CHAPTER V

_Tales and Legends_

The derivations of the words _tale_ and _legend_ hold within themselves several of the features that distinguish the one from the other. A tale (As. _talu_, speech) means literally that which is told by oral relation or recital; a legend (L. _legendus_, to be read) that which is apprehended by the eye and not by the ear. Originally, then, the tale was an oral recital, though the term was afterwards applied to narrative whether oral or written, whereas the legend, which in the history of narrative is later than the tale, was a written chronicle that in its earliest form recorded the lives of the saints and was read in monastic houses for spiritual edification. Like the tale, however, the legend has long since lost its original meaning, and is now broadly applied to many a story of ancient origin which possesses an incredible, or seemingly miraculous character.

And yet the tale and the legend possess certain distinguishing traits as types of narrative which their derivations suggest and their histories corroborate. Since the tale was an oral recital, the narrator must, of course, have employed all means in his power to impress his audience. Events which took place in many and strange lands, episodes of thrilling adventure, which, although they usually centered about one character, might be tacked on indefinitely so long as his audience was interested, humorous situations and escapades which not infrequently degenerated into horseplay, often illustrated by grotesque mimicry and pantomime--such were the distinctive features of the early tale. Nor are those earlier attributes absent from the more modern tales. In these also there is often no unity of setting; there are always incredible incidents and episodes which, as in the case of Mr. James Stevens’s _Paul Bunyon_, center about one main character; there are frequently features grotesque and humorous. Even so is the legend, to a large extent, true to its derivation and early history. Written as it was for a religious assembly, it centered about the life of some saint whose spirituality it strove to glorify by the portrayal of some one remarkable incident rather than by the relation of several. Instead of the marvelous it dealt with the miraculous; instead of the humorous and grotesque, although these elements were not always absent, it dealt with romantic fancy; instead of merely diverting or amusing an audience, it sought to instruct and edify. And, as with the tale, these earlier features are easily apparent in the legends of our own time. Here, too, are the inexplicable, even the seemingly miraculous; here are romantic fancy and æsthetic charm; and here are often lessons in constancy, kindness, or heroism.

To the careful student of literary types the history of the tale and of the legend and the distinguishing features of each afford a never failing source of interest and pleasure; but to the writer of narrative such a study must be cursory at best. He must, of course, recognize the individualizing attributes of the tale and of the legend; but he must at the same time realize that, although these attributes are in many cases still distinct, they have in many other examples merged into one another. For example, in _The Legend of the Moor’s Legacy_ from Irving’s _Tales of the Alhambra_ (the interchange of the words legend and tale is interesting) which is more distinctly a tale than a legend, there are evident the purely æsthetic charm and fancy that characterize a legend; in Miss Lagerlöf’s beautiful _Legend of the Christmas Rose_, on the other hand, there are, especially in the conduct of the robber woman in Abbot Hans’s garden, some features that marked the earlier tales. Indeed, for practical purposes the words _tale_ and _legend_ may be used almost synonymously by the writer of narrative (as in point of fact they are in many dictionaries) if he has sufficient literary judgment to preserve a consistency of tone or a unity of artistic effect in his own work as he enters into that boundless and fascinating field--the writing or the expanding into literary form of old tales and legends.

Nor are these adjectives, it seems to me, ill-chosen. Surely the field is boundless, stretching from the ancient papyrus tales of Egypt to the Indian legends of Minnesota and New Mexico. It includes the traditions sacred to every race and nationality, the stories which have been handed down in families, the tales and legends which add charm and personality to certain localities the world over. If you are of Scandinavian stock, you have a treasure-house in the thousands of old stories of valor and endurance which have been told for centuries by Norse grandmothers to their grandchildren during the long northern winters; if you are of Irish blood, what mysterious and miraculous legends of the earliest Christian centuries await you! It is strange if there are not in your own family tales which have never been put in writing, and stranger if in your own town and county there is not some legend which contains within itself romantic charm enough to justify its telling.

