Part 15

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).

_Remarks._--Thackeray's reference to the "Arabian Nights" is especially apt, as the tale of Conall is a framework story like _The 1001 Nights_, the three stories told by Conall being framed, as it were, in a fourth which is nominally the real story. This method employed by the Indian story-tellers and from them adopted by Boccaccio and thence into all European literatures (Chaucer, Queen Margaret, &c.), is generally thought to be peculiar to the East, and to be ultimately derived from the Jatakas or Birth Stories of the Buddha who tells his adventures in former incarnations. Here we find it in Celtdom, and it occurs also in "The Story-teller at Fault" in this collection, and the story of _Koisha Kayn_ in MacInnes's _Argyllshire Tales_, a variant of which, collected but not published by Campbell, has no less than nineteen tales enclosed in a framework. The question is whether the method was adopted independently in Ireland, or was due to foreign influences. Confining ourselves to "Conall Yellowclaw," it seems not unlikely that the whole story is an importation. For the second episode is clearly the story of Polyphemus from the Odyssey which was known in Ireland perhaps as early as the tenth century (see Prof. K. Meyer's edition of _Merugud Uilix maic Leirtis_, Pref. p. xii). It also crept into the voyages of Sindbad in the _Arabian Nights_. And as told in the Highlands it bears comparison even with the Homeric version. As Mr. Nutt remarks (_Celt. Mag._ xii.) the address of the giant to the buck is as effective as that of Polyphemus to his ram. The narrator, James Wilson, was a blind man who would naturally feel the pathos of the address; "it comes from the heart of the narrator;" says Campbell (_l. c._, 148), "it is the ornament which his mind hangs on the frame of the story."

VI. HUDDEN AND DUDDEN.

_Source._--From oral tradition, by the late D. W. Logie, taken down by Mr. Alfred Nutt.

_Parallels._--Lover has a tale, "Little Fairly," obviously derived from this folk-tale; and there is another very similar, "Darby Darly." Another version of our tale is given under the title "Donald and his Neighbours," in the chapbook _Hibernian Tales_, whence it was reprinted by Thackeray in his _Irish Sketch-Book_, c., xvi. This has the incident of the "accidental matricide," on which see Prof. R. Kohler on Gonzenbach _Sicil. Marchen_, ii., 224. No less than four tales of Campbell are of this type (_Pop. Tales_, ii., 218-31). M. Cosquin in his _Contes populaires de Lorraine_, the storehouse of "storiology," has elaborate excursuses in this class of tales attached to his Nos. x. and xx. Mr. Clouston discusses it also in his _Pop. Tales_, ii. 229-88. Both these writers are inclined to trace the chief incidents to India. It is to be observed that one of the earliest popular drolls in Europe, _Unibos_, a Latin poem of the eleventh, and perhaps the tenth, century, has the main outlines of the story, the fraudulent sale of worthless objects and the escape from the sack trick. The same story occurs in Straparola, the European earliest collection of folk-tales in the sixteenth century. On the other hand, the gold sticking to the scales is familiar to us in _Ali Baba_. (_Cf._ Cosquin, _l. c._, i., 225-6, 229).

_Remarks._--It is indeed curious to find, as M. Cosquin points out, a cunning fellow tied in a sack getting out by crying, "I won't marry the princess," in countries so far apart as Ireland, Sicily (Gonzenbach, No. 71), Afghanistan (Thorburn, _Bannu_, p. 184), and Jamaica (_Folk-Lore Record_, iii., 53). It is indeed impossible to think these are disconnected, and for drolls of this kind a good case has been made out for the borrowing hypotheses by M. Cosquin and Mr. Clouston. Who borrowed from whom is another and more difficult question which has to be judged on its merits in each individual case.

This is a type of Celtic folk-tales which are European in spread, have analogies with the East, and can only be said to be Celtic by adoption and by colouring. They form a distinct section of the tales told by the Celts, and must be represented in any characteristic selection. Other examples are xi., xv., xx., and perhaps xxii.

VII. SHEPHERD OF MYDDVAI.

_Source._--Preface to the edition of "The Physicians of Myddvai;" their prescription-book, from the Red Book of Hergest, published by the Welsh MS. Society in 1861. The legend is not given in the Red Book, but from oral tradition by Mr. W. Rees, p. xxi. As this is the first of the Welsh tales in this book it may be as well to give the reader such guidance as I can afford him on the intricacies of Welsh pronunciation, especially with regard to the mysterious _w_'s and _y_'s of Welsh orthography. For _w_ substitute double _o_, as in "_fool_" and for _y_, the short _u_ in b_u_t, and as near approach to Cymric speech will be reached as is possible for the outlander. It may be added that double _d_ equals _th_, and double _l_ is something like _Fl_, as Shakespeare knew in calling his Welsh soldier Fluellen (Llewelyn). Thus "Meddygon Myddvai" would be _Anglice_ "Methugon Muthvai."