Chapter 13
_Parallels._--The essence of the tale occurs in Kennedy, _l.c._, p. 67, _seq._ Gobborn Seer's daughter was clearly the clever lass who is found in all parts of the Indo-European world. An instance in my _Indian Fairy Tales_, "Why the Fish Laughed" (No. xxiv.). She has been made a special study by Prof. Child, _English and Scotch Ballads_, i., 485, while an elaborate monograph by Prof. Benfey under the title "Die Kluge Dirne" (reprinted in his _Kleine Schriften_, ii., 156, _seq._), formed the occasion for his first presentation of his now well-known hypothesis of the derivation of all folk-tales from India.
_Remarks._--But for the accident of the title being preserved there would have been nothing to show that this tale had been imported into England from Ireland, whither it had probably been carried all the way from India.
LV. LAWKAMERCYME
_Source._--Halliwell, _Nursery Rhymes_.
_Parallels._--It is possible that this is an Eastern "sell": it occurs at any rate as the first episode in Fitzgerald's translation of Jami's _Salámán and Absál_. Jami, _ob._ 1492, introduces the story to illustrate the perplexities of the problem of individuality in a pantheistic system.
Lest, like the simple Arab in the tale, I grow perplext, O God! 'twixt ME and THEE, If I--this Spirit that inspires me whence? If THOU--then what this sensual impotence?
In other words, M. Bourget's _Cruelle Enigme_. The Arab yokel coming to Bagdad is fearful of losing his identity, and ties a pumpkin to his leg before going to sleep. His companion transfers it to his own leg. The yokel awaking is perplexed like the pantheist.
If I--the pumpkin why on YOU? If YOU--then where am I, and WHO?
LVI. TATTERCOATS
_Source._--Told to Mrs. Balfour by a little girl named Sally Brown, when she lived in the Cars in Lincolnshire. Sally had got it from her mother, who worked for Mrs. Balfour. It was originally told in dialect, which Mrs. Balfour has omitted.
_Parallels._--Miss Cox has included "Tattercoats" in her exhaustive collection of parallels of _Cinderella_ (Folk-Lore Society Publications, 1892), No. 274 from the MS. which I had lent her. Miss Cox rightly classes it as "Indeterminate," and it has only the _Menial Heroine_ and _Happy Marriage_ episodes in common with stories of the Cinderella type.
_Remarks._--_Tattercoats_ is of interest chiefly as being without any "fairy" or supernatural elements, unless the magic pipe can be so considered; it certainly gives the tale a fairy-like element. It is practically a prose variant of _King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid_, and is thus an instance of the folk-novel pure and simple, without any admixture of those unnatural incidents which transform the folk-novel into the serious folk-tale as we are accustomed to have it. Which is the prior, folk-novel or tale, it would be hard to say.
LVII. THE WEE BANNOCK
_Source._--Chambers's _Popular Rhymes of Scotland_. I have attempted an impossibility, I fear, in trying to anglicise, but the fun of the original tempted me. There still remain several technical trade terms requiring elucidation. I owe the following to the kindness of the Rev. Mr. Todd Martin, of Belfast. _Lawtrod_ = lap board on which the tailor irons; _tow cards_, the comb with which tow is carded; the _clove_, a heavy wooden knife for breaking up the flax. _Heckling_ is combing it with a _heckle_ or wooden comb; _binnings_ are halters for cattle made of _sprit_ or rushes. _Spurtle_ = spoon; _whins_ = gorse.
_Parallels._--This is clearly a variant of _Johnny-cake_ = journey-cake, No. xxviii., where see Notes.
_Remarks._--But here the interest is with the pursuers rather than with the pursued. The subtle characterisation of the various occupations reaches a high level of artistic merit. Mr. Barrie himself could scarcely have succeeded better in a very difficult task.
LVIII. JOHNNY GLOKE
_Source._--Contributed by Mr. W. Gregor to _Folk-Lore Journal_, vii. I have rechristened "Johnny Glaik" for the sake of the rhyme, and anglicised the few Scotticisms.
_Parallels._--This is clearly _The Valiant Tailor_ of the Grimms: "_x_ at a blow" has been bibliographised. (See my List of Incidents in Trans. Folk-Lore Congress, 1892, _sub voce._)
_Remarks._--How _The Valiant Tailor_ got to Aberdeen one cannot tell, though the resemblance is close enough to suggest a direct "lifting" from some English version of Grimm's _Goblins_. At the same time it must be remembered that _Jack the Giant Killer_ (see Notes on No. xix.) contains some of the incidents of _The Valiant Tailor_.
