tales--Variable value of Tradition--Story-telling and
the story-teller among various peoples--The connection of
folk-tales with folk-songs--Continuity of Tradition--Need of
accuracy and good faith in reporting stories.
The art of story-telling has been cultivated in all ages and among all
nations of which we have any record; it is the outcome of an instinct
implanted universally in the human mind. By means of a story the savage
philosopher accounts for his own existence and that of all the phenomena
which surround him. With a story the mothers of the wildest tribes awe
their little ones into silence, or rouse them into delight. And the
weary hunters beguile the long silence of a desert night with the mirth
and wonders of a tale. The imagination is not less fruitful in the
higher races; and, passing through forms sometimes more, sometimes less,
serious, the art of story-telling unites with the kindred arts of dance
and song to form the epic or the drama, or develops under the complex
influences of modern life into the prose romance and the novel. These in
their various ways are its ultimate expression; and the loftiest genius
has found no fitter vehicle to convey its lessons of truth and beauty.
But even in the most refined products of the imagination the same
substances are found which compose the rudest. Something has, of course,
been dropped in the process; and where we can examine the process stage
by stage, we can discern the point whereat each successive portion has
been purged away. But much has also been gained. To change the figure,
it is like the continuous development of living things, amorphous at
first, by and by shooting out into monstrous growths, unwieldy and
half-organized, anon settling into compact and beautiful shapes of
subtlest power and most divine suggestion. But the last state contains
nothing more than was either obvious or latent in the first. Man's
imagination, like every other known power, works by fixed laws, the
existence and operation of which it is possible to trace; and it works
upon the same material,--the external universe, the mental and moral
constitution of man and his social relations. Hence, diverse as may seem
at first sight the results among the cultured Europeans and the debased
Hottentots, the philosophical Hindoos and the Red Indians of the Far
West, they present, on a close examination, features absolutely
identical. The outlines of a story-plot among savage races are wilder
and more unconfined; they are often a vast unhidebound corpse, but one
that bears no distant resemblance to forms we think more reasonable only
because we find it difficult to let ourselves down to the level of
savage ignorance, and to lay aside the data of thought which have been
won for us by the painful efforts of civilization. The incidents, making
all due allowance for these differences and those of climate and
physical surroundings, are not merely alike; they are often
indistinguishable. It cannot, of course, be expected that the characters
of the actors in these stories will be drawn with skill, or indeed that
any attention will be paid to them. Character-study is a late
development. True: we ought not to overlook the fact that we have to do
with barbarous ideals. In a rudimentary state of civilization the
passions, like the arts, are distinguished not by subtlety and
complexity, but by simplicity and violence of contrast. This may account
to some extent for what seems to us repulsive, inconsistent or
impossible. But we must above all things beware of crediting the
story-teller with that degree of conscious art which is only possible in
an advanced culture and under literary influences. Indeed, the
researches which are constantly extending the history of human
civilization into a remoter and remoter past, go everywhere to show that
story-telling is an inevitable and wholly unconscious growth, probably
arising, as we shall see in the next chapter, out of narratives believed
to record actual events.
I need not stop now to illustrate this position, which is no new one,
and the main lines of which I hope will be rendered apparent in the
course of this volume. But it is necessary, perhaps, to point out that,
although these are the premises from which I start, the limitations
imposed by a work of the size and pretensions of this one will not allow
me to traverse more than a very small corner of the field here opened to
view. It is, therefore, not my intention to attempt any formal proof of
the foregoing generalizations. Rather I hope that if any reader deem it
proper to require the complete evidence on which they rest, he will be
led to further investigations on his own behalf. His feet, I can promise
him, will wander along flowery paths, where every winding will bring him
fresh surprises, and every step discover new sources of enjoyment.
