THE STORY AS A WHOLE. THE PROBLEM OF ITS PLACE OF ORIGIN. CONCLUSION.
{148}
My task draws towards its close. We have now examined the four
leading trains of incident as developed in modern folktales belonging
to the Perseus cycle. We have found the Supernatural Birth, the
Life-token, and the Medusa-witch founded on superstitions common to
all mankind and arising in the depths of savagery. The Rescue of
Andromeda, on the other hand, appears to be restricted to nations
which have attained a certain grade of civilisation, and to spring out
of the suppression of human sacrifices to divinities in bestial form.
We have now to return to the story as an artistic whole, and to
inquire where and when it originated.
In seeking the origin of the story as a whole it is well to begin with
a caution, to which I have alluded in a note to an earlier chapter,
namely, that it is dangerous in these matters to assert that a story
or a custom is not found outside a given area. Anthropological
research is so modern that much material is certain to have already
perished unrecorded, and much that still exists as yet is unrecorded,
either because {149} it has been overlooked, or because scientific
observers have not yet reached it. All assertions or assumptions,
therefore, of a negative character must be taken with the limitations
imposed by this condition of things. They can only be provisional, for
they may, any of them, be upset by further research. Moreover, the
mass of anthropological data is already so great, and is growing with
such rapidity, that nothing is easier than for a single inquirer, how
diligent soever he may be, to overlook facts duly recorded which may
be in conflict with his conclusions. To assert, for example, and to
base any portion of an argument upon the assertion, that tales of the
group under consideration are not found in Hindustan in anything like
the shape wherein we find them in Europe, would be to run the risk of
having to revise the argument in the face of new discoveries, or of
old records which have not been brought to the writer’s knowledge.
Thus much premised, let us turn to the facts so far as we know them.
The geographical boundaries within which the story, as a whole, may be
found, are the geographical and ethnical boundaries of that stage of
culture which forms the seed-plot of the incident of most restricted
range. We can only look for it among nations who have approached and
passed the level of barbarism where human sacrifices are offered to
brutes; for it is only among such that the Rescue of Andromeda can
have been conceived. This excludes races like the Australians, who
seem never to have practised sacrifices of the kind referred to, even
if their country were infested with beasts or reptiles addicted to
such food. It does not exclude peoples like the ancient Quiché, who
assuredly offered human sacrifices, and whose legend, partly cited in
the last chapter, looks back to a {150} time when such offerings were
made to wild animals. Among the ferocious gods petrified by the sun
when it rose upon the primeval darkness, we are told, were those
“connected with the lion, the tiger, the viper, and other fierce and
dangerous animals. Perhaps we should not be alive at this moment,”
continues the chronicler, “because of the voracity of these fierce
animals, had not the sun caused this petrifaction.” But this did not
end the mischief; for these gods could recover life and mobility when
they pleased. And the four Quiché patriarchs were impelled,
apparently by a supernatural vision, to wet their altars with the
blood of human victims. Wherefore they watched in their mountain
stronghold for lonely travellers belonging to the neighbouring tribes,
and, having seized and overpowered them, slew them for a sacrifice;
and wherever the blood of a victim was found, there also were always
found the tracks of many tigers. This was the craft--so the tale
says--of the priests; but at last the tribes that suffered thus found
out that the loss of their friends was due not to attacks of wild
animals but to the desire of the Quiché patriarchs to provide
offerings for their gods; and they made war upon the aggressors. They
were beaten by the aid of a miraculous horde of wasps and hornets; but
their lives were spared and they became tributaries to the Quiché for
ever.[150.1] The legend records, in traditional form, the change from
the worship of living creatures to that of gods of stone. But it does
not record the abandonment of human sacrifices, for that never took
place; and being told from the point of view of the conquerors it
contains no rescue-incident. What the subject-nations may have had to
say upon the matter we do not know. Inasmuch, {151} however, as they
probably continued to furnish the victims from time to time, we may
assume that no rescue-incident was included in their folklore. At all
events the incident has not been recorded among any people on the
Western Continent, save in circumstances pointing to importation since
the days of Columbus.[151.1]
In the eastern world it is found from Ireland to Japan, from
Scandinavia to Quilimane. If we set aside the story from
Quilimane[151.2] as sporadic, and introduced by the Portuguese, the
southern limit of the extension of the Perseus group may perhaps be
fixed on the shores of the Red Sea, where, Ælian tells us, in ancient
times Perseus, the son of Zeus, was honoured, and where we may be
allowed to indulge the hope that our archæological explorers will
sooner or later recover some trace of the tale. Eastward, a variant
embodying the incidents of the Life-token, the Rescue of Andromeda,
and the Medusa-witch, has been found in Cambodia; and the Rescue of
Andromeda has been found alone in Japan. The area, therefore, within
which the place of origin is to be sought may roughly be said to
include the whole of Europe and Asia, and the parts of Africa which
lie to the north and east of the Great Desert.
Comparing the classical version of the legend, as it has come down to
us in the writings chiefly of Ovid and Lucian, with what may be
regarded as the typical shape of the {152} modern _märchen_, we are
struck by a number of differences, among which we may reckon the
difference in the mode of the supernatural conception; the absence
from the ancient tale of the Life-token and of the impostor who
pretends to have slain the dragon; the displacement of the incident of
the Medusa-witch and its elevation in the classical story to a more
prominent position than it usually occupies elsewhere; the
substitution in modern tales of the Helpful Beasts for the divine gift
of weapons; and lastly the enthralling power of Fate, supplying the
artistic motive for the romance of Perseus, but absent from most of
the folktales gathered in later times. Some of these differences of
detail, however, are more apparent than real. In Phineus, who,
according to Ovid, invades the wedding banquet, we have an analogue of
the impostor. Too cowardly to fight the monster and save his
betrothed, he comes forward with a posse of friends to take her by
force from the victor, and is only vanquished when Perseus exhibits
the Gorgon’s head. It is tempting to suggest that in the prototype of
the story Perseus attacked and slew the monster on his outward
journey, that he passed on to the slaughter of Medusa before
celebrating his union with Andromeda, and that meanwhile Phineus laid
claim to the victory and its guerdon, and was confounded on the hero’s
return, either by production of the Gorgon’s head, as in Ovid’s text,
or by proof in the shape of the dragon’s head or tongue, as in the
more modern tales. This conjecture might be supported by the fact that
Perseus is represented by Ovid[152.1] as using only his sword in the
combat with the {153} monster, as well as by the consideration that it
supplies a motive for the inexplicable desertion by the victor of the
lady whom he has saved from the dragon’s maw, which occurs in so large
a number of variants. The order in question does occur, though rarely,
in modern stories;[153.1] but, as we shall see hereafter, there is a
decisive reason against supposing it ever to have formed part of the
classical legend.
The versions preserved by the author of the _Metamorphoses_ and in a
more fragmentary way by Lucian are substantially similar. That other
versions were current in antiquity we know from many sources. I have
already in the opening chapter given several instances of inconsistent
statements pointing unmistakably to this conclusion. The most
important of them for this inquiry are derived from Ælian. Writing in
the third century after Christ, he tells us of a fish found in the Red
Sea and called after Perseus, who was honoured by the Arabs dwelling
on the shore. If the modern _märchen_ did not refer to a fish as the
source of life of the twin-heroes this would be puzzling, since no
reference is made in the classical saga to a fish. But in face of the
facts it seems to show, not merely that the literary form of the saga
is only one of two or more current in antiquity, but that one at least
of the popular and unrecorded variants included a version of the
Supernatural Birth which was allied to that in the Breton tale of _The
King of the Fishes_. The same writer in a later passage associates a
marine crustacean with Perseus. Many persons abstained from eating it,
because they deemed it sacred. This I understand to be an assertion of
a practice not {154} confined to the island of Seriphos; whose
inhabitants, Ælian goes on to say, if they found it dead would bury
it, if they caught it alive would not keep it in their nets, but
returned it to the sea. They would even weep over dead specimens, for
they held these creatures to be dear to Perseus, the son of
Zeus.[154.1] The custom of solemnly burying, and mourning for, dead
animals is very widespread, and is connected with totemism.[154.2] We
are probably right in believing that in the first instance the
crustacean referred to was the totem of some of the inhabitants of
Seriphos, that the national hero was either identified with it or held
to be its offspring, and that in process of time this hero was either
accepted and glorified as Perseus, the son of Zeus, by the more
polished Greeks of the mainland, or from the similarity of his birth
and exploits became merged in the hero of Argos and Mykene. Doubtless
in the ruder ages tales common in their origin but independent in
their development were told both at Seriphos and on the mainland. As
intercourse increased, the tales of Argos and Mykene would become
known to the people of Seriphos, and _vice versâ_, their similarity
would be recognised and their heroes identified. If the Seriphiote
saga connected its hero with the rock-lobster, which was regarded as a
totem, as the triplet boys are connected in the Breton _märchen_ with
the King of the Fishes, all the conditions would be fulfilled to
account for the Seriphiote practices. We seem here, therefore, to have
a third version of the story. The two versions which did not reach
literary immortality both brought the hero into close relations with a
marine animal. We can hardly doubt that in both {155} cases those
relations were such as described in so many of the modern variants.
The next question to consider is that of the relation between the
ancient and modern variants of the story. If it were confined to that
between the ancient variants and the variants current to-day in Italy
and Greece, it would be comparatively simple. The problem is, in fact,
much larger; for we have to take into account variants found all over
the area, already described, within which the place of origin is to be
sought. We cannot conclude, I need hardly say, that the first-recorded
version of a tale is the parent of all the rest, or of any of them.
