separable character of these various series of incidents. He, however,
attempts to show that all of them, including the germ of the Swan
Maidens, are to be found in the East, and is successful in affiliating
the Greek of Hahn, No. 15, with the two stories of the _Arabian
Nights_ mentioned above, as well as the Siberian version given by
Radloff, iv., 321, the hero of which has even derived his name from
the Jamshah of the _Thousand and One Nights_.
In my own version I have utilized a few of these incidents but reserve
most of them for their proper story environment. I have introduced,
from the Campbell version, the phrase "seven Bens, and seven Glens,
and seven Mountain Moors," which so attracted Stevenson's Catriona, in
order to point out as a remarkable coincidence that Hasan of Bassora,
in the _Arabian Nights_, flies over "seven Waddys, seven Seas, and
seven Mountains." It is difficult to understand that such a remarkable
phrase should recur accidentally in Bagdad and in the West Highlands.
Without some actual intermediation, oral or literary, the hypothesis
of universal human tendency can scarcely explain such a coincidence.
XIII. ANDROCLES AND THE LION
This well-known story occurs first in the fables of Phaedrus, though
not in the extant form, only being preserved in the mediaeval prose
version known as _Romulus_. It is also referred to in Appian, Aulus
Gellius, and Seneca (see the references in my _History of AEsop_, p.
243, Ro. III., i.). It is told in Caxton's _Esope_, p. 62, from whom I
have borrowed a few touches. He calls his hero Androclus, whereas
Painter, in his _Palace of Pleasure_, ed. Jacobs, i., 89-90, calls the
slave Androdus. We moderns, including Mr. Bernard Shaw, get our
"Androcles" from Day's _Sanford and Merton_. It also occurs in _Gesta
Romanorum_, 104, edit., Oesterley, who gives a long list of parallels
in almost all the countries of Europe.
Benfey, in the introduction to his edition of _Pantschatantra_, i.,
112, contends that the story is of Oriental origin, showing Buddhistic
traits in the kindly relations between the slave and the lion; but the
parallels he gives are by no means convincing, though the general
evidence for Oriental provenance of many of Phaedrus' fables gives a
certain plausibility to this derivation. From our present standpoint
this is of less importance since Androcles, though it has spread
through Europe and is current among the folk, is clearly of literary
origin and is one of the few examples where we can trace such literary
spread.
XIV. DAY DREAMING
I have given the story of the barber's fifth brother from the _Arabian
Nights_ as another example of the rare instances of tales that have
become current among the folk, but which can be definitely traced to
literary sources, though possibly, in the far-off past, it was a folk
tale arising in the East. The various stages by which the story came
into Europe have been traced by Benfey in the introduction to his
edition of _Pantschatantra_, Sec. 209, and after him by Max Mueller in
his essay "On the Migration of Fables" (_Chips from a German
Workshop_, iv., 145-209; it was thus a chip from another German's
workshop). It came to Europe before the _Arabian Nights_ and became
popular in La Fontaine's fable of Perrette who counted her chickens
before they were hatched, as the popular phrase puts it. In such a
case one can only give a reproduction of the literary _source_, and it
is a problem which of the various forms which appear in the folk books
should be chosen. I have selected that from the _Thousand and One
Nights_ because I have given elsewhere the story of Perrette (Jacobs,
_AEsop's Fables_, No. 45), and did not care to repeat it in this place.
I have made my version a sort of composite from those of Mr. Payne and
Sir Richard Burton, and have made the few changes necessary to fit the
tale to youthful minds. It is from the quasi-literary spread of
stories like this that the claim for an Oriental origin of all folk
tales has received its chief strength, and it was necessary,
therefore, to include one or two of them in _Europa's Fairy Book_
(Androcles is another). But the mode of transmission is quite
different and definitely traceable and, for the most part, the tales
remain entirely unchanged; whereas, in the true folk tale, the popular
story-tellers exercised their choice, modifying incidents and giving
local colour.
XV. KEEP COOL
There is no doubt about the European character of this tale, which is
found in Brittany, Picardy, Lorraine, among the Basques, in Spain,
Corsica, Italy, Tyrol, Germany (though not in Grimm), among
Lithuanians, Moravians, Roumanians, Greeks, Irish, Scotch, Danes,
Norwegians (Cosquin, ii., 50). The central idea of the Rage-Wager is
retained throughout, and in many places the punishment is the
same--the loss of a strip of skin. In all but three instances the
story is told of three brothers, which practically proves its
identity. I have given the Irish version in _More Celtic Fairy Tales_.
