Myth, Ritual And Religion Volume II Part 29

The solutions offered on the hypothesis that the marchen are exclusively Aryan, and that they are the _detritus_ or youngest and latest forms of myths, while these myths are concerned with the elemental phenomena of Nature, and arose out of the decay of language, have been so frequently criticised that they need not long detain us.* The most recent review of the system is by M. Cosquin.** In place of repeating objections which have been frequently urged by the present writer, an abstract of M.

Cosquin's reasons for differing from the "Aryan" theory of Von Hahn may be given. Voh Hahn was the collector and editor of stories from the modern Greek,*** and his work is scholarly and accomplished. He drew up comparative tables showing the correspondence between Greek and German _marchen_ on the one side, and Greek and Teutonic epics and higher legends or sagas on the other. He also attempted to cla.s.sify the stories in a certain number of recurring _formula_ or plots. Lin Von Hahn's opinion, the stories were originally the myths of the undivided Aryan people in its central Asian home. As the different branches scattered and separated, they carried with them their common store of myths, which were gradually worn down into the _detritus_ of popular stories, "the youngest form of the myth". The same theory appeared (in 1859) in Mr.

Max Muller's _Chips from a German Workshop_**** The undivided Aryan people possessed, in its mythological and proverbial phraseology, the seeds or germs, more or less developed, which would nourish, under any sky, into very similar plants--that is, the popular stories.

* See our Introduction to Mrs. Hunt's translation of Grimm's Household Tales.

** Contes Populaire de Lorraine, Paris, 1886, pp. i., xv.

*** Grieschische und Albanesische Marchen, 1864.

**** Vol. ii. p. 226.

Against these ideas M. Cosquin argues that if the Aryan people before its division preserved the myths only in their _earliest germinal form_, it is incredible that, when the separated branches had lost touch of each other, the final shape of their myths, the _marchen_, should have so closely resembled each other as they do. The Aryan theory (as it may be called for the sake of brevity) rejects, as a rule, the idea that tales can, as a rule, have been _borrowed_, even by one Aryan people from another.* "Nursery tales are generally the last things to be borrowed by one nation from another."** Then, says M. Cosquin, as the undivided Aryan people had only the myths in their least developed state, and as the existing peasantry have only the _detritus_ of these myths--the _marchen_--and as you say borrowing is out of the question, how do you account for a coincidence like _this_? In the Punjaub, among the Bretons, the Albanians, the modern Greeks and the Russians we find a _conte_ in which a young man gets possession of a magical ring. This ring is stolen from him, and recovered by the aid of certain grateful beasts, whom the young man has benefited. His foe keeps the ring in his mouth, but the grateful mouse, insinuating his tail into the nose of the thief, makes him sneeze, and out comes the magical ring!

* c.o.x, Mythol. of Aryan Nations, i. 109.

** Max Muller, Chips, ii. 216.

Common sense insists, says M. Cosquin, that this detail was invented once for all. It must have first occurred, not in a myth, but in a _conte_ or _marchen_, from which all the others alike proceed.

Therefore, if you wish the idea of the mouse and the ring and the sneeze to be a part of the store of the undivided Aryans, you must admit that they had _contes, marchen_, popular stories, what you call the _detritus_ of myths, as well as myths themselves, before they left their cradle in Central Asia. "Nos ancetres, les peres des nations europeennes, auraient, de cette facon, emporte dans leurs fourgons la collection complete de contes Ibleus actuels." In short, if there was no borrowing, myths have been reduced (on the Aryan theory) to the condition of _detritus_, to the diamond dust of mar-chen, before the Aryan people divided. But this is contrary to the hypothesis.

M. Cosquin does not pause here. The _marchen_--mouse, ring, sneeze and all--is found among _non-Aryan_ tribes, "the inhabitants of Mardin in Mesopotamia and the Kariaines of Birmanie".* Well, if there was no borrowing, how did the non-Aryan peoples get the story?

* Cosquin, i, xi., xii., with his authorities in note 1.

M. Cosquin concludes that the theory he attacks is untenable, and determines that, "after having been invented in this place or that, which we must discover" [if we can], "the popular tales of the various European nations (to mention these alone) have spread all over the world from people to people by way of borrowing". In arriving at this opinion, M. Cosquin admits, as is fair, that the Grimms, not having our knowledge of non-Aryan _marchen_ (Mongol, Syrian, Arab, Kabyle, Swahili, Annamite--he might have added very many more), could not foresee all the objections to the theory of a store common to Aryans alone.

