_Sources._--From J. F. Campbell's manuscript collection now deposited at
the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh (MS. 53, vol. xi.). Collected in
Gaelic, February 14, 1862, by Hector MacLean, from Roderick MacNeill, in
the island of Menglay: MacNeill learnt the story about 1840 from a Barra
man. I have omitted one visit of the Black Horse to Greece, but
otherwise left the tale untouched. Mr. Nutt gave a short abstract of the
story in his report on the Campbell MSS. in _Folk-lore_, i. 370.
_Parallels._--Campbell gives the following parallels in his notes on the
tale, which I quote verbatim. On the throwing into the well he remarks:
"So this incident of 'Lady Audley's Secret' was in the mind of a Barra
peasant about 1840. Part of a modern novel may be as old as Aryan
mythology, which was one point to be proved." [The incident of throwing
into the well almost invariably forms a part of the tales of the White
Cat type.]
With regard to the Black Horse, Campbell notes that a Gaelic riddle
makes a Black Horse identical with the West Wind, and adds: "It is for
consideration whether this Horse throws light on the sacred Wheel in
Indian Sculptures; it is to be noted that a Black Horse is the
sacrificial colour."
"The Cup is a well-known myth about winning a Fairy Cup which pervades
Scandinavian England in many forms." "A silver ring, two quaint
serpents' heads pointing opposite ways, is a common Scandinavian
wedding-ring; many were to be got in Barra and elsewhere in 1869, sold
by emigrants bound for America."
"Those who can account for myths must settle the geography of the Snow
Mountain. Avalanches and glaciers are in Iceland, in the Caucasus, and
in Central Asia. There are none within sight of Menglay. Hindoo
cosmogony, which makes the world consist of seven rings, separated by
seas and by a wall of mountains, may account for this in some sort."
On the spikes driven into the Horse, Campbell compares the Norse story
of "Dapple-grim" and the Horse sacrifice of the Mahabharata. On the
building of the Magic Castle, Campbell remarks: "Twashtri was the
Carpenter of the Vedic gods: can this be his work?"
On the Horse's head being struck off Campbell comments: "This was the
last act in the Aryan Horse's sacrifice, and the first step in the Horse
apotheosis."
_Remarks._--Campbell has the following note at the end of the tale, from
which it would seem that in 1870 at least he was very nearly being an
_Indiamaniac_.
"So ends this horse-riding story. Taking it as it is, with the test
of language added, nothing short of an Asian origin will account for
it. A Gaelic riddle makes 'a black horse' mean the invisible wind, and
a theorist might suppose this horse to be the air personified. As
Greece is mentioned, he might be Pegasus, who had to do with wells.
But he had wings, and he was white, and there is nothing in classical
fable like this Atlantic myth. 'The enchanted horse' of Arabian Nights
was a flying machine, and his adventures are quite different. This is
not the horse of Chaucer's Squire's Tale. He is more like 'Hrimfaxi,'
the horse of the Edda, who drew the car of Noett in heaven, and was
ridden round the earth in twelve hours, followed by Dagr and his
glittering horse Skinfaxi. The black horse who always arrives at
sunrise is like the horse of night, but there is no equivalent story
in the Edda. 'Dapple-grim' in Norse tales is clad in a spiked bull's
hide, and is mixed up with a blazing tar-barrel, but his adventures
won't fit, and he was grey.
"The story is but an imperfect skeleton. The cup was to give strength;
he had to open seven gates after he got the cup, but it does nothing.
The hood is to hide with; he went in and out of the palace unseen
after he had got the hood, but it plays no part. The light shoes were
the shoes of swiftness of course, but they never showed their paces.
Baldr's horse was led to the funeral pile with all his gear; and Odin
laid the gold ring Draupnir on the pile. Such rites might account for
the ring in the blazing lake. Hermothr's ride northwards and downwards
to the abode of Hel to seek Baldr, his leap over the grate, and his
return with the ring (Edda 25), might account for one adventure.
"The many-coloured horses of the sun in the Indian mythology and solar
myths may account for all these horses, astronomically or
meteorologically. The old Aryan Aswa Medha or sacrifice of a black
horse, and the twelve adventures of Arjuna as told in the Mahabharata,
are something like this story in some general vague way. But the
simplest explanation of this Menglay myth, fished out of the Atlantic,
is to admit that 'the black horse' and all this mythical breed came
west with men who rode from the land where horses were tamed, which is
unknown."