We have now only to consider the men and women of these Tales, and then
our task is done. It will be sooner done, because they may be left to
speak for themselves, and must stand or fall by their own words and
actions. The tales of all races have a character and manner of their
own. Among the Hindoos the straight stem of the story is overhung with
a network of imagery which reminds one of the parasitic growth of a
tropical forest. Among the Arabs the tale is more elegant, pointed with
a moral, and adorned with tropes and episodes. Among the Italians it is
bright, light, dazzling, and swift. Among the French we have passed
from the woods, and fields, and hills, to my lady’s _boudoir_—rose-pink
is the prevailing colour, and the air is loaded with patchouli and
_mille fleurs_. We miss the song of birds, the modest odour of
wild-flowers, and the balmy fragrance of the pine forest. The Swedes
are more stiff, and their style is more like that of a chronicle than a
tale. The Germans are simple, hearty, and rather comic than humorous;
and M. Moe[60] has well said, that as we read them it is as if we sat
and listened to some elderly woman of the middle class, who recites
them with a clear, full, deep voice. In Scotland the few that have been
collected by Mr Robert Chambers[61] are as good in tone and keeping as
anything of the kind in the whole range of such popular
collections.[62] The wonderful likeness which is shown between such
tales as the “Red Bull of Norway” in Mr Chambers’ collection, and Katie
Woodencloak in these Norse Tales, is to be accounted for by no theory
of the importation of this or that particular tale in later times from
Norway, but by the fact that the Lowland Scots, among whom these tales
were told, were lineal descendants of Norsemen, who had either seized
the country in the Viking times, or had been driven into it across the
Border after the Norman Conquest.
These Norse Tales we may characterize as bold, out-spoken, and
humorous, in the true sense of humour. In the midst of every difficulty
and danger arises that old Norse feeling of making the best of
everything, and keeping a good face to the foe. The language and tone
are perhaps rather lower than in some other collections, but it must be
remembered that these are the tales of “hempen homespuns”, of Norse
yeomen, of _Norske Bonder_, who call a spade a spade, and who burn
tallow, not wax; and yet in no collection of tales is the general tone
so chaste, are the great principles of morality better worked out, and
right and wrong kept so steadily in sight. The general view of human
nature is good and kindly. The happiness of married life was never more
prettily told than in “Gudbrand on the Hillside”, No. xxi, where the
tenderness of the wife for her husband weighs down all other
considerations; and we all agree with M. Moe that it would be well if
there were many wives like Gudbrand’s. The balance too, is very evenly
kept between the sexes; for if any wife should point with indignation
at such a tale as “Not a Pin to choose between them”, No. xxiv, where
wives suffer; she will be amply avenged when she reads “The Husband who
was to mind the House”, No. xxxix, where the husband has decidedly the
worst of the bargain, and is punished as he deserves.
Of particular characters, one occurs repeatedly. This is that which we
have ventured, for want of a better word, to call “Boots”, from that
widely-spread tradition in English families, that the youngest brother
is bound to do all the hard work his brothers set him, and which has
also dignified him with the term here used. In Norse he is called
“_Askefis_”, or “_Espen Askefjis_”. By M. Moe he is called
“_Askepot_”,[63] a word which the Danes got from Germany, and which the
readers of Grimm’s Tales will see at once is own brother to
_Aschenpüttel_. The meaning of the word is “one who pokes about the
ashes and blows up the fire”; one who does dirty work in short; and in
Norway, according to M. Moe, the term is almost universally applied to
the youngest son of the family. He is Cinderella’s brother in fact; and
just as she had all the dirty work put upon her by her sisters, he
meets with the same fate from his brothers. He is generally the
youngest of three, whose names are often Peter and Paul, as in No.
xlii, and who despise, cry down, and mock him. But he has in him that
deep strength of character and natural power upon which the good powers
always smile. He is the man whom Heaven helps, because he can help
himself; and so, after his brothers try and fail, he alone can watch in
the barn, and tame the steed, and ride up the glass hill, and gain the
Princess and half the kingdom. The Norse “Boots” shares these qualities
in common with the “Pinkel” of the Swedes, and the _Dummling_ of the
Germans, as well as with our “Jack the Giant Killer”, but he starts
lower than these—he starts from the dust-bin and the coal-hole. There
he sits idle whilst all work; there he lies with that deep irony of
conscious power, which knows its time must one day come, and meantime
can afford to wait. When that time comes, he girds himself to the feat,
amidst the scoffs and scorn of his flesh and blood; but even then,
after he has done some great deed, he conceals it, returns to his
ashes, and again sits idly by the kitchen-fire, dirty, lazy, and
despised, until the time for final recognition comes, and then his dirt
and rags fall off—he stands out in all the majesty of his royal robes,
and is acknowledged once for all, a king. In this way does the
consciousness of a nation, and the mirror of its thought, reflect the
image and personification of a great moral truth, that modesty,
endurance, and ability will sooner or later reap their reward, however
much they maybe degraded, scoffed at, and despised by the proud, the
worthless, and the overbearing.[64]
As a general rule, the women are less strongly marked than the men; for
these tales, as is well said, are uttered “with a manly mouth”;[65] and
none of the female characters, except perhaps “The Mastermaid”, and
“Tatterhood”, can compare in strength with “The Master-Smith”, “The
Master-Thief,” “Shortshanks” or “Boots”. Still the true womanly type
comes out in full play in such tales as “The Two Step-Sisters”, No.