Our scepticism must go much further. It often happens that the
first-recorded version is one current in a higher grade of
civilisation, and therefore more refined and artistic, than a version
subsequently gathered from oral tradition. Emphatically is this the
case with classical stories and Buddhist parables, as writers on
folklore have often observed. But what has not been equally insisted
on is, that the reason why these classic stories and Buddhist parables
have found their way into literature is because they are the more
refined and artistic versions. It is quite certain that if Ovid had
had to choose between the picturesque narrative of the shower of gold,
with the parentage of the highest god of Olympus, on the one hand, and
a totemistic tale about a fish or a rock-lobster on the other hand, he
could not have hesitated to which of these sources he should, for
literary purposes, assign the begetting of Perseus. So, to take an
instance outside the range of the present study, if the compilers of
the _Jātaka_ could have chosen between the Tar-baby of Negro
story-tellers and the Demon with the matted hair, they would have
preserved in their collection the story in {156} the form which
actually appears.[156.1] Probably neither alternative was actually
offered, the causes which would have operated in the mind of the poet
or the parable-writer having already wrought, less consciously indeed,
but not less effectively, in the popular mind, so as to render, by a
process, analogous with that of natural selection, which we may call
traditional selection, the version that has reached us predominant
over all others. For æsthetic and ethical development speedily
outstripped that of abstract thought and criticism. Savages often
attain a high degree of taste and skill in the production and
ornamentation of their utensils and weapons. The beauty of mediæval
architecture has rarely been approached and never been surpassed,
though the generations which built the great cathedrals of Europe were
under bondage to one of the most cruel and extravagant systems of
superstition that the wit of man has elaborated. At the same time in
many directions, and at all events theoretically, they had attained a
comparatively advanced moral elevation. The arts of poetry and
story-telling come to maturity later than the material arts, because
they are dependent upon the critical sense; but even they are quite
compatible with very gross credulity. No people has displayed a finer
critical sense than the ancient Greeks; yet no people has told more
absurd stories about its divinities or practised sillier customs; and
that, even in the age which produced their most finished sculptures
and their most exquisite poems. The unbelief of the philosophers was
confined to a small class; and the populace that applauded the verses
and appreciated the art of Euripides pinned its faith to omens, {157}
found presages in the flight of birds, and gave implicit credence to
the magical effect of incantations, to say nothing of the ridiculous
and impossible tales about the gods which were part of its religious
faith, and as such were literally and devoutly accepted. Yet even
among these a process of selection was going forward, tending to
eliminate the ruder and coarser, preserving and refining, not
necessarily the more credible, but the more artistic. From the more
cultured cities of Greece a literary and æsthetic influence was
diffused throughout all Greek-speaking communities. To this aggressive
influence local beliefs and local customs gradually yielded. They were
either identified and amalgamated with the beliefs and customs to
which it gave a continually wider and wider currency, gaining in the
process a less barbarous exterior; or, if too stubborn for
identification and amalgamation, they were thrust aside bit by bit and
left to rustics and to slaves. The same process, repeated in the
modern world, has caused the powers and distinguishing marks of the
ancient superseded deities to be attributed to the Madonna and the
saints, and many of the heathen shrines and superstitions to be
baptized into the Christian Church. The rest have been relegated to
the peasantry, and driven into more and more remote districts by the
continual pressure, direct and indirect, of the triumphant religion
and the increasing civilisation. So it has been everywhere, not only
in Europe, but wherever in the whole world a higher has been carried,
either by arms, commerce or persuasion, across the frontiers of a
lower culture. We may conclude, therefore, that the story of Danae
made its way throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, to the disadvantage
of the stories told in various places of the birth of a hero similar
{158} in the rest of his life to Perseus, because of its own æsthetic
qualities, and because it was accepted by the most intellectual
peoples of Greece. These two causes, it will be seen, are at bottom
one. For it was precisely the intellectual characteristics of the
polished peninsular Greeks which had given the tale its artistic form,
and thus fitted it for prevailing over its competitors. Traditional
selection, first in the inhabitants of Argos and the neighbourhood,
and afterwards in all those with whom they and their allies and
fellow-countrymen came into contact, determined its shape and secured
its victory.
But though Ovid may have been ignorant of other versions of the story,
it is manifest that others existed. And here it is material to observe
that the incident of the Rescue of Andromeda stands in the poet’s
account on a very different footing from that of the remaining
incidents. Though it is now (perhaps by virtue of the Christian
symbolism read into it from early days of Christianity) the incident
which first springs into the mind on mention of the name of Perseus,
in the _Metamorphoses_ it is a mere episode, not organically connected
with the hero’s story. The encounter with Andromeda is represented as
fortuitous. It is not led up to by the previous narrative. It affects
the after-incidents in no way. The dragon is not even petrified by the
Gorgon’s head. On the other hand, the fatal prophecy is the foundation
of all the rest of the saga, from which nothing could be omitted
(save, it may be, the visit to Atlas) without impairing the natural,
the inevitable, development of the legend as an artistic whole. We
must infer that the Rescue is an intrusive episode, and that, as in
many modern variants, the tale comprised at first only the other two
trains of incident, already characterised as {159} the Birth and the
Quest of the Gorgon’s Head. The remaining versions current in
antiquity, or some of them, probably omitted Andromeda with all her
picturesque possibilities; and it may be permitted to conjecture that
the story we regard as classical may have been formed by the imperfect
fusion of a legend consisting of the Birth and the Quest of the
Gorgon’s Head, with one recognised for some reason as kindred, and
consisting only of the Birth and the Rescue of Andromeda. The Albanian
_märchen_, related in our opening chapter, may represent the latter
by direct transmission, while the sagas involved in Ælian’s
allusions--perchance also as known to Herodotus--may have been
guiltless of the fight with the Dragon.
We cannot pursue the conjecture into the region of probabilities,
because of the obvious confusion of the Albanian tale, and of the
imperfect state of our knowledge with regard to local legends not
taken up into Greek and Roman literature, and with regard to Egyptian
and Babylonian cults. The Tuscan tale from Pratovecchio[159.1] seems,
however, to have descended in right line from the familiar version of
Ovid and Lucian--not, that is to say, from their writings, but from
the oral sources whence they drew--though on its way to us it has not
passed wholly uncontaminated by other streams. But can we venture to
assert the same either of the Irish, German, Swedish, and Russian
tales which I have assigned to the _Danae_ type; or of the various
modern Italian and Greek stories wherein the hero’s birth is ascribed
to entirely different causes? Of the latter, some are perhaps derived
from local variants current in antiquity. Yet even to assume this will
carry us but a little way towards the solution of the problem {160} of
origin of a _märchen_ told as far afield as Ireland and Cambodia.
The legend in classical literature is the product of a comparatively
high stage of civilisation. In proof of this, it is only necessary to
refer to the divine gift of weapons. The helmet, the shield of metal,
brightly polished as a mirror, the sword, are not the weapons of the
unsophisticated savage. They are replaced in a large number of modern
variants by the gift of Helpful Animals. Now, everywhere in the lowest
planes of culture we find stories of birds, beasts, reptiles, and even
insects, talking and acting in human fashion, sometimes hostile, more
usually perhaps helpful to man. It would seem as though man, at
variance with his fellow-man, and therefore having unintermittent
reason to suspect him, beset, too, by the awful supernatural powers of
his imagination, turned for sympathy, perforce, and consolation to his
fellow-creatures of a different shape, whom he credited with ability
to aid him in his need. No line was drawn between nature and that
which was beyond or above nature. But while he imagined in his own
form the powers whose enmity he dreaded, he sought, of necessity, his
allies among those of other forms. He observed their characteristics;
he experienced their usefulness in supplying his wants; he felt
himself akin to them; out of them he framed totems, and ultimately
gods. The modern incident, therefore, of the Helpful Animals cannot be
derived from the classical gift of weapons; for not only is it utterly
different in character, but it comes up from a deeper depth of
barbarism. Thus it constitutes a strong presumption that the stories
wherein it occurs, however they may have been modified in the course
of ages, are not to be traced back to the classic literary saga. Still
less can {161} we venture to assert that they are derived from the
local variants of antiquity. They would be likely to owe their origin
rather to a tale already common property, than to one merely local.
And of the local variants we only know that Perseus was connected in
one of them with a fish; whereas the corresponding heroes of modern
variants are frequently so connected, while they are never connected
with a crustacean, but often with other artificial means of
generation, not noticed in any of the hints that have reached us from
ancient times.
To elucidate the matter, I have compiled and placed in an Appendix
tables of the variants accessible to me. I do not, of course, pretend
that they are complete. Statistics of the kind never are; and they
must not be taken for more than they are worth. Still, I have no
reason to think that they would be seriously modified by the addition
of other variants. If we glance at Table A we shall see that out of
110 examples (comprising stories properly belonging to the cycle, and
also stories wherein the Rescue of Andromeda is the only incident
belonging to the Legend of Perseus) forty-four represent the Helpful
Beasts as congenital with the heroes, while four others represent some
of the Beasts as congenital, the rest of them being obtained in
another way. By _congenital_ I mean born of the same material which
causes the birth of the heroes, as in the case of the fish, where one
part given to the woman originates the children, and another given to
a mare or a bitch originates the foals or the puppies. This, the most
savage conceit of the manner in which the Helpful Beasts were
obtained, is thus found in more than forty-one per cent. of the
stories. They are told throughout the whole of Europe, from Donegal to
Georgia, from Sweden to Greece. One {162} of them, indeed, has been
carried, as we may assume, from Portugal to Quilimane, where the
origin of the Helpful Beasts is reproduced by the natives in the most
intensely savage form of all; for the woman gives birth not only to
the heroes but to their dogs, and even their spears and their guns. In
ten cases in the table the Beasts are given by their parent animals,
while in ten others (or eleven, if we add, as we probably may, the
Servian case[162.1]) they attach themselves to the heroes out of
gratitude.[162.2] The total percentage of stories in which the Beasts
attach themselves, or are given by the parent animals out of
gratitude, to the heroes is thus nearly twenty. In sixteen cases, less
than fifteen per cent., they are obtained by exchange of some other
animals, or of arms or corn. In nine cases, or little more than eight
per cent., they are acquired from conquered foes; while in only eight
cases, a still smaller percentage, they are obtained in the classical
way from a mysterious personage. If we add the two classes of exchange
and gift by a mysterious personage together, we obtain twenty-four
cases, or a little under twenty-two per cent., of which three alone
properly belong to the Perseus group: that is, contain more than one
of the four chief trains of incident which compose it. One of these
three is the Tuscan story I have already indicated as probably a
direct descendant of the classical tale. The rest of the twenty-four
come from different parts of European Russia, Transylvania, Bohemia,
{163} Germany, Italy, the Celtiberian Peninsula, Brittany, and Achill
Island, two variants having been carried to North America, possibly by
the French.
