Popular Tales Part 2

CONTES DEMA MERE LOYE.

A copy, modified, of the engraving is printed on the cover of M. Charles Deulin's _Les Contes de Ma Mere L'Oye avant Perrault_. (Paris, Dentu, 1879.) The design holds its own, with various slight alterations, in the English chap-books of _Mother Goose's Tales_, even in the present century. There is a vastly 'embroidered' reminiscence of Clouzier in the edition edited by M. Ch. Giraud, for Perrin of Lyon, 1865.]

[Footnote 18: Mademoiselle was Elizabeth Charlotte d'Orleans, born 1676, sister of Philippe, Duc de Chartres, later Duc d'Orleans, and Regent.

See Paul Lacroix in _Contes de Perrault_, Paris, s. d. (1826.)]

[Footnote 19: In the introduction to the Jouaust edition of 1876 M. Paul Lacroix has probably gone too far in attributing to Perrault's son the complete authors.h.i.+p of the Tales. It is true that the t.i.tle of the Dutch reprint of 1697 describes the book as 'par le fils de Monsieur Perrault.' The Abbe de Villiers, however, in his _Entretiens sur les Contes des Fees_ (a Paris chez Jacques Collombat, 1699), makes one of his persons praise the stories 'que l'on attribue au fils d'un celebre Academicien,' for their freshness and imitation of the style of nurses.

Another speaker in the dialogue, The Parisian, replies, 'quelque estime que j'aie pour le fils de l'Academicien, j'ai peine a croire que le pere n'ait pas mis la main a son ouvrage,' p. 109. This opinion is probably correct. It seems that Perrault was not troubled by attacks on his _Contes_, and, in biographical works the tales were long attributed to his son. But M. Paul Lacroix declares that this son was nineteen years of age when the stories appeared. This looks incredible on the face of it. Mlle. L'Heritier could hardly have said about a young man of nineteen, that he 'occupe si spirituellement les amus.e.m.e.ns de son enfance' in writing out _Contes naifs_. Nor would a man of that age, in a century too, when the young took on them manly duties so early, describe himself in his dedicatory letter as 'un enfant.' M. Charles Giraud gives the boy's age as ten, without citing his authority. (Lyons Edition of 1865, p. lxxiv.) Moreover the idea of educating a young man of that age by making him write out fairy tales would have seemed, and would justly have seemed, ridiculous. We must believe that P. Darmancour was a child when the stories were published, and we may agree with the Abbe Villiers that the Academician 'put a hand to them.' M. Lacroix's authority is the discovery by M. Jal of the birth of Pierre Perrault, a son of Charles, who would have been nineteen in 1697. (Jal's _Dictionnaire Critique_, p. 1321.) But Jal did not find the register of baptism of Mademoiselle Perrault. It follows that he may have also failed to find that of other young Perraults, including 'P. Darmancour.'

Each of Perrault's first sons (May 25, 1675; Oct. 20, 1676), was called Charles, the second had a Samuel added to the name. Perrault may also have had two or more Pierres; in any case, unless P. Darmancour were an idiot, his education could not have been conducted by making him write out nursery tales at nineteen.]

[Footnote 20: Even in the popular mouth almost any formula may glide into almost any other, and there is actually a female Hop o' My Thumb in Aberdeens.h.i.+re folklore. But Madame d'Aulnoy's seems a wanton confusion.

The Aberdeen female _Hop o' My Thumb_ is _Malty Whuppy_, Folk Lore Journal, p. 68, 1884. For _Finette Cendron_, see _Nouveaux Contes des Fees_, par Madame D----, Amsterdam, Roger, 1708.]

[Footnote 21: Paul de Saint Victor, _Hommes et Dieux_, p. 474.]

[Footnote 22: _L'Histoire de Melusine_ (Barbin, Paris, 1698) is dedicated like _Histoires et Contes du Tems Pa.s.se_ to _Mademoiselle_.

The author says, 'Si tost que la plus celebre des Fees a sceu que votre Altesse Royale avoit eu la bonte de donner de favourables audiences aux Fees du bas ordre, et qu'elle avoit pris quelque plaisir au recit de leurs avanteures,' she came forward and asked Mademoiselle to patronise her own. A burlesque 'Privilege en faveur des Fees dans ce temps ou l'on a tant d'engouement pour les Contes des Fees' ends the volume.]

