with T. Crofton Croker's _Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of
Ireland_. This contained some 38 anecdotes of the first-class
mentioned above, anecdotes showing the belief of the Irish peasantry
in the existence of fairies, gnomes, goblins and the like. The Grimms
did Croker the honour of translating part of his book, under the title
of _Irische Elfenmarchen_. Among the novelists and tale-writers of the
schools of Miss Edgeworth and Lever folk-tales were occasionally
utilised, as by Carleton in his _Traits and Stories_, by S. Lover in
his _Legends and Stories_, and by G. Griffin in his _Tales of a
Jury-Room_. These all tell their tales in the manner of the stage
Irishman. Chapbooks, _Royal Fairy Tales_ and _Hibernian Tales_, also
contained genuine folk-tales, and attracted Thackeray's attention in
his _Irish Sketch-Book_. The Irish Grimm, however, was Patrick
Kennedy, a Dublin bookseller, who believed in fairies, and in five
years (1866-71) printed about 100 folk and hero-tales and drolls
(classes 2, 3 and 4 above) in his _Legendary Fictions of the Irish
Celts_, 1866, _Fireside Stories of Ireland_, 1870, and _Bardic Stories
of Ireland_, 1871; all three are now unfortunately out of print. He
tells his stories neatly and with spirit, and retains much that is
_volkstumlich_ in his diction. He derived his materials from the
English speaking peasantry of County Wexford, who changed from Gaelic
to English while story-telling was in full vigour, and therefore
carried over the stories with the change of language. Lady Wilde has
told many folk-tales very effectively in her _Ancient Legends of
Ireland_, 1887. More recently two collectors have published stories
gathered from peasants of the West and North who can only speak
Gaelic. These are an American gentleman named Curtin, _Myths and
Folk-Tales of Ireland_, 1890, and Dr. Douglas Hyde who has published
in _Beside the Fire_, 1891, spirited English versions of some of the
stories he had published in the original Irish in his _Leabhar
Sgeulaigheachta_, Dublin, 1889. Miss Maclintock has a large MS.
collection, part of which has appeared in various periodicals; and
Messrs. Larminie and D. Fitzgerald are known to have much story
material in their possession.
But beside these more modern collections there exist in old and middle
Irish a large number of hero-tales (class 2) which formed the staple
of the old _ollamhs_ or bards. Of these tales of "cattle-liftings,
elopements, battles, voyages, courtships, caves, lakes, feasts,
sieges, and eruptions," a bard of even the fourth class had to know
seven fifties, presumably one for each day of the year. Sir William
Temple knew of a north-country gentleman of Ireland who was sent to
sleep every evening with a fresh tale from his bard. The _Book of
Leinster_, an Irish vellum of the twelfth century, contains a list of
189 of these hero-tales, many of which are extant to this day; E.
O'Curry gives the list in the Appendix to his _MS. Materials of Irish
History_. Another list of about 70 is given in the preface to the
third volume of the Ossianic Society's publications. Dr. Joyce
published a few of the more celebrated of these in _Old Celtic
Romances_; others appeared in _Atlantis_ (see notes on "Deirdre")
others in Kennedy's _Bardic Stories_, mentioned above.
Turning to SCOTLAND, we must put aside Chambers's _Popular Rhymes of
Scotland_, 1842, which contains for the most part folk-tales common
with those of England rather than those peculiar to the
Gaelic-speaking Scots. The first name here in time as in importance is
that of J. F. Campbell, of Islay. His four volumes, _Popular Tales of
the West Highlands_ (Edinburgh, 1860-2, recently republished by the
Islay Association), contain some 120 folk and hero-tales, told with
strict adherence to the language of the narrators, which is given with
a literal, a rather too literal, English version. This careful
accuracy has given an un-English air to his versions, and has
prevented them attaining their due popularity. What Campbell has
published represents only a tithe of what he collected. At the end of
the fourth volume he gives a list of 791 tales, &c., collected by him
or his assistants in the two years 1859-61; and in his MS. collections
at Edinburgh are two other lists containing 400 more tales. Only a
portion of these are in the Advocates' Library; the rest, if extant,
must be in private hands, though they are distinctly of national
importance and interest.
Campbell's influence has been effective of recent years in Scotland.
The _Celtic Magazine_ (vols. xii. and xiii.), while under the
editorship of Mr. MacBain, contained several folk and hero-tales in
Gaelic, and so did the _Scottish Celtic Review_. These were from the
collections of Messrs. Campbell of Tiree, Carmichael, and K. Macleod.
