I had hoped to accompany these tales with as full a commentary as
that which I have affixed to the Argyllshire _Märchen_, collected and
translated by the Rev. D. MacInnes. Considerations of business and health
prevent me from carrying out this intention, and I have only been able to
notice a passage here and there in the Tales; but I have gladly availed
myself of my friend, Dr. Hyde’s permission, to touch upon a few points in
his Introduction.
Of special interest are Dr. Hyde’s remarks upon the relations which
obtain between the modern folk-tale current among the Gaelic-speaking
populations of Ireland and Scotland, and the Irish mythic, heroic and
romantic literature preserved in MSS., which range in date from the
eleventh century to the present day.
In Ireland, more than elsewhere, the line of demarcation between the
tale whose genesis is conscious, and that of which the reverse is true,
is hard to draw, and students will, for a long while to come, differ
concerning points of detail. I may thus be permitted to disagree at times
with Dr. Hyde, although, as a rule, I am heartily at one with him.
Dr. Hyde distinguishes between an older stratum of folk-tale (the
“old Aryan traditions,” of p. xix.) and the newer stratum of “bardic
inventions.” He also establishes a yet younger class than these latter,
the romances of the professional story-tellers of the eighteenth century,
who “wrote them down as modern novelists do their stories.” Of these
last he remarks (p. xxxiv.), that he has found no remnant of them among
the peasantry of to-day; a valuable bit of evidence, although of course,
subject to the inconclusiveness of all merely negative testimony. To
revert to the second class, he looks upon the tales comprised in it
as being rather the inventions of individual brains than as old Aryan
folk-tales (p. xx.) It must at once be conceded, that a great number of
the tales and ballads current in the Gaelic-speaking lands undoubtedly
received the form under which they are now current, somewhere between the
twelfth and the sixteenth centuries; that the authors of that form were
equally undoubtedly the professional bards and story-tellers attached
to the court of every Gaelic chieftain; and that the method of their
transmission was oral, it being the custom of the story-tellers both
to teach their tales to pupils, and to travel about from district to
district.
The style of these stories and ballads enables us to date them with
sufficient precision. Dr. Hyde also notes historical allusions, such
as the reference to O’Connor Sligo, in the story of the “Slim Swarthy
Champion,” or to the Turks in the story of “Conall Gulban.” I cannot
but think, however, that it is straining the evidence to assert that
the one story was invented after 1362, or the other after the fall of
Constantinople. The fact that “Bony” appears in some versions of the
common English mumming play does not show that it originated in this
century, merely that these particular versions have passed through
the minds of nineteenth century peasants; and in like manner the
Connaught fourteenth century chieftain may easily have taken the place
of an earlier personage, the Turks in “Conall Gulban,” of an earlier
wizard-giant race. If I cannot go as far as Dr. Hyde in this sense,
I must equally demur to the assumption (p. xl.), that community of
incident between an Irish and a Bohemian tale necessarily establishes
the pre-historic antiquity of the incident. I believe that a great many
folk-tales, as well as much else of folk-lore, has been developed _in
situ_, rather than imported from the outside; but I, by no means, deny
importation in principle, and I recognise that its agency has been
clearly demonstrated in not a few cases.
The main interest of Irish folk-literature (if the expression be allowed)
centres in the bardic stories. I think that Dr. Hyde lays too much stress
upon such external secondary matters as the names of heroes, or allusions
to historical events; and, indeed, he himself, in the case of Murachaidh
MacBrian, states what I believe to be the correct theory, namely, that
the Irish bardic story, from which he derives the Scotch Gaelic one, is,
as far as many of its incidents go, not the invention of the writer, but
genuine folk-lore thrown by him into a new form (p. xxii.)
