More Celtic Fairy Tales Part 30

XXVIII. JACK THE CUNNING THIEF.

_Sources._--Kennedy, _Stories of Ireland_, pp. 38-46; Campbell, _West Highland Tales_, i. 320 _seq._; "The s.h.i.+fty Lad," Dasent, _Popular Tales from the Norse_, pp. 232-51, "Master Thief." Kohler has a number of variants in his notes on Campbell: _Orient und Occident_, Band ii. Mr.

Clouston has a monograph on the subject in his _Popular Tales_, ii.

115-65. A separate treatise on the subject has been given by S. Prato, 1882, _La Leggenda di Rhampsinite_. Both these writers connect the modern folk-tales with Herodotus' story of King Rampsinites. Mr. Knowles in his _Folk-tales of Kashmir_, has a number of adventures of "Sharaf the Thief." The story of "Master Thief" has been heard among the tramps in London workhouses (Mayhew, _London Labour and London Poor_, iii.

119).

_Remarks._--Thievery is universally human, and at first sight it might seem that there was no connection between these various versions of the "Master Thief." But the ident.i.ty of the tricks by which the popular hero-thief gains his ends renders it impossible that they should have been independently invented wherever they are found.

XXIX. POWEL, PRINCE OF DYFED.

_Source._--Lady Guest's _Mabinogion_, with the names slightly anglicised, and omitting the opening incident.

_Parallels._--For the incident of tearing off the hands, _cf._ Morraha; the enchanted hill and maiden occur at the beginning of "Tuairisgeul Mor" in _Scottish Celtic Review_, i. 61, and are fully commented upon by Mr. Nutt, _l.c._ 137.

x.x.x. PADDY O'KELLY AND THE WEASEL.

_Sources._--Hyde, _Beside the Fire_, pp. 73-91.

_Parallels._--On green hills as the homes of the fairies: see note on "Childe Roland," _English Fairy Tales_, p. 241. The transformation of witches into hares is a frequent _motif_ in folk-lore.

x.x.xI. THE BLACK HORSE.

_Sources._--From J. F. Campbell's ma.n.u.script collection now deposited at the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh (MS. 53, vol. xi.). Collected in Gaelic, February 14, 1862, by Hector MacLean, from Roderick MacNeill, in the island of Menglay: MacNeill learnt the story about 1840 from a Barra man. I have omitted one visit of the Black Horse to Greece, but otherwise left the tale untouched. Mr. Nutt gave a short abstract of the story in his report on the Campbell MSS. in _Folk-lore_, i. 370.

_Parallels._--Campbell gives the following parallels in his notes on the tale, which I quote verbatim. On the throwing into the well he remarks: "So this incident of 'Lady Audley's Secret' was in the mind of a Barra peasant about 1840. Part of a modern novel may be as old as Aryan mythology, which was one point to be proved." [The incident of throwing into the well almost invariably forms a part of the tales of the White Cat type.]

With regard to the Black Horse, Campbell notes that a Gaelic riddle makes a Black Horse identical with the West Wind, and adds: "It is for consideration whether this Horse throws light on the sacred Wheel in Indian Sculptures; it is to be noted that a Black Horse is the sacrificial colour."

"The Cup is a well-known myth about winning a Fairy Cup which pervades Scandinavian England in many forms." "A silver ring, two quaint serpents' heads pointing opposite ways, is a common Scandinavian wedding-ring; many were to be got in Barra and elsewhere in 1869, sold by emigrants bound for America."

"Those who can account for myths must settle the geography of the Snow Mountain. Avalanches and glaciers are in Iceland, in the Caucasus, and in Central Asia. There are none within sight of Menglay. Hindoo cosmogony, which makes the world consist of seven rings, separated by seas and by a wall of mountains, may account for this in some sort."

On the spikes driven into the Horse, Campbell compares the Norse story of "Dapple-grim" and the Horse sacrifice of the Mahabharata. On the building of the Magic Castle, Campbell remarks: "Twashtri was the Carpenter of the Vedic G.o.ds: can this be his work?"