If we turn to Table B, relating to the Gift of Weapons, we find
results not very different. Out of a total number of seventy-two
stories, twenty-two (or thirty per cent.) represent the Weapons as
congenital. These are all from Central Europe, Sweden, Denmark, Italy,
Sicily, Spain and Portugal, including the story from Quilimane; and
they all belong to the Perseus group. Then we have twelve, or, if we
add the Lithuanian tale in which the Weapons are taken from an
uninhabited house, thirteen variants, or eighteen per cent., in which
the Weapons are obtained from conquered foes. None of these thirteen
stories contain any other of the four chief trains of incident than
the Rescue of Andromeda. They are more widely spread than the former,
ranging from the west of Ireland to Lithuania and the Levant. There
are next seven instances (just under ten per cent.) in which the
Weapon is forged to order or bought by the hero. Of these, three come
from Scotland, one from Brittany, one is Basque, one is found in the
island of Syra, and one in Georgia. Lastly, we have ten cases in which
the Weapons are given by a mysterious person without any
consideration, two in which they are given to redeem stolen eyes, five
in which they are given out of gratitude, two in payment for services
rendered or in exchange, and one in which they are given by a fish: in
all, twenty cases, or not quite twenty-eight per cent.
This class of stories, embracing nearly one-third of those represented
in Table B, is much the most interesting, not only as scattered over a
far wider area than the others, but also, made up as it is partly of
stories within the true Perseus {164} cycle, and partly of stories
beyond it, because several of the stories present problems of
difficulty and importance. The direct derivation of the Tuscan tale
already referred to from the classical legend may be assumed. In it
the mirror, replacing the classical shield, is given by two old women,
who are the degraded representatives of the Graiai. The same incident
is found in another form in a Norwegian tale given by Asbjörnsen,
where the hero steals the single eye of each of three one-eyed hags
successively, and thus succeeds in wresting from them a magical sword,
a magical ship, and the art, equally magical, of brewing one hundred
lasts of malt in one brew. It is curious that this highly barbarous
incident has not been recovered elsewhere. We cannot suppose the
direct descent of the Norwegian tale from the classical, since the
remaining incidents are so different. But it is, of course, possible
that during the numerous Norse raids in the Middle Ages the incident
may have been picked up by Wicking adventurers, and carried home from
the Mediterranean shores with other spoils to Scandinavia, where it
became imbedded in a native tale recognised in other respects as
similar, and there replaced some equivalent incident. The conjecture
cannot be rated very highly; and alternative modes of transmission
will naturally present themselves to the reader. On the whole,
however, transmission of the incident, not of the entire story, seems
best to account for the facts.[164.1]
{165}
The only two variants of the Perseus group recovered from the East
belong to this class. Somadeva’s tale of Indívarasena has already
been abstracted at length.[165.1] Its divergencies from the type to
which it belongs are striking--so striking that we cannot postulate
transmission from Europe without conceding such alterations on the way
as almost to disguise it out of all recognition. On the other hand, it
is even harder to suppose that any European version can derive its
origin from either the _Kathá-sarit-Ságara_ or from the oral
narrative worked up into Somadeva’s rhetorical periods. Let us examine
the other Eastern variant. It is found in Cambodia, and has been
published since the first volume of this inquiry was issued. Its
heroes are not described as twins, though children of the same
parents, and nearly of the same age. From their childhood they were,
like the heroes of many Western _märchen_, incurably idle. To avoid
being put to work, they left home together. A magician gives them two
enchanted sabres, either of which will vanquish a whole army.
Moreover, if one of the youths die, the sabre of the other will rust;
and by means of it the dead youth can be brought back to life. These
gifts they accept, though almost too lazy to carry them. They reach a
city in mourning on account of the depredations of two yaks, winged
monsters which have devoured already more than twenty of the king’s
children, and have now demanded the last of them, {166} his beautiful
daughter, Neang (Miss) Pou. In vain the king had kindly offered them
the daughter of one of his subjects in her place. They insisted on
having Pou, and threatened terrible misfortunes on both the people and
the king if he refused. Compelled by the prayers of his subjects, he
had therefore caused poor Pou to be conducted to the house where the
ogres were wont to hold their banquets of royal flesh. The brothers,
passing through the city, arrived at the yaks’ house, and lay down to
sleep away the heat of the day, in spite of the princess’ warnings.
While they were talking to her the yaks drew nigh, and the whirr of
their enormous wings resounded above the house. The princess fainted
from terror, while the brothers addressed themselves to the fight, and
with their enchanted weapons speedily laid the monsters low. After the
fight they took the trouble to restore the princess to consciousness,
but, too lazy to take her home, rambled forth again. The king,
meanwhile, sent two officers to gather up her bones for burial. These
men, finding the yaks dead, dipped their staves in the blood, reported
to their master that they had slain the monsters, and demanded a
reward. Two other mandarins were then sent to find the lady’s bones
and tresses; and after some search they found her alive, and hidden in
the brushwood beside the road. She refused to return to a father who
had so cruelly given her up to be eaten, until he went himself mounted
on the royal elephant, and forced her into the palanquin he had
brought for the purpose. The king then proposed to give her in
marriage to one of the mandarins who pretended to have killed the
yaks; but when she told her father the facts, he sent to find the
brothers, who were her true deliverers. They refused to go back with
the messengers; they were too lazy; {167} and, armed as they were,
they repudiated allegiance to the king, and laughed at the threat of
compulsion. However, the bodies of the yaks were unburied; they
poisoned the air; and even a thousand men were unable to remove them.
Nay, all the inhabitants were requisitioned, and an attempt with ten
thousand proved unsuccessful in stirring one of the corpses. The
brothers had not left the country, and they were incommoded by the
terrible odour. Wherefore at last they offered their services, which
were gladly accepted. A single touch of their sabres made a great hole
in the earth, into which they pushed the yaks, and with another touch
threw back the soil and covered them over. The elder brother then weds
the princess, while the other sets forth on his travels again, taking
the precaution, at his brother’s request, to sow along his path the
seeds of a certain rare tree, to show the way he has gone. The
adventurer arrives at a depopulated city, where he is attacked by a
troop of gigantic birds, and overcomes them only after a fearful
fight. Then he sat down to rest on a gong which he found lying in an
inner court of the palace, and from a hole in which an agreeable
perfume arose. He had not sat there more than an instant, when he was
pricked from beneath. He jumped up and examined his seat, but could
find nothing but the small hole he had noticed before. So he sat down
again. Again he was pricked. He jumped up once more, and taking his
sabre he clove the gong in two, when to his astonishment a lovely girl
emerged, magnificently clad, and shedding around her a delicious
perfume. This leads to explanations. She is called the Maiden of the
Scented Locks, and is the king’s daughter. The dreadful birds he had
slain had devastated the kingdom, and her father had shut her up in
the gong to carry {168} her away to a place of safety. She excused
herself for pricking her deliverer because he had sat down on the hole
which gave her air, and she was being stifled. The people, who had
fled away, by-and-by returned--all save the maiden’s father. He had
deserved the misfortunes and desolation of the country, and he
returned no more. The younger brother accordingly married the Maiden
of the Scented Locks, and they became king and queen. One day the
queen’s favourite waiting-woman was carried away by the current of the
river while bathing. She was not, however, drowned; and ultimately she
was made attendant on the leprous king of a neighbouring country. From
her the leper learns about her mistress of the Scented Locks. Here we
have, in a rationalistic form, the incident familiar to us in the
Egyptian tale of _The Two Brothers_. The leprous king offers to make
his attendant (woman though she was) viceroy if she will only get him
the Lady of the Scented Locks. The temptation was too great for her.
She returned to her former mistress; and, received by her with joy,
she watched her opportunity to murder the king by touching him with
his own enchanted sabre. To divert the widow from her grief, she
induces her to walk along the river-bank, and to board a trading junk
for the purpose of looking at the silks and other merchandise it
contains. But the trade was a sham; and before she knew it, the
hapless queen was far away down the river, in the hands of the
servants of the leprous king. All this time the elder brother was
often wondering what had become of his cadet since he departed. One
day he found the blade of his sabre rusted, and knew that his brother
was dead. Setting out in search of him, he soon found his realm and
his tomb. With his magical sabre he opened {169} the tomb, and brought
his brother back to life. Then both, disguising themselves with long
beards and old garments, set out for the capital of the leprous king.
Announcing themselves as able to cure leprosy, they are conducted to
the monarch. The treacherous favourite has extorted a promise from the
widowed Lady of the Scented Locks to yield to the desires of the king
if his leprosy be cured; for leprosy is well known to be an incurable
disease. By directions of the pretended physicians a house is built
right in the middle of the river; and there they induce the king to
put himself under a shower-bath, with which they are to mingle some
drops from a bottle containing an infallible remedy. Instead of curing
him, they scald him to death. They fling off their disguise, deliver
the younger brother’s queen, and conquer the kingdom by means of their
sabres. The treacherous favourite is not put to death, but simply
banished; and the others live happy ever after.[169.1]
This tale presents more than one point of interest. Save that the
brothers are two (instead of three, as in so large a number of
European variants), and that the magical weapon is a sword, it bears
hardly any material resemblance to Somadeva’s tale. It comprises three
out of the four cardinal incidents of the cycle (though the
Medusa-witch appears much modified), as well as the secondary
incidents of the Gift of Weapons and the Impostor; yet without
attaining any very close similarity in the manner of its telling to
the European tales. To its most striking peculiarity I have already
referred, namely, the incorporation of an incident found in the tale
of _The Two Brothers_. The form of the incident in the Cambodian is
obviously much later than in {170} the Egyptian story. The comic scene
of the Lady in the gong is a tolerably good guarantee that, by
whatever route the incident arrived in Cambodia and became annexed to
the tale, it was conveyed not by literary means, but by oral
tradition. Other parts of the story betray Indian influence;[170.1]
but so far as I know, the Lady of the Scented Locks has never yet been
discovered in Hindustan. A near kinsman, however, appears in a
_märchen_ told by the Santals, where the hero has hair twelve cubits
long. He sat down one day to dress it on the river-bank. “In combing
his tangled tresses a quantity was wrenched out; this he wrapped up in
a leaf and threw into the stream. It was carried by the current a
great distance down to where a raja’s daughter and her companions were
bathing. The raja’s daughter saw the leaf floating towards her, and
ordered one of her attendants to bring it to her. When the leaf was
opened it was found to contain hair twelve cubits in length.
Immediately after measuring the hair the raja’s daughter complained of
fever, and hasted home to her couch.” The long and short of the
matter, of course, was that she had fallen in love with the unseen
owner of the hair; and her father was compelled to search all over the
world for him that she might marry him.[170.2] Upon this it is to be
observed that the story, {171} of which I have given only a single
incident, is, as we should expect, much more savage than the Cambodian
tale, and that it could not have influenced the latter. But it points
to some such incident as that of the lost lock being, like the lost
slipper, part of the story-plasm out of which the folk-tales of the
eastern world have been evolved. The special form of the incident in
M. Leclère’s tale renders probable its transmission somehow from
Egypt--in the absence, that is, of any evidence of a more archaic
shape from which alike the Egyptian and the Cambodian incidents with
their peculiarities could have been derived. This does not necessarily
involve the transmission of the entire story from Egypt, where neither
in ancient nor in modern times have we found any variant from which it
could have been descended. But it does smooth the way for us to accept
the probability that the entire tale was transmitted from the West;
and so far as it goes it is evidence against its oriental origin.