It is a fascinating as well as a boundless field of writing. In the first place, it contains all the charm that lies in the old, the mysterious, the romantic, the sacred, the poetic, the valorous--words which lure one by their sound as well as by their connotations. Then there is fascination in the fact that the material lies ready for your workmanship. If you do not know a tale or a legend which is connected with your own family or locality, you have only to go upon a short journey of discovery to find literally hundreds. Perhaps the richest treasure-house is the various collections of the Miracles of Our Lady, those current legends of the Middle Ages which centered about the Virgin Mary and from which Anatole France drew his _Juggler to Our Lady_, or the many volumes which tell briefly the lives of the saints. If those do not appeal to you, however, there are scores of marvelous tales and legends of various peoples--Turkish, Egyptian, Indian, Russian, Norse. Lastly, and most important of all, there is fascination in the methods employed in the writing of these tales and legends, in the various ways by which you may gain pictorial charm and artistic effects.

From a careful study of the models given in the pages that follow you will note certain outstanding characteristics for which you should strive in your own work:

1. A tendency to plunge at once into the story.

There is no expository material and singularly little introduction in the models given. Instead, you are taken into the situation almost with the first sentence: “Once, when Jesus was only five years old, he sat on the doorstep outside his father’s workshop, in Nazareth, and made clay cuckoos from a lump of clay which the potter across the way had given him.” “In the time of King Louis, there lived in France a poor juggler, native of Compiègne, named Barnabas, who went among the villagers doing feats of strength and skill.”

2. A clear and, for the most part, simple narrative style, which proceeds directly to the one major incident to be related and allows few digressions.

3. An emphasis on the concrete.

This is well illustrated in _The Legend of the Christmas Rose_ in the minute details which describe the awakening of the forest; in the description from _The Song of the Minister_ of the wondrous _Te Deum_ sung by the stone images in the cathedral; and in the “six copper balls” and the “twelve knives” of Barnabas, the juggler.

4. The use of figures.

The clay cuckoos of Jesus in Miss Lagerlöf’s _In Nazareth_ are “as smooth and even as the oak leaves in the forests on Mt. Tabor”; in Göinge forest “the leaves dropped from the trees, rustling like rain.”

5. A delight in color and in the sound of unusual proper names.

This two-fold feature is apparent in all the selections.

M. E. C.

IN NAZARETH

SELMA LAGERLÖF

Once, when Jesus was only five years old, he sat on the doorstep outside his father’s workshop, in Nazareth, and made clay cuckoos from a lump of clay which the potter across the way had given him. He was happier than usual. All the children in the quarter had told Jesus that the potter was a disobliging man, who wouldn’t let himself be coaxed, either by soft glances or honeyed words, and he had never dared ask aught of him. But, you see, he hardly knew how it had come about. He had only stood on his doorstep and, with yearning eyes, looked upon the neighbor working at his molds, and then that neighbor had come over from his stall and given him so much clay that it would have been enough to finish a whole wine jug.

On the stoop of the next house sat Judas, his face covered with bruises and his clothes full of rents, which he had acquired during his continual fights with street urchins. For the moment he was quiet, he neither quarreled nor fought, but worked with a bit of clay, just as Jesus did. But this clay he had not been able to procure for himself. He hardly dared venture within sight of the potter, who complained that he was in the habit of throwing stones at his fragile wares, and would have driven him away with a good beating. It was Jesus who had divided his portion with him.

When the two children had finished their clay cuckoos, they stood the birds up in a ring in front of them. These looked just as clay cuckoos have always looked. They had big, round lumps to stand on in place of feet, short tails, no necks, and almost imperceptible wings.

But, at all events, one saw at once a difference in the work of the little playmates. Judas’ birds were so crooked that they tumbled over continually; and no matter how hard he worked with his clumsy little fingers, he couldn’t get their bodies neat and well formed. Now and then he glanced slyly at Jesus, to see how he managed to make his birds as smooth and even as the oak-leaves in the forests on Mount Tabor.

As bird after bird was finished, Jesus became happier and happier. Each looked more beautiful to him than the last, and he regarded them all with pride and affection. They were to be his playmates, his little brothers; they should sleep in his bed, keep him company, and sing to him when his mother left him. Never before had he thought himself so rich; never again could he feel alone or forsaken.