The stories with which we shall deal in the following pages are vaguely
called Fairy Tales. These we may define to be: Traditionary narratives
not in their present form relating to beings held to be divine, nor to
cosmological or national events, but in which the supernatural plays an
essential part. It will be seen that literary tales, such as those of
Hans Andersen and Lord Brabourne, based though they often are upon
tradition, are excluded from Fairy Tales as thus defined. Much no doubt
might be said both interesting and instructive concerning these
brilliant works. But it would be literary criticism, a thing widely
different from the scientific treatment of Fairy Tales. The Science of
Fairy Tales is concerned with tradition, and not with literature. It
finds its subjects in the stories which have descended from mouth to
mouth from an unknown past; and if reference be occasionally made to
works of conscious literary art, the value of such works is not in the
art they display, but the evidence they yield of the existence of given
tales in certain forms at periods and places approximately capable of
determination: evidence, in a word, which appropriates and fixes a
pre-existing tradition. But even in this they are inferior in importance
to historical or topographical works, where we frequently meet with
records of the utmost importance in considering the origin and meaning
of Folk-tales.
Literature, in short, of whatever kind, is of no value to the student of
Fairy Tales, as that phrase is here used, save as a witness to
Tradition. Tradition itself, however, is variable in value, if regard be
had alone to purity and originality. For a tribe may conceivably be so
isolated that it is improbable that any outside influence can have
affected its traditions for a long series of generations; or on the
other hand it may be in the highway of nations. It may be physically of
a type unique and unalloyed by foreign blood; or it may be the progeny
of a mingling of all the races on the earth. Now it is obvious that if
we desire to reason concerning the wide distribution, or the innate and
necessary character of any idea, or of any story, the testimony of a
given tribe or class of men will vary in proportion to its segregation
from other tribes and classes: where we can with most probability
exclude outside influence as a factor in its mental evolution, there we
shall gather evidence of the greatest value for the purpose of our
argument.
Again: some nations have developed the art of story-telling more highly
than others, since some stages of civilization are more favourable to
this development than others, and all nations are not in the same stage.
The further question may, therefore, be put whether these various stages
of development may not produce differences of manner in
story-telling--differences which may indicate, if they do not cause,
deep-seated differences in the value of the traditions themselves. To
make my meaning clear: a people which requires its story-tellers to
relate their stories in the very words in which they have been conveyed
from time immemorial, and allows no deviation, will preserve its
traditions with the least possible blemish and the least possible
change. In proportion as latitude in repetition is permitted and
invention is allowed to atone for want of memory, tradition will change
and become uncertain. Such latitude may be differently encouraged by
different social states. A social state is part of, and inseparable
from, the sum total of arts, knowledge, organization and customs which
we call the _civilization_, or the _stage of civilization_, of a people.
It may be worth while to spend a short time in examining the mode of
story-telling and the requirements of a story-teller among nations in
different stages of civilization. We shall thus endeavour to appreciate
the differences in the manner of telling, and to ascertain in general
terms how far these differences affect the value of the traditions.
If we turn first to some of the Celtic nations, we find a social state
in which the art of story-telling has received a high degree of
attention. The late Mr. J. F. Campbell, to whom the science of Folklore
owes an incalculable debt, describes a condition of things in the
Western Highlands extremely favourable to the cultivation of
folk-tales. Quoting from one of his most assiduous collectors, he says
that most of the inhabitants of Barra and South Uist are Roman
Catholics, unable to speak English or to read or write. Hence it is
improbable that they can have borrowed much from the literature of other
nations. Among these people in the long winter nights the recitation of
tales is very common. They gather in crowds at the houses of those who
are reputed to be good tale-tellers. Their stories frequently relate to
the exploits of the Ossianic heroes, of whose existence they are as much
convinced as ordinary English folk are of the existence and deeds of the
British army in its most recent wars. During the tales "the emotions of
the reciters are occasionally very strongly excited, and so also are
those of the listeners, almost shedding tears at one time, and giving
way to loud laughter at another. A good many of them firmly believe in
all the extravagance of these stories." Another of his collectors, a
self-educated workman in the employ of the Duke of Argyll, writing more
than thirty years ago to him, speaks of what used to take place about
Loch Lomond upwards of fifty years before--that is to say, about the
beginning of the present century. The old people then would pass the
winter evenings telling each other traditional stories. These chiefly
concerned freebooters, and tribal raids and quarrels, and included
descriptions of the manners, dress and weapons of their ancestors and
the hardships they had to endure. The youngsters also would gather, and
amuse themselves with games or the telling of tales of a more romantic
