By far the larger portion of our tales consist of those connected with the
popular mythology of elves, and giants, and bleeding trees; of witches and
their wicked doings; of frogs that _would_ go a-wooing, and got turned into
princes; and amorous princes who became frogs; of primitive rough chests
transformed into coaches; young ladies who go to bed young ladies, and get
up owls; much despised younger sons crowned kings of boundless realms; and
mediæval tabbies getting inducted into flourishing vizierships by the mere
loss of their tails: stories, in short, of the metamorphosis of all
conceivable things into all conceivable shapes. Lest this catalogue should
frighten your readers, I at once disavow any intention of reflecting more
than a specimen. Their puerility renders them scarcely suitable to your
columns, and there is moreover such a sameness in those best worth
preserving--the fairy legends--that a single example would be amply
sufficient for our purpose of pointing out the different varieties of oral
romance. Whenever the story relates to the dealings of the fairy-folk with
mankind, the elf is almost always represented as the dupe; while, in his
transactions with rival supernaturals, he invariably comes off victorious.
Giants especially, being always of sleepy and obtuse intellect, afford a
fine field for the display of his powers; and we find him baffling their
clumsy plans, as well also as the more cunning devices of weird-sisters, in
a manner which proves him to be a worthy scion of the warlike _avenger_ of
the Sagar. The lovers of folk-lore will probably agree with me in regarding
the following tale as a choice bit of elfin history, illustrating the not
very amicable relations of the witches and the good people. No sneers,
therefore, gentle readers, but listen to the simple strain of "Fairy Jip
and Witch One-eye."
Once upon a time, just before the monkey tribe gave up the nauseous custom
of chewing tobacco, there lived an old hag, who had conceived an inordinate
desire to eat an elf: a circumstance, by the way, which indubitably
establishes that elves were {602} of masticable solidity, and not, as some
one has it, mere
"_Shadowry_ dancers by the summer streams."
So the old lady went to the place where the fairies dwelt, and knocked at
the hill-top:--"Pretty little Jip!" said she; "come and see the sack of
cherries I have brought thee, _so_ large, _so_ red, _so_ sweet." Fairies,
be it known, are extremely fond of this fruit, and the elf rushed out in
eager haste. "Ha! ha!" said One-eye, as she pounced upon him, and put him
in her bag (witches always carry bags), "take care the stones don't stick
in thy throttle, my little bird." On the way home, she has to visit a place
some distance from the road, and left Jip meanwhile in the charge of a man
who was cutting faggots. No sooner was her back turned, than Jip begged the
man to let him out; and they filled the bag with thorns. One-eye called for
her burden, and set off towards home, making sure she had her dinner safe
on her back. "Ay, ay! my lad," said she, as she felt the pricking of the
thorns; "I'll trounce thee when I get home for stinging me with thy pins
and needles." When she reached her house, she belaboured the bag with a
huge stick, till she thought she had broken every bone in the elf's body;
and when she found that she had been wasting her strength upon a "kit" of
thorns, her rage knew no bounds. Next day, she again got possession of Jip
in a similar manner, and this time left him in care of a man who was
breaking stones by the road-side. The elf makes his escape as before, and
they fill the sack with stones. "Thou little rogue!" said the witch, as she
perspired under the burden; "I'll soften thy bones nigh-hand." Her appetite
was only whetted, not blunted, by these repeated failures, and despairing
of again catching her prey in the same way as before, she assumed the shape
of a pedlar with a churn on his shoulder, and contrived to meet Jip in a
wood. "Ah! Master Redcap," quoth she; "look alive, my little man, the fox
is after thee. See! here he comes: hie thee into my churn, and I will
shelter thee. Quick! quick!" In jumped the elf. "Pretty bird!" chuckled the
old Crocodile; "dost thee scent the fox?" This time she went straight home,
and gave Jip to her daughter, with strict orders that she should cut off
his noddle and boil it. When the time came for beginning the cooking, Miss
One-eye led her captive to the chopping-block, and bade him lay down his
head. "How?" quoth Jip; "I don't know how." "Like this, to be sure," said
she; and, suiting the action to the word, she put her poll in the right
position. Instantly the fairy seizes the hatchet, and serves her in the
manner she intended to serve him. Then picking up a huge pebble, he climbs
up the chimney to watch the progress of events. As he expected, the witch
came to the fire to look after her delicacy; and no sooner does she lift up
the lid of the pot, than "plop" came down Jip's pebble right into the
centre of her remaining optic, the light of which is extinguished for ever;
or, according to some versions, killed her _stone_-dead.[1]
Some of the stories are so extremely like the German ones, that, with very
slight alterations, they would serve as translations. These, for obvious
reasons, it will not be worth while to trouble you with. Among them, I may
particularise the following from the _Kinder und Hausmärchen_:--Hans im
Gluck: Der Frieder und das Catherlieschen; Von der Frau Füchsin; and Van
den Nachandel-Boom.
Modern tales of diablerie are not so uncommon as might be expected. In the
time of Chaucer, the popular belief ascribed the departure of the elves to
the great number of wandering friars who mercilessly pursued them with
bell, book, and candle; and at the present day, in the opinion of our
uneducated peasantry, the itinerant sectarian preachers are endowed with
similar attributes. The stories told of these men, and their encounters
with the powers of darkness, would fill a new Golden Legend. There is one
tale in particular which comes within our designation of "popular stories,"
as is well known in almost all parts of England,--How a godly minister
falls over the company of wicked scoffing elves, and how he gets out.[2]
The last time I heard it, it was related of a preacher of the Ranting
persuasion, well known some dozen years ago in a certain district of
Warwickshire; and I prefer to give it in this localised form, as it enables
me to present your readers with "Positively the last from Fairyland."
