* I # I o I o 'ry ^-t-'-'iil 'l - I I r i H. ' Jjl i |H i l l |"II II W" I H!| lli »P i || i M l H l< | iil»ii . | |, ! | |l«<»«««^l»»«(l mmmm Ml mm HIiMWiiiMaiilllilMil EL .ji._.....^.^,-„_^j„«».-„^f^^-j — ., — -^^...„,„...^___p 1 EaHff fyxnM ^nxvmxi^ f XhXM^ BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 1 FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Henrg m. Sage 1891 ^./.5r/...?..^. A.:G.9.3-2.% / mw^ AP 2 2 O C C 11 ' oci m 2 g - The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924100649718 THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL FOLK-LORE CONGRESS, I8QI. All rights reserved. THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK-LORE CONGRESS 1891. ^ap^rs mh Stransartinits. EDITED BY JOSEPH JACOBS AND ALFRED NUTT, CHAIRMAN AND HON. SECRETARY OF THE LITERARY COMMITTEE. Published for the Organising Committee by DAVID NUTT, 270-271, STRAND, LONDON. LONDON : PRINTED BY CHAS. J. CI.ARK, 4, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, W.C. dp CONTENTS. PAGE List OF Committees AND GuARANTOKs . . . vii Introduction . . . xiii Minutes (comprising List of International Folk-Lore Council) . xxiv Andrew Lang. — Presidential Address . . . . i FOLK-TALE SECTION. E. Sidney Hartland. — Chairman's Address . . • '5 W. W. Newell.— Lajy Featherflight, an inedited Folk-tale 40 Discussion . . . . .65 Emmanuel Cosquin. — Quelques Observations sur les " Incidents com- muns aux Contes Europeens et aux Contes Orientaux' . . 67 Joseph Jacobs. — The Science of Folk-Tales and the Problem of Diffusion . .... 76 Appendix. List of Folk-Tale Incidents common to European Folk- tales, with Bibliographical References, and Map . . 87 Discussion ..... 99 David MacRitchie.— The Historical Aspect of Folk-Lore 103 Discussion . . . no Alfred Nutt. — Problems of Heroic Legend . . 113 Ilmari Krohn. — La Chanson Populaire en Finlande . . 135 MYTHOLOGICAL SECTION. (Myth, Ritual, and Magic.) Prof. John Rhys. — Chairman's Address . . 143 Charles Ploix. — I.e Mythe de I'Odyssee . . . i6r Charles G. Leland. — Etrusco-Roman Remains in Modern Tuscan Tradition . 185 Discussion . . . 20l W. R. Paton. — The Holy Names ol the Eleusinian Priests . . 202 Appendix ..... 212 J. S. Stuart-Glennie. — -The Origins of Mythology . . 215 Discussion .... . 226 Miss Mary A. Owen. — Among the Voodoos 230 Discussion ...... 248 J. E. Crombie. — The Saliva Superstition . . 249 Contents. INSTITUTION AND CUSTOM SECTION. Sir FREDERicii Pollock, Bart. — Chairman's Address . .261 Dr. M. Winternitz. — On a Comparative Study of Indo-Europtan Customs, with special reference to the Mirris-ge Customs . 267 Discussion . . ... 289 r. HlNDiS Groome. — The Influence of the Gypsies on the Super- stitions of the English Folk .... 292 Discussion ... . . 308 C. L. TUPPER. — Indian Institutions and Feudalism . . 309 Prof. F. B. Jevons. — The Testimony of P"oik-Lore to the European or Asiatic Origin of the Aryans .... 322 G. Laurence Gomme. — The Non-Aryan Origin of Agricultural Institutions . . . 348 Discussion ...... 356 J. S. Stuart-Glennie. — The Origins of Institutions . . 357 A. W. Moore. —The Tinwald . . . 379 GENERAL THEORY AND CLASSIFICATION SECTION. Dk. E. B. Tylor. — Exhibition of Charms and Amulets Discussion . . • . . Hon. Lady Welby. — The Significauce of Folk-Lore Hugh Nevill. — Sinhalese Folk-Lore W. F. Kirey. — On the Progress of Folk-Lore Collections in Esthonia, with special reference to the work of Pastor Jacob Hurt . Ella de Schoultz-Adaiewsky. — Courtes Notices sur le lea Dr. G j. schoultz . ... Catalogue of Exhibits .... Programme of Entertainment Index .... 387 394 395 408 427 430 433 461 46s THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL FOLK-LORE CONGRESS. Organising Cominiitee. Chairman — G. L. Vice-Cha ir-rnan — Hon. John Abeecromby. G. L. Apperson. The Right Hon. the EarlBeauchamp, F.S.A. Walter Besant, M.A. Karl Blind. W. G. Black. Edward W. Brabrook, F.S.A,, Sec. R.S.L. J. Britten. Rev. Stopford A. Brooke. Dr. Robert Brown, F.L.S. Miss C. S. Burne. Miss Roalfe Cox. J. G. Frazer, M.A. Rev. Dr. Gaster. Professor A. C. Haddon. Rev. Walter Gregor. Gomme, F.S.A. C. G. Leland. E. Sidney Hartland, F.S.A. A. Granger Hutt, F.S.A. Joseph Jacobs, B.A. G. H. KlNAHAN. W. F. KiRBY, F.L.S., F.E.S. J. Stewart Lockhart. The Right Hon. Sir John Lubbock, Bart., F.R.S., M.P. Alfred Nutt. T. Faieman Oedish, F.S.A. Lieut. -Gen. PiTT-RiVERS, D.C.L., F.R.S., F.S.A. Professor Rhys, M.A. Professor A. H. S.\yce, M.A. Major R. C. Temple. John Tolhurst. Edward B. Tylor, LL.D., F.R.S. Henry B. Wheatley, F.S.A. Hon. Treasurer— 'Edvia^d Clodd, 19, Carleton Road, Tufnell Park, London, N. Hon. Secretary — J. J. Foster, Offa House, Upper Tooting, London, S.W. Executive Coimnittee. Chairman — G. L. Gomme, F.S.A. Officers of Organising Committee, ex officio E. W. Brabrook. W. F. KiRBY. T. F. Ordish. Hon. Sccrefarv- J. Jacobs. .\. Nutt. H. B. Wheatley. -J. J. Foster. Literary Committee. Chairman — Joseph Jacobs, B.A. Officers of Organising Committee, ex officio. Dr. R. Brown. i E. S. Hartland. J. G. Frazer. I Sir J. Lubbock. Rev. Dr. Gaster. | E. B. Tylor. Hon. Seci-etarv — Alfred Nutt. Vlll International Folk-lore Congress, 1891. Miss BUENE. J. J. Foster. J, P. Emslie. Reception and Entertainment Committee. Chairman — T. Fairman Oedish, F.S.A. J. F. Green. Miss Laura A. Smith. Dr. Balmanno Squire. Hon. Secretmy — Mrs. GoMME. List of Guarantors. Abercromby, Hon, J. Apperson, G. L. Arnold, E. V. Bain, T. G. Barclay, Miss Isabella. Bernfes, Prof. Henri. Beauchamp, late Earl. Brabrook, Edward. Brown, Dr. Robert. Brueyre, Loys. Clodd, Edward. Cox, Miss Roalfe. Curtis, James. Fahie, J. J. Foster, J. J. Frazer, J. G. Fry, T. C. Gaster, Rev. Dr. Gibbs, H. H. Gladstone, Dr. J. H. Gosselin, Hellier. Gomme, G. L. Green, Frank. Haddon, Prof. A. C. Hannah, Robert. Hartland, E. Sidney. Hewitt, J. F. Jacobs, Joseph. Jones, Judge D. B. Kirby, W. F. Lang, Andrew. Leland, Charles G. Lindsay, Lady. Lockhart, J. H. Stewart. Lbwy, Rev. A. Lubbock, Sir John, Bart. Mac Ritchie, D. McLagan, R. Craig. Mackinlay, Dr. Mond, Mrs. F. Nutt, Alfred. Powis, late Earl of. Pocklington-Coltman, Mrs. Rowley, Walter. Sayce, Prof. A. H. Stock, Elliot. Taylor, Miss Helen. Temple, Major R. C. Tolhurst, J. International Folk-lore Congress, 1891. IX LIST OF MEMBERS. Abercromby, Hon. John. Adams, Mrs. N. M. Alma-Tadema, L., R.A. Andrews, J. B. Apperson, G. L. Arnold, E. V. Atkinson, G. M. Auden, The Rev. Thomas. Auden, Miss. Bag-ley, Mrs. J. J. Bain, T. G. Balfour, Mrs. M. C. Banks, A. Rae. Barclay, Miss Isabella. Bauerman, H. Bauerman, Miss. Bern^s, Henri. Besant, Walter. Black, W. George. Blanch, W. Harnett. BHmont, Emile. Blind, Karl. Bliss, Frank E. Bogisic, V. Bonaparte, Prince Roland. Bourdillon, F. W. Brabrook, Edward \\'. Britten, James. Brown, Dr. Robert. Browne, J. Brueyre, Loys. Burne, Miss C. S. Burne-Jones, E., A. R.A. Busk, Miss R. H. Campbell, Lord Archibald. Carmichael, A. Carmichael, C. H. E. Certeux, A. Cesaresco Martinengo, Countess. Clarke, Dr. Hyde. Clodd, Edward. Clouston, W. A. Cochrane, Robert. Codrington, Rev. R. H. Corbet, F. H^ M. Cordier, Henri. Courtney, Miss M. A. Cow, Mrs. D. Cox, Mrs. Cox, Miss Roalfe. Crane, T. F. Crombie, James C. Crombie, J. W. Crooke, \Vm. Curtis, James. Danson, J. T. Davidson, Thomas. Dempster, Miss Helen. Dempster, Miss C. L. H. Dendy, Miss Mary. D'Estournelles, Baron de Con- stant. Dragomanov, Professor. Dyer, Louis. Emslie, J. P. Evans, H. B. Evans, Dr. John. Evans, E. Vincent Fahie, J. J. Ffennell, Miss M. C. Fleury, Prof Jean. Foster, J. J. Foster, Mrs, International Folk-lore Congress, 1891. Frazer, J. G. Fry, Rev. T. C. Garnett, Miss Lucy. Gaster, Rev. Dr. Gibbs, H. H. Girard de Rialle, M. Gladstone, Dr. J. H. -Godden, Miss G. M. Gomme, G. Laurence. Gomme, Mrs. G. Laurence. Gosselin, Hellier. Green, Frank. Gregory, Herbert E. Greig, Andrew. Groome, Francis H. Gutch, Mrs. Haddon, Prof. A. C. Hales, Prof. J. W. Haliburton, R. G. Hannah, R. Hardy, G. F. Harris, Miss E. M. Hartland, E. Sidney. Hartland, Mrs. E. Sidney. Herbertson, J. T. Hewitt, J. F. Higgens, T. W. E. Holden, E. B. Hutchinson, J. Hutt, A. Grainger. Jacobs, Joseph. Jones, His Honour Judge Bryn- m6r. Jones, Professor T. R. Joyce, T. Heath. Kane, R. R., LL.D. Kane, Mrs. R. R. Karlowicz, J. Kirby, W. F. Kirby, Mrs. W. F. Kroff, Herr. Krohn, Dr. Kaarle. Krohn, Ilmari. Lach-Szyrma, The Rev. W. S. Lang, Andrew, M.A. President. Leathes, F. de M. Leitner, Dr. Leiand, C. G., President Gipsy - lore Society. Lindsay, Lady. Lindsay, W. A. Lloyd, Miss. Lloyd, Miss L. C. Lockhart, J. H. Stewart. Logie, Mrs. D. W. Lowy, The Rev. A. Lubbock, Rt. Hon. Sir John, Bart., M.P. Mackinlay, D. Maclagan, Dr. R. C. MacLean, G. E. MacRitchie, David. Matthews, Miss. McAlister, J. G. W. McCarthy, Justin Huntly, M.P. McCorkell, G. McCormick, Rev. F. H. J. Milne, Frank A. Mond, Mrs. Frida. Monseur, Prof. Eug. Moore, A. W. Murray-Aynsley, Mrs. Murray-Aynsley, Mr. Naake, J. T. Nelson, Wm. Neville, Lady Dorothy. Nevill, Hugh. Newell, Prof. W. \V. Nutt, Alfred. Nutt, Mrs. Nutt, Miss L. M. I nternatio7ial Folk-lore Congress, 1801. XI O'Neill, John. Ordish, T. F. Oswald, Dr. E. Owen, E. Owen, Miss Mary A. Perkins, H. W. Pineau, Leon. Ploix, Charles, President dc la Societe des Traditions Popu- laires. Pocklington-Coltman, Mrs. Pollock, Sir Fredk., Bart. Power, D'Arcy. Powis, late Earl of. Prato, Dr. S. Pusey, S. E. B. Bouverie. Rae, Dr. Rae, Mrs. Rawson, Sir Rawson N., C.B., K.C.M.G. Read, General Meredith. Read, C. H. Reade, John. Rendle, Mrs. H. \V. Rhys, Prof. John. Rowley, Walter. Sayce, Prof. A. H. S^billot, Paul. Sheppard, W. F. Skilbeck, J. A. Skilbeck, Mrs. J. A. Smith, Miss Laura A. Smith, Miss Toulmin. Squire, Dr. Balmanno. Starry, Mrs. Stephens, Rev. W. R. Stock, Elliot. Stokes, Whitley. Stuart-Glennie, J. S. Styer, \N . B. Swainson, Rev. C. Swain, Ernest. Taylor, Miss Helen. Tcheraz, Professor. Temple, Major R. C. Thompson, Alton H. Tolhurst, John. Topley, Wm., F.R.S. Tupper, C. L. TurnbuU, A. H. Tyler, Dr. E. B. Valentine, Dr. F. C. Vizetelly, Miss Annie. Wakefield, Miss A. M. Walhouse, M. J. Walker, General W. B. Waterman, A. N. Webster, Rev. Wentworth. Welby, Hon. Lady. Wheatiey, H. B. Wintemitz, Dr. M. Wood, R. H., F.S.A. Woollcombe, R. L., LL.D. Wright, A. R. Wyegooneratur Rajepakse, Mudaliyar T. D. N. de Abress. TRANSACTIONS OF THE ^cconli international JPolk=lLare Congress. INTRODUCTION. History of the Congress. At the close of the first International Folk-lore Congress, held at Paris in August 1889, the following " vceu" was formulated : " Que des congres internationaux de traditions populaires se reunissent tous les deux ou trois ans et que la prochaine reunion se tienne a Londres." Mr. Charles Leland accepted the task of formally bringing this motion before the Folk-lore Society, and of taking the necessary steps to organise the next Congress. Mr. Leland placed himself in communication with the Council of the Folk-lore Society, and met with imme- diate and ready response to his appeal, that its members should, individually and collectively, interest themselves in the organisation of the forthcoming Congress. Pre- liminary meetings were held in the spring of 1890, at which the date of the meeting was agreed upon and an Organising Committee was appointed, a list of whose members will be found on p. vii of this volume. The Organising Committee met for the first time in July 1890, and continued meeting until the 4th of Febru- ary 1 89 1, by which time the main outlines of the Congress had been laid down, the details being left to be worked out by the sub-committees. A substantial guarantee-fund was raised (a list of the guarantors will be found p. viii), and sufficient adhesions secured to ensure the material xiv Introduction. success of the Congress. This result was obtained by re- peated circulars addressed to members of all known folk-lore societies, to the Gipsy-lore Society, to the Anthropological Society, to the Society of Antiquaries, as well as by direct invitation to all scholars whose line of research in any ways touched folk-lore studies. The Organising Committee was also fortunate enough to secure the active countenance and support of Mr. Andrew Lang, then President of the Folk-lore Society. Mr. Lang was nominated to the Presidentship of the Congress, a position to which his eminence as a man of letters and his acknowledged leadership among English folk-lorists fully entitled him, and in which he was able to render invaluable service. Sub-committees were appointed, the list of which will be found on p. vii. From the first it was felt desirable by the members of the Organising Committee that one of the outcomes of the Congress should be the constitution of a permanent body representing all schools of folk-lore research and all exist- ing folk-lore organisations. This International Folk-lore Council should, it was suggested, be elected by each Con- gress, and remain in office from one Congress to another. In addition to serving as a bond of union between scholars scattered all over the world, and acting as a final court of appeal in all folk-lore matters, its special function should be the material and scientific organisation of the next Congress. It was therefore resolved to submit to the Congress a list of names, as representative as possible, for election to the proposed Council ; and it was further re- solved to take the Coniite de Patronage and the Comite d' Organisation of the first Congress as the basis of such a list. Numerous names were added, and the list, as finally voted by the Congress, will be found on pp. xxiv-xxv. It is necessary to place on record one fact connected with this list. Among the members of the Comity de Patronage of the first Congress was Dr. Ed. Veckenstedt, editor of History of the Congress. xv the Zeitsclirift fur Volkskunde. Grave charges had been made in the interval, implicating the good faith as well as the scholarship of this gentleman. The Organising Com- mittee felt that they could not recommend Dr. Vecken- stedt as a fit person for election to the proposed Council until these charges had been satisfactorily answered. He was asked to publish his answer in Folk-Lore, the official organ of the Folk-lore Society, as being the medium by which it would most readily reach the majority of the Congress members. A lengthy correspondence ensued, which ended in Dr. Veckenstedt's declining a nomination to the proposed Council — not, however, until a statement (the source of which it was not possible to trace) had gone the round of the German press to the effect that he had been appointed " honorary patron of the Congress". The Executive Committee began its labours in March. The appointment of Chairmen of Sections, the carrying into effect of the recommendations made by the Literary and the Entertainment Committees, the organisation of an Exhibition of Folk4ore Objects, necessitated frequent and lengthened meetings ; and it was only by dint of strenuous labour on the part of all concerned that the final arrangements were completed in time and satisfac- torily. It will be universally felt that the Executive Com- mittee was as fortunate in its choice of sectional Chairmen as the Organising Committee had been in its choice of a President. The pages of this volume afford, indeed, but a faint idea of the services rendered to the Congress by the scholars who accepted the post, services which will be gratefully remembered by all who took part in the Con- gress. To the Reception and Entertainments Committee was allotted the task of making the necessary arrangements for the comfort of foreign and country members whilst in town. There gradually fell to its share all that belonged to the social side of the Congress. A committee of ladies xvi Introduction. was formed, with Mrs. Gomme as Secretary, to carry into effect schemes felt to be of great interest to members of the Congress ; one of these, due to Mrs. Gomme, and to the reaUsation of which she devoted herself with unweary- ing ardour, was the collection of as complete a series as possible of English local and festival cakes ; another was a conversazione designed to practically illustrate items of English folk-custom and fancy. The Committee was fortunate enough to secure the aid of Miss Burne, a name honoured by all who care for English folk-lore, and it is not easy to overrate the value of the aid she freely gave. The programme of the Conversazione, held at the Mercers' Hall by the courtesy of the Warden and Governors of the Mercers' Company, printed on p. 461, represents very inefficiently the amount of work done by the Entertainment Committee, to which the arrangements for the Congress dinner were likewise entrusted, and upon members of which fell the task of collecting, cataloguing, and orderly disposing the objects sent for the Exhibition. This was decided upon almost at the eleventh hour, and but for the ready response of members — chief among them Miss Burne, Mr. Leland, and Miss Matthews — and for the help given by Professor Haddon, could not have been success- fully carried through. As it was, numerous articles of extreme interest were for the first time brought to the notice of many students. The more important numbers will be found in the catalogue compiled by the Chairman of the Entertainment Committee, Mr. Ordish {infra, p. 433), whilst the pencil of Mr. Emslie, an indefatigable worker on the same Committee, has preserved a permanent record of the most important articles. For the English folk-lorist, the series of " necks'' or " harvest-babies" was perhaps of most interest. Mention may fittingly be made here of the visit to Oxford, the charm of which, thanks to the gracious hos- pitality of Mr. Lang and Prof. Rhys, will be a lasting possession to all members of the Congress who were privileged to take part in it. The majority of those The Scientific Work of the Congress. xvii present made acquaintance for the first time with the treasures appertaining to our study preserved at the Pitt- Rivers iVIuseum, the significance and importance of which were so convincingly set forth by Dr. Tylor. The Members of the Congress were likewise indebted to Miss Dempster, the collector of Sutherlandshire folk-lore, for her reception of them at her house. Thanks to the labours of the various committees the social interest of the Congress was brilliantly assured, and it may be affirmed that never before was the subject of folk-lore brought so prominently or so sympathetically before the public. It were ungracious not to acknowledge the liberal space accorded by the press to the Congress proceedings, or the marked fulness and accuracy of the reports. Mr. Stuart, of the National Observer and Anti- Jacobin staff, kindly made himself the medium of commu- nication between the Congress officials and his colleagues of the press, and his services were as appreciated on the one as on the other side. This brief record of the circumstances connected with the initiation and organisation of the Congress will not, we trust, be deemed out of place. Before closing it one further acknowledgment must be made. Great as was the work that fell to the share of the active members of the Committee, eager as was the zeal of all, it may well be imagined that the burden was heaviest upon the Chair- man and the Secretary of the Executive Committee. To Mr. Gomme and to Mr. Foster, more than to any other men, belongs the credit of having by their energy and persistent labour assured the material success of the Congress. The Scientific Work of the Congress. The present volume, full record as it is of what the Congress has accomplished for the advancing of our study, may be described as more especially the outcome of the labours of the Literary Sub-Committee, which set to work b xviii Introduction. immediately after its institution in September 1890. Full programmes, drawn up by Mr. Edward Clodd and by the editors of the present volume, were submitted to and discussed by the Organising Committee, and were finally embodied in the subjoined report, printed in Folk-Lore of Jan. 1891 : — " That the work of the Congress be divided over the five working-days, Thursday, Oct. i, to Tuesday, Oct. 6, 1891, thus : On Thursday, Oct. i, the Congress to meet in the afternoon to hear the President's Address, and to elect the officers of the Congress, viz., the Presidents of the Sections, the (European) Folk-lore Council, and a Special Committee on methodology, which shall meet out of Con- gress hours, but report progress on the last day of Congress. " The Sub-Committee recommend that the Congress be divided into three major Sections : (i) Folk-tales and Songs ; (ii) Myth and Ritual ; (iii) Custom and Institution ; and they recommend that Mr. E. Sidney Hartland, F.S.A., Prof J. Rhys, and Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart., be requested to preside over these sections respectively, and that Prof. T. F. Crane be asked to preside over the Methodological Committee. " It seems desirable that each section shall meet on a separate day, at which papers shall be read devoted to questions connected with that section. The Committee recommend that under each section the papers and dis- cussions should be taken, as far as possible, in chrono- logical or logical order, dealing in turn with the relations of the subject — Tales, Myths, or Customs, in their present phases — to those of savage, oriental, classical, and medi- aeval times and conditions. " It is suggested that the papers, so far as practicable, should serve to test a conception now widely held, espe- cially among English folk-lorists and anthropologists — the conception, namely, of the homogeneity of contemporary folk-lore with the earliest manifestations of man's activity Tlie Scientific Work of tlie Congress. xix as embodied in early records of religion (myth and cult), institutions, and art (including literary art). " Thus, on the day devoted to Folk-tales, it is hoped that papers and discussions will be forthcoming on the Incidents common to European and Savage Folk-tales — Ancient and Modern