dwellings might have, in the process of time, become altered into the
gorgeous halls, decked with gold and silver and precious stones, as we
find them in the stories; they might even, though this is much more
difficult to understand, have become possessed of the capacity for being
raised upon red pillars. But there is one pitch to which, I think, they
could never have attained, and that is the importance which they assume
when they become the external covering of a large and extensive tract of
underground country. Here we are brought face to face with a totally
different explanation, to which I shall recur in due course.
(4.) The little people are not by any means associated entirely with
mounds, as the foregoing section is largely intended to show. Their
habitations may be in or amongst stones, in caves, under the water, in
trees, or amongst the glades of a forest; they may dwell on mountains, on
moors, or even under the altars of churches. We may freely grant that some
of these habitations fall into line with Mr. MacRitchie's theory, but they
are not all susceptible of such an explanation.
(5.) The association of giants and dwarfs in certain places, even the
confusion of the two races, seems somewhat difficult of explanation by
this theory. In Ireland the distinction between the two classes is sharper
than in other places, since, as Sir William Wilde pointed out, whilst
every green rath in that island is consecrated to the fairies or "good
people," the remains attributed to the giants are of a different character
and probably of a later date. In some places, however, a mound similar to
those often connected with fairies is associated with a giant, as is the
case at Sessay parish, near Thirsk,[A] and at Fyfield in Wiltshire. The
chambered tumulus at Luckington is spoken of as the Giant's Caves, and
that at Nempnet in Somersetshire as the Fairy's Toot. In Denmark, tumuli
seem to be described indifferently as Zettestuer (Giants' Chambers) or
Troldestuer (Fairies' Chambers).[B] In "Beowulf" a chambered tumulus is
described, in the recesses of which were treasures watched over for three
hundred years by a dragon. This barrow was of stone, and the work of
giants.
Seah on enta geweorc, Looked on the giant's work,
hû ða stân-bogan, how the stone arches,
stapulinn-faeste, on pillars fast,
êce eorð-reced the eternal earth-house
innan healde. held within.
[Footnote A: _Folk Lore_, i. 130.]
[Footnote B: _Flint Chips_, p. 412.]
The mounds have sometimes been made by giants and afterwards inhabited by
dwarfs, as in the case of the Nine-hills, already alluded to. In others,
they are at the same time inhabited by giants, dwarfs, and others, as in
the story of the Dwarf's Banquet,[A] and still more markedly in the
Wunderberg. "The celebrated Wunderberg, or Underberg, on the great moor
near Salzburg, is the chief haunt of the Wild-women. The Wunderberg is
said to be quite hollow, and supplied with stately palaces, churches,
monasteries, gardens, and springs of gold and silver. Its inhabitants,
beside the Wild-women, are little men, who have charge of the treasures it
contains, and who at midnight repair to Salzburg to perform their
devotions in the cathedral; giants, who used to come to the church of
Grödich and exhort the people to lead a godly and pious life; and the
great Emperor Charles V., with golden crown and sceptre, attended by
knights and lords. His grey beard has twice encompassed the table at which
he sits, and when it has the third time grown round it, the end of the
world and the appearance of the Antichrist will take place."[B]
[Footnote A: Grimm ap. Keightley, 130.]
[Footnote B: Grimm ap. Keightley, 234.]
In the folk-tales of the Magyars we meet with a still more remarkable
confusion between these two classes of beings. Some of the castles
described in these stories are inhabited by giants, others by fairies.
Again, the giants marry; their wives are fairies, so are their daughters.
They had no male issue, as their race was doomed to extermination. They
fall in love, and are fond of courting. Near Bikkfalva, in Háromszék, the
people still point out the "Lover's Bench" on a rock where the amorous
giant of Csigavár used to meet his sweetheart, the "fairy of
Veczeltetö."[A]
[Footnote A: _Folk Tales of the Magyars_, p. xxix.]
(6.) Tales of little people are to be found in countries where there never
were any Pigmy races. Not to deal with other, and perhaps more debatable
districts, we find an excellent example of this in North America. Besides
the instances mentioned in the foregoing section, the following may be
mentioned. Mr. Leland, speaking of the Un-a-games-suk, or Indian spirits
of the rocks and streams, says that these beings enter far more largely,
deeply, and socially into the life and faith of the Indians than elves or
fairies ever did into those of the Aryan race.[A] In his Algonquin Legends
the same author also alludes to small people.