The "sells" however change considerably, though in most of them the
final denoument comes with the death or wounding of the wife. The
pigs' tails incident is also very common and is indeed found in
another set of tales, more of the Master Thief type. Campbell's No. 45
had an entirely different set, some of them very amusing.
Mac-A-Rusgaich has all three meals at once and lies down. He holds the
plough and does nothing else; he sees after the mountain; literally
casts ox-eyes at the master, and makes a sheep foot-path out of
sheep's feet. I have taken from Campbell the direction to wash horses
and stable within and without, though it does not occur elsewhere. Yet
Mac-A-Rusgaich has a bout with a giant, in which he slits an
artificial stomach, like Jack the Giant Killer; and this incident
occurs in four other of the European tales, again showing identity.
"Keep cool" is thus an interesting example of identity of framework,
with variation of incident.
XVI. THE MASTER THIEF
The sneaking regard of the folk-mind for the clever rogue who can
outwit the guardians of order (the ever-present enemy of the folk) was
shown in early days by the myth of Rhampsinitus in Herodotus, ii.,
121, which is found to this day among the Italians (see Crane, No. 44,
and S. Prato, _La Leggenda del Tesoro di Rampsinite_, Como, 1882). But
the more usual European form is that I have chosen for the text, the
formula of which might be summed up as follows:
Apprenticeship in thievery--Purse or life--Hanging "sell"--Master
Thief--Three Tests--Horse from Stable--Sheet off bed--Priest in
bag--Horse from under (Thumb-Bung).
Almost the whole of this is found as early as Straparola i., 2, where
Cassandrino is ordered by the provost of Perugia to steal his bed and
his horse and to bring to him in a sack the rector of the village.
The purse incident occurs in Brittany, Piedmont, Tuscany, and Tyrol;
in Iceland (Arnason, p. 609) occurs the man twice hanged which also
occurs in Norway, Ireland, Saxony, Tuscany, and in Germany (Kuhn and
Schwartz, 362); in Servia (Vuk, 46) the Master Thief steals sheep by
throwing two shoes successively in the road, which also occurs in
Bengal (Day, xi.); the theft of the horse occurs in Brittany, Norway,
Ireland, Tuscany, Scotland (Campbell, 40), Flanders, in Basque and
Catalan, Russia and Servia. The third test of kidnapping the priest
occurs in Brittany, Flanders, Norway, Basque, Catalan, Scotland,
Ireland, Lithuania, Tuscany. In Iceland the persons carried away are a
king and a queen.
The three tests of the Master Thief, the stealing of bed, horse, and
priest, occur as early as Straparola, i., 2, who also has a somewhat
similar story of the "Scholar in Magic," viii., 5, which contains the
zigzag transformation of the _Arabian Nights_. Both forms occur in
Grimm, 68, 192. While the three tests are fairly uniform throughout
Europe, the introduction by which the lad becomes a thief and proves
himself a Master Thief varies considerably; and I have had to make a
selection rather than a collation.
In some forms the farmer has three sons, of whom the youngest adopts
thievery as a profession, which indeed it was in the Middle Ages (as
we know from the Cul-le-jatte of _The Cloister and the Hearth_). In
Hahn, 3, the Master Thief has to bring a "Drakos" instead of a priest.
Curiously enough, in Gonzenbach, 83, the Master Thief has to bring
back a "dragu."
In many of the variants the Master Thief executes his tricks in order
to gain the King's daughter by a sort of Bride Wager. But in most
cases he does them in order to escape the natural consequences of his
thievery.
XVII. THE UNSEEN BRIDEGROOM
The adult reader will of course recognize that this is the story of
Cupid and Psyche, as told by Apuleius, and translated with such
felicity by Pater in his _Marius_, Pt. i., ch. 5. Though the names of
the gods and goddesses--Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Juno, Proserpine,
etc.--are scattered through the tale, it is now acknowledged on all
hands that it has nothing to do with mythology but is a fairy tale
pure and simple, as indeed is acknowledged by Apuleius who calls it a
"fabella anilis." From this point of view it is of extreme interest to
the student of the folk-tale as practically the same tale, with the
Unseen Bridegroom, the Sight Taboo, the Jealous Mother-in-law, the
Tasks, and the Visit to the Nether-World, occur in contemporary
folk-tales scattered throughout Europe, from Norway (Dasent, "East o'
the Sun and West o' the Moon") to Italy (Gonzenbach No. 15, Pitre No.