Folk-tales of the East, their relations to one another, and to the Folk-tales of Modern Europe — Traces of Modern Folk-tales in the Classics — Incidents common to Folk-tales and Romances — The Recent Origin of Ballads — The Problem of Diffusion. " On the day devoted to Myth and Ritual such subjects may be discussed as : The present condition of the Solar Theory as applied to Myths — Modern Teutonic Folk-lore and the Eddas — Primitive Philosophy in Myth and Ritual — Sacrifice Rituals and their meaning — Survivals of Myths in Modern Legend and Folk-lore — Witchcraft and Hypnot- ism — Ancestor-Worship and Ghosts — Charms, their Origin and Diffusion. " On the day devoted to Custom and Institution it is suggested that some of the following topics be discussed : Identity of Marriage Customs in Remote Regions — Burial Customs and their Meaning — Harvest Customs among the Celtic and Teutonic populations of Great Britain — The Testimony of Folk-lore to the European or Asiatic Origin of the Aryans — The Diffusion of Games — The Borrowing Theory applied to Custom. " Besides those papers, and others that may be suggested by members of the Congress, each day it is proposed shall open with a Presidental Address from the Chairman of the Section. " Thus four out of the five days being accounted for, it only remains to determine the work of the last day. This, it is suggested, should be taken up with the Reports of the Methodological Committee, appointment of Com- mittees of the International Folk-lore Council, and on special points to be brought before the next Congress. Besides this, it is hoped that arrangements may be made b 2 XX introduction. by which a conference may be held on this day between the Congress and the Anthropological Institute, to settle the relative spheres of inquiry between Folk-lore and Anthropology. Also it is anticipated that a detailed account of the Helsingfors Folk-lore Collection will be forthcoming, as well as descriptions of the Folk-lore sub- jects of interest at the Ashmolean and the British Museum." This report thus brought before all the readers of Folk- Lore, including, of course, all members of the Folk-lore Society, the scientific aims of the Congress organisers. Numerous papers were promised by intending members. But the Committee were not content to appeal solely to professed folk-lorists. Recognising that the problems of Folk-lore are in large measure those of anthropologists, of comparative mythologists, and of students of literary his- tory, direct application was made to many scholars at home, on the Continent, and in America, to whom the Congress would otherwise probably have remained unknown. A selection was made of the papers sent in, and the pro- gramme on the opposite page was drawn up. When the brief space allowed for the preparation of papers is considered, it will, we think, be conceded that the scheme of discussion and research embodied in the Com- mittee's Report was realised in as full a measure as pos- sible, and it will also, we trust, be recognised that the papers brought together in this volume form a valuable contribution to the elucidation of the problems enumerated in the report. The most serious omission is that of any study upon the ballad poetry of Western Europe. The Committee can only express its unfeigned regret that the application made to M. Gaston Paris and to his dis- tinguished pupil, M. Jeanroy, to expound the theory of the origin and diffusion of ballads, due to the former, was, though through no lack of sympathy on the part of either scholar, unsuccessful. The editors venture to hope that the ballad-question may receive due attention at the next The Scientific Work of the Congress. c o 1 11 1 g o LadyWELBY: Significance of Folk-lore. H. Nevill : Classification of Cingalese Folk-lore. W. F. KiRBY. Report on Fsthonian Folk-lore. E o p >:" Q S 1 C Presidential Address by Prof Sir FREDERICK Pollock, Bart. Dr. E. WiNTERNITZ: Ar- yan Marriage Customs. F. HiNDES GrOOME : Gipsy Influence on Folk- custom. C. L. Tupper : Indian Institutions and Feu- dalism. F. B, Jevons : Aryan Origins, as Illustrated by Folk-lore. G. L. GOMME: Non- Aryan Elements in British Institutions. J.Stuart-Glknnie: The Origins of Institutions. A. W. Moore : Notes on the Tyne-ioald. 1 O o Presidential Address by Prof J. Rhys, of Ox- ford. C. Ploix, Le Mythe de I'Odyssee. C. G. Leland : Etruscan Magic. Dr. E. B. Tylor : Charms and Amulets. W. R. Paton : Holy iXames of the Priests in the Eleusinian Mys- teries. J. Stuart-Glennie: The Origins of Mythology. Miss Owen : Voodoo Magic. E. S. Hartland: The Sin-Eater. J. E. Crombie : Saliva Charms g a „ Presidential Address by E. Sidney Hartland, F.S.A. W. W. Newell: Lady Feather Flight, an in- edited English Folk- tale. E. CoSQUiN : Quelques observations siir les in- cidents commiins aux contes orientau.v cf euro- peens. J. Jacobs : The Problem of Diffusion. D. MacRitCHIE : His- torical Basis of Folk- tales. A. Nutt : Problems of Heroic Legend. Ilmari Krohn : La musiquc populaire en Finlande. 1 1 a.m. to I p.m. Morning, 2.30 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. Afternoon, I xxii Introduction. Congress. Regret must also be expressed that the date fixed for the Congress, coinciding as it did with the begin- ning of the academic winter semester in Germany and America, rendered it impossible for several scholars to accept the Committee's invitation. We nevertheless claim that most departments of folk- lore research have been touched and illuminated. In the burning question of folk-tale diffusion issue has rarely been joined by the opposing schools with greater definite- ness. The papers of Mr. Gomme, of Mr. Jevons, and of Dr. Winternitz will be acknowledged as distinct contribu- tions to the solution of the vexed questions connected A\ith the primitive home and early civilisation of the Aryan- speaking peoples. Mr. Stuart-Glennie has attacked the problem of origins in a way that must stimulate thought and provoke discussion even where it fails to command assent. Mr. Paton and Mr. Leland illustrated the con- tinuity of rude thought and practice in a most striking manner. The latter's paper was, indeed, using the word in no invidious sense, the most sensational of those laid before the Congress. It demands the earnest attention of classical mythologists as wftW as of Italian folk-lorists. The mention of this paper recalls Dr. Tylor's viva voce exposition of the significance of his collection of charms. Many present felt this to be an epoch-making contribution to the archsEological side of folk-lore. Those, it might be, who could hardly credit the preservation in modern Tus- cany of Etruscan god-names and local ritual vouched for by Mr. Leland, were confronted by Dr. Tylor with the tangible preservation of form in the amulets of Southern Italy throughout a period extending over at least 3,000 years. Nor, as the papers of Miss Owen and Mr. F. H. Groome will show, was that comprehension of and sym- pathetic insight into the feelings of the folk, to which our study must always be indebted for the chief part of our material, without their witness at the Congress. Finally, the problem of the connection between legal and political The Scientific Work of the Congress. xxiii institutions and existing foltc-lore, of how far the latter may enable us to recover prehistoric phases of the former, was definitely raised, and suggestions were thrown out that cannot fail to stimulate research and open up new lines of inquiry. The Literary Committee deems itself fortunate in having secured the aid of a distinguished Indian civil servant in the elucidation of these questions ; it trusts that Mr. Tupper's example may bear good fruit, and that at the next Congress many papers will be forth- coming upon the legal and social customs of the less advanced races. It is, indeed, in the department of Insti- tutions, at once less worked at and perhaps more capable of allowing definite conclusions to be reached than in those of folk-belief and folk-fancy, that the most important contributions to knowledge may be looked for from the science of folk-lore. It is with legitimate pride that the organisers of the second International Folk-lore Congress claim to have clearly recognised this fact, and to have endeavoured to give it due prominence in the proceedings of the Congress. The papers are printed as revised by the authors, and it is of course understood that the latter accept full re- sponsibility for them. Mr. Alfred Nutt's paper has been written since the Congress, but it reproduces faithfully the one delivered there vivA voce. The discussion on the various papers has been given, with slight curtailment, verbatim. Exigencies of time forbade discussion on certain papers, whilst others had to be taken as read. The editors are alone to blame for this, their efforts to lay a full programme before the Congress being only too successful. The delay in the production of this volume will not be thought excessive when it is recollected that the authors of papers come literally from all parts of the world. Joseph Jacobs. Alfred Nutt. XXIV Intioduaion. OFFICIAL TRANSACTIONS. The Congress met at the Society of Antiquaries, BurHngton House, Piccadilly, on Thursday, October ist, 1891, at 2.30 p.m. It was resolved unanimously that Mr. Andrew Lang be President of the Congress. It was moved by Mr. J. J. Foster, and seconded by M. Henri CoRDiER of Paris, and carried unanimously, that a telegram be despatched to Her Majesty the Queen of Roumania. The telegram was worded as follows : "The International Folk-lore Congress beg to congratulate your Majesty upon progress towards recovery of the most exalted of European folk-lorists." Mr. G. L. GoMME moved, Mr. NUTT seconded, and it was resolved, that an International Folk-lore Council be elected, consisting of the following : Messrs. Abercromby (The Hon. J.), Lon- don. Ancona (Alessandro d'), Pisa. Andrews (J. B. ), Mentone. D'Arbois de Jueainville (H.), Paris. Bancroft (H, H.), America. Basset (Ren^), Algiers. BliSmont (Emile), Paris. Boas (F.), America. BOGISIC (Professor V.), Odessa. Bonaparte( Prince Roland), Paris. BOURKE (Major J. G.), New York. Braga (Th.), Lisbon, Brabrook (Edward W.), London. Brinton (Dr. D. G.), America. Brueyre (Loys), Paris. Caknoy (H,), Directeur de La Tradition, Paris. Certeu.x (A, ), Treasurer, Soc, des Traditions Populaires, Paris, Child (F, J.), President of the American Folk-lore Society. Clodd (Edward), London. Coelho (Adolpho), Lisbon. Comparetti (Professor Do- menico), Florence. Cordier (H.), Paris. COSQUIN (E,), Vitry le Franpois. Crane (Professor J. T.), Ithaca University, U.S.A. Messrs. Fewkes (Dr. Walter), Washington. Fleury (Professor Jean), St. Petersburg. Foster (J. J. ), London. Frazer (J. G.), Cambridge. Gaidoz (H.), Paris. Gaster (Rev. Dr.), London. Gezelle (Rev. Dr.), Courtrai. Girard de Rialle, Paris. GittiSe (Professor Aug. ),Charleroi. Gomme (G. Laurence), Director of the Folk-lore Society, London. Haddon (Professor A. C. ), Dublin. Hamy(E. T.), Paris. Hartland (E. Sidney), Glouces- ter, Hermann (Antony), Director of Ethnologische Mitteiliingcn ans Ungarn, Buda-Pesth. Jacobs (Joseph), London. Karlovicz (J.), A\'arsaw. KiRBY(W. F.), London. Knoop (O. ), Rogasen. KCEHLER (Reinhold), Weimar. Kovaleskey (Professor M.), Beaulieu-sur-Mer. Krauss (Dr. F. S.), Vienna. Krohn (Dr. K.), Helsingfors. Lang (Andrew), President F.-L.S. , London. Lefevre (Andr^), Paris. Official Ti ansactions. XXV Messrs. Leger (Louis), Paris. Legrand (Emile), Paris. Leland (C. G.), President Gipsy Lore Society, America. Loth (J,), Rennes. Lubbock (Sir John, Bart.), Lon- don. LUZEL (F. M. ), Quimper. Machado y Alvarez (Antonio), Director of the Bibhoteca del Folk-lore Espanol, Madrid. MacRitchie (David), Secretary of the Gipsy-lore Society, Edin- burgh. Maspons y Labros, Barcelona. McE (Molke), Christiania. MONSEUR (Prof. E.), President of the Soci^t^ de Folk-lore Wallon, Liege. Mont (Pol de), Antwerp. Newell (W. W.), Secretary of the American Folk-Lore Society, Cambridge, Mass. NUTT (Alfred), London. Nyrop (Kr.), Copenhagen. Pedroso (Z. C. ), Lisbon. Pitr^ (Dr.), Director of the Archi- vio per lo studio delle Tradizioni popolari, Palermo. Messrs. Pitt-Rivers (Lieut.-Gen. ), Lon- don. Ploix (Charles), President of the Soci6t6 des Traditions Popu- laires, Paris. PoLiTis (N.), Athens. Rhys (Professor), Oxford. Rink (Dr.), Copenhagen. ROLLAND (Eug.), Paris. RosifeRES (Raoul), Paris. Sayce (Professor A. H.), Oxford. SiiBILLOT (Paul), Paris. Steinthal (Professor), Director of Zeitschrift fiir \'olkerpsycho- logie, Berlin. Stephens (Professor Dr. G.), Co- penhagen. Temple (Major R. C), Burmah. TiELE (Professor C. P.), Leyden. Tylor (Dr. Edward B.), Ox- ford. Weckerlin (J. B.), Paris. Wesselofsky (Prof. Alexandre), St. Petersburg. Weinhold (Prof K.), President of the Verein fiir Volkskunde, Berlin. WiNDISCH (Prof. E.), Leipzig. After a discussion, it was moved by Mr. E. S. Hartland, that the Council should have power to add to their number. The motion in its amended form was then put and resolved nem. cott. The President then delivered his opening address ; and it was moved by M. Charles Ploix, President of the Socift^ des Traditions Populaires, and seconded by Mr. Newell, Secretary of he American Folk-lore Society, that the best thanks of the Congress be given to Mr. Lang for his address. Friday, October 27id. In the absence of the President, it was moved by Mr. Gomme seconded, and resolved, that Mr. E. S. Hartland take the chair. It was resolved unanimously that Mr. E. S. Hartland be President of the Folk-tale Section ; that Prof Rhys be President of the Mytho- xxvi Introduction. logical Section; and that Sir F. Pollock, Bart., be President of the Customs and Institutions Section. Mr. Sidney Hartland having been formally appointed the Chair- man of' the Folk-tale Section, Mr. JACOBS proposed to appoint M. Loys Brueyre Vice-Chairman of this Section, this gentleman having been a member of the English Folk-lore Society for some time, and having distinguished himself by publishing the first collection of British folk-tales. The Chairman seconded the motion from the chair, requesting the Conference to show their appreciation of M. Brueyre's work by carrying the resolution by acclamation, which was heartily responded to. M. Brueyre, having taken his new seat by the side of the Chairman, thanked the meeting in a short French speech for the honour they had conferred upon him. The Chairman then proceeded to read his Presidential Address, and the papers of the day were read as follows : Mr. Newell, Secretary of the American Folk-lore Society, read a paper on " Lady Featherflight", upon which Mr. Andrew Lang made some observations. Mr. Joseph Jacobs read a paper on " The Problem of Diffusion'' Mr. D. MacRitchie read a paper on " The Historical Basis of Folk-tales", and a discussion followed, in which Professors Rhys and Haddon, Mr. Stuart-Glennie, Dr. E. Oswald, Mr. Gomme, Dr. Rae, Rev. 'W. S. Lach-Szyrma, Mr. Hugh Nevill, and Mr. A. Nutt took part. Mr. Alfred Nutt discussed the Problems of Heroic Legend. A paper was read by M. Krohn on La Chanson populaire en Finlande. Monday, October ^t/t. Mythology Section. Ckatrma?i — PROFESSOR JOHN Rhys. The meeting having been formally opened at 11.15, Mr. Alfred Nutt rose to propose the appointment as Vice-Chairman of this Section of M. Charles Ploix, President of the Soci^t^ des Traditions Populaires, who was a distinguished representative of the nature-myth school of folk-lorists. As he (Mr. Nutt) had been suspected of undue prejudice in favour of that school on account of his yesterday's speech, he hoped that this proposal would not be looked upon as a base plot to capture the Congress. They all felt that this offer was due to M. Ploix. Official Transactions. xxvii Air. Joseph Jacobs having seconded the proposal, it was put by the Chairman and carried by acclamation. The Chairman delivered his address, and the following papers of the day were read : -M. Ploix read a paper in French upon " The Myth of the Odyssey". Dr. E. B. Tylor presented and explained a collection of charms and instruments of sorcery. Mr. C. G. Leland, President of the Gipsy-lore Society, read a paper on " Etruscan Magic", and Mr. Lang, Mr. Kirby, Professor T. Rupert Jones, and Miss Dempster took part in the discussion which followed. Mr. J. S. Stuart-Glennie read a paper on "The Origins of Mythology"; Professor Sayce, Messrs. Kirby, Clodd, Lang, and Nutt took part in the discussion which followed. Mr. Leland read Miss Mary Owen's paper on " Voodoo Magic", and Messrs. W. W. Newell, Hyde Clark, Dr. Tylor, Mr. A. W. Moore, and Professor Tcheraz discussed the same. After the President's Address, Dr. JOHN EVANS rose to propose a hearty and well-deserved vote of thanks to Professor Rhys for his admirable Address. He would not enlarge upon the various topics of the paper, but would rather take this opportunity to heartily welcome the Congress on behalf of the Society of Antiquaries, of which he was the President. The whole Society would feel great satisfaction that the Congress was so successful and important as it undoubtedly was. The science of Archaeology was one which was constantly extending, and had arrived at a stage when it could no longer afford to ignore the help of Folk-lore. Tuesday, October 6th. Institutions and Customs Section. Chairman — PROFESSOR SiR FREDERICK POLLOCK, Bart. The meeting having been formally opened, Mr. Nutt proposed, and the Chairman of the Section seconded, the appointment of Prof. Bogisic as Vice-Chairman of the Section ; carried by acclamation. The Chairman proceeded to give his Presidential Address, and the other papers of the Section were read as follows : Dr. E. WiNTERNlTZ read a paper on ." Aryan Marriage Customs", which was discussed by Mr. W. G. Black, Professor Rhys, Professor Tcheraz, Messrs. Newell, Gomme, Hartland, Nutt, Dr. Lowy, and the Chairman. xxviii Inlrodutiion. Ml-. G. L. GOMME read a paper on " N on- Aryan Elements in British Institutions", upon which the Chairman made some remarks. Mr. C. L. TUPPER read a paper on " Indian Institutions", which was discussed by the Chairman. At the afternoon meeting Mr. Andrew Lang took the chair, and Mr. F. H. Groome read a paper on " Gipsy Influence on Folk- Custom". Dr. Gaster, Messrs. Leland, Black, Kirby, Nutt, and the Chairman took part in the discussion. Wednesday, October "jth. At a meeting of the Congress held at Burlington House, Wednes- day, October yth, the President in the chair, the minutes of the preceding meeting were read and confirmed. Mr. G. L. GOMME moved. Professor Rhys seconded, and it was resolved, that it be an instruction to the International Folk-lore Council that voting on matters of principle and importance should be by proxy. Mr. NuTT moved, Mr. JACOBS seconded, and it was resolved that the place and date of the ne.xt Congress meeting should be left in the hands of the International Council. Upon the motion of the Hon. J. Abercromby, seconded by the Rev. Dr. Gaster, it was unanimously resolved that the best thanks ot the Congress be given to the Society of Antiquaries for the use of their rooms. Upon the motion of Mr. Gomme, seconded by Mr. Nutt, it was resolved that the best thanks of the Congress be given to the ex- hibitors of objects. Upon the motion of Mr. E. S. Hartlanb, seconded by Professor Rhys, it was resolved that the best thanks of the Congress be given to the Mercers' Company for the use of their hall on the e\ening of the 5th of October. Upon the motion of Mr. GOMME, seconded by the Hon. John Abercromby, it was resolved that the best thanks of the Congress be given to the honorary officers and the members of committees, especially to Mr. T. F. Ordish, Chairman of the Entertainment Com- mittee, Mr. Nutt, Hon. Secretary of the Literary Committee, and Mr. J. J. Foster, Secretary of the Organising Committee. It was resolved that Messrs. Wheatley and Abercromby be ap- pointed auditors of the accounts of the Congress. It was resolved that the thanks of the Congress be given to Messrs. Krohn and Dr. Anton Hermann for their gifts of publications, the Official Transactions. xxix present of the latter being announced by Mr. C. G. Leland, delegate of the Hungarian Folk-lore Society. It was resolved that, if possible, a selection of objects exhibited should be reproduced in the volume of Transactions ; and Messrs. Gomme, Nutt, Ordish, and Foster were requested to take the matter in hand. On the motion of Prof Haddon, it was resolved that the Folk-lore Society be requested to consider as to the possibility of forming a museum of objects connected with folk-lore. It was resolved that the thanks of the Congress be given to ?ilr. Gomme for his services as Chairman of the Organising Com- mittee. FOLK-LORE CONGRESS. PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS. FOLK-LORE CONGRESS. THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. Ladies and Gentlemen, — We are met to begin, for Folk-lorists will not say to " inaugurate", the second Folk Lore Congress. The honour of having to welcome you is to me embarrassing in more ways than one. I feel that, among so many students, far more learned and more specially devoted to our topic, I am but an amateur, and again, that on the matters of which I am least ignorant 1 have said, many times, at least all that I know. Leaving this personal apology, one may be asked what is the pur- pose of our congress. The cynic will say that we, like all congresses, want to advertise, if not ourselves, at least our objects ; or, if he be more polite, that we want to keep our objects before the public. And so we do. In these studies of ours every one may help us ; from the mother who observes the self-developed manners and the curious instincts of her children, to the clergyman who can record the superstitions of his flock, or the rural usages that sur- vive from a dateless antiquity. Folk-lore, as we shall see, is very much like that study of man which the poet recom- mends to mankind ; it is a study to which every one who keeps his eyes open can contribute. For example, I lately had the pleasure of meeting a young lady who, uncon- sciously, was the very muse of Folk-lore, and perpetuated all the mental habits which we attribute to early if not to primitive man. When she met .a flock of sheep she said, "September 12, 1 891, "and this she repeated thrice for luck. On encountering a number of cows she remarked whether B 2 Folk-lore Congress. they divided on the road, or all took one side. Thence she drew auguries of prosperous or evil fortune. If she found a crow's feather in the fields she stuck it erect in the grass, and wished a wish. Old pieces of iron she carefully threw over her left shoulder, and when this is done in London streets it must be performed with caution, for it is unlucky to hit a citizen in the eye. She kissed her hand to the new moon. If there were three candles alight, she blew one out, not from motives of economy, but because three lighted candles arow are unlucky. She was perturbed by winding-sheets in a candle ; she tried to count nine stars on nine consecutive nights — a thing difficult to do in this cloudy climate ; spilt salt greatly exercised her mind, though, unlike another Folk-lorist, she did not spill the claret over it. She was retentive of old superstitions, and to new ones her intellect was as hospitable as the Pantheon of the Romans. One could not have a better example of the early mental habit which finds omens in all things, as in the flight of birds, especially magpies — in fact she was a survival or proof of how, in the midst of an incredulous civilisation, the instinct of superstition may linger in full force. We can all observe this ancient and long-enduring vein of human nature, which would survive religion if religion perished, and if all priesthoods fell, and all temples, would suffice to build up altars and rituals anew. Our congress, therefore, may help to suggest to people that they are living among mental phenomena well worth noting, and, in some cases, well worth recording. We can tell the world that it has in itself and around it the materials of a study at least as in- teresting as botany or geology. The materials of geology or botany we must seek in fields, and mountains, and road- metal ; the materials of Folk-lore, of popular and primeval belief, we can find wherever there are human beings. It is also our part to show the conclusions, as wide as human fate and human fortunes, to which our perusal of the facts may guide us. And thus we may win a few new disciples to Folk-lore, and, I sincerely trust, a few more subscribers The Presidents Address. 