LIX. COAT O CLAY
_Source._--Contributed by Mrs. Balfour originally to _Longman's Magazine_, and thence to _Folk-Lore_, Sept., 1890.
_Remarks._--A rustic apologue, which is scarcely more than a prolonged pun on "Coat o' Clay." Mrs. Balfour's telling redeems it from the usual dulness of folk-tales with a moral or a double meaning.
LX. THE THREE COWS
_Source._--Contributed to Henderson, _l.c._, pp. 321-2, by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould.
_Parallels._--The incident "Bones together" occurs in _Rushen Coatie_ (_infra_, No. lxx.), and has been discussed by the Grimms, i., 399, and by Prof. Köhler, _Or. und Occ._, ii., 680.
LXI. THE BLINDED GIANT
_Source._--Henderson's _Folk-Lore of Northern Counties_. See also _Folk-Lore_.
_Parallels._--Polyphemus in the Odyssey and the Celtic parallels in _Celtic Fairy Tales_, No. v., "Conall Yellowclaw." The same incident occurs in one of Sindbad's voyages.
_Remarks._--Here we have another instance of the localisation of a well-known myth. There can be little doubt that the version is ultimately to be traced back to the Odyssey. The one-eyed giant, the barred door, the escape through the blinded giant's legs in the skin of a slaughtered animal, are a series of incidents that could not have arisen independently and casually. Yet till lately the mill stood to prove if the narrator lied, and every circumstance of local particularity seemed to vouch for the autochthonous character of the myth. The incident is an instructive one, and I have therefore included it in this volume, though it is little more than an anecdote in its present shape.
LXII. SCRAPEFOOT
_Source._--Collected by Mr. Batten from Mrs. H., who heard it from her mother over forty years ago.
_Parallels._--It is clearly a variant of Southey's _Three Bears_ (No. xviii.).
_Remarks._--This remarkable variant raises the question whether Southey did anything more than transform Scrapefoot into his naughty old woman, who in her turn has been transformed by popular tradition into the naughty girl Silver-hair. Mr. Nutt ingeniously suggests that Southey heard the story told of an old vixen, and mistook the rustic name of a female fox for the metaphorical application to women of fox-like temper. Mrs. H.'s version to my mind has all the marks of priority. It is throughout an animal tale, the touch at the end of the shaking the paws and the name Scrapefoot are too _volkstümlich_ to have been conscious variations on Southey's tale. In introducing the story in his _Doctor_, the poet laureate did not claim to do more than repeat a popular tale. I think that there can be little doubt that in Mrs. H.'s version we have now recovered this in its original form. If this is so, we may here have one more incident of the great Northern beast epic of bear and fox, on which Prof. Krohn has written an instructive monograph, _Bär (Wolf.) und Fuchs_ (Helsingfors, 1889).
LXIII. THE PEDLAR OF SWAFFHAM
_Source._--_Diary of Abraham de la Pryme_ (Surtees Soc.) under date 10th November, 1699, but rewritten by Mr. Nutt, who has retained the few characteristic seventeenth century touches of Pryme's dull and colourless narration. There is a somewhat fuller account in Blomefield's _History of Norfolk_, vi., 211-13, from Twysden's _Reminiscences_, ed. Hearne, p. 299, in this there is a double treasure; the first in an iron pot with a Latin inscription, which the pedlar, whose name is John Chapman, does not understand. Inquiring its meaning from a learned friend, he is told--
Under me doth lie Another much richer than I.
He accordingly digs deeper and finds another pot of gold.
_Parallels._--Blomefield refers to Fungerus, _Etymologicum Latino-Græcum_, pp. 1110-11, where the same story is told of a peasant of Dort, in Holland, who was similarly directed to go to Kempen Bridge. Prof. E.B. Cowell, who gives the passage from Fungerus in a special paper on the subject in the _Journal of Philology_, vi., 189-95, points out that the same story occurs in the _Masnávi_ of the Persian port Jalaluddin, whose _floruit_ is 1260 A.D. Here a young spendthrift of Bagdad is warned in a dream to repair to Cairo, with the usual result of being referred back.
_Remarks._--The artificial character of the incident is sufficient to prevent its having occurred in reality or to more than one inventive imagination. It must therefore have been brought to Europe from the East and adapted to local conditions at Dort and Swaffham. Prof. Cowell suggests that it was possibly adapted at the latter place to account for the effigy of the pedlar and his dog.