xvii; “East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon”, No. iv; “Bushy Bride”,
No. xlv, and “The Twelve Wild Ducks”, No. viii. In all these the lassie
is bright, and good, and helpful; she forgets herself in her eagerness
to help others. When she goes down the well after the unequal match
against her step-sister in spinning bristles against flax; she steps
tenderly over the hedge, milks the cow, shears the sheep, relieves the
boughs of the apple-tree—all out of the natural goodness of her heart.
When she is sent to fetch water from the well, she washes and brushes,
and even kisses, the loathsome head; she believes what her enemies say,
even to her own wrong and injury; she sacrifices all that she holds
most dear, and at last even herself, because she is made to believe
that it is her brother’s wish. And so on her, too, the good powers
smile. She can understand and profit by what the little birds say; she
knows how to choose the right casket. And at last, after many trials,
all at once the scene changes, and she receives a glorious reward,
while the wicked stepmother and her ugly daughter meet with a just
fate. Nor is another female character less tenderly drawn in Hacon
Grizzlebeard, No. vi, where we see the proud, haughty princess subdued
and tamed by natural affection into a faithful, loving wife. We
sympathise with her more than with the “Patient Grizzel” of the poets,
who is in reality too good, for her story has no relief; while in Hacon
Grizzlebeard we begin by being angry at the princess’s pride; we are
glad at the retribution which overtakes her, but we are gradually
melted at her sufferings and hardships when she gives up all for the
Beggar and follows him; we burst into tears with her when she exclaims
“Oh! the Beggar, and the babe, and the cabin!”—and we rejoice with her
when the Prince says “Here is the Beggar, and there is the babe, and so
let the cabin burn away.”
Nor is it unprofitable here to remark how the professions fare when
they appear in these tales. The Church cannot be said to be treated
with respect, for “Father Lawrence” is ludicrously deceived and
scurvily treated by the Master-Thief, No. xxxv; nor does the priest
come off any better in Goosey Grizzel, No. xxxiii, where he is thrown
by the Farmer into the wet moss. Indeed, it seems as if the popular
mind were determined to revenge itself when left to itself, for the
superstition of Rome on the one hand, and the severity of strict
Lutheranism on the other. It has little to say of either of them, but
when it does speak, its accents are not those of reverence and love.
The Law, too, as represented by those awful personages the Constable,
the Attorney, and the Sheriff in “The Mastermaid”, No. xi, is held up
to ridicule, and treated with anything but tenderness. But there is one
profession for which a good word is said, a single word, but enough to
show the feeling of the people. In the “Twelve Wild Ducks” No. viii,
the king is “as soft and kind” to Snow-white and Rosy-red “as a
doctor”—a doctor, alas! not of laws, but of medicine; and thus this
profession, so often despised, but in reality the noblest, has homage
paid to it in that single sentence, which neither the Church with all
its dignity, nor the Law with all its cunning, have been able to extort
from the popular mind. Yet even this profession has a hard word uttered
against it in “Katie Woodencloak”, No. l, where the doctor takes a
great fee from the wicked queen to say she will never be well unless
she has some of the Dun Bull’s flesh to eat.
And now it is time to bring this introduction to an end, lest it should
play the Wolf’s part to Odin, and swallow up the Tales themselves.
