Notes
and References It may
be as well to give the reader some account of the enormous extent of
the Celtic
folk-tales in existence. I reckon these to extend to 2000, though only
about 250
are in print. The former number exceeds that known in France, Italy,
Germany, and
Russia, where collection has been most active, and is only exceeded by
the MS. collection
of Finnish folk-tales at Helsingfors, said to exceed 12,000. As will be
seen, this
superiority of the Celts is due to the phenomenal and patriotic
activity of one
man, the late J. F. Campbell, of Islay, whose Popular Tales and
MS. collections
(partly described by Mr. Alfred Nutt in Folk-Lore, i. 369-83)
contain references
to no less than 1281 tales (many of them, of course, variants and
scraps). Celtic
folk-tales, while more numerous, are also the oldest of the tales of
modern European
races; some of them — e.g., "Connla," in the present selection,
occurring in the oldest Irish vellums. They include (1) fairy tales
properly so-called
— i.e., tales or anecdotes about fairies, hobgoblins,
&c., told
as natural occurrences; (2) hero-tales, stories of adventure told of
national or
mythical heroes; (3) folk-tales proper, describing marvellous
adventures of otherwise
unknown heroes, in which there is a defined plot and supernatural
characters (speaking
animals, giants, dwarfs, &c.); and finally (4) drolls, comic
anecdotes of feats
of stupidity or cunning. The
collection
of Celtic folk-tales began in IRELAND as early as 1825, with T. Crofton
Croker's
Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland. This
contained some
38 anecdotes of the first class mentioned above, anecdotes showing the
belief of
the Irish peasantry in the existence of fairies, gnomes, goblins, and
the like.
The Grimms did Croker the honour of translating part of his book, under
the title
of Irische Elfenmärchen. Among the novelists and tale-writers
of the schools
of Miss Edgeworth and Lever folk-tales were occasionally utilised, as
by Carleton
in his Traits and Stories, by S. Lover in his Legends and
Stories,
and by G. Griffin in his Tales of a Jury-Room. These all tell
their tales
in the manner of the stage Irishman. Chapbooks, Royal Fairy Tales
and Hibernian
Tales, also contained genuine folk-tales, and attracted Thackeray's
attention
in his Irish Sketch-Book. The Irish Grimm, however, was Patrick
Kennedy,
a Dublin bookseller, who believed in fairies, and in five years (1866-
71) printed
about 100 folk- and hero-tales and drolls (classes 2, 3, and 4 above)
in his Legendary
Fictions of the Irish Celts, 1866, Fireside Stories of Ireland,
1870,
and Bardic Stories of Ireland, 1871; all three are now
unfortunately out
of print. He tells his stories neatly and with spirit, and retains much
that is
volkstümlich in his diction. He derived his materials from
the English-speaking
peasantry of county Wexford, who changed from Gaelic to English while
story-telling
was in full vigour, and therefore carried over the stories with the
change of language.
Lady Wylde has told many folk-tales very effectively in her Ancient
Legends of
Ireland, 1887. More recently two collectors have published stories
gathered
from peasants of the West and North who can only speak Gaelic. These
are by an American
gentleman named Curtin, Myths and Folk-Tales of Ireland, 1890;
while Dr.
Douglas Hyde has published in Beside the Fireside, 1891,
spirited English
versions of some of the stories he had published in the original Irish
in his Leabhar
Sgeulaighteachta, Dublin, 1889. Miss Maclintoch has a large MS.
collection,
part of which has appeared in various periodicals; and Messrs. Larminie
and D. Fitzgerald
are known to have much story material in their possession. But beside
these more modern collections there exist in old and middle Irish a
large number
of hero-tales (class 2) which formed the staple of the old ollahms
or bards.
Of these tales of "cattle-liftings, elopements, battles, voyages,
courtships,
caves, lakes, feasts, sieges, and eruptions," a bard of even the fourth
class
had to know seven fifties, presumably one for each day of the year. Sir
William
Temple knew of a north-country gentleman of Ireland who was sent to
sleep every
evening with a fresh tale from his bard. The Book of Leinster,
an Irish vellum
of the twelfth century, contains a list of 189 of these hero-tales,
many of which
are extant to this day; E. O'Curry gives the list in the Appendix to
his MS. Materials
of Irish History. Another list of about 70 is given in the preface
to the third
volume of the Ossianic Society's publications. Dr. Joyce published a
few of the
more celebrated of these in Old Celtic Romances; others
appeared in Atlantis
(see notes on "Deirdre"), others in Kennedy's Bardic Stories,
mentioned
above. Turning
to SCOTLAND, we must put aside Chambers' Popular Rhymes of Scotland,
1842,
which contains for the most part folk-tales common with those of
England rather
than those peculiar to the Gaelic-speaking Scots. The first name here
in time as
in importance is that of J. F. Campbell, of Islay. His four volumes, Popular
Tales of the West Highlands (Edinburgh, 1860-2, recently
republished by the
Islay Association), contain some 120 folk- and hero-tales, told with
strict adherence
to the language of the narrators, which is given with a literal, a
rather too literal,
English version. This careful accuracy has given an un-English air to
his versions,
and has prevented them attaining their due popularity. What Campbell
has published
represents only a tithe of what he collected. At the end of the fourth
volume he
gives a list of 791 tales, &c., collected by him or his assistants
in the two
years 1859-61; and in his MS. collections at Edinburgh are two other
lists containing
400 more tales. Only a portion of these are in the Advocates' Library;
the rest,
if extant, must be in private hands, though they are distinctly of
national importance
and interest. Campbell's
influence has been effective of recent years in Scotland. The Celtic
Magazine
(vols. xii. and xiii.), while under the editorship of Mr. MacBain,
contained several
folk- and hero-tales in Gaelic, and so did the Scotch Celtic Review.