LXIV. THE OLD WITCH
_Source._--Collected by Mrs. Gomme at Deptford.
_Parallels._--I have a dim memory of hearing a similar tale in Australia in 1860. It is clearly parallel with the Grimms' _Frau Holle_, where the good girl is rewarded and the bad punished in a similar way. Perrault's _Toads and Diamonds_ is of the same _genus_.
LXV. THE THREE WISHES
_Source._--Steinberg's _Folk-Lore of Northamptonshire_, 1851, but entirely rewritten by Mr. Nutt, who has introduced from other variants one touch at the close--viz., the readiness of the wife to allow her husband to remain disfigured.
_Parallels._--Perrault's _Trois Souhaits_ is the same tale, and Mr. Lang has shown in his edition of Perrault (pp. xlii.-li.) how widely spread is the theme throughout the climes and the ages. I do not, however, understand him to grant that they are all derived from one source--that represented in the Indian _Pantschatantra_. In my _Æsop_, i., 140-1, I have pointed out an earlier version in Phædrus where it occurs (as in the prose versions) as the fable of _Mercury and the two Women_, one of whom wishes to see her babe when it has a beard; the other, that everything she touches which she would find useful in her profession, may follow her. The babe becomes bearded, and the other woman raising her hand to wipe her eyes finds her nose following her hand--_dénouement_ on which the scene closes. M. Bédier, as usual, denies the Indian origin, _Les Fabliaux_, pp. 177, _seq._
_Remarks._--I have endeavoured to show, _l.c._, that the Phædrine form is ultimately to be derived from India, and there can be little doubt that all the other variants, which are only variations on one idea, and that an absurdly incongruous one, were derived from India in the last resort. The case is strongest for drolls of this kind.
LXVI. THE BURIED MOON
_Source._--Mrs. Balfour's "Legends of the Lincolnshire Cars" in _Folk-Lore_, ii., somewhat abridged and the dialect removed. The story was derived from a little girl named Bratton, who declared she had heard it from her "grannie." Mrs. Balfour thinks the girl's own weird imagination had much to do with framing the details.
_Remarks._--The tale is noteworthy as being distinctly mythical in character, and yet collected within the last ten years from one of the English peasantry. The conception of the moon as a beneficent being, the natural enemy of the bogles and other dwellers of the dark, is natural enough, but scarcely occurs, so far as I recollect, in other mythological systems. There is, at any rate, nothing analogous in the Grimms' treatment of the moon in their _Teutonic Mythology_, tr. Stallybrass, pp. 701-21.
LXVII. A SON OF ADAM
_Source._--From memory, by Mr. E. Sidney Hartland, as heard by him from his nurse in childhood.
_Parallels._--Jacques de Vitry _Exempla_, ed. Prof. Crane, No. xiii., and references given in notes, p. 139. It occurs in Swift and in modern Italian folk-lore.
_Remarks._--The _Exempla_ were anecdotes, witty and otherwise, used by the monks in their sermons to season their discourse. Often they must have been derived from the folk of the period, and at first sight it might seem that we had found still extant among the folk the story that had been the original of Jacques de Vitry's _Exemplum_. But the theological basis of the story shows clearly that it was originally a monkish invention and came thence among the folk.
LXVIII. THE CHILDREN IN THE WOOD
_Source._--Percy, _Reliques_. The ballad form of the story has become such a nursery classic that I had not the heart to "prose" it. As Mr. Allingham remarks, it is the best of the ballads of the pedestrian order.
_Parallels._--The second of R. Yarrington's _Two Lamentable Tragedies_, 1601, has the same plot as the ballad. Several chap-books have been made out of it, some of them enumerated by Halliwell's _Popular Histories_ (Percy Soc.) No. 18. From one of these I am in the fortunate position of giving the names of the _dramatis personæ_ of this domestic tragedy. Androgus was the wicked uncle, Pisaurus his brother who married Eugenia, and their children in the wood were Cassander and little Kate. The ruffians were appropriately named Rawbones and Woudkill. According to a writer in _3 Notes and Queries_, ix., 144, the traditional burial-place of the children is pointed out in Norfolk. The ballad was known before Percy, as it is mentioned in the _Spectator_, Nos. 80 and 179.
_Remarks_.--The only "fairy" touch--but what a touch!--the pall of leaves collected by the robins.
