Folk-lore and Legends: German Part 1

Folk-lore and Legends: German.

by Anonymous.

PREFATORY NOTE

It is proposed that this shall be the first of a series of little volumes in which shall be presented in a handy form selections from the Folk-lore and legends of various countries. It has been well said that "the legendary history of a nation is the recital of the elements that formed the character of that nation; it contains the first rude attempts to explain natural phenomena, the traditions of its early history, and the moral principles popularly adopted as the rules for reward and punishment; and generally the legends of a people may be regarded as embodying the popular habits of thought and popular motives of action." The following legends of Germany cannot, we think, fail to interest those who read them. Some of the stories are invested with a charming simplicity of thought which cannot but excite admiration. Others are of a weird, fantastic character fitted to a land of romantic natural features, of broad river, mountain, and deep forest. The humorous, the pathetic, the terrible, all find place in the German folk-tales, and it would be difficult to rise from their perusal without having received both amus.e.m.e.nt and instruction. The general lesson they convey is the sure punishment of vice and the reward of virtue; some way or another the villain always meets with his desert. In future volumes we shall deal with the legends of other countries, hoping that the public will bear us company in our excursions.

INTRODUCTION

The value of national stories and legends has in late years become very widely recognised. Folk-lore has recently received a large amount of attention, and the thought and labour bestowed upon the subject have been rewarded by results which prove that its investigators have entered upon no unfruitful, however long neglected, field.

This book, and its successors in the series which it is proposed to issue, may come into the hands of some who, having little opportunity afforded them to consider how the legends and tales it contains may be of the value we claim for them, may be glad to have the "case" for legends and national stories presented to them in a few words.

The peasant's tale, the story preserved through centuries on the lips of old wives, the narrative which has come down to us having done duty as a source of amus.e.m.e.nt in the fireside groups of preceding generations, may seem to some to afford slight matter for reflection, and may even appear so grotesque in its incidents as to be fitted only to excite a smile of wonder at the simplicity of those among whom such stories could obtain reception, and surprise at the fantastic imagination in which such tales could find their origin. Modern thought has, however, been busy asking itself what is the meaning of these stories, and it has done much to supply itself with an answer.

This, at least, it has done: it has discovered that these legends and tales, which so many have been inclined to cast aside as worthless, are of a singular value, as throwing a light which little else can afford upon the mind of primitive man. At first the collection of national stories was undertaken merely for the purpose of affording amus.e.m.e.nt. Folk-tales were diverting, so they found their way into print, and were issued as curious literary matter fitted to supply diversion for a vacant hour. Many of the tales are very beautiful, and their mere literary merit sufficed to make them sought for. But legendary lore was soon observed to possess much more value than could attach to its merely amusing features. It was obvious that in these legends were preserved the fragments of the beliefs of the ancient folk. "The mythology of one period," remarked Sir Walter Scott, "would appear to pa.s.s into the romance of the next century, and that into the nursery tale of the subsequent ages." "Fiction," said Sir John Malcolm, "resolves itself into its primitive elements, as, by the slow and unceasing action of the wind and rain, the solid granite is crumbled into sand. The creations embodied by the vivid imagination of man in the childhood of his race incorporate themselves in his fond and mistaken faith. Sanct.i.ty is given to his daydreams by the altar of the idol. Then, perhaps, they acquire a deceitful truth from the genius of the bard. Blended with the mortal hero, the aspect of the G.o.d glances through the visor of the helmet, or adds a holy dignity to the royal crown. Poetry borrows its ornaments from the lessons of the priests. The ancient G.o.d of strength of the Teutons, throned in his chariot of the stars, the Northern Wain, invested the Emperor of the Franks and the paladins who surrounded him with superhuman might. And the same constellation, darting down its rays upon the head of the long-lost Arthur, has given to the monarch of the Britons the veneration which once belonged to the son of 'Uthry Bendragon,'

'Thunder, the supreme leader,' and 'Eygyr, the generating power.' Time rolls on; faith lessens; the flocks are led to graze within the rocky circle of the giants, even the bones of the warriors moulder into dust; the lay is no longer heard; and the fable, reduced again to its original simplicity and nudity, becomes the fitting source of pastime to the untutored peasant and the listening child. Hence we may yet trace no small proportion of mystic and romantic lore in the tales which gladden the cottage fireside, or, century after century, soothe the infant to its slumbers." The works of the brothers Grimm, the appearance of the _Kinder- und Haus-Mahrchen_, in 1812, and of the _Deutsche Mythologie_, in 1835, threw a new light on the importance of national tales, and awoke the spirit of scientific comparison which has made the study of Folk-lore productive of such valuable results.

With regard to the diffusion of national stories, it is remarkable that we find substantially identical narratives flourishing in the most widely separated countries, and this fact has given rise to several explanatory theories, none of which seems perfectly satisfactory. The philological discovery of the original unity of all the Aryan races may account for the possession by the Aryan peoples of similar stories. It may be, as Sir George c.o.x suggests, a common inheritance of such tales as were current when the Aryans "still lived as a single people." We find, however, that these tales are also current among people whom, accepting this theory, we should least expect to find possessing them, and so the wide diffusion of the stories yet remains unsatisfactorily accounted for. Ident.i.ty of imagination, inheritance, transmission, may each have played its part.