On the Horse's head being struck off Campbell comments: "This was the last act in the Aryan Horse's sacrifice, and the first step in the Horse apotheosis."

_Remarks._--Campbell has the following note at the end of the tale, from which it would seem that in 1870 at least he was very nearly being an _Indiamaniac_.

"So ends this horse-riding story. Taking it as it is, with the test of language added, nothing short of an Asian origin will account for it. A Gaelic riddle makes 'a black horse' mean the invisible wind, and a theorist might suppose this horse to be the air personified. As Greece is mentioned, he might be Pegasus, who had to do with wells.

But he had wings, and he was white, and there is nothing in cla.s.sical fable like this Atlantic myth. 'The enchanted horse' of Arabian Nights was a flying machine, and his adventures are quite different. This is not the horse of Chaucer's Squire's Tale. He is more like 'Hrimfaxi,'

the horse of the Edda, who drew the car of Nott in heaven, and was ridden round the earth in twelve hours, followed by Dagr and his glittering horse Skinfaxi. The black horse who always arrives at sunrise is like the horse of night, but there is no equivalent story in the Edda. 'Dapple-grim' in Norse tales is clad in a spiked bull's hide, and is mixed up with a blazing tar-barrel, but his adventures won't fit, and he was grey.

"The story is but an imperfect skeleton. The cup was to give strength; he had to open seven gates after he got the cup, but it does nothing.

The hood is to hide with; he went in and out of the palace unseen after he had got the hood, but it plays no part. The light shoes were the shoes of swiftness of course, but they never showed their paces.

Baldr's horse was led to the funeral pile with all his gear; and Odin laid the gold ring Draupnir on the pile. Such rites might account for the ring in the blazing lake. Hermothr's ride northwards and downwards to the abode of Hel to seek Baldr, his leap over the grate, and his return with the ring (Edda 25), might account for one adventure.

"The many-coloured horses of the sun in the Indian mythology and solar myths may account for all these horses, astronomically or meteorologically. The old Aryan Aswa Medha or sacrifice of a black horse, and the twelve adventures of Arjuna as told in the Mahabharata, are something like this story in some general vague way. But the simplest explanation of this Menglay myth, fished out of the Atlantic, is to admit that 'the black horse' and all this mythical breed came west with men who rode from the land where horses were tamed, which is unknown."

x.x.xII. THE VISION OF MACCONGLINNEY.

_Source._--Kindly condensed by Mr. Alfred Nutt from Prof. Meyer's edition of _The Vision_ published in book form in 1892. This contains two versions, a longer one from a fourteenth century MS., _Leabhar Breac or Speckled Book_, and a shorter one from a sixteenth century MS. in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. A translation of the former version was given by the late W. M. Hennessy in _Fraser's Magazine_, September, 1873. Prof. Wollner, who contributed to Prof. Meyer's edition an introduction dealing with the story from the standpoint of comparative literature, considers that the later version reproduces the original common source more nearly.

_Parallels._--At first sight _The Vision_ seems to picture the Land of c.o.c.kayne (on which see Poeschel, _Das Mahrchen vom Schlaraffenlande_, Halle, 1878), but as Prof. Wollner remarks, the Irish form is much more simple and primitive, and represents rather an agricultural conception of a past _aurea aetas_. The conception of enormous appet.i.te being due to the presence of a voracious animal or demon within the body is widespread among the folk. Prof. Wollner gives numerous parallels, _l.c._ XLVII.-LIII. The common expression "to wolf one's food" is said to be derived from this conception. On the personification of disease, see Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, ii. 148.

I can myself remember a tale somewhat similar to _The Vision_ which I heard from my nurse in Australia, I fancy as a warning against gluttony.

She told me of a man, who in swallowing large pieces of food had swallowed a little hairy monster, which grew and grew and grew and caused the man to be eating all day to satisfy his visitors. He was cured by being made to fast, and then a bowl of brandy was brought in front of his mouth into which the hairy thing, attracted by the fumes, jumped and was drowned.

