A Study of Fairy Tales Part 4

The story is full of instances ill.u.s.trating precision, energy, and delicacy. In fact, almost any pa.s.sage exemplifies the general qualities of form and the qualities of composition. The personality of the writer has given to the tale a poetic and dramatic charm of simplicity. Note the precision and delicacy displayed in the opening paragraph:--

Oeyvind was his name. A low barren cliff overhung the house in which he was born; fir and birch looked down on the roof, and wild cherry strewed flowers over it. Upon this roof there walked about a little goat, which belonged to Oeyvind.

He was kept there that he might not go astray; and Oeyvind carried leaves and gra.s.s up to him. One fine day the goat leaped down, and away to the cliff; he went straight up and came where he never had been before.

Energy is apparent in the following pa.s.sage:--

"Is it yours, this goat?" asked the girl again.

"Yes," he said, and looked up.

"I have taken such a fancy to the goat. You will not give it to me?"

"No, that I won't."

She lay kicking her legs and looking down at him, and then she said, "But if I give you a b.u.t.ter-cake for the goat, can I have him then?"

The justness of expression, the sincerity, is especially impressive when Oeyvind's Mother came out and sat down by his side when the goat no longer satisfied him and he wanted to hear stories of what was far away. There is emotional harmony too, because the words suggest the free freshness of the mountain air and the landscape which rose round about the Boy and his Mother.

So she told him how once everything could talk: "The mountain talked to the stream, and the stream to the river, the river to the sea, and the sea to the sky."--But then he asked if the sky did not talk to any one: "And the sky talked to the clouds, the clouds to the trees, the trees to the gra.s.s, the gra.s.s to the flies, the flies to the animals, the animals to the children, the children to the grown-up people...." Oeyvind looked at the mountain, the trees, and the sky and had never seen them before.

There is delicacy or emotional harmony also in the Mother's song. When Oeyvind asked, "What does the Cat say?" his Mother sang:--

At evening softly s.h.i.+nes the sun.

The cat lies lazy on the stone.

Two small mice, Cream, thick and nice, Four bits of fish, 1 stole behind a dish, And am so lazy and tired, Because so well I have fared.

The unity is maintained through the central interest of the two Children and the goat.

The tale is characterized by fairly good ma.s.s. As the story aims to portray a natural picture of child life, obviously it could not maintain a style of too great solidity and force, but rather would seek one of ease and naturalness. Ma.s.s, as shown in _Oeyvind and Marit_, appears in the following description of Oeyvind's play with the goat, after he first realized its return:--

He jumped up, took it by the two fore-legs, and danced with it as if it were a brother; he pulled its beard, and he was just going in to his mother with it, when he heard someone behind him; and looking, saw the girl sitting on the greensward by his side. Now he understood it all, and let go the goat.

The story of child-friends.h.i.+p is told in distinct little episodes which naturally connect. That unmistakable relation of the parts which is essential to coherence, appears in the following outline of the story:--

1. A new acquaintance; Oeyvind and Marit meet. The exchange of a goat for a cake. The departure of the goat. Marit sings to the goat. The return of the goat. Marit accompanies the goat.

2. New interests. The stories of what the animals say, told to Oeyvind by his Mother. The first day of school.

3. An old acquaintance renewed: Oeyvind again meets Marit at School.

The Children's love of the goat, the comrades.h.i.+p of Oeyvind and Marit, of Oeyvind and his Mother, and of Marit and her Grandfather, are elements which a.s.sist in producing coherence. The songs of Marit, and the songs and stories of Oeyvind's Mother, especially preserve the relation of parts. In the following paragraphs, which give distinct pictures, note the coherence secured internally largely by the succession of verbs denoting action and also by the denotation of the words.

When he came in, there sat as many children round a table as he had ever seen at church; others were sitting on their luncheon-boxes, which were ranged round the walls; some stood in small groups round a large printed card; the school-master, an old gray-haired man, was sitting on a stool by the chimney-corner, filling his pipe. They all looked up as Oeyvind and his mother entered, and the mill-hum ceased as if the water had suddenly been turned off....

As he was going to find his seat, they all wanted to make room for him. He looked round a long time, while they whispered and pointed; he turned round on all sides, with his cap in his hand and his book under his arm....

Just as the boy is going to turn round to the school-master, he sees close beside him, sitting down by the hearthstone on a little red painted tub, Marit, of the many names; she had covered her face with both hands, and sat peeping at him through her fingers.

The imagination is appealed to continually through the simple concrete expressions which present an image; as, "He grew hot all over, looked around about, and called, 'Killy-killy-killy-goat!'"