18 given in Crane No. 1, _King of Love_); for the variants elsewhere
see Koehler on Gonzenbach. The earliest form of the modern versions is
found in Basile (1637), _Pentamerone_ v., 4, _The Golden Root_.
Now there are several circumstances showing the identity of the
ancient and modern forms of this story. All of them contain the
punishment for curiosity motive, which is doubled both in Apuleius
(with the coffer at the end) and in Basile and Crane. In several of
the folk-tales the Ant-Help occurs in the performance of the tasks,
and in Apuleius the successive visits to Juno and Ceres evidently
represent the visits to the Queen-mother's sisters, often known as
ogresses, found in Dasent, Basile, and in Grimm 88. It is possible, of
course, that in some cases dim memories of Apuleius have percolated
down to the folk, as is shown by the name of the hero in Pitre's
version _Il Re d'Amore_. Kawczynski (Abh. d. Krakauer Akad. 1909, xlv.
1) declares for the derivation of the whole series of folk-tales from
Apuleius but against this is the doubt whether this author was at all
known during the Middle Ages.
But, to prove that the folk-tales were not derived directly or solely
from the classical romance they, in almost every case, had a series of
adventures not found there, including the incidents, Obstacles to
Pursuit, False Bride, and Sale of Bed. Now these incidents really
belong to another formula, that of the Master-Maid, in which an ogre's
or giant's daughter, helps the hero to perform tasks, flees away with
him, is pursued by the ogre, loses her beloved through an Oblivion
Kiss and has to win him again from his False Bride by purchasing the
right of spending three nights with him. These incidents come in
logically in the Master-Maid formula but are dragged in without real
relevance into Cupid and Psyche; yet they occur as early as Basile
where there is a dim reminiscence of the Oblivion Kiss. In
reconstructing the formula I have therefore omitted these incidents,
reserving them for their proper place (see Master-Maid).
Cupid and Psyche is of special interest to the student of the
folk-tale since it is a means of testing the mythological, the
anthropological, and the Indian theories of its origin. The
mythological interpretation is nowadays so discredited that it is
needless to discuss it, especially as we have seen that the
mythological names given by Apuleius are only dragged in perforce. The
anthropological explanation, given most fully by Andrew Lang in his
admirable introduction to Addington's translation of Apuleius in the
_Bibliotheque de Carabas_, gives savage parallels from all quarters of
the globe to the seven chief incidents making up the tale, but leaves
altogether out of account the artistic concatenation of the incidents
in the tale itself and does not consider the later complications of
the European folk-tales connected with it. M. Cosquin and others bring
in the Vedic myth of Urvasi and Pururavas, but we have seen reason to
reject the notion that the tale is, in its essence, mythological, and
therefore need not consider its relation to Indian mythology. Cosquin,
however, gives reference to the tale of Tulisa taken down from a
washerwoman of Benares in 1833 (_Asiatic Journal_, new series, vol.
2), which has the invisible husband and the breaking of taboo, the
jealous mother-in-law, and the tasks. This is indeed a close
parallelism sufficient to raise the general question of relation
between the Indian and the European folk-tale. But the earlier
existence of the tale in Apuleius and Basile would give the preference
to European influence on India rather than _vice versa_.
I should add that I have followed Apuleius in giving a symbolic name
to the heroine of the tale, in order to suggest its relation to the
classical folk-tale of Cupid and Psyche, but not of course to indicate
that it is in any sense mythological. The Descent-to-hell incident,
which is found both in the classical and in the modern European forms
and therefore in my reconstruction is only, after all, the application
of a common form to the notion of difficult Tasks, which is of the
essence of the story.
XVIII. THE MASTER-MAID
This is one of the oldest and widest spread tales of the world, and
the resultant formula was, therefore, more than usually difficult to
reconstruct. The essence of the tale consists in the Menial
Hero--Three Tasks--Master-Maid Help--Obstacles to Pursuit--Oblivion
Kiss--False Bride--Sale of Bed--Happy Marriage. In essentials this is
the story of Jason and Medea, where we have the Tasks, the Pursuit,
and the False Bride, though the dramatic genius of the Greeks has
given a tragic ending to the tale. Lang, in his _Custom and Myth_, pp.