Had we all the materials necessary for forming a judgment, such is,
I believe, the conclusion that would in every case be reached. But I
furthermore hold it likely that in many cases the recast story gradually
reverted to a primitive folk-type in the course of passing down from the
court story-teller to the humbler peasant reciters, that it sloughed
off the embellishments of the _ollamhs_, and reintroduced the older,
wilder conceptions with which the folk remained in fuller sympathy than
the more cultured bard. Compare, for instance, as I compared ten years
ago, “Maghach Colgar,” in Campbell’s version (No. 36), with the “Fairy
Palace of the Quicken Trees.” The one tale has all the incidents in
the wildest and most fantastic form possible; in the other they are
rationalised to the utmost possible extent and made to appear like a
piece of genuine history. I do not think that if this later version was
_invented_ right out by a thirteenth or fourteenth century _ollamh_, it
could have given rise to the former one. Either “Maghach Colgar” descends
from the folk-tale which served as the basis of the Irish story, or, what
is more likely, the folk, whilst appreciating and preserving the new
arrangement of certain well-known incidents, retained the earlier form
of the incidents themselves, as being more consonant with the totality
of its conceptions, both moral and æsthetic. This I hold to be the vital
lesson the folk-lorist may learn from considering the relations of Gaelic
folk-tale and Gaelic romance (using the latter term in the sense of story
with a conscious genesis): that romance, to live and propagate itself
among the folk, must follow certain rules, satisfy certain conceptions of
life, conform to certain conventions. The Irish bards and story-tellers
had little difficulty, I take it, in doing this; they had not outgrown
the creed of their countrymen, they were in substantial touch with
the intellectual and artistic laws that govern their subject-matter.
Re-arrange, rationalise somewhat, deck out with the questionable
adornment of their scanty and ill-digested book-learning—to this extent,
but to this extent only, I believe, reached their influence upon the mass
of folk-conceptions and presentments which they inherited from their
fathers, and which, with these modifications and additions, they handed
on to their children.
But romance must not only conform to the conventions, it must also fit in
with the _ensemble_ of conditions, material, mental and spiritual, which
constitute the culture (taking this much-abused word in its widest sense)
of a race. An example will make this clear.
Of all modern, consciously-invented fairy tales I know but one which
conforms fully to the folk-tale convention—“The Shaving of Shagpat.” It
follows the formula as closely and accurately as the best of Grimm’s
or of Campbell’s tales. To divine the nature of a convention, and to
use its capabilities to the utmost, is a special mark of genius, and in
this, as in other instances, whatever else be absent from Mr. Meredith’s
work, genius is indubitably present. But I do not think that “The Shaving
of Shagpat” could ever be acclimatised as a folk-tale in this country.
Scenery, conduct of story, characterisation of personages, are all too
distinctively Oriental. But let an Eastern admirer of Mr. Meredith
translate his work into Arabic or Hindi, and let the book fall into the
hands of a Cairene or Delhi story-teller (if such still exist), I can
well imagine that, with judicious cuts, it should win praise for its
reciter in market-place or bazaar. Did this happen, it would surely be
due to the fact that the story is strictly constructed upon traditional
lines, rather than to the brilliant invention and fancy displayed on
every page. Strip from it the wit and philosophy of the author, and
there remains a fairy tale to charm the East; but it would need to be
reduced to a skeleton, and reclothed with new flesh before it could charm
the folk of the West.
To bring home yet more clearly to our minds this necessity for romance to
conform to convention, let us ask ourselves, what would have happened if
one of the Irish story-tellers who perambulated the Western Isles as late
as the seventeenth century, had carried with him a volume of Hakluyt or
Purchas, or, supposing one to have lingered enough, Defoe or Gil Blas?
Would he have been welcomed when he substituted the new fare for the old
tales of “Finn and the Fians?” and even if welcomed, would he have gained
currency for it? Would the seed thus planted have thriven, or would it
not rather, fallen upon rocky places, have withered away?
It may, however, be objected that the real difference lies not so much
in the subject-matter as in the mode of transmission; and the objection
may seem to derive some force from what Dr. Hyde notes concerning the
prevalence of folk-tales in Wicklow, and the nearer Pale generally, as
contrasted with Leitrim, Longford, and Meath (p. xii.). It is difficult
to over-estimate the interest and importance of this fact, and there
can hardly be a doubt that Dr. Hyde has explained it correctly. It may,
then, be urged that so long as oral transmission lasts the folk-tale
flourishes; and only when the printed work ousts the story-teller is it
that the folk-tale dies out. But this reasoning will not hold water. It
is absurd to contend that the story-teller had none but a certain class
of materials at his disposal till lately. He had the whole realm of
intellect and fancy to draw upon; but he, and still more his hearers,
knew only one district of that realm; and had it been possible for him
to step outside its limits his hearers could not have followed him. I
grant folk fancy has shared the fortunes of humanity together with every
other manifestation of man’s activity, but always within strictly defined
limits, to transgress which has always been to forfeit the favour of the
folk.
What, then, are the characteristic marks of folk-fancy? The question is
of special interest in connection with Gaelic folk-lore. The latter is
rich in transitional forms, the study of which reveal more clearly than
is otherwise possible the nature and workings of the folk-mind.
