At a very early period in the progress of a people, and long before they
are acquainted with the use of letters, they feel the want of some
resource which in peace may amuse their leisure, and in war may
stimulate their courage. This is supplied to them by the invention of
ballads; which form the groundwork of all historical knowledge, and
which, in one shape or another, are found among some of the rudest
tribes of the earth. They are for the most part sung by a class of men
whose particular business it is thus to preserve the stock of
traditions. Indeed, so natural is this curiosity as to past events that
there are few nations to whom these bards or minstrels are unknown.
Thus, to select a few instances, it is they who have preserved the
popular traditions, not only of Europe, but also of China, Tibet, and
Tartary; likewise of India, of Scinde, of Beloochistan, of Western Asia,
of the islands of the Black Sea, of Egypt, of Western Africa, of North
America, of South America, and of the islands in the Pacific.
In all these countries, letters were long unknown, and as a people in
that state have no means of perpetuating their history except by oral
tradition, they select the form best calculated to assist their memory;
and it will, I believe, be found that the first rudiments of knowledge
consist always of poetry, and often of rhyme. The jingle pleases the ear
of the barbarian, and affords a security that he will hand it down to
his children in the unimpaired state in which he received it. This
guarantee against error increases still further the value of these
ballads; and instead of being considered as a mere amusement, they rise
to the dignity of judicial authorities. The allusions contained in them
are satisfactory proofs to decide the merits of rival families, or even
to fix the limits of those rude estates which such a society can
possess. We therefore find that the professed reciters and composers of
these songs are the recognized judges in all disputed matters; and as
they are often priests, and believed to be inspired, it is probably in
this way that the notion of the divine origin of poetry first arose.
These ballads will of course vary according to the customs and
temperaments of the different nations, and according to the climate to
which they are accustomed. In the south they assume a passionate and
voluptuous form; in the north they are rather remarkable for their
tragic and warlike character. But notwithstanding these diversities, all
such productions have one feature in common: they are not only founded
on truth, but making allowance for the colorings of poetry, they are all
strictly true. Men who are constantly repeating songs which they
constantly hear, and who appeal to the authorized singers of them as
final umpires in disputed questions, are not likely to be mistaken on
matters in the accuracy of which they have so lively an interest.
This is the earliest and most simple of the various stages through which
history is obliged to pass. But in the course of time, unless
unfavorable circumstances intervene, society advances; and among other
changes, there is one in particular of the greatest importance. I mean
the introduction of the art of writing, which, before many generations
are passed, must effect a complete alteration in the character of the
national traditions. The manner in which, this occurs has, so far as I
am aware, never been pointed out; and it will therefore be interesting
to attempt to trace some of its details.
The first and perhaps the most obvious consideration is, that the
introduction of the art of writing gives permanence to the national
knowledge, and thus lessens the utility of that oral information in
which all the acquirements of an unlettered people must be contained.
Hence it is that as a country advances the influence of tradition
diminishes, and traditions themselves become less trustworthy. Besides
this, the preservers of these traditions lose in this stage of society
much of their former reputation. Among a perfectly unlettered people,
the singers of ballads are, as we have already seen, the sole
depositaries of those historical facts on which the fame, and often the
property, of their chieftains principally depend. But when this same
nation becomes acquainted with the art of writing, it grows unwilling to
intrust these matters to the memory of itinerant singers, and avails
itself of its new art to preserve them in a fixed and material form. As
soon as this is effected, the importance of those who repeat the
national traditions is sensibly diminished. They gradually sink into an
inferior class, which, having lost its old reputation, no longer
consists of those superior men to whose abilities it owed its former
fame. Thus we see that although without letters there can be no
knowledge of much importance, it is nevertheless true that their
introduction is injurious to historical traditions in two distinct ways:
first by weakening the traditions, and secondly by weakening the class
of men whose occupation it is to preserve them.
But this is not all. Not only does the art of writing lessen the number
of traditionary truths, but it directly encourages the propagation of
falsehoods. This is effected by what may be termed a principle of
accumulation, to which all systems of belief have been deeply indebted.
In ancient times, for example, the name of Hercules was given to several
of those great public robbers who scourged mankind, and who, if their
crimes were successful as well as enormous, were sure after their death
to be worshiped as heroes. How this appellation originated is
uncertain; but it was probably bestowed at first on a single man, and
afterwards on those who resembled him in the character of their
achievements. This mode of extending the use of a single name is natural
to a barbarous people, and would cause little or no confusion, as long
as the tradition of the country remained local and unconnected. But as
soon as these traditions became fixed by a written language, the
collectors of them, deceived by the similarity of name, assembled the
scattered facts, and ascribing to a single man these accumulated
exploits, degraded history to the level of a miraculous mythology. In
the same way, soon after the use of letters was known in the North of
Europe, there was drawn up by Saxo Grammaticus the life of the
celebrated Ragnar Lodbrok. Either from accident or design, this great
warrior of Scandinavia, who had taught England to tremble, had received
the same name as another Ragnar, who was prince of Jutland about a
hundred years earlier. This coincidence would have caused no confusion
as long as each district preserved a distinct and independent account of
its own Ragnar. But by possessing the resource of writing, men became
able to consolidate the separate trains of events, and as it were, fuse
two truths into one error. And this was what actually happened. The
credulous Saxo put together the different exploits of both Ragnars, and
ascribing the whole of them to his favorite hero, has involved in
obscurity one of the most interesting parts of the early history
of Europe.