Were we constructing an elaborate treatise on _marchen_, it would be well in this place to discuss the Aryan theory at greater length. That theory turns on the belief that popular stories are the _detritus_ of Aryan myths. It would be necessary then to discuss the philological hypothesis of the origin and nature of these original Aryan myths themselves; but to do so would lead us far from the study of mere popular tales.*

Leaving the Aryan theory, we turn to that supported by M. Cosquin himself--the theory, as he says, of Benfey.**

Inspired by Benfey, M. Cosquin says: "The method must be to take each type of story successively, and to follow it, if we can, from age to age, from people to; people, and see where this voyage of discovery will lead us. Now, travelling thus from point to point, often by different routes, we always arrive at the same centre, namely, at India, _not the India of fabulous times_, but the India of actual history."

The theory of M. Cosquin is, then, that the popular stories of the world, or rather the vast majority of them, were _invented_ in India, and that they were carried from India, during the historical period, by various routes, till they were scattered over all the races among whom they are found.

This is a venturesome theory, and is admitted, apparently, to have its exceptions. For example, we possess ancient Egyptian popular tales corresponding to those of the rest of the world, but older by far than historical India, from which, according to M. Cosquin, the stories set forth on their travels.***

* It has already been attempted in our Custom and Myth; Introduction to Mrs. Hunt's Grimm; La Mythologie, and elsewhere.

** For M. Benfey's notions, see Bulletin de I' Academie de Saint Petersburg, September 4-16, 1859, and Pantschatantra, Leipzig, 1859.

*** See M. Maspero's collection, _Contes Populaires de l'Egypte Ancienne_, Paris, 1882.

One of these Egyptian tales, The Two Brothers, was actually written down on the existing ma.n.u.script in the time of Rameses II., some 1400 years before our era, and many centuries before India had any known history.

No man can tell, moreover, how long it had existed before it was copied out by the scribe Ennana. Now this tale, according to M. Cosquin himself, has points in common with _marchen_ from Hesse, Hungary, Russia, modern Greece, France, Norway, Lithuania, Hungary, Servia, Annam, modern India, and, we may add, with Samoyed _marchen_, with Hottentot _marchen_, and with _marchen_ from an "aboriginal" people of India, the Santals.

We ask no more than this one _marchen_ of ancient Egypt to upset the whole theory that India was the original home of the contes, and that from historic India they have been carried by oral transmission, and in literary vehicles, all over the world. First let us tell the story briefly, and then examine its incidents each separately, and set forth the consequences of that examination.

According to the story of _The Two Brothers_--

Once upon a time there were two brothers; Anapou was the elder, the younger was called Bitiou. Anapou was married, and Bitiou lived with him as his servant. When he drove the cattle to feed, he heard what they said to each other, and drove them where they told him the pasture was best. One day his brother's wife saw him carrying a very heavy burden of grain, and she fell in love with his force, and said, "Come and lie with me, and I will make thee goodly raiment".

But he answered, "Art thou not as my mother, and my brother as a father to me? Speak to me thus no more, and never will I tell any man what a word thou hast said."

Then she cast dust on her head, and went to her husband, saying, "Thy brother would have lain with me; slay him or I die".

Then the elder brother was like a panther of the south, and he sharpened his knife, and lay in wait behind the door. And when the sun set, Bitiou came driving his cattle; but the cow that walked before them all said to him, "There stands thine elder brother with his knife drawn to slay thee".

Then he saw the feet of his brother under the door, and he fled, his brother following him; and he cried to Ra, and Ra heard him, and between him and his brother made a great water flow full of crocodiles.

Now in the morning the younger brother told the elder all the truth, and he mutilated himself, and cast it into the water, and the _calmar_ fish devoured it. And he said, "I go to the Valley of Acacias" (possibly a mystic name for the next world), "and in an acacia tree I shall place my heart; and if men cut the tree, and my heart falls, thou shalt seek it for seven years, and lay it in a vessel of water. Then shall I live again and requite the evil that hath been done unto me. And the sign that evil hath befallen me shall be when the cup of beer in thy hand is suddenly turbid and troubled."

Then the elder brother cast dust on his head and besmeared his face, and went home and slew his wicked wife.

Now the younger brother dwelt in the Valley of Acacias, and all the G.o.ds came by that way, and they pitied his loneliness, and Chnum made for him a wife.* And the seven Hathors came and prophesied, saying, "_She shall die an ill death and a violent_". And Bitiou loved her, and told her the secret of his life, and that he should die when his heart fell from the acacia tree.

* Chnum is the artificer among the G.o.ds.