87-102, has pointed out parallels, not alone in modern folk-tales,
like Grimm 92, Campbell 2, Dasent 11, and Basile 11, but even in
Madagascar (_Folk-Lore Journal_, Aug., 1883), and Samoa (Turner 102)
while the Flight and Obstacles are found in Japan and Zululand. Even
in America there is the Algonquin form of the Tasks (School-craft,
Algic Researches ii., 94-104), and the Flight is given in an
interesting article in the _Century Magazine_, 1884. According to
Lang's general views, he seems to regard these incidents as being
universally human and having no affiliation with one another, though
he entitles his essay, "A Far Travelled Tale."
The modern Folk-Tales, however, make it practically impossible that
these at least could have arisen independently. Many of them have an
introductory set of incidents, Jephtha-Vow, Herd-Boy, Shepherd-Boy,
Prince; this I have adopted in my version. But besides this the Tasks
are often identical, Cleaning Stable (Dasent, Campbell), Finger-Ladder
(Campbell, trace in Cosquin 32), Building Castle (Grimm 113, Hahn 54);
the Oblivion Kiss occurs in Scotland, Germany, Spain, Tyrol, Tuscany,
Sicily, and Rome, all in connection with similar stories.
The tale has been especially popular in Celtdom. I have enumerated no
less than fourteen versions in my notes on the "Battle of the Birds"
(_Celtic Fairy Tales_, p. 265). There we have the Obstacles to Pursuit
mainly in the form of forest, mountain, and river, which the late Mr.
Alfred Nutt pointed out to be the natural boundaries of the
Nether-World in Teutonic Paganism. It is, therefore, possible that our
story has been "contaminated" or influenced by the notion of the
"Descent to Hell."
Here, as in the parallel case of Cupid and Psyche, we find a classical
story, with many of the incidents clearly reproduced in modern
Folk-Tales, while others have been inserted to make the tale longer or
more of the folk-tale character.
At the same time the story as a _whole_ is found spread from America
to Samoa, from India to Scotland, with indubitable signs of being the
same story dressed up according to local requirements. The Master-Maid
is, accordingly, one of the most instructive of all folk-tales, from
the point of view of the problem of diffusion.
XIX. A VISITOR FROM PARADISE
This droll, in its two parts, occurs throughout Europe as has been
shown by Cosquin in his elaborate Notes to No. 22. The Visitor from
Paradise, for example, occurs in Brittany, Germany, Norway, and
Sweden, England, Roumania, Tyrol, and Ireland. In some of the versions
the silly wife gives some household treasure to a passer-by because
her husband had said that he was keeping this for Christmas, for
Easter, or for "Hereafterthis" and the Visitor claims it in that name.
(See _More English Fairy Tales_.) The idea also occurs in the
literature of jests in Pauli, 1519, Hans Sachs, and in _Tresor du
Ridicule_, Paris, 1644. Cosquin has also traced it to Ceylon,
_Orientalist_, 1884, p. 62.
The adventure of the door and the robbers is equally widely spread in
Normandy, Germany, Austria, Bosnia, Rome, Catalonia, and Sicily.
(Gonz., i., 251-2.) It forms part of the tale of "Mr. Vinegar" in
_English Fairy Tales_. The two adventures are, however, rarely
combined; Cosquin knows of only two instances. I have, however,
ventured to combine them here instead of making two separate tales of
them.
In telling the story one has to slur over the pronunciation of
"Paradise," making the last vowel short, so as to explain the
misunderstanding about "Paris." I have retained the Paris _motif_ as
all through the Middle Ages, wayfarers from and to Paris (wandering
scholars or clerics) would be familiar sights to the peasantry
throughout Europe.
Bolte gives in full (ii., 441-6) a Latin poem by Wickram in 1509
entitled, "De Barta et marito eius per studentem Parisiensem
subtiliter deceptis," which is practically identical with the early
part of our story and has this misunderstanding about Paris and
Paradise. It accordingly occurs in most of the German books of Drolls
as those by Bebel and Pauli, and it is possible that the folk
versions were derived from this, though they stretch as far as Cairo
and North India. See Clouston, _Book of Noodles_, pp. 205, 214. In
some of the folk-tales, there is an introduction in which the Foolish
Wife sells three cows, but keeps one of the three as a pledge.
Thereupon her husband leaves her until he can find any one as silly,
which he does by posing as a Visitor from Paradise. This is more
suitable for an introduction for "The Three Sillies."