cast. But the chief story-tellers appear to have been the tailors and
shoemakers, who were literally journeymen, going from house to house in
search of work. As they travelled about, they picked up great numbers of
tales, which they repeated; "and as the country people made the telling
of these tales, and listening to hear them, their winter night's
amusement, scarcely any part of them would be lost." In these tales
Gaelic words were often used which had dropped out of ordinary
parlance, giving proof of careful adherence to the ancient forms; and
the writer records that the previous year he had heard a story told
identical with one he had heard forty years before from a different man
thirty miles away; and this story contained old Gaelic words the meaning
of which the teller did not know. A gamekeeper from Ross-shire also
testified to similar customs at his native place: the assemblies of the
young to hear their elders repeat, on winter nights, the tales they had
learned from their fathers before them, and the renown of the travelling
tailor and shoemaker. When a stranger came to the village it was the
signal for a general gathering at the house where he stayed, to listen
to his tales. The goodman of the house usually began with some favourite
tale, and the stranger was expected to do the rest. It was a common
saying: "The first tale by the goodman, and tales to daylight by the
guest." The minister, however, came to the village in 1830, and the
schoolmaster soon followed, with the inevitable result of putting an end
to these delightful times.[1]
Not very different is the account given by M. Luzel of the _Veillées_ in
which he has often taken part in Brittany. In the lonely farmhouse after
the evening meal prayers are said, and the life in Breton of the saint
of the day read, all the family assemble with the servants and labourers
around the old-fashioned hearth, where the fire of oaken logs spirts and
blazes, defying the wind and the rain or snow without. The talk is of
the oxen and the horses and the work of the season. The women are at
their wheels; and while they spin they sing love ditties, or ballads of
more tragic or martial tone. The children running about grow tired of
their games, and of the tedious conversation of their elders, and demand
a tale, it matters not what, of giants, or goblins, or witches--nay,
even of ghosts. They are soon gratified; and if an old man, as
frequently happens, be the narrator, he is fortified and rewarded for
the toil by a mug of cider constantly replenished. One such depositary
of tradition is described as a blind beggar, a veritable Homer in wooden
shoon, with an inexhaustible memory of songs and tales of every kind. He
was welcome everywhere, in the well-to-do farmhouse as in the humble
cottage. He stayed as long as he pleased, sometimes for whole weeks; and
it was with reluctance that he was allowed to leave in order to become
for a time the charm of another fireside, where he was always awaited
with impatience.[2]
M. Braga, the Portuguese scholar, quotes an old French writer, Jean le
Chapelain, as recording a custom in Normandy similar to that of
Ross-shire, that the guest was always expected to repay hospitality by
telling tales or singing songs to his host. And he states that the
emigrants from Portugal to Brazil took this custom with them. In Gascony
M. Arnaudin formed his collection of tales a few years ago by assisting
at gatherings like those just described in Brittany, as well as at
marriages and at various agricultural festivals.[3]
Similar customs existed in Wales within living memory, and in remote
districts they probably exist to-day. If they do not now continue in
England, it is at least certain that our forefathers did not differ in
this respect from their neighbours. A writer of the seventeenth century,
in enumerating the causes of upholding "the damnable doctrine of
witchcraft," mentions: "Old wives' fables, who sit talking and chatting
of many false old stories of Witches and Fairies and Robin Goodfellow,
and walking spirits and the dead walking again; all of which lying
fancies people are more naturally inclined to listen after than to the
Scriptures." And if we go further back we find in chapter clv. of the
printed editions of the "Gesta Romanorum" an interesting picture of
domestic life. The whole family is portrayed gathering round the fire in
the winter evenings and beguiling the time by telling stories. Such we
are informed was the custom among the higher classes. It was, indeed,
the custom among all classes, not only in England but on the Continent,
throughout the Middle Ages. The eminent French antiquary, Paul Lacroix,
speaks of wakes, or evening parties, where fairy tales and other
superstitions were propagated, as having a very ancient origin. He
states that they are still (as we have already seen in Brittany and
Gascony) the custom in most of the French provinces, and that they
formed important events in the private lives of the peasants.[4]
It is difficult to sever the occasion and mode of the tale-telling from
the character of the teller; nor would it be wise to do so. And in this
connection it is interesting to pause for a moment on Dr. Pitré's
description of Agatuzza Messia, the old woman from whom he derived so
large a number of the stories in his magnificent collection, and whom he
regarded as a model story-teller. I am tempted to quote his account at
length. "Anything but beautiful," he says, "she has facile speech,
efficacious phrases, an attractive manner of telling, whence you divine
her extraordinary memory and the sallies of her natural wit. Messia
already reckons her seventy years, and is a mother, grandmother, and
great grandmother. As a child, she was told by her grandmother an
infinity of tales which she had learned from her mother, and _she_ in
turn from her grandfather; she had a good memory and never forgot them.