[Footnote A: _Memoirs_, i. 34.]
Dr. Brinton tells me that the Micmacs have tales of similar Pigmies, whom
they call Wig[)u]l[)a]d[)u]mooch, who tie people with cords during their
sleep, &c. Mr. L.L. Frost, of Susanville, Lassen County, California, tells
us how, when he requested an Indian to gather and bring in all the
arrow-points he could find, the Indian declared them to be "no good," that
they had been made by the lizards. Whereupon Mr. Frost drew from him the
following lizard-story. "There was a time when the lizards were little
men, and the arrow-points which are now found were shot by them at the
grizzly bear. The bears could talk then, and would eat the little men
whenever they could catch them. The arrows of the little men were so small
that they would not kill the bears when shot into them, and only served to
enrage them." The Indian could not tell how the little men became
transformed into lizards.[A] Again, the Shoshones of California dread
their infants being changed by Ninumbees or dwarfs.[B]
[Footnote A: _Folk Lore Journal_, vii. 24.]
[Footnote B: Hartland, _ut supra_, p. 351.]
Finally, every one has read about the Pukwudjies, "the envious little
people, the fairies, the pigmies," in the pages of Longfellow's
"Hiawatha."[A] It ought to be mentioned that Mr. Leland states that the
red-capped, scanty-shirted elf of the Algonquins was obtained from the
Norsemen; but if, as he says, the idea of little people has sunk so deeply
into the Indian mind, it cannot in any large measure have been derived
from this source.[B]
[Footnote A: xviii.]
[Footnote B: _Etrusco Roman Remains_, p. 162.]
(7.) The stunted races whom Mr. MacRitchie considers to have formed the
subjects of the fairy legend have themselves tales of little people. This
is true especially of the Eskimo, as will have been already noticed, a
fact to which my attention was called by Mr. Hartland.
For the reasons just enumerated, I am unable to accept Mr. MacRitchie's
theory as a complete explanation of the fairy question, but I am far from
desirous of under-estimating the value and significance of his work. Mr.
Tylor, as I have already mentioned, states, in a sentence which may yet
serve as a motto for a work on the whole question of the origin of the
fairy myth, that "various different facts have given rise to stories of
giants and dwarfs, more than one mythic element perhaps combining to form
a single legend--a result perplexing in the extreme to the mythological
interpreter."[A] And I think it may be granted that Mr. MacRitchie has
gone far to show that one of these mythic elements, one strand in the
twisted cord of fairy mythology, is the half-forgotten memory of skulking
aborigines, or, as Mr. Nutt well puts it, the "distorted recollections of
alien and inimical races." But it is not the only one. It is far from
being my intention to endeavour to deal exhaustively with the difficult
question of the origin of fairy tales. Knowledge and the space permissible
in an introduction such as this would alike fail me in such a task. It
may, however, be permissible to mention a few points which seem to impress
themselves upon one in making a study of the stories with which I have
been dealing. In the first place, one can scarcely fail to notice how much
in common there is between the tales of the little people and the accounts
of that underground world, which, with so many races, is the habitation of
the souls of the departed. Dr. Callaway has already drawn attention to
this point in connection with the ancestor-worship of the Amazulu.[B] He
says, "It may be worth while to note the curious coincidence of thought
among the Amazulu regarding the Amatongo or Abapansi, and that of the
Scotch and Irish regarding the fairies or 'good people.' For instance, the
'good people' of the Irish have assigned to them, in many respects the
same motives and actions as the Amatongo. They call the living to join
them, that is, by death; they cause disease which common doctors cannot
understand nor cure; they have their feelings, interests, partialities,
and antipathies, and contend with each other about the living. The common
people call them their friends or people, which is equivalent to the term
_abakubo_ given to the Amatongo. They reveal themselves in the form of the
dead, and it appears to be supposed that the dead become 'good people,' as
the dead among the Amazulu become Amatongo; and in funeral processions of
the 'good people' which some have professed to see, are recognised the
forms of those who have just died, as Umkatshana saw his relatives amongst
the Abapansi. The power of holding communion with the 'good people' is
consequent on an illness, just as the power to divine amongst the natives
of this country. So also in the Highland tales, a boy who had been carried
away by the fairies, on his return to his own home speaks of them as 'our
folks,' which is equivalent to _abakwetu_, applied to the Amatongo, and
among the Highlands they are called the 'good people' and 'the folk.' They
