And he takes his flute, and begins to play. She gets up all alive
again, and the priest says to him:
"Do sell me that flute, I beg you."
He answers that it is of great value, and that he will not sell it.
"But you must sell it me. How much do you want for it? I will give
you all you ask."
"Five hundred francs." And he gives it him.
The priest's housekeeper used sometimes to laugh at him. So when he
came home he wanted to frighten her a little; and, as usual, she begins
to make fun of him; and he stabs her with the large carving-knife. His
sister says to him,
"Do you know what you have done? You have killed your housekeeper!"
"No, no! I can put that to rights."
He begins to play on the flute, but it does no good at all. He rushes
off in a rage to the huntsman's house, and he ties the huntsman in a
sack, and hauls him off to throw him into the sea. As he passes near
the church, the bell begins to ring for Mass, and he leaves the man
there till he has said Mass. Meanwhile a shepherd passes. He asks
him what he is doing there. He says to him, "The priest is going to
throw me into the sea because I will not marry the king's daughter."
The other said to him, "I will put myself in your place, and I will
deliver you. When you have tied me up, go away with my flock."
When the priest returned, after having said Mass, he takes up the sack,
and the man says,
"I will marry the king's daughter."
"I will marry you presently."
And he throws him into the sea.
The good priest was returning home, when he sees the man with the
sheep, and says to him,
"Where did you get that flock from?"
"From the bottom of the sea. There are plenty there. Don't you see
that white head, how it lifts itself above the sea?"
"Yes; and I, too, must have a flock like that."
"Come close to the edge, then."
And our huntsman pushes him into the sea.
Gagna-haurra Hirigaray.
We have other tales about priests, all in the same spirit as this. The
Basques are a deeply religious people, and are generally on the best
terms with the clergy; but they will not be dominated by them. Any
attempt at undue interference in their national games or customs is
sure to be resented; of this we have known several instances--some
rather amusing ones. G. H., the narrator of the above tale, did not
know a word of French.
Some of Campbell's stories begin a little like these, e.g., Vol. I.,
p. 95, Macdonald's tale--"There was a king and a knight, as there
was and will be, and as grows the fir tree, some of it crooked
and some of it straight, and he was King of Eirinn." The ending,
"If they had lived well, they would have died well too," recals a
Latin inscription still occasionally to be seen on Basque houses:--
"Memento tua novissima,
Et non peccabis in æternum."
This is on two houses in Baigorry, and on one at Ascarrat, and probably
on many others.
(B.)--CONTES DES FÉES, DERIVED DIRECTLY FROM THE FRENCH.
We do not suppose that the tales here given are the only ones in our
collection which are derived more or less directly from or through
the French. Several of those previously given under different heads we
believe to have been so. The question, however, still remains: Whence
did Madame d'Aulnoy, Perrault, and the other writers of the charming
"Contes des Fées," derive their materials? Place their talent as high
as we may, we still believe them to have been incapable of inventing
them. Combine, transpose, dress up, refine--all this they did in an
incomparable manner. Some portions they may have culled, directly or
indirectly, from Eastern stories; their own imagination may have filled
up many a blank, expanded many a hint, clothed many a half-dressed body
in the habit of their own times--as heraldic painters formed grotesque
monsters by selecting and putting together parts from many diverse
animals; but to create, even in fancy, was beyond their line, if it
is not altogether beyond the power of man. Therefore, when we hear
these tales related by peasants ignorant of French, we may still ask
how far they have learnt them at second or third hand from the printed
works, and how far they are reciting the crude materials out of which
those works were originally composed? This is a question which can
only be fully answered when all the legends in all the languages and
patois of France shall have been collected and compared. Meanwhile,
we beg our readers to accept these few tales as a small and not very
valuable stone contributed towards the erection of so vast an edifice.