Providence B---- was a well-known man throughout that whole country-side.
He had made more converts than all his brethren put together, and, in the
matter of spirits and demons, would stand a comparison with Godred or
Gutlac, or, by'r Lady, St. Anthony himself. Now it fell out one day, that
Providence was sent for to the house of a wealthy yeoman to aid in
expelling an evil spirit which had long infested his daughter. I must here
remark, _en parenthèse_, that scenes of this fearfully ludicrous nature are
far from unfrequent in our country districts. The besotted state of
ignorance in which a great portion of our rural population are still
enwrapt, renders them peculiarly open to the fleecing of these fanatics,
who, marvellous to relate, are almost everywhere {603} looked upon with
respect, and treated with the greatest consideration, proving incontestably
that,
"Mad as Christians used to be
About the seventeenth century,
There's others to be had
In this the nineteenth just as bad."
On this occasion the job proved a tough one, and it was not till a late
hour that Prov. set off on his road home. It was a pitchy dark night, and
somehow or other the preacher and his nag contrived to lose their way among
the green lanes, and it was not till they had floundered about for some
time that our hero discerned (as is usual in such cases) a light gleaming
through the thick foliage before him, which he incontinently discovers to
proceed from a solitary dwelling in the middle of the woods. _Of course_ he
dismounts, and knocks at the door; and _of course_ it was opened by a
suspicious-looking old woman in toggery which it would do Mr. James's heart
good to depict. To his request for a night's lodging, she yielded a ready
assent--too ready, Prov. thought; for it seemed from her manner as though
he had been expected. He was shown into a bed-room, and was proceeding to
divest himself of his garments, when he hears a knock at the door, and a
voice asked him to come down to supper. Prov. made answer that he didn't
want any, that he was in bed, and that moreover he was engaged at his
devotions; but presently the messenger returned, and declared that if he
did not join the company downstairs, they would come and sup with him. Poor
Prov. quaked with fright, but thought it politic to cloak his fears, so
followed the servant to the house-room, where there were a number of people
sitting round a table plentifully laden with good things. All of them were
little "shrivelled up" old men; and, as the chairman motioned Prov. to a
vacant seat, they all regarded him with a stare that made him feel the
reverse of jolly. Although he is well acquainted with the neighbourhood, he
recognises none of them. The meal proceeded in solemn silence: look which
way he would, he encounters the gaze of his companions, who appear to scowl
at him with an expression of fiendish hate. Dreadful surmises flit across
his brain. Suddenly his attention becomes directed to the posterior portion
of the gentleman next him. "By Jove! he has a tail. Yes, he has; and so has
his neighbour, and so have they all." He fancies too he can trace a
resemblance between the individual who sits at the head of the table and
the fiend of the morning's exorcism. All is now clear as a pike-staff. It
is a decided case of trepan. That dark fellow on the right has to complain
of a forcible ejection from a comfortable dwelling in the portly corpus of
Master Muggins the miller; and he on the left is the identical demon who
got into Farmer Nelson's cow, and gave our hero a world of trouble to get
him out. He is in the power of the incubi, whom he has been so long warring
against. Not a moment is to be lost, for already they are whispering
together, and the scowls get fiercer and fiercer. What is to be done? A
monk would have had recourse to his breviary; Prov. thought of his
hymn-book. "Brethren," says he, "it is usual wi' us at the heend of a feast
to ax a blessing."
"A blessing quotha! and to _us_?" roared the fiends. "Ha! ha! Yea! yea!"
said Prov.; and _instanter_ he out with that _spirit-stirring_ stanza of
"immortal John:"
"Jesus the name, high over all,
In hell, or earth, or sky,
Angels and men before Him fall,
And devils fear and fly!"
Who shall depict the scene while these words were being uttered? The old
men turn all sorts of colours, from green to blue, and blue to green, and
back again to their original hue. At the last line, the uproar becomes
terrible; and, amidst shouts of fiendish wailing, the whole company resolve
themselves into a thin blue smoke, in which state they career up the
chimney, taking with them a bran new chimney-pot, and leaving behind a most
offensive odour of lucifer matches. Prov. saw no more; he fainted.
* * * * *
Some scandalous fellows spread abroad a report that the morning's sun
discovered our valiant vessel snugly ensconced in a dry ditch; but as he
always denounced strong waters, and was moreover a leading member of the
Steeple "United Totals," I, for one, do not believe it. From the examples
already given, I trust your readers will think with me that these old world
relics are worth preserving. I hope they will not be backward in the good
work. A few more years, and the scheme of an English work on the plan of
Grimm's will be impracticable. The romance-lore, both oral and written,
which erewhile delighted the cottager, is growing out of date. The prosy
narrative of "How John the serving-man wedded an earl's daughter, and
became a squire of high degree;" and the less placid, but still intolerably
dull feats of the "Seven Champions," have no charms for him now. He has
outgrown the old chap-book literature, and affectionates the highly
seasoned atrocities of the Old Bailey school; which, to the disgrace of the
legislature, are allowed to poison the minds of our labouring community
with their weekly broad-sheets of crime and obscenity. Even those prime old
favourites, the _Robin Hood Garland_ and _Shepherd's Kalendar_, with its
quaint letter-press and grim woodcuts, are getting out of fashion, and
beginning to be missed from their accustomed nook beside the family Bible.