These
were from the collections of Messrs. Campbell of Tiree, Carmichael, and
K. Mackenzie.
Recently Lord Archibald Campbell has shown laudable interest in the
preservation
of Gaelic folk- and hero-tales. Under his auspices a whole series of
handsome volumes,
under the general title of Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition,
has been
recently published, four volumes having already appeared, each
accompanied by notes
by Mr. Alfred Nutt, which form the most important aid to the study of
Celtic Folk-Tales
since Campbell himself. Those to the second volume in particular (Tales
collected
by Rev. D. MacInnes) fill 100 pages, with condensed information on all
aspects of
the subject dealt with in the light of the most recent research in the
European
folk-tales as well as on Celtic literature. Thanks to Mr. Nutt,
Scotland is just
now to the fore in the collection and study of the British Folk-Tale. WALES
makes a poor show beside Ireland and Scotland. Sikes' British
Goblins, and
the tales collected by Prof. Rhys in Y Cymrodor, vols. ii.-vi.,
are mainly
of our first-class fairy anecdotes. Borrow, in his Wild Wales,
refers to
a collection of fables in a journal called The Greal, while the
Cambrian
Quarterly Magazine for 1830 and 1831 contained a few fairy
anecdotes, including
a curious version of the "Brewery of Eggshells" from the Welsh. In the
older literature, the Iolo MS., published by the Welsh MS.
Society, has a
few fables and apologues, and the charming Mabinogion,
translated by Lady
Guest, has tales that can trace back to the twelfth century and are on
the border-line
between folk-tales and hero-tales. CORNWALL
and MAN are even worse than Wales. Hunt's Drolls from the West of
England
has nothing distinctively Celtic, and it is only by a chance Lhuyd
chose a folk-tale
as his specimen of Cornish in his Archaeologia Britannica, 1709
(see Tale
of Ivan). The Manx folk-tales published, including the most recent
by Mr. Moore,
in his Folk-Lore of the Isle of Man, 1891, are mainly fairy
anecdotes and
legends. 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.
This
result is a striking confirmation of the general truth that 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 of Cuchulain,
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 the 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 external 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 furthermost 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 organised 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
Beiträge, 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-nan-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-nan-Og (orbe
alio). One of
the most pathetic, beautiful, and typical scenes in Irish legend is the
return of
Ossian from Tir-nan-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-nan-Og with
the fairy Niamh under very much 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 gamekeeper of Frenchpark. 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. CONAL
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 widespread
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 fantastical 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' Tales, i. 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' 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 "Conal 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. Köhler on Gonzenbach Sicil.
Mährchen,
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 but,
and
as near approach to Cymric speech will be reached as is possible for
the outlander.
It maybe 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 Anglicè "Methugon Muthvai." Parallels. — Other
versions of the legend of the Van Pool are given in
Cambro-Briton, ii. 315; W. Sikes, British Goblins,
p. 40. Mr. E. Sidney
Hartland has discussed these and others in a set of papers contributed
to the first
volume of The Archaeological Review (now incorporated into Folk-Lore),
the substance of which is now given in his Science of Fairy Tales,
274-332.
(See also the references given in Revue Celtique, iv., 187 and
268). Mr.
Hartland gives there an ecumenical collection of parallels to the
several incidents
that go to make up our story — (1) The bride-capture of the
Swan-Maiden, (2) the
recognition of the bride, (3) the taboo against causeless blows, (4)
doomed to be
broken, and (5) disappearance of the Swan-Maiden, with (6) her return
as Guardian
Spirit to her descendants. In each case Mr. Hartland gives what he
considers to
be the most primitive form of the incident. With reference to our
present tale,
he comes to the conclusion, if I understand him aright, that the
lake-maiden was
once regarded as a local divinity. The physicians of Myddvai were
historic personages,
renowned for their medical skill for some six centuries, till the race
died out
with John Jones, fl. 1743. To explain their skill and uncanny
knowledge of
herbs, the folk traced them to a supernatural ancestress, who taught
them their
craft in a place still called Pant-y-Meddygon ("Doctors' Dingle").
Their
medical knowledge did not require any such remarkable origin, as Mr.
Hartland has
shown in a paper "On Welsh Folk-Medicine," contributed to Y
Cymmrodor,
vol. xii. On the other hand, the Swan-Maiden type of story is
widespread through
the Old World. Mr. Morris' "Land East of the Moon and West of the Sun,"
in The Earthly Paradise, is taken from the Norse version.
Parallels are accumulated
by the Grimms, ii. 432; Köhler on Gonzenbach, ii. 20; or Blade, 149;
Stokes' Indian
Fairy Tales, 243, 276; and Messrs. Jones and Koopf, Magyar
Folk-Tales,
362-5. It remains to be proved that one of these versions did not
travel to Wales,
and become there localised. We shall see other instances of such
localisation or
specialisation of general legends. VIII. THE
SPRIGHTLY TAILOR. Source. — Notes
and Queries for December 21, 1861; to which it
was communicated by "Cuthbert Bede," the author of Verdant Green,
who collected it in Cantyre. Parallels. — Miss
Dempster gives the same story in her Sutherland Collection,
No. vii. (referred to by Campbell in his Gaelic list, at end of vol.
iv.); Mrs.
John Faed, I am informed by a friend, knows the Gaelic version, as told
by her nurse
in her youth. Chambers' "Strange Visitor," Pop. Rhymes of Scotland,
64, of which I gave an Anglicised version in my English Fairy Tales,
No.
xxxii., is clearly a variant. Remarks. — The
Macdonald of Saddell Castle was a very great man indeed.
Once, when dining with the Lord-Lieutenant, an apology was made to him
for placing
him so far away from the head of the table. "Where the Macdonald sits,"
was the proud response, "there is the head of the table." IX. DEIRDRE. Source. — Celtic
Magazine, xiii. pp. 69, seq. I have
abridged somewhat, made the sons of Fergus all faithful instead of two
traitors,
and omitted an incident in the house of the wild men called here
"strangers."
The original Gaelic was given in the Transactions of the Inverness
Gaelic Society
for 1887, p. 241, seq., by Mr. Carmichael. I have inserted
Deirdre's "Lament"
from the Book of Leinster. Parallels. — This is
one of the three most sorrowful Tales of Erin, (the
other two, Children of Lir and Children of Tureen, are
given in Dr.
Joyce's Old Celtic Romances), and is a specimen of the old
heroic sagas of
elopement, a list of which is given in the Book of Leinster.