XX. INSIDE AGAIN
This story is one of the most interesting in the study of the popular
diffusion of tales, and I therefore give it here though I have given
an excellent version from Temple and Steel in _Indian Fairy Tales_,
ix., "The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal," and have there
discussed the original form. Its interest, from the point of view of
diffusion, lies in the fact that it occurs in India, both early (see
Benfey, i., 117) and late (Temple, 12, Frere, 14), in Greece, both
classical (AEsopic fable of the serpent in the bosom) and modern (Hahn,
87, Schmidt, p. 3), and in the earliest mediaeval collection of popular
tales by Petrus Alfonsi (_Disciplina clericalis_, vii.), as well as in
the Reynard cycle. Besides these quasi-literary sources ranging over
more than two thousand years, there are innumerable folk-versions
collected in the last century and ranging from Burmah (Semeaton, _The
Karens_, 128) to America (Harris, _Uncle Remus_, 86). These are all
enumerated by Professor Krohn in an elaborate dissertation, "Mann und
Fuchs" (Helsingfors, 1891). In essentials the trick by which the
fisherman gets the djin inside the bottle again, in the first story
within the frame of the _Arabian Nights_ (adapted so admirably by Mr.
Anstey in his _Brass Bottle_), is practically the same device. Richard
I. is said, by Matthew Paris (ed. Luard, ii., 413-16), to have told
the nobles of England, after his return from captivity in the East, a
similar apologue proving the innate ingratitude of man. This is
derived from the Karma Jataka, which was possibly the ultimate source
of the whole series of tales.
Amid all these hundred variants there is one common idea, that of the
ingratitude of a rescued animal (crocodile, snake, tiger, etc.), which
is thwarted by its being placed back in the situation from which it
was rescued. In some cases the bystander who restores equilibrium is
alone; in most instances there are three of them; the first two having
suffered from man's ingratitude see no reason for interfering. This is
the "common form" which I have adopted in my version. In India the
sufferer from ingratitude is sometimes a tree (a mulberry tree, in
_Indian Fairy Tales_), but the European versions prefer horses or
dogs.
Now it is obvious that such an artificial apologue on man's
ingratitude could not have been invented twice for that particular
purpose; and thus the hundred different versions (to which Dr. Bolte
could probably add another century) must all, in the last resort, have
emanated from a single source. When and where that original was
concocted is one of the most interesting problems of folk-tale
diffusion; the moralizing tendency of the tale, the animistic note
underlying it, all point to India, where we find it in the Bidpai
literature before the Christian era and current among the folk at the
present day. The case for Indian origin is strongest for drolls of
this kind.
I may add that the ingratitude of the man towards the fox at the end
is not so universal a tail piece to the story as the rest of it, and
is ultimately derived from the Reynard cycle, in which I have also
introduced it (see "Bruin and Reynard").
But it occurs in many of the variants and comes in so appropriately
that I thought it desirable to add it also here. The substitution of
a dog for something else desired also occurs in the story of the
Hobyahs in _More English Fairy Tales_, where Mr. Batten's released dog
is so fierce (p. 125) that it drives one of the Hobyahs over on to the
next page belonging to altogether another story.
XXI. JOHN THE TRUE
I have followed Bolte's formula "Anmerkungen" 45, keeping however as
far as possible to the alternatives nearest to Basile, iv., 9, and
where that fails making use of the Grimms' "Faithful John," No. 6, one
of their best told tales. The story is popular in Italy where Crane,
344, refers to six other versions. It is also found in Greece (Hahn
29), and Roumania (Schott, p. 144), and indeed throughout the east of
Europe. Traces of it in British Isles are but slight.
In India, however, there are a number of very close parallels (Day,
17-52; Knowles, 421-41; Frere, 98; and Somadeva; edit. Tawney, i.,
519, ii., 251, which contains the similar story of Vivara the True);
Benfey, i., 417, draws attention to other Oriental traits in the story
and aptly compares the half-marble figure of the King of the Black
Islands in the Arabian Nights. The probabilities of an Indian origin
for this formula are rendered greater by the early age of the
Pantschatantra and Somadeva parallels.
On the other hand the sacrifice of the children for the faithful
servant has its closest parallel in the old French romance of Amis and
Amilun, where Amis smears Amilun with the blood of his child to cure
him of leprosy. The analogy is so close as almost to force the
assumption of derivation. Koehler accordingly in his _Aufsaetze_,
1894, pp. 24-35, regards the tale as a development of the Indian story
influenced by the romance of Amis.
XXII. JOHNNIE AND GRIZZLE