3 to the Folk-lore Society. To keep all this before the public is, let us frankly admit, the object of the congress. We also want to see each other's faces as we read each other's works, and to enjoy some personal discussion of matters in which there is much diversity of opinion. Probably we shall squabble ; I hope we shall do so with humour and good humour. There may be solar mythologists here, or persons who believe in the white Archaian races, who gave their rosy daughters, and with them laws, to black, red, brown, and yellow peoples. These views do not recommend themselves to my own reasoning faculties ; my notions do not recommend themselves to the solar mythologists and the Archaian whites, but that is no reason why we should not discuss them in a friendly spirit, and take a cup of kindness yet for auld lang syne. A congress has a perfect right to any social enjoyments within its reach, and if any one can sing folk-songs, or dance the beggar's dance to please us, like Paupakeewis in Hiawatha, I trust that the opportunity and the desire to oblige may not be absent. There is no use in confounding each other for our theories of customs or myths, and, in the acerbity of their bickers, our fathers, the old antiquarians, taught us what to avoid. After these few prefatory remarks on the purpose of the congress I may endeavour to explain what we mean or, at all events, what I mean, by Folk-lore. When the word was first introduced, by Mr. Thoms, it meant little, per- haps, but the observing and recording of various supersti- tions, stories, customs, proverbs, songs, fables, and so forth. But the science has gradually increased its scope, till it has, taken almost all human life for its province. Indeed if any one asks how and where Folk-lore differs from anthro- pology, I am rather at a loss for a reply. When anti- quarians such as our own old Aubrey began to examine rural usages and superstitions, like the maypole and the harvest home, they saw — they could hardly help seeing — that the practices of the folk, of the peasant class everywhere, were B 2 4 Folk-lore Congress. remains of Gentilism or heathenism. The Puritans knew this very well, and if they hated the Maypole in the Strand, it was because they knew it to be at least as old as Troy, whose fate, as we know, it has shared. Where's Troy, and where's the May pole in the Strand? The Puritans were conscious that much Pagan custom had been tolerated by the Church, and had survived, not only in ecclesiastical usage, but in popular festivals. The folk, the people, had changed the names of the objects of its worship, had saints in place of Gods, but had not given up the festival of May night, nor ceased to revere, under new titles, the nereids or the lares, the fairies or the browny. All these survivals the Puritans attacked and the old antiquarians obsei-ved, comparing early English customs with the manners of Greece and Rome. In these studies lay the origin of our modern Folk-lore, now far wider in scope, and better equipped with knowledge of many tales ancient and modern. For example, Acosta found in Peru rites which at once resembled those of the Church, those of our own harvest homes, and those of the Eleusinian mysteries and the practices of the Greek Thesmophoria. The earlier observers explained such coin- cidences in various ways. They thought that the devil in America deliberately parodied the ceremonial and doctrine of the Church. Or they thought that the lost tribes of Israel, in their wanderings, had carried all over the world the ritual of Judaism. At the end of the seven- teenth century, Spencer, the master of C. C. C. Cambridge, reached a theory more like our own. He saw that the Jewish ritual was not an original pattern, from which heathen ritual was perverted, but was, as I have elsewhere said, a divinely licensed version of, or selection from, the religious uses of Eastern peoples in general. We have now expanded this idea, and find in the Jewish ritual a mono- theistic and expurgated example of rites common, not to Semitic or Eastern peoples only, but common to all races The President's Address. 5 everywhere which have reached a certain level of civilisa- tion. Sacrifice, expiation, communion of the people with their God, laws of ceremonial, uncleanness, prohibitions from certain acts and certain foods, the tabernacle, and the rest, we find them, practically, in solution everywhere ; in Judaism we find them codified, as it were, and committed, as a body of rules, to writing and to the care of a priestly class. Now the theory which I advance here in the case of certain rites, may be employed in all the provinces of tradi- tional custom, belief, and even literature. The Greeks, like Herodotus and Aristotle, were struck by the coinci- dences of custom, festival, sacrifice, and hymn, among Hellenes and Barbarians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Phcenicians, Scythians. Aristotle himself could see that Greece had inherited, developed, and purified barbaric beliefs and usages, and myths ; that the common stock was the same everywhere, and was only modified by the peculiarities of race. The modern learning has acquired fresh information, and has found that the myths and beliefs and customs of African, Australian, American, and insular races correspond with those of the ancient classical races. Further, we have learned that ideas, habits, myths, similar to those of the ancient world and of remote barbaric peoples unknown to the ancient world, endure still among the folk, the more stationary, the more uncultivated classes of modern Europe, among Lincolnshire hinds, Highland crofters, peasants of France, Italy, Germ.any, Russia. Now Folk-lore approaches the whole topic of these singular harmonies and coinci- dences from the side of the folk, of the unlearned rural classes in civilised Europe. We have turned the method of mythology, for instance, upside down. The old manner was to begin with the cultivated and literary myths, as we find them in Ovid, or Apollodorus, or Pausanias, and to regard modern rural rites and legends and beliefs as modi- fied descendants of these traditions. But the method of Folk-lore is to study these rural customs and notions as survivals, relics enduring from a mental condition of anti- 6 Folk-lore Congress. quity far higher than that of Hterary Rome or Greece. We do not say that, as a rule, this harvest rite, or vernal custom, or story filtered out of Ovid dovi'n into the peasant class. Rather w^e say that, as a rule, Ovid is describing and decorating some rural customs or tale which is infinitely older than his day, and which may be, and often is, shared with Roman agriculturists by the peasants of France and England, and also by natives of lands undiscovered by the civilised races of the old world. The method of Folk-lore rests on the hypothesis of a vast common stock of usage, opinion, and myth, everywhere developed alike, by the natural operation of early human thought. This stock, or much of it, is everywhere retained by the unprogressive, uneducated class, while the priests and poets and legislators of civilisation select from it, and turn customs into law, magic into ritual, story into epic, popular singing measures into stately metres, and vague floating belief into definite religious doctrine. Thus, briefly to give examples, the world-wide custom of the blood-feud becomes the basis of the Athenian law of homicide. The savage magic which is believed to fertilise the fields becomes the basis of the Attic Thesmophoria, or of the Eleusinian legend and mysteries. The rural festivi- ties of Attica become the basis of the Greek drama. The brief singing measures of the popular song become the basis of the hexameter. The sacrifice of the sacred animal of the kindred becomes a great source of Greek ritual. The world-wide viarchen of the blinded giant, the returned husband, the lad with the miraculously skilled companions, are developed into the Odyssey and the Argonautica. Thus on every side the method of Folk-lore sho\\'s us mankind first developing in mass, and without the trace- able agency of individuals (though that must have been at work), a great body of ideas, customs, legends, beliefs. Then, as society advances and ranks are discriminated, the genius of individuals selects from the mass, from the common stock, and polishes, improves, fixes, stereotypes, The President's Address. 7 brings to perfection certain elements in the universal treasure. Here it is that the influence of race and of genius comes in. The great races, as of the Aryan speaking and Semitic peoples, are races in which genius is common, and the general level is high. Such a race has its codes, its creeds, its epics, its drama, which the less fortunate races lack. But the/wz^, the basis, is common to humanity. Meanwhile, till quite recently, even in the higher races, the folk, the people, the untaught, have gone on living on the old stock, using the old treasure, secretly revering the dispossessed ghosts and fairies, amusing the leisure of the winter even- ings with the old stories handed down from grandmother to mother, to child, through all the generations. These very stories exist, though the folk know it not, in another form, refined by the genius of poets. In time, and occa- sionally, they will filter back among the people. But, on the whole, till now, the folk have prolonged the ancient life, as it was in customs and belief long before Homer sang, long before the Hebrew legislation was codified and promulgated. This is a broad general view of the theory of Folk-lore, a rule to the working of which there are doubtless many exceptions. For example, philosophers have tried to show that in religion all begins, as usual, with the folk, all starts from the ghosts which they saw, or thought they saw, while early theological genius and mature speculation select from these ghosts till, by the survival of the fittest, the fittest ghost becomes a god. I shall not throw the apple of theological discord among the Congress, and shall merely confess that this theory does not, as far as I have gone, seem to me to be justified by facts. Among the very rudest peoples whom I have tried to study, the God is already in existence, as well as the ghosts, already makes for righteousness, and promises future punishment and reward. How the idea came there, among these very back- ward, but far from really primitive people, I cannot 8 Folk-lore Congress. presume to guess, believing that here all research is but baseless conjecture. Certainly, among the most remote, secluded, and undeveloped ancestors of the folk I seem to find, as a rule, both ghosts and God, but whether one idea is prior to the other, and if so which, I have discovered no positive evidence. I have tried to state the theory of Folk-lore as I under- stand it. I consider that man, as far as we can discern him in the dark backward and abysm of Time, was always man, always rational and inquisitive, always in search of a reason in the universe, always endeavouring to realise the worlds in which he moved about. But I presume man to have been nearly as credulous as he was inquisitive, and, above all, ready to explain everything by false analogies, and to regard all movement and energy as analogous to that life of which he was conscious within himself Thus to him the whole world seemed peopled with animated and personal agencies, which gradually were discriminated into ghosts, fairies, lares, nymphs, river and hill spirits, special gods of sky, sun, earth, wind, departmental deities presiding over various energies, and so forth. About him- self, as about the world, he was ignorant and credulous. False analogy, the doctrine of sympathies, the belief in spirits that had and in spirits that had not been men, these things, with perhaps an inkling of hypnotism, pro- duced the faith in magic. Magic once believed in the world became a topsy-turvy place, in which metamor- phoses and necromancy and actual conversation with the beasts became probable in man's fiction and possible in man's life. A painful life it seems to us, or to some of us, in which any old woman or medicine man might blast the crops, cause tempest, inflict ill luck and disease, could turn you into a rabbit or a rook, could cause bogies to haunt your cave, or molest your path, a life in which any stone or stick might possess extra-natural powers, and be the home of a beneficent or malignant spirit. A terrible existence that of our ancestors, and yet, without it where The Presidents Address. g would our poetry be, our Greek legends, even our fairy tales ? Those fathers of ours, if they led this life, and if they took it seriously, were martyrs to our poetical enjoyment. Had the pagan noi been nurtured in that creed forlorn, we could not have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, nor hear Triton blow his wreathed horn. The stars, but for the ignorant confusions of our fathers, might be masses of incandescent gas, or whatever they are, but they could not have been named with the names of Ariadne and Cassiopeia, nor could Orion have watched the Bear, nor should we known the rainy Hyades, and the sweet influences of the Pleiads. Ignorance, false analogy, fear, were the origin of that poetry in which we have the happier part of our being. Say the sun is incandescent gas, and you help us little with your sane knowledge, for we neither made it nor can we mend it. But believe in your insane ignorance that the sun is a living man, and Apollo speeds down from it like the bronze pouring from the furnace, in all the glory of his godhood. Great are the gains of ignorance and of untutored conjecture. Had mankind always been a thing of school boards and primers, we could not even divert a child with Red Riding Hood and The Sleeping Beauty and Hop-o'-My-Thumb. We should look on the rainbow and be ignorant of Iris, the Messenger, and of the Bow of the Covenant, set in the heavens. Thus, as in a hundred other ways, the mental condition of our most distant ancestors has turned to our profit. He trembled that we might rejoice ; he was ignorant for our happiness. And after all he was probably as happy as we are ; it is not saying much. The method of Folk-lore, as has been seen, rests on an hypothesis, namely, that all peoples have passed through a mental condition so fanciful, so darkened, so incongruous, so inconsistent with the scientific habit that to the scientific it seems insane. I am often asked, supposing your views are correct, how did mankind come to be so 10 Folk-lore Congress. foolish? Was mankind ever insane? one is asked. Cer- tainly not ; he had always the germ of the scientific habit, was always eager rerum cognoscere causas, but he was ignorant, indolent, and easily satisfied with a theory. How did he come to believe in ghosts? people inquire, and why did he not believe in some other kind of ghost .■" Really, except on the hypothesis that there is a ghost, or something very like one, I don't know. I can only repose on facts. People were not all mad two hundred years ago, but they believed as firmly in witchcraft as a Solomon islander does to-day, and the English witch's spells were even as those of the Solomon islander. The belief rested on false analogies, the theory of sympathies, and the credence in disembodied spirits. The facts are absolutely undeniable, and the frame of mind to which witchcraft seemed credible and omens were things to be averted everywhere survives. You will never make mankind scientific, and even men of science, like Ixion, have embraced agreeable shadows and disembodied mediums. We have conceived these follies because " it is our nature to", as the hymn says. Further explanation belongs to the psychologist, not to the Folk-lorist. If ignorance, conjecture, and credulity be insanity in the persons of our ancestors, deliraviiniis oimics. The unity, the harmony of the human beliefs, and even the close resemblances of popular myths and stories among all peoples, are among the most curious discoveries of folk-lore. Now, as to custom and belief, we may expect to find them nearly identical in essentials every- where, because they spring from similar needs, occasions, and a past of similar mental conditions. But, as to the resemblances of myths and stories, from the Cape to Baffin's Bay, from Peru to the Soudan, we shall doubtless have the matter discussed at later meetings. I myself am inclined to attribute the resemblances, partly to iden- tity of ideas and beliefs, partly to transmission, either modern, or in the course of pre-historic war and commerce. Ths Presidents Address. ii A story could wander as far as mankind wanders, even before Ouida was read from Tangiers to Tobolsk. All this, however, is likely to be discussed. Folk-lorists who think that we neglect ethnology, that we take mankind to be, essentially, too much of the same pattern every- where, will also have their say. I do not myself believe that some one centre of ideas and myths, India or Central Asia, can be discovered, do not believe that some one gifted people carried everywhere the seeds of all knowledge, of all institutions, and even the plots of all stories. The germs have been everywhere, I fancy, and everywhere alike, the speciality of Race contributes the final form. All peoples, for example, have a myth (or memory) of a Deluge, only the Jewish race gives it the final monotheistic form in which we know it best. Many peoples, as the Chinese, have the tale of the Returned Husband and the Faithful Wife, only the Greek race gave it the final shape, in the Odyssey. Many peoples, from the Turks to the Iroquois, have the story of the Dead Wife Restored, only Greece shaped the given matter into the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. Many races have carved images, only Greece freed Art, and brought her to perfection. In perfecting, not in inventing, lies the special gift of special races, or so it seems to myself Let me say a final word for the attraction and charm of our study. Call it Anthropology, call it Folk-lore, the science of Man in his institutions and beliefs is full of lessons and of enjoyment. We stand on a height and look backwards on the movement of the Race, we see the wilderness whence it comes, the few straggling paths, that wander, that converge, that are lost in the \\o\A, or in the bush, or meet to become the road, and the beaten high- way, and the railway track. We see the path go by caves and rude shelters, by desolate regions and inhospi- table, by kraal and village and city. Verily, we may say, " He led us by a path which we knew not." The world 12 Folk-lore Congress. has been taught and trained, but not as we would have trained it. Ends have been won, which were never fore- seen, but not by the means which we would have chosen. The path is partly clear behind us ; it is dark as a wolf's mouth in front of our feet. But we must follow, and, as the Stoic says, if we turn cowards, and refuse to follow, we must follow still. Mr. C. G. Leland said he was struck very favourably with the extremely cathohc and Hberal tone of the address. As their associa- tion grew larger various opinions would be developed with regard to folk-lore, and some allowance must be ah\'ays made for differences of opinion. It was in consequence of not taking cognizance of that fact that the Oriental Congress, of which he was a member, came