FOOTNOTES to INTRODUCTION

FOOTNOTES TO INTRODUCTION

[1] How strange is the terror of Natural Science, which seems to possess, with a religious possession, so many good and pious people! How rigidly do they bind themselves hand and foot with the mere letter of the law, forgetting Him who came to teach us, that “the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life!” What are we to say of those who, when the old crust which clogs and hampers human knowledge is cracking and breaking all around them, when the shell is too narrow an abode for the life within it, which is preparing to cast it off, still cling to the crust and shell, looking, like the disciples by the sepulchre, at the linen clothes lying, and know not that He has risen in glory? These are they who obstinately refuse to believe in the “Testimony of the Rocks”, who deny Geology the thousands, nay millions, of years which she requires to make her deposits in Nature’s great saving-bank. These are they for whom the Nile, as he brings down year by year his tribute to the sea from Central Africa, lays down in vain layer after layer of alluvial deposit, which can be measured to an inch for tens of thousands of years. These are they to whom the comparatively younger growth of trees, the dragon tree of Orotava, and the cedars of California, plead in vain when they show, year after year, ring on ring of wood for thousands of years. “No; the world is only five or six thousands of years old, or thereabouts. The Old Testament”—the dates in which have been confessedly tampered with, and in some cases forged and fabricated by Hebrew scribes—“says so. We believe in it—we will believe in nothing else, not even in our senses. We will believe literally in the first chapter of Genesis, in working days and nights of twenty-four hours, even before the sun and moon were made, on the fourth day, ‘to divide the day from the night’, and to be ‘for signs and for seasons, and for days and years’. We will not hear of ages or periods, but ‘days’, because the ‘letter’ says so”. This is what our Western Brahmins say; but if they remembered that He who set sun and moon also planted the eye and ear, that he gave sense, and speech, and mind; if they considered that faith is a lively thing, elastic and expansive; that it embraces a thousand or a million years as easily as a moment of time; that bonds cannot fetter it, nor distance darken and dismay it; that it is given to man to grow with his growth and strengthen with his strength; that it rises at doubts and difficulties, and surmounts them; they would cease to condemn all the world to wear their own strait-waistcoat, cut and sewn by rabbis and doctors some thousand years ago; a garment which the human intellect has altogether outgrown, which it is ridiculous to wear, which careless and impious men laugh at when it is seen in the streets; and might begin to see that spirit is spirit, and flesh is flesh; that while one lives for ever, the other is corruptible and passes away; that there are developments in faith as in every thing else; that as man’s intellect and human knowledge have grown and expanded, so his faith must grow and expand too; that it really matters nothing at all, as an act of faith, whether the world is six thousand or six million years old; that it must have had a beginning; that there must be one great first cause, God. Surely there is no better way to bring His goodness into question, to throw doubt on His revelation, and to make it the laughing stock of the irreligious, than thus to clip the wings of faith, to throw her into a dungeon, to keep her from the light of day, to make her read through. Hebrew spectacles, and to force her to be a laggard and dullard, instead of a bright and volatile spirit, forward and foremost in the race of life.

[2] But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest”—SHAKESPEARE, Dedication to Venus and Adonis.

[3] As a specimen of their thoughtful turn of mind, even in the Vedas, at a time before the monstrous avatars of the Hindoo Pantheon were imagined, and when their system of philosophy, properly so called, had no existence, the following metrical translation of the 129th hymn of the 10th book of the Rig-Veda may be quoted, which Professor Müller assures us is of a very early date:

Nor aught nor naught existed; yon bright sky

Was not, nor Heaven’s broad woof outstretched above.

What covered all? what sheltered? what concealed?

Was it the water’s fathomless abyss?

There was not death—yet was there nought immortal.

There was no confine betwixt day and night;

The only One breathed breathless by itself,

Other than It there nothing since has been.

Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled

In gloom profound—an ocean without light—

The germ that still lay covered in the husk

Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat.

Then first came love upon it, the new spring

Of mind—yea, poets in their hearts discerned,

Pondering, this bond between created things

And uncreated. Comes this spark from earth,

Piercing and all pervading, or from Heaven?

Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers arose—

Nature below, and power and will above—

Who knows the secret? who proclaimed it here,

Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang?

The Gods themselves came later into being—

Who knows from whence this great creation sprang?

He from whom all this great creation came,

Whether His will created or was mute,

The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven,

He knows it—or perchance even he knows not.

If we reflect that this hymn was composed centuries before the time of Hesiod, we shall be better able to appreciate the speculative character of the Indian mind in its earliest stage.