The "outcast
child" is a frequent episode in folk and hero-tales: an instance occurs
in
my English Fairy Tales, No. xxxv., and Prof. Köhler gives many
others in
Archiv. f. Slav. Philologie, i. 288. Mr. Nutt adds tenth
century Celtic parallels
in Folk-Lore, vol. ii. The wooing of hero by heroine is a
characteristic
Celtic touch. See "Connla" here, and other examples given by Mr. Nutt
in his notes to MacInnes' Tales. The trees growing from the
lovers' graves
occurs in the English ballad of Lord Lovel and has been studied
in Mélusine. Remarks. — The
"Story of Deirdre" is a remarkable instance
of the tenacity of oral tradition among the Celts. It has been
preserved in no less
than five versions (or six, including Macpherson's "Darthula") ranging
from the twelfth to the nineteenth century. The earliest is in the
twelfth century,
Book of Leinster, to be dated about 1140 (edited in
facsimile under the auspices
of the Royal Irish Academy, i. 147, seq.). Then comes a
fifteenth century
version, edited and translated by Dr. Stokes in Windisch's Irische
Texte
II., ii. 109, seq., "Death of the Sons of Uisnech." Keating in
his History of Ireland gave another version in the seventeenth
century. The
Dublin Gaelic Society published an eighteenth century version in their Transactions
for 1808. And lastly we have the version before us, collected only a
few years ago,
yet agreeing in all essential details with the version of the Book
of Leinster.
Such a record is unique in the history of oral tradition, outside
Ireland, where,
however, it is quite a customary experience in the study of the
Finn-saga. It is
now recognised that Macpherson had, or could have had, ample material
for his rechauffé
of the Finn or "Fingal" saga. His "Darthula" is a similar cobbling
of our present story. I leave to Celtic specialists the task of
settling the exact
relations of these various texts. I content myself with pointing out
the fact that
in these latter days of a seemingly prosaic century in these British
Isles there
has been collected from the lips of the folk a heroic story like this
of "Deirdre,"
full of romantic incidents, told with tender feeling and considerable
literary skill.
No other country in Europe, except perhaps Russia, could provide a
parallel to this
living on of Romance among the common folk. Surely it is a bounden duty
of those
who are in the position to put on record any such utterances of the
folk-imagination
of the Celts before it is too late. X. MUNACHAR
AND MANACHAR. Source. — I have
combined the Irish version given by Dr. Hyde in his
Leabhar Sgeul., and translated by him for Mr. Yeats' Irish
Folk and Fairy
Tales, and the Scotch version given in Gaelic and English by
Campbell, No. viii. Parallels. — Two
English versions are given in my Eng. Fairy Tales,
No. iv., "The Old Woman and her Pig," and xxxiv., "The Cat and the
Mouse," where see notes for other variants in these isles. M. Cosquin,
in his
notes to No. xxxiv., of his Contes de Lorraine, t. ii. pp.
35-41, has drawn
attention to an astonishing number of parallels scattered through all
Europe and
the East (cf., too, Crane, Ital. Pop. Tales, notes,
372-5). One of
the earliest allusions to the jingle is in Don Quixote, pt. 1,
c. xvi.: "Y
asi como suele decirse el gato al rato, et rato á la cuerda, la
cuerda al palo,
daba el arriero á Sancho, Sancho á la moza, la moza á él, el ventero á
la moza."
As I have pointed out, it is used to this day by Bengali women at the
end of each
folk-tale they recite (L. B. Day, Folk-Tales of Bengal, Pref.). Remarks. — Two
ingenious suggestions have been made as to the origin
of this curious jingle, both connecting it with religious ceremonies:
(1) Something
very similar occurs in Chaldaic at the end of the Jewish Hagada,
or domestic
ritual for the Passover night. It has, however, been shown that this
does not occur
in early MSS. or editions, and was only added at the end to amuse the
children after
the service, and was therefore only a translation or adaptation of a
current German
form of the jingle; (2) M. Basset, in the Revue des Traditions
populaires,
1890, t. v. p. 549, has suggested that it is a survival of the old
Greek custom
at the sacrifice of the Bouphonia for the priest to contend that he
had not
slain the sacred beast, the axe declares that the handle did it, the
handle transfers
the guilt further, and so on. This is ingenious, but fails to give any
reasonable
account of the diffusion of the jingle in countries which have had no
historic connection
with classical Greece. XI. GOLD
TREE AND SILVER TREE. Source. — Celtic
Magazine, xiii. 213-8, Gaelic and English from
Mr. Kenneth Macleod. Parallels. — Mr.
Macleod heard another version in which "Gold Tree"
(anonymous in this variant) is bewitched to kill her father's horse,
dog, and cock.
Abroad it is the Grimm's Schneewittchen (No. 53), for the
Continental variants
of which see Köhler on Gonzenbach, Sicil. Mährchen, Nos. 2-4,
Grimm's notes
on 53, and Crane, Ital. Pop. Tales, 331. No other version is
known in the
British Isles. Remarks. — It is
unlikely, I should say impossible, that this tale,
with the incident of the dormant heroine, should have arisen
independently in the
Highlands; it is most likely an importation from abroad. Yet in it
occurs a most
"primitive" incident, the bigamous household of the hero; this is
glossed
over in Mr. Macleod's other variant. On the "survival" method of
investigation
this would possibly be used as evidence for polygamy in the Highlands.
Yet if, as
is probable, the story came from abroad, this trait may have come with
it, and only
implies polygamy in the original home of the tale. XII. KING
O'TOOLE AND HIS GOOSE. Source. — S.
Lover's Stories and Legends of the Irish Peasantry. Remarks. — This is
really a moral apologue on the benefits of keeping
your word. Yet it is told with such humour and vigour, that the moral
glides insensibly
into the heart. XIII. THE
WOOING OF OLWEN. Source. — The Mabinogi
of Kulhwych and Olwen from the translation
of Lady Guest, abridged. Parallels. — Prof.
Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, p. 486, considers that
our tale is paralleled by Cuchulain's "Wooing of Emer," a translation
of which by Prof. K. Meyer appeared in the Archaeological Review,
vol. i.
I fail to see much analogy. On the other hand in his Arthurian
Legend, p.
41, he rightly compares the tasks set by Yspythadon to those set to
Jason. They
are indeed of the familiar type of the Bride Wager (on which see
Grimm-Hunt, i.
399). The incident of the three animals, old, older, and oldest, has a
remarkable
resemblance to the Tettira Jataka (ed. Fausböll, No. 37,
transl. Rhys Davids,
i. p. 310 seq.) in which the partridge, monkey, and elephant
dispute as to
their relative age, and the partridge turns out to have voided the seed
of the Banyan-tree
under which they were sheltered, whereas the elephant only knew it when
a mere bush,
and the monkey had nibbled the topmost shoots. This apologue got to
England at the
end of the twelfth century as the sixty-ninth fable, "Wolf, Fox, and
Dove,"
of a rhymed prose collection of "Fox Fables" (Mishle Shu'alim),
of an Oxford Jew, Berachyah Nakdan, known in the Records as "Benedict
le Puncteur"
(see my Fables Of Aesop, i. p. 170). Similar incidents occur in
"Jack
and his Snuff-box" in my English Fairy Tales, and in Dr. Hyde's
"Well
of D'Yerree-in-Dowan." The skilled companions of Kulhwych are common in
European
folk-tales (Cf. Cosquin, i. 123-5), and especially among the
Celts (see Mr.