LXIX. THE HOBYAHS
_Source._--_American Folk-Lore Journal_, iii., 173, contributed by Mr. S.V. Proudfit as current in a family deriving from Perth.
_Remarks._--But for the assurance of the tale itself that Hobyahs are no more, Mr. Batten's portraits of them would have convinced me that they were the bogles or spirits of the comma bacillus. Mr. Proudfit remarks that the cry "Look me" was very impressive.
LXX. A POTTLE O' BRAINS
_Source._--Contributed by Mrs. Balfour to _Folk-Lore_, II.
_Parallels._--The fool's wife is clearly related to the Clever Lass of "Gobborn Seer," where see Notes.
_Remarks._--The fool is obviously of the same family as he of the "Coat o' Clay" (No. lix.) if he is not actually identical with him. His adventures might be regarded as a sequel to the former ones. The Noodle family is strongly represented in English folk-tales, which would seem to confirm Carlyle's celebrated statistical remark.
LXXI. THE KING OF ENGLAND
_Source._--Mr. F. Hindes Groome, _In Gypsy Tents_, told him by John Roberts, a Welsh gypsy, with a few slight changes and omission of passages insisting upon the gypsy origin of the three helpful brothers.
_Parallels._--The king and his three sons are familiar figures in European _märchen_. Slavonic parallels are enumerated by Leskien Brugman in their _Lithauische Märchen_, notes on No. 11, p. 542. The Sleeping Beauty is of course found in Perrault.
_Remarks._--The tale is scarcely a good example for Mr. Hindes Groome's contention (in _Transactions Folk-Lore Congress_) for the diffusion of all folk-tales by means of gypsies as _colporteurs_. This is merely a matter of evidence, and of evidence there is singularly little, though it is indeed curious that one of Campbell's best equipped informants should turn out to be a gypsy. Even this fact, however, is not too well substantiated.
LXXII. KING JOHN AND THE ABBOT
_Source._--"Prosed" from the well-known ballad in Percy. I have changed the first query: What am I worth? Answer: Twenty-nine pence--one less, I ween, than the Lord. This would have sounded somewhat bold in prose.
_Parallels._--Vincent of Beauvais has the story, but the English version comes from the German Joe Miller, Pauli's _Schimpf und Ernst_, No. lv., p. 46, ed. Oesterley, where see his notes. The question I have omitted exists there, and cannot have "independently arisen." Pauli was a fifteenth century worthy or unworthy.
_Remarks._--Riddles were once on a time serious things to meddle with, as witness Samson and the Sphynx, and other instances duly noted with his customary erudition by Prof. Child in his comments on the ballad, _English and Scotch Ballads_, i, 403-14.
LXXIII. RUSHEN COATIE
_Source._--I have concocted this English, or rather Scotch, Cinderella from the various versions given in Miss Cox's remarkable collection of 345 variants of _Cinderella_ (Folk-Lore Society, 1892); see _Parallels_ for an enumeration of those occurring in the British Isles. I have used Nos. 1-3, 8-10. I give my composite the title "Rushen Coatie," to differentiate it from any of the Scotch variants, and for the purposes of a folk-lore experiment. If this book becomes generally used among English-speaking peoples, it may possibly re-introduce this and other tales among the folk. We should be able to trace this re-introduction by the variation in titles. I have done the same with "Nix Nought Nothing," "Molly Whuppie," and "Johnny Gloke."
_Parallels._--Miss Cox's volume gives no less than 113 variants of the pure type of Cinderella--her type A. "Cinderella, or the Fortunate Marriage of a Despised Scullery-maid by Aid of an _Animal_ God-mother through the Test of a Slipper"--such might be the explanatory title of a chap-book dealing with the pure type of Cinderella. This is represented in Miss Cox's book, so far as the British Isles are concerned, by no less than seven variants, as follows: (1) Dr. Blind, in _Archæological Review_, iii., 24-7, "Ashpitell" (from neighbourhood of Glasgow). (2) A. Lang, in _Revue Celtique_, t. iii., reprinted in _Folk-Lore_, September, 1890, "Rashin Coatie" (from Morayshire). (3) Mr. Gregor, in _Folk-Lore Journal_, ii., 72-4 (from Aberdeenshire), "The Red Calf"--all these in Lowland Scots. (4) Campbell, _Popular Tales_, No. xliii., ii., 286 _seq._, "The Sharp Grey Sheep." (5) Mr. Sinclair, in _Celtic Mag._, xiii., 454-65, "Snow-white Maiden." (6) Mr. Macleod's variant communicated through Mr. Nutt to Miss Cox's volume, p. 533; and (7) Curtin, _Myths of Ireland_, pp. 78-92. "Fair, Brown, and Trembling"--these four in Gaelic, the last in Erse. To these I would add (8, 9) Chambers's two versions in _Pop. Rhymes of Scotland_, pp. 66-8, "Rashie Coat," though Miss Cox assimilates them to Type B. Catskin; and (10) a variant of Dr. Blind's version, unknown to Miss Cox, but given in 7 _Notes and Queries_, x., 463 (Dumbartonshire). Mr. Clouston has remarks on the raven as omen-bird in his notes to Mrs. Saxby's _Birds of Omen in Shetland_ (privately printed, 1893).
