Part 8

This is decidedly a milder form of the incident in which the captive either cooks his captor, or makes the captor devour some of his own family. In Zululand (Callaway, pp. 16-18, _Uhlakanyana_) we find the former agreeable adventure. Uhlakanyana, trapped by the cannibal, gets the cannibal's mother to play with him at boiling each other. The old lady cries out that she is 'being done,' but the artful lad replies, 'When a man has been thoroughly done, he does not keep crying I am already done. He just says nothing when he is already done.... Now you have become silent; that is the reason why I think you are thoroughly done. You will be eaten by your children.' Callaway justly compares the Gaelic Maol a Chliobain, who got the Giant's mother to take her place in the Giant's game-bag,--with consequences (Campbell, i. 255). In Grimm's _Haensel and Grethel_ Peggy bakes the ogress. The trick recurs in the Kaffir _Hlakanyana_[98]. There are two ways of doing this trick in popular tales: either the prisoner is in a sack, and induces another person to take his place (as in the Aberdonian _Mally Whuppy_, and among the Kaffirs); or they play at cooking each other; or, in some other way, the captive induces the captor to enter the pot or oven, and, naturally, keeps him there. This is the device of the German Grethel and the Zulu Uhlakanyana. The former plan, of the game-bag, prevails among the South Siberian peoples of the Turkish race. Tardanak was caught by a seven-headed monster and put in a bag. He made his way out, and induced the monster's children to take his place. The monster, Jalbagan, then cooked his own children. Perrault wisely makes his ogre a little intoxicated, but he did not carry his mistake so far as to _eat_ his children.

The expedient by which Hop o' my Thumb saves his company, and makes the ogre's children perish, differs from the usual devices of the game-bag and the oven. Hop o' my Thumb exchanges the nightcaps of himself and his brothers for the golden crowns of the ogre's daughters. But even this is not original. In the many _Maerchen_ which are melted together into the legend of the Minyan House of Athamas, this idea occurs. According to Hyginus, Themisto, wife of Athamas, wished to destroy the children of her rival Ino. She, therefore, to distinguish the children, bade the nurse dress her children in white night-gowns, and Ino's children in black. But this nurse (so ancient is the central idea of _East Lynne_) was Ino herself in disguise, and she reversed the directions she had received. Themisto, therefore, murdered her own children in the dusk, as the ogre slew his own daughters. M. Deulin quotes a Catalan tale, in which the boys escape from a cupboard, where they place the daughters of the ogress, and they then sleep in the daughters' bed.

(6) The flight of Hop o' my Thumb and his brethren is usually aided, in Zulu, Kaffir, Iroquois, Samoan, Japanese, Scotch, German, and other tales, by magical objects, which, when thrown behind the fugitives, become lakes, forests, and the like, thus detaining the pursuer. Perrault knows nothing of this. His seven-leagued boots, used by the ogre and stolen by the hero, doubtless are by the same maker as the sandals of Hermes; the goodly sandals, golden, that wax never old (_Odyssey_, v. 45).

In addition to these shoon, and the shoon of Loki, and the slippers of Poutraka in the _Kathasaritsagara_ (i. 13), we may name the seven-leagued boots in the very rare old Italian rhymed _Historia delliombruno_, a black-letter tract, which contains one of the earliest representations of these famous articles.

While these main incidents of Hop o' my Thumb are so widely current, the general idea of a small and tricksy being is found frequently, from the Hermes of the Homeric Hymn to the Namaqua Heitsi Eibib, the other _Poucet_, or Tom Thumb, and the Zulu Uhlakanyana. Extraordinary precocity, even from the day of birth, distinguishes these beings (as Indra and Hermes) in _myth_. In _Maerchen_ it is rather their smallness and astuteness than their youth that commands admiration, though they are often very precocious. The general sense of the humour of 'infant prodigies' is perhaps the origin of these romances.

For a theory of _Hop o' my Thumb_, in which the forest is the night, the pebbles and crumbs the stars, the ogre the devouring Sun, the ogre's daughters 'the seven Vedic sisters,' and so forth, the curious may consult M. Hyacinthe Husson, M. Andre Lefevre, or M. Frederick Dillaye's _Contes de Charles Perrault_ (Paris, 1880).