to grief The great object of folk-lore was to come to the truth and to get at the inner life of history. Folk-lore was to history what colour was to design. They had to bring out of the past not merely the history of battles, but the story of the inner life that illuminated and coloured history. They must, however, during the course of these congresses, mutually consider each other's failings and weakness. He proposed a vote of thanks to the President for his admirable address. Mr. Charles Ploix, of Paris, seconded the motion, which was carried by acclamation. Mr. Andrew Lang acknowledged the compliment in appropriate terms. FOLK-TALE SECTION. Chairman— E. SIDNEY HARTLAND, Esq., F S.A. OCTOBER sth, 1891. THE CHAIRMAN'S ADDRESS. The study of folk-tales and folk-songs, with which we have in this section more particularly to do, is, perhaps, the most generally popular of all the departments of folk-lore. The cause of this popularity is not far to seek. It arises less from the scientific interest of the problems to be solved, or of the results of the investigation, than from the beauty, the wildness, the weird enchantment of many of the tales themselves, and from the tender recollections awakened by them in almost every mind of the hours and feelings of childhood, of faces, of voices, and of scenes long since passed away. Of course we have arrived at that pitch of scientific train- ing that we despise all this sentiment, and we should probably be unwilling to admit how far we have been at one time or another influenced by it. But it may be put as a general proposition^ quite inapplicable to ourselves — that many persons are influenced by it, and that some of those who are drawn first of all to the study in this way end by becoming serious investigators of the phenomena. The effect of such an advantage in obtaining re- cruits ought to be a large body of students, and much consequent' progress in the solution of the questions wherewith we have to deal. But, although some progress has been made, it would be difficult to show that it exceeds the progress made in several other branches of folk-lore, — if, indeed, it will compare with it at all. Do we ask why ? The answer will, I think, be found in the fact that hitherto most of the energy devoted to this fascinating subject has been spent in accumulating material rather than in examining and digesting it. Not a word is to be said against the accumulation of material. We have, indeed, a wealth of stories from almost all parts of the world. The books which contain them would already of themselves fill a library, and that not a small one. But there is much yet to be done, much most urgently required, in the way of collection before what we, with self-satisfied emphasis, call civilisation stamps out some races of mankind altogether — as,'for 1 6 Folk-tale Section. instance, it has stamped out the Tasmanians, leaving only one poor fragment of a native tale on record — or wipes from the memories of the others the rapidly-vanishing lines of their genuine traditions. Yet, as the number of stories increases, ever will the difficulty of dealing with them grow. This is a difficulty we in England, as you know, have proposed partly to overcome by careful analysis and tabulation. Our method was much discussed at the Paris Congress two years ago ; and it is not entirely free from objection. We are hoping before long to issue a tabulation of all the accessible variants of the tale of Cinderella ; and then, with a connected series of results before us, it will be possible to pronounce a definitive judgment on the merits and defects of the scheme. But we may reasonably demand whether the time has not yet arrived when we may take stock of our museum of tales, and pro- ceed to determine, provisionally, at all events, the questions that arise upon them. It is not enough to sort and classify : we must enquire what mean the stories thus laboriously gathered, whence did they spring, and what relation do they bear to one another and to the history of our race. I confess, for my part, that my interest in the science of folk-lore would come to naught unless I believed that the traditions alike of our fathers and of the other nations of the world contained, and might be made to yield up to the diligent enquirer, information of the utmost value concerning •the primitive beliefs and practices of mankind, and, behind these, the very structure and development of the human mind. In the process of extracting this information the study of folk-tales must always bear an important part ; for it is chiefly in tales that the speculative portions of a savage creed take shape. Something, and not a little, has been done in this direction since Grimm first showed the remains of ancient heathendom in the stories of his own land. His method has been more widely applied in recent years, by distinguished writers whom I need not name, to stories found in every region of the world ; and conclusions in regard to the beliefs fundamental to all savage religions have been based in part upon them. These applications have not been allowed to pass unchallenged. Literary men have contended that the true origin of folk-tales was to be found in India, that they were Buddhist parables, and that The Chairman' s Address. 17 the Buddhist propaganda sowed them broadcast. I'his, at least, as I understand it, is the old orthodox opinion of scholars who dispute the anthropological hypothesis. We shall all regret to think that we are not (as we hoped) to have among us to-day, in the person of M. Cosquin, the most illustrious of these scholars. Whether we agree with him or not, we all recognise in his writings a most valuable contribution to the science of folk-lore ; and though we cannot hear from his lips, we shall at least have the advantage of hearing in his own words presently, a fresh exposition of his opinions. This will be the more interesting since many of us have been accustomed to think that the pressure of controversy of late years has broken up the Buddhist faith. Heretics have been found who mingle its purity with the streams of Egyptian, and even of Jewish, tradition. For as the area of research widens, we doubt more and more that folk-tales found in the remotest corners of the earth have all sprung from one centre within a measurable historical period. It has, therefore, been practically abandoned by most of its defenders in this country. But the anthropological hypothesis is not left in possession of the field. That hypothesis attributes the origin of folk-tales, as of every other species of tradition, to the constitution of the human mind. A similar environment acting upon the mind will every- where produce similar results. And it is the variations of the environment, both physical and social, as well the moral and material products of civilisation as the natural features of the earth, its fauna and flora, which give rise to the variety of stories all presenting perpetual coincidences, and all evolved from a few leading ideas common to the race. The birthplace of any story is, therefore, impossible to determine ; for no story has any one birthplace. There is no story but has been evolved in one form or other wherever in the whole world the environment has been favourable. I am putting a broad statement of the theory, purposely putting it without qualification or reserve ; and I do not now pause to ask whether any student of folk-lore would accept it stated thus baldly. For the moment I am only concerned to contrast it as far as possible with the counter-theory I am going to state. This counter-theory accepts the results of the controversies over the theories of the Aryan philologists and the Buddhist scholars. It c 1 8 Folk-tale Section. admits that the foundation of the absurd and impossible tales current all round the globe must be sought in the beliefs of savage tribes about themselves and their surroundings, and in their magical and other superstitious practices. But it denies that the mere fact that a given story is found domesticated among any people is of itself evidence of the beliefs or practices of that people, present or past. Stories, we are told, especially some stories, must have been invented once, and once only. It would be too great a draught on our credulity to ask us to believe that a complicated plot, or a long series of incidents, or even a single incident of a very remarkable character, was invented in a dozen different places, however similar may be the working of men's minds. But it may have been handed on from man to man, from tribe to tribe, until it had made the circuit of the world. And we are bidden to note that contiguous countries have a larger number of stories in common than distant ones. Dr. Boas has drawn up quite a formidable list of tales current on the North American continent, which he declares have been disseminated from one tribe to another dwelling in adjacent regions ; nor would there be any difficulty in compiling a parallel, or indeed a far longer, list, for the Eastern hemisphere. It is accordingly to the problem of dissemination, rather than to that of meaning, that our attention is called by the advocates of what I may, perhaps, venture to dub the dissemination theory. Having first tracked a story to its birthplace, it will be easy afterwards to say what it means and how it came to be told. Now, if this contention be well founded, it is enough to take us aback. For all the labours of interpretation have so far been in vain, and the cosmos we had hoped was beginning to be evolved out of the mass of traditions which have been collected is reduced once more to chaos. Nay, we can hardly tell whether the destruc- tive criticism on the theories of Professor Max Miiller, or that older romancer Euemeros, was right after all : whether the sun myth or The Wisdom of the Ancients may not rise again from the dead, or whether Bryant and his Noachian Deluge may not come and sweep us all away. We may, perhaps, tranquilly go on sorting and pigeon-holing; but as to making the traditions we have collected instruments to guide our researches into the development of civilisation — it would seem out of the question. The Chairman's Address. 19 In the further observations I propose to make upon the dis- semination theory, I shall try to trench as little as possible on the papers we hope to listen to, but perhaps it will be unavoidable to anticipate in some degree the course of the discussion. My apology must be that this address was written in fact before I saw the programme of the session, and my engagements, unfortunately, did not permit of my recasting it afterwards. The firsts observation to be made upon the dissemination theory is obviously that, even supposing the contention that a story is only invented once be true, to track any story to its place of origin must be a matter of extreme difficulty, because in a very large number of cases, if not in the vast majority, the diffusion must have taken place in times so remote, or in circumstances of such barbarism, that no trustworthy record of the transmission was possible. Of course, I do not forget that, on the one hand, modern criticism has resources which have been the means of achieving splendid and unexpected results in dealing with internal evidence, and, on the other hand, external evidence of transmission is some- times available, as in the case of many of the stories of The Seven Wise Masters, whose genealogy we can trace from book to book and from land to land. But stories transmitted from book to book are no longer tradi- tional, and therefore they are out of our range. True, they may descend again from literature into tradition ; and when it is shown that this has happened, the literary links in the pedigree become once more of interest to us. Such descent, however, like oral trans- mission, is only possible where a story finds in the culture of the " folk" an environment favourable to its preservation and propaga- tion. The well-known Maori story of The Children of Heaven and Earth could never become a folk-tale among our English peasantry. There is nothing in their state of civilisation which responds to the ideas it contains; and, consequently, there is no soil in which it could take root. If, then, a wandering story, thus finding an appropriate soil and climate, settle down and flourish, it follows that the ideas it expresses correspond to those current among the " folk" of its new home. Does it speak of magic ? The thought must be already familiar, or it will find no acceptance by a fresh audience. If, though the thought be familiar, the details of the processes are strange, these will be changed into such as are c 2 20 Folk-tale Section. previously intelligible. Docs it assume the possibility of a change of form from human to brute, or to vegetable or mineral, and back again, while retaining consciousness and individual identity? Such a possibility must first of all have its place in the conventions of story-telling accepted by the newfolk into whose midstit is launched. And so I might go through every savage idea formulated by an- thropologists. Details might differ : they would be modifiable. But the principal ideas would remain steadfast, because they would be already a part of the mental organisation of the recipients. Where such ideas had been forgotten, or where they were abso- lutely unknown, it would be impossible to transplant the story. A fortiori, where details and all are adopted, the stage of culture of the transmitting folk and that of the receiving folk must be identical. If this reasoning be true, it deprives of much of its force an objection to the results arrived at by applying the anthropological method of enquiry to any given tale, on the ground that we do not know that the tale in question is indigenous in the country in which it is found, and therefore cannot assume that the ideas or customs it presents ever were current there. If it be admitted, as I understand it is admitted, by the Disseminationists, that we are right in believing that folk-tales, like all other species of traditions, enshrine relics of archaic thought and archaic practice ; if those relics be, as we know they are, usually of the very structure and essence of the tale; and if, further, the tales enshrining those relics would be unintelligible to peoples who were strangers to the modes of thought which had produced them ; we may be reason- ably sure that all such tales must, even if borrowed, have embodied ideas and contained allusions to practices familiar to the borrowing peoples, or they would not have been received into their traditions. Tales may thus in general be safely used as evidence of archaic thought and custom once, if not still, rife among the folk who relate them. Take, for example, the stories mentioned by Dr. Boas as current among contiguous tribes of North America. The Dog-rib Indians of the Great Slave Lake relate that the primitive ancestress of their race was a woman who was mated with a dog and bore six pups. She was deserted by her tribe, and went out daily to procure food for her family. On returning she found tracks of children about Tlie Chairman's Address. 2i the lodge, but saw not the children themselves. At length she hid herself, and discovered that her puppies threw off their skins as soon as they thought themselves alone, and played together in human shape. She surprised them and took away the skins, so that the children could no more return to canine form. This tale is also recorded in Vancouver Island, and all along the Pacific Coast from southern Alaska to southern Oregon ; and similar tales are told among the Hare Indians of Great Bear Lake, and the Eskimo of Greenland and Hudson's Bay. Now, let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that this story originated not in a remote age among the common ancestors of the various tribes who relate it to-day, but at some period since the dispersion and differentiation of the American race. Let us sup- pose that it was invented in some one place, by some one tribe, and carried from one to another within comparatively recent times. Let us, in fact, concede the whole hypothesis of the Dissemina- tionists. The story still remains a witness of the state of civilisation of the tribes among which it is now found. Its foundation is probably totemistic ; and the ideas it conveys — the brute-ancestor, the marriage of a woman with a dog or a hare, and the birth of her children disguised as puppies or leverets — are common to all the tribes who have given it shelter, ^^'e are not dependent upon this tale for evidence that each of them believes in the possibility of these things. The Deluge legends, the stories of the women taken up to heaven, the Magic Flight, and the other tales in Dr. Boas' list, in this respect stand upon the same footing. There is an African tale in which the presumption of borrow- ing is at first sight strong. It tells us of a fisherman who caught a large fish. The fish gave him millet and some of its own flesh, and spoke to him, directing him to cause his wife to eat the flesh alone, while he ate the millet. Compliance with these directions was followed by the birth of two sons, who were called Rombao and Antonyo, with their two dogs, two spears, and two guns. The boys became hunters, and did not hesitate to kill whoever opposed them and take possession of his land and other property. There was a whale which owned a certain water, and the chief of the country gave his daughter to buy water from the whale. But Rombao slew the whale, thus saving the maiden, and cut 22 Folk-tale Section. out its tongue, which he thoughtfully salted and preserved. The credit of the exploit was claimed by the captain of a band of soldiers sent by the chief to ascertain why the whale had not sent the usual wind as a token that the girl had been eaten. The chief accordingly gives the captain his daughter in marriage. When, however, the marriage feast is ready, and the people assembled, the lady is unwilling. Rombao, who has made it his business to be present, interferes at the critical moment with the inquiry why she was to wed the captain, and is told it is because he has killed the whale. " But where", he asks, " is the whale's tongue ?" The tongue, of course, cannot be found, until Rombao himself triumphantly produces it and proves that he, not the captain, is entitled to the victor's honours. He marries the maiden, while the captain and his men, who aided and abetted his falsehood, are put to death. ^ This we shall at once recognise as a variant of the Breton story of The King of the Fishes, and somewhat more distantly akin to the classic legend of Perseus and Andromeda. It was told, presumably at Blantyre, on Lake Nyassa, to the Rev. Duff Mac- donald, of the Church of Scotland Mission, by a native of Quili- mane ; and the children's names betray the Portuguese influence paramount on the Quilimane coast. The tale, however, differs considerably from any Portuguese version with which I am acquainted. Most of its details are purely native. The husband and wife eating apart, the hunting and filibustering proceedings of the twins, the scarcity of water, the salting of the monster's tongue, the wedding customs, are among the indications of its complete assimilation by the native mind. The only details distinctly traceable to Portuguese influence are the names Rombao and Antonyo, the guns, and perhaps the millet — none of them essential to the story. Something appears to be wanting, as we know by comparing other variants, to account for the two dogs, the two spears, and the two guns ; and another point on which explanation is required is the word translated " whale". There is little of the supernatural in the tale ; what little there is is entirely in harmony with native beliefs. Upon the whole, then, this tale, which comes from a place where the Portuguese are dominant, bears traces of foreign influence only in a few inessential details. Rev. Daff Maodonald, Africana, ii, 341. The Chairman's Address. 23 So far as regards the other details, as well as the general plot, it might have been— perhaps it is— an aboriginal growth, so com- pletely is it at one with the native beliefs and customs. Let us take another mdrchen even more widely spread. The Karens of Burmah tell of a tree-lizard who was born of a woman, and who succeeded in marrying the youngest of three sisters, a king's daughters. At night he cast his lizard-skin and became a handsome youth, but resumed it in the morning. His bride is questioned by her mother, and reveals her husband's nightly transformation. " Then the mother said : ' If that be the case, when he pulls off his skin to-night, throw it over to me.' When night came and the lizard stripped off his skin to sleep, his wife took it and threw it over to her mother, and her mother put it into the fire and burnt it up. In the morning, when he woke up he said to his wife : ' The fire has burnt up my clothes.' So his wife furnished him with suitable clothing, and he ceased to be a lizard."! This story, like the last, has certain affinities with a familiar classic tale, though here the affinities are not very close : more exact resemblances may be found in modern European folk-lore. What I want you to notice, however, is the extraordinary manner, if it be an imported story, in which it has adapted itself to the Karen ideas and practices. The Karens are a wild race of endogamous savages, mixing little with the surrounding peoples. They live in villages, each of which, we are told, is an inde- pendent state. The chief, or king, of this tiny realm is hardly raised a step above his subjects ; his rule is founded on the consent of his people, whose elders he must consult on all occasions. A marriage between the king's daughter and one of his subjects would be an ordinary occurrence. The whole community dwells in a long house, in which every family has a separate hearth, probably screened off from the rest. There would thus be no difficulty in the bride's throwing her husband's skin over to her mother, who could easily pop it into the family fire. The author who reports this tale gives us only a very scrappy and imperfect account of Karen beliefs. But he makes it clear that among them is a belief that some beings, at all events, can undergo transformation without loss of identity, and that the 1 McMabon, The Karens of the Golden Chersonese, 248. 