Recently Lord Archibald Campbell has shown laudable interest in the
preservation of Gaelic folk and hero-tales. Under his auspices a whole
series of handsome volumes, under the general title of _Waifs and
Strays of Celtic Tradition_, has been recently published, four volumes
having already appeared, each accompanied by notes by Mr. Alfred Nutt,
which form the most important aid to the study of Celtic Folk-Tales
since Campbell himself. Those to the second volume in particular
(Tales collected by Rev. D. MacInnes) fill 100 pages, with condensed
information on all aspects of the subject dealt with in the light of
the most recent research on the European folk-tales as well as on
Celtic literature. Thanks to Mr. Nutt, Scotland is just now to the
fore in the collection and study of the British Folk-Tale.
WALES makes a poor show beside Ireland and Scotland. Sikes's _British
Goblins_, and the tales collected by Prof. Rhys in _Y Cymmrodor_,
vols. ii.-vi., are mainly of our first-class fairy anecdotes. Borrow,
in his _Wild Wales_, refers to a collection of fables in a journal
called _The Greal_, while the _Cambrian Quarterly Magazine_ for 1830
and 1831 contained a few fairy anecdotes, including a curious version
of the "Brewery of Eggshells," from the Welsh. In the older
literature, the _Iolo MSS._, published by the Welsh MSS. Society, has
a few fables and apologues, and the charming _Mabinogion_, translated
by Lady Guest, has tales that can trace back to the twelfth century
and are on the border-line between folk-tales and hero-tales.
CORNWALL and MAN are even worse off than Wales. Hunt's _Popular
Romances of the West of England_ has nothing distinctively Celtic, and
it is only by a chance Lhuyd chose a folk-tale as his specimen of
Cornish in his _Archaeologia Britannica_ 1709 (see _Tale of Ivan_). The
Manx folk-tales published, including the most recent by Mr. Moore, in
his _Folk-Lore of the Isle of Man_, 1891, are mainly fairy anecdotes
and legends.
From this survey of the field of Celtic folk-tales it is clear that
Ireland and Scotland provide the lion's share. The interesting thing
to notice is the remarkable similarity of Scotch and Irish folk-tales.
The continuity of language and culture between these two divisions of
Gaeldom has clearly brought about this identity of their folk-tales.
As will be seen from the following notes, the tales found in Scotland
can almost invariably be paralleled by those found in Ireland, and
_vice versa_. The result is a striking confirmation of the general
truth that the folk-lores of different countries resemble one another
in proportion to their contiguity and to the continuity of language
and culture between them.
Another point of interest in these Celtic folk-tales is the light they
throw upon the relation of hero-tales and folk-tales (classes 2 and 3
above). Tales told of Finn or Cuchulainn, and therefore coming under
the definition of hero-tales, are found elsewhere told of anonymous or
unknown heroes. The question is, were the folk-tales the earliest, and
were they localised and applied to the heroes, or were they heroic
sagas generalised and applied to an unknown [Greek: _tis_]? All the
evidence, in my opinion, inclines to the former view, which, as
applied to Celtic folk-tales, is of very great literary importance;
for it is becoming more and more recognised, thanks chiefly to the
admirable work of Mr. Alfred Nutt, in his _Studies on the Holy Grail_,
that the outburst of European Romance in the twelfth century was due,
in large measure, to an infusion of Celtic hero-tales into the
literature of the Romance-speaking nations. Now the remarkable thing
is, how these hero-tales have lingered on in oral tradition even to
the present day. (See a marked case in "Deirdre.") We may, therefore,
hope to see considerable light thrown on the most characteristic
spiritual product of the Middle Ages, the literature of Romance and
the spirit of chivalry, from the Celtic folk-tales of the present day.
Mr. Alfred Nutt has already shown this to be true of a special section
of Romance literature, that connected with the Holy Grail, and it
seems probable that further study will extend the field of application
of this new method of research.
The Celtic folk-tale again has interest in retaining many traits of
primitive conditions among the early inhabitants of these isles which
are preserved by no other record. Take, for instance, the calm
assumption of polygamy in "Gold-tree and Silver-tree." That represents
a state of feeling that is decidedly pre-Christian The belief in an
eternal soul, "Life Index," recently monographed by Mr. Frazer in his
"Golden Bough," also finds expression in a couple of the tales (see
notes on "Sea-Maiden" and "Fair, Brown, and Trembling"), and so with
many other primitive ideas.