Now, a lock of the woman's hair fell into the river, and it floated to the place where Pharaoh's washermen were at work. And the sweet lock perfumed all the raiment of Pharaoh, and the washermen knew not wherefore, and they were rebuked. Then Pharaoh's chief washerman went to the water and found the hair of the wife of Bitiou; and Pharaoh's magicians went to him and said, "Our lord, thou must marry the woman from whose head this tress of hair hath floated hither". And Pharaoh hearkened unto them, and he sent messengers even to the Valley of Acacias, and they came unto the wife of Bitiou. And she said, "First you must slay my husband"; and she showed them the acacia tree, and they out the flower that held the heart of Bitiou, and he died.

Then it so befel that the brother of Bitiou held in his hand a cup of beer, and, lo! the beer was troubled. And he said, "Alas, my brother!"

and he sought his brother's heart, and he found it in the berry of the acacia. Then he laid it in a cup of fresh water, and Bitiou drank of it, and his heart went into his own place, and lived again.

Then said Bitiou, "Lo! I shall become the bull, even Apis" (Hapi); and they led him to the king, and all men rejoiced that Apis was found. But the bull went into the chamber of the king's women, and he spake to the woman that had been the wife of Bitiou. And she was afraid, and said to Pharaoh, "Wilt thou swear to give me my heart's desire?" and he swore it with an oath. And she said, "Slay that bull that I may eat his liver".

Then felt Pharaoh sick for sorrow, yet for his oath's sake he let slay the bull. And there fell of his blood two quarts on either side of the son of Pharaoh, and thence grew two persea trees, great and fair, and offerings were made to the trees, as they had been G.o.ds.

Then the wife of Pharaoh went forth in her chariot, and the tree spake to her, saying, "I am Bitiou". And she let cut down that tree, and a chip leaped into her mouth, and she conceived and bare a son. And that child was Bitiou; and when he came to full age and was prince of that land, he called together the councillors of the king, and accused the woman, and they slew her. And he sent for his elder brother, and made him a prince in the land of Egypt.

We now propose to show, not only that the incidents of this tale--far more ancient than historic India as it is--are common in the _marchen_ of many countries, but that they are inextricably entangled and intertwisted with the chief plots of popular tales. There are few of the main cycles of popular tales which do not contain, as essential parts of their machinery, one or more of the ideas and situations of this legend.

There is thus at least a presumption that these cycles of story may have been in existence in the reign of Rameses II., and for an indefinite period earlier; while, if they were not, and if they are made of borrowed materials, it may have been from the Egypt of an unknown antiquity, not from much later Indian sources, that they were adapted.

The incidents will now be a.n.a.lysed and compared with those of _marchen_ in general.

To this end let us examine the incidents in the ancient Egyptian tale of _The Two Brothers_. These incidents are:--

(1) The _spretae injuria formae_ of the wedded woman, who, having offered herself in vain to a man, her brother-in-law, accuses him of being her a.s.sailant. This incident, of course, occurs in Homer, in the tale of Bellerophon, before we know anything of historic India. This, moreover, seems one of the notions (M. Cosquin admits, with Benfey, that there are such notions) which are "universally human," and _might_ be invented anywhere.

(2) The Egyptian Hippolytus is warned of his danger by his cow, which speaks with human voice. Every one will recognise the ram which warns Phrixus and h.e.l.le in the Jason legend.* In the Albanian _marchen_,**

a _dog_, not a cow nor a ram, gives warning of the danger. Animals, in short, often warn of danger by spoken messages, as the fish does in the Brahmanic deluge-myth, and the dog in a deluge-myth from North America.

* The authority cited by the scholiast (Apoll. Rhod., Argon., i. 256) is Hecatseus. Scholiast on Iliad, vii. 86, quotes Philostepha.n.u.s.

** Von Hahn, i. 65.

(3) The accused brother is pursued by his kinsman, and about to be slain, when Ra, at his prayer, casts between him and the avenger a stream full of crocodiles. This incident is at least not very unlike one of the most widely diffused of all incidents of story--the _flight_ in which the runaways cause magical rivers or lakes suddenly to cut off the pursuer. This narrative of the flight and the obstacles is found in Scotch, Gaelic, j.a.panese (no water obstacle), Zulu, Russian, Samoan, and in "The Red Horse of the Delawares," a story from Dacotah, as well as in India and elsewhere.* The difference is, that in the Egyptian _conte_, as it has reached us in literary form, the fugitive appeals to Ra to help him, instead of magically making a river by throwing water or a bottle behind him, as is customary. It may be conjectured that the subst.i.tution of divine intervention in response to prayer for magical self-help is the change made by a priestly scribe in the traditional version.**

* See Folk-Lore Journal, April, 1886, review of _Houston's Popular Stories_, for examples of the magic used in the flight.

** Maspero, Contes, p. 13, note 1.