Nutt's note in MacInnes' Tales, 445-8), among whom they occur
very early,
but not so early as Lynceus and the other skilled comrades of the
Argonauts. Remarks. — The
hunting of the boar Trwyth can be traced back in Welsh
tradition at least as early as the ninth century. For it is referred to
in the following
passage of Nennius' Historia Britonum ed. Stevenson, p: 60,
"Est aliud
miraculum in regione quae dicitur Buelt [Builth, co. Brecon] Est ibi
cumulus lapidum
et unus lapis super-positus super congestum cum vestigia canis in eo.
Quando venatus
est porcum Troynt [var. lec. Troit] impressit Cabal, qui erat
canis Arthuri
militis, vestigium in lapide et Arthur postea congregavit congestum
lapidum sub
lapide in quo erat vestigium canis sui et vocatur Carn Cabal."
Curiously enough
there is still a mountain called Carn Cabal in the district of Builth,
south of
Rhayader Gwy in Breconshire. Still more curiously a friend of Lady
Guest's found
on this a cairn with a stone two feet long by one foot wide in which
there was an
indentation 4 in. x 3 in. x 2 in. which could easily have been mistaken
for a paw-print
of a dog, as maybe seen from the engraving given of it (Mabinogion, ed.
1874, p.
269). The stone
and the legend are thus at least one thousand years old. "There stands
the
stone to tell if I lie." According to Prof. Rhys (Hibbert Lect.
486-97)
the whole story is a mythological one, Kulhwych's mother being the
dawn, the clover
blossoms that grow under Olwen's feet being comparable to the roses
that sprung
up where Aphrodite had trod, and Yspyddadon being the incarnation of
the sacred
hawthorn. Mabon, again (i.e. pp. 21, 28-9), is the Apollo
Maponus discovered
in Latin inscriptions at Ainstable in Cumberland and elsewhere (Hübner,
Corp.
Insc. Lat. Brit. Nos. 218, 332, 1345). Granting all this, there is
nothing to
show any mythological significance in the tale, though there may have
been in the
names of the dramatis personae. I observe from the proceedings
of the recent
Eisteddfod that the bardic name of Mr. W. Abraham, M.P., is 'Mabon.' It
scarcely
follows that Mr. Abraham is in receipt of divine honours nowadays. XIV. JACK
AND HIS COMRADES. Source. —
Kennedy's Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts. Parallels. — This is
the fullest and most dramatic version I know of the
Grimm's "Town Musicians of Bremen" (No. 27). I have given an English
(American)
version in my English Fairy Tales, No. 5, in the notes to which
would be
found references to other versions known in the British Isles (e.g.,
Campbell,
No. 11) and abroad. Cf. remarks on No. vi. XV. SHEE AN
GANNON AND GRUAGACH GAIRE. Source. — Curtin, Myths
and Folk-Lore of Ireland, p. 114 seq.
I have shortened the earlier part of the tale, and introduced into the
latter a
few touches from Campbell's story of "Fionn's Enchantment," in Revue
Celtique, t. i., 193 seq. Parallels. — The
early part is similar to the beginning of "The Sea-Maiden"
(No. xvii., which see). The latter part is practically the same as the
story of
"Fionn's Enchantment," just referred to. It also occurs in MacInnes' Tales,
No. iii., "The King of Albainn" (see Mr. Nutt's notes, 454). The
head-crowned
spikes are Celtic, cf. Mr. Nutt's notes (MacInnes' Tales,
453). Remarks. — Here
again we meet the question whether the folk-tale precedes
the hero-tale about Finn or was derived from it, and again the
probability seems
that our story has the priority as a folk-tale, and was afterwards
applied to the
national hero, Finn. This is confirmed by the fact that a thirteenth
century French
romance, Conte du Graal, has much the same incidents, and was
probably derived
from a similar folk-tale of the Celts. Indeed, Mr. Nutt is inclined to
think that
the original form of our story (which contains a mysterious healing
vessel) is the
germ out of which the legend of the Holy Grail was evolved (see his Studies
in
the Holy Grail, p. 202 seq.). XVI. THE
STORY-TELLER AT FAULT. Source. —
Griffin's Tales from a Jury-Room, combined with Campbell,
No. xvii. c, "The Slim Swarthy Champion." Parallels. — Campbell
gives another variant, l.c. i. 318. Dr. Hyde
has an Irish version of Campbell's tale written down in 1762, from
which he gives
the incident of the air-ladder (which I have had to euphemise in my
version) in
his Beside the Fireside, p. 191, and other passages in his
Preface. The most
remarkable parallel to this incident, however, is afforded by the feats
of Indian
jugglers reported briefly by Marco Polo, and illustrated with his usual
wealth of
learning by the late Sir Henry Yule, in his edition, vol. i. p. 308 seq.
The accompanying illustration (reduced from Yule) will tell its own
tale: it is
taken from the Dutch account of the travels of an English sailor, E.
Melton, Zeldzaame
Reizen, 1702, p. 468. It tells the tale in five acts, all included
in one sketch.
Another instance quoted by Yule is still more parallel, so to speak.
The twenty-third
trick performed by some conjurors before the Emperor Jahangueir (Memoirs,
p. 102) is thus described: "They produced a chain of 50 cubits in
length, and
in my presence threw one end of it towards the sky, where it remained
as if fastened
to something in the air. A dog was then brought forward, and being
placed at the
lower end of the chain, immediately ran up, and, reaching the other
end, immediately
disappeared in the air. In the same manner a hog, a panther, a lion,
and a tiger
were successively sent up the chain." It has been suggested that the
conjurors
hypnotise the spectators, and make them believe they see these things.
This is practically
the suggestion of a wise Mohammedan, who is quoted by Yule as saying, "Wallah!