[4] “A Brahmin, who had vowed a sacrifice, went to the market to buy a goat. Three thieves saw him, and wanted to get hold of the goat. They stationed themselves at intervals on the high road. When the Brahmin, who carried the goat on his back, approached the first thief, the thief said, ‘Brahmin, why do you carry a dog on your back?’ The Brahmin replied: ‘It is not a dog, it is a goat.’ A little while after, he was accosted by the second thief, who said, ‘Brahmin, why do you carry a dog on your back?’ The Brahmin felt perplexed, put the goat down, examined it, and walked on. Soon after he was stopped by the third thief, who said, ‘Brahmin, why do you carry a dog on your back?’ Then the Brahmin was frightened, threw down the goat, and walked home to perform his ablutions for having touched an unclean animal. The thieves took the goat and ate it.” See the notice of the Norse Tales in The Saturday Review, January 15. In Max Müller’s translation of the Hitopadesa, the story has a different ending. See also Le Piacevoli Notti, di M. Giovan Francesco Straparola da Caravaggio (Venice, 1567), Notte Prima, Favola III: “Pre Scarpacifico da tre malandrini una sol volta gabbato, tre fiate gabba loro, finalmente vittorioso con la sua Nina lietamente rimane”. In which tale the beginning is a parallel to the first part of “The Master Thief”, while the end answers exactly to the Norse tale added in this edition, and called Big Peter and Little Peter.”

[5] Fornm. Sög., 2, 272.

[6] Müller’s Saga Bibl., 3, 359.

[7] See the ballad in Percy’s Reliques.

[8] The following are translations from Saxo, the Wilkina Saga, and the Malleus Maleficarum. The question is completely set at rest by Grimm, D. M. p. 353 fol. and p. 1214.

    “Nor is the following story to be wrapped in silence. A certain Palnatoki, for some time among King Harold’s bodyguard, had made his bravery odious to very many of his fellow-soldiers by the zeal with which he surpassed them in the discharge of his duty. This man once, when talking tipsily over his cups, had boasted that he was so skilled an archer, that he could hit the smallest apple placed a long way off on a wand at the first shot; which talk, caught up at first by the ears of backbiters, soon came to the hearing of the king. Now, mark how the wickedness of the king turned the confidence of the sire to the peril of the son, by commanding that this dearest pledge of his life should be placed instead of the wand, with a threat that, unless the author of this promise could strike off the apple at the first flight of the arrow, he should pay the penalty of his empty boasting by the loss of his head. The king’s command forced the soldier to perform more than he had promised, and what he had said, reported by the tongues of slanderers, bound him to accomplish what he had not said”…“Nor did his sterling courage, though caught in the snare of slander, suffer him to lay aside his firmness of heart; nay, he accepted the trial the more readily because it was hard. So Palnatoki warned the boy urgently when he took his stand to await the coming of the hurtling arrow with calm ears and unbent head, lest by a slight turn of his body he should defeat the practised skill of the bowman; and, taking further counsel to prevent his fear, he turned away his face lest he should be scared at the sight of the weapon. Then taking three arrows from the quiver, he struck the mark given him with the first he fitted to the string. But, if chance had brought the head of the boy before the shaft, no doubt the penalty of the son would have recoiled to the peril of the father, and the swerving of the shaft that struck the boy would have linked them both in common ruin. I am in doubt, then, whether to admire most the courage of the father or the temper of the son, of whom the one by skill in his art avoided being the slayer of his child, while the other by patience of mind and quietness of body saved himself alive, and spared the natural affection of his father. Nay, the youthful frame strengthened the aged heart, and showed as much courage in awaiting the arrow as the father, skill in launching it. But Palnatoki, when asked by the king why he had taken more arrows from the quiver, when it had been settled that he should only try the fortune of the bow once, made answer ‘That I might avenge on thee the swerving of the first by the points of the rest, lest perchance my innocence might have been punished, while your violence escaped scot-free’”.— Saxo Gram., Book X, (p. 166, ed. Frankf.)

    “About that time the young Egill, Wayland’s brother, came to the court of King Nidung, because Wayland (Smith) had sent him word. Egill was the fairest of men and one thing he had before all other men—he shot better with the bow than any other man. The king took to him well, and Egill was there a long time. Now, the king wished to try whether Egill shot so well as was said or not, so he let Egill’s son, a boy of three years old, be taken, and made them put an apple on his head, and bade Egill shoot so that the shaft struck neither above the head nor to the left nor to the right; the apple only was he to split. But it was not forbidden him to shoot the boy, for the king thought it certain that he would do that on no account if he could at all help it. And he was to shoot one arrow only, no more. So Egill takes three, and strokes their feathers smooth, and fits one to his string, and shoots and hits the apple in the middle, so that the arrow took along with it half the apple, and then fell to the ground. This master-shot has long been talked about, and the king made much of him, and he was the most famous of men. Now, King Nidung asked Egill why he took out three arrows, when it was settled that one only was to be shot with. Then Egill answered ‘Lord’, said he, ‘I will not lie to you; had I stricken the lad with that one arrow, then I had meant these two for you.’ But the king took that well from him, and all thought it was boldly spoken”.—Wilkina Saga, ch. 27 (ed. Pering).

    “It is related of him (Puncher) that a certain lord, who wished to obtain a sure trial of his skill, set up his little son as a butt, and for a mark a shilling on the boy’s cap, commanding him to carry off the shilling without the cap with his arrow. But when the wizard said he could do it, though he would rather abstain, lest the Devil should decoy him to destruction; still, being led on by the words of the chief, he thrust one arrow through his collar, and, fitting the other to his crossbow, struck off the coin from the boy’s cap without doing him any harm; seeing which, when the lord asked the wizard why he had placed the arrow in his collar? he answered ‘If by the Devil’s deceit I had slain the boy, when I needs must die, I would have transfixed you suddenly with the other arrow, that even so I might have avenged my death.’”—Malleus Malef., p. ii, ch. 16.

