Research into popular traditions has now reached a stage at which
the English Folk-Lore Society have found it desirable to attempt a
classification of its different branches, and in future, students
will perhaps devote their labours to one or another of these branches
rather than to the subject as a whole. Certain of the sections thus
mapped out have plainly more special attractions for a particular
class of workers: beliefs and superstitions chiefly concern those who
study comparative mythology; customs are of peculiar importance to the
sociologist, and so on. But tales and songs, while offering points of
interest to scientific specialists, appeal also to a much wider class,
namely, to all who care at all for literature. For the Folk-tale is
the father of all fiction, and the Folk-song is the mother of all
poetry.
Mankind may be divided into the half which listens and the half which
reads. For the first category in its former completeness, we must
go now to the East; in Europe only the poor, and of them a rapidly
decreasing proportion, have the memory to recite, the patience to
hear, the faith to receive. It was not always or primarily an
affair of classes: down even to a comparatively late day, the pure
story-teller was a popular member of society in provincial France
and Italy, and perhaps society was as well employed in listening to
wonder-tales as it is at present. But there is no going back.
The epitaph for the old order of things was written by the great
philosopher who threw the last shovel of earth on its grave:
O l'heureux temps que celui de ces fables
Des bons demons, des esprits familiers,
Des farfadets, aux mortels secourables!
On ecoutait tous ces faits admirables
Dans son chateau, pres d'un large foyer:
Le pere et l'oncle, et la mere et la fille,
Et les voisins, et toute la famille,
Ouvraient l'oreille a Monsieur l'aumonier,
Qui leur fesait des contes de sorcier.
On a banni les demons et les fees;
Sous la raison les graces etouffees,
Livrent nous c[oe]urs a l'insipidite;
Le raisonner tristement s'accredite;
On court, helas! apres la verite,
Ah! croyez-moi, l'erreur a son merite.[1]
Folk-songs differ from folk-tales by the fact of their making a more
emphatic claim to credibility. Prose is allowed to be more fanciful,
more frivolous than poetry. It deals with the brighter side; the hero
and heroine in the folk-tale marry and live happily ever after; in the
popular ballad they are but rarely united save in death. To the blithe
supernaturalism of elves and fairies, the folk-poet prefers the solemn
supernaturalism of ghost-lore.
The folk-song probably preceded the folk-tale. If we are to judge
either by early record or by the analogy of backward peoples, it seems
proved that in infant communities anything that was thought worth
remembering was sung. It must have been soon ascertained that words
rhythmically arranged take, as a rule, firmer root than prose. "As
I do not know how to read," says a modern Greek folk-singer, "I have
made this story into a song so as not to forget it."
Popular poetry is the reflection of moments of strong collective or
individual emotion. The springs of legend and poetry issue from the
deepest wells of national life; the very heart of a people is laid
bare in its sagas and songs. There have been times when a profound
feeling of race or patriotism has sufficed to turn a whole nation into
poets: this happened at the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, the
struggle for the Stuarts in Scotland, for independence in Greece. It
seems likely that all popular epics were born of some such concordant
thrill of emotion. The saying of "a very wise man" reported by Andrew
Fletcher of Saltoun, to the effect that if one were permitted to make
all the ballads, he need not care who made the laws, must be taken
with this reservation: the ballad-maker only wields his power for as
long as he is the true interpreter of the popular will. Laws may be
imposed on the unwilling, but not songs.
The Brothers Grimm said that they had not found a single lie in
folk-poetry. "The special value," wrote Goethe, "of what we call
national songs and ballads, is that their inspiration comes fresh
from nature: they are never got up, they flow from a sure spring." He
added, what must continually strike anyone who is brought in contact
with a primitive peasantry, "The unsophisticated man is more the
master of direct, effective expression in few words than he who has
received a regular literary education."
Bards chaunted the praises of head-men and heroes, and it may be
guessed that almost as soon and as universally as tribes and races
fell out, it grew to be the custom for each fighting chief to have
one or more bards in his personal service. Robert Wace describes how
William the Conqueror was followed by Taillefer, who
Mounted on steed that was swift of foot,
Went forth before the armed train
Singing of Roland and Charlemain,
Of Olivere, and the brave vassals
Who died at the Pass of Roncesvals.
The northern skalds accompanied the armies to the wars and were
present at all the battles. "Ye shall be here that ye may see with
your own eyes what is achieved this day," said King Olaf to his skalds
on the eve of the Battle of Stiklastad (1030), "and have no occasion,
when ye shall afterwards celebrate these actions in song, to depend on
the reports of others." In the same fight, a skald named Jhormod died
an honourable death, shot with an arrow while in the act of singing.
The early Keltic poets were forbidden to bear arms: a reminiscence of
their sacerdotal status, but they, too, looked on while others fought,
and encouraged the combatants with their songs. All these bards served
a higher purpose than the commemoration of individual leaders: they
became the historians of their epoch. The profession was one of
recognised eminence, and numbered kings among its adepts. Then it
declined with the rise of written chronicles, till the last bard
disappeared and only the ballad-singer remained.