are also said to 'live underground,' and are therefore Abapansi or
subterranean. They are also, like the Abapansi, called ancestors. Thus the
Red Book of Clanranald is said not to have been dug up, but to have been
found on the moss; it seemed as if the ancestors sent it." There are other
points which make in the same direction. The soul is supposed by various
races to be a little man, an idea which at once links the manes of the
departed with Pigmy people. Thus Dr. Nansen tells us that amongst the
Eskimo a man has many souls. The largest dwell in the larynx and in the
left side, and are tiny men about the size of a sparrow. The other souls
dwell in other parts of the body, and are the size of a finger-joint.[C]
And the Macusi Indians[D] believe that although the body will decay, "the
man in our eyes" will not die, but wander about; an idea which is met with
even in Europe, and which perhaps gives us a clue to the conception of
smallness in size of the shades of the dead. Again, the belief that the
soul lives near the resting-place of its body is widespread, and at least
comparable with, if not equivalent to, the idea that the little people of
Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, and India live in the sepulchral mounds or
cromlechs of those countries. Closely connected with this is the idea of
the underground world, peopled by the souls of the departed like the
Abapansi, the widespread nature of which idea is shown by Dr. Tylor. "To
take one example, in which the more limited idea seems to have preceded
the more extensive, the Finns,[E] who feared the ghost of the departed as
unkind, harmful beings, fancied them dwelling with their bodies in the
grave, or else, with what Castrén thinks a later philosophy, assigned them
their dwelling in the subterranean Tuonela. Tuonela was like this upper
earth; the sun shone there, there was no lack of land and water, wood and
field, tilth and meadow; there were bears and wolves, snakes and pike, but
all things were of a hurtful, dismal kind; the woods dark and swarming
with wild beasts, the water black, the cornfields bearing seed of snake's
teeth; and there stern, pitiless old Tuoni, and his grim wife and son,
with the hooked fingers with iron points, kept watch and ward over the
dead lest they should escape."
[Footnote A: _Primitive Culture_, i. 388.]
[Footnote B: _Religious System of the Amazulu_, p. 226.]
[Footnote C: Nansen, _ut supra_, p. 227.]
[Footnote D: Tylor, _ut supra_, i. 431.]
[Footnote E: Tylor, _ut supra_, ii. 80.]
It is impossible not to see a connection between such conceptions as these
and the underground habitations of the little people entered by the green
mound which covered the bones of the dead. But the underground world was
not only associated with the shades of the departed; it was in many parts
of the world the place whence races had their origin, and here also we
meet in at least one instance known to me with the conception of a little
folk. A very widespread legend in Europe, and especially in Scandinavia,
according to Dr. Nansen, tells how the underground or invisible people
came into existence. "The Lord one day paid a visit to Eve as she was busy
washing her children. All those who were not yet washed she hurriedly hid
in cellars and corners and under big vessels, and presented the others to
the Visitor. The Lord asked if these were all, and she answered 'Yes;'
whereupon He replied, 'Then those which are _dulde_ (hidden) shall remain
_hulde_ (concealed, invisible). And from them the huldre-folk are
sprung."[A] There is also the widespread story of an origin underground,
as amongst the Wasabe, a sub-gens of the Omahas, who believe that their
ancestors were made under the earth and subsequently came to the
surface.[B] There is a similar story amongst the Z[=u]nis of Western New
Mexico. In journeying to their present place of habitation, they passed
through four worlds, all in the interior of this, the passage way from
darkness to light being through a large reed. From the inner world they
were led by the two little war-gods, Ah-ai-[=u]-ta and M[=a]-[=a]-s[=e]-we,
twin brothers, sons of the Sun, who were sent by the Sun to bring this
people to his presence.[C] From these stories it would appear that the
underground world, whether looked upon as the habitation of the dead or
the place of origination of nations, is connected with the conception of
little races and people. That it is thus responsible for some portion of
the conception of fairies seems to me to be more than probable.
[Footnote A: Nansen, _ut supra_, p. 262.]
[Footnote B: Dorset, _Omaha Sociology. American Bureau of Ethnology_, iii.
211.]
[Footnote C: Stevenson, _Religious Life of Zuni Child. American Bureau of
Ethnology_, v. 539.]
It is hardly necessary to allude to those spirits which animistic ideas
have attached amongst other objects and places, to trees and wells. They
are fully dealt with in Dr. Tylor's pages, and must not be forgotten in
connection with the present question.