[9] See Pantcha-Tantra, v. ii of Wilson’s Analysis, quoted by Loiseleur Deslongchamps, Essai sur les Fables Indiennes (Paris, Techener, 1838, p. 54), where the animal that protects the child is a mangouste (Viverra Mungo). See also Hitopadesa, (Max Müller’s Translation, Leipzig, Brockhaus, p. 178) where the guardian is an otter. In both the foe is a snake.

[10] Moe Introd. xxxii.-iii

[11] The account in the Nibelungen respecting the Tarnhut is confused, and the text probably corrupt; but so much is plain, that Siegfried got it from Elberich in the struggle which ensued with Schilbung and Niblung, after he had shared the Hoard.

[12] Thus we find it in the originals or the parallels of Grendel in Beowulf, of Rumpelstiltskin, of the recovery of the Bride by the ring dropped into the cup, as related in “Soria Moria Castle,” and other tales; of the “wishing ram”, which in the Indian story becomes a “wishing cow”, and thus reminds us of the bull in one of these Norse Tales, out of whose ear came a “wishing cloth”; of the lucky child, who finds a purse of gold under his pillow every morning; and of the red lappet sown on the sleeping lover, as on Siegfried in the Nibelungen. The devices of Upakosa, the faithful wife, remind us at once of “the Master-maid”, and the whole of the stories of Saktideva and the Golden City, and of Viduschaka, King Adityasena’s daughter, are the same in groundwork and in many of their incidents as “East o’ the Sun, and West o’ the Moon”, “the Three Princesses of Whiteland”, and “Soria Moria Castle”.

[13] J. Grimm, Reinhart Fuchs, cclxiii, Intr.

[14] Kinder and Hausmärchen, vol. 3, 3d edition (Göttingen, 1856) a volume worthy of the utmost attention.

[15] note Kölle, Kanuri Proverbs and Fables (London Church Missionary House, 1854), a book of great philological interest, and one which reflects great credit on the religious society by which it was published.

[16] Kanuri Proverbs, p. 167.

[17] Notte Duodecima. Favola terza. “Pederigo da Pozzuolo che intendeva il linguaggio de gli animali, astretto dalla moglie dirle un segreto, quella stranamente battè.”

[18] The story of the Two Brothers Anesou and Satou, from the D’Orbiney Papyrus, by De Ronge, Paris, 1852.

[19] See the Ananzi Stories in the Appendix, which have been taken down from the mouth of a West Indian nurse.

[20] The Deeds of Bogda Gesser Chan, by I. J. Schmidt (Petersburg and Leipzig, 1839).

[21] Oxford Essays for 1858: “The Norsemen in Iceland”.

[22] See Anecd. and Trad., Camd. Soc. 1839, pp. 92 fol. See also the passages from Anglo-Saxon laws against “well-waking”, which Grimm has collected: D. M., p. 550.

[23] D. M., p. 900: Wütendes Heer

[24] Heb., xiii, 1: “Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

[25] One of Odin’s names, when on these adventures, was Gangradr, or Gangleri. Both mean “the Ganger, or way-farer”. We have the latter epithet in the “Gangrel carle”, and “Gangrel loon”, of the early Scotch ballads.

[26] So also Orion’s Belt was called by the Norsemen, Frigga’s spindle or rock, Friggjar rock. In modern Swedish, Friggerock, where the old goddess holds her own; but in Danish, Mariaerock, Our Lady’s rock or spindle. Thus, too, Karlavagn, the “car of men”, or heroes, who rode with Odin, which we call “Charles’ Wain”, thus keeping something, at least, of the old name, though none of its meaning, became in Scotland “Peter’s-pleugh”, from the Christian saint, just as Orion’s sword became “Peter’s-staff”. But what do “Lady Landers” and “Lady Ellison” mean, as applied to the “Lady-Bird” in Scotland?

[27] D. M., p. 126 fol., where they are cited at length.

[28] Snorro’s Edda, Stockholm, 1842, translated by the writer.

[29] See the well-known story of “The Luck of Eden Hall”.

[30] Hist., ii, 16.

[31] Snor. Ed. Skaldsk., ch. 43.

[32] St Luke, x, 18.

[33] Snor. Edda, ch. 34, Engl. Transl.

[34] Here are a few of these passages which might be much extended: Burchard of Worms, p. 194, a. “credidisti ut aliqua femina sit quae hoc facere possit quod quaedam a diabolo deceptae se affirmant necessario et ex praecepto facere debere; id est cum daemonum turba in similitudinem mulierum transformata, quam vulgaris stultitia Holdam vocat, certis noctibus equitare debere super quasdam bestias, et in eorum se consortio annumeratam esse.”

    “Illud etiam non omittendum, quod quasdam sceleratae mulieres retro post Sathanam conversae, daemonum illusionibus et phantasmatibus seductae credunt se et profitentur nocturnis horis cum Diana paganorum dea, vel cum Herodiade et innumera multitudine mulierum equitare super quasdam bestias, et multa terrarum spatia intempestae noctis silentio pertransire, ejusque jussionibus velut Dominae obedire et certis noctibus ad ejus servitium evocari.” —Burchard of Worms, 10, I.