There are women who have heard hundreds of tales and remember none; and
there are others who, though they remember them, have not the grace of
narration. Among her companions of the Borgo, a quarter of Palermo,
Messia enjoyed the reputation of a fine story-teller; and the more one
heard her, the more one desired to hear. Almost half a century ago she
was obliged to go with her husband to Messina, and lived there some
time: a circumstance, this, worthy of note, since our countrywomen never
go away from their own district save from the gravest necessity.
Returning to her native home, she spoke of things of which the gossips
of the neighbourhood could not speak: she spoke of the Citadel, a
fortress which no one could take, not even the Turks themselves; she
spoke of the Pharos of Messina, which was beautiful, but dangerous for
sailors; she spoke of Reggio in Calabria, which, facing the walls of
Messina, seemed to wish to touch hands with them; and she remembered and
mimicked the pronunciation of the Milazzesi, who spoke, Messia said, so
curiously as to make one laugh. All these reminiscences have remained
most vivid in her memory. She cannot read, but she knows so many things
that no one else knows, and repeats them with a propriety of tongue that
is a pleasure to hear. This is a characteristic to which I call my
readers' attention. If the tale turns upon a vessel which has to make a
voyage, she utters, without remarking it, or without seeming to do so,
sailors' phrases, and words which only seamen and those who have to do
with seamen are acquainted with. If the heroine arrives, poor and
desolate, at a baker's and takes a place there, Messia's language is so
completely that of the trade that you would believe that the baking of
bread had been her business, whereas at Palermo this occupation, an
ordinary one in the families of the large and small communes of the
island, is that of professional bakers alone.... As a young woman Messia
was a tailoress; when through toil her sight became weakened, she turned
to sewing winter quilts. But in the midst of this work, whereby she
earns her living, she finds time for the fulfilment of her religious
duties; every day, winter and summer, in rain or snow, in the gloaming
she goes to her prayers. Whatever feast is celebrated in the church, she
is solicitous to attend: Monday, she is at the Ponte dell' Ammiraglio
praying for the Souls of the Beheaded; Wednesday, you find her at San
Giuseppe keeping the festival of the Madonna della Providenza; every
Friday she goes to San Francesco di Paola, reciting by the way her
accustomed beads; and if one Saturday pass when she ought to go to the
Madonna dei Cappuccini, another does not; and there she prays with a
devotion which none can understand who has not experienced it. Messia
witnessed my birth and held me in her arms: hence I have been able to
collect from her mouth the many and beautiful traditions to which her
name is appended. She has repeated to the grown man the tales she had
told to the child thirty years before; nor has her narration lost a
shade of the old sincerity, vivacity, and grace. The reader will only
find the cold and naked words; but Messia's narration consists, more
than in words, in the restless movement of the eyes, in the waving of
the arms, in the gestures of the whole person, which rises, walks around
the room, bends, and is again uplifted, making her voice now soft, now
excited, now fearful, now sweet, now hoarse, as it portrays the voices
of the various personages, and the action which these are
performing."[5]
Such a woman as is here described is a born story-teller; and her art,
as exhibited in the tales attributed to her in Dr. Pitré's collection,
reaches perhaps the highest point possible in tradition. Women are
usually the best narrators of nursery tales. Most of the modern
collections, from that of the brothers Grimm downwards, owe their
choicest treasures to women. In the Panjab, however, Captain Temple
ascribes to children marvellous power of telling tales, which he states
they are not slow to exercise after sunset, when the scanty evening meal
is done and they huddle together in their little beds beneath the
twinkling stars, while the hot air cools, the mosquito sings, and the
village dogs bark at imaginary foes. The Rev. Hinton Knowles' collection
was gathered in Cashmere apparently from men and boys only; but all
classes contributed, from the governor and the pandit down to the barber
and the day-labourer, the only qualification being that they should be
entirely free from European influence.[6]
But nursery tales told simply for amusement are far from being the only
kind of traditional narrative. Savage and barbarous races, to whom the
art of writing is unknown, are dependent upon memory for such records as
they have of their past; and sometimes a professional class arises to
preserve and repeat the stories believed to embody these records. Among
the Maories and their Polynesian kinsmen the priests are the great
depositaries of tradition. It is principally from them that Mr. White
and the Rev. W. W. Gill have obtained their collections. But the orators
and chiefs are also fully conversant with the narratives; and their
speeches are filled with allusions to them, and with quotations from
ancient poems relating the deeds of their forefathers. The difficulty of
following such allusions, and consequently of understanding the meaning
of the chiefs when addressing him on behalf of their fellow-countrymen,
first induced, or compelled, Sir George Grey, when Governor of New
Zealand, to make the inquiries whose results are embodied in his work on
Polynesian Mythology. The Eskimo of Greenland, at the other end of the
world, divide their tales into two classes: the ancient and the modern.