To sum up, then, it appears as if the idea, so widely diffused, of little,
invisible, or only sometimes visible, people, is of the most complex
nature. From the darkness which shrouds it, however, it is possible to
discern some rays of light. That the souls of the departed, and the
underground world which they inhabit, are largely responsible for it, is,
I hope, rendered probable by the facts which I have brought forward. That
animistic ideas have played an important part in the evolution of the idea
of fairy peoples, is not open to doubt. That to these conceptions were
superadded many features really derived from the actions of aboriginal
races hiding before the destroying might of their invaders, and this not
merely in these islands, but in many parts of the world, has been, I
think, demonstrated by the labours of the gentleman whose theory I have so
often alluded to. But the point upon which it is desired to lay stress is
that the features derived from aboriginal races are only one amongst many
sources. Possibly they play an important part, but scarcely, I think, one
so important as Mr. MacRitchie would have us believe.
A PHILOLOGICAL ESSAY
Concerning the PYGMIES, THE CYNOCEPHALI, THE SATYRS and SPHINGES OF THE
ANCIENTS,
Wherein it will appear that they were all either APES or MONKEYS; and not
MEN, as formerly pretended.
By Edward Tyson M.D.
A Philological Essay Concerning the PYGMIES OF THE ANCIENTS.
Having had the Opportunity of Dissecting this remarkable Creature, which
not only in the _outward shape_ of the Body, but likewise in the structure
of many of the Inward Parts, so nearly resembles a Man, as plainly appears
by the _Anatomy_ I have here given of it, it suggested the Thought to me,
whether this sort of _Animal_, might not give the Foundation to the
Stories of the _Pygmies_ and afford an occasion not only to the _Poets_,
but _Historians_ too, of inventing the many Fables and wonderful and merry
Relations, that are transmitted down to us concerning them? I must
confess, I could never before entertain any other Opinion about them, but
that the whole was a _Fiction_: and as the first Account we have of them,
was from a _Poet_, so that they were only a Creature of the Brain,
produced by a warm and wanton Imagination, and that they never had any
Existence or Habitation elsewhere.
In this Opinion I was the more confirmed, because the most diligent
Enquiries of late into all the Parts of the inhabited World, could never
discover any such _Puny_ diminutive _Race_ of _Mankind_. That they should
be totally destroyed by the _Cranes_, their Enemies, and not a Straggler
here and there left remaining, was a Fate, that even those _Animals_ that
are constantly preyed upon by others, never undergo. Nothing therefore
appeared to me more Fabulous and Romantick, than their _History_, and the
Relations about them, that _Antiquity_ has delivered to us. And not only
_Strabo_ of old, but our greatest Men of Learning of late, have wholly
exploded them, as a mere _figment_; invented only to amuse, and divert the
Reader with the Comical Narration of their Atchievements, believing that
there were never any such Creatures in Nature.
This opinion had so fully obtained with me, that I never thought it worth
the Enquiry, how they came to invent such Extravagant Stories: Nor should
I now, but upon the Occasion of Dissecting this _Animal_: For observing
that 'tis call'd even to this day in the _Indian_ or _Malabar_ Language,
_Orang-Outang_, i.e. a _Man_ of the _Woods_, or _Wild-men_; and being
brought from _Africa_, that part of the World, where the _Pygmies_ are
said to inhabit; and it's present _Stature_ likewise tallying so well with
that of the _Pygmies_ of the Ancients; these Considerations put me upon
the search, to inform my self farther about them, and to examine, whether
I could meet with any thing that might illustrate their _History_. For I
thought it strange, that if the whole was but a meer Fiction, that so many
succeeding Generations should be so fond of preserving a _Story_, that had
no Foundation at all in Nature; and that the _Ancients_ should trouble
themselves so much about them. If therefore I can make out in this
_Essay_, that there were such _Animals_ as _Pygmies_; and that they were
not a _Race_ of _Men_, but _Apes_; and can discover the _Authors_, who
have forged all, or most of the idle Stories concerning them; and shew how
the Cheat in after Ages has been carried on, by embalming the Bodies of
_Apes_, then exposing them for the _Men_ of the Country, from whence they
brought them: If I can do this, I shall think my time not wholly lost, nor
the trouble altogether useless, that I have had in this Enquiry.