    “Quale est, quod noctilucam quandam, vel Herodiadem, vel praesidem noctis Dominam concilia et conventus de nocte asserunt convocare, varia celebrari convivia, etc.”—Joh. Sarisberiensis Polycrat. 2, 17 (died 1182).

    “Herodiam illam baptistae Christi interfectricem, quasi reginam, immo deam proponant, asserentes tertiam totius mundi partem illi traditam.”—Rather. Cambrens. (died 974).

    “Sic et daemon qui praetextu mulieris cum aliis de nocte, domos et cellaria dicitur frequentare, et vocant eam Satiam a satietate, et Dominam Abundiam pro abundantia, quam eam praestare dicunt domibus quas frequentaverit; hujusmodi etiam daemones quas dominas vocant, vetulae penes quas error iste remansit et a quibus solis creditur et somniatur.”—Guilielmus Alvernus, 1, 1036 (died 1248).

    So also the Roman de la Rose (Meon line 18, 622.)

Qui les cinc sens ainsinc deçoit

Par les fantosmes, qu’il reçoit,

Don maintes gens par lor folie

Cuident estre par nuit estries,

Errans aveques Dame Habonde;

Et dient, que par tout le monde

Li tiers enfant de nacion

Sunt de ceste condicion.

And again, line 18,686:

Dautre part, que li tiers du monde

Aille ainsinc eavec Dame Habonde.

[35] See the derivation of pagan from paganus, one who lived in the country, as opposed to urbanus, a townsman.

[36] Snorro’s Edda, Dasent’s Translation, pp. 29 (Stockholm 1842).

[37] Keisersberg Omeiss, 46 b., quoted by Grimm, D.M. pp. 991, says:

    “Wen man ein man verbrent, so brent man wol zehen frauen.”

[38] See the passage from Vincent, Bellov. Spec. Mor., iii, 2, 27, quoted in Grimm, D. M. pp. 1,012-3.

[39] The following passage from The Fortalice of Faith of Alphonso Spina, written about the year 1458, will suffice to show how disgustingly the Devil, in the form of a goat, had supplanted the “Good Lady”: Quia nimium abundant tales perversae mulieres ine Delphinatu et Guasconia, ubi se asserunt concurrere de nocte in quâdam planitie deserta ubi est caper quidam in rupe, qui vulgariter dicitur el boch de Biterne et clued ibi conveniunt cum candelis accensis et adorant illum caprum osculpntes eum in ano suo. Ideo captae plures earum, ab inquisitoribus fidei et convictae comburuntur.”

    About the same time, too, began to spread the notion of formal written agreements between the Fiend and men who were to be his after a certain time, during which he was to help them to all earthly goods. This, too, came with Christianity from the East. The first instance was Theophilus, vicedominus of the Bishop of Adana, whose fall and conversion form the original of all the Faust Legends. See Grimm, D. M. 969, and “Theophilus in Icelandic, Low German, and other tongues, by G. W. Dasent, Stockholm, 1845.” There a complete account of the literature of the legend may be found. In almost all these early cases the Fiend is outwitted by the help of the Virgin or some other saint, and in this way the reader is reminded of the Norse Devil, the successor of the Giants, who always makes bad bargains. When the story was applied to Faust in the sixteenth century, the terrible Middle Age Devil was paramount, and knew how to exact his due.

[40] How strangely full of common sense sounds the following article from the Capitularies of Charlemagne, De part. Sax., 5:

    “Si quis a diabolo deceptus crediderit secundum morem. Paganorum, virum aliquem aut faeminam strigam esse et homines comedere, et propter hoc ipsum incenderit, vel carnem eius ad comedendum dederit, capitis sententia punietur.” And this of Rotharius, Lex. Roth., 379: “Nullus praesumat aldiam alienam aut ancillam quasi strigam occidere, quod Christianis mentibus nullatenus est credendum nec possible est, ut hominem mulier vivum intrinsecus possit comedere.”

    Here the law warns the common people from believing in witches, and from taking its functions into their own hands, and reasons with them against the absurdity of such delusions. So, too, that reasonable parish priest who thrashed the witch, though earlier in time, was far in advance of Gregory and his inquisitors, and even of our wise King James.

[41] The following is the title of this strange tract, Newes from Scotland, declaring the damnable life of Doctor Fian, a notable Sorcerer, who was burned at Edenbrough, in Januarie last 1591, which Doctor was register to the devil, that sundrie times preached at North Baricke Kirke to a number of notorious Witches. With the true examinations of the said Doctor and witches, as they uttered them in the presence of the Scottish king. Discovering how they pretended to bewitch and drowne his Majestic in the sea, comming from Denmarke, with such other wonderfull matters as the like, hath not bin heard at anie time. Published according to the Scottish copie. Printed for William Wright. It was reprinted in 1816 for the Roxburghe Club by Mr H. Freeling, and is very scarce even in the reprint, which, all things considered, is perhaps just as well.