Care, however, has to be taken in using folk-tales as evidence for
primitive practice among the nations where they are found. For the
tales may have come from another race--that is, for example, probably
the case with "Gold-tree and Silver-tree" (see Notes). Celtic tales
are of peculiar interest in this connection, as they afford one of the
best fields for studying the problem of diffusion, the most pressing
of the problems of the folk-tales just at present, at least in my
opinion. The Celts are at the further-most end of Europe. Tales that
travelled to them could go no further, and must therefore be the last
links in the chain.
For all these reasons, then, Celtic folk-tales are of high scientific
interest to the folk-lorist, while they yield to none in imaginative
and literary qualities. In any other country of Europe some national
means of recording them would have long ago been adopted. M. Luzel,
_e. g._, was commissioned by the French Minister of Public Instruction
to collect and report on the Breton folk-tales. England, here as
elsewhere, without any organized means of scientific research in the
historical and philological sciences, has to depend on the enthusiasm
of a few private individuals for work of national importance. Every
Celt of these islands or in the Gaeldom beyond the sea, and every
Celt-lover among the English-speaking nations, should regard it as one
of the duties of the race to put its traditions on record in the few
years that now remain before they will cease for ever to be living in
the hearts and memories of the humbler members of the race.
In the following Notes I have done as in my _English Fairy Tales_, and
given, first, the _sources_ whence I drew the tales, then, _parallels_
at length for the British Isles, with bibliographical references for
parallels abroad, and finally, _remarks_ where the tales seemed to
need them. In these I have not wearied or worried the reader with
conventional tall talk about the Celtic genius and its manifestations
in the folk-tale; on that topic one can only repeat Matthew Arnold
when at his best, in his _Celtic Literature_. Nor have I attempted to
deal with the more general aspects of the study of the Celtic
folk-tale. For these I must refer to Mr. Nutt's series of papers in
_The Celtic Magazine_, vol. xii., or, still better, to the masterly
introductions he is contributing to the series of _Waifs and Strays of
Celtic Tradition_, and to Dr. Hyde's _Beside the Fireside_. In my
remarks I have mainly confined myself to discussing the origin and
diffusion of the various tales, so far as anything definite could be
learnt or conjectured on that subject.
Before proceeding to the Notes, I may "put in," as the lawyers say, a
few summaries of the results reached in them. Of the twenty-six tales,
twelve (i., ii., v., viii., ix., x., xi., xv., xvi., xvii., xix.,
xxiv.) have Gaelic originals; three (vii., xiii., xxv.) are from the
Welsh; one (xxii.) from the now extinct Cornish; one an adaptation of
an English poem founded on a Welsh tradition (xxi., "Gellert"); and
the remaining nine are what may be termed Anglo-Irish. Regarding their
diffusion among the Celts, twelve are both Irish and Scotch (iv., v.,
vi., ix., x., xiv.-xvii., xix., xx., xxiv.); one (xxv.) is common to
Irish and Welsh; and one (xxii.) to Irish and Cornish; seven are found
only among the Celts in Ireland (i.-iii., xii., xviii., xxii., xxvi.);
two (viii., xi.) among the Scotch; and three (vii., xiii., xxi) among
the Welsh. Finally, so far as we can ascertain their origin, four (v.,
xvi., xxi., xxii.) are from the East; five (vi., x., xiv., xx., xxv.)
are European drolls; three of the romantic tales seem to have been
imported (vii., ix., xix.); while three others are possibly Celtic
exportations to the Continent (xv., xvii., xxiv.), though the last may
have previously come thence; the remaining eleven are, as far as
known, original to Celtic lands. Somewhat the same result would come
out, I believe, as the analysis of any representative collection of
folk-tales of any European district.
I. CONNLA AND THE FAIRY MAIDEN.
_Source._--From the old Irish "Echtra Condla chaim maic Cuind
Chetchathaig" of the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_ ("Book of the Dun Cow"),
which must have been written before 1106, when its scribe Maelmori
("Servant of Mary") was murdered. The original is given by Windisch
in his _Irish Grammar_. p. 120, also in the _Trans. Kilkenny Archaeol.
Soc._ for 1874. A fragment occurs in a Rawlinson MS., described by Dr.
W. Stokes, _Tripartite Life_, p. xxxvi. I have used the translation of
Prof. Zimmer in his _Keltische Beitrage_, ii. (_Zeits. f. deutsches
Altertum_, Bd. xxxiii., 262-4). Dr. Joyce has a somewhat florid
version in his _Old Celtic Romances_, from which I have borrowed a
touch or two. I have neither extenuated nor added aught but the last
sentence of the Fairy Maiden's last speech. Part of the original is in
metrical form, so that the whole is of the _cante-fable_ species,
which I believe to be the original form of the folk-tale (_Cf. Eng.