The former may be considered, Dr. Rink says, as more or less the
property of the whole nation, while the latter are limited to certain
parts of the country, or even to certain people who claim to be akin to
one another. The art of telling these tales is "practised by certain
persons specially gifted in this respect; and among a hundred people
there may generally be found one or two particularly favoured with the
art of the _raconteur_, besides several tolerable narrators." It is the
narrators of the ancient tales "who compose the more recent stories by
picking up the occurrences and adventures of their latest ancestors,
handed down occasionally by some old members of the family, and
connecting and embellishing them by a large addition of the
supernatural, for which purpose resort is always had to the same
traditional and mystic elements of the ancient folklore."[7]
But the art of story-telling has not everywhere given rise to a
professional class. When the Malagasy receive friends at their houses,
they themselves recount the deeds of their ancestors, which are handed
down from father to son, and form the principal topic of conversation.
So, too, the savage Ahts of Vancouver Island sit round their fires
singing and chatting; "and the older men, we are told, lying and
bragging after the manner of story-tellers, recount their feats in war,
or the chase, to a listening group." Mr. Im Thurn has drawn an
interesting picture of the habits at night of the Indian tribes of
Guiana. The men, if at home, spend the greater part of the day in their
hammocks, smoking, "and leisurely fashioning arrowheads, or some such
articles of use or of ornament.... When the day has at last come to an
end, and the women have gathered together enough wood for the fires
during the night, they, too, throw themselves into their hammocks; and
all talk together. Till far into the night the men tell endless stories,
sometimes droning them out in a sort of monotonous chant, sometimes
delivering them with a startling amount of emphasis and gesticulation.
The boys and younger men add to the noise by marching round the houses,
blowing horns and playing on flutes. There is but little rest to be
obtained in an Indian settlement by night. These people sleep, as dogs
do, without difficulty, for brief periods, but frequently and
indifferently by day or night as may be convenient. The men, having
slept at intervals during the day, do not need night-rest; the women are
not considered in the matter. At last, in the very middle of their
stories, the party drops off to sleep; and all is quiet for a short
while. Presently some woman gets up to renew the fires, or to see to
some other domestic work. Roused by the noise which she makes, all the
dogs of the settlement break into a chorus of barks and yelps. This
wakes the children, who begin to scream. The men turn in their hammocks,
and immediately resume their stories, apparently from the point at which
they left off, and as if they had never ceased. This time it is but a
short interruption to the silence of the night; and before long
everything again becomes quiet, till some new outbreak is caused, much
as was the last. In the very middle of the night there are perhaps some
hours of quiet. But about an hour before dawn, some of the men having to
go out to hunt, effectually wake everybody about them by playing flutes,
or beating drums, as they go to bathe before leaving the settlement."[8]
But the folk-tale cannot be separated in this inquiry from the folk-song
with which, in its origin and development, it is so closely connected.