FAIRIES AND OGRES.

The stories of Perrault are usually called 'Fairy Tales,' and they deserve the name more than most _contes_, except the artificial contemporary tales, because in them Fairies or Fees do play a considerable part. Thus there were seven Fairies, and an old one 'supposed dead or enchanted,' in the _Sleeping Beauty_. There is a Fairy G.o.dmother in _Cinderella_, and, as will be shown in the study on _Cinderella_, she takes the part usually given, in traditional versions, to a cow, a sheep, or a dead mother who has some mystic connection with the beast. The same remarks apply to the Fairy G.o.dmother in _Peau d'Ane_. She, too, does for the heroine what beasts do in purely popular European variants, and in a.n.a.logous tales from South Africa.

The fairies in _Riquet of the Tuft_ are of little importance, as the narrative is not really traditional, but of literary invention for the most part. The fairy in _The Two Wishes_ is not a fairy in the South African variants where divers magical or animal characters appear, nor can _Mother Holle_ in Grimm (24) be properly styled a fairy. Thus, of all Perrault's Fairies only the Fairies of the _Sleeping Beauty_ (repeated in _Riquet of the Tuft_) answer to Fairies as they appear in genuine popular traditions, under such names as Moirai, or Hathors, in ancient Greek, and Egyptian versions. These beings attend women in child-bed, as they attended Althea when she bore Meleager, and they predict the fortunes of the infant.

Perrault's fairy G.o.dmothers (unlike the fairies of real legend) are machinery of his own, and even he dispenses with Fairies altogether in _Blue Beard_, _Hop o' my Thumb_, and _Puss in Boots_; while in _Les Trois Souhaits_ the mythological machinery of the cla.s.sics is employed, and Jupiter does what a fairy might have done. It is true that the key of the forbidden door, in _Blue Beard_, is said to be _Fee_; but this only means that, like the seven-leagued Boots in _Hop o' my Thumb_ ('elles estoient Fees'), the key has magical qualities. The part of Fairies, then, is very restricted, even in Perrault, while, in traditional _Marchen_ all over the world, Fairies or beings a.n.a.logous to the Fairies appear comparatively seldom.

In spite of this the Fairies have so successfully a.s.serted their t.i.tle over popular tales, that a few words on their character and origin seem not out of place. Fairies are doubtless much older than their name; as old as the belief in spirits of woods, hills, lonely places, and the nether world. The familiar names, _fees_, _fades_, are apparently connected with _Fatum_, the thing spoken, and with _Fata_, the Fates who speak it, and the G.o.d _Fatuus_, or Faunus, and his sister or wife _Fatua_[23]. Preller quotes the _Fatuae_ as spiritual maidens of the forests and elements, adding the other names of _Sagae_ and _Sciae_, to Fatuae, and Fata[24]. He compares the Slavonic Wilis: and, to be brief, the Apsaras of India, the Nereids of ancient and modern Greece, and the Good Ladies and Fairies of Scotland, with many of the Melanesian Vuis, forest-haunting spirits, are all of the same cla.s.s, are fairy beings informing the streams and wilds. To these good folk were ascribed gifts of prophecy, commonly exercised beside the cradle of infancy, _deabus illis quae fata nascentibus canunt, et dic.u.n.tur Carmentes_[25]. As Maury shows[26], the local Fairies of Roman Gaul were propitiated with altars:

FATIS DERVONIBUS V. S. L. M. M. RVFNVS SEVERVS.

Just as the Scotch Fairies are euphemistically styled 'The Good Folks,'

'The People of Peace,' the 'Good Ladies,' so it befell the daughter of Faunus. She was styled 'The Good G.o.ddess,' and her real name was tabooed[27].