[Footnote 93: _Old Deccan Days._]

[Footnote 94: Theal, p. 113.]

[Footnote 95: The remainder of the story in the _Pentamerone_ is entirely different. There is no ogre, and there are sea-faring adventures.]

[Footnote 96: _Eumenides_, 244.]

[Footnote 97: Compare _L'Oiseau Vert_. Cosquin, _Contes de Lorraine_, i. 103.]

[Footnote 98: Theal, p. 93.]

CONCLUSION.

The study of Perrault's tales which we have made serves to illustrate the problems and difficulties of the subject in general. It has been seen that similar and analogous _contes_ are found among most peoples, ancient and modern. When the resemblances are only in detached ideas and incidents, for example, the introduction of rational and loquacious beasts, or of magical powers, the difficulty of accounting for the diffusion of such notions is comparatively slight. All the backward peoples of the world believe in magic, and in the common nature of men, beasts, and things. The real problem is to explain the coincidence in _plot_ of stories found in ancient Egypt, in Peru, in North America, and South Africa, as well as in Europe. In a few words it is possible to sketch the various theories of the origin and diffusion of legends like these.

I. According to what may be called the Aryan theory (advocated by Grimm, M. Andre Lefevre, Von Hahn, and several English writers), the stories are peculiar to peoples who speak languages of the Aryan family. These peoples, in some very remote age, before they left their original seats, developed a copious mythology, based mainly on observation of natural phenomena, Dawn, Thunder, Wind, Night, and the like. This mythology was rendered possible by a 'disease of language,' owing to which statements about phenomena came to appear like statements about imaginary persons, and so grew into myths. _Maerchen_, or popular tales, are the _debris_, or _detritus_, or youngest form of those myths, worn by constant passing from mouth to mouth. The partisans of this theory often maintain that the borrowing of tales by one people from another is, if not an impossible, at least a very rare process.

II. The next hypothesis may be called the Indian theory. The chief partisan of this theory was Benfey, the translator and commentator of the _Pantschatantra_. In France M. Cosquin, author of _Contes Populaires de Lorraine_, is the leading representative. According to the Indian theory, the original centre and fountain of popular tales is India, and from India of the historic period the legends were diffused over Europe, Asia, and Africa. Oral tradition, during the great national movements and migrations, and missions,--the Mongol conquests, the crusades, the Buddhist enterprises, and in course of trade and commerce, diffused the tales. They were also in various translations,--Persian, Arabic, Greek,--of Indian literary collections like the _Pantschatantra_ and the _Hitopadesa_, brought to the knowledge of mediaeval Europe. Preachers even used the tales as parables or 'examples' in the pulpit, and by all those means the stories found their way about the world. It is admitted that the discovery of _contes_ in Egypt, at a date when nothing is known of India, is a difficulty in the way of this theory, as we are not able to show that those _contes_ came from India, nor that India borrowed them from Egypt. The presence of the tales in America is explained as the consequence of importations from Europe, since the discovery of the New World by Columbus.

Neither of these theories, neither the Aryan nor the Indian, is quite satisfactory. The former depends on a doctrine about the 'disease of language' not universally accepted. Again, it entirely fails to account for the presence of the _contes_ (which, _ex hypothesi_, were not _borrowed_) among non-Aryan peoples. The second, or Indian theory, correctly states that many stories were introduced into Europe, Asia, and Africa from India, in the middle ages, but brings no proof that _contes_ could only have been invented in India, first of all. Nor does it account for the stories which were old in Egypt, and even mixed up with the national mythology of Egypt, before we knew anything about India at all, nor for the _Maerchen_ of Homeric Greece. Again it is not shown that the _ideas_ in the _contes_ are peculiar to India; almost the only example adduced is the _gratitude of beasts_. But this notion might occur to any mind, anywhere, which regarded the beasts as on the same intellectual and moral level as humanity. Moreover, a few examples have been found of _Maerchen_ among American races, for example, in early Peru, where there is no reason to believe that they were introduced by the Spaniards[99].