In India there are, or were until recent years, everywhere professional
bards; and the stories told in Indian villages are frequently the
substance of the chants of these bards. More than this, the line between
singing and narration is so faintly drawn, that the bards themselves
often interpose great patches of prose between the metrical portions of
their recitations. Fairs, festivals, and marriages all over India are
attended by the bards, who are always ready to perform for pay and
drink. Mr. Leland believes the stories he obtained from the Christian
Algonkins of New England, concerning the ancient heroes of the race and
other mythical personages, to have once been delivered as poems from
generation to generation and always chanted. The deeds of Maori warriors
are handed down in song; just as we find in Beowulf, the story of
Hrothgar's ancestors was sung before his own companions-in-arms by his
gleemen to the accompaniment of some instrument after the mead cup had
gone round. The Roman historian attests the prevalence among the German
tribes of ancient songs, which he expressly mentions as their only kind
of memory or record,--thus showing that all their tales, whether
mythologic or heroic, were for better preservation cast into metrical
form. Some of these, enshrining the deeds of their heroes, were chanted
on going into battle, in order to arouse the warriors' courage. And as
far back as the light of history, or of literature, penetrates, not only
the Teutonic, but also the Celtic nations loved to have their actions
celebrated thus. To a Welsh king his household bard was as necessary as
his domestic chaplain, or his court physician, and in the ancient laws
his duties, his precedence, his perquisites, and even the songs he was
expected to sing, are minutely prescribed. The bards were organized into
a regular order, or college, with an official chief. They were not
merely singers or poets, but also tale-tellers; and from the Mabinogion
we gather that listening to songs and tales was one of the habitual, if
not daily pastimes, of a court.[9]
It is needless to follow through the Middle Ages the history of the
troubadour, the minstrel and the jongleur, who played so large part in
the social life of those times. Many of them were retainers of noblemen
and kings; but others roamed about from place to place, singing their
lays and reciting their stories (for they dealt in prose as well as
verse), very much in the manner of the Indian bards just mentioned.
Their stock-in-trade must have been partly traditional and partly of
their own composition. In this respect they were probably less
hide-bound than their Indian brethren are. For the latter, whether
retainers of the native grandees, as many of them are, or members of the
humbler class of wandering minstrels, are expected to repeat their lays
as they have received them. But, although in the main these professional
gentlemen adhere to the traditional words which they know by heart, the
temptation must be very strong to foist at suitable pauses into their
tales impromptu passages--best described in stage language as
"gag"--which they think will be acceptable to their audience. And
whether or not this be actually the case with the Indian bards, we are
expressly told that it is so with the Arab story-teller, and that it
accounts for much of the ribaldry and filth which have become embedded
in the immortal "Nights." A viol having only one string accompanies the
passages in verse with which the stories are interlarded; and a similar
instrument seems to be used for the like purpose among the orthodox
Guslars of Bosnia and Herzegovina.[10] A description given by Sir
Richard Burton of a story-teller at the bazaar at Tangier may stand,
except as to the external details, for that of an Arab reciter
throughout Northern Africa and the Moslem East. "The market people," he
says, "form a ring about the reciter, a stalwart man, affecting little
raiment besides a broad waist-belt into which his lower chiffons are
tucked, and noticeable only for his shock hair, wild eyes, broad grin,
and generally disreputable aspect. He usually handles a short stick;
and, when drummer and piper are absent, he carries a tiny tomtom shaped
like an hour-glass, upon which he taps the periods. This Scealuidhe, as
the Irish call him, opens the drama with an extempore prayer, proving
that he and the audience are good Moslems; he speaks slowly and with
emphasis, varying the diction with breaks of animation, abundant action
and the most comical grimace: he advances, retires, and wheels about,
illustrating every point with pantomime; and his features, voice and
gestures are so expressive that even Europeans who cannot understand a
word of Arabic, divine the meaning of his tale. The audience stands
breathless and motionless, surprising strangers by the ingenuousness and
freshness of feeling hidden under their hard and savage exterior. The
performance usually ends with the embryo actor going round for alms, and
flourishing in the air every silver bit, the usual honorarium being a
few _f'lús_, that marvellous money of Barbary, big coppers worth
one-twelfth of a penny." Another writer, who has published modern Arab
folk-tales, obtained eleven out of twelve from his cook, a man who could
neither read nor write, but possessed an excellent memory. His stories
were derived from his mother and aunts, and from old women who
frequented his early home. The remaining tale was dictated by a sheikh
with some, though small, pretensions to education, and this tale, though
at bottom a genuine folk-tale, presented traces of literary
manipulation.[11]
The literary touches here spoken of were probably not impromptu. But it