[42] The following specimens of the tortures and confessions may suffice; but most of the crimes and confessions are unutterable. One Geillis Duncane was tortured by her master, David Seaton, dwelling within the town of Tranent, who, “with the help of others, did torment her with the torture of the Pilliwinkes (thumbscrews), upon her fingers, and binding and wrinching her head with a cord or roape, which is a most cruel torment also.” So also Agnes Sampson, “the eldest witch of them all, dwelling in Haddington, being brought to Haleriud House before the kinge’s majestie and sundry other of the nobilitie of Scotland, had her head thrawne with a rope according to the custom of that countrie, beeing a payne most greevous.” After the Devil’s mark is found on her she confesses that she went to sea with two hundred others in sieves to the kirk of North Berwick in East Lothian, and after they had landed they “took handes on the lande and daunted, this reill or short daunce, saying all with one voice:

Commer goe ye before, Commer goe ye,

Gif ye will not goe before, Commer let me.

“At which time she confessed that this Geillis Duncane did goe before them playing this reill or daunce upon a small trumpe called a Jew’s trump, until they entered into the kirk of North Barrick.” “As touching the aforesaid Doctor Fian”, he “was taken and imprisoned, and used with the accustomed paine provided for these offences, inflicted upon the rest, as is aforesaid. First by thrawing of his head with a rope, whereat he would confesse nothing! Secondly, he was persuaded by faire means to confesse his follies, but that would prevaile as little. Lastly, he was put to the most severe and cruell paine in the world, called the Bootes, who, after he had received three strokes, being inquired if he would confesse his damnable actes and wicked life, his toong would not serve him to spaake.” This inability, produced no doubt by pain, the other witches explain by saying that the Devil’s mark had not been found, which, being found, “the charm” was “stinted”, and the Doctor, in dread probably of a fourth stroke, confessed unutterably shameful things. Having escaped from prison, of course by the aid of the Devil, he was pursued, and brought back and re-examined before the king. “But this Doctor, notwithstanding that his own confession appeareth remaining in recorde, under his owne handewriting, and the same thereunto fixed in the presence of the King’s majestie and sundrie of his councell, yet did he utterly deny the same, whereupon the King’s majestie, perceiving his stubborne wilfulness…he was commanded to have a most strange torment, which was done in this manner following: His nailes upon all his fingers were riven and pulled off with an instrument called in Scottish a Turkas, which in England wee call a payre of pincars, and under everie nayle there was thrust in two needels over even up to the heads. At all which torments, notwithstanding the Doctor never shronke anie whit; neither would he then confesse it the sooner for all the tortures inflicted upon him.

    “Then was he with all convenient speed, by commandement convaied againe to the torment of the Bootes, wherein hee continued a long time, and did abide so many blowes in them, that his legges were crusht and beaten together as small as might bee, and the bones and flesh so brused that the blond and marrow spouted forth in great abundance, wherby they were made unserviceable for ever. And notwithstanding all these grievous panes and cruel torments, he would not confesse aniething, so deepely had the Devil entered into his heart, that hee utterly denied all that which he had before avouched, and would saie nothing thereunto but this, that what he had done and sayde before, was onely done and saide for fear of paynes which he had endured.” Thereupon as “a due execution of justice” “and “for example sake”, he was tried, sentenced, put into a cart, strangled and immediately put into a great fire, being readie provided for that purpose, and there burned in the Castle Hill of Edenbrough on a saterdaie, in the ende of Januaire last past, 1591.” The tract ends significantly: “The rest of the witches which are not yet executed remayne in prison till further triall and knowledge of his majestie’s pleasure.”

[43] Od., iii, 372; and xxii, 239

[44] Ecl., viii, 97:

    His ego sæpe lupum fieri et se condere silvis

    Mærin—vidi.

[45] See Grimm’s D.M., 1,047 fol.; and for this translation from Petronius, a very interesting letter prefixed to Madden’s Ed. of the old English Romance of William and the Werewolf, 1832, one of the Roxburghe Club Publications. This letter, which was by the hand of Mr Herbert of Petworth, contains all that was known on this subject before Grimm; but when Grimm came he was, compared with all who had treated the subject, as a sober man amongst drunkards.

[46] Bisclavaret in the Lais of Marie de France, 1, 178 seems to be a corruption of Bleizgarou, as the Norman garwal is of garwolf. See also Jamieson Dict., under warwolf.

[47] Fornald Sög, i, 130, 131.

[48] See Landnama in many places. Egil’s Sag., Hrolf Krak. Sag.

[49] Troldham, at kaste ham paa. Comp. the old Norse hamr, hamför, hammadr, hamrammr, which occur repeatedly in the same sense.

[50] Reinhart Fuchs, Introduction

[51] Grimm, Irisch. Elfenm., 114-9, and D. M., 447.

[52] Comp. Vict. Hugo, Nôtre-Dame de Paris, where he tells us that the gipsies called the wolf piedgris. See also Grimm, D. M., 633 and Reinhart, lv, ccvii, and 446.

[53] Douce, Illust. to Shakspeare, ii, 33, 344, quoted in Reinhart Fuchs, ccxxi.

[54] Germania, 9, 10.

[55] Snorro’s Edda, ch. vi, English translation.