'tis my opinion there has been neither going up nor coming down; 'tis
all hocus-pocus,"
hocus-pocus being presumably the Mohammedan term for hypnotism. Remarks. — Dr. Hyde
(l.c. Pref. xxix.) thinks our tale cannot
be older than 1362, because of a reference to one O'Connor Sligo which
occurs in
all its variants; it is, however, omitted in our somewhat abridged
version. Mr Nutt
(ap. Campbell, The Fians, Introd. xix.) thinks that this
does not
prevent a still earlier version having existed. I should have thought
that the existence
of so distinctly Eastern a trick in the tale, and the fact that it is a
framework
story (another Eastern characteristic), would imply that it is a rather
late importation,
with local allusions superadded (cf. notes on "Conal
Yellowclaw,"
No v.) The passages
in verse from pp 137, 139, and the description of the Beggarman, pp.
136, 140, are
instances of a curious characteristic of Gaelic folk-tales called
"runs."
Collections of conventional epithets are used over and over again to
describe the
same incident, the beaching of a boat, sea-faring, travelling and the
like, and
are inserted in different tales. These "runs" are often similar in both
the Irish and the Scotch form of the same tale or of the same incident.
The volumes
of Waifs and Strays contain numerous examples of these "runs,"
which have been indexed in each volume. These "runs" are another
confirmation
of my view that the original form of the folk-tale was that of the Cante-fable
(see note on "Connla" and on "Childe Rowland" in English
Fairy Tales). XVII.
SEA-MAIDEN. Source. —
Campbell, Pop. Tales, No. 4. I have omitted the births
of the animal comrades and transposed the carlin to the middle of the
tale. Mr.
Batten has considerately idealised the Sea-Maiden in his frontispiece.
When she
restores the husband to the wife in one of the variants, she brings him
out of her
mouth! "So the sea-maiden put up his head (Who do you mean? Out of
her mouth
to be sure. She had swallowed him)." Parallels. — The
early part of the story occurs in No. xv., "Shee
an Gannon," and the last part in No. xix., "Fair, Brown, and Trembling"
(both from Curtin), Campbell's No. 1. "The Young King" is much like it;
also MacInnes' No. iv., "Herding of Cruachan" and No. viii., "Lod
the Farmer's Son." The third of Mr. Britten's Irish folk-tales in the Folk-Lore
Journal is a Sea-Maiden story. The story is obviously a favourite
one among
the Celts. Yet its main incidents occur with frequency in Continental
folk-tales.
Prof. Köhler has collected a number in his notes on Campbell's Tales in
Orient
und Occident, Bnd. ii. 115-8. The trial of the sword occurs in the
saga of Sigurd,
yet it is also frequent in Celtic saga and folk-tales (see Mr. Nutt's
note, MacInnes'
Tales, 473, and add. Curtin, 320). The hideous carlin and
her three giant
sons is also a common form in Celtic. The external soul of the
Sea-Maiden carried
about in an egg, in a trout, in a hoodie, in a hind, is a remarkable
instance of
a peculiarly savage conception which has been studied by Major Temple, Wide-awake
Stories, 404-5; by Mr. E. Clodd, in the "Philosophy of Punchkin,"
in Folk-Lore Journal, vol. ii., and by Mr. Frazer in his Golden
Bough,
vol. ii. Remarks. — As both
Prof. Rhys (Hibbert Lect., 464) and Mr. Nutt
(MacInnes' Tales, 477) have pointed out, practically the same
story (that
of Perseus and Andromeda) is told of the Ultonian hero, Cuchulain, in
the Wooing
of Emer, a tale which occurs in the Book of Leinster, a MS. of the
twelfth century,
and was probably copied from one of the eighth. Unfortunately it is not
complete,
and the Sea-Maiden incident is only to be found in a British Museum MS.
of about
1300. In this Cuchulain finds that the daughter of Ruad is to be given
as a tribute
to the Fomori, who, according to Prof. Rhys, Folk-Lore, ii.
293, have something
of the nightmare about their etymology. Cuchulain fights three
of
them successively, has his wounds bound up by a strip of the maiden's
garment, and
then departs. Thereafter many boasted of having slain the Fomori, but
the maiden
believed them not till at last by a stratagem she recognises Cuchulain.
I may add
to this that in Mr. Curtin's Myths, 330, the threefold trial of
the sword
is told of Cuchulain. This would seem to trace our story back to the
seventh or
eighth century and certainly to the thirteenth. If so, it is likely
enough that
it spread from Ireland through Europe with the Irish missions (for the
wide extent
of which see map in Mrs. Bryant's Celtic Ireland). The very
letters that
have spread through all Europe except Russia, are to be traced to the
script of
these Irish monks: why not certain folk-tales? There is a further
question whether
the story was originally told of Cuchulain as a hero-tale and then
became departicularised
as a folk-tale, or was the process vice versa. Certainly in the
form in which
it appears in the Tochmarc Emer it is not complete, so that
here, as elsewhere,
we seem to have an instance of a folk-tale applied to a well-known
heroic name,
and becoming a hero-tale or saga. XVIII.
LEGEND OF KNOCKMANY. Source. — W.
Carleton, Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry. Parallels. —
Kennedy's "Fion MacCuil and the Scotch Giant,"
Legend. Fict., 203-5. Remarks. — Though
the venerable names of Finn and Cucullin (Cuchulain)
are attached to the heroes of this story, this is probably only to give
an extrinsic
interest to it. The two heroes could not have come together in any
early form of
their sagas, since Cuchulain's reputed date is of the first, Finn's of
the third
century A.D. (cf. however, MacDougall's Tales, notes,
272). Besides,
the grotesque form of the legend is enough to remove it from the region
of the hero-tale.
On the other hand, there is a distinct reference to Finn's
wisdom-tooth, which presaged
the future to him (on this see Revue Celtique, v. 201, Joyce, Old
Celt.
Rom., 434-5, and MacDougall, l.c. 274). Cucullin's
power-finger is another
instance of the life-index or external soul, on which see remarks on
Sea-Maiden.
Mr. Nutt informs me that parodies of the Irish sagas occur as early as
the sixteenth
century, and the present tale may be regarded as a specimen. XIX. FAIR,
BROWN, AND TREMBLING. Source. — Curtin, Myths,
&c., of Ireland, 78 seq. Parallels. — The
latter half resembles the second part of the Sea-Maiden
(No. xvii.), which see. The earlier portion is a Cinderella tale (on
which see the
late Mr. Ralston's article in Nineteenth Century, Nov. 1879,
and Mr. Lang's
treatment in his Perrault). Miss Roalfe Cox is about to publish for the
Folk-Lore
Society a whole volume of variants of the Cinderella group of stories,
which are
remarkably well represented in these isles, nearly a dozen different
versions being
known in England, Ireland, and Scotland. XX. JACK AND
HIS MASTER. Source. — Kennedy,
Fireside Stories of Ireland, 74-80, "Shan
an Omadhan and his Master." Parallels. — It
occurs also in Campbell, No. xlv., "Mac a Rusgaich."
