The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Part 41

The haughty eye shall seek in vain What innocence beholds; No cunning finds the keys of heaven, No strength its gate unfolds.

Alone to guilelessness and love That gate shall open fall; The mind of pride is nothingness, The childlike heart is all.--_Whittier._

Carlyle has said: "The History of the World is the Biography of Great Men." He might have added, that in primitive times much of the History of the World is the Biography of Great Children. Andrew Lang, in his edition of _Perrault's Tales,_ speaking of _Le Pet.i.t Poucet_ (Hop o' My Thumb), says: "While these main incidents of Hop o' My Thumb are so widely current, the general idea of a small and tricksy being is found frequently, from the Hermes of the Homeric Hymn to the Namaqua Heitsi Eibib, the other _Poucet_, or Tom Thumb, and the Zulu Uhlakanyana. Extraordinary precocity, even from the day of birth, distinguishes these beings (as Indra and Hermes) in _myth._ In _Marchen_, it is rather their smallness and astuteness than their youth that commands admiration, though they are often very precocious.

The general sense of the humour of 'infant prodigies' is perhaps the origin of these romances" (p. ex.).

This world-homage to childhood finds apt expression in the verses of Mrs. Darmesteter:--

"Laying at the children's feet Each his kingly crown, Each, the conquering power to greet, Laying humbly down.

Sword and sceptre as is meet."

All over the globe we find wonder-tales of childhood, stories of the great deeds of children, whose venturesomeness has saved whole communities from destruction, whose heroism has rid the world of giants and monsters of every sort, whose daring travels and excursions into lands or skies unknown have resulted in the great increase of human knowledge and the advancement of culture and civilization. In almost all departments of life the child-hero has left his mark, and there is much to tell of his wonderful achievements.

_Finnish Child-Heroes_.

In Finnish story we meet with _Pikku mies_, the dwarf-G.o.d, and in Altaic legend the child _Kan Pudai_, who was fed upon two hundred hares, who tames wild animals, makes himself a bow and bow-string, and becomes a mighty hero. In Esthonian folk-lore we have the tale of the seven-year-old wise girl, the persecution to which she was subjected at the hands of her stepmother, and the great deeds she accomplished (422.

II. 144, 147, 154). But, outside of the wonderful infancy of Wainamoinen, the culture-hero of the Finns, whom the _Kalevala_ has immortalized, we find some striking tributes to the child-spirit. In the closing canto of this great epic, which, according to Andrew Lang, tells, in savage fas.h.i.+on, the story of the introduction of Christianity, we learn how the maiden Marjatta, "as pure as the dew is, as holy as stars are that live without stain," was feeding her flocks and listening to the singing of the golden cuckoo, when a berry fell into her bosom, and she conceived and bore a son, whereupon the people despised and rejected her. Moreover, no one would baptize the infant: "The G.o.d of the wilderness refused, and Wainamoinen would have had the young child slain. Then the infant rebuked the ancient demi-G.o.d, who fled in anger to the sea." As Wainamoinen was borne away in his magic barque by the tide, he lifted up his voice and sang how when men should have need of him they would look for his return, "bringing back sunlight and moons.h.i.+ne, and the joy that is vanished from the world." Thus did the rebuke of the babe close the reign of the demi-G.o.ds of old (484.

171-177).

_Italian_.

On the other hand, it is owing to a child, says a sweet Italian legend, that "the gates of heaven are forever ajar." A little girl-angel, up in heaven, sat grief-stricken beside the gate, and begged the celestial warder to set the gates ajar:--

"I can hear my mother weeping; She is lonely; she cannot see A glimmer of light in the darkness, Where the gates shut after me.

Oh! turn the key, sweet angel, The splendour will s.h.i.+ne so far!"

But the angel at the gate dared not, and the childish appeal seemed vain until the mother of Jesus touched his hand, when, lo! "in the little child-angel's fingers stood the beautiful gates ajar." And they have been so ever since, for Mary gave to Christ the keys, which he has kept safe hidden in his bosom, that every sorrowing mother may catch a glimpse of the glory afar (379. 28-30).