The big, brawny water-carrier came walking along, and right after him came the huckster, who sat joggingly on his donkey between the large empty willow baskets. The water-carrier laid his hand on Jesus’ curly head and asked him about his birds; and Jesus told him that they had names and that they could sing. All the little birds were come to him from foreign lands, and told him things which only he and they knew. And Jesus spoke in such a way that both the water-carrier and the huckster forgot about their tasks for a full hour, to listen to him.

But when they wished to go farther, Jesus pointed to Judas. “See what pretty birds Judas makes!” he said.

Then the huckster good-naturedly stopped his donkey and asked Judas if his birds also had names and could sing. But Judas knew nothing of this. He was stubbornly silent and did not raise his eyes from his work, and the huckster angrily kicked one of his birds and rode on.

In this manner the afternoon passed, and the sun sank so far down that its beams could come in through the low city gate, which stood at the end of the street and was decorated with a Roman Eagle. This sunshine, which came at the close of the day, was perfectly rose-red--as if it had become mixed with blood--and it colored everything which came in its path, as it filtered through the narrow street. It painted the potter’s vessels as well as the log which creaked under the woodman’s saw, and the white veil that covered Mary’s face.

But the loveliest of all was the sun’s reflection as it shone on the little water-puddles which had gathered in the big, uneven cracks in the stones that covered the street. Suddenly Jesus stuck his hand in the puddle nearest him. He had conceived the idea that he would paint his gray birds with the sparkling sunbeams which had given such pretty color to the water, the house-walls, and everything around him.

The sunshine took pleasure in letting itself be captured by him, like paint in a paint pot; and when Jesus spread it over the little clay birds, it lay still and bedecked them from head to foot with a diamond-like luster.

Judas, who every now and then looked at Jesus to see if he made more and prettier birds than his, gave a shriek of delight when he saw how Jesus painted his clay cuckoos with the sunshine, which he caught from the water pools. Judas also dipped his hand in the shining water and tried to catch the sunshine.

But the sunshine wouldn’t be caught by him. It slipped through his fingers; and no matter how fast he tried to move his hands to get hold of it, it got away, and he couldn’t procure a pinch of color for his poor birds.

“Wait, Judas!” cried Jesus. “I’ll come and paint your birds.”

“No, you shan’t touch them!” cried Judas. “They’re good enough as they are.”

He rose, his eyebrows contracted into an ugly frown, his lips compressed. And he put his broad foot on the birds and transformed them, one after another, into little flat pieces of clay.

When all his birds were destroyed, he walked over to Jesus, who sat and caressed his birds--that glittered like jewels. Judas regarded them for a moment in silence, then he raised his foot and crushed one of them.

When Judas took his foot away and saw the entire little bird changed into a cake of clay, he felt so relieved that he began to laugh, and raised his foot to crush another.

“Judas,” said Jesus, “what are you doing? Don’t you see that they are alive and can sing?”

But Judas laughed and crushed still another bird.

Jesus looked around for help. Judas was heavily built and Jesus had not the strength to hold him back. He glanced around for his mother. She was not far away, but before she could have gone there, Judas would have had ample time to destroy the birds. The tears sprang to Jesus’ eyes. Judas had already crushed four of his birds. There were only three left.

He was annoyed with his birds, who stood so calmly and let themselves be trampled upon without paying the slightest attention to the danger. Jesus clapped his hands to awaken them; then he shouted: “Fly, fly!”

Then the three birds began to move their tiny wings, and, fluttering anxiously, they succeeded in swinging themselves up to the eaves of the house, where they were safe.

But when Judas saw that the birds took to their wings and flew at Jesus’ command, he began to weep. He tore his hair, as he had seen his elders do when they were in great trouble, and he threw himself at Jesus’ feet.

Judas lay there and rolled in the dust before Jesus like a dog, and kissed his feet and begged that he would raise his foot and crush him, as he had done with the clay cuckoos. For Judas loved Jesus and admired and worshiped him, and at the same time hated him.