My Design is not to justifie all the Relations that have been given of
this _Animal_, even by Authors of reputed Credit; but, as far as I can, to
distinguish Truth from Fable; and herein, if what I assert amounts to a
Probability, 'tis all I pretend to. I shall accordingly endeavour to make
it appear, that not only the _Pygmies_ of the Ancients, but also the
_Cynocephali_, and _Satyrs_ and _Sphinges_ were only _Apes_ or _Monkeys_,
not _Men_, as they have been represented. But the Story of the _Pygmies_
being the greatest Imposture, I shall chiefly concern my self about them,
and shall be more concise on the others, since they will not need so
strict an Examination.
We will begin with the Poet _Homer_, who is generally owned as the first
Inventor of the Fable of the _Pygmies_, if it be a Fable, and not a true
Story, as I believe will appear in the Account I shall give of them. Now
_Homer_ only mentions them in a _Simile_, wherein he compares the Shouts
that the _Trojans_ made, when they were going to joyn Battle with the
_Græcians_, to the great Noise of the _Cranes_, going to fight the
_Pygmies_: he saith,[A]
[Greek: Ai t' epei oun cheimona phygon, kai athesphaton ombron
Klangae tai ge petontai ep' okeanoio rhoaon
'Andrasi pygmaioisi phonon kai kaera pherousai.] i.e.
_Quæ simul ac fugere Imbres, Hyememque Nivalem
Cum magno Oceani clangore ferantur ad undas
Pygmæis pugnamque Viris, cædesque ferentes._
[Footnote A: _Homer. Iliad_. lib. 3. ver. 4.]
Or as _Helius Eobanus Hessus_ paraphrases the whole.[A]
_Postquam sub Ducibus digesta per agmina stabant
Quæque fuis, Equitum turmæ, Peditumque Cohortes,
Obvia torquentes Danais vestigia Troës
Ibant, sublato Campum clamore replentes:
Non secus ac cuneata Gruum sublime volantum
Agmina, dum fugiunt Imbres, ac frigora Brumæ,
Per Coelum matutino clangore feruntur,
Oceanumque petunt, mortem exitiumque cruentum
Irrita Pigmæis moturis arma ferentes._
[Footnote A: _Homeri Ilias Latino Carmine reddita ab Helio Eobano Hesso_.]
By [Greek: andrasi pygmaioisi] therefore, which is the Passage upon which
they have grounded all their fabulous Relations of the _Pygmies_, why may
not _Homer_ mean only _Pygmies_ or _Apes_ like _Men_. Such an Expression
is very allowable in a _Poet_, and is elegant and significant, especially
since there is so good a Foundation in Nature for him to use it, as we
have already seen, in the _Anatomy of the Orang-Outang_. Nor is a _Poet_
tied to that strictness of Expression, as an _Historian_ or _Philosopher_;
he has the liberty of pleasing the Reader's Phancy, by Pictures and
Representations of his own. If there be a becoming likeness, 'tis all that
he is accountable for. I might therefore here make the same _Apology_ for
him, as _Strabo_[A] do's on another account for his _Geography_, [Greek:
ou gar kat' agnoian ton topikon legetai, all' haedonaes kai terpseos
charin]. That he said it, not thro' Ignorance, but to please and delight:
Or, as in another place he expresses himself,[B] [Greek: ou gar kat'
agnoian taes istorias hypolaepteon genesthai touto, alla tragodias
charin]. _Homer_ did not make this slip thro' Ignorance of the true
_History_, but for the Beauty of his _Poem_. So that tho' he calls them
_Men Pygmies_, yet he may mean no more by it, than that they were like
_Men_. As to his Purpose, 'twill serve altogether as well, whether this
bloody Battle be fought between the _Cranes_ and _Pygmæan Men_, or the
_Cranes_ and _Apes_, which from their Stature he calls _Pygmies_, and from
their shape _Men_; provided that when the _Cranes_ go to engage, they make
a mighty terrible noise, and clang enough to fright these little _Wights_
their mortal Enemies. To have called them only _Apes_, had been flat and
low, and lessened the grandieur of the Battle. But this _Periphrasis_ of
them, [Greek: andres pygmaioi], raises the Reader's Phancy, and surprises
him, and is more becoming the Language of an Heroic Poem.
[Footnote A: _Strabo Geograph_. lib. 1. p.m. 25.]
[Footnote B: _Strabo_ ibid. p.m. 30.]