24 Folk-tale Section. transformation is sometimes effected by a change of skins. If, therefore, the story be a foreign immigrant, it has contrived to masquerade uncommonly well in Karen dress. Perhaps we may venture to think it is indigenous among the Karens. But I am not arguing that here. The Tjames, a people living on the borders of the French possessions in Annam, and descended from aborigines who inter- married with Malay invaders, relate a variant too lengthy now to examine minutely. ' I will only ask you to note that, among a number of widely varying details, the hero is in the form not of a tree-lizard, nor of any animal, but of a cocoa-nut, and that his bride burns his husk and persuades him to live with her in ordinary human shape. Let us hasten on to another analogue found at the extremity of Africa. Unthlamvu-yetusi is the heroine of a Zulu tale. She wedded Umamba, who is said to have been wrapped by his mother at his birth in a snake's skin, and compelled always to appear as a snake. He requests his bride to anoint him with a certain pot of fat; but the first night she is afraid to touch him. The second night, however, she consents to anoint him; and then by his directions she is able to pull the snake-skin from off him, and finds him in human form. He afterwards discloses himself to every one at the marriage dance, and remains a man.^ I need not trouble you with the details of the Zulu customs referred to throughout the story; you will probably be willing to take them on trust. But as to the snake form assumed by the hero, it is interesting to know that the kind of snake referred to is one into which the Zulus hold that their chiefs turn after death. When these chiefs thus transformed enter a hut, they are believed not to enter by the doorway, but in some other mysterious man- ner; and a variant of the legend describes the hero (who, how- ever, is there called Unthlatu, or boa constrictor) as entering and leaving the hut after the door had been closed by his bride, and without opening it.^ There seems some Htde doubt as to the meaning, and even the authenticity, of the incident of the wrapping of the hero, when a babe, in the snake-skin. Most likely it is only 1 Landes, Contes Tjames, 9 ; L' Aiiihropologie, v, 186. - Callaway, Tales, 322. ' Callaway, Rcl. System, 196 et seq.; Tales, 60. The Chairman's Address. 25 a bit of modern native rationalism, patched into the story when it began to be felt as verging on the incredible that a man should be born as a serpent, though other supernatural occurrences were still readily accepted. But, in any case, the Zulus are firmly attached to the doctrine of transformation. They consider that baboons, wasps, lizards, and other animals, besides snakes, are really men living in another shape. A narrative to a similar effect is told by the Yurucares, a tribe inhabiting the tropical forests on the eastern slopes of the Andes. AVith them it is part of a saga which accounts for the origin of their race and the present condition of their country. It is thus a link in their philosophy of the universe. We learn that a solitary maiden fell in love with a beautiful tree called Ule, laden with purple flowers. " She steadily looked at it with a feeling of tenderness, thinking to herself how she would love it if it were only a man. She painted herself with the juice of the arnotto fruit to heighten her charms and render herself attractive; she wept and sighed, waited and hoped. Her hope did not disappoint her; her love was powerful, and it produced a miraculous trans- formation ; the tree was changed into a man, and the young maiden was happy. During the night Ul^ was at her side ; but at morning dawn she perceived that she had been caressed by a shadow, for Ul^ had disappeared, and the young girl was again disconsolate, fearing that her happiness was only a passing dream. Making her mother her confidant, she communicated the thought that oppressed her heart, and, taking counsel together, they devised means to retain the young lover and prevent his escape. When the following night \]\€ came to make his betrothed bride happy, he found himself loaded with fetters that confined him to the spot. After four days had thus passed Uld promised to remain, and pledged himself by a formal marriage never to abandon his wife ; and upon this promise his liberty was restored to him.''^ In all these examples we have the same series of incidents. A maiden is wedded to a mysterious youth who visits her by night, but suffers a strange metamorphosis and disappears by day. With her mother's help, or by the simple stress of her own affection for him, she compels him to retain human form and abide with her. 1 Fealherman, Soc. Hist. Rnccs of Mankind ; Chiapo- and Guarano-Marano- nians, 326. 26 Folk-tale Section. The details vary as the circumstances and habits of the peoples who tell the story; but the central ideas remain always the same. And alike the central ideas and the details are found to be as much m harmony with the creed, the habits, and the environment of the narrators, whether Karen, Tjame, Zulu, or Yurucare, as were the central idea and the details of the kindred tale of Cupid and Psyche with the creed, the habits, and the environment of the Thessalian crone into whose mouth Apuleius put it in the second century of the Christian era. On the dissemination theory it may not be surprising if the same story, carried from one tribe to another of North American Indians, all in nearly the same stage of civilisation, be found to agree with the customs and beliefs of them all, seeing that their societies are all organised on the same general plan, and the external conditions do not greatly differ. But I have ventured to bring before you two instances in which the family likeness of the variants is quite as great as in Dr. Boas, examples. In the one case, where there had been contact with a foreign nation known to possess the tale, the foreign influence was indeed traceable, but only in details not essential. In other respects the story contained nothing alien to the native mind; on the contrary, it reflected aboriginal ideas and habits. In the other case, the story is found in remote continents divided by many thousand miles of land and ocean. Whether it was really transported over these vast spaces, or, if so, from what centre, we have at present no means of knowing. What we do know is that the several versions of the story reflect the culture of the Zulu kraal, the Karen long-house, the open shed of the Yurucares (is the kinship of Cupid and Psyche close enough for me to add — and the classic city?), with the accuracy of entirely indigenous growths. I have not chosen these instances because I deemed them favourable illustrations of my argument. I think I could have alighted easily on many at least as favourable. But, having come across them in my recent reading undertaken for another purpose, they were really the most readily at hand. And I would claim that if widely diffused stories, thus taken as it were at random, yield upon examination just those traits of civilisation which mark the peoples among whom they are known, the proba- bility is that a similar examination of other stories would give us parallel results. If so, then we may hereafter safely use a tradition Tlie Chairman's Address. ' zy as evidence of the ideas and the circumstances of those who tell it, caring nothing at all whether it originated among them or not. Some distinction may perhaps be needful in the use of tales believed to be true, and of tales told merely for pleasure. But even the latter, told among an ignorant folk, though not actually credited as statements of fact, must be exponents of ideas and of manners which have had currency, if not among themselves, at least among their forefathers in a not very remote past,i the re- membrance of which has not yet faded from the general memory, or the stories would have become unintelligible and been forgotten. Having thus tried to show that the problem of dissemination is of quite subordinate importance, it remains for me, if I do not weary you, to add a few remarks of a more or less desultory character on the theory itself as presented in the light of what I have already said. No one can doubt that dissemination has taken place. The hypothesis I stated so broadly just now as the anthropological theory of folk-tales cannot be held without qualification. Happily it is not requisite to hold it without qualification. The anthropo- logical theory of folk-tales no more excludes the possibility of multitudes of instances of dissemination than the anthropological theory of civilisation — the theory that the history of man is, on the whole, a history of progress — excludes the possibility of many a temporary and partial retrogression. The business of a theory is to explain facts, not to distort them. In Europe, for many hundred years, tales have passed from books into tradition, and back again from tradition into books, so that their transmission is to a large extent capable of being traced. This has been the case especially with some kinds of tales, like the apologue and the anecdote. Drolls, or comic tales, have obtained a wide circulation ; and there seems reason to believe that many of them are to be accounted for by direct verbal transmission. But mdrchen also, and even sagas, have sometimes been transmitted. Nobody, for example, can read La Lanterna Magica, obtained for Dr. Pitrd by Professor Letterio Lizio-Bruno, at Rocca Valdina, near Messina, or La Lanterna, a variant taken down by Dr. Pitre himself at Palermo, without being strongly impressed with the probability that this story has been derived directly from 1 Cf. Codiington, The Melanesiaiu, 356. 28 Folk-tale Section. the Eastern story of Aladdin. Grimm's tale of Simeliberg, given also by Prohle, has a suspicious resemblance, too, to that of All Baba and the Forty Robbers. Now, the Arabs conquered Sicily, and may very well have brought their stories and left them behind with their blood. But they never conquered Germany ; and, what is still more perplexing, the name of the mountain, Semsi or Semeli (Sesam, Simson, or Simsimseliger, as it is in other variants), which presents the most suspicious point of all, is, so Grimm informs us, a very ancient {uralt) name for a mountain in Germany, where, in fact, it is found more than once ; and it appears also in a Swiss traditional song having nothing to do with The Forty Robbers. If, therefore, there has been any borrowing, the East has borrowed from the ^^'est, and not vice-versa. The story is very widespread ; and the incident of the opening of the magical door, or rock, is found all over the world. But in most cases the invocation is directly addressed to the door or the rock, as in the German stories. " Rock of Two Holes, open for me, that I may enter", is the formula in the Zulu tale. The genius in the Chinese tale says : " Stone door, open ; Mr. Kwei Ku is coming." In the Samoan saga of The Origin of Fire the formula is : " Rock, divide ! I am Talanga ; I have come to work." In a Tartar story from southern Siberia it is required to pronounce the name of God, the All-merciful, the All-compassionate.* In all these it is the name of the rock, or of its lord, which is the powerful word. So far as I know, there is only one instance, besides that of the Arabian Nights, where the name of any un- connected object is pronounced ; and the preservation in the tale of Ali Baba of the sound of the word in the German variants, while the sense is obviously lost, points to derivation of the former from the latter or from some allied tale, ^\'e do not know whence Galland obtained the tale of Ali Baba. It is not found in the MSB. of The Thousand Nights and a Night. But it is thoroughly Eastern in colouring ; and its derivation from one of the German variants, or any congener, must have been remote enough to admit of this colouring, as well as of the addition of the robbers' subsequent attempts against Ali Baba ; for these do not appear in the German versions. The other instance where the name of an 1 Callaway, Tales, 140, 142; Dcnnys, Folk-Ion- of China, 134; Tuiner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, 252 ; Radloff, Proben, iv, 115. The CJiairniaris Address. 29 objtct other than the rock or its lord is pronounced occurs in Sicily. In a tale from Termini-Imerese, told by a fisherman to Signor Giuseppe Patiri, the hero, Mastru Juseppi, is captured and enslaved by a band of twelve robbers, and he thus learns their magical formula, which is "Open, pepper !" He escapes, and enriches himself at the robbers' expense. The story follows that of Ali Baba, with adaptations, until, after his brother's funeral, the hero, who is a shoemaker, opens a new and larger shop than he had hitherto had. One day the leader of the band, disguised as a cavalier, comes and orders a pair of boots, and thenceforth gradually worming himself into the hero's confidence, he at length makes an offer of marriage with his daughter. The offer is accepted; and on a subsequent visit the robber introduces his followers into the house, with instructions to rush out of their hiding-place at a signal from him. But the hero's daughter, going into the pantry to get supper, is mistaken by one of the robbers for their leader, and asked: "Is it time, corporal?" This blunder, of course, issues in their discovery. Mastru Juseppi calls in the police; and the robbers are captured and punished for their crimes with death.i Here the magical word has diverged yet further from the German type. All similarity of sound has been abandoned. To the Sicilian peasant both sesame and pepper would be foreign plants vaguely known by name only. The reason which in the mind of an Oriental might have caused the German name for the mountain to be mistaken for that of a familiar grain, and which would have perpetuated the mistake once made, would have no application in Sicily ; and only remembering that the word was the name of a plant he knew little about, the Sicilian peasant would adopt whichever of such names came easiest to him. The termination of the story has been adapted too ; but it is a somewhat odd ending when the honest Mastru Juseppi runs for the police and gives the robbers up to justice. Variants differing more widely than this from the tale of Ali Baba are found elsewhere on the northern and eastern shores of the island. " Open, pepper !" " Open, magpie !" {cicca, possibly a corruption of cece, chick-pease), " Open, tetima I" (perhaps a corruption of sesame), and " Open, door !" are the formulae 1 Pitr6, Biblioteca, v, 391. 30 Folk-tale Section. in these.i Professor Rhys also records the incident of the opening of the magical door as occurring in a fairy tale the scene of which is laid at Ynys Geinon rock, in the Swansea valley. There the fairies have a golden ladder to reach a stone of three tons' weight lying upon the mouth of the pit that gives them access from their cave to the upper air. " They have a little word ; and it suffices if the foremost on the ladder merely utters that word, for the stone to rise of itself, while there is another word which it suffices the hindmost in going down to utter so that the stone shuts behind them." But what those words are is a secret known only to the fairies.^ Upon the whole, I think it probable that the Oriental and Sicilian versions have been derived (the latter through the former) from the German, but how or when I cannot pretend to say; though I am by no means sure that, underlying a version intro- duced from the East, there may not be in Sicily a native tale having an analogous plot. On the other hand, the Chinese, the Samoan, the Welsh, and the Zulu stories do not stand in any such relation to the German story, or to one another. They all equally point back to an archaic superstition found yet in full force in China, Polynesia, and South Africa, and of which traces, and more than traces, linger in Germany, Sicily, ^^'ales, and other European countries. To seek their origin, therefore, in a single centre is a problem of well-nigh the same character and con- ditions as when we search for the cradle of the human race. In considering the question of the dissemination of folk-tales, a folk-tale ought not to be treated as if it were something apart from all other species of folk-lore. Divide the subject-matter of our science how we will, to study it profitably we must study its various sections side by side, remembering that they are all bound by the same general laws, their existence is dependent on similar conditions, and their relations with one another are often as closely interwoven as any of those which unite order to order of organised beings in the physical world. All kinds of traditions are transmissible from one person, or one set of persons, to another : a truism, this, asserted by the very name of Tradition. Tradition is a delivering, and a tradition is that which is delivered. 1 Pitr^, V, 389; Gonzenbacb, ii, 122, 197, 200 h., 251. - y Cymmrodor, vi, 199. Tlie Chairman! s Address. 31 But some kinds of traditions are more easily delivered than others. A custom which requires the co-operation of a number of persons is less easily transmitted than one which requires only the co-operation of two, or which can be performed by one person alone. A long and complicated ceremony is less easily transmitted than a short and simple one. A nickname passes from mouth to mouth more rapidly than a proverb, a proverb more rapidly than a story, a story than a song. In short, the more complex the tradition the greater the difificulty of trans- mission, and the more it depends on frequent repetition and other circumstances calculated to impress it on the memories of the recipients. Thus, a story or a song is repeated over and over by mother to child. The words, hardly comprehended at first, become clear as the child's understanding grows, and are not only involved in his earliest reminiscences, but probably rendered indelible by reiteration by others in his hearing, or by himself to younger children, from time to time throughout his life. Few traditions, and as a rule those only of the simplest kinds, are transmitted by a single communication. It follows that traditions are not often transmitted by casual intercourse. Some kinds of traditions, indeed, are not communicated even during years, and perhaps a whole lifetime, of intercourse of an intimate character. In some cases a formal initiation ceremony, which is itself a tradition, and which confers upon the initiated certain rights, carrying with them, of course, corresponding liabilities, has to be undergone. And in many more cases the custodians of the tradition, if I may call them so, cannot be persuaded to commu- nicate it until they are assured of sympathy in the recipient. Apart from modern scientific inquirers, this sympathy can, in general, only be shown by one who is at no great distance of culture, and who therefore is familiar with ideas and practices not very widely difierent. Such an one can best receive and assimilate, and in his turn transmit, the tradition. These considerations exhibit the difficulties of transmission from a foreign source. It cannot be denied that there is another side to the picture. The conditions for transmission, even of recondite and carefully guarded traditions, must have been ful- filled again and again in the world's history. Conquest followed by permanent settlement among the conquered people, the inter- 32 Folk-tale Section. course of adjacent tribes not always hostile though alien in stock, the custom of exogamy, the enslavement or adoption of prisoners of war, are among the means by which even the most conserva- tive and isolated of communities have been penetrated with foreign traditions. In all these cases we have the conditions fulfilled whereby alone transmission is possible. But if the difificulties of transmission from a foreign source be great, the difificulty of testing such transmission is equally great. I have already noticed this difificulty in passing; and I recur to it simply to instance one or two tests which have been found in- sufficient — by no means to discuss them fully. It is not in every case that evidence can be found so distinctly pointing towards an alien origin as in that of Ali Baba. In the story of Cinderella as given by Perrault the heroine wears slippers of glass {pantoufles de verre). Glass is a material so inconvenient for shoes that rational- istic mythologists have suggested, and M. Littrd in his dictionary positively asserts, that verre (glass) is a mistake for vair (fur). An examination of the variants, however, shows that M. Littrd and the rationalists are quite wrong. The material was intended to be brilliant and hard. A\'hy it should have been brilliant we need not now consider. That hardness was a quality in the original story is certain, because (though Perrault's polite version does not in- clude the episode) we find from many of the other versions that the elder sisters actually cut their feet to fit them into the shoe, and in the end were convicted of the imposture by their blood. Nor would a hard or a heavy material be objectionable in the eyes of peasants accustomed to the clumsiness and "the clang of the wooden shoon''. But although the slippers are nearly everywhere of a substance brilliant and hard, they are very rarely formed of glass; and the glass slipper has been proposed as a test of Perrault's influence over traditional versions of the story.