The products of folk-fancy (putting aside such examples of folk-wisdom
and folk-wit as proverbs, saws, jests, etc.), may be roughly divided
among two great classes:
Firstly, stories of a quasi-historical or anecdotic nature, accepted as
actual fact (of course with varying degrees of credence) by narrator
and hearer. Stories of this kind are very largely concerned with beings
(supernatural, as we should call them) differing from man, and with
their relations to and dealings with man. Not infrequently, however,
the actors in the stories are wholly human, or human and animal. Gaelic
folk-lore is rich in such stories, owing to the extraordinary tenacity of
the fairy belief. We can hardly doubt that the Gael, like all other races
which have passed through a certain stage of culture, had at one time an
organised hierarchy of divine beings. But we have to piece together the
Gaelic god-saga out of bare names, mere hints, and stories which have
evidently suffered vital change. In the earliest stratum of Gaelic mythic
narrative we find beings who at some former time had occupied divine
rank, but whose relations to man are substantially, as therein presented,
the same as those of the modern fairy to the modern peasant. The chiefs
of the Tuatha de Danann hanker after earthly maidens; the divine damsels
long for and summon to themselves earthly heroes. Though undying, very
strong, and very wise, they may be overpowered or outwitted by the mortal
hero. As if conscious of some source of weakness we cannot detect, they
are anxious, in their internecine struggles, to secure the aid of the
sons of men. Small wonder that this belief, which we can follow for at
least 1,200 years, should furnish so many elements to the folk-fancy of
the Gael.
In stories of the second class the action is relegated to a remote
past—once upon a time—or to a distant undefined region, and the narrative
is not necessarily accepted as a record of actual fact. Stories of this
class, whether in prose or verse, may again be subdivided into—humorous,
optimistic, tragic; and with regard to the third sub-division, it should
be noted that the stories comprised in it are generally told as having
been true once, though not in the immediate tangible sense of stories in
the first class.
These different narrative groups share certain characteristics, though in
varying proportions.
Firstly, the fondness for and adherence to a comparatively small number
of set formulas. This is obviously less marked in stories of the first
class, which, as being in the mind of the folk a record of what has
actually happened, partake of the diversity of actual life. And yet the
most striking similarities occur; such an anecdote, for instance, as that
which tells how a supernatural changeling is baffled by a brewery of
egg-shells being found from Japan to Brittany.
Secondly, on the moral side, the unquestioning acceptance of fatalism,
though not in the sense which the Moslem or the Calvinist would attach
to the word. The event is bound to be of a certain nature, provided
a certain mode of attaining it be chosen. This comes out well in the
large group of stories which tell how a supernatural being helps a
mortal to perform certain tasks, as a rule, with some ulterior benefit
to itself in view. The most disheartening carelessness and stupidity on
the part of the man cannot alter the result; the skill and courage of
the supernatural helper are powerless without the mortal co-operation.
In what I have termed the tragic stories, this fatalism puts on a moral
form, and gives rise to the conception of Nemesis.
Thirdly, on the mental side, animism is prevalent, _i.e._, the acceptance
of a life common to, not alone man and animals, but all manifestations
of force. In so far as a distinction is made between the life of man and
that of nature at large, it is in favour of the latter, to which more
potent energy is ascribed.
Just as stories of the first class are less characterised by adherence
to formula, so stories of the humorous group are less characterised by
fatalism and animism. This is inevitable, as such stories are, as a rule,
concerned solely with the relations of man to his fellows.
The most fascinating and perplexing problems are those connected with
the groups I have termed optimistic and tragic. To the former belong the
almost entirety of such nursery tales as are not humorous in character.
“They were married and lived happily ever afterwards;” such is the almost
invariable end formula. The hero wins the princess, and the villain is
punished.
This feature the nursery tale shares with the god-saga; Zeus confounds
the Titans, Apollo slays the Python, Lug overcomes Balor, Indra
vanquishes Vritra. There are two apparent exceptions to this rule. The
Teutonic god myth is tragic; the Anses are ever under the shadow of the
final conflict. This has been explained by the influence of Christian
ideas; but although this influence must be unreservedly admitted in
certain details of the passing of the gods, yet the fact that the Iranian
god-saga is likewise undecided, instead of having a frankly optimistic
ending, makes me doubt whether the drawn battle between the powers
of good and ill be not a genuine and necessary part of the Teutonic
mythology. As is well known, Rydberg has established some striking points
of contact between the mythic ideas of Scandinavia and those of Iran.