It was natural that when Christianity reached Gaul, where the native spirits of woods and wells had acquired the name of _Fata_, these minor G.o.ddesses should survive the official heathen religion. The temples of the high G.o.ds were overthrown, or turned into churches, but who could destroy all the woodland fanes of the Fata, who could uproot the dread of them from the hearts of peasants? Saints and Councils denounced the rural offerings to fountains and the roots of trees, but the secret shame-faced wors.h.i.+p lasted deep into the middle ages[28]. It is conjectured by Maury, as by Walckenaer (_Lettres sur les Contes de Fees_; Paris, 1826), that the functions of prophetic Gaulish Maidens and Druidesses were confused with those of the Fairies. Certainly superst.i.tious ideas of many kinds came under the general head of belief in _Fata_, _Faes_, _Fadae_, and the _Fees_ of the forest of Broceliande.

The _Fees_ answered, as in the _Sleeping Beauty_, to Greek _Moirai_ or Egyptian _Hathors_[29]. They nursed women in labour: they foretold the fate of children. It is said that when a Breton lady was giving birth to a child, a banquet for the _Fees_ was set in the neighbouring chamber[30]. But, in popular superst.i.tion, if not in Perrault's tales, the _Fees_ had many other attributes. They certainly inherited much from the pre-Christian idea of Hades. In the old MS. _Prophesia Thomae de Erseldoun_[31] the subterranean fairy-world is the under-world of pagan belief. In the mediaeval form of Orpheus and Eurydice (_Orfeo and Heurodis_), it is not the King of the Dead, but the king of Fairy that carries off the minstrel's bride. Fairyland, when Orpheus visits it, is like Homer's Hades.

'_And sum thurch the bodi hadde wounde Wives ther lay on childe bedde Sum dede and sum awedde._'

In the same way Chaucer calls Pluto 'King of Fayrie,' and speaks of 'Proserpine and all her fayrie,' in the _Merchant's Tale_. Moreover Alison Pearson, when she visited Elfland, found there many of the dead, among them Maitland of Lethington, and one of the Buccleughs. For all this dealing with fairies and the dead was Alison burned (Scott, _Border Minstrelsy_, ii. 137-152).

Because the mediaeval Fairies had fallen heir to much of the pre-Christian theory of Hades, it does not follow, of course, that the Fairies were originally ancestral ghosts. This origin has been claimed for them, however, and it is pointed out that the stone arrow-heads of an earlier race are, when found by peasants, called 'elf-shots,' and attributed to the Fairies. Now the real owners and makers were certainly a race dead and gone, as far as a race can die. But probably the owners.h.i.+p of the arrows by elves is only the first explanation that occurs to the rural fancy. On the other hand, it is candid to note that the Zulu Amatongo, certainly 'ancestral ghosts,' have much in common with Scotch and Irish fairies. 'It appears to be supposed,' says Dr.

Callaway, 'that the dead become "good people," as the dead among the Amazulu become Amatongo, and, in the funeral processions of the "good people" which some profess to see, are recognised the forms of those who have lately died, as Umkatshana saw his relatives among the Abapansi,'

and as Alison saw Maitland of Lethington and Buccleuch in Elfland. This Umkatshana followed a deer into a hole in the ground, where he found dead men whom he knew[32]. Compare Campbell, _Tales from the West Highlands_, ii. 56, 65, 66, 106, where it is written, 'the Red Book of Clanra.n.a.ld is said not to have been dug up, but found _on_ the moss. It seemed as if the ancestors sent it.'

Those rather gloomy fairies of the nether-world have little but the name in common with the fairies of Herrick, of the _Midsummer Night's Dream_, and of Drayton's _Nymphidia_. The gay and dancing elves have a way, in Greece, of making girls 'dance with the Nereids' till they dance themselves to death. In the same way it is told of Anne Jefferies, of St. Teath in Cornwall (born 1626), that one had seen her 'dancing in the orchard, among the trees, and that she informed him she was then dancing with the Fairies.' She lived to be seventy, in spite of the Fairies and the local magistrates who tried her case (Scott, _B.M._ ii. 156).

Perrault's fairies do not wed mortal men, in this differing from the Indian Apsaras, and the fairies of New Zealand and of Wales. (Taylor's _New Zealand_, p. 143. Compare story of Urvasi and Pururavas, Max Muller, _Selected Essays_, i. 408. A number of other examples of Fairy loves, including one from America, is given in _Custom and Myth_, pp.

68-86.)