The emotional element is distinct and pleasing and contributes to the total impression of admiration for the characters. We admire Oeyvind for his fondness for the goat and for his pain at losing it; for his dissatisfaction in keeping it after Marit returned it, though she wanted it; for his delight in his Mother's stories; and for his pleasure in Marit's friends.h.i.+p at school. We admire Marit for her appreciation of the beautiful goat; for her obedience to her Grandfather; for her sorrow at giving up the goat; for her generosity in giving the neck-chain with it; and for the childish comrades.h.i.+p she gave to Oeyvind. We admire the goat for his loyalty to his little master. We trust the Grandfather who trained Marit to be fair and courteous; who guarded her from the cliff; and who bought for her another goat. We have faith in the Mother who had feeling for the little goat her son bartered for a cake; and who had the wisdom to sing for her little boy and tell him stories when he was sorrowful and needed new interests.

Undoubtedly _Oeyvind and Marit_ is a tale which conveys its thought clearly and makes you feel its feeling, and therefore may be said to possess style in a broad sense. In a particular sense, because its form is marked by the four general qualities: precision, energy, delicacy, and personality; and its elements are controlled by the principles of composition: sincerity, unity, ma.s.s, and coherence, it therefore may be said to possess style.

An old tale which has a literary form unusual in its approach to the perfect literary form, is the Norse, _The Three Billy-Goats Gruff_, told by Dasent in _Tales from the Norse_. Indeed after looking carefully at this tale one is tempted to say that, for perfection of style, some of the old folk-tales are not to be equaled. Note the simple precision shown in the very first paragraph:--

Once on a time there were three Billy-Goats, who were to go up to the hill-side to make themselves fat, and the name of all three was "Gruff."

Energy or force appeals to the emotions in the words of the tiny Billy-Goat Gruff to the Troll:--

"Oh, no! pray don't take me. I'm too little, that I am,"

said the Billy-Goat; "wait a bit till the second Billy-Goat Gruff comes, he's much bigger."

There is emotional harmony displayed in the second paragraph; the words used fit the ideas:--

On the way up was a bridge over a burn they had to cross; and under the bridge lived a great ugly Troll, with eyes as big as saucers, and a nose as long as a poker.

The quality of personality is best described, perhaps, by saying that the tale seems to have impersonality. Any charm of the story-tellers of the ages has entered into the body of the tale, which has become an objective presentment of a reality that concentrates on itself and keeps personality out of sight. The character of the tellers is shown however in the qualities of the tale. The charm of the primitive story-tellers has given the tale inimitable morning-dew freshness.

This seems to result from a fine simplicity, a sprightly visualization, a quaint picturesqueness, a pleasing terseness, and an Anglo-Saxon vigor.

Sincerity is displayed in the words of the Troll and of the three Billy-Goats. Note the sincerity of little Billy-Goat Gruff:--

"Oh! it is only I, the tiniest Billy-Goat Gruff; and I'm going up to the hillside to make myself fat," said the Billy-Goat, with such a small voice.

The unity in this tale is unusually good. The central idea which groups all the happenings in the tale is: Three Billy-Goats are crossing a bridge to go up to the hillside to make themselves fat.

There are four characters, three Goats and the Troll. All that happens in the tale contributes to the one effect of a bridge going trip, trap! as a Goat crossed it on his way up the hillside; of a Troll roaring: "Who's that tripping over my bridge?" of the explanation of the Billy-Goat; of the answer of the Troll, "Now I'm coming to gobble you up"; and of the Billy-Goat's final pet.i.tion. Unity is emphasized by the repet.i.tion in the tale, as the three Billy-Goats successively cross the bridge and reply to the Troll. The climax is the big Billy-Goat Gruff's tramp across the bridge.

This tale is characterized by perfect ma.s.s, the paragraphs always end with words that deserve distinction, and the sentences have their strongest words at the points where the eye would most readily see them; as, "But just then up came the big Billy-Goat Gruff." The coherence is fine, and is secured largely by the c.u.mulative plan in a threefold sense. The relation of the parts is unmistakable. The similarity and contrast evident in the episodes of the three Billy-Goats makes this relation very clearly defined. To make doubly sure the end has been reached the tale concludes:--

Snip, snap, snout, This tale's told out.

Let us examine the folk-tale generally as to its literary form. The folk-tale originally did not come from the people in literary form.