_Persian Deed-Maiden_.

_I fatti sono maschi, le parole femmine_,--deeds are masculine, words feminine,--says the Italian proverb. The same thought is found in several of our own writers. George Herbert said bluntly: "Words are women, deeds are men"; Dr. Madden: "Words are men's daughters, but G.o.d's sons are things"; Dr. Johnson, in the preface to his great dictionary, embodies the saying of the Hindus: "Words are the daughters of earth, things are the sons of heaven."

In compensation for so ungracious a distinction, perhaps, the religion of Zoroaster, the ancient faith of Persia, teaches that, on the other side of death, the soul is received by its good deeds in the form of a beautiful maiden who conducts it through the three heavens to Ahura (the deity of good), and it is refreshed with celestial food (470. II. 421).

That children should be brought into close relations.h.i.+p with the stars and other celestial bodies is to be expected from the _milieu_ of folk-life, and the feeling of kins.h.i.+p with all the phenomena of nature.

_Moon-Children_.

In his exhaustive essay on _Moon Lore_, Rev. Mr. Harley tells us that in the Scandinavian mythology, Mani, the moon, "once took up two children from the earth, Bill and Hiuki, as they were going from the well of Byrgir, bearing on their shoulders the bucket Soeg, and the pole Simul," and placed them in the moon, "where they could be seen from the earth." The modern Swedish folk-lore represents the spots on the moon as two children carrying water in a bucket, and it is this version of the old legend which Miss Humphrey has translated (468. 24-26). Mr. Harley cites, with approval, Rev. S. Baring-Gould's identification of Hiuki and Bill, the two moon-children, with the Jack and Jill of the familiar nursery rhyme:--

"Jack and Jill went up the hill, To fetch a pail of water; Jack fell down and broke his crown, And Jill came tumbling after."

According to Mr. Duncan, the well-known missionary to certain of the native tribes of British Columbia, these Indians of the far west have a version of this legend: "One night a child of the chief cla.s.s awoke and cried for water. Its cries were very affecting--'Mother, give me to drink!' but the mother heeded not. The moon was affected and came down, entered the house, and approached the child, saying, 'Here is water from heaven: drink.' The child anxiously laid hold of the pot and drank the draught, and was enticed to go away with the moon, its benefactor. They took an underground pa.s.sage till they got quite clear of the village, and then ascended to heaven" (468. 35, 36). The story goes on to say that "the figure we now see in the moon is that very child; and also the little round basket which it had in its hand when it went to sleep appears there."

The Rev. George Turner reports a Polynesian myth from the Samoan Islands, in which the moon is represented as coming down one evening and picking up a woman, and her child, who was beating out bark in order to make some of the native cloth. There was a famine in the land; and "the moon was just rising, and it reminded her of a great bread-fruit.

Looking up to it, she said, 'Why cannot you come down and let my child have a bit of you?' The moon was indignant at the idea of being eaten, came down forthwith, and took her up, child, board, mallet, and all." To this day the Samoans, looking at the moon, exclaim: "Yonder is Sina and her child, and her mallet and board." Related myths are found in the Tonga Islands and the Hervey Archipelago (468. 59).

The Eskimo of Greenland believed that the sun and the moon were originally human beings, brother and sister. The story is that "they were playing with others at children's games in the dark, when _Malina_, being teased in a shameful manner by her brother _Anninga_, smeared her hands with the soot of the lamp, and rubbed them over the face and hands of her persecutor, that she might recognize him by daylight. Hence arise the spots in the moon. _Malina_ rushed to save herself by flight, but her brother followed at her heels. At length she flew upwards, and became the sun. _Anninga_, followed her, and became the moon; but being unable to mount so high he runs continually round the sun in hopes of some time surprising her" (468.

34).

There are many variants of this legend in North and in Central America.