must be admitted that the tendency to insert local colouring and "gag"
is almost irresistible amongst the Arabs. Dr. Steere notices it as a
characteristic of the story-tellers of the Swahili, a people of mixed
Arab and Negro descent at Zanzibar;[12] and it is perhaps inevitable in
a professional reciter whose audience, like himself, is restless and
vivacious in so high a degree. The only case in which any restraint
would be certain to be felt is where a narrative believed to be of
religious import is given. Under the influence of religious feeling the
most mobile of races become conservative; and traditions of a sacred
character are the most likely of all to be handed down unchanged from
father to son. Directly we get outside the charmed circle of religious
custom, precept, and story, the awe which has the most powerful effect
in preserving tradition intact ceases to work; and we are left to a
somewhat less conservative force of habit to retain the old form of
words and the time-honoured ceremonies. Still this force is powerful;
the dislike of voluntary change forbids amendment even of formularies
which have long ceased to be understood, and have often become
ridiculous because their meaning has been lost. It is by no means an
uncommon thing for the rustic story-teller to be unable to explain
expressions, and indeed whole episodes, in any other way than Uncle
Remus, when called upon to say who Miss Meadows was: "She wuz in de
tale, Miss Meadows en de gals wuz, en de tale I give you like hi't wer'
gun ter me." Dr. Steere, speaking of a collection of Swahili tales by M.
Jablonsky which I think has never been published, tells us that almost
all of the tales had "sung parts," and of some of these even they who
sang them could scarcely explain the meaning. Here we may observe the
connection with the folk-song; and it is a strong evidence of adherence
to ancient tradition. Frequently in Dr. Steere's own experience the
skeleton of the story seemed to be contained in these snatches of song,
which were connected together by an account, apparently extemporized, of
the intervening history. In these latter portions, if the hypothesis of
extemporization were correct, the words of course would be different,
but the substance might remain untouched. I suspect, however, that the
extemporization was nothing like so complete as the learned writer
imagined, but rather that the tale, as told with song and narrative
mingled, was in a state of gradual decay or transition from verse to
prose, and that the prose portions were, to almost as great an extent as
the verse, traditional.
Be this as it may, the tenacity with which the illiterate story-teller
generally adheres to the substance and to the very words of his
narrative is remarkable--and this in spite of the freedom sometimes
taken of dramatic illustration, and the license to introduce occasional
local and personal allusions and "gag." These are easily separable from
the genuine tale. What Dr. Rink says of the Eskimo story-telling holds
good, more or less, all over the world. "The art," he states, "requires
the ancient tales to be related as nearly as possible in the very words
of the original version, with only a few arbitrary reiterations, and
otherwise only varied according to the individual talents of the
narrator, as to the mode of recitation, gesture, &c. The only real
discretionary power allowed by the audience to the narrator is the
insertion of a few peculiar passages from other traditions; but even in
that case no alteration of these original or elementary materials used
in the composition of tales is admissible. Generally, even the smallest
deviation from the original version will be taken notice of and
corrected, if any intelligent person happens to be present. This
circumstance," he adds, "accounts for their existence in an unaltered
shape through ages; for had there been the slightest tendency to
variation on the part of the narrator, or relish for it on that of the
audience, every similarity of these tales, told in such widely-separated
countries, would certainly have been lost in the course of centuries."
Here the audience, wedded to the accustomed formularies, is represented
as controlling any inclination to variation on the reciter's part. How
far such an attitude of mind may have been produced by previous
repetitions in the same words we need not inquire. Certain it is that
accuracy would be likely to generate the love of accuracy, and _that_
again to react so as to compel adherence to the form of words which the
ear had been led to expect. Readers of Grimm will remember the anxiety
betrayed by a peasant woman of Niederzwehr, near Cassel, that her very
words and expressions should be taken down. They who have studied the
records collectors have made of the methods they have adopted, and the
assistance they have received from narrators who have understood and
sympathized with their purpose, will not find anything exceptional in
this woman's conduct.[13]
Nor must we overlook the effect of dramatic and pantomimic action. At
first sight action, like that of Messia or the Arab reciter, might seem
to make for freedom in narration. But it may well be questioned if this
be so to any great extent. For in a short time certain attitudes, looks,
and gestures become inseparably wedded, not only in the actor's mind,
but also in the minds of the audience who have grown accustomed to them,
with the passages and the very words to which they are appropriate. The
eye as well as the ear learns what to expect, with results proportioned
to the comparative values of those two senses as avenues of knowledge.