On a general view of the evidence, it appears as if the fas.h.i.+on for fairy tales, in Perrault's time, had made rather free with the old _Fata_ or _Fees_. Perrault sins much less than the Comtesse d'Aulnoy, or the Comtesse de Murat, but even he brings in a _Fatua ex machina_ where popular tradition used other expedients.

As to the Ogres in Perrault, a very few words may suffice. They are simply the survival, in civilised folklore, of the cannibals, _Rakshasas_, _Weendigoes_, and man-eating monsters who are the dread of savage life in Africa, India, and America. Concerning them, their ferocity, and their stupidity, enough will be said in the study of _Le Pet.i.t Poucet_. As to the name of Ogre, Walckenaer derives it from _Oigour_, a term for the Hungarian invaders of the ninth century, a Tartar tribe[33]. Hence he concludes that the Ogre-stories are later than the others, though, even if 'Ogre' meant 'Tartar,' only the name is recent, and the Cannibal tales are of extreme antiquity. Littre, on the other hand, derives _ogre_ from _Orcus_, _c.u.m Orco rationem habere_ meaning to risk one's life. Hop o' my Thumb certainly risked his, when he had to do 'c.u.m Orco,' if Orcus be _Ogre_ (_Lettres sur les Contes de Fees_, p. 169-172).

[Footnote 23: Fauno fuit uxor nomine Fatua. Justin, xliii. I. Preller, _R. M._ I. 385.]

[Footnote 24: _Romische Mythologie_, i. 100. Berlin, 1881.]

[Footnote 25: Preller, _op. cit._ ii. 194, quoting Tertullian, _De An._ 39, and Augustine, _Civitas Dei_, iv. 11.]

[Footnote 26: _Les Fees du Moyen Age_, p. 13. Paris, 1843.]

[Footnote 27: Quam quidam, quod nomine dici prohibitum fuerat, _Bonam Deam_ appellatam volunt. Servius, _aeneid_, viii. 315.]

[Footnote 28: Maury, _Les Fees du Moyen Age_, pp. 15, 16, and his authorities in the _Capitulaires_ and _Life of Saint Eloi_.]

[Footnote 29: Amyot, in his Plutarch, actually renders _Moirai_ by _Fees_ (1567).]

[Footnote 30: Maury, p. 31.]

[Footnote 31: Scott, _Border Minstrelsy_, iii. 381.]

[Footnote 32: _Nursery Tales of the Zulus_, p. 317; _Amatongo_, p. 227.]

[Footnote 33: In popular French versions the Ogre is often called _Le Sarrasin_ to this day (Sebillot in _Melusine_, May 5, 1887).]

NOTES ON THE

SEVERAL TALES BY PERRAULT,

AND THEIR VARIANTS.

LES TROIS SOUHAITS.

_The Three Wishes._

The story of _The Three Wishes_ is very valuable as an ill.u.s.tration of the difficulties which baffle, and perhaps will never cease to baffle, the student of popular Tales and their diffusion. The fundamental idea is that a supernatural being of one sort or another can grant to a mortal the fulfilment of a wish, or wishes, and that the mortal can waste the boon. Now probably this idea might occur to any human mind which entertained the belief in communication between men, and powerful persons of any sort, G.o.ds, Saints, Tree-spirits, fairies, _follets_ or the like. The mere habit of prayer, universally human as it is, contains the germs of the conception. But the notion, as we find it in story, branches out into a vast variety of shapes, and the problem is to determine which of these, or whether any one of these is the original type, and whether the others have been adapted or burlesqued from that first form, and whether these processes have been the result of literary transmission, and literary handling, or of oral traditions and popular fancy. Perhaps a compact statement of some (by no means all) of the shapes of _The Three Wishes_ may here be serviceable.

1. The granters of the Wishes are G.o.ds. The gift is accepted in a pious spirit, and the desires are n.o.ble, and worthy of the donors.

This tale occurs in Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, viii. 610-724. Baucis and Philemon entertain the G.o.ds, who convert their hut into a Temple. They _wish_ (the man is the speaker) to serve the G.o.ds in this fane, and that neither may outlive the other:

Nec conjugis umquam Busta meae videam: neu sim tumulandus ab illa.