ENGLISH VARIANTS OF CINDERELLA
GREGOR. LANG. CHAMBERS, I. and II. BLIND.
Ill-treated Calf given by _Heroine dislikes_ Ill-treated heroine dying mother. _husband._ heroine (by parents). (by step-mother).
Helpful Ill-treated _Henwife aid._ Menial heroine. animal heroine (by (red calf). stepmother and sisters).
Spy on Heroine disguise _Countertasks._ Helpful animal heroine. (rashin (black sheep). coatie).
Slaying of Hearth abode. _Heroine Ear cornucopia. helpful disguise._ animal threatened.
Heroine Helpful animal. _Heroine Spy on heroine. flight. flight._
Heroine Slaying of Menial heroine. Slaying of disguise helpful animal. helpful animal. (rashin coatie).
Menial Revivified bones. (Fairy) aid. Old woman advice. heroine.
Help at grave. Revivified bones.
Dinner cooked Task performing (by helpful animal. animal).
Magic dresses Magic dresses. Magic dresses. Meeting-place (given by (church). calf).
Meeting-place Meeting-place Meeting-place Dresses (not (church). (church). (church). magic).
Flight. Flight Flight Flight twofold. threefold. threefold.
Lost shoe. Lost shoe. Lost shoe. Lost shoe.
Shoe marriage Shoe marriage Shoe marriage Shoe marriage test. test. test. test.
Mutilated foot Mutilated foot. Mutilated foot. Mutilated foot (housewife's daughter).
Bird witness. False bride. False bride. False bride.
Happy Bird witness. Bird witness. Bird witness marriage. (raven).
House for Happy marriage. Happy marriage. Happy marriage. red calf.
_Remarks._--In going over these various versions, the first and perhaps most striking thing that comes out is the substantial agreement of the variants in each _language_. The English--_i.e._, Scotch, variants go together; the Gaelic ones agree to differ from the English. I can best display this important agreement and difference by the accompanying two tables, which give, in parallel columns, Miss Cox's abstracts of her tabulations, in which each incident is shortly given in technical phraseology. It is practically impossible to use the long tabulations for comparative purposes without some such shorthand.
CELTIC VARIANTS OF CINDERELLA
MACLEOD. CAMPBELL. SINCLAIR. CURTIN.
Heroine, Ill-treated Ill-treated Ill-treated daughter heroine heroine heroine of sheep, (by stepmother). (by stepmother (by elder king's wife. and sisters). sisters).
Menial heroine. Menial heroine. Menial heroine.
Helpful animal. Helpful cantrips. Henwife aid.
Spy on heroine. Spy on heroine. Magic dresses Magic dresses (+ starlings on (honey-bird shoulders). finger and stud).
Eye sleep Eye sleep. Meeting-place Meeting place threefold. (church). (church).
Slaying of Slaying of Flight twofold. Flight threefold. helpful helpful animal animal. mother.
Revivified Revivified Lost shoe. Lost shoe. bones. bones.
Magic dresses. Step-sister Shoe marriage Shoe marriage substitute. test. test.
Golden shoe gift Heroine under Mutilated foot. (from hero). washtub.
Meeting-place Meeting-place Happy marriage. Happy marriage. (feast). (sermon).
Flight threefold. Flight Substituted Substituted bride threefold. bride. (eldest sister).
Lost shoe Lost shoe. Jonah heroine. Jonah heroine. (golden).
Shoe marriage Shoe marriage Three Three test. test. reappearances. reappearances.
Mutilated foot. Mutilated foot. Reunion. Reunion.
False bride. Villain Nemesis.
Bird witness. Bird witness.
Happy marriage. Happy marriage.