In striking contradiction to this moral, optimistic tendency are the
great heroic sagas. One and all well-nigh are profoundly tragic. The doom
of Troy the great, the passing of Arthur, the slaughter of the Nibelungs,
the death of Sohrab at his father’s hands, Roncevalles, Gabhra, the
fratricidal conflict of Cuchullain and Ferdiad, the woes of the house
of Atreus; such are but a few examples of the prevailing tone of the
hero-tales. Achilles and Siegfried and Cuchullain are slain in the flower
of their youth and prowess. Of them, at least, the saying is true, that
whom the gods love die young. Why is it not equally true of the prince
hero of the fairy tale? Is it that the hero-tale associated in the minds
of hearers and reciters with men who had actually lived and fought,
brought down to earth, so to say, out of the mysterious wonderland in
which god and fairy and old time kings have their being, becomes thereby
liable to the necessities of death and decay inherent in all human
things? Some scholars have a ready answer for this and similar questions.
The heroic epos assumed its shape once for all among one special race,
and was then passed on to the other races who remained faithful to the
main lines whilst altering details. If this explanation were true, it
would still leave unsolved the problem, why the heroic epos, which for
its fashioners and hearers was at once a record of the actual and an
exemplar of the ideal, should, among men differing in blood and culture,
follow one model, and that a tragic one. Granting that Greek and Teuton
and Celt did borrow the tales which they themselves conceived to be very
blood and bone of their race, what force compelled them all to borrow one
special conception of life and fate?
Such exceptions as there are to the tragic nature of the heroic saga
are apparent rather than real. The Odyssey ends happily, like an
old-fashioned novel, but Fénélon long ago recognised in the Odyssey—“un
amas de contes de vieille.”
Perseus again has the luck of a fairy-tale prince, but then the story of
his fortunes is obviously a fairy-tale, with named instead of anonymous
personages.
Whilst the fairy-tale is akin in tone to the god saga, the ballad recalls
the heroic epos. The vast majority of ballads are tragic. Sir Patrick
Spens must drown, and Glasgerion’s leman be cheated by the churl; Clerk
Saunders comes from the other world, like Helge to Sigrun; Douglas dreams
his dreary dream, “I saw a dead man win a fight, and that dead man was
I.” The themes of the ballad are the most dire and deadly of human
passions; love scorned or betrayed, hate, and revenge. Very seldom, too,
do the plots of ballad and märchen cross or overlap. Where this does
happen it will, as a rule, be found that both are common descendants of
some great saga.
We find such an instance in the Fenian saga, episodes of which have lived
on in the Gaelic folk memory in the double form of prose and poetry.
But it should be noted that the poetry accentuates the tragic side—the
battle of Gabhra, the death of Diarmaid—whilst the prose takes rather
some episode of Finn’s youth or manhood, and presents it as a rounded and
complete whole, the issue of which is fortunate.
The relations of myth and epos to folk-lore may thus be likened to that
of trees to the soil from which they spring, and which they enrich
and fertilize by the decay of their leaves and branches which mingle
indistinguishably with the original soil. Of this soil, again, rude
bricks may be made, and a house built; let the house fall into ruins, and
the bricks crumble into dust, it will be hard to discriminate that dust
from the parent earth. But raise a house of iron or stone, and, however
ruined, its fragments can always be recognised. In the case of the Irish
bardic literature the analogy is, I believe, with soil and tree, rather
than with soil and edifice.
Reverting once more to the characteristics of folk-fancy, let us note
that they appear equally in folk-practice and folk-belief. The tough
conservatism of the folk-mind has struck all observers: its adherence to
immemorial formulas; its fatalistic acceptance of the mysteries of nature
and heredity, coupled with its faith in the efficacy of sympathetic
magic; its elaborate system of custom and ritual based upon the idea that
between men and the remainder of the universe there is no difference of
kind.
A conception of the Cosmos is thus arrived at which, more than any
religious creed, fulfils the test of catholicity; literally, and in the
fullest significance of the words, it has been held _semper, ubique et
ab omnibus_. And of this conception of the universe, more universal than
any that has as yet swayed the minds of man, it is possible that men
now living may see the last flickering remains; it is well-nigh certain
that our grandchildren will live in a world out of which it has utterly
vanished.
For the folk-lorist the Gospel saying is thus more pregnant with meaning
than for any other student of man’s history—“the night cometh wherein no
man may work.” Surely, many Irishmen will take to heart the example of
Dr. Hyde, and will go forth to glean what may yet be found of as fair
and bounteous a harvest of myth and romance as ever flourished among any
race.
LE h-AIS NA TEINEAḌ.