^ Miss Marian Roalfe Cox, who has examined and tabulated more than a hundred and fifty variants of Cinderella, informs me that only in three instances besides Perrault's does the glass slipper appear. Of these instances two are Scottish, one from the island of South Uist, the other from the neighbourhood of Glasgow, and the third is an Irish tale from Tralee. If we examine these tales, we find that the first is a version intermediate between the English tale of 1 W. R. S. Ralston in Ninelecrith Century, vi, 837 ; and F. L. Record, i, 75. The Chairmatis Address. 33 Catskin and the Norse tale of Katie ^\'oodencloak. It has affinities for certain Italian variants, but the only point of contact with Cendrillon is the shoe of glass. In the second the deits ex machina is no fairy godmother, but a pet lamb who is killed by the stepmother, and who appears after death to dress, and bestow fairy gifts upon, the heroine. The prince falls in love with the heroine not at a ball but at church, and one of her stepsisters mutilates her own foot that she may get the slipper on ; but she is betrayed, and its true owner discovered, by the help of a raven. In short, except the stepmother — a very common character in European fairy tales — and the glass slipper, this version differs as widely from Perrault's as two variants of the same story can differ. The Irish tale diverges more remarkably still. The shoe — in this instance of blue glass — is worn not by a lady but by a hero, who, like Perseus, kills a dragon and rescues a king's daughter. He then rides off in the ill-mannered way he heroes of fairy tales sometimes affect, and is afterwards identified by means of the shoe, which the princess had caught from his foot in the vain effort to detain him.i Thus neither structure nor incident of any of these stories confirms the suspicion of French influence raised by the glass slipper common to them all. On the other hand, glass would seem to peasants in out-of-the-way places a material almost as pre- cious as, and probably stranger and therefore more magical, more fairy-like than, gold, while it fully satisfied the requirements of splendour and hardness. The glass slipper is a feature of the tale of Cinderella quite as striking as the powerful words "Open, Sesame!" are of the tale of Ah Baba. And a little enquiry has thus made it apparent that even a striking feature occurring in two or more ^-L■rsions of the same story cannot be made evidence of the derivation of one \-ersion from the other, or any of the others — or e\-en of both, or all, from a com- mon source including the special feature — unless some other por- tions of the story coincide, and unless the special feature cannot be explained as a natural outgrowth of the story. But it may be comparatively easy to dispose of a single feature, or a single inci- dent; but not so easy to waive aside a series of incidents following in the same or a slightly varied order in two versions of the same story. It is difficult to deal with hypothetical cases. Every con- 1 CiJinpbell, Tales, i, 225 ; Archaological Rev., iii, 24 ; F.-L. Journal, i, 54. D 34 Folk-tale Section. Crete instance offered must be considered on its own merits, and in accordance with the principles I have endeavoured already to suggest to you. Many cases of dissemination are probably to be accounted for by the supposition that the tale was already known to the common ancestors of two or more tribes before they split off from the original stock. Dr. Boas, in the article I have already cited, uses the words "Dissemination from a common centre" vaguely enough to include such a process of diffusion as this, and some at least of the stories he refers to may thus be accounted for. Traditions found in remote corners of the world and among peoples of widely different culture, it must be admitted, cannot be dealt with in this way. If cases of dissemination at all, they are cases of transmission from a foreign nation. I mentioned some instances of this kind just now. In one case the same string of incidents was found in Europe at the south-eastern extremity of Asia, at the extremity of Africa, and in the heart of South America. I pointed out then that if transmission from a foreign nation had taken place, the story had been as completely absorbed into the mind of the Karen, of the Zulu, or of the Brazilian savage, and was as thoroughly incorporated with his civilisation and with his environment, as if it had originated where it was found in Burmah, in Zululand, or in the tropical forests of the Andes. I argued then that it mattered not to the anthropological student whether such a story owned a foreign parentage or not; it was equally evidence of the ideas and customs of the people who related it. Let me now invert the argument, and ask whether, when a story is as thoroughly incorporated as this with the civilisation and environ- ment of any people, it is possible to trace its transmission from abroad without direct and definite evidence of such a transmission. In the case of Ali Baba there was an imperfect adaptation to the environ- ment, and hence we had ground for suspecting such a transmission. We have definite external and internal evidence of the transmission of Perrault's tales into England. "We know that the reason of their adoption here was that they were products of practically the same stage of civilisation as ours. In them ideas familiar to us had been developed under influences only slightly differing from those affecting ourselves. And they came among us at a time and in a manner peculiarly favourable for their adoption and propaga- tion here. Had they come among us two centuries, or even one The Chairman s Address. 35 century, earlier than the_v did, it is very doubtful whether they would have found a home here. We have positive literary evidence of the transmission from one country to another of the stories embodied in .-^sofs Fables and The Seven Wise Masters. But, in the absence of such direct and unmistakeable evidence, is it more reasonable to think that a story has been transmitted from abroad than that it has been evolved from within with the evolu- tion of the culture of which, in the case supposed, it forms an intimate and indistinguishable part ? Most of the stories in this category will be found to be developments of a single theme, where the incidents follow naturally in their order. If such a story can be evolved once, why may it not be independently evolved twice, thrice, fifty times? AVhich is more likely — that an analogous series of incidents should have been invented separately by more tribes than one, all in stages of civilisation in which the ideas expressed in the story are commonly known and accepted, or that all the tribes among which it is current, save one, should have taken it over from a foreign people? In judging of this we must set the conservative and exclusive instincts of savages over against their imitative instincts. But there is a further consideration we must not overlook, namely, that with few exceptions all plots are nothing but changes rung upon the universalcharacteristicsof human life — birth, death, the passions, the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, master and slave, and so forth. These universal characteristics are limited in number ; and though their combinations may be manifold, yet certain sequences are much more readily suggested than others. Moreover, in the same plane of civilisation the same sequences in tales are frequently worked out independently, even to minute details. \\'e deal with traditional fiction only ; and indeed the science of literary fiction has yet to be invented. When it is invented we may expect some remarkable results. It might be thought that civilised life, with its greater complexity, would offer a greater variety of plots to the story-teller than savage life can offer. Where two geniuses, however, of the highest order come to relate a story of unfounded conjugal jealousy and of wife- murder, the substance and even many of the accidents of Othello are reproduced in Kenilworth, down to the last damning proof of Amy's guilt afforded by her embroidered glove, which Varney 36 Folk-tale Section. brings to Leicester as lago brought Desdemona's handkerchief to the Moor of Venice. True : Sir \\'alter Scott may have been influenced by unconscious reminiscences of Othello ; but I think this is less Hkely than that, given the central idea, the sequences were such as were naturally suggested. An examination of the plots of more recent novels by writers who cannot be suspected of plagiarism would, I have little doubt, confirm this opinion, by showing to how large an extent those plots are but variations of a few themes, and how frequently the situations are indeed identical. Curious illustrations occur from time to time of what I may call parallel invention. One such illustration within the last few months will jirobabl)' be remembered b)- those of >'0U who read the English literary periodicals. A fictitious sketch, narrating the last vision and death of an unsuccessful author, appeared in July 1890 in the Newbery House Magazine. A story practically the same was published in February 1891, in Macmillan's Magazine, written by a different hand. The coincidences of plot, of incident, and occa- sionally of expression, were so extraordinary that the writer of the story which had first appeared called attention to it in The Academy. But it turned out that plagiarism was out of the ques- tion, for the second story had been in possession of the editor of Maaiiillan's Magazine before the first appeared in Newbery House Magazine. Mr. Walter Besant, himself a novelist of eminence and a student of tradition, commenting in The Author on the matter, mentioned that a story from a distant country had a few weeks before gone " the round of .some of the papers"- — by which I understand him to mean that it was circulated as a fiction. It was then discovered (i) "that the leading incident had been invented and used by a novelist quite recently; (2) that the lead- ing incident was used in an American magazine ten years ago ; (3) that the leading incident was used by Charles Reade fifteen years ago. Now, I have not the least doubt", adds Mr. Besant, " that in each of these cases the invention was entirely original." Cases of parallel invention like these, where the authentication is complete, may well give us pause before we assert that such and such an incident — ay, or such and such a plot — could noX. have been invented twice. With these in our mind we shall at least avoid fixing our eyes only on the savage's imitative faculties. A\'e shall be prepared to admit something more than a possibility that the The C/iainnaii's Address. 37 same story may have sprung into existence in more than one place, despite resemblances which hardly seem — and which in truth are iiof — accidental. They are the necessary result of the working of the same laws of mental association in similar circum- stances. Given an analogous state of culture, then, with the limited number of universal characteristics of human life, and the sequences which they naturally suggest in that state of culture, the probable modifications of plot and incident must be compara- tively few. I have spoken only of folk-tales ; but our section of the Congress includes also folk-songs, ^\'e English must admit that we have done very little for the scientific study of ballads and folk-songs. The monumental work on English and Scottish ballads now m course of publication by Professor Child is to our shame an American undertaking. Count Nigra has issued a great work on the ballads and songs of his native Piedmont. And other writers have illustrated the folk-poetry of various countries, while we have done but little. The names of Ralston, Cover, and the Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco are almost all we can mention among English authors who have rendered service in this department of tradition. This is not creditable to us; and it is all the more to be regretted from the point of view I have ventured to take this morning, because it seems likely that the study of folk-poetry may have something to say on the problem of transmission. A ballad or a song is a more consciously artistic work than a tale. Not only must it develop the plot or the sentiment, but it has to conform to certain rules of metre, and usually to certain rules of rhyme. It thus offers a far greater number of opportunities for comparison than a folk-tale, and must consequently ensure greater certainty in the results arrived at. Can we venture to indulge the hope that the Congress of 1891 may induce some competent student to in- terest himself in this branch of our work ? Professor Child's as well as M. Nigra's collection of analogues deserves and requires the most careful consideration. Nor should the study of folk-poetry be limited to European verse. The songs, ritual and narrative, of races in the lower culture are a mine well-nigh unwrought, and are calculated to yield important contributions to science, not only on the question of transmission, but probably on many other ques- tions. 38 Folk -tale Section. In pointing out to you, as I have done this morning, what I venture to think is the minor importance of the place of origin of a tradition, and some of the difficulties of testing its transmission from an alien birthplace, I have run the risk of v^^earying you by saying at greater length than I had intended what is perhaps not particularly new. But I hope I may be absolved from what you may deem the lesser sin of exhibiting too active a partisanship in this chair. A story is told (I offer this to you as a genuine, if modern, tradition) of a judge in the Far West, who when the plaintiff and his witnesses had given evidence, declined to hear the defendant, saying : " Stop, stop ! my mind is now made up, and you will only unsettle it." This may, or may not, have hap- pened in a court of law : in the court of opinion it happens daily. Nothing in disputed questions is commoner than to close the mind against one set of arguments ; the decision then becomes charm- ingly easy. If I have tried to place before you some arguments on one side, I trust I have shown myself at the same time not altogether insensible to the weight of arguments on the other side. I hope I have made it clear that I do not undervalue researches which have for their object to trace the migration of traditions. Every inquiry conducted in a truly scientific spirit must advance our knowledge and sometimes in ways none the less valuable because unexpected. It is the pursuit of knowledge, the search for truth, in relation to the past history of our race which draws us together here. It is with this we are concerned, and not, I hope, with any merely dialectic victory. I for one am ready to welcome any new argument, any fresh information, be its effect what it may. Nor do I envy the man who, whatever his opinions, is unwiUing to look the contrary opinions full in the face, judge them in the light of reason, and take the consequences. Mr. A. R. Wright, of Her Majesty's Patent Office, a member of the Congress, has since courteously furnished me with the following note based on his experience in the Patent Office: "As regards the probability of the parallel invention of folk-tales, there may be found in the history of mechanical and chemical invention indications even more suggestive than the unconscious plagiarisms of literature. Unlike the author, the inventor has known that plagiarism on his part, or even the unwitting agreement of his invention with some- thing published (not necessarily patented) in any form at an earlier The Chairman s Address. 39 date, would invalidate any patent of protection which might be granted to him. The Patent Laws, alike in England and abroad, are intended to afford protection to 'the true and first inventor', and to him alone. In Russia, for example, protection was refused to the Bessemer steel process because the English Blue-Book containing the publication of the English patent of the same inventor was held to be an anticipation. In England, actions at law involving the question of the novelty of particular inventions have' been known from the first institution of the Patent Laws, early in the seventeenth century; and, excluding cases of fraud, etc., there would appear to be a proportion of cases of parallel invention. Many modern inventions, also, like certain folk-tales, appear to consist merely of new com- binations of old elements, the novelty lying' either in their re- arrangement or in a different choice of elements from any previously made. Possibly some folk-tales are the result of similar attempts at novelty. From the danger of invalidation from lack of novelty, and from the heavy fees payable (until A.D. 1884), application for a patent would seem at least to imply that the inventor himself usually believed his invention to be novel ; and if it can be shown that cases of parallel invention are numerous, the evidence would be of some value as regards the origin of folk-tales. It may, therefore, be well to make some examination of the public records of applications for patents and to report the result in FOLK-LORE. For example, I believe it would be found that the attempts to obtain perpetual motion, which for more than two centuries has been the subject-matter of applications for patents, mostly fall into groups of variants of a few hydraulic and mechanical radicles, the variants differing no more than many folk-tale variants.'' Mr. Wright adds that modern patents are of little use in this connection, on account of the rapid and wide dissemination of germ-ideas, and that when writing he had not had time to search the older records, which are not of easy reference ; but that he has no doubt of being able to produce cases in point, if the evidence be thought valuable. LA BY FEATHERFLIGHT: AN IN EDITED FOLK -TALE} With Remarks by William Wells Newell. A POOR woman, living on the edge of a wood, came at last where she found nothing in the cupboard for next day's breakfast. She called the boy Reuben, and said : " You must now go into the wide world, for if you stay here there will be two of us to starve. I have nothing for you but this piece of black bread. On the other side of the forest lies the world. Find your way to it, and earn your living honestly." She bade him good-bye, and he started. He knew his way some distance out into the blackest part of the forest, for he had often gone there for faggots. But after walking all day he saw no path or tree, and knew that he was lost. Still he travelled on and on, as long as the daylight lasted, and then lay down and slept. The next morning he ate his black bread, and walked on all day. At night he saw lights before him, and was guided by them to a large palace. At last the door was opened, and a lovely lady appeared. She said, as she saw him, " Go away as quickly as you can. My father will soon come home, and he will surely eat you." Reuben said, "Can't you hide me, and give me something to eat, or I shall fall dead at your door?" At first she refused, but afterwards yielded to Reuben's prayers, and told him to come in and hide behind the oven. Then she gave him food, and told him that her father was a giant, who ate men and women. Perhaps she could keep him overnight, as she already had supper prepared. After awhile, the giant came banging at the door, shouting, " Featherflight, let me in, let me in.'' As she opened the door, he came in, saying, " Where have you stowed the man ? I smelt him all the way through that wood." Featherflight said : " O father, he is nothing but a poor little thin boy; he would make but half a mouthful, and his bones 1 Told to Mrs. Jo.seph B. Warner, Cambridge. Ma'ss., by her aunt, Miss Elizabeth Hoar, Concord, Mass. Newell.— 7.^?^^,' Fcaiherfliglit. 