Hitherto we have not reached any very definite results in our quest.
In Tables A and B I have exhibited the distribution of the stories
containing either the Helpful Animals or the Magical Weapons. If these
tables establish anything, it is that the greater number of the modern
members of the Perseus group are independent of the classical legend.
In an overwhelmingly large proportion of cases the Helpful Animals and
the Magical Weapons are obtained in some other than the classical way,
and usually they are congenital. In the tables account is taken not
only of stories including two or more of the chief incidents, and
therefore reckoned as properly members of the cycle, but also of those
which only contain the incident of the Rescue of Andromeda. If we
reckon the former alone, {172} the proportion is greatly increased.
The total number of cases in Tables A and B respectively will then be
reduced to 65 and 39; while of these, the cases in which the Helpful
Animals and the Weapons are respectively congenital will be 42 and 22,
or 65 and 56 per cent. Both the Helpful Animals and the Weapons are
indeed subordinate incidents in the story; but they are incidents,
especially when congenital, which are important enough to influence
its entire development. The stories in which horses, dogs, and lances
are congenital with the heroes cannot be derived from the classical
legend; and although some of the ancient variants are known to connect
a fish with the demi-god, Perseus, we have no means of ascertaining
whether anything corresponding to these animals and weapons was
included in any of them.
The independence of the classical legend and most of the modern
variants is confirmed by another test. There is no feature more marked
in the modern stories than that of the Impostor and the Tokens. Of the
Impostor we find a trace in antiquity, but none of the Tokens. It is
true that another classical story, located at Megara, mentions both.
It is preserved by the scholiast upon Apollonius Rhodius, who
attributes it to Derichidas, the historian of Megara. Alkathoos, the
son of Pelops, we are told, having been exiled for the murder of
Chrysippe, encountered on the territory of Megara a lion which
desolated the country, and which the king had commissioned some of his
subjects to destroy. Alkathoos after a fight succeeded in killing the
animal. Thereupon he cut out its tongue, which he placed in his
wallet, and proceeded to Megara. But the men whom the king had sent
against the brute claimed the honour of the victory; nor were they
convicted of the imposture {173} until Alkathoos in the king’s
presence drew forth the tongue. The king offered the tongue in
sacrifice to the gods, and gave his daughter Euaichme in marriage to
Alkathoos, who ultimately succeeded him upon the throne.[173.1] Now it
is fairly certain that this striking incident could never have been
part of the ancient legend of Perseus, otherwise it would have come
down to us in one or other of the classical writers. But not only is
it absent from the versions of Ovid and Lucian; another account,
mentioned by the mythographer Hyginus, points in a diametrically
opposite direction. He calls the betrothed of Andromeda, Agenor, and
declares that when Perseus wished to take Andromeda away, her father,
Cepheus, and Agenor, attempted secretly to murder him, and were turned
with their followers to stone by the exhibition of the Gorgon’s
head.[173.2] This is more inconsistent with the modern variants than
Ovid’s narrative.
So far, then, our results are the same; and it can only be claimed
that the modern stories are at most (with the exception of a few
variants) derived from a common stock with the classical legend. But
it may be suggested that the former have been contaminated by the
local tradition of Megara. The possibility of such contamination
cannot be denied. An examination, however, of Table C fails to
disclose any sure ground for believing it probable. For it will be
observed that of the stories properly belonging to the cycle, upwards
of fifty-two per cent. give the tongues alone {174} as the tokens of
identity; while, if we reckon the tales wherein the tongues are found,
either alone or in combination with other tokens, we reach more than
seventy per cent. And they are by no means confined to countries and
nationalities which have come directly under classical influence, but
seem to be scattered impartially over the whole of Europe. A less
certain mark of contamination, but not without some value, is the
character of the impostors. In the Megaran tradition they were the men
whom the king had commissioned to slay the lion; therefore of the
class of warriors or nobles. In stories properly belonging to the
cycle less than thirty-two per cent. of the impostors come under this
description, including all cases where vague description may mean any
servant of the king other than menial, whereas fifty per cent. are
charcoal-burners, coachmen, gipsies, and members of other despised
classes. What is most remarkable is that an overwhelming proportion of
the cases in which the impostors may be considered as of the class
indicated in the Megaran tradition are found in lands beyond the
direct classical influence. In the Balkan peninsula and the Greek
islands, in Italy, Spain, and France, the all but invariable impulse
of the story-teller is to degrade the impostor in rank and to render
him physically, as well as morally, repellent. If all the stories,
both within the Perseus group and beyond it, be taken into the
calculation, the results will not be found very different. It would
seem, therefore, that, to whatever cause we must ascribe the
remarkable uniformity of the incident in the folk-tales of Europe, the
evidence hardly warrants us in attributing it to contamination by the
one local legend of Megara.[174.1]
{175}
Turning for a moment to the saga forms assumed by the Rescue incident,
there is one instance wherein contamination by a local legend may have
taken place, though to an altogether smaller extent. All our
information points to an eastern origin for the legend of Saint
George. I have already discussed the cause of the appropriation of the
Rescue incident to the Christian martyr; and I need not repeat what
was then said. Mr. Baring-Gould’s theory ascribes the tale to a
misunderstanding of the words of a definite hagiologist. Whether we
accept that theory or not, the only difference will be one of date at
which the legend became current; it will not alter the geographical
direction in which we must look for its origin. As preserved in some
of the songs and legends of the Balkan peoples, it shows traces of
being affected by the story, handed down to us by Diodorus Siculus and
by Tzetzes the scholiast, of the Rescue of Hesione by Herakles.
“Troyan, the white city” of the Bosnian ballad, inevitably recalls to
us the Troy of Laomedon. Diodorus knew nothing of the version
preserved by Tzetzes, which represents the slaughter of the monster as
effected from the inside; or, if he did, he suppressed it, either as
less probable or less artistic. It is clear from the story of
Kleostratos recorded by Pausanias, and from the ancient vase referred
to in a note on an earlier page,[175.1] that the incident of a
dragon-slaughter was current {176} in antiquity in both forms. It may
be suggested that, with growth in civilisation, the fight face to face
gradually superseded the ruder notion of the hero being swallowed and
fighting his way forth from the serpent’s belly. Probably, therefore,
the feat ascribed to Saint George in Bosnian song and Bulgarian legend
is that of Herakles, rather than that of Perseus contaminated by that
of Herakles. The tale of Troy was, like the story of Perseus, much
more than a local legend. It was the common property of the classical
world, and may well have formed part of the inheritance of all the
Balkan nations. The intrusive barbarians who settled from time to time
during the decadence of the empire about the Danube and the Balkans,
must also have had their legends of dragon-slaying, whose essential
identity with those of the original population would be recognised.
The confusion thus caused would render it all the easier to substitute
a new hero consecrated by religion, and consequently having claims
upon belief which the older heroes had ceased to wield. Yet the
previous details would not be all effaced; and in such as were
preserved we should find evidence of the double procession. Thus the
interference of “the thundering Elijah” bears witness to Slavonic
influences, for Elijah as a saint is but a Christian disguise of the
pagan Slavonic thunder-god. In the same way the name of Troyan enables
us to say which of the classical Rescue legends it is that has been
worked up, with the Slavonic tradition, into the ballad of Saint
George. The names and special details connected with the feat of
Perseus are conspicuously absent.
We need not, however, conclude that everywhere the legends and songs
concerning Saint George embodied the saga of Hermione rather than that
of Andromeda. The {177} generally accepted ecclesiastical version laid
the scene of the conflict at a town of Libya, which would assuredly
point to the latter; while the local traditions whereof the martial
saint is hero indicate anything but descent from a story told of so
famous a city as Troy. Nor must we leave out of view the probability
that in antiquity, as in modern times, beside the sagas fitted with
names of heroes and of places, there was current a variety of
_märchen_, similar in plot, and to some extent in detail, ready to be
adapted to any names which might happen to lay hold of the popular
fancy. Such might easily infect the legend of Saint George while it
was taking shape among the folk, and as yet no version had acquired
preponderant authority, and thus form variants either of local, or, if
fortune smiled upon them, of more than local, acceptance.
But this christianised saga was not quite the only form of the Rescue
story known during the Middle Ages. Cuchulainn’s fight with the Fomori
was told as early as the legend of Saint George, if not indeed
earlier. I have already noted its remarkable resemblance to the
corresponding incident in _märchen_ of the _Herdsman_ type--a highly
specialised type, differing considerably from any form of the
classical story, and peculiar to the west of Europe. We have no direct
evidence as to the date when the stories of the _Herdsman_ type arose;
but it will be recollected that there is reason to think the type
belongs to the Celto-Iberian race, and therefore is of prehistoric
age. Nor will the reader fail to note that the Rescue of Devorgoil
from the Fomori appears to be an offshoot of the same type, that it is
found among one of the branches of the same Celto-Iberian race, and
that it is one of the oldest--nay, perhaps, the oldest--post-classical
variant in Europe of the Perseus {178} group. All these considerations
make for its independence of the classical tale; and their cumulative
weight may fairly be called decisive.
It has been contended, and it may be thought, that we should look for
evidence of transmission rather to the general identity and sequence
of the main incidents than to the recurrence of trivial details. An
able and well-known writer, criticising M. Bédier’s use of special
accessories as a test of transmission, has lately traversed its
validity as applied to folklore. “It is obviously derived,” he says,
“from considerations current in literary criticism, as might be
expected from M. Bédier’s training. His method is exactly the process
by which literary critics prove the derivation of one species of
mss. from an archetype, or affiliate a translation in one language
to its original in another. Minute and unimportant accessories, _e.g._
the form of a proper name, are just the tests in such cases. But with
oral tradition, with transmission in folklore, I would exactly reverse
the process and adopt M. Bédier’s test”--namely, similarity in the
general idea--“as a proof of such transmission.”[178.1]
If Mr. Jacobs be a disciple of M. Cosquin, he here diverges widely
from his master, who has rightly insisted on the value of trivial
details in proving the connection between two folktales belonging to
the same cycle. His opinions on this point are gathered up in a small
compass in a paper contributed to the International Folklore Congress
of 1891, where he examines a number of stories of the rescue of a
maiden from the monster, with a view to showing the repetition of
minute details.[178.2] One of the most {179} curious and important of
these details is the lousing of the hero by the maiden.[179.1] In
Table D I have brought together as many of such tales as I could find.