_Remarks._--We have here an interesting example of the personification of disease in the form of a demon, of which some examples occur in the Gospels. The rollicking Rabelaisian tone in which the story is told prevents us, however, from attributing any serious belief in the conception by the Irish Monk the author of the tale, who was parodying, according to Prof. Wollner, the Visions of the Saints. Still he would be scarcely likely to use the conception, even for purposes of parody, unless it were current among the folk, and it occurs among them even at the present day. (See Hyde, _Beside the Fire_, p. 183.)

x.x.xIII. DREAM OF OWEN O'MULREADY.

_Sources._--Kindly translated by Mr. Leland L. Duncan from _Gaelic Journal_, vol. iv. p. 57 _seq._

_Parallels._--Croker's _Daniel O'Rourke_ may be compared in part.

_Remarks._--At first sight a mere droll, the story has its roots in the most primitive philosophy. Owen's problem is to get in the Land of Dreams. Now Dreamland, so all our students of Mythology are agreed, is the source and origin of our belief in souls and spirits. Owen's problem therefore resolves itself into this: where was he to go in order to come into closest contact with the world of spirits. Mark what he does--he clears the hearth and has his bed made in it. Now it is round the hearth that the fullest a.s.sociations with the spirit life are cl.u.s.tered. The late M. Fustel de Coulanges in his _Cite Antique_ traces back most of the Greek and Roman religions and a large number of their inst.i.tutions to the wors.h.i.+p of the ancestors localised on the hearth. The late Professor Hearn extended his line of research to the whole of the Aryans in his _Aryan Household_. It will thus be seen from this course of reasoning, that Owen was acting on the most approved primitive principles in adopting this curious method of obtaining dreams. The story is not known elsewhere than in Ireland, and we are therefore at liberty to apply the method of survivals to this case.

x.x.xIV. MORRAHA.

_Sources._--The second story in Mr. W. Larminie's _West Irish Folk-tales_, pp. 10-30. The framework was collected from P. McGrale of Achill Island, Co. Mayo. The story itself was from Terence Davis of Rendyle, Co. Galway. There is evidently confusion in the introductory portion between Niall's mother and wife.

_Parallels._--Campbell's No. 1 has a very close parallel to the opening.

Mr. Larminie refers to a similar tale collected by Kennedy. Another version from West Munster has been recently published in the _Gaelic Journal_, iv. 7, 26, 35. The evasion of the promise to give up the sword at the end seems a favourite incident in Achill folk-tales; it occurs in two others of Mr. Larminie's stories. On the framework, see note on "Conal Yellow claw" (_Celtic Folk-tales_, V.). I have there suggested that the plan comes from the East, ultimately from Buddha.

x.x.xV. THE STORY OF THE McANDREW FAMILY.

_Sources._--Supplied by Mrs. Gale, now in the United States, from the recitation of her mother who left Ireland over fifty years ago.

_Parallels._--"Noodle Tales" like this are found everywhere in Europe, and have been discussed by Mr. Clouston in a special monograph in _The Book of Noodles_, 1889. The "sell" at the end is similar to that in the "Wise Men of Gotham." Kennedy (_Fireside Stories of Ireland_) gives a similar set of adventures, p. 119 _seq._

_Remarks._--Mrs. Gale remarks that it was a common superst.i.tion in Ireland, that if a raven hovered over the head of cattle, a withering blight had been set upon the animals. As birds of carrion they were supposed to be waiting for the carcases.

x.x.xVI. THE FARMER OF LIDDESDALE.

_Sources._--MacDougal, _Waifs and Strays_, III. ix. pp. 216-21.

_Parallels._--Campbell, _West Highland Tales_, "The Master and the Man,"

iii. 288-92.

_Remarks._--I need scarcely suggest the identification of the Ploughman with the----. As usual in folk-tales, that personage does not get the best of the bargain. The rustic Faust evades his contract by a direct appeal to the higher powers. This is probably characteristic of Scotch piety.