Fairy Tales_, notes, p. 240, and _infra_, p. 257).
_Parallels._--Prof. Zimmer's paper contains three other accounts of
the _terra repromissionis_ in the Irish sagas, one of them being the
similar adventure of Cormac, the nephew of Connla, or Condla Ruad as
he should be called. The fairy apple of gold occurs in Cormac Mac
Art's visit to the Brug of Manannan (Nutt's _Holy Grail_, 193).
_Remarks._--Conn, the hundred-fighter, had the head-kingship of
Ireland 123-157 A. D., according to the _Annals of the Four Masters_,
i., 105. On the day of his birth the five great roads from Tara to all
parts of Ireland were completed: one of them from Dublin is still
used. Connaught is said to have been named after him, but this is
scarcely consonant with Joyce's identification with Ptolemy's
_Nagnatai_ (_Irish Local Names_, i., 75). But there can be little
doubt of Conn's existence as a powerful ruler in Ireland in the second
century. The historic existence of Connla seems also to be
authenticated by the reference to him as Conly, the eldest son of
Conn, in the Annals of Clonmacnoise. As Conn was succeeded by his
third son, Art Enear, Connla was either slain or disappeared during
his father's lifetime. Under these circumstances it is not unlikely
that our legend grew up within the century after Conn--_i. e._, during
the latter half of the second century.
As regards the present form of it, Prof. Zimmer (_l. c._ 261-2) places
it in the seventh century. It has clearly been touched up by a
Christian hand, who introduced the reference to the day of judgment
and to the waning power of the Druids. But nothing turns upon this
interpolation, so that it is likely that even the present form of the
legend is pre-Christian--_i. e._, for Ireland, pre-Patrician, before
the fifth century.
The tale of Connla is thus the earliest fairy tale of modern Europe.
Besides this interest it contains an early account of one of the most
characteristic Celtic conceptions, that of the earthly Paradise, the
Isle of Youth, _Tir na n-Og_. This has impressed itself on the
European imagination; in the Arthuriad it is represented by the Vale
of Avalon, and as represented in the various Celtic visions of the
future life, it forms one of the main sources of Dante's _Divina
Commedia_. It is possible, too, I think, that the Homeric Hesperides
and the Fortunate Isles of the ancients had a Celtic origin (as is
well known, the early place-names of Europe are predominantly Celtic).
I have found, I believe, a reference to the conception in one of the
earliest passages in the classics dealing with the Druids. Lucan, in
his _Pharsalia_ (i, 450-8), addresses them in these high terms of
reverence:
Et vos barbaricos ritus, moremque sinistrum,
Sacrorum, Druidae, positis repetistis ab armis,
Solis nosse Deos et coeli numera vobis
Aut solis nescire datum; nemora alta remotis
Incolitis lucis. Vobis auctoribus umbrae,
Non tacitas Erebi sedes, Ditisque profundi,
Pallida regna petunt: _regit idem spiritus artus_
_Orbe alio_: longae, canitis si cognita, vitae
Mors media est.
The passage certainly seems to me to imply a different conception from
the ordinary classical views of the life after death, the dark and
dismal plains of Erebus peopled with ghosts; and the passage I have
italicised would chime in well with the conception of a continuance of
youth (_idem spiritus_) in Tir na n-Og (_orbe alio_).
One of the most pathetic, beautiful, and typical scenes in Irish
legend is the return of Ossian from Tir na n-Og, and his interview
with St. Patrick. The old faith and the new, the old order of things
and that which replaced it, meet in two of the most characteristic
products of the Irish imagination (for the Patrick of legend is as
much a legendary figure as Oisin himself). Ossian had gone away to Tir
na n-Og with the fairy Niamh under very much of the same circumstances
as Condla Ruad; time flies in the land of eternal youth, and when
Ossian returns, after a year, as he thinks, more than three centuries
had passed, and St. Patrick had just succeeded in introducing the new
faith. The contrast of Past and Present has never been more vividly or
beautifully represented.
II. GULEESH.
_Source._--From Dr. Douglas Hyde's _Beside the Fire_, 104-28, where it
is a translation from the same author's _Leabhar Sgeulaighteachta_.
Dr. Hyde got it from one Shamus O'Hart, a game-keeper of French-park.