Under the lady’s gentle fingers the hero usually falls asleep; and M.
Cosquin points particularly to the fact that when the dragon comes on
the scene the deliverer is in many variants aroused by the damsel’s
tears. The table shows that this is, in fact, the usual method of
awakening him; for it occurs in no fewer than fifty per cent. of the
stories. But what will strike the reader is, that with the exception
of a Portuguese tale from Brazil, all the stories in which it occurs
are found within an area whose salient angles may be placed in
Georgia, Nubia, and Bosnia. In only one of the variants from that part
of the world can the mode of awakening be definitely said not to be by
a tear, while in one other it is left uncertain. Now, it is not
expressly said in every instance that the maiden performed the
delicate office of lousing the hero; but I think that where this
realistic trait has disappeared it has probably dropped out, in M.
Cosquin’s phrase, “by an excess of delicacy on the part of the
collector.” The trait is unquestionably a savage one. It is also one
well known both in real life and in other stories to the peasantry, at
all events of southern and eastern Europe, if not elsewhere. Outside
the sphere centring in the Levant it is, however, found attached to
the Rescue of Andromeda only in the Iberian peninsula, in Scotland,
Ireland, and Sweden, the most numerous instances having been recovered
in the west of Scotland. There, in four cases out of five, the lady
awakens the hero by inflicting personal mutilation or bestowing
personal adornments which afterwards serve to identify him, while in
the fifth case the mode of awakening is not {180} recorded. The
phenomena both in the Levant and in Scotland are thus entirely in
favour of the value of similar details as proving transmission. For,
as M. Cosquin says, it is evidently impossible to believe that these
details have been separately developed. The form under which the
savage idea is presented must have been imported already specialised.
We are not, however, left to seek all over the world for the place of
origin of either of these two modes of awakening the sleeping
deliverer. We are shut up in each case to a fairly defined area within
which the detail is found, and within which, therefore, it probably
originated. Something of the sort meets us in the case of the Impostor
and the Tokens. If we extend our view to include stories which
comprise the Rescue of Andromeda alone of the four cardinal incidents
of the Perseus group, we appear to find some geographical connection
in the tokens. Teeth, for example, are the tokens in Hungary and
Oldenburg, ears in the Caucasus and Armenia, mutilations of the hero’s
person in the Western Highlands. But we have no such guide where
tongues are the tokens; for their distribution, in Europe at all
events, is as wide as the story itself. In like manner, if we glance
over the other tables, or turn to the distribution of the various
types of the story as distinguished in the earlier chapters of this
work, we can undoubtedly find geographical limits for many, both of
types and of details. To discuss them individually after the examples
already given would be tedious; nor would it lead to any more assured
result. There are a few cases, like that of the Scented Locks, where
we think we can with tolerable certainty trace an accessory back to
its source. Even in such cases, however, we have no decisive evidence,
as in {181} literary questions, to fix the exact provenience. The
peculiarities of a manuscript are not quite parallel with those of a
tale. We cannot be positive that the incident in the Cambodian story
is derived from the Egyptian. We can only say that its form is later
in civilisation, and therefore perhaps in time. For aught we know the
incident in the Egyptian _märchen_ may in its turn be derived from an
earlier one, which may be the common parent of the incident in the
tale of _The Two Brothers_ and in the Cambodian variant of the Perseus
group. There is no record which will enable us to pronounce with
entire confidence an opinion on the point. Much more then in examples,
like those of the Deliverer’s Sleep, where the form discloses no
difference in civilisation or in manners, we are at a loss to say
whence the detail has come. We can put boundaries within which it has
probably arisen; but we have no means of tracing it from Syra to
Nubia, or from Nubia to Syra, from Bosnia to Georgia, or from Armenia
to Bulgaria. The form of the savage idea may have been imported, as M.
Cosquin says, already specialised; but imported whence, imported
whither? Those are questions too hard for us with our present means of
knowledge. And what is true of the detail is true of the type. We
cannot say, in more than a few isolated cases, whether a type has been
evolved from another type, either by development or decay. The modern
types of the story, we can indeed say, have not been derived from the
classical type. It is possible that they may have been derived from
some local variant of ancient Greece or the Red Sea shores, of which
we have no more than hints in classical writers. It is, at least,
equally possible that they and the local variants and the classic
legend all alike owe their origin to a common ancestor. Nor can we
{182} assign to the modern types any order of precedence among
themselves.
Our difficulty in solving these problems arises not merely, or
chiefly, from the want of records; still more does it issue from the
conditions of oral transmission. Narrative tradition is fluid and
changeable. It may be run into any mould, and from one mould to
another with equal ease. To change the figure, its constituents are,
like chemical elements, found in combinations which are sometimes
comparatively stable, at other times tending to change and the
formation of new combinations. The permanence of the new combinations
depends upon the stability and isolation of the culture-conditions,
upon the ability of the storytellers and the customs which bind them,
now encouraging invention, and anon imprisoning them with the chains
of verbal, if not literal, accuracy. This is not the place to consider
the conditions of conservation and of variation. Enough here to draw
attention to the reason of the difficulty which lies in the path of
him who would trace a folktale to its source.
The truth is that when we speak of a _märchen_ as an artistic whole,
we must be careful to guard ourselves against conveying a false
impression. Like every human work, there is, of course, a sense in
which it is true so to speak of it. Every tale-teller is more or less
of an artist, and every tale he tells is a work of art. It is formed
of his recollections of other tales told by other tellers, joined and
cemented together as best he can by the aid of his own invention. A
plot is composed of incidents cohering sometimes more firmly,
sometimes less. Often the tale-teller forgets one, patches the story
with another from his stock, or inserts an additional incident at
pleasure. The new element {183} thus introduced may or may not unite
with the old. The character of the tale will be modified, and may be
entirely changed, by the substitution or addition. As with the
incidents, so with the accessories. Every time the tale is passed
through the memory it is exposed to the risk of variation, not only in
its main lines, but also, and still more, in its details. Hence we can
speak of the story embodied in the Perseus cycle as an abstract ideal
whole with even less propriety than we can, by eliminating individual
peculiarities from the entire series of pictures of the Annunciation,
or the Marriage of the Virgin, from the earliest to the latest, speak
of the scene they present with so many variations as one abstract
ideal whole. The mediæval painters and the painters of the Renascence
developed and modified the traditional scene as they would, or as
their skill and circumstances dictated. But the limitations of the
limner’s art preserved a certain unity amid all changes. The art of
the story-teller is not thus circumscribed. He can run on from one
subject to another, as his memory or his imagination may prompt, for
the purpose of giving pleasure. He unites the incidents of the
Life-token, the Rescue of Andromeda, and the Slaughter of the Gorgon,
with that of the Fatal Bird whose flesh gives wealth or exalts its
eater to kingship; or he unwinds from the Supernatural Birth the
tangled skein of a Bluebeard story. But, save in rare examples, it is
impossible to predicate the order of succession, or to say why this
line of development has been followed rather than that.
Such may seem an impotent conclusion of the inquiry. Disappointing it
must be admitted to be; and, so far as the results of research as to
one story may enable us to forecast {184} the results of research as
to others, it favours the view of those students who declare that the
hope of tracking a folktale to its pristine home is illusory, and the
attempt a waste of time. If a story which must have taken up its
crucial incident so late in civilisation cannot be assigned to its
primitive tellers, how can we hope to find the birth-places of other
tales, all whose elements are rooted in a distant and dateless
savagery? Henceforth, if it be true, as Mr. Jacobs alleges, that “the
problem of diffusion is of prior urgency to that of
origin”[184.1]--that is to say, if we cannot employ the tales as
evidence of belief until we know whence they come--it seems likely
that we shall have to deny ourselves the use of this evidence, and
rely wholly upon evidence of a more direct character. But is the
contention true? I have elsewhere tried to give some grounds for
thinking that we need not wait to know where a tale was first
conceived ere we use it as evidence of the belief of the peoples who
tell it.[184.2] And I would fain hope that fresh and more cogent
reasons to the same effect may be gathered from the foregoing pages.
In this connection I should like to insist on the fact that these
evidences of belief are to be found, not in the tale as a whole, but
in the separate incidents of which it is composed. To such, and even
lesser details, our attention must be directed, if we would avail
ourselves of the full advantage which the study of folktales gives us
in investigating the early ideas of mankind.
The story of Perseus opens a thousand vistas to the student. In these
pages we have been content to follow only a few of them, though there
is not one but would have led us upon enchanted ground. It remains to
gather {185} up in a few words the results of our inquiry. After
reviewing and illustrating the principal types of the story, we took
its four leading incidents and sought for their distribution in other
combinations, or alone, and for their sources and meaning. The
Supernatural Birth we found related in various forms, not merely for
amusement, but as sober fact, over so large an area of the world as to
justify the belief that it was universal. Every nation has its heroes;
and in the popular mind the mightier the hero, the greater the need
for providing him with a worthy entrance upon his mortal existence.
Nay more. We found that the abnormal means of impregnation, to which
the heroes of the stories we examined owed their birth, were, and
still are, actually held capable of causing a similar result;
therefore were, and are, prescribed for, and used by, women who desire
children and are unable to obtain them in the natural way.
The Life-token presented other problems. Both in tale and in custom it
is not less generally known than the former incident. Its virtue is
derived from the belief that it is part of the substance of the
personage whose welfare it indicates. It is the converse and essential
correlative of the External Soul. At this point it became necessary,
for the elucidation of the idea at the root of both the External Soul
and the Life-token, to enter upon a discussion whose length I trust
the reader will hold fully excused by the importance of the subject;
for it involved nothing less than the savage conception of life in its
relation to personality: a conception that permeates savage society; a
conception without which it is impossible to understand savage
institutions or savage customs; indeed, a conception that underlies
much of our modern civilisation, {186} and from which the most sacred
act of Christian worship derives its meaning and its virtue.
Like the Supernatural Birth and the Life-token, the Medusa-witch is
widely famous, and the superstition out of which the incident of her
slaughter--at all events in its classical form--springs is universal.
It is that of the Evil Eye. Recent works by other writers rendered it
needless to examine this superstition at length.
