The value of national stories and legends has in late years become
very widely recognised. Folk-lore has recently received a large amount
of attention, and the thought and labour bestowed upon the subject
have been rewarded by results which prove that its investigators have
entered upon no unfruitful, however long neglected, field.
This book, and its successors in the series which it is proposed to
issue, may come into the hands of some who, having little opportunity
afforded them to consider how the legends and tales it contains may be
of the value we claim for them, may be glad to have the "case" for
legends and national stories presented to them in a few words.
The peasant's tale, the story preserved through centuries on the lips
of old wives, the narrative which has come down to us having done duty
as a source of amusement in the fireside groups of preceding
generations, may seem to some to afford slight matter for reflection,
and may even appear so grotesque in its incidents as to be fitted only
to excite a smile of wonder at the simplicity of those among whom such
stories could obtain reception, and surprise at the fantastic
imagination in which such tales could find their origin. Modern
thought has, however, been busy asking itself what is the meaning of
these stories, and it has done much to supply itself with an answer.
This, at least, it has done: it has discovered that these legends and
tales, which so many have been inclined to cast aside as worthless,
are of a singular value, as throwing a light which little else can
afford upon the mind of primitive man. At first the collection of
national stories was undertaken merely for the purpose of affording
amusement. Folk-tales were diverting, so they found their way into
print, and were issued as curious literary matter fitted to supply
diversion for a vacant hour. Many of the tales are very beautiful, and
their mere literary merit sufficed to make them sought for. But
legendary lore was soon observed to possess much more value than could
attach to its merely amusing features. It was obvious that in these
legends were preserved the fragments of the beliefs of the ancient
folk. "The mythology of one period," remarked Sir Walter Scott,
"would appear to pass into the romance of the next century, and that
into the nursery tale of the subsequent ages." "Fiction," said Sir
John Malcolm, "resolves itself into its primitive elements, as, by the
slow and unceasing action of the wind and rain, the solid granite is
crumbled into sand. The creations embodied by the vivid imagination of
man in the childhood of his race incorporate themselves in his fond
and mistaken faith. Sanctity is given to his daydreams by the altar of
the idol. Then, perhaps, they acquire a deceitful truth from the
genius of the bard. Blended with the mortal hero, the aspect of the
god glances through the visor of the helmet, or adds a holy dignity to
the royal crown. Poetry borrows its ornaments from the lessons of the
priests. The ancient god of strength of the Teutons, throned in his
chariot of the stars, the Northern Wain, invested the Emperor of the
Franks and the paladins who surrounded him with superhuman might. And
the same constellation, darting down its rays upon the head of the
long-lost Arthur, has given to the monarch of the Britons the
veneration which once belonged to the son of 'Uthry Bendragon,'
'Thunder, the supreme leader,' and 'Eygyr, the generating power.' Time
rolls on; faith lessens; the flocks are led to graze within the rocky
circle of the giants, even the bones of the warriors moulder into
dust; the lay is no longer heard; and the fable, reduced again to its
original simplicity and nudity, becomes the fitting source of pastime
to the untutored peasant and the listening child. Hence we may yet
trace no small proportion of mystic and romantic lore in the tales
which gladden the cottage fireside, or, century after century, soothe
the infant to its slumbers." The works of the brothers Grimm, the
appearance of the _Kinder- und Haus-Mährchen_, in 1812, and of the
_Deutsche Mythologie_, in 1835, threw a new light on the importance of
national tales, and awoke the spirit of scientific comparison which
has made the study of Folk-lore productive of such valuable results.
With regard to the diffusion of national stories, it is remarkable
that we find substantially identical narratives flourishing in the
most widely separated countries, and this fact has given rise to
several explanatory theories, none of which seems perfectly
satisfactory. The philological discovery of the original unity of all
the Aryan races may account for the possession by the Aryan peoples of
similar stories. It may be, as Sir George Cox suggests, a common
inheritance of such tales as were current when the Aryans "still lived
as a single people." We find, however, that these tales are also
current among people whom, accepting this theory, we should least
expect to find possessing them, and so the wide diffusion of the
stories yet remains unsatisfactorily accounted for. Identity of
imagination, inheritance, transmission, may each have played its part.
As to the origin of the tales much debate has arisen. It is obvious
from the nature of the incidents of many of them that they could only
have originated in a most primitive state of man. "Early man," says
Sir George Cox, "had life, and therefore all things must have life
also. The sun, the moon, the stars, the ground on which he trod, the
clouds, storms, lightnings were all living beings; could he help
thinking that, like himself, they were all conscious beings also?"
Such, according to this authority, was the origin of primary myths,
secondary and tertiary myths arising in the course of time from the
gradual misunderstanding of phrases applied by primitive man to
personified objects. According to Professor Max Müller, animism, or
the investing all things with life, springs not in the first place
from man's thought, but from the language in which he clothes it. Man,
he says, found himself speaking of all things in words having "a
termination expressive of gender, and this naturally produced in the
mind the corresponding idea of sex." He thus came to invest all
objects with "something of an individual, active, sexual, and at last
personal character." However hard it may be to discover the reason for
the origin of the tendency to animism, the fact is certain that the
tendency is to be found generally existing among savage peoples, and
it would seem that we must accept the national stories which have come
down to us embodying this tendency in grotesque incidents as relics
handed down from the savage days of the people with whom the tales
originated, as the expression of portions of their thought when they
had as yet only attained to such a degree of civilisation as exists
among savages of the present day.
Strange and grotesque as some of the national stories are, they may be
regarded as embodying the fragments of some of man's most primitive
beliefs; and recognising this, it will be impossible to dismiss the
folk-tale as unworthy of careful consideration, nor may it be regarded
as unfitted to afford us, if studied aright, very much more than
merely such amusement as may be derived from its quaint incident and
grotesque plot.