In place of these hypotheses, we do not propose to substitute any general theory. It is certain that the best-known popular tales were current in Egypt under Ramses II, and that many of them were known to Homer, and are introduced, or are alluded to, in the _Odyssey_. But it is impossible to argue that the birthplace of a tale is the country where it is first found in a literary shape. The stories must have been current in the popular mouth long before they won their way into written literature, on tablets of clay or on papyrus. They are certainly not of literary invention. If they were developed in one place, history gives us no information as to the region or the date of their birth. Again, we cannot pretend to know how far, given the ideas, the stories might be evolved independently in different centres. It is difficult to set a limit to chance and coincidence, and modern importation. The whole question of the importation of stories into savage countries by civilised peoples has not been studied properly. We can hardly suppose that the Zulus borrowed their copious and most characteristic store of _Maerchen_, in plot and incident resembling the _Maerchen_ of Europe, from Dutch or English settlers. On the other hand, certain Algonkin tales recently published by Mr. Leland bear manifest marks of French influence.

Left thus in the dark without historical information as to the 'cradle' of _Maerchen_, without clear and copious knowledge as to _recent_ borrowing from European traders and settlers, and without the power of setting limits to the possibility of _coincidence_, we are unable to give any general answer to the sphinx of popular tales. We only know for certain that there is practically no limit to the chances of transmission in the remote past of the race. Wherever man, woman, or child can go, there a tale may go, and may find a new home. Any drifted and wandering canoe, any captured alien wife, any stolen slave passed from hand to hand in commerce or war, may carry a _Maerchen_. These processes of transmission have been going on, practically, ever since man was man. Thus it is even more difficult to limit the possibilities of transmission than the chances of coincidence. But the chances of coincidence also are numerous. The _ideas_ and _situations_ of popular tales are all afloat, everywhere, in the imaginations of early and of pre-scientific men. Who can tell how often they might casually unite in similar wholes, independently combined?

[Footnote 99: _Rites of the Yncas_, Francisco de Avila. Hakluyt Society.]

HISTOIRES

OU

CONTES DU TEMPS PASSE.

_Avec des Moralitez._

A PARIS,

Chez CLAUDE BARBIN, sur le second Peron de la Sainte-Chapelle, au Palais.

_Avec Privilege de Sa Majeste._

M.DC.XCVII.

TABLE

des Contes de ce Recueeil.

_La belle au bois dormant_ p. 7

_Le petit chaperon rouge_ p. 20

_La Barbe bleuee_ p. 23

_Le Maistre Chat, ou le Chat Botte_ p. 30

_Les Fees_ p. 37

_Cendrillon, ou la petite pantoufle de verre_ p. 41

_Riquet a la Houppe_ p. 50

_Le petit Poucet_ p. 60

A

MADEMOISELLE

MADEMOISELLE,

_On ne trouvera pas etrange qu'un Enfant ait pris plaisir a composer les Contes de ce Recueeil, mais on s'etonnera qu'il ait eu la hardiesse de vous les presenter. Cependant,_ MADEMOISELLE, _quelque disproportion qu'il y ait entre la simplicite de ces Recits, & les lumieres de vostre esprit, si on examine bien ces Contes, on verra que je ne suis pas aussi blamable que je le parois d'abord. Ils renferment tous une Morale tres-sensee, & qui se decouvre plus ou moins, selon le degre de penetration de ceux qui les lisent; d'ailleurs comme rien ne marque tant la vaste estendue d'un esprit, que de pouvoir s'elever en meme-temps aux plus grandes choses, & s'abaisser aux plus petites; on ne sera point surpris que la meme Princesse, a qui la Nature & l'education ont rendu familier ce qu'il y a de plus eleve, ne dedaigne pas de prendre plaisir a de semblables bagatelles. Il est vray que ces Contes donnent une image de ce qui se passe dans les moindres Familles, ou la loueable impatience d'instruire les enfans, fait imaginer des Histoires depourveues de raison, pour s'accommoder a ces memes enfans qui n'en ont pas encore; mais a qui convient-il mieux de connoitre comment vivent les Peuples, qu'aux Personnes que le Ciel destine a les conduire? Le desir de cette connoissance a pousse des Heros, & meme des Heros de vostre Race, jusque dans des huttes & des cabanes, pour y voir de pres & par eux-memes ce qui s'y passoit de plus particulier: Cette connoissance leur ayant paru necessaire pour leur parfaite instruction. Quoi qu'il en soit,_ MADEMOISELLE,

Pouvois-je mieux choisir pour rendre vrai-semblable Ce que la Fable a d'incroyable? Et jamais Fee, au tems jadis Fit-elle a jeune Creature, Plus de dons, & de dons exquis, Que vous en a fait la Nature.