41 would stick in your throat ; and besides he wants to work for you ; perhaps you can make him useful. But sit down to supper now, and after supper I will show him to you." So she set before him half of a fat heifer, a sheep, and a turkey, which he swallowed so fast that his hair stood on end. When he had finished, Featherflight beckoned to Reuben, who came trembling from behind the oven. The giant looked at him scornfully, and said, " Indeed, as you say, he is but half a mouthful. But there is room for flesh there, and we must fatten him up for a few days ; meanwhile, he must earn his victuals. See here, my young snip, can you do a day's work in a day ? " and Reuben answered bravely, " I can do a day's work in a day as well as another.'' So the giant said, " Well, go to bed now ; I will tell you in the morning your work." So Reubea went to bed, and Lady Feather- flight showed him ; while the giant lay down on the floor, with his head in Featherflight's lap, and she combed his hair and brushed his head, until he went fast asleep. The next morning, Reuben was called bright and early, and was taken out to the farmyard, where stood a large barn, unroofed by a late tempest. Here the giant stopped and said : " Behind this barn you will find a hill of feathers; thatch me this barn with them, and earn your supper; and look you, if it be not done when I come back to-night, you shall be fried in meal, and eaten whole for supper." Then he left, laughing to himself as he went down the road. Reuben went bravely to work, and found a ladder and basket ; he filled the basket, ran up the ladder, and then tried hard to make a beginning on the thatch. As soon as he placed a handful of feathers, half would fly away, as he wove them in. He tried for hours with no success, until, at last, half of the hill was scattered to the four winds, and he had not finished a hand- breadth of the roof. Then he sat down at the foot of the ladder, and began to cry, when out came Lady Featherflight with the basket on her arm, which she set down at his feet, saymg, " Eat now, and cry afterwards. Meantime I will try to think what I can do to help you." Reuben felt cheered, and went to work, while Lady Featherflight walked round the barn, singing as she went : " Birds of land and birds of sea. Come and thatch this roof for me." 42 Folk-tale Section. As she walked round the second time, the sky grew dark, and a heavy cloud hid the sun and came nearer and nearer to the earth, separating at last into hundreds and thousands of birds. Each, as it flew, dropped a feather on the roof, and tucked it neatly in ; and when Reuben's meal was finished the thatch was finished too. Then Featherflight said, " Let us talk and enjoy ourselves till my father the giant comes home." So they wandered round the grounds and the stables, and Lady Featherflight told of the treasure in the strong-room, till Reuben wondered why he was born without a sixpence. Soon they went back to the house, and Reuben helped, and Lady Featherflight prepared supper, which to-night was fourteen loaves of bread, two sheep, and a jack- pudding by way of finish, which would almost have filled the little house where Reuben was born. Soon the giant came home, thundered at the door again, and shouted, " Let me in ! Let me in 1" Featherflight served him with the supper already laid, and the giant ate it with great relish. As soon as he had finished, he called to Reuben and asked him about his work. Reuben said, " I told you I could do a day's work in a day as well as another. You'll have no fault to find." The giant said nothing, and Reuben went to bed. Then, as before, the giant lay down on the floor, with his head in Featherflight's lap. She combed his hair and brushed his head, till he fell fast asleep. The next morning the giant called Reuben into the yard, and looked at his day's work. All he said was, " This is not your doing,'' and he proceeded to a heap of seed, nearly as high as the barn, saying, " Here is your day's work. Separate the seeds, each into its own pile. Let it be done when I come home to-night or you shall be fried in meal, and I shall swallow you bones and all." Then the giant went off down the road, laughing as he went. Reuben seated himself before the heap, took a handful of seeds, put corn in one pile, rye in another, oats in another, and had not begun to find an end of the different kinds when noon had come and the sun was right overhead. The heap was no smaller, and Reuben was tired out. So he sat down, hugged his knees, and cried. Out came Featherflight, with a basket on her arm, which she put down before Reuben, saying, " Eat now, and cry after." So Reuben N-EW'ELL.—Ladv Featherflis;ht. 43 ate with a will, and Lady Featherflight walked round and round the table, singing as she went : " Birds {sic) of earth and birds of sea. Come and sort this seed for me.'' As she walked rt)und the heap for the second time, still singing, the ground about her looked as if it was moving. From behind each grain of sand, each daisy stem, each blade of grass, there came some little insect, grey, black, brown, or green, and began to work at the seeds. Each chose out one kind, and made a heap by itself. When Reuben had finished a hearty meal, the great heap was divided into coun'less others, and Reuben and Lady Featherflight walked and talked to their heart's content for the rest of the day. As the sun went down, the giant came home, thundered at the door again, and shouted, " Let me in ! Let me in!" Featherflight greeted him with his supper, already laid, and he sat down and ate with a great appetite four fat pigs, three fat pullets, and an old gander. He finished off with a jack-pudding. Then he was so sleepy he could not keep his head up ; all he said was, " Go to bed, youngster ! I'll see your work to-morrow." Then, as before, the giant laid himself down on the floor with his head in Featherflight's lap. She combed his hair and brushed his head, and he fell fast asleep. The next morning, the giant called Reuben into the farmyard earlier than before. " It is but fair to call you early, for I have work, more than a strong man can well do." He showed him a heap of sand, saying, " Make me a rope, to tether my herd of cows, that they may not leave the stalls before milking-time." Then he turned on his heel, and went down the road laughing. Reuben took some sand in his hands, gave one twist, threw it down, went to the door, and called out, "Featherflight, Feather- flight, this is beyond you ! I feel myself already rolled in meal and swallowed, bones and all !" Out came Featherflight, saying with good cheer, " Not so bad as that. Sit down, and we will plan what to do." They talked and planned all the day. Just before the giant came home, they went up to the top of the stairs to Reuben's room ; then Feather- flight pricked Reuben's finger and dropped a drop of blood on each of the three stairs. Then she came down and prepared the 44 Folk- tale Section. supper, which to-night was a brace of turkeys, three fat geese, five fat hens, six fat pigeons, seven fat woodcocks, and half a score quail, with a jack-pudding. When he had finished, the giant turned to Featherflight with a growl : " Why so sparing of food to-night ? Is there no good meal in the larder ? This boy whets my appetite. Well for you, young sir, if you have done your work. Is it done?" "No, sir," said Reuben, boldly ; " I said I could do a day's work in a day as well as another, but no better." The giant said : "Featherflight, prick him for me with a larding-needle, hang him in the chimney- corner well wrapped in bacon, and give him to me for my early breakfast." Featherflight says, " Ves, father." Then, as before, the giant laid himself down on the floor with his head in Feather- flight's lap. She combed his hair and brushed his head, and he fell fast asleep. Reuben goes to bed, his room at the top of the stairs. As soon as the giant is snoring in bed, Featherflight softly calls Reuben, and says, " I have the keys of the treasure-house ; come with me." They open the treasure-house, take out bags of gold and silver, and loosen the halter of the best horse from the best stall in the best stable. Reuben mounts, with Featherflight behind, and off they go. At three o'clock in the morning, not thinking of his order the night before, the giant wakes, turns over, and says, "Reuben, get up." "Yes, sir,'' says the first drop of blood. At four o'clock the giant wakes, and says, " Reuben, get up.'' " Yes, sir,'' says the second drop of blood. At five o'clock the giant turns over, and says, "Reuben, get up." "Yes, sir," says the third drop of blood. At six o'clock the giant wakens, turns over, and says, " Reuben, get up," and there was no answer. Then with a great fury he says, "Featherflight has overslept herself; my breakfast won't be ready." He rushed to Featherflight's room ; it is empty. He dashes downstairs to the chimney-corner, to see if Reuben is hanging there, and finds neither Reuben nor Featherflight. Then he suspects they have run away, and rushes back for his seven-leagued boots, but cannot find the key under his pillow. He rushes down, finds the door wide open, catches up his boots, and rushes to the stable. There he finds the best horse from the best stall in the best stable gone. Jumping into his boots, Newell. — Lady FeatherfligJit. 45 he flies after them swifter tlian the wind. The runaways had been galloping for several hours, when Reuben hears a sound behind him, and turning, sees the giant in the distance. " O Featherflight, Featherflight, all is lost!" But Featherflight says, " Keep steady, Reuben; look in the horse's right ear, and throw- behind you over your right shoulder what you find." Reuben looks, finds a little stick of wood, throws it over his right shoulder, and there grows up behind them a forest of hard wood. " We are saved," says Reuben. " Not so certain," says Lady Feather- flight ; " but prick up the horse, for we have gained some time.'' The giant went back for an axe, but soon hacked and hewed his way through the wood and was on the trail again. Reuben again heard a sound, turned and saw the giant, and said to Lady Featherflight, " All is lost !" " Keep steady, Reuben," says Featherflight ; " look in the horse's left ear, and throw over your left shoulder what you find." Reuben looked, found a drop of water, throws it over his left shoulder, and between them and the giant there arises a large lake, and the giant stops on the other side, and shouts, " How did you get over ?" Featherflight says, "We drank, and our horses drank, and we drank our way through." The giant shouts scornfully back, " Surely I am good for what you can do," and he threw himself down, and drank, and drank, and drank, and then he burst. Now they go on quietly till they come near to a town. Here they stop, and Reuben says, " Climb this tree and hide in the branches till I come with the parson to marry us. For I must buy me a suit of fine clothes before I am seen with a gay lady like yourself." So Featherflight climbed the tree with the thickest branches she could find, and waited there, looking between the leaves into a spring below. Now this spring was used by all the wives of the townspeople to draw water for breakfast. No water was so sweet anywhere else ; and early in the morning they all came with pitchers and pails for a gossip, and to draw water for the kettle. The first who came was a carpenter's wife, and as she bent over the clear spring, she saw, not herself, but Feather- flight's lovely face reflected in the water. She looks at it with astonishment, and cries, " What, I a carpenter's wife, and so handsome ? No, that I won't !" and down she threw the pitcher, and off she went. 46 Folk-tale S.ection. The next who came was the potter's wife, and as she bent over the clear spring, she saw, not herself, but FeatherfJight's lovely face reflected in the water. She looks at it with astonishment, and cries, " What, I a potter's wife, and so handsome? No, that I won't !" and down she threw the pitcher, and off she went. [In the same way all the wives of the men of the village came to the spring, see the reflection, throw down their pitchers, and depart.] All the men in the town began to want their breakfast, and one after another went out into the market-place to ask if by chance anyone had seen his wife. Each came with the same question, and all received the same answer. All had seen them going, but none had seen them returnmg. They all began to fear foul play, and all together walked out toward the spring. When they reached it, they found the broken pitchers all about the grass, and the pails, bottom upwards, floating on the water. One of them, looking over the edge, saw the face reflected, and knowing it was not his own, looked up. Seeing Lady Featherflight, he called to his comrades, "Here is the witch, here is the enchantress. She has bewitched our wives ; let us kill her.'' And they began to drag her out of the tree, in spite of all she could say. Just at this moment Reuben comes up, galloping back on his horse, with the parson up behind. You would not know the gaily- dressed cavalier to be the poor ragged boy who passed over the road so short a time before. As he came near he saw the crowd, and shouted, "What's the matter? What are you doing to my wife ?" The men shouted, " We are hanging a witch ; she has bewitched our wives, and murdered them, for all that we know." The parson bade them stop, and let Lady Featherflight tell her own story. When she told them how their wives had mistaken her face for theirs, they were silent a moment, and then one and all cried, " If we have wedded such fools they are well sped," and turning, walked back to the town. The parson married Reuben and Lady Featherflight on the spot, and christened them from water of the spring, and then went home with them to the great house that Reuben had bought as he passed through the town. There the newly-married pair lived happily for many months, until Reuben began to wish for more of the giant's treasure, and proposed that they should go back for it. But they could not cross the water. Lad)' Featheiflight said, "Why not Newell.— Za^j/ Featherflight. 47 build abridge?" And the bridge was built. They went over with waggons and horses, and brought so heavy a load that, as the last waggonful passed over the bridge, it broke, and the gold was lost. Reuben lamented, and said, " Now we can have nothing more from the giant's treasure-house." But Lady Featherflight said, " Why not mend the bridge ?" So the bridge was mended, And my story's ended. Remarks on the Tale. This tale was obtained from a metnber of a highly intelligent family in Massachusetts, in which it has been traditional. I have observed, in New England, that in folk-literature the best versions of tales and games are found in the possession of educated persons. The truth is, I believe, that Enghsh popular literature, like that of other countries, has been the property, not only of the inferior portion of the community, but also of the most intelligent class ; incoherence and vulgarity are the result of transmission, through illiterate persons, of material which, in former centuries, was in circulation among the superior part of the nation. This circumstance must be taken into account in framing a definition of folk-lore ; if the word folk is to be defined, in the language of early dictionaries, as pkbs or vulgus, it must be admitted that our own grandmothers belonged to the vulgar : in the words of the President of the American Folk-lore Society, the folk must be taken to include " (i) all savages ; (2) the old-fashioned people ; (3) the children ; and (4) all of us when we are old-fashioned. "^ Of all folk-tales, this is perhaps the most widely diffused. In the course of remarks on a Scottish version of the story, Mr. Andrew Lang has remarked that no human composition would seem to have attained so wide a circulation as the work of the unknown author. The force of this observation will be made clear by the comparisons presently to be offered. Other English versions are as follows : (i) In Scottish dialect, 1 O. T. Mason, " The Natural History of Folk-lore," [ournai of American Folk-lore, iv, 1891, 97. 48 Folk-tale Section. " Nicht, Nocht, Nothing"'; (z) from Ireland, "The Story ot ( irey Norris from Warland"- ; (3) " The Three Tasks," also from Ireland, but a literary recension-'^ ; (4) from Jamaica, a ' Revue Celtique, iii, 1878, 374, communicated by Andrew Lang; reprinted in FoLK-LoRE, i, 1890, 192. Incidents: i Introductioti. — A king, rescued in a wilderness by a giant, gives promise of Nothings which turns out to mean a newly born son. Next day the giant carries off the boy, after an unsuccessful attempt is made to substitute the hen-wife's son, etc. ; the child is reared in the giant's house, and becomes fond of the giant's daughter. 11. Tasks and Flight. — The giant sets the hero certain tasks, on penalty of being eaten in case of failure, l^hese are : to clean a stable, drain a lake, steal eggs from a nest ; they are accom- plished by the girl. In the last task she gives the youth her fingers and toes, in order to make steps ; one is broken, and she advises flight. The giant is drowned in pursuit. m. Forgetfulness oj the Bride (this section is abbreviated and con- fused). — Incident of the well, as in " Lady Featherflight"; the gardener's daughter and wife refuse to draw water, and the gardener carries the girl to his house. At the proposed wedding of the hero she tries to waken him, and calls him by name ; this leads to recognition on the part of his parents, and to a happy ending, Mr. Lang has discussed the mdrchen in his Custom and Myth, London, 1885, " A Far-travelled Tale," in which he makes the remark above cited. ^ Folk-lore Joitrnal,\, li^"^, '^^6. i Introdtcction. — This is complicated ; the king's son loses in a game of ball, and is charged by" Old Grey Norris" to discover, by the end of the year, the place where he lives. The prince is directed by a cook, sister of a giant, to inquire of her brother ; he gets a magic reel, a cake, and breast-milk. The giant, when found, sends the hero to a second giant, and the latter to a third, wlio calls an eagle, by which the youth is conveyed to the dominions of Old Grey Norris ; he is, however, obliged to feed the bird with his own flesh, ij. Bird-tiiatden. — The eagle points out a lake, where he bids the hero seize the robes of a swan-maiden, and keep these until she promises to do him a good turn. ni. Tasks and Flight. — Old Grey Norris receives the youth coldly, and imposes upon him certain taslis (to find needle in dirty stable, build a bridge ot feathers, chop down a forest, fetch a bull from a field). These are accomplished by the swan-maiden, daughter of Grey Norris. Use of cow-dung to answer for the absent girl ; throwing of magic objects to impede pursuit (pups to stop the giant's bitch, drops of water turning to sea, needle to forest of iron). iv. Bride-for- getting The hero, violating the heroine's injunction, having gone in advance, kisses his dog, and is caused to forget. Incident of the well ; the girl, at the wedding of the prince, appears as a juggler, bringing a cock and a hen, which perform a drama representing the history, by which the memory of the youth is refreshed. ■' W. Carleton, Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, 5th ed., London. 1864. I. Jnirt>dticlioii.-~}?ick loses at play with a Black Man, whom he engages to serve after a year and a day. At the end of this time he proceeds to the Black Man's castle, where he sees a beautiful lady. n. Tasks and Flight. — On pain of death, the hero is required to clean a stable, catch a filly, and rob a crane's nest : these ate accomplished by the magic of the girl. In the last task he loses one 01 Newell.— Z«^ Featherflight. 49 tale printed as of African origin, but evidently imported from Europe.^ The name " Lady Featherflight" appears not to correspond to any part of the story as now told, but to belong to an omitted section, which gave an account of the manner in which the hero, while proceeding in search of the giant's castle, captures the garments of a bird-maiden, and consents to return these only on condition of succour. The title of the heroine seems to refer to her original bird-plumage. ^ her toes, given him for steps, and flight follows. The magic objects are a twig, a pebble, and a bottle of water ; the latter produces a sea, in which the giant is drowned. in. Bride-forgetting. — Jack separates from his bride, violates her injunction by kissing a dog, and forgets her. The end is altered. ^ M. G Lewis, Journal of a West India Proprietor, London, 1834; re- printed in Folk-lore Journal, i, 1883, Z84. i. Introduction. — Head-man in Africa loses at play to a young nobleman, is required to go to court, and gets directions from his nurse as to how to proceed. 11. The nurse directs him as to the manner in which he shall find the king's daughter bathing. He obtains possession of the dress of the princess, and makes her promise, as condition of its return, that no harm shall happen to him on that day. ni. Tasks and Flight. — The youth, received by the head-man, is required to point out the maiden among her three sisters. These appear as black dogs ; one lifts the paw, and is re- cognised. According to the law of the country, a maid must be given in marriage to one who thus recognises her. The magic objects are rose, pebble, phial of water. The giant is drowned. Finally, the princess goes to court and establishes her husband and herself as head-man and head-woman ; since this time all kings of Africa have been benevolent. In the tale, the incidents of finding the garments, and choice among the three sisters, are repeated with variations. The tale seems modified from an original form closely corresponding to the Irish version cited above, and may have been an importation from England or Ireland. 2 See the Irish and West Indian stories already mentioned. In the correspond- ing French tale, given by E. Cosquin, Contes pop. de Lorraine, Paris, 1886, No. 32, " Chatte Blanche," the story proceeds as follows : j. A youth loses at play, and, as a penalty, is required to seek the victor, in the Black Forest, at the end of a year and a day. 11. A fairy tells him that he will find Trois Plumes bathing ; he is to take the robes of the youngest ; this he does, and is instructed by her as to his course, in. Tasks : choice among the three daughters ; flight, ending in the transformation of the girl into various shapes ; she gives, in her altered form, misleading information to the pursuing giant, iv. The last section, bride- forgetfulness, is altered and confused. The name. La plume verte, seems to corre- spond to Featherflight. In some tales of this type, the introduction resembles that of " Lady Featherflight" — a youth, his mother being poor, goes to seek employment. The admirable notes of E. Cosquin will be used in the following discussion ; some repetition may be excused by the difference of purpose, the object being to examine the tale as a whole. E 50 Folk-tale Section. From a comparison of the English versions, it would appear that our tale, as narrated in England, formerly included the following incidents : i. Introduction. — This explains how it came about that a youth is obliged to proceed in quest of the castle of a giant. ii. Bird-maiden. — The hero surprises three bird- maidens, bathing in human form ; he seizes the feather-dress of the youngest, and returns it only on promise of assistance in his enterprise, iii. Tasks and Flight. — The giant, father of the maiden, receives the stranger with severity, and imposes on him certain tasks, which are, however, accomplished by the magic arts of the daughter. The youth is then required to choose the maid, in disguise, from among her sisters ; in this he succeeds by the counsel of the girl. On the wedding night, by the advice of the bride, the pair escape, leaving an object which by art- magic is made to answer the questions asked by the giant. A pursuit takes place, which is arrested by throwing out certain magical objects, interposing barriers ; the giant perishes, being drowned in the sea created by drops of water, iv. Forgetfulness of the Bride. — -The hero, as he approaches his father's city, goes in advance to arrange for the suitable entry of his bride. He violates her caution, receives a kiss, and is caused to fall into oblivion of the lady. Incident of the fountain ; the bride is carried to the house of a peasant, whose wife and daughter, out of conceit of their own beauty, have abandoned household labour. After a time, when the prince is about to wed another, his bride, disguised as a juggler, appears at the ceremony, and by magic causes two birds to enact a drama, which has the effect of reviving the youth's memory. To the tale as thus analysed correspond a great number of ver- sions, from all European countries, which assume as their common original a story containing the sections and traits indicated. The variations, of course, are numerous, and these variations are often reproduced in many widely separated countries ; this corre- spondence appears to be due to a continual intercommunication, by which even modern alterations of the narrative have been introduced into remote districts, and have obtained general circulation.! 