One is curious to know how far the very beautiful landscapes in the
story are due to Dr. Hyde, who confesses to have only taken notes. I
have omitted a journey to Rome, paralleled, as Mr. Nutt has pointed
out, by the similar one of Michael Scott (_Waifs and Strays_, i., 46),
and not bearing on the main lines of the story. I have also dropped a
part of Guleesh's name; in the original he is "Guleesh na guss dhu,"
Guleesh of the black feet, because he never washed them; nothing turns
on this in the present form of the story, but one cannot but suspect
it was of importance in the original form.
_Parallels._--Dr. Hyde refers to two short stories, "Midnight Ride"
(to Rome) and "Stolen Bride," in Lady Wilde's _Ancient Legends_. But
the closest parallel is given by Miss Maclintock's Donegal tale of
"Jamie Freel and the Young Lady," reprinted in Mr. Yeats' _Irish Folk
and Fairy Tales_, 52-9. In the _Hibernian Tales_, "Mann o' Malaghan
and the Fairies," as reported by Thackeray in the _Irish Sketch-Book_,
c., xvi., begins like "Guleesh."
III. FIELD OF BOLIAUNS.
_Source._--T. Crofton Croker's _Fairy Legends of the South of
Ireland_, ed. Wright, pp. 135-9. In the original the gnome is a
Cluricaune, but as a friend of Mr. Batten's has recently heard the
tale told of a Lepracaun, I have adopted the better known title.
_Remarks._--_Lepracaun_ is from the Irish _leith bhrogan_, the one
shoemaker (_cf._ brogue), according to Dr. Hyde. He is generally seen
(and to this day, too) working at a single shoe, _cf._ Croker's story,
"Little Shoe," _l. c._ pp. 142-4. According to a writer in the _Revue
Celtique_, i., 256, the true etymology is _luchor pan_, "little man."
Dr. Joyce also gives the same etymology in _Irish Names and Places_,
i., 183, where he mentions several places named after them.
IV. HORNED WOMEN.
_Source._--Lady Wilde's _Ancient Legends_, the first story.
_Parallels._--A similar version was given by Mr. D. Fitzgerald in the
_Revue Celtique_, iv., 181, but without the significant and impressive
horns. He refers to _Cornhill_ for February, 1877, and to Campbell's
"Sauntraigh," No. xxii., _Pop. Tales_, ii., 52-4, in which a "woman of
peace" (a fairy) borrows a woman's kettle and returns it with flesh in
it, but at last the woman refuses, and is persecuted by the fairy. I
fail to see much analogy. A much closer one is in Campbell, ii., p.
63, where fairies are got rid of by shouting, "Dunveilg is on fire."
The familiar "lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home, your house is on
fire and your children at home," will occur to English minds. Another
version in Kennedy's _Legendary Fictions_, p. 164, "Black Stairs on
Fire."
_Remarks._--Slievenamon is a famous fairy palace in Tipperary
according to Dr. Joyce, _l. c._ i., 178. It was the hill on which Finn
stood when he gave himself as the prize to the Irish maiden who should
run up it quickest. Grainne won him with dire consequences, as all the
world knows or ought to know (Kennedy, _Legend Fict._, 222, "How Fion
selected a Wife").
V. CONALL YELLOWCLAW.
_Source._--Campbell, _Pop. Tales of West Highlands_, No. v. pp. 105-8.
"Conall Cra Bhuidhe." I have softened the third episode, which is
somewhat too ghastly in the original. I have translated "Cra Bhuide"
Yellowclaw on the strength of Campbell's etymology, _l. c._ p. 158.
_Parallels._--Campbell's vi. and vii. are two variants showing how
wide-spread the story is in Gaelic Scotland. It occurs in Ireland
where it has been printed in the chapbook, _Hibernian Tales_, as the
"Black Thief and the Knight of the Glen," the Black Thief being
Conall, and the knight corresponding to the King of Lochlan (it is
given in Mr. Lang's _Red Fairy Book_). Here it attracted the notice of
Thackeray, who gives a good abstract of it in his _Irish Sketch-Book_,
ch. xvi. He thinks it "worthy of the Arabian Nights, as wild and odd
as an Eastern tale." "That fantastic way of bearing testimony to the
previous tale by producing an old woman who says the tale is not only
true, but who was the very old woman who lived in the giant's castle
is almost" (why "almost," Mr. Thackeray?) "a stroke of genius." The
incident of the giant's breath occurs in the story of Koisha Kayn,
MacInnes's _Tales_, p. 241, as well as the Polyphemus one, _ibid._
265. One-eyed giants are frequent in Celtic folk-tales (_e. g._, in
_The Pursuit of Diarmaid_ and in the _Mabinogi_ of Owen).