_Je suis avec un tres-profond respect,_

MADEMOISELLE,

De Votre Altesse Royale,

Le tres-humble & tres-obeissant serviteur,

P. DARMANCOUR.

LA BELLE AU BOIS DORMANT

_CONTE._

Il estoit une fois un Roi & une Reine, qui estoient si faschez de n'avoir point d'enfans, si faschez qu'on ne scauroit dire. Ils allerent a toutes les eaux du monde, voeux, pelerinages, menues devotions; tout fut mis en oeuvre, & rien n'y faisoit: Enfin pourtant la Reine devint grosse, & accoucha d'une fille: on fit un beau Baptesme; on donna pour Maraines a la petite Princesse toutes les Fees qu'on pust trouver dans le Pays, (il s'en trouva sept,) afin que chacune d'elles luy faisant un don, comme c'estoit la coustume des Fees en ce temps-la, la Princesse eust par ce moyen toutes les perfections imaginables. Apres les ceremonies du Baptesme toute la compagnie revint au Palais du Roi, ou il y avoit un grand festin pour les Fees. On mit devant chacune d'elles un couvert magnifique, avec un estui d'or massif, ou il y avoit une cuillier, une fourchette, & un couteau de fin or, garni de diamans & de rubis. Mais comme chacun prenoit sa place a table, on vit entrer une vieille Fee qu'on n'avoit point priee parce qu'il y avoit plus de cinquante ans qu'elle n'estoit sortie d'une Tour, & qu'on la croyoit morte, ou enchantee. Le Roi lui fit donner un couvert, mais il n'y eut pas moyen de lui donner un estuy d'or massif, comme aux autres, parce que l'on n'en avoit fait faire que sept pour les sept Fees. La vieille crut qu'on la meprisoit, & grommela quelques menaces entre ses dents: Une des jeunes Fees qui se trouva aupres d'elle, l'entendit, & jugeant qu'elle pourrait donner quelque facheux don a la petite Princesse, alla des qu'on fut sorti de table, se cacher derriere la tapisserie, afin de parler la derniere, & de pouvoir reparer autant qu'il luy seroit possible le mal que la vieille auroit fait. Cependant les Fees commencerent a faire leurs dons a la Princesse. La plus jeune luy donna pour don qu'elle seroit la plus belle personne du monde, celle d'apres qu'elle auroit de l'esprit comme un Ange, la troisieme qu'elle auroit une grace admirable a tout ce qu'elle feroit, la quatrieme qu'elle danseroit parfaitement bien, la cinquieme qu'elle chanteroit comme un Rossignol, & la sixieme qu'elle joueeroit de toutes sortes d'instrumens dans la derniere perfection. Le rang de la vieille Fee estant venu, elle dit en branlant la teste, encore plus de depit que de vieillesse, que la Princesse se perceroit la main d'un fuseau, & qu'elle en mourroit. Ce terrible don fit fremir toute la compagnie, & il n'y eut personne qui ne pleurat. Dans ce moment la jeune Fee sortit de derriere la tapisserie, & dit tout haut ces paroles: Rassurez-vous Roi et Reine, vostre fille n'en mourra pas: il est vrai que je n'ay pas assez de puissance pour defaire entierement ce que mon ancienne a fait. La Princesse se percera la main d'un fuseau; mais au lieu d'en mourir, elle tombera seulement dans un profond sommeil qui durera cent ans, au bout desquels le fils d'un Roi viendra la reveiller. Le Roi pour tacher d'eviter le malheur annonce par la vieille, fit publier aussi tost un Edit, par lequel il deffendoit a toutes personnes de filer au fuseau, ny d'avoir des fuseaux chez soy sur peine de la vie. Au bout de quinze ou seize ans, le Roi & la Reine estant allez a une de leurs Maisons de plaisance, il arriva que la jeune Princesse courant un jour dans le Chateau, & montant de chambre en chambre, alla jusqu'au haut d'un donjon dans un petit galletas, ou une bonne Vieille estoit seule a filer sa quenoueille. Cette bonne femme n'avoit point oui parler des deffenses que le Roi avoit faites