The history of the stage, the observation of our own nurseries, will
show with how much suspicion any innovation on the mode of interpreting
an old favourite is viewed.
To sum up: it would appear that national differences in the manner of
story-telling are for the most part superficial. Whether told by men to
men in the bazaar or the coffee-house of the East, or by old men or
women to children in the sacred recesses of the European home, or by men
to a mixed assembly during the endless nights of the Arctic Circle, or
in the huts of the tropical forest, and notwithstanding the license
often taken by a professional reciter, the endeavour to render to the
audience just that which the speaker has himself received from his
predecessors is paramount. The faithful delivery of the tradition is the
principle underlying all variation of manner; and it is not confined to
any one race or people. It is not denied that changes do take place as
the story passes from one to another. This indeed is the inevitable
result of the play of the two counteracting forces just described--the
conservative tendency and the tendency to variation. It is the condition
of development; it is what makes a science of Folk-tales both necessary
and possible. Nor can it be denied that some changes are voluntary. But
the voluntary changes are rare; and the involuntary changes are only
such as are natural and unavoidable if the story is to continue its
existence in the midst of the ever-shifting social organism of humanity.
The student must, therefore, know something of the habits, the natural
and social surroundings, and the modes of the thought of the people
whose stories he examines. But this known, it is not difficult to
decipher the documents.
There is, however, one caution--namely, to be assured that the documents
are gathered direct from the lips of the illiterate story-teller, and
set down with accuracy and good faith. Every turn of phrase, awkward or
coarse though it may seem to cultured ears, must be unrelentingly
reported; and every grotesquery, each strange word, or incomprehensible
or silly incident, must be given without flinching. Any attempt to
soften down inconsistencies, vulgarities or stupidities, detracts from
the value of the text, and may hide or destroy something from which the
student may be able to make a discovery of importance to science.
Happily the collectors of the present day are fully alive to this need.
The pains they take to ensure correctness are great, and their
experiences in so doing are often very interesting. Happily, too, the
student soon learns to distinguish the collections whose sincerity is
certain from those furbished up by literary art. The latter may have
purposes of amusement to serve, but beyond that they are of
comparatively little use.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Campbell, vol. i. pp. xii. xiv. lvii.
[2] Luzel, "Veillées," _passim_.
[3] Introduction to Romero, p. x.; Arnaudin, p. 5.
[4] Thomas Ady, "A Candle in the Dark" (1656) (_Cf._ Aubrey, "Remaines,"
p. 67); "Gesta Romanorum," Introd., p. xxv. (E.E.T.S.); Lacroix, p. 100.
[5] Pitré, vol. iv. p. xvii.
[6] "Wide-awake Stories," p. 1; Knowles, p. ix.
[7] White, vol. i. p. vi.; Sir G. Grey, p. vii.; Gill, p. xx.; Rink, pp.
83, 85.
[8] Ellis, "History of Madagascar," vol. i. p. 264; Sproat, "Scenes and
Studies of Savage Life," p. 51; Im Thurn, pp. 215, 216.
[9] Temple, "Legends of the Panjab," vol. i. p. v.; Thorburn, p. 172;
Leland, p. 12; Taylor, p. 306; "Beowulf," lay 16; Tacitus, "Germania,"
cc., 2, 3; "Ancient Laws and Institutions of Wales" (Public Record
Commission, 1841), pp. 15, 35, &c.
[10] Burton, "Nights," vol. x. p. 163; "Revue des Trad. Pop." vol. iv.
p. 6. In Greece and Albania, however, the viol would seem not to be
used. Women are the chief reciters. Von Hahn, vol. i. p. ix.
[11] Spitta Bey, p. viii.
[12] Steere, pp. v., vii.
[13] Rink, p. 85; Grimm, "Märchen," p. vii.