Celtic Folk and Fairy Tales Part 33

The pa.s.sage certainly seems to me to imply a different conception from the ordinary cla.s.sical views of the life after death, the dark and dismal plains of Erebus peopled with ghosts; and the pa.s.sage I have italicised would chime in well with the conception of a continuance of youth (_idem spiritus_) in Tir na n-Og (_orbe alio_).

One of the most pathetic, beautiful, and typical scenes in Irish legend is the return of Ossian from Tir na n-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 na n-Og with the fairy Niamh under very much of the same circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sed, 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 game-keeper of French-park.

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 t.i.tle.

_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 a.n.a.logy. 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. CONALL 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 wide-spread 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 fantastic 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's _Tales_, p. 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's _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 "Conall 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 t.i.tle "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.

Kohler on Gonzenbach _Sicil. Marchen_, 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 cla.s.s 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 a.n.a.logies 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 p.r.o.nunciation, especially with regard to the mysterious _w_'s and _y_'s of Welsh orthography. For _w_ subst.i.tute double _o_, as in "_fool_" and for _y_, the short _u_ in b_u_t, and as near approach to Cymric speech will be reached as is possible for the outlander. It may be 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 _Anglice_ "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 ec.u.menical 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 wide-spread through the Old World. Mr. Morris's "Land East of the Moon and West of the Sun," in _The Earthly Paradise_, is taken from the Norse version. Parallels are acc.u.mulated by the Grimms, ii., 432; Kohler on Gonzenbach, ii., 20; or Blade, 149; Stokes's _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's "Strange Visitor," _Pop. Rhymes of Scotland_, 64, of which I gave an Anglicised version in my _English Fairy Tales_, No. x.x.xii., 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., p. 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. x.x.xv., and Prof. Kohler 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's _Tales_. The trees growing from the lovers' graves occurs in the English ballad of _Lord Lovel_ and has been studied in _Melusine_.

_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 _rechauffe_ 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 a position to put on record any such utterances of the folk-imagination of the Celts before it is too late.

X. MUNACHAR AND MANACHAR.