The incident of the Rescue of Andromeda, though celebrated throughout
a large part of the Old World, is more limited in its range than the
others. It is based on the change of a horrible custom which has not
everywhere been practised, and where it has been practised has not
everywhere passed away in such circumstances as to leave behind it the
possibility of a Rescue myth. It is therefore the youngest of the four
chief incidents of the tale. This limitation of range of the Rescue
incident restricts the area within which to seek for the birthplace of
the tale as a whole. The search has been interesting; but while it has
produced some substantial results, it has failed in its main object.
On the causes of failure I have already sufficiently dwelt.
Yet the inquiry has not been wholly in vain, even in regard to
storyology pure and simple. We have seen that the classical form of a
tale distributed throughout a large part of the Old World owed its
peculiar features to the fact of its entrance into the higher
literature of the race at a period of relatively advanced
civilisation: a traditional selection had been established against the
ruder forms of the saga. That ruder forms existed is evident from the
hints and allusions preserved by classical writers. The classical
form, in spite of its acceptance and {187} of its literary handling by
some of the authors of antiquity most widely read, affected to a very
slight extent the versions current in tradition. The latter go back in
very few instances to the classical form; they frequently contain
important incidents--not mere episodes, but incidents of the fibre of
the narrative--such as that of the Helpful Beasts, far more barbarous
than the classical story; while they are further distinguished by the
remarkable peculiarity that they have preserved the cardinal incident
of the Life-token, which in the classical saga is entirely wanting. We
are bound, therefore, to postulate the existence in Greece, in an
earlier and more barbarous age than that which was familiar with the
legend in its classical shape, of a folktale substantially similar to
that recovered in the last hundred years from all parts of the area I
have described. For if the modern form of the tale be not derived from
the legend as found in classical literature, neither can it be
ascribed to derivation in post-classical days from the special
story-store of India. On the contrary, so far as derivation on either
side is considered necessary, we are compelled to treat the variants
from India and Further India as derivatives, and not as sources. To
establish, if not with mathematical, at least with reasonable
certainty, the prehistoric age of a famous _märchen_, as well as the
fact that the lower and ruder forms are not killed out by the higher
literary forms, but survive them, and to circumscribe the native
region of the tale by the limits of Europe, south-western Asia, and
northern Africa, may be considered worth the pains spent in the
investigation.
I have written of the Legend of Perseus with no polemical object. Yet,
valuing the science of folklore, as I do, chiefly for the light it
throws on the mental constitution {188} of mankind and the genesis of
ideas and of institutions, I cannot hide from myself the important
bearing that some of the subjects dealt with in these pages may have
upon matters of Christian controversy. Our illustrations of the
Supernatural Birth have been drawn entirely from certain forms of the
story, to the exclusion of other forms which, interesting as they are
in themselves, were for our purpose irrelevant. But sufficient has
been said to raise questions which may be summarily stated thus:--If
these legends be universal, if they must be rejected in every case but
one as the product of an inevitable tendency of human imagination,
then why not in that one case also? Assuredly that one case can be
regarded as exceptional, only if it stand upon historical evidence
totally different in kind from the others, and of inevitable cogency.
But can any one who sits down (as it is the duty at least of every
educated man to do) calmly and, so far as he can, with scrupulous
impartiality to weigh the evidence, say that the testimony of
ecclesiastical tradition, or even of our Gospels, is different in kind
from, or of greater cogency than, that which we reject, without
hesitation, in the case of Sákyamuni, or of Alexander the Great?
About ecclesiastical tradition I need say nothing. The records in the
two Gospels which bear the names of Saint Matthew and Saint Luke are,
carefully considered, irreconcilable. Both Gospels are now admitted to
be secondary documents. It is hardly claimed for either of them that
it was written less than sixty years after the event. It is by no
means certain that they were in existence, as we now have them, when
Justin Martyr wrote in the middle of the second century. Outside them
there is no record, no unambiguous allusion even, that can be dated
within one hundred and ten years {189} of the Birth, and then only if
we admit the genuineness of the questionable _Epistles_ of Saint
Ignatius, and the earliest possible date for his very doubtful
journey. Is this the testimony on which belief in so amazing an event
can be safely built?
Our researches into sacramental beliefs and practices, and the ideas
underlying them, must have suggested once and again the central rite
of Christianity. The institution of the Eucharist is not an event of
the same supernatural character as the Birth is alleged to be. Yet if
the difficulties of testimony be smaller, those of interpretation are
even greater. That sacramental superstitions were rife as well in
Judæa as elsewhere in the time of Jesus Christ is certain, though our
information concerning them is still lamentably deficient. The
influence of the Mysteries upon Christianity has been hitherto little
studied. But it is manifest that we cannot appreciate the intention of
the rite, or understand the course of its history, without a more
extended knowledge of these things.
Doubt is often a more imperative duty than belief. Nor is it the less
a duty because it is painful. To the priest, everywhere and in all
time, it is the gravest of sins; for the corporate interest of a
priesthood adds strength to the sincere belief of the individual, a
belief usually founded upon complete ignorance of all but his own side
of the question. Priests, therefore, always favour the growth of
beliefs of which they are the centre, so leading men deeper and deeper
into the slough of superstition. Pleading that it is safer to believe
too much than too little, they are not content with a ready-made
creed, imperfectly verified, if verified at all. Their inclination and
interest alike tend to its enlargement by continual additions, whose
only test is {190} consonance with the emotions awakened by something
previously accepted. They cannot away with reason, with patient
inquiry, and the judicial temper. They seek to prejudice the question
before it be tried. Hence they conspire with reactionary statesmen to
obtain, or to keep, the control of education. This treachery against
civilisation, against the public weal, against truth itself, may
succeed for a moment; but only to evoke a retribution which will be
strictly measured by its success. It is no light thing to divorce the
intellect of a nation from its religion; it is disastrous to attempt
to coop the intellect within the bounds of a religion which have
become too strait for it.
But abhorrent as doubt and inquiry may be to the priest, they are the
means whereby we have gradually reached a more correct and adequate
view of the universe, and of human history, than was formerly imposed
in the name of divine revelation. He who seeks truth by such means
bears a more devoted allegiance to himself and to humanity than he
who, for the sake of safety or of ease, flings himself into the lap of
a priesthood, which professes to assure to him in the next world
eternal salvation, and can certainly bestow upon him, in this, comfort
and social consideration and freedom from petty parochial persecution.
He will recognise it as a duty to withhold his assent from dogmas,
even though the most solemn articles of the Christian faith, until in
the open court of reason his objections have been answered and his
difficulties solved by sounder arguments and a deeper historical and
scientific knowledge than have yet been applied by apologists to the
issues.
[The End]
APPENDIX
{191}
TABLE A.
HELPFUL ANIMALS.
===
Authority.
Country.
Animals.
How obtained.
===
i. Campbell, 71
Argyllshire
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Luzel, _Contes Bretons_, 63
Brittany
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
i. Cosquin, 60
Lorraine
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
i. Cosquin, 64
Lorraine
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
ii. Cosquin, 56
Lorraine
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Zéliqzon, 63
Lorraine
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Bladé, _Agenais_, 9
Gascony
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Webster, 87
Basque Provinces
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Caballero, 27
Spain
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
i. Gonzenbach, 269
Sicily
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
xviii. Pitrè, 45
Sicily
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
vii. Pitrè, 296
Sicily (Albanian)
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
i. Finamore, pt. i., 105
Abruzzi
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
iii. De Nino, 321
Abruzzi
Horse and dog
Congenital
===
Nerucci, 61; and Imbriani, 375
Tuscany
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
De Gubernatis, 40
Tuscany
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Visentini, 104
Mantua
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Schneller, 186
Tirol
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Schneller, 79
Tirol
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
{192}
===
Authority.
Country.
Animals.
How obtained.
===
Zingerle, _K. und Hausm._, 122
Tirol
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Wolf, _Deutsche M._, 134
Germany
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Cavallius, 348
Sweden
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Leskien, 385
Lithuania
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Von Wlislocki, _Volksdicht._, 316
Transylvania (Gipsy)
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Vernaleken, 193
Lower Austria
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Leskien, 543 (from Jukié)
Bosnia
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Leskien, 544 (from Valjavec)
Croatia
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Leskien, 544 (from Mikuliĕié)
Croatia
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Karajich, 174
Servia
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
i. Von Hahn, 166; and Geldart, 74
Epirus
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
Legrand, 161
Greece
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
*Leskien, 546 (from Afanasief)
Russia
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
*Leskien, 546 (from Valjavec)
Croatia
Horses and dogs
Congenital
===
ix. _Rev. Trad. Pop._, 174
Brittany
Horses and dogs
?
===
Coelho, 120
Portugal
Horses
Congenital
===
Grimm, i. _Tales_, 331
Hesse
Horses
Congenital
===
*Leskien, 546 (from Erlenvein)
Great Russia
Horses
Congenital
===
De Gubernatis, 41
Tuscany
Dogs
Congenital
===
ii. Von Hahn, 214
Greece
Dogs
Congenital
===
ii. Macdonald, 341
Quilimane (probably from Portugal)
Dogs
Congenital
===
{193}
===
Authority.
Country.
Animals.
How obtained.
===
Wardrop, 25
Georgia
Eight Dogs
Congenital
===
Leskien, 546 (from Vrána)
Moravia
Dogs
?
===
v. _Folklore_, 156
Donegal
Horses, dogs, and hawks
Congenital
===
i. Grundtvig, 277
Denmark
Horses, dogs, and sparrowhawks
Congenital
===
Pedroso, 100
Portugal
Horses and lions
Congenital
===
Braga, i. _Contos_, 117
Portugal
Horses and lions
Congenital
===
i. Campbell, 93
South Uist
Horses and dogs / Lion, wolf, and falcon
Congenital / Gratitude for dividing carcase justly
===
Cavallius, 354
Sweden
Horses and dogs / Bears, wolves, and foxes
Congenital / Given by parent animals
===
Kuhn und Schwartz, 337
North Germany
Horses and dogs / Bears, wolves, and lions
Congenital / Given by parent animals
===
i. Comparetti, 126; and Crane, 30
Pisa
Horses and dogs / Lion, eagle, and ant / Dog-fish
Congenital / Gratitude for dividing carcase / Gratitude for saving
life
===
Cavallius, 95
Sweden
Dogs / Bears, wolves, and foxes
Given by mother / Given by parent animals
===
*Cox, _Cinderella_, 450 (from iii. _Journ. Gipsy Lore Soc._, 208)
England (Gipsy)
Bull-calf
Given by father
===
*Zingerle, _K. und Hausm._, 35; and Busk, _Hofer_, 207
Tirol
Three dogs
Left to hero by his father
===
*Dennys, 110
China
Dog
Supplied by heroine’s father
===
Grimm, i. _Tales_, 244
Hesse
Hares, foxes, wolves, bears, and lions
Given by parent animals
===
Grimm, i. _Tales_, 419
Hesse
Bears, lions, and wolves
Given by parent animals
===
Stier, i.; and Jones and Kropf, 110
Hungary
Wolves, bears, and lions
Given by parent animals
===
{194}
===
Authority.