1 A good example is to be found in the incident of the reflection in the fountain ; in the form of the tale as given in " Lady Featherflight" this is purely literary ; the Newell.— Za^ Featherflight 51 To the English tale correspond a number of Gaelic mdrchen: in particular, a well-known tale of the Highlands of Scotland agrees very closely with the Scotch dialectic form of the English tale, even in respect to the introduction, the most divergent part of the narrative.! The only manner in which I can explain this resemblance is by the hypothesis of recent transmission ; I clumsy peasant women are made to furnish the mirth of the reader. But other versions give quite a different character to the occuirence ; thus, in an Italian tale, while the heroine, in the tree, awaits the return of her lover, a servant who comes to draw water notices the reflection in the well ; becoming envious, the servant climbs the tree, and fixes in the head of the beauty a pin, which transforms the latter into a dove. At the wedding, the bird flies to the palace, and by her song attracts the attention of the prince, who, while stroking the bird, draws out the pin, and a retransformation takes place. (G. Pitr^, Fiabe, novelle e racconti fop. Sicil., Palermo, 1875, No. 13, i, 118, "La Bella Rosa".) Basile, Pentamerone (1574), gives versions answering to the incident as narrated in " Lady Featherflight". One trait of the latter is exceedingly interesting. The hero goes to seek a priest to perform the marriage ; and this priest christens the lovers. Variants — e, g.^ a Basque version — explains this procedure : the heroine (as a fairy) could not enter a Christian land until baptised (W. Webster, Basque Legtifids, London, 1879, p. 120). The presence of this trait is thus the best possible proof of the independence and antiquity of the version found in America. As a second reason is given the intention to provide a suitable equipment, as mentioned in Basile. Thus this form of the marchen, even in details, is older than the sixteenth century. Mr. Lang observes, as a curious fact, that the fountain incident occurs in the Malagasy tale mentioned below ; but this is an error ; the whole section of the forgotten bride appears in European versions only. Yet compare the ending of Samoan and Eskimo tales, hereafter noted. 1 J. F. Campbell, Fop. Tales of the West Highlands, No. 2, i. Introduc- tion. — A raven, helped by a prince against a snake, carries the latter in the air, and sends him to the raven's sister ; so on the second day ; on the third day he meets the prince in human form, gives him a bundle, and sends him back on the same journey. The bundle contains a castle ; this the prince opens in the wrong place ; a giant, on promise of first son, helps him to repack the bundle. Finally, he opens the bundle, and in the castle finds a wife. After seven years, the giant comes to get the promised son ; unsuccessful attempt to substitute cook's son, etc. The giant carries off the king's son, and takes him into service. 11. Bride-winning. — During the absence of the giant, the hero meets the maiden, who tells him that on the morrow he must choose her from among her sisters. Then follow tasks (cleansing stable, thatching byre, stealing egg). Flight (apple cut in order to speak for the fugitives; throwing of twig, stone, and water), ra. Bride- for getting. — A greyhound kisses the hero, who is cast into sleep. Incident of the foantain. Shoemaker goes to well, finds the girl, and carries her home. Gentlemen who wish to marry the heroine, pay money for that purpose, and are enchanted. A E 2 52 Folk-tale Section. suppose the Gaelic story to have reached the Highlands as a translation of the English tale, at some time not earlier than the thirteenth century. It is to be presumed that the Celtic popu- lations of Great Britain obtained most of their stories belonging to the modern European stock of marchen through the English. It must be remarked that the character of the Gaelic narrative, especially of the preface, is peculiarly wild, and, if it stood alone, would be accounted especially Celtic. This circumstance, however, is by no means inconsistent with the view above taken ; it is only with regard to the language, and to the details, that a national quality can be claimed for iniirchen. This apparent nationality merely indicates that ideas borrowed from abroad have received a dress such as to suit the taste of the race which has adopted them. The rule often accepted as a canon of interpretation, in regard to medieval literature as well as modern folk-lore, that the rudest form of a story is probably the oldest, is entirely misleading and indefensible. It is possible that an indication of the presence of our tale in Wales, in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, is to be found in the well-known Welsh story of " Kilhwch and Olwen" (MS. of about 1380). This story is one of a class in which the hero, by per- wedding of the king's son, the girl takes a gold and silver pigeon, which perform a drama, representing herself and her lover. Awakening of the latter. Compare a Russian tale, "Afanasief," v. 23, translated by W. R. S. Ralston Russian Folk-tales, London, 1873, p. 120. " Vasilissa the Wise." A king spares and nourishes an eaglet, and finally sets him free. The eagle takes the king on his back to the houses of his sisters, on three successive nights, gives him a ship to sail home, and two coffers. The king opens one, finds it full of cattle, repents, but cannot put them back. A man from the water consents to do so if the king will promise whatever he has at home that he does not know of. Comes home, finds that he has a son, and opens the coffers of treasure. The water-man, after a period, calls on the king, reminds him of his promise, and the son is sent forth. 11. Bird-maiden. — The prince comes to the hut of an ogress, who directs him to the sea-shore, charging him to steal the shift of one of twelve bird-maidens (spoonbills), to come to terms with her, and then go to the sea- king. This maid is Vasilissa the Wise. He returns her shift, and she rejoins her companions. 111. Bride-winning. — T^^Vf, (to build crystal bridge, plant a garden in a night, choose bride from twelve daughters. The girl gives him knowledge of a signal by which this is accomplished). Flight and pursui' ; transformation (forms assumed by the girl : a well, a church, a river of honey, in which the water-king drinks himself to death), iv. Bride-forgetting. — Prohibition to kiss, fountain-scene, doves — these baked in a pie (as in Basile, No. 17). Newell.— z:«rfj/ Featherflight. 53 forming certain tasks, wins for his wife the daughter of a giant. It is not to be supposed that all tales of this class belong to the particular one now under consideration ; but, in the present instance, there are certain incidents which seem to suppose the knowledge, on the part of the recorder of the tale, of a folk-tale answering to our marcheti. I should be inclined to suppose that the writer, who does not appear to me to have composed at a time much earlier than the date of the MS., was acquainted with the story of the bird-maiden, then in circulation in Wales, in a form much the same as that which it now possesses, and that he employed this and other niiirchen for the composition of his work, which, in its present form, is not a popular tale, but a literary product.^ An example of the use of our folk-tale in literature is to be found in the drama of the German playwright, Jacob Ayrer (died in 1605), Comedia von der schonen Sidea. The plot is as follows : Ludolf, prince of Littau, having been defeated and driven from his kingdom by Leudegast, prince of Wittau, in order to avenge himself becomes a magician, and entertains a familiar spirit, Runcifal. The son of his enemy, Engelbrecht, goes to hunt in the forest, and falls into the power of Ludolf, who has been informed by Runcifal of the approach of the youth. Ludolf, by means of his magic art, masters Engelbrecht, and makes a servant of him, committing him to the charge of his daughter Sidea, for whom the captive is to carry wood. Sidea, however, falls in love with the prince, and elopes with him. In this account may be recognised the bride-winning section of our tale ; the giant has been altered into a magician, and the tasks modified into a mere servile obligation ; the flight has been reduced to a commonplace elopement. If, however, there were any doubt as to the connection of the tale and the drama, it would be removed by the succeeding part of the story, which ^ Guest, Mabinogion, iii, Z49. The hero is directed by a woman how to find Olwen, who is in the habit of washing at the house of the former. The chief tasks — of sowing in an unploughed field, and of collecting seeds — -correspond to those of our marcheii ; one lame ant brings in the last seed at night. So in a Bohemian tale of the cycle, A. H. Wratislaw, Sixty Folk-tales jrom exclusively Slavonic Sources, Tale 50, 1889. The Welsh writer exhibits some confusion, which shows the Bohemian account to be more primitive. 54 Folk-tale Section. from the third act follows closely the last portion of the folk-tale, including the scene at the well. The Tempest of Shakespeare is connected with Ayrer's drama, in what way is not clear. The Tempest is founded on the earlier part of the tale as given by Ayrer ; it corresponds, therefore, to the bride-winning section of the mdrchen. It is true that the resemblance is remote ; nevertheless it is sufficient to show that the ground-idea of The Tempest is ultimately derived from the folk-tale. Closely related to the European miirchen, already mentioned, is a story contained in the collection of Somadeva of Kashmir (about 1080 A.D.). This story seems to be a hterary recension of the folk-tale ; it does not contain the final section of the European variants, that in which the hero is represented as forgetting his bride. It does not appear that the written narrative has had any influence on the European variants ; the close correspondence has arisen from a common oral tradition,' 1 The tale ot Somadeva includes the following incidents : i. A prince pierces with a golden arrow a Rakshasa or cannibal giant, who has taken the form of a crane. He is sent to seek the arrow, and follows the drops of blood to a city in the forest, n. Sitting down at the foot of a tree, in order to rest, a maid approaches, who tells him the name of the city, and who becomes amorous of him ; this maid is the giant's daughter. 01. The prince proceeds to the city, where the girl requests her father to marry her to the youth. The giant requires the stranger to choose out the maiden from among her hundred sisters ; this he is enabled to do by the aid of a signal which she has previously arranged. The first task imposed on him is to sow grain in an unploughed field, and afterwards to collect it again ; this is per- formed by the aid of ants, created by the girl. The next task is to invite to the wedding the giant's brother; the latter pursues the prince, but is repulsed by obstacles created by throwing out magical objects given him by the princess (earth, water, thorns, fire). The giant, concluding tliat the youth is a god, gives him his daughter in marriage : the latter advises flight. When tiie couple are pursued, she transforms herself into a woodcutter, who tells the silly giant that he is preparing to perform funeral ceremonies for the King of the Rakshasas. The latter goes home to find out whether he is dead or not ; the transformation is repeated, and the lovers escape. ( Kathd Sarit Sdgara, translation of C. H. Tawney, Calcutta, 1880,1,355.) That the bird-maiden incident, suppressed in Somadeva, formed part of the folk-tale which he (or his source) used, is rendered probable, not only by its presence in the European variants of the story, but also by a modem folk-tale ot Kashmir, given by F. T. Knowles, Folk-tales of Kashmir, London, 1888, p. 211. A prince, who is practising archery, shoots a merchant's wife, and is banished by the king his father. Proceeding into the forest, he sees reflected in a lake an Newell.— Lady Featherflight. 55 As the concluding part of our tale, relating to forgetfulness of the bride, is not found in Asiatic versions, it would seem likely that this last section was added in Europe; these variants, existing in all European countries, must have depended on the narration of a single story-teller, who constructed his tale by adding a new section to an Oriental story. The similarity of these versions would indicate that this narrator lived in a time comparatively recent ; the probability is that he belonged to Central Europe, and to one of the most civilised nations. To the absence in Oriental versions of the last part of the European stories there is one very curious exception, namely, in a ballad of Samoa, which contains all the sections of the tale, in- cluding that of bride-forgetfulness. The conclusion seems to be that this ballad must have been inspired by a tale recently imported from Europe, yet the story is highly characteristic in form and scenery. If this be the explanation of the corre- spondence, the fact is highly instructive, as indicating the ease with which a primitive people may appropriate ideas from civilised visitors, and transform these into forms which would be taken to be of indigenous origin, unless the contrary could be ascertained otherwise than by internal evidence.^ image of a fairy, who informs him that she is a princess of the City of Ivory. He proceeds thither, and obtains the princess for his wife. The tale, though altered and modernised, seems to depend on the same mdrchen used by Somadeva. It is curious that the tale of the latter contains both forms of the flight, the casting out of magic objects, and the transformation. Some European versions have one, some the other. The work of Somadeva, in general, is a translation from the Brat-kathd oi Gunadhya, composed about the time of our era. I cannot say whether the particular tale belonged to the latter collection. There is an independent translation, of the eleventh century, by Kshemendra. See S. Le'vi, Journal A siatique, 8th Ser., vi, 1885, 417 ; C. R. Lanman, Sanscrit ReaderyBoston, 1888, p. 322. For the date of Somadeva, G. Biihler, Vienna Acad. Sitzungsberichte, vol. ex, 1885, 545. 1 G. Turner, Samoa a Hundred Years Ago, London, 1884, story of Siati and his Wife, p. 102. The ballad, unfortunately, is only given in abbreviated form, i. A god promises his daughter in marriage to whoever will conquer him in singing ; Siati does so, and sets out for the land of the god, riding on a shark, in order to get the maiden. [This section seems to correspond to the gaming incident, which begins many of the European tales, and the shark perhaps answers to the eagle in the story of Old Grey Norris, above.] n. Puapae, that is, White Fish, has been bathing with her companions ; she returns to seek a comb which she has forgotten, and meets Siati. [This seems to be a modification of the dress-stealing 56 Folk-tale Sectiun. A propos of this Samoan story, it may be remarked that, when the same folk-tale is found to exist among civihsed and un- civilised races, the derivation must in most cases be presumed to be from the former to the latter. Why this should be the case is obvious : in a form of a legend current in a primitive tribe there is always something barbarous, which repels educated taste, and makes borrowing difficult ; while, on the contrary, it is easy for the ruder people to adapt the clearer and simpler narrative of their intellectual superiors. Add to this, that the cultivated people are at the centre of communication, while the barbarous races are at the extremities of the spokes ; it would obviously be difficult for trait.] She directs him to her father's house, with certain warnings, m, Siati goes to the dwelling of the god, observing the instructions given him. A task is imposed on him, to build a house in one day. This is done by the arts of the girl. Second task, to fight with a dog ; third, to seek a ring, which is fished out of the sea by the maiden, after she has been cut to pieces. Then follow the flight, as usual (throwing out of comb, earth,v water), iv. Puapae gives Siati leave to visit his family and friends ; he does so, and forgets his wife. When he is to marry again she comes and stands on the other side j and when the chief asks the youth which is his bride, and he indicates the other, she cries that he has forgotten all she had done for him, and departs. Siati recollects, darts after her, and expires. The incident of the ring is exactly paralleled in many European tales of the cycle. (See Cosquin's notes.) Thus, in the Basque variant before cited, the hero is required to recover a ring from the river ; the heroine causes him to cut her in pieces, and throw these into the water ; her little finger is lost in the process, on which she recommends flight. Originally, it seems to have been by the loss of this finger that the hero is enabled to recognise his disguised love, such recognition being the final task imposed. The other form of the task is that in which the youth is required to procure an egg from a nest in a high tree, and is allowed to use the fingers of his love as steps, losing one in the same way. It does not appear which is the oldest form of the task ; but the Samoan form seems obviously abridged and confused. When tlie girl warns her lover to eat nothing which her father offers him, and not to sit on a high seat, the reason is the humility proper to mortals dealing with a god. In the French tale (E. Cosquin), the hero is to refuse the dish ofTered, and select a different chair from that proposed. The original idea is probably that indicated in Apuleius, where Psyche is cautioned, while in the presence of Proserpina, not to choose a soft seat, but to sit on the ground, and to eat only a piece of common bread ; the motive appearing to be, to avoid identifying himself with the retinue of the mistress of Hades. In the Malagasy tale, mentioned below, Ibonia is warned not to advance as required by his fatlier-in-law, and not to eat from the plate of the latter. The reason appears to be the inability of mortals to endure the brightness of a god, and share the food of the latter. Newell. — Lady Featherflight. 57 the latter to lend to each other. These a priori probabilities are confirmed by an examination of details ; corresponding versions, as in the present story, cannot possibly be explained as a borrowing of savage races from each other, while they are easily interpreted as adaptations of relations received through the civilised peoples. I believe that it will be found, in general, that the diffusion of folk- tales answers to that of literature, and that the nation which in any age acts as a centre of literary illumination will also be the centre of diffusion of folk-lore. The same fashion which causes acceptance of the former makes the latter also received. It goes without saying that there will be exceptions in individual cases. All the variants hitherto considered agree in this point, that the hero, immediately after his encounter with the maid in bird- dress, proceeding on his way, comes to the house of her father, and is set to perform the task required. But there is another class of versions, to which belong most of the Oriental narratives, in which the history proceeds differently. These are literary recensions of a folk-tale, in which the youth, retaining the feather- garment of the fairy, makes her his wife, and carries her home. They live together, until, during his absence, she secures posses- sion of her robe and escapes, leaving directions for him to follow. So ends the first part of the history. In the second section of the tale he is represented as engaging in a quest, asking of all animals the whereabouts of his beloved ; at last he reaches the heavenly world in which she abides, is coldly received by her relatives, and the tasks and escape follow as related. The character of the tale indicates it as the older form of the narration, from which all the variants of the first class have been derived. The story may then be called "The Bird-Wife": i. Her acquisition and loss ; 11. Quest and recovery. This older form of the story, in literature of an origin ulti- mately Hindu, is represented by the following versions : i. A narrative of Buddhist character, contained in the great Thibetian collection of the Kandjur, of uncertain date. 11. A Burmese drama, depending ultimately on the same source, as shown by identity of proper names as well as of theme, in. Two long tales, included in the Thousand and One Nights, iv. Certain modern Hindu folk-tales, all exhibiting alteration and recon- struction. From these, and from versions in other Oriental coun- 58 Folk-tale Section. tries, it appears clear that there must have existed, probably before our era, a Hindu folk-tale of great length, in which the