Celtic Fairy Tales (27 page)

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.