Country.
Animals.
How obtained.
===
Leskien, 544 (from Radostova)
Bohemia
Wolves, bears, and lions
Given by parent animals
===
Leskien, 389
Lithuania
Wolves, boars, foxes, lions, hares, and bears
Given by parent animals
===
Leskien, 544 (from Nowosielski)
Little Russia
Hares, foxes, wolves, bears, and lions
Given by parent animals
===
*Schott, 135
Wallachia
Fox, wolf, and bear
Given by parent animals
===
*i. _Mélusine_, 57
Brittany
Hare, fox, and bear
Gratitude for sparing lives
===
Meier, _Märchen_, 204
Swabia
Bear, wolf, and lion
Gratitude for sparing their lives
===
Zingerle, _K. und Hausm. aus Süddeutsch._, 260
Tirol
Fox, wolf, and bear
Gratitude for sparing lives
===
*Schleicher, 54
Lithuania
Hare, she-wolf and lioness
Gratitude for sparing lives
===
i. Campbell, 98
Berneray
Fox, wolf, and hoodie
Gratitude for dividing carcase justly
===
*Dasent, _Fjeld_, 237 (from Asbjörnsen)
Norway
Lion, falcon, and ant
Gratitude for dividing carcase justly
===
Carnoy, _Contes F._, 135
Normandy
Dogs
Given by fish to father in gratitude for sparing life
===
i. Gonzenbach, 272
Sicily
Horses
Given by fish in gratitude for sparing life
===
Denton, 256
Servia
Bears, wolves, dogs, and cats / Winged horse
Bought from persons about to kill, or who were torturing them /
Conquered
===
Pitrè, _Toscane_, 1
Tuscany
Flying horse
Given by an old man
===
Leskien, 542 (from Afanasief)
Russia
Horses
Given by an old man
===
*Larminie, 196
Achill Island
Pony
Given by Druid by means of magical bridle
===
{195}
===
Authority.
Country.
Animals.
How obtained.
===
*Webster, 22
Basque Provinces
Horses and dog
Given by Tartaro in gratitude for release
===
Auning, 87
Lithuania
Horses and hounds
Given by an old man
===
*Bernoni, _Fiabe._ 50
Venice
Three dogs
Given by priest
===
*ii. Kirby, 6 (from Kreutzwald)
Esthonia
Three dogs
Sold by one-eyed old man
===
*Schleicher, 4
Lithuania
Three dogs
Given by man in exchange for calves
===
*Waldau, 468
Bohemia
Three dogs
Given by butcher in exchange for sheep
===
*Haltrich, 101
Transylvania (Saxon)
Three dogs
Given by butcher in exchange for goat and cock
===
*ii. Strackerjan, 330
Oldenburg
Three dogs
Given by man in exchange for sheep left by hero’s father
===
*ii. Strackerjan, 333
Oldenburg
Three dogs
Given by man in exchange for cow left by hero’s parents
===
*Pitrè, _Toscane_, 9
Tuscany
Three dogs
Given by a fair gentleman in exchange for cattle
===
*ii. _Rivista_, 28
Maremma
Three dogs
Given by man in exchange for cattle
===
*Visentini, 85
Mantua
Three dogs
Given by man in exchange for corn
===
*De Gubernatis, ii. _Zool. Myth._, 36 note
Piedmont
Three dogs
Given by hunter in exchange for sheep
===
*Coelho, 114 (English version, 61)
Portugal
Three dogs
Given by Our Lord disguised as beggar in exchange for sheep
===
*x. _Bibl. Trad. Pop. Españ._, 258
Extremadura
Three dogs
Given by old man in exchange for cows
===
*x. _Bibl. Trad. Pop. Españ._, 249
Extremadura
Three dogs
?
===
*Dorsey, _Cegiha_, 114
Omaha (N. A. Ind. Probably from France)
Two white dogs
Given by man in exchange for bow that never missed
===
{196}
===
Authority.
Country.
Animals.
How obtained.
===
*Dorsey, _Cegiha_, 127
Omaha (N. A. Ind. Probably from France)
Two dogs
Given by man in exchange for gun that never missed
===
*_F. L. Andaluz_, 357
Andalucia
Five dogs, / Horse
Given by man in exchange for goats / Came out of dung heap
===
*ix. _Rev. Trad. Pop._, 173
Brittany
Three dogs / White horse
Obtained in exchange for cow / Found in castle of witch slain by
hero
===
*Grimm, i. _Tales_, 420
Germany
Dogs / Hare, deer, and bear
Given by forester in exchange for goats / ?
===
i. _F. L. Journ._, 54
Tralee, Ireland
Horse
From castle of giant conquered by hero
===
*Curtin, _Ireland_, 157
West of Ireland
Three horses
Acquired by conquest of three giants
===
*vi. _Folklore_, 309 (from O’Faherty, _Siamsa an gheimhridh_, 60)
Connaught
Horse
Taken from giants killed by hero
===
*i. Campbell, 97
Argyllshire
Horses
Acquired from conquered giants
===
*ix. _Rev. Trad. Pop._, 280
Brittany
Three horses
Taken from castle of foes slain by hero. [In the abstract of the
tale given by M. Sébillot it is not explicitly said that hero made
use of horses]
===
*Romero, 129
Brazil (Portuguese)
Three horses
Taken from palace of ogre
===
*Vinson, 56
Basque Provinces
Three olanos (dogs)
Taken from castle of ogre conquered by hero
===
*Wolf, _Deutsche Hausm._, 369
Odenwald
Three horses
Taken from uninhabited castle
===
*Luzel, ii. _Contes Pop._, 296
Brittany
Horse
Transformation of Murlu, a mythical creature (enchanted form of
hero’s father’s first wife), released by hero from captivity
===
{197}
===
Authority.
Country.
Animals.
How obtained.
===
*Vasconcellos, 274
Portugal
Two dogs
Come out of eyes of witch destroyed by help of St. Antony
===
*Romero, 83
Brazil (Portuguese)
Three dogs
Issue from head of old woman slain by hero
===
*Von Wlislocki, _Volksdicht._, 323
Transylvania (Gipsy)
Horse
Transformation of horse’s head found by hero under a tree
===
*_Roumanian F. T._, 48
Roumania
Bull
Found in hole made in earth by hero’s arrow
===
*Von Wlislocki, _Volksdicht._, 260
Transylvania (Gipsy)
Horse
Sent by dead river-nymph
===
*Leskien, 396
Lithuania
Lion, bear, boar, fox, and hare
Caught
===
Zingerle, _K. und Hausm. aus Süddeutsch._, 124
Tirol
Dancing bears
Caught
===
* Stories thus marked do not belong to the Perseus cycle though
containing the incident of the Slaughter of the Dragon.
TABLE B.
WEAPONS.
{198}
===
Authority.
Country.
Weapons.
How acquired.
===
i. Cosquin, 60
Lorraine
Lances
Congenital
===
i. Cosquin, 64
Lorraine
Lances
Congenital
===
Pedroso, 100
Portugal
Lances
Congenital
===
Braga, i. _Contos_, 117
Portugal
Lances
Congenital
===
Coelho, 120
Portugal
Lances
Congenital
===
i. Finamore, pt. i. 105
Abruzzi
Lances
Congenital
===
Nerucci, 61; and Imbriani, 375
Tuscany
Lances
Congenital
===
Schneller, 186
Tirol
Lances
Congenital
===
Leskien, 543 (from Jukié)
Bosnia
Lances
Congenital
===
Caballero, 27
Spain
Lances and shields
Congenital
===
Zéliqzon, 63
Lorraine
Sabres
Congenital
===
Cavallius, 348
Sweden
Swords
Congenital
===
i. Grundtvig, 277
Denmark
Swords
Congenital
===
Wolf, _Deutsche M._, 134
Germany
Swords
Congenital
===
Karajich, 174
Servia
Swords
Congenital
===
Visentini, 104
Mantua
Swords
Congenital
===
De Gubernatis, 41
Tuscany
Swords
Congenital
===
iii. De Nino, 321
Abruzzi
Sword
Congenital
===
i. Gonzenbach, 269
Sicily
Swords
Congenital
===
xviii. Pitrè, 45
Sicily
Cutlass
Congenital
===
Kuhn und Schwartz, 337
North Germany
Sabres, pistols, and guns
Congenital
===
ii. Macdonald, 341
Quilimane (probably from Portugal)
Spears and guns
Congenital
===
{199}
===
Authority.
Country.
Weapons.
How acquired.
===
Chambers, 89
Scotland
Magical wand
Given by old woman
===
Webster, 33
Basque Provinces
Stick
Given by old woman
===
Leskien, 542 (from Afanasief)
Russia
Sabres
Given by old man
===
i. _Zeits. f. Volksk._, 230
Lithuania
Bow and arrows
Given by angel
===
i. _Kathá_, 381
India
Sword
Given by goddess Durgá
===
Leclère, 112
Cambodia
Sabres
Given by magician
===
*Leskien, 404
Lithuania
Sword
Given by old man
===
*Von Wlislocki, _Volksdicht._, 260
Transylvania (Gipsy)
Silver sickle
Given by river-nymph
===
Cavallius, 78
Sweden
Knife
Given by mother
===
Cavallius, 95
Sweden
Spear
Given by father
===
Cavallius, 356
Sweden
Sword
Given by a sister, who is married to a dragon
===
*Dennys, 110
China
Sword
Supplied by heroine’s father
===
Thorpe, _Yuletide Stories_, 300; and Dasent, 131 (from Asbjörnsen)
Norway
Sword, ship, and art of brewing 100 lasts of malt
Given by one-eyed hags whose eyes hero has stolen (Graiai)
===
Pitrè, _Toscane_, 1
Tuscany
Mirror
Given by two old women with one eye between them (Graiai)
===
i. Gonzenbach, 272
Sicily
Defensive armour and swords
Given by fish in gratitude
===
Meier, _Märchen_, 101
Swabia
Magical pipe
Given by princess whom hero has freed from giants
===
*Luzel, ii. _Contes Pop._, 296
Brittany
Sword
Given by Murlu, a mythical creature (enchanted form of hero’s
father’s first wife), released by hero from captivity
===
*Sébillot, i. _Contes Pop._, 172
Brittany
Consecrated stole
Given by priest as reward for restoring treasures of chapel stolen
by robbers
===
{200}
===
Authority.