[56] Thus from the earliest times “dog”, “hound”, has been a term of reproach. Great instances of fidelity, such as “Gellert” or the “Dog of Montargis”, both of which are Eastern and primeval, have scarcely redeemed the cringing currish nature of the race in general from disgrace. M. Francisque Michel, in his Histoire des Races Maudites de da France et de l’Espagne, thinks it probable that Cagot, the nickname by which the heretical Goths who fled into Aquitaine in the time of Charles Martel, and received protection from that king and his successors, were called by the Franks, was derived from the term Canis Gothicus or Canes Gothi. In modern French the word means hypocrite, and this would come from the notion of the outward conformity to the Catholic formularies imposed on the Arian Goths by their orthodox protectors. Etymologically, the derivation is good enough, according to Diez, Romanisches Wörterbuch ; Provençal ca, dog; Get, Gothic. Before quitting Cagot, we may observe that the derivation of bigot, our bigot, another word of the same kind, is not so clear. Michel says it comes from Vizigothus, Bizigothus. Diez says this is too far-fetched, especially as “Bigot”, “Bigod”, was a term applied to the Normans, and not to the population of the South of France. There is, besides another derivation given by Ducange from a Latin chronicle of the twelfth century. In speaking of the homage done by Rollo, the first Duke of Normandy, to the King of France, he says:

    Hic non dignatus pedem Caroli osculari nisi ad os suum levaret, cumque sui comites illum admonerent ut pedem Regis in acceptione tanti muneris, Neustriae provinciae, oscularetur, Anglica lingua respondit “ne se bi got”, quod interpretatur “ne per deum”. Rex vero et sui illum deridentes, et sermonem ejus corrupte referentes, illum vocaverunt Bigottum; unde Normanni adhuc Bigothi vocantur.

    Wace, too, says, in the Roman de Rou, that the French had abused the Normans in many ways, calling them Bigos. It is also termed, in a French record of the year 1429, “un mot très injurieux”. Diez says it was not used in its present sense before the sixteenth century.

[57] The most common word for a giant in the Eddas was Jötunn (A. S. coten ), which, strange to say, survives in the Scotch Etin. In one or two places the word ogre has been used, which is properly a Romance word, and comes from the French ogre, Ital. orco, Lat. orcus. Here, too, we have an old Roman god of the nether world degraded.

[58] These paroxysms were called in Old Norse Jötunmodr, the Etin mood, as opposed to Asmodr, the mood of the Aesir, that diviner wrath which, though burning hot, was still under the control of reason.

[59] It may be worth while here to shew how old and widespread this custom or notion of the “naked sword” was. In the North, besides being told of Sigurd and Brynhildr, we hear it of Hrólf and Ingigerd, who took rest at night in a hut of leaves in the wood, and lay together, “but laid a naked sword between them”. So also Saxo Grammaticus says of King Gorm, “Caeterum ne inconcessum virginis amorem libidinoso complexu praeripere videretur, vicina latera non solum alterius complexibus exult, sed etiam districto mucrone secrevit. Lib. 9, p.179. So also Tristan and Isolt in Gottfried of Strasburg’s poem, line 17,407-17.

Hierüber vant Tristan einen sin,

Si giengen an ir bette wider,

Und leiten sich dâ wider nider,

Von einander wol pin dan,

Reht als man and man,

Niht als man and wîp;

Dâ lac lîp and lîp,

In fremder gelegenheit,

Ouch hât Tristan geleit

Sîn swert bar enzwischen si.

And the old French Tristan in the same way:

Et qant il vit la nue espee

Qui entre eus deus les deseurout.

So the old English Tristrem, line 2,002-3:

His sword he drough titly

And laid it hem bitvene.

And the old German ballad in Des Knaben Wunderhorn, 2, 276:

Der Herzog zog aus sein goldiges schwert,

Er leit es zwischen beide hert

Das schwert soll weder hauen noch schneiden,

Das Annelein soll ein megedli bleiben.

So Fonzo and Fenizia in the Pentamerone, I, 9:

    Ma segnenno havere fatto vuto a Diana, de non toccare la mogliere la notte, mese la spata arranata comme staccione “miezo ad isso ed a Fenizia.

    And in Grimm’s story of “The Two Brothers” where the second brother lays “a double-edged sword” at night between himself and his brother’s wife, who has mistaken him for his twin brother. In fact the custom as William Wackernagel has shewn in Haupt’s Zeitschrift für Deutsches Alterthum was one recognized by the law; and so late as 1477, when Lewis, County Palatine of Veldenz represented Maximilian of Austria as his proxy at the betrothal of Mary of Burgundy, he got into the bed of state, booted and spurred, and laid a naked sword between him and the bride. Comp. Birkens Ehrenspiegel, p. 885. See also as a proof that the custom was known in England as late as the seventeenth century, The Jovial Crew, a comedy first acted in 1641, and quoted by Sir W. Scott in his Tristrem, p. 345, where it is said (Act V, sc. 2): “He told him that he would be his proxy, and marry her for him, and lie with her the first night with a naked cudgel betwixt them.” And see for the whole subject, J. Grimm’s Deutsche Rechts-Alterthümer, Göttingen, 1828, p. 168-70.