It is a European droll, the wide occurrence of which — "the loss of
temper
bet" I should call it — is bibliographised by M. Cosquin, l.c.
ii. 50
(cf. notes on No. vi.). XXI. BETH
GELLERT. Source. — I have
paraphrased the well-known poem of Hon. W. R. Spencer,
"Beth Gêlert, or the Grave of the Greyhound," first printed privately
as a broadsheet in 1800 when it was composed ("August 11, 1800,
Dolymalynllyn"
is the colophon). It was published in Spencer's Poems, 1811,
pp. 78-86. These
dates, it will be seen, are of importance. Spencer states in a note:
"The story
of this ballad is traditionary in a village at the foot of Snowdon
where Llewellyn
the Great had a house. The Greyhound named Gêlert was given him by his
father-in-law,
King John, in the year 1205, and the place to this day is called
Beth-Gêlert, or
the grave of Gêlert." As a matter of fact, no trace of the tradition in
connection
with Bedd Gellert can be found before Spencer's time. It is not
mentioned in Leland's
Itinerary, ed. Hearne, v. p. 37 ("Beth Kellarth"), in
Pennant's
Tour (1770), ii. 176, or in Bingley's Tour in Wales
(1800). Borrow
in his Wild Wales, p. 146, gives the legend, but does not
profess to derive
it from local tradition. Parallels. — The only
parallel in Celtdom is that noticed by Croker in
his third volume, the legend of Partholan who killed his wife's
greyhound from jealousy:
this is found sculptured in stone at Ap Brune, co. Limerick. As is well
known, and
has been elaborately discussed by Mr. Baring-Gould (Curious Myths of
the Middle
Ages, p. 134 seq.), and Mr. W. A. Clouston (Popular
Tales and Fictions,
ii. 166, seq.), the story of the man who rashly slew the dog
(ichneumon,
weasel, &c.) that had saved his babe from death, is one of those
which have
spread from East to West. It is indeed, as Mr. Clouston points out,
still current
in India, the land of its birth. There is little doubt that it is
originally Buddhistic:
the late Prof. S. Beal gave the earliest known version from the Chinese
translation
of the Vinaya Pitaka in the Academy of Nov. 4, 1882.
The conception
of an animal sacrificing itself for the sake of others is peculiarly
Buddhistic;
the "hare in the moon" is an apotheosis of such a piece of
self-sacrifice
on the part of Buddha (Sasa Jataka). There are two forms that
have reached
the West, the first being that of an animal saving men at the cost of
its own life.
I pointed out an early instance of this, quoted by a Rabbi of the
second century,
in my Fables of Aesop, i. 105. This concludes with a strangely
close parallel
to Gellert; "They raised a cairn over his grave, and the place is still
called
The Dog's Grave." The Culex attributed to Virgil seems to be
another
variant of this. The second form of the legend is always told as a
moral apologue
against precipitate action, and originally occurred in The Fables
of Bidpai
in its hundred and one forms, all founded on Buddhistic originals (cf.
Benfey,
Pantschatantra, Einleitung, §201). [Footnote: It occurs in
the same chapter
as the story of La Perrette, which has been traced, after Benfey, by
Prof. M. Müller
in his "Migration of Fables" (Sel. Essays, i. 500-74): exactly
the same history applies to Gellert.] Thence, according to Benfey, it
was inserted
in the Book of Sindibad, another collection of Oriental
Apologues framed
on what may be called the Mrs. Potiphar formula. This came to Europe
with the Crusades,
and is known in its Western versions as the Seven Sages of Rome.
The Gellert
story occurs in all the Oriental and Occidental versions; e.g.,
it is the
First Master's story in Wynkyn de Worde's (ed. G. L. Gomme, for the
Villon Society.)
From the Seven Sages it was taken into the particular branch of
the Gesta
Romanorum current in England and known as the English Gesta,
where it
occurs as c. xxxii., "Story of Folliculus." We have thus traced it to
England whence it passed to Wales, where I have discovered it as the
second apologue
of "The Fables of Cattwg the Wise," in the Iolo MS. published by the
Welsh
MS. Society, p.561, "The man who killed his Greyhound." (These Fables,
Mr. Nutt informs me, are a pseudonymous production probably of the
sixteenth century.)
This concludes the literary route of the Legend of Gellert from India
to Wales:
Buddhistic Vinaya Pitaka — Fables of Bidpai; — Oriental Sindibad;
— Occidental Seven Sages of Rome; — "English" (Latin), Gesta
Romanorum; — Welsh, Fables of Cattwg. Remarks. — We have
still to connect the legend with Llewelyn and with
Bedd Gelert. But first it may be desirable to point out why it is
necessary to assume
that the legend is a legend and not a fact. The saving of an infant's
life by a
dog, and the mistaken slaughter of the dog, are not such an improbable
combination
as to make it impossible that the same event occurred in many places.
But what is
impossible, in my opinion, is that such an event should have
independently been
used in different places as the typical instance of, and warning
against, rash action.
That the Gellert legend, before it was localised, was used as a moral
apologue in
Wales is shown by the fact that it occurs among the Fables of Cattwg,
which are
all of that character. It was also utilised as a proverb: "Yr wy'n
edivaru
cymmaint a'r Gwr a laddodd ei Vilgi" ("I repent as much as the man
who slew his greyhound"). The fable indeed, from this point of view,
seems
greatly to have attracted the Welsh mind, perhaps as of especial value
to a proverbially
impetuous temperament. Croker (Fairy Legends of Ireland, vol.
iii. p. 165)
points out several places where the legend seems to have been localised
in place-names
— two places, called "Gwal y Vilast" ("Greyhound's Couch"),
in Carmarthen and Glamorganshire; "Llech y Asp" ("Dog's Stone"),
in Cardigan, and another place named in Welsh "Spring of the
Greyhound's Stone."