The tale was first told by some nameless primitive man, who, returning from some adventure of everyday life, would narrate it to a group of his comrades. First told to astonish and interest, or to give a warning of the penalty of breaking Nature's laws, or to teach a moral lesson, or to raise a laugh, later it became worked up into the fabulous stories of G.o.ds and heroes. These fabulous stories developed into myth-systems, and these again into household tales. By constant repet.i.tion from one generation to another, incidents likely to happen in everyday life, which represented universal experiences and satisfied common needs of childhood, were selected and combined. These gradually a.s.sumed a form of simplicity and literary charm, partly because, just as a child insists on accuracy, savage people adhered strictly to form in repeating the tale, and because it is a law of permanence that what meets the universal need will survive. The great old folk-tales have acquired in their form a clearness and precision; for in the process of telling and re-telling through the ages all the episodes became clearly defined. And as irrelevant details dropped out, there developed that unity produced by one dominant theme and one dominant mood. The great old folk-tales, then, naturally acquired a good cla.s.sic literary form through social selection and survival. But many of the tales as we know them have suffered either through translation or through careless modern retelling. Many of the folk-tales take on real literary form only through the re-treatment of a literary artist. Mrs. Steel, who has collected the _Tales of the Punjab_, tells how the little boys of India who seek to hold their listening groups will vary the incidents in a tale in different tellings, proving that the complete tale was not the original unit, but that single incidents are much more apt to retain their stock forms than plots. The combination we now have in a given tale was probably a good form once hit upon and thereafter transmitted.

Jacob (1785-1863) and William (1786-1859) Grimm, both fine scholars, incapable of any but good work, did not undertake to put the tale into literary form suited to children. They were interested in preserving folk-lore records for scientific purposes. And we must distinguish between the tale as a means of reflecting the ideals of social and religious life, of displaying all the genius of primitive man for science to interpret, and the tale as a means of pleasing and educating the child. The Grimms obtained most of their tales from the lips of people in Hesse and Hanau, Germany. They were very fortunate in securing many of the tales they were thirteen years in collecting, from an old nurse, Frau Vichmannin, the wife of a cowherd, who lived at Niederzwehrn, near Ca.s.sel, who told her story with exactness and never changed anything in repeating. Grimm himself said, "Our first care was faithfulness to the truth. We strove to penetrate into the wild forests of our ancestors, listening to their n.o.ble language, watching their pure customs, recognizing their ancient freedom and hearty faith." The Grimms sought the purity of a straightforward narration. They were against reconstruction to beautify and poetize the legends. They were not opposed to a free appropriation for modern and individual purposes. They kept close to the original, adding nothing of circ.u.mstance or trait, but rendering the stories in a style and language and development of detail which was their own literary German.

Perrault (1628-1703) had taken the old tales as his son, Charles, a lad of ten or twelve, told them. The father had told them to the son as he had gathered them up, intending to put them into verse after the manner of La Fontaine. The lad loved the stories and re-wrote them from memory for his father with such charming navete that the father chose the son's version in preference to his own, and published it.

But the tales of Perrault, nevertheless, show the embellishment of the mature master-Academician's touch in subduing the too marvelous tone, or adding a bit of court manners, or a satirical hit at the vanity and failings of man.

Dasent (1820-96) has translated the Norse tales from the original collection of Asbjornsen and Moe. Comrades from boyhood to manhood, scholar and naturalist, these two together had taken long walks into the secluded peasant districts and had secured the tales from the people of the dales and fells, careful to retain the folk-expressions.

Dasent, with the instinct, taste, and skill of a true scholar, has preserved these tales of an honest manly race, a race of simple men and women, free and unsubdued. He has preserved them in their folk-language and in their true Norse setting. Harris (1848-1908) has given his tales in the dialect of Uncle Remus. Jacobs (1854-) has aimed to give the folk-tales in the language of the folk, retaining nurses' expressions, giving a colloquial and romantic tone which often contains what is archaic and crude. He has displayed freedom with the text, invented whole incidents, or completed incidents, or changed them. His object has been to fill children's imaginations with bright images. Andrew Lang (1844-1912) has given the tale mainly to entertain children. He has accepted translations from many sources and has given a straightforward narration. He has collected fairy tales indefatigably in his rainbow _Fairy Books_, but they are not always to be recommended for children.

Andersen (1805-75), like Perrault, made his tale for the child as an audience, and he too has put the tale into literary form. Andersen's tale is not the old tale, but an original creation, a number of which are based on old folk-material. Preserving the child's point of view, Andersen has enriched his language with a mastery of perfection and literary style. And the "mantle of Andersen" has, so far, fallen on no one.

To-day it is to be questioned if the child should be given the tale in nurses' talk. To-day children are best cared for by mothers who feel ignorant if they cannot tell their children stories, and who, having an appreciation of their mother English, want their children to hear stories, not only told by themselves rather than by their servants, but also told in the best literary form possible. They recognize that these earliest years, when the child is first learning his language, are the years for a perfection of form to become indelibly impressed.

The fairy tale, like every piece of literature, is an organism and "should be put before the youngest child with its head on, and standing on both feet." The wholesale re-telling of every tale is to be deplored. And stories which have proved themselves genuine cla.s.sics, which have a right to live, which have been handed down by tradition, which have been preserved by folk-lore records, and which have been rescued from oblivion,--in this age of books should have a literary form, which is part of their message, settled upon them. The Grimm tales await their literary master.