[60] M. Moe, Introd. Norsk. Event (Christiania, 1851, 2d Ed.), to which the writer is largely indebted.

[61] Popular Rhymes of Scotland (Ed. 1847).

[62] The following list, which only selects the more prominent collections, will suffice to show that Popular Tales have a literature of their own:—Sanscrit. The Pantcha Tantra, “The Five Books”, a collection of fables of which only extracts have as yet been published, but of which Professor Wilson has given an analysis in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society, vol. I, sect. 2. The Hitopadesa, or “Wholesome Instruction”, a selection of tales and fables from the Pantcha Tantra, first edited by Carey at Serampore in 1804; again by Hamilton in London in 1810; again in Germany by A. W. von Schlegel in 1829, an edition which was followed in 1831 by a critical commentary by Lassen; and again in 1830 at Calcutta with a Bengali and English translation. The work had been translated into English by Wilkins so early as 1787, when it was published in London, and again by Sir William Jones, whose rendering, which is not so good as that by Wilkins, appeared after his death in the collected edition of his works. Into German it has been translated in a masterly way by Max Müller, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1844. Versions of these Sanscrit collections, the date of the latter of which is ascribed to the end of the second century of the Christian era, varying in many respects, but all possessing sufficient resemblance to identify them with their Sanscrit originals, are found in almost every Indian dialect, and in Zend, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Greek and Turkish. We are happy to be able to state here that the eminent Sanscrit scholar, Professor Benfey of Göttingen, is now publishing a German translation of the Pantcha Tantra, which will be accompanied by translations of numerous compositions of the same kind, drawn from unpublished Sanscrit works, and from the legends current amongst the Mongolian tribes. The work will be preceded by an introduction embracing the whole question of the origin and diffusion of fables and popular tales. The following will be the title of Prof. Benfey’s work: “Pantcha Tantra. Erster Theil, Fünf Bücher Indischer Fabeln, Märchen, and Erzählungen. Aus dem Sanskrit übersetzt, mit Anmerkungen and Einleitung über das Indische Grundwerk und dessen Ausflüsse, so wie über die Quellen und Verbreitung des Inhalts derselben. Zweiter Theil, Übersetzungen und Anmerkungen.” Most interesting of all for our purpose is the collection of Sanscrit Tales, collected in the twelfth century of our era, by Somadeva Bhatta of Cashmere. This has been published in Sanscrit, and translated into German by Hermann Brockhaus, and the nature of its contents has already been sufficiently indicated. We may add, however, that Somadeva’s collection exhibits the Hindoo mind in the twelfth century in a condition, as regards popular tales, which the mind of Europe has not yet reached. How old these stories and fables must have been in the East, we see both from the Pantcha Tantra and the Hitopadesa, which are strictly didactic works, and only employ tales and fables to illustrate and inculcate a moral lesson. We in the West have got beyond fables and apologues, but we are only now collecting our popular tales. In Somadeva’s time the simple tale no longer sufficed; it had to be fitted into and arranged with others, with an art and dexterity which is really marvellous; and so cleverly is this done, that it requires a mind of no little cultivation, and a head of more than ordinary clearness, to carry without confusion all the wheels within wheels, and fables within fables, which spring out of the original story as it proceeds. In other respects the popular tale loses in simplicity what it gains in intricacy by this artificial arrangement; and it is evident that in the twelfth century the Hindoo tales had been long since collected out of the mouths of the people, and reduced to writing; in a word, that the popular element had disappeared, and that they had passed into the written literature of the race. We may take this opportunity, too, to mention that a most curious collection of tales and fables, translated from Sanscrit, has recently been discovered in Chinese. They are on the eve of publication by M. Stanislas Julien, the first of Chinese scholars; and from the information on the matter which Professor Max Müller has kindly furnished to the translator, it appears that they passed with Buddhism from India into China. The work from which M. Julien has taken these fables, which are all the more precious because the Sanscrit originals have in all probability perished,—is called Yu-lin, or “The Forest of Comparisons”. It was the work of Youen-thai, a great Chinese scholar, who was President of the Ministry of justice at Pekin in the year 1565 of our era. He collected in twenty-four volumes, after the labour of twenty years, during which he read upwards of four hundred works, all the fables and comparisons he could find in ancient books. Of those works, two hundred were translations from the Sanscrit made by Buddhist monks, and it is from eleven of these that M. Julien has translated his Chinese Fables. We need hardly say that this work is most anxiously expected by all who take an interest in such matters. Let it be allowed to add here, that it was through no want of respect towards the memory of M. de Sacy that the translator has given so much prominence to the views and labours of the Brothers Grimm in this Introduction. To M. de Sacy belongs all the merit of exploring what may be called the old written world of fable. He, and Warton, and Dunlop, and Price, too, did the day’s work of Giants, in tracing out and classifying those tales and fables which had passed into the literature of the Aryan race. But, besides this old region, there is another new hemisphere of fiction which lies in the mouths and in the minds of the people. This new world of fable the Grimms discovered, and to them belongs the glory of having brought all its fruits and flowers to the