Mary, who sat all the while and watched the children’s play, came up and lifted Judas in her arms and seated him on her lap, and caressed him.

“You poor child!” she said to him, “you do not know that you have attempted something which no mortal can accomplish. Don’t engage in anything of this kind again, if you do not wish to become the unhappiest of mortals! What would happen to any one of us who undertook to compete with one who paints with sunbeams and blows the breath of life into dead clay?”

Selma Lagerlöf, _Christ Legends_. By permission of the publishers, Henry Holt and Company.

THE SONG OF THE MINSTER

WILLIAM CANTON

When John of Fulda became Prior of Hethholme, says the old chronicle, he brought with him to the Abbey many rare and costly books--beautiful illuminated missals and psalters and portions of the Old and New Testament. And he presented rich vestments to the Minster; albs of fine linen, and copes embroidered with flowers of gold. In the west front he built two great arched windows filled with marvellous storied glass. The shrine of St. Egwin he repaired at vast outlay, adorning it with garlands in gold and silver, but the colour of the flowers was in coloured gems, and in like fashion the little birds in the nooks of the foliage. Stalls and benches of carved oak he placed in the choir; and many other noble works he had wrought in his zeal for the glory of God’s house.

In all the western land was there no more fair or stately Minster than this of the Black Monks, with the peaceful township on one side, and on the other the sweet meadows and the acres of wheat and barley sloping down to the slow river, and beyond the river the clearings in the ancient forest.

But Thomas the Sub-prior was grieved and troubled in his mind by the richness and the beauty of all he saw about him, and by the Prior’s eagerness to be ever adding some new work in stone, or oak, or metal, or jewels.

“Surely,” he said to himself, “these things are unprofitable--less to the honour of God than to the pleasure of the eye and the pride of life and the luxury of our house! Had so much treasure not been wasted on these vanities of bright colour and carved stone, our dole to the poor of Christ might have been fourfold, and they filled with good things. But now let our almoner do what best he may, I doubt not many a leper sleeps cold, and many a poor man goes lean with hunger.”

This the Sub-prior said, not because his heart was quick with fellowship for the poor, but because he was of a narrow and gloomy and grudging nature, and he could conceive of no true service of God which was not one of fasting and praying, of fear and trembling, of joylessness and mortification.

Now you must know that the greatest of the monks and the hermits and the holy men were not of this kind. In their love of God they were blithe of heart, and filled with a rare sweetness and tranquillity of soul, and they looked on the goodly earth with deep joy, and they had a tender care for the wild creatures of wood and water. But Thomas had yet much to learn of the beauty of holiness.

Often in the bleak dark hours of the night he would leave his cell and steal into the Minster, to fling himself on the cold stones before the high altar; and there he would remain, shivering and praying, till his strength failed him.

It happened one winter night, when the thoughts I have spoken of had grown very bitter in his mind, Thomas guided his steps by the glimmer of the sanctuary lamp to his accustomed place in the choir. Falling on his knees, he laid himself on his face with the palms of his outstretched hands flat on the icy pavement. And as he lay there, taking a cruel joy in the freezing cold and the torture of his body, he became gradually aware of a sound of far-away yet most heavenly music.

He raised himself to his knees to listen, and to his amazement he perceived that the whole Minster was pervaded by a faint, mysterious light, which was every instant growing brighter and clearer. And as the light increased the music grew louder and sweeter, and he knew that it was within the sacred walls. But it was no mortal minstrelsy.

The strains he heard were the minglings of angelic instruments, and the cadences of voices of unearthly loveliness. They seemed to proceed from the choir about him, and from the nave and transept and aisles; from the pictured windows and from the clerestory and from the vaulted roofs. Under his knees he felt that the crypt was throbbing and droning like a huge organ.

Sometimes the song came from one part of the Minster, and then all the rest of the vast building was silent; then the music was taken up, as it were in response, in another part; and yet again voices and instruments would blend in one indescribable volume of harmony, which made the huge pile thrill and vibrate from roof to pavement.

As Thomas listened, his eyes became accustomed to the celestial light which encompassed him, and he saw--he could scarce credit his senses that he saw--the little carved angels of the oak stalls in the choir clashing their cymbals and playing their psalteries.