Mr. Baring-Gould mentions that the legend is told of an ordinary
tombstone, with
a knight and a greyhound, in Abergavenny Church; while the Fable of
Cattwg is told
of a man in Abergarwan. So widespread and well known was the legend
that it was
in Richard III's time adopted as the national crest. In the Warwick
Roll, at the
Herald's Office, after giving separate crests for England, Scotland,
and Ireland,
that for Wales is given as figured in the margin, and blazoned "on a
coronet
in a cradle or, a greyhound argent for Walys" (see J. R. Planché, Twelve
Designs for the Costume of Shakespeare's Richard III., 1830,
frontispiece).
If this Roll is authentic, the popularity of the legend is thrown back
into the
fifteenth century. It still remains to explain how and when this
general legend
of rash action was localised and specialised at Bedd Gelert: I believe
I have discovered
this. There certainly was a local legend about a dog named Gelert at
that place;
E. Jones, in the first edition of his Musical Relicks of the Welsh
Bards,
1784, p. 40, gives the following englyn or epigram: Claddwyd Cylart celfydd
(ymlyniad) Ymlaneau Efionydd Parod giuio i'w gynydd Parai'r dydd yr heliai
Hydd; which he
Englishes thus: The remains of famed
Cylart, so faithful and good, The bounds of the cantred
conceal; Whenever the doe or the
stag he pursued His master was sure
of a meal. No reference
was made in the first edition to the Gellert legend, but in the second
edition of
1794, p. 75, a note was added telling the legend, "There is a general
tradition
in North Wales that a wolf had entered the house of Prince Llewellyn.
Soon after
the Prince returned home, and, going into the nursery, he met his dog Kill-hart,
all bloody and wagging his tail at him; Prince Llewellyn, on entering
the room found
the cradle where his child lay overturned, and the floor flowing with
blood; imagining
that the greyhound had killed the child, he immediately drew his sword
and stabbed
it; then, turning up the cradle, found under it the child alive, and
the wolf dead.
This so grieved the Prince, that he erected a tomb over his faithful
dog's grave;
where afterwards the parish church was built and goes by that name — Bedd
Cilhart,
or the grave of Kill-hart, in Carnarvonshire. From this
incident is elicited
a very common Welsh proverb [that given above which occurs also in 'The
Fables of
Cattwg;' it will be observed that it is quite indefinite.]" "Prince
Llewellyn
ab Jorwerth married Joan, [natural] daughter of King John, by Agatha,
daughter
of Robert Ferrers, Earl of Derby; and the dog was a present to the
prince from his
father-in-law about the year 1205." It was clearly from this note that
the
Hon. Mr. Spencer got his account; oral tradition does not indulge in
dates Anno
Domini. The application of the general legend of "the man who slew
his
greyhound" to the dog Cylart, was due to the learning of E. Jones,
author of
the Musical Relicks. I am convinced of this, for by a lucky
chance I am enabled
to give the real legend about Cylart, which is thus given in Carlisle's
Topographical
Dictionary of Wales, s.v., "Bedd Celert," published in 1811, the
date
of publication of Mr. Spencer's Poems. "Its name, according to
tradition,
implies The Grave of Celert, a Greyhound which belonged to
Llywelyn, the
last Prince of Wales: and a large Rock is still pointed out as the
monument of this
celebrated Dog, being on the spot where it was found dead, together
with the stag
which it had pursued from Carnarvon," which is thirteen miles distant.
The
cairn was thus a monument of a "record" run of a greyhound: the englyn
quoted by Jones is suitable enough for this, while quite inadequate to
record the
later legendary exploits of Gêlert. Jones found an englyn
devoted to an
exploit of a dog named Cylart, and chose to interpret it in his second
edition,
1794, as the exploit of a greyhound with which all the world
(in Wales) were
acquainted. Mr. Spencer took the legend from Jones (the reference to
the date 1205
proves that), enshrined it in his somewhat banal verses, which
were lucky
enough to be copied into several reading-books, and thus became known
to all English-speaking
folk. It remains
only to explain why Jones connected the legend with Llewelyn. Llewelyn
had local
connection with Bedd Gellert, which was the seat of an Augustinian
abbey, one of
the oldest in Wales. An inspeximus of Edward I. given in Dugdale, Monast.
Angl.,
ed. pr. ii. 100a, quotes as the earliest charter of the abbey "Cartam
Lewelin,
magni." The name of the abbey was "Beth Kellarth"; the name is thus
given by Leland, l.c., and as late as 1794 an engraving at the
British Museum
is entitled "Beth Kelert," while Carlisle gives it as "Beth Celert."
The place was thus named after the abbey, not after the cairn or rock.
This is confirmed
by the fact of which Prof. Rhys had informed me, that the collocation
of letters
rt is un-Welsh. Under these circumstances it is not
impossible, I think,
that the earlier legend of the marvellous run of "Cylart" from
Carnarvon
was due to the etymologising fancy of some English-speaking Welshman
who interpreted
the name as Killhart, so that the simpler legend would be only a
folk-etymology. But whether
Kellarth, Kelert, Cylart, Gêlert or Gellert ever existed and ran a hart
from Carnarvon
to Bedd Gellert or no, there can be little doubt after the preceding
that he was
not the original hero of the fable of "the man that slew his
greyhound,"
which came to Wales from Buddhistic India through channels which are
perfectly traceable.
It was Edward Jones who first raised him to that proud position, and
William Spencer
who securely installed him there, probably for all time. The legend is
now firmly
established at Bedd Gellert. There is said to be an ancient air, "Bedd
Gelert,"
"as sung by the Ancient Britons"; it is given in a pamphlet published
at Carnarvon in the "fifties," entitled Gellert's Grave; or,
Llewellyn's
Rashness: a Ballad, by the Hon. W. R. Spencer, to which is added that
ancient Welsh
air, "Bedd Gelert," as sung by the Ancient Britons. The air is from
R. Roberts' "Collection of Welsh Airs," but what connection it has with
the legend I have been unable to ascertain. This is probably another
case of adapting
one tradition to another. It is almost impossible to distinguish
palaeozoic and
cainozoic strata in oral tradition. According to Murray's Guide to
N. Wales,
p. 125, the only authority for the cairn now shown is that of the
landlord of the
Goat Inn, "who felt compelled by the cravings of tourists to invent a
grave."