The annals of the North afford another curious instance of this source
of error. A tribe of Finns called Quæns occupied a considerable part of
the eastern coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. Their country was known as
Quænland; and this name gave rise to a belief that to the north of the
Baltic there was a nation of Amazons. This would easily have been
corrected by local knowledge: but by the use of writing, the flying
rumor was at once fixed; and the existence of such a people is
positively affirmed in some of the earliest European histories. Thus too
Åbo, the ancient capital of Finland, was called Turku, which in the
Swedish language means a market-place. Adam of Bremen, having occasion
to treat of the countries adjoining the Baltic, was so misled by the
word Turku that this celebrated historian assures his readers that there
were Turks in Finland.
To these illustrations many others might be added, showing how mere
names deceived the early historians, and gave rise to relations which
were entirely false, and might have been rectified on the spot; but
which, owing to the art of writing, were carried into distant countries
and thus placed beyond the reach of contradiction. Of such cases, one
more may be mentioned, as it concerns the history of England. Richard
I., the most barbarous of our princes, was known to his contemporaries
as the Lion; an appellation conferred upon him on account of his
fearlessness and the ferocity of his temper. Hence it was said that he
had the heart of a lion; and the title Coeur de Lion not only became
indissolubly connected with his name, but actually gave rise to a story,
repeated by innumerable writers, according to which he slew a lion in a
single combat. The name gave rise to the story; the story confirmed the
name: and another fiction was added to that long series of falsehoods of
which history mainly consisted during the Middle Ages.
The corruptions of history, thus naturally brought about by the mere
introduction of letters, were in Europe aided by an additional cause.
With the art of writing, there was in most cases also communicated a
knowledge of Christianity; and the new religion not only destroyed many
of the Pagan traditions, but falsified the remainder by amalgamating
them with monastic legends. The extent to which this was carried would
form a curious subject for inquiry; but one or two instances of it will
perhaps be sufficient to satisfy the generality of readers.
Of the earliest state of the great Northern nations we have little
positive evidence; but several of the lays in which the Scandinavian
poets related the feats of their ancestors or of their contemporaries
are still preserved; and notwithstanding their subsequent corruption, it
is admitted by the most competent judges that they embody real and
historical events. But in the ninth and tenth centuries, Christian
missionaries found their way across the Baltic, and introduced a
knowledge of their religion among the inhabitants of Northern Europe.
Scarcely was this effected when the sources of history began to be
poisoned. At the end of the eleventh century Saemund Sigfusson, a
Christian priest, gathered the popular and hitherto unwritten histories
of the North into what is called the "Elder Edda"; and he was satisfied
with adding to his compilation the corrective of a Christian hymn. A
hundred years later there was made another collection of the native
histories; but the principle which I have mentioned, having had a longer
time to operate, now displayed its effects still more clearly. In this
second collection, which is known by the name of the 'Younger Edda,'
there is an agreeable mixture of Greek, Jewish, and Christian fables;
and for the first time in the Scandinavian annals, we meet with the
widely diffused fiction of a Trojan descent.
If by way of further illustration we turn to other parts of the world,
we shall find a series of facts confirming this view. We shall find that
in those countries where there has been no change of religion, history
is more trustworthy and connected than in those countries where such a
change has taken place. In India, Brahmanism, which is still supreme,
was established at so early a period that its origin is lost in the
remotest antiquity. The consequence is that the native annals have never
been corrupted by any new superstition, and the Hindus are possessed of
historic traditions more ancient than can be found among any other
Asiatic people. In the same way, the Chinese have for upwards of two
thousand years preserved the religion of Fo, which is a form of
Buddhism. In China, therefore, though the civilization has never been
equal to that of India, there is a history, not indeed as old as the
natives would wish us to believe, but still stretching back to several
centuries before the Christian era, from whence it has been brought down
to our own times in an uninterrupted succession. On the other hand, the
Persians, whose intellectual development was certainly superior to that
of the Chinese, are nevertheless without any authentic information
respecting the early transactions of their ancient monarchy. For this I
can see no possible reason except the fact that Persia, soon after the
promulgation of the Koran, was conquered by the Mohammedans, who
completely subverted the Parsee religion and thus interrupted the stream
of the national traditions. Hence it is that, putting aside the myths of
the Zendavesta, we have no native authorities for Persian history of any
value, until the appearance in the eleventh century of the Shah Nameh;
in which, however, Firdusi has mingled the miraculous relations of those
two religions by which his country had been successively subjected. The
result is, that if it were not for the various discoveries which have
been made, of monuments, inscriptions, and coins, we should be compelled
to rely on the scanty and inaccurate details in the Greek writers for
our knowledge of the history of one of the most important of the Asiatic
monarchies.