Enough has been said, at least, to prove that even nursery tales may
have a science of their own, and to show how the old Nornir and divine
spinners can revenge themselves if their old wives’ tales are insulted
and attacked. The inquiry itself might be almost indefinitely
prolonged, for this is a journey where each turn of the road brings out
a new point of view, and the longer we linger on our path, the longer
we find something fresh to see. Popular mythology is a virgin mine, and
its ore, so far from being exhausted or worked out, has here, in
England at least, been scarcely touched. It may, indeed, be dreaded
lest the time for collecting such English traditions is not past and
gone; whether the steam-engine and printing-press have not played their
great work of enlightenment too well; and whether the popular tales, of
which, no doubt, the land was once full, have not faded away before
those great inventions, as the race of Giants waned before the might of
Odin and the Aesir. Still the example of this very Norway, which at one
time was thought, even by her own sons, to have few tales of her own,
and now has been found to have them so fresh and full, may serve as a
warning not to abandon a search, which, indeed, can scarcely be said to
have been ever begun; and to suggest a doubt whether the ill success
which may have attended this or that particular attempt, may not have
been from the fault rather of the seekers after traditions, than from
the want of the traditions themselves. In point of fact, it is a matter
of the utmost difficulty to gather such tales in any country, as those
who have collected them most successfully will be the first to confess.
It is hard to make old and feeble women, who generally are the
depositaries of these national treasures, believe that the inquirer can
have any real interest in the matter. They fear that the question is
only put to turn them into ridicule; for the popular mind is a
sensitive plant; it becomes coy, and closes its leaves at the first
rude touch; and when once shut, it is hard to make these aged lips
reveal the secrets of the memory. There they remain, however, forming
part of an under-current of tradition, of which the educated classes,
through whose minds flows the bright upper-current of faith, are apt to
forget the very existence. Things out of sight, and therefore out of
mind. Now and then a wave of chance tosses them to the surface from
those hidden depths, and all Her Majesty’s inspectors of schools are
shocked at the wild shapes which still haunt the minds of the great
mass of the community. It cannot be said that the English are not a
superstitious people. Here we have gone on for more than a hundred
years proclaiming our opinion that the belief in witches, and wizards,
and ghosts, and fetches, was extinct throughout the land. Ministers of
all denominations have preached them down, and philosophers convinced
all the world of the absurdity of such vain superstitions; and yet it
has been reserved for another learned profession, the Law, to produce
in one trial at the Staffordshire assizes, a year or two ago, such a
host of witnesses, who firmly believed in witchcraft, and swore to
their belief in spectre dogs and wizards, as to show that, in the
Midland counties at least, such traditions are anything but extinct. If
so much of the bad has been spared by steam, by natural philosophy, and
by the Church, let us hope that some of the good may still linger along
with it, and that an English Grimm may yet arise who may carry out what
Mr. Chambers has so well begun in Scotland, and discover in the mouth
of an Anglo-Saxon Gammer Grethel, some, at least, of those popular
tales which England once had in common with all the Aryan race.
For these Norse Tales one may say that nothing can equal the tenderness
and skill with which MM. Asbjörnsen and Moe have collected them. Some
of that tenderness and beauty may, it is hoped, be found in this
English translation; but to those who have never been in the country
where they are current, and who are not familiar with that hearty
simple people, no words can tell the freshness and truth of the
originals. It is not that the idioms of the two languages are
different, for they are more nearly allied, both in vocabulary and
construction, than any other two tongues, but it is the face of nature
herself, and the character of the race that looks up to her, that fail
to the mind’s eye. The West Coast of Scotland is something like that
nature in a general way, except that it is infinitely smaller and less
grand; but that constant, bright blue sky, those deeply-indented,
sinuous, gleaming friths, those headstrong rivers and headlong falls,
those steep hillsides, those long ridges of fells, those peaks and
needles rising sharp above them, those hanging glaciers and wreaths of
everlasting snow, those towering endless pine forests, relieved by
slender stems of silver birch, those green spots in the midst of the
forest, those winding dales and upland lakes, those various shapes of
birds and beasts, the mighty crashing elk, the fleet reindeer, the
fearless bear, the nimble lynx, the shy wolf, those eagles and swans,
and seabirds, those many tones and notes of Nature’s voice making
distant music through the twilight summer night, those brilliant,
flashing, northern lights when days grow short, those dazzling,
blinding storms of autumn snow, that cheerful winter frost and cold,
that joy of sledging over the smooth ice, when the sharp-shod horse
careers at full speed with the light sledge, or rushes down the steep
pitches over the crackling snow through the green spruce wood—all these
form a Nature of their own. These particular features belong in their
fulness and combination to no other land. When in the midst of all this
natural scenery, we find an honest manly race, not the race of the
towns and cities, but of the dales and fells, free and unsubdued,
holding its own in a country where there are neither lords nor ladies,
but simple men and women. Brave men and fair women, who cling to the
traditions of their forefathers, and whose memory reflects as from the
faithful mirror of their native steel the whole history and progress of
their race—when all these natural features, and such a manly race meet;
then we have the stuff out of which these tales are made, the living
rocks out of which these sharp-cut national forms are hewn. Then, too,
our task of introducing them is over, we may lay aside our pen, and
leave the reader and the tales to themselves.