de filer au fuseau. Que faites-vous-la, ma bonne femme, dit la Princesse; je file, ma belle enfant, luy repondit la vieille qui ne la connoissoit pas. Ha! que cela est joli, reprit la Princesse, comment faites-vous? donnez-moy que je voye si j'en ferois bien autant. Elle n'eust pas plutost pris le fuseau, que comme elle estoit fort vive, un peu estourdie, & que d'ailleurs l'Arrest des Fees l'ordonnoit ainsi, elle s'en perca la main, & tomba evanouie. La bonne vieille bien embarrassee, crie au secours: on vient de tous costez, on jette de l'eau au visage de la Princesse, on la delasse, on luy frappe dans les mains, on luy frotte les temples avec de l'eau de la Reine de Hongrie; mais rien ne la faisoit revenir. Alors le Roy, qui estoit monte au bruit, se souvint de la prediction des Fees, & jugeant bien qu'il falloit que cela arrivast, puisque les Fees l'avoient dit, fit mettre la Princesse dans le plus bel appartement du Palais, sur un lit en broderie d'or & d'argent; on eut dit d'un Ange, tant elle estoit belle; car son evanoueissement n'avoit pas oste les couleurs vives de son teint: ses joues estoient incarnates, & ses levres comme du corail: elle avoit seulement les yeux fermez, mais on l'entendoit respirer doucement, ce qui faisoit voir qu'elle n'estoit pas morte. Le Roi ordonna qu'on la laissast dormir en repos, jusqu'a ce que son heure de se reveiller fust venue. La bonne Fee qui luy avoit sauve la vie, en la condamnant a dormir cent ans, estoit dans le Royaume de Mataquin, a douze mille lieues de la lorsque l'accident arriva a la Princesse; mais elle en fut avertie en un instant par un petit Nain, qui avoit des bottes de sept lieues, (c'estoit des bottes avec lesquelles on faisoit sept lieues d'une seule enjambee.) La Fee partit aussi tost, & on la vit au bout d'une heure arriver dans un chariot tout de feu, traisne par des dragons. Le Roi luy alla presenter la main a la descente du chariot. Elle approuva tout ce qu'il avoit fait; mais comme elle estoit grandement prevoyante, elle pensa que quand la Princesse viendroit a se reveiller, elle seroit bien embarassee toute seule dans ce vieux Chateau: voicy ce qu'elle fit. Elle toucha de sa baguette tout ce qui estoit dans ce Chasteau, (hors le Roi & la Reine) Gouvernantes, Filles-d'Honneur, Femmes-de-Chambre, Gentilshommes, Officiers, Maistres-d'Hostel, Cuisiniers, Marmitons, Galopins, Gardes, Suisses, Pages, Valets-de-pied; elle toucha aussi tous les chevaux qui estoient dans les Ecuries, avec les Palfreniers, les gros matins de basse cour, & la petite Pouffe, petite chienne de la Princesse, qui estoit aupres d'elle sur son lit. Des qu'elle les eust touchez, ils s'endormirent tous, pour ne se reveiller qu'en meme temps que leur Maistresse, afin d'estre tout prests a la servir quand elle en auroit besoin: les broches memes qui estoient au feu toutes pleines de perdrix & de faizans s'endormirent, & le feu aussi. Tout cela se fit en un moment; les Fees n'estoient pas longues a leur besogne. Alors le Roi & la Reine apres avoir baise leur chere enfant sans qu'elle s'eveillast, sortirent du Chasteau, & firent publier des deffenses a qui que ce soit d'en approcher. Ces deffenses n'estoient pas necessaires, car il crut dans un quart-d'heure tout au tour du parc une si grande quantite de grands arbres & de petits, de ronces & d'epines entrelassees les unes dans les autres, que beste ny homme n'y auroit pu passer: en sorte qu'on ne voyoit plus que le haut des Tours du Chasteau, encore n'estoit-ce que de bien loin. On ne douta point que la Fee n'eust encore fait la un tour de son metier, afin que la Princesse pendant qu'elle dormiroit, n'eust rien a craindre des Curieux.