He rose to his feet, bewildered and half terrified. At that moment the mighty roll of unison ceased, and from many parts of the church there came a concord of clear high voices, like a warbling of silver trumpets, and Thomas heard the words they sang. And the words were these----

_Tibi omnes Angeli._ To Thee all Angels cry aloud.

So close to him were two of these voices that Thomas looked up to the spandrels in the choir, and he saw that it was the carved angels leaning out of the spandrels that were singing. And as they sang the breath came from their stone lips white and vaporous in the frosty air.

He trembled with awe and astonishment, but the wonder of what was happening drew him towards the altar. The beautiful tabernacle work of the altar screen contained a double range of niches filled with the statues of saints and kings; and these, he saw, were singing. He passed slowly onward with his arms outstretched, like a blind man who does not know the way he is treading.

The figures on the painted glass of the lancets were singing.

The winged heads of the baby angels over the marble memorial slabs were singing.

The lions and griffons and mythical beasts of the finials were singing.

The effigies of dead abbots and priors were singing on their tombs in bay and chantry.

The figures in the frescoes on the walls were singing.

On the painted ceiling westward of the tower the verses of the Te Deum, inscribed in letters of gold above the shields of kings and princes and barons, were visible in the divine light, and the very words of these verses were singing, like living things.

And the breath of all these as they sang turned to a smoke as of incense in the wintry air, and floated about the high pillars of the Minster.

Suddenly the music ceased, all save the deep organ-drone.

Then Thomas heard the marvellous antiphon repeated in the bitter darkness outside; and that music, he knew, must be the response of the galleries of stone kings and queens, of abbots and virgin martyrs, over the western portals, and of the monstrous gargoyles along the eaves.

When the music ceased in the outer darkness, it was taken up again in the interior of the Minster.

At last there came one stupendous united cry of all the singers, and in that cry even the organ-drone of the crypt, and the clamour of the brute stones of pavement and pillar, of wall and roof, broke into words articulate. And the words were these:

_Per singulos dies, benedicimus Te._ Day by day: we magnify Thee, And we worship Thy name: ever world without end.

As the wind of the summer changes into the sorrowful wail of the yellowing woods, so the strains of joyous worship changed into a wail of supplication; and as he caught the words, Thomas too raised his voice in wild entreaty:

_Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri._ O Lord, have mercy upon us: have mercy upon us.

And then his senses failed him, and he sank to the ground in a long swoon.

When he came to himself all was still, and all was dark save for the little yellow flower of light in the sanctuary lamp.

As he crept back to his cell, he saw with unsealed eyes how churlishly he had grudged God the glory of man’s genius and the service of His dumb creatures, the metal of the hills, and the stone of the quarry, and the timber of the forest; for now he knew that at all seasons, and whether men heard the music or not, the ear of God was filled by day and by night with an everlasting song from each stone of the vast Minster:

We magnify Thee, And we worship Thy name: ever world without end.

By permission, from William Canton, _A Child’s Book of Saints_. Copyright by E. P. Dutton & Company.

JUGGLER TO OUR-LADY

ANATOLE FRANCE

I

In the time of King Louis, there lived in France a poor juggler, native of Compiègne, named Barnabas, who went among the villages doing feats of strength and skill. On market days he would spread out on the public square an old carpet very much worn, and, after having attracted the children and the gazing bumpkins by some suitable pleasantries which he had adopted from an old juggler and which he never changed at all, he would assume grotesque attitudes and balance a plate on his nose.

The crowd at first looked at him with indifference. But when, standing on his hands with his head downward, he tossed in the air six copper balls which glittered in the sun, and caught them again with his feet; or when, by bending backward until his neck touched his heels, he gave his body the form of a perfect wheel, and in that posture juggled with twelve knives, a murmur of admiration rose from the onlookers, and pieces of money rained upon the carpet.

However, like the majority of those who live by their talents, Barnabas of Compiègne had much difficulty in living. Earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, he bore more than his part of the miseries connected with the fall of Adam, our father. Moreover, he was unable to work as much as he would have wished. In order to show off his fine accomplishment, he needed the warmth of the sun and the light of day, just as do the trees in order to produce their blossoms and fruits.