In her little poem _The Children in the Moon_, Miss Humphrey has versified an old folk-belief that the "tiny cloudlets flying across the moon's s.h.i.+eld of silver" are a little lad and la.s.s with a pole across their shoulders, at the end of which is swinging a water-bucket. These children, it is said, used to wander by moonlight to a well in the northward on summer nights to get a pail of water, until the moon s.n.a.t.c.hed them up and "set them forever in the middle of his light," so that--

"Children, ay, and children's children, Should behold my babes on high; And my babes should smile forever, Calling others to the sky!"

Thus it is that--

"Never is the bucket empty, Never are the children old, Ever when the moon is s.h.i.+ning We the children may behold" (224. 23-25).

In Whittier's _Child Life_, this poem is given as "from the Scandinavian," with the following additional stanzas:--

"Ever young and ever little, Ever sweet and ever fair!

When thou art a man, my darling, Still the children will be there.

"Ever young and ever little, They will smile when thou art old; When thy locks are thin and silver, Theirs will still be s.h.i.+ning gold.

"They will haunt thee from their heaven, Softly beckoning down the gloom; Smiling in eternal sweetness On thy cradle, on thy tomb" (379. 115-117).

The Andaman Islanders say that the sun is the wife of the moon, and the stars are their children--boys and girls--who go to sleep during the day, and are therefore not seen of men (498. 92). The sun is termed cha'n'a bo'do, "Mother Sun"; the moon, _mai'a 'o-gar_, "Mr. Moon"

(498. 59). In many other mythologies the stars, either as a whole, or in part, figure as children. In the figurative language of ancient records the patriarchs are promised descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven, and in the Ts.h.i.+ language of Western Africa, the stars are termed _woh-rabbah_, from _woh_, "to breed, multiply, be fruitful,"

and _abbah_, "children." The South Australian natives thought the stars were groups of children, and even in the cla.s.sic legends of Greece and Rome more than one child left earth to s.h.i.+ne in heaven as a star.

In the belief of the natives of the Hervey Islands, in the South Pacific, the double star and _Scorpii_ is a brother and sister, twins, who, fleeing from a scolding mother, leapt up into the sky. The bright stars [Greek: _m_] and [Greek: _l_]

_Scorpii_ are their angry parents who follow in pursuit, but never succeed in overtaking their runaway children, who, clinging close together,--for they were very fond of each other,--flee on and on through the blue sky. The girl, who is the elder, is called _Inseparable_, and Mr. Gill tells us that a native preacher, alluding to this favourite story, declared, with a happy turn of speech, that "Christ and the Christian should be like these twin stars, ever linked together, come life, come death." He could scarcely have chosen a more appropriate figure. The older faith that was dying lent the moral of its story to point the eloquence of the new (458. 40-43).

_Hindu Child-Heroes_.

In the Rig-Veda we have the story of the three brothers, the youngest of whom, Tritas, is quite a child, but accomplishes wonderful things and evinces more than human knowledge; also the tale of Vikramadityas, the wise child (422. II. 136).

In the interesting collection of Bengalese folk-tales by Rev. Lal Behari Day we find much that touches upon childhood: The story of the "Boy whom Seven Mothers Suckled," and his wonderful deeds in the country of the Rakshasis (cannibals)--how he obtained the bird with whose life was bound up that of the wicked queen, and so brought about her death; the tale of the "Boy with the Moon on his Forehead"--how he rescued the beautiful Lady Pushpavati from the power of the Rakshasis over-sea! We have also the wonder-tales of Buddha.

In a tale of the Panjab, noted by Temple (542. II. xvi.), "a couple of G.o.ds, as children, eat up at a sitting a meal meant for 250,000 people"; and in a Little Russian story "a mother had a baby of extraordinary habits. When alone, he jumped out of the cradle, no longer a baby, but a bearded old man, gobbled up the food out of the store, and then lay down again a screeching babe." He was finally exorcised (258. 119). A huge appet.i.te is a frequent characteristic of changelings in fairy-stories (258.108).