light of day. This is why their names must ever be foremost in a work on Popular Tales, shining, as their names must ever shine, a bright double star in that new hemisphere. In more modern times, the earliest collection of popular tales is to be found in the Piacevoli Notte of John Francis Straparola of Caravaggio, near Milan, the first edition of which appeared at Venice in 1550. The book, which is shamefully indecent, even for that age, and which at last, in 1606, was placed in the Index Expurgatorius, contains stories from all sources, and amongst them nineteen genuine popular tales, which are not disfigured by the filth with which the rest of the volume is full. Straparola’s work has been twice translated into German, once at Vienna, 1791, and again by Schmidt in a more complete form, Märchen-Saal, Berlin, 1817. But a much more interesting Italian collection appeared at Naples in the next century. This was the Pentamerone of Giambattista Basile, who wrote in the Neapolitan dialect, and whose book appeared in 1637. This collection contains forty-eight tales, and is in tone, and keeping, and diction, one of the best that has ever appeared in any language. It has been repeatedly reprinted at Naples. It has been translated into German, and a portion of it, a year or two back, by Mr. Taylor, into English. In France the first collection of this kind was made by Charles Perrault, who, in 1697, published eight tales, under a title taken from an old Fabliau, Contes de ma mère L’Oye, whence comes our “Mother Goose”. To these eight, three more tales were added in later editions. Perrault was shortly followed by Madame D’Aulnoy (born in 1650, died 1705), whose manner of treating her tales is far less true to nature than Perrault’s, and who inserts at will, verses, alterations, additions, and moral reflections. Her style is sentimental and over-refined; the courtly airs of the age of Louis XIV predominate, and nature suffers by the change from the cottage to the palace. Madame d’Aulnoy was followed by a host of imitators; the Countess Mürat, who died in 1710; Countess d’Auneuil, who died in 1700; M. de Preschac, born 1676, who composed tales of utter worthlessness, which may be read as examples of what popular tales are not, in the collection called Le Cabinet des Fées, which was published in Paris in 1785. Not much better are the attempts of Count Hamilton, who died in 1720; of M. de Moncrif, who died in 1770; of Mademoiselle de la Force, died 1724; of Mademoiselle l’Heritier died 1737; of Count Caylus, who wrote his Féeries Nouvelles in the first half of the 18th century, for the popular element fails almost entirely in their works. Such as they are, they may also be read in the Cabinet des Fées, a collection which ran to no fewer than forty-one volumes, and with which no lover of popular tradition need trouble himself much. To the playwright and the story-teller it has been a great repository, which has supplied the lack of original invention. In Germany we need trouble ourselves with none of the collections before the time of the Grimms, except to say that they are nearly worthless. In 1812-14 the two brothers, Jacob and William, brought out the first edition of their Kinder-und Haus-Märchen, which was followed by a second and more complete one in 1822: 3 vols., Berlin, Reimer. The two first volumes have been repeatedly republished, but few readers in England are aware of the existence of the third, a third edition of which appeared in 1856 at Göttingen, which contains the literature of these traditions, and is a monument of the care and pains with which the brothers, or rather William, for it is his work, even so far back as 1820, had traced out parallel traditions in other tribes and lands. This work formed an era in popular literature, and has been adopted as a model by all true collectors ever since. It proceeded on the principle of faithfully collecting these traditions from the mouths of the people, without adding one jot or tittle, or in any way interfering with them, except to select this or that variation as most apt or beautiful. To the adoption of this principle we owe the excellent Swedish collection of George Stephens and Hylten Cavallius, Svenska Folk-Sagor og Aefventyr, 2 vols. Stockholm 1844, and following years; and also this beautiful Norse one, to which Jacob Grimm awards the palm over all collections, except perhaps the Scottish, of MM. Asbjörnsen and Moe. To it also we owe many most excellent collections in Germany, over nearly the whole of which an active band of the Grimm’s pupils have gone gathering up as gleaners the ears which their great masters had let fall or let lie. In Denmark the collection of M. Winther, Danske Folkeeventyr, Copenhagen, 1823, is a praiseworthy attempt in the same direction; nor does it at all detract from the merit of H. C. Andersen as an original writer, to observe how often his creative mind has fastened on one of these national stories, and worked out of that piece of native rock a finished work of art. Though last not least, are to be reckoned the Scottish stories collected by Mr. Robert Chambers, of the merit of which we have already expressed our opinion in the text.

[63] After all, there is, it seems, a Scottish word which answers to Askepot to a hair. See Jamieson’s Dictionary, where the reader will find Ashiepattle as used in Shetland for a “neglected child”; and not in Shetland alone, but in Ayrshire, Ashypet, an adjective, or rather a substantive degraded to do the dirty work of an adjective, “one employed in the lowest kitchen work”. See too the quotation, “when I reached Mrs. Damask’s house she was gone to bed, and nobody to let me in, dripping wet as I was, but an ashypet lassy, that helps her for a servant.”—Steamboat, p. 259. So again Assiepet, substantive “a dirty little creature, one that is constantly soiled with ass or ashes”.

[64] The Sagas contain many instances of Norsemen who sat thus idly over the fire, and were thence called Kolbitr, coalbiters, but who afterwards became mighty men.

[65] Moe, Introd. Norsk. Event.

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