In winter he was nothing more than a tree despoiled of its foliage and to appearance dead. The frozen earth was hard for the juggler. And, like the grasshopper of which Marie of France tells, he suffered from cold and from hunger in the bad season. But, since he possessed a simple heart, he bore his ills in patience.

He had never reflected upon the origin of riches, nor upon the inequality of human conditions. He believed firmly that, if this world is evil, the other cannot fail to be good, and this hope sustained him. He did not imitate the thieving mountebanks and miscreants who have sold their souls to the devil. He never blasphemed the name of God; he lived honestly, and, although he had no wife, he did not covet his neighbor’s, for woman is the enemy of strong men, as appears from the history of Samson, which is reported in the Scriptures.

In truth, he had not a spirit which turned to carnal desires, and it would have cost him more to renounce the jugs than the women. For, although without failing in sobriety, he loved to drink when it was warm. He was a good man, fearing God and very devout toward the Holy Virgin. He never failed, when he entered a church, to kneel before the image of the Mother of God and address to her this prayer:

“Madame, take care of my life until it may please God that I die, and when I am dead, cause me to have the joys of paradise.”

II

Well, then, on a certain evening after a day of rain, while he was walking, sad and bent, carrying under his arm his balls and knives wrapped up in his old carpet, and seeking for some barn in which he might lie down supperless, he saw on the road a monk who was travelling the same way, and saluted him decorously. As they were walking at an equal pace, they began to exchange remarks.

“Comrade,” said the monk, “how comes it that you are habited all in green? Is it not for the purpose of taking the character of a fool in some mystery-play?”

“Not for that purpose, father,” responded Barnabas. “Such as you see me, I am named Barnabas, and I am by calling a juggler. It would be the most beautiful occupation in the world if one could eat every day.”

“Friend Barnabas,” replied the monk, “take care what you say. There is no more beautiful calling than the monastic state. Therein one celebrates the praises of God, the Virgin, and the saints, and the life of a monk is a perpetual canticle to the Lord.”

Barnabas answered:

“Father, I confess that I have spoken like an ignoramus. Your calling may not be compared with mine, and, although there is some merit in dancing while holding on the tip of the nose a coin balanced on a stick, this merit does not approach yours. I should like very well to sing every day, as you do, Father, the office of the most Holy Virgin, to whom I have vowed a particular devotion. I would right willingly renounce my calling, in which I am known from Soissons to Beauvais, in more than six hundred towns and villages, in order to embrace the monastic life.”

The monk was touched by the simplicity of the juggler, and, as he did not lack discernment, he recognized in Barnabas one of those men of good purpose whereof our Lord said: “Let peace abide with them on earth!” This is why he replied to him:

“Friend Barnabas, come with me, and I will enable you to enter the monastery of which I am the prior. He who conducted Mary the Egyptian through the desert has placed me on your path to lead you in the way of salvation.”

This is how Barnabas became a monk.

In the monastery where he was received, the brethren emulously solemnized the cult of the Holy Virgin, and each one employed in her service all the knowledge and all the ability which God had given him.

The prior, for his part, composed books which, according to the rules of scholasticism, treated of the virtues of the Mother of God.

Friar Maurice with a learned hand copied these dissertations on leaves of vellum.

Friar Alexander painted fine miniatures, wherein one could see the Queen of Heaven seated upon the throne of Solomon, at the foot of which four lions kept vigil. Around her haloed head fluttered seven doves, which are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: gifts of fear, piety, science, might, counsel, intelligence, and wisdom. She had for companions six golden-haired Virgins: Humility, Prudence, Retirement, Respect, Virginity, and Obedience. At her feet two small figures, nude and quite white, were standing in a suppliant attitude. They were souls who implored her all-powerful intercession for their salvation--and certainly not in vain.

On another page Friar Alexander represented Eve gazing upon Mary, so that thus one might see at the same time the sin and the redemption, the woman humiliated and the Virgin exalted. Furthermore, in this