Country.
Weapons.
How acquired.
===
*Webster, 22
Basque Provinces
Sword and bottle of scented water
Given by Tartaro, a mythical creature released by hero
===
*ii. _Rivista_, 109
Sardinia
Consecrated stole
Given by priest as reward for restoring treasures of chapel stolen
by robbers
===
Grimm, i. _Tales_, 420
Germany
Gun, powder-horn, and bag
Given by huntsman who has already given dogs in exchange for goats
===
*Dorsey, _Cegiha_, 114
Omaha (N. A. Indian. Probably from France)
Sword
Given by a man in exchange for a bow that never misses
===
*Grimm, ii. _Tales_, 102
Hesse
Air-gun that never misses
Given by huntsman in payment for services during apprenticeship
===
i. Campbell, 71
Argyllshire
Sword
Forged by smith to order
===
i. Campbell, 93
South Uist
Iron staff
Forged by smith to order
===
*MacInnes, 279
Argyllshire
Club
Forged by smith to order
===
*ix. _Rev. Trad. Pop._, 172
Brittany
Club weighing 500 lbs.
Forged by smith to order
===
*ii. Von Hahn, 259
Island of Syra
Iron staff
Forged by smith to order
===
*Wardrop, 68
Georgia
Pair of shoes and bow and arrow
Made by smith to order
===
*Vinson, 56
Basque Provinces
Mace
Bought by hero
===
*Cox, _Cinderella_, 450 (iii. _Journ. Gipsy Lore Soc._, 208)
England (Gipsy)
Gut of bull-calf
Bull-calf given by father
===
*Von Wlislocki, _Armenier_, 3
Transylvania (Armenian)
Iron staff
Made by hero out of golden bird which is the life of a giant
destroyed by him
===
{201}
===
Authority.
Country.
Weapons.
How acquired.
===
*vi. _Folklore_, 309 (from O’Faherty, _Siamsa angheimhridh_, 60)
Connaught
Sword of light
Taken from giants killed by hero
===
*Curtin, _Ireland_, 157
West of Ireland
Three swords / Brown apple
Acquired by conquest of three giants / Given by third giant’s
housekeeper
===
*i. Campbell, 97
Argyllshire
Sword?
Acquired from conquered giants
===
*ii. Strackerjan, 333
Oldenburg
Ointment
Taken from dwelling of robbers killed by hero
===
*Haltrich, 101
Transylvania (Saxon)
Sword
Taken from house of robbers conquered by hero
===
*Schleicher, 54
Lithuania
Stick / Gun and sword
Taken by hero from his father / Taken from dwelling of conquered
robbers
===
*iii. _Archivio_, 537
Abruzzi
Sword
Taken from slaughtered giant
===
*i. Gonzenbach, 299
Sicily
Sword
Acquired by conquest of giant who held hero’s sister in thrall
===
*ii. Von Hahn, 49
Island of Syra
Sword
Taken from castle of ogre conquered by hero
===
*Burton, vi. _Suppl. Nights_, 363 (from _Galland_ MSS.)
Levant
Sword
Belonging to ogre killed by hero
===
*Romero, 129
Brazil (Portuguese)
Arms not specified
Taken from palace of ogre
===
*Schleicher, 4
Lithuania
Gun, sabre, and bottle of oil
Taken from uninhabited house
===
Grimm, i. _Tales_, 244
Hesse
Sword
Found buried before threshold of church on the dragon’s hill
===
{202}
===
Authority.
Country.
Weapons.
How acquired.
===
*Wolf, _Deutsche Hausm._, 369
Odenwald
Sword and whistle
Dug up by direction of a little grey dwarf at a crossway
===
*_Roumanian F. T._, 48
Roumania
Sword which petrifies
Found in hole in the earth made by hero’s arrow
===
*Temple, i. _Leg. Panj._, 17
Panjáb
Sword, heel-ropes, and arrow
Magical by inherent power of their owner, the hero
===
*i. Cosquin, 18, 74 (from Schiefner)
Avares of Caucasus
Diamond sword
?
===
*ii. Grässe, 29 (from Müller, _Siegburg und der Siegkreis_)
Rhine Prov.
Crucifix
?
===
* Stories thus marked do not belong to the Perseus cycle, though
containing the incident of the Slaughter of the Dragon.
TABLE C.
THE IMPOSTOR AND THE TOKENS.
{203}
===
Authority.
Country.
Token of identity.
Impostor.
===
i. Cosquin, 60
Lorraine
Tongues
Three charcoal-burners
===
i. Cosquin, 64
Lorraine
Tongues
Charcoal-burner
===
Zéliqzon, 63
Lorraine
Tongues
Charcoal-burner
===
*Luzel, ii. _Contes Pop._, 296
Brittany
Tongues
Charcoal-burner
===
*i. _Mélusine_, 57
Brittany
Tongues
Charcoal-burner
===
*ix. _Rev. Trad. Pop._, 172
Brittany
Tongues
Charcoal-burner
===
*ix. _Rev. Trad. Pop._, 173
Brittany
Tongues
Thatcher
===
*Sébillot, i. _Contes Pop._, 72
Brittany
Tongues
A passing man
===
*MacInnes, 478, citing the Tristan-saga
France (12th century)
Tongue
Cook
===
Bladé, _Agenais_, 9
Gascony
Tongues
===
*Henderson, 285
Co. Durham
Tongue
The lord of Mitford Castle. [He brings head and is successful]
===
Grimm, i. _Tales_, 419
Germany
Tongues
King’s marshal
===
Kuhn und Schwartz, 337
North Germany
Tongues
Coachman
===
Meier, _Märchen_, 204
Swabia
Tongues
Coachman
===
Meier, _Märchen_, 306
Swabia
Tongues
Cupbearer
===
*Zingerle, _K. und Hausm._, 35; and Busk, _Hofer_, 207
Tirol
Tongue
===
{204}
===
Authority.
Country.
Token of identity.
Impostor.
===
Zingerle, _K. und Hausm. aus Süddeutsch._, 260
Tirol
Tongues
King’s servant
===
i. Grundtvig, 277
Denmark
Tongues
The Red Knight
===
*_F. L. Andaluz_, 357
Andalucia
Tongues
Charcoal-burner
===
*x. _Bibl. Trad. Pop. Españ._, 249
Extremadura
Tongues
Negro
===
*i. Braga, 125
Portugal
Points of tongues
Not specified
===
ii. Macdonald, 341
Quilimane (probably from Portugal)
Tongue
Captain of soldiers
===
*Romero, 83
Brazil (Portuguese)
Points of tongues
Negro
===
*Romero, 129
Brazil (Portuguese)
Points of tongues
A prince
===
*ii. _Rivista_, 109
Sardinia
Tongues
A passing man
===
*De Gubernatis, ii. _Zool. Myth._, 36 note
Piedmont
Tongues
Chimney-sweeper
===
*Andrews, 230
Riviera
Tongues
Charcoal-burner
===
*Bernoni, _Fiabe_, 50
Venice
Tongues
Chimney-sweeper. [Detected by not knowing the names of hero’s dogs]
===
Pitrè, _Nov. Pop. Tosc._, 1
Tuscany
Tongues
Cobbler
===
De Gubernatis, 40
Tuscany
Tongues
Woodcutter
===
De Gubernatis, 41
Tuscany
Tongue
Charcoal-burner
===
Nerucci, 61; and Imbriani, 375
Tuscany
Tongues
Cobbler
===
*Pitrè, _Nov. Pop. Tosc._, 9
Tuscany
Tongues
An ugly Moor
===
*Leland, _Etr. Rom._, 109
Tuscany
Tongues
A poor youth. [He is successful]
===
*_Tuscan F. T._, 21
Tuscany
Tongues
===
iii. De Nino, 321
Abruzzi
Tongues
Charcoal-burner
===
*iii. _Archivio_, 537
Abruzzi
Tongues
Hero’s two comrades (soldiers)
===
{205}
===
Authority.
Country.
Token of identity.
Impostor.
===
i. Finamore, pt. i., 105
Abruzzi
Tongues cut out and thrown away
===
i. _Pentamerone_, 90; and i. Basile, 87
South Italy
Tongues
Peasant
===
*i. Gonzenbach, 299
Sicily
Tongues
Slave
===
Legrand, 161
Greece
Tongues
Charcoal-burner
===
*Maury, _Croy. et Lég._, 196, quoting a scholion on Apollonius
Rhodius
Megara, Ancient Greece
Tongue
King’s men
===
*Carnoy et Nicolaides, 75; and Garnett, i. _Wom._, 165
Lesbos
Tongues
Charcoal-burners
===
*Georgeakis, 84
Lesbos
Tongues
===
*Schott, 135
Wallachia
Tongues
Gipsy
===
*iii. _Rev. Trad. Pop._, 628
Roumania
Tongues
Gipsy, the emperor’s cook
===
Leskien, 385
Lithuania
Tongues
Coachman
===
*Leskien, 396
Lithuania
Tongues
Coachman
===
*Leskien, 404
Lithuania
Tongues
Coachman
===
*Schleicher, 54
Lithuania
Tongues
King’s servant
===
Auning, 79
Lettish
Tongues
Coachman
===
Auning, 87
Lettish
Tongues
Coachman
===
Auning, 92
Lettish
Tongues
Soldier
===
*Waldau, 468
Bohemia
Tongues
Coachman
===
*Dorsey, _Cegiha_, 114, and 127 (variant)
Omaha (N. Am. Indian. Probably from France)
Tongues
Black man
===
Thorpe, _Yuletide Stories_, 300; and Dasent, 131 (from Asbjörnsen)
Norway
Tongues and lungs
The Red Knight. [He takes the tokens: hero recognised by bringing
contents of the slain trolls’ ships]
===
Meier, _Märchen_, 101
Swabia
Tongues and eyes
Nobleman
===
Grimm, i. _Tales_, 244
Hesse
Tongues; and handkerchief given by princess
King’s marshal
===
*x. _Archivio_, 316
Dalmatia
Tongues wrapt in lady’s handkerchief
An old hunchbacked porter
===
{206}