As to the origin of the tales much debate has arisen. It is obvious from the nature of the incidents of many of them that they could only have originated in a most primitive state of man. "Early man," says Sir George c.o.x, "had life, and therefore all things must have life also. The sun, the moon, the stars, the ground on which he trod, the clouds, storms, lightnings were all living beings; could he help thinking that, like himself, they were all conscious beings also?"

Such, according to this authority, was the origin of primary myths, secondary and tertiary myths arising in the course of time from the gradual misunderstanding of phrases applied by primitive man to personified objects. According to Professor Max Muller, animism, or the investing all things with life, springs not in the first place from man's thought, but from the language in which he clothes it. Man, he says, found himself speaking of all things in words having "a termination expressive of gender, and this naturally produced in the mind the corresponding idea of s.e.x." He thus came to invest all objects with "something of an individual, active, s.e.xual, and at last personal character." However hard it may be to discover the reason for the origin of the tendency to animism, the fact is certain that the tendency is to be found generally existing among savage peoples, and it would seem that we must accept the national stories which have come down to us embodying this tendency in grotesque incidents as relics handed down from the savage days of the people with whom the tales originated, as the expression of portions of their thought when they had as yet only attained to such a degree of civilisation as exists among savages of the present day.

Strange and grotesque as some of the national stories are, they may be regarded as embodying the fragments of some of man's most primitive beliefs; and recognising this, it will be impossible to dismiss the folk-tale as unworthy of careful consideration, nor may it be regarded as unfitted to afford us, if studied aright, very much more than merely such amus.e.m.e.nt as may be derived from its quaint incident and grotesque plot.

C. J. T.

GAFFER DEATH.

There was once a poor man who had twelve children, and he was obliged to labour day and night that he might earn food for them. When at length, as it so happened, a thirteenth came into the world, the poor man did not know how to help himself, so he ran out into the highway, determined to ask the first person he met to be G.o.dfather to the boy.

There came stalking up to him Death, who said--

"Take me for a G.o.dfather."

"Who are you?" asked the father.

"I am Death, who makes all equal," replied the stranger.

Then said the man--

"You are one of the right sort: you seize on rich and poor without distinction; you shall be the child's G.o.dfather."

Death answered--

"I will make the boy rich and renowned throughout the world, for he who has me for a friend can want nothing."

Said the man--

"Next Sunday will he be christened, mind and come at the right time."

Death accordingly appeared as he had promised, and stood G.o.dfather to the child.

When the boy grew up his G.o.dfather came to him one day, and took him into a wood, and said--

"Now shall you have your G.o.dfather's present. I will make a most famous physician of you. Whenever you are called to a sick person, I will take care and show myself to you. If I stand at the foot of the bed, say boldly, 'I will soon restore you to health,' and give the patient a little herb that I will point out to you, and he will soon be well. If, however, I stand at the head of the sick person, he is mine; then say, 'All help is useless; he must soon die.'"

Then Death showed him the little herb, and said--

"Take heed that you never use it in opposition to my will."

It was not long before the young fellow was the most celebrated physician in the whole world.

"The moment he sees a person," said every one, "he knows whether or not he'll recover."

Accordingly he was soon in great request. People came from far and near to consult him, and they gave him whatever he required, so that he made an immense fortune. Now, it so happened that the king was taken ill, and the physician was called upon to say whether he must die. As he went up to the bed he saw Death standing at the sick man's head, so that there was no chance of his recovery. The physician thought, however, that if he outwitted Death, he would not, perhaps, be much offended, seeing that he was his G.o.dfather, so he caught hold of the king and turned him round, so that by that means Death was standing at his feet. Then he gave him some of the herb, and the king recovered, and was once more well. Death came up to the physician with a very angry and gloomy countenance, and said--

"I will forgive you this time what you have done, because I am your G.o.dfather, but if you ever venture to betray me again, you must take the consequences."

Soon after this the king's daughter fell sick, and n.o.body could cure her. The old king wept night and day, until his eyes were blinded, and at last he proclaimed that whosoever rescued her from Death should be rewarded by marrying her and inheriting his throne. The physician came, but Death was standing at the head of the princess. When the physician saw the beauty of the king's daughter, and thought of the promises that the king had made, he forgot all the warnings he had received, and, although Death frowned heavily all the while, he turned the patient so that Death stood at her feet, and gave her some of the herb, so that he once more put life into her veins.

When Death saw that he was a second time cheated out of his property, he stepped up to the physician, and said--

"Now, follow me."

He laid hold of him with his icy cold hand, and led him into a subterranean cave, in which there were thousands and thousands of burning candles, ranged in innumerable rows. Some were whole, some half burnt out, some nearly consumed. Every instant some went out, and fresh ones were lighted, so that the little flames seemed perpetually hopping about.

"Behold," said Death, "the life-candles of mankind. The large ones belong to children, those half consumed to middle-aged people, the little ones to the aged. Yet children and young people have oftentimes but a little candle, and when that is burnt out, their life is at an end, and they are mine."

The physician said--

"Show me my candle."

Then Death pointed out a very little candle-end, which was glimmering in the socket, and said--

"Behold!"

Then the physician said--

"O dearest G.o.dfather, light me up a new one, that I may first enjoy my life, be king, and husband of the beautiful princess."