Some old men at Bedd Gellert, Prof. Rhys informs me, are ready to
testify that they
saw the cairn laid. They might almost have been present at the birth of
the legend,
which, if my affiliation of it is correct, is not yet quite 100 years
old. XXII. STORY
OF IVAN. Source. — Lluyd, Archaeologia
Britannia, 1707, the first comparative
Celtic grammar and the finest piece of work in comparative philology
hitherto done
in England, contains this tale as a specimen of Cornish then still
spoken in Cornwall.
I have used the English version contained in Blackwood's Magazine
as long
ago as May 1818. I have taken the third counsel from the Irish version,
as the original
is not suited virginibus puerisque, though harmless enough in
itself. Parallels. — Lover
has a tale, The Three Advices. It occurs also
in modern Cornwall ap. Hunt, Drolls of West of England,
344, "The
Tinner of Chyamor." Borrow, Wild Wales, 41, has a reference
which seems
to imply that the story had crystallised into a Welsh proverb.
Curiously enough,
it forms the chief episode of the so-called "Irish Odyssey" ("Merugud
Uilix maiec Leirtis" — "Wandering of Ulysses M'Laertes"). It
was derived, in all probability, from the Gesta Romanorum, c.
103, where
two of the three pieces of advice are "Avoid a byeway," "Beware of
a house where the housewife is younger than her husband." It is likely
enough
that this chapter, like others of the Gesta, came from the
East, for it is
found in some versions of "The Forty Viziers," and in the Turkish
Tales
(see Oesterley's parallels and Gesta, ed. Swan and Hooper, note
9). XXIII.
ANDREW COFFEY. Source. — From the
late D. W. Logie, written down by Mr. Alfred Nutt. Parallels. — Dr.
Hyde's "Teig O'Kane and the Corpse," and Kennedy's
"Cauth Morrisy," Legend. Fict., 158, are practically the same. Remarks. — No
collection of Celtic Folk-Tales would be representative
that did not contain some specimen of the gruesome. The most effective
ghoul story
in existence is Lover's "Brown Man." XXIV. BATTLE
OF BIRDS. Source. — Campbell
(Pop. Tales, W. Highlands, No. ii.), with
touches from the seventh variant and others, including the casket and
key finish,
from Curtin's "Son of the King of Erin" (Myths, &c., 32 seq.).
I have also added a specimen of the humorous end pieces added by Gaelic
story-tellers;
on these tags see an interesting note in MacDougall's Tales,
note on p. 112.
I have found some difficulty in dealing with Campbell's excessive use
of the second
person singular, "If thou thouest him some two or three times, 'tis
well,"
but beyond that it is wearisome. Practically, I have reserved thou
for the
speech of giants, who may be supposed to be somewhat old-fashioned. I
fear, however,
I have not been quite consistent, though the you's addressed to
the apple-pips
are grammatically correct as applied to the pair of lovers. Parallels. — Besides
the eight versions given or abstracted by Campbell
and Mr. Curtin's, there is Carleton's "Three Tasks," Dr. Hyde's "Son
of Branduf" (MS.); there is the First Tale of MacInnes (where see Mr.
Nutt's
elaborate notes, 431-43), two in the Celtic Magazine, vol.
xii., "Grey
Norris from Warland" (Folk-Lore Journ. i. 316), and Mr. Lang's
Morayshire
Tale, "Nicht Nought Nothing" (see Eng. Fairy Tales, No. vii.),
no less than sixteen variants found among the Celts. It must have
occurred early
among them. Mr. Nutt found the feather-thatch incident in the Agallamh
na Senoraib
("Discourse of Elders"), which is at least as old as the fifteenth
century.
Yet the story is to be found throughout the Indo-European world, as is
shown by
Prof. Köhler's elaborate list of parallels attached to Mr. Lang's
variant in Revue
Celtique, iii. 374; and Mr. Lang, in his Custom and Myth
("A far
travelled Tale"), has given a number of parallels from savage sources.
And
strangest of all, the story is practically the same as the classical
myth of Jason
and Medea. Remarks. — Mr.
Nutt, in his discussion of the tale (MacInnes, Tales
441), makes the interesting suggestion that the obstacles to pursuit,
the forest,
the mountain, and the river, exactly represent the boundary of the old
Teutonic
Hades, so that the story was originally one of the Descent to Hell.
Altogether it
seems likely that it is one of the oldest folk-tales in existence, and
belonged
to the story-store of the original Aryans, whoever they were, was
passed by them
with their language on to the Hellenes and perhaps to the Indians, was
developed
in its modern form in Scandinavia (where its best representative "The
Master
Maid" of Asbjörnsen is still found), was passed by them to the Celts
and possibly
was transmitted by these latter to other parts of Europe, perhaps by
early Irish
monks (see notes on "Sea-Maiden"). The spread in the Buddhistic world,
and thence to the South Seas and Madagascar, would be secondary from
India. I hope
to have another occasion for dealing with this most interesting of all
folk-tales
in the detail it deserves. XXV. BREWERY
OF EGGSHELLS. Source. — From the
Cambrian Quarterly Magazine, 1830, vol. ii.
p. 86; it is stated to be literally translated from the Welsh. Parallels. — Another
variant from Glamorganshire is given in Y Cymmrodor,
vi. 209. Croker has the story under the title I have given the Welsh
one in his
Fairy Legends, 41. Mr. Hartland, in his Science of
Fairy Tales, 113-6,
gives the European parallels. XXVI. LAD
WITH THE GOAT SKIN. Source. — Kennedy,
Legendary Fictions, pp. 23-31. The Adventures
of "Gilla na Chreck an Gour'." Parallels. — "The Lad with the Skin Coverings" is a popular Celtic figure, cf. MacDougall's Third Tale, MacInnes' Second, and a reference in Campbell, iii. 147. According to Mr. Nutt (Holy Grail, 134), he is the original of Parzival. But the adventures in these tales are not the "cure by laughing" incident which forms the centre of our tale, and is Indo-European in extent (cf. references in English Fairy Tales, notes to No. xxvii.). "The smith who made hell too hot for him is Sisyphus," says Mr. Lang (Introd. to Grimm, p. xiii.); in Ireland he is Billy Dawson (Carleton, Three Wishes). In the Finn-Saga, Conan harries hell, as readers of Waverley may remember "'Claw for claw, and devil take the shortest nails,' as Conan said to the Devil" (cf. Campbell, The Fians, 73, and notes, 283). Red-haired men in Ireland and elsewhere are always rogues (see Mr. Nutt's references, MacInnes' Tales, 477; to which add the case in "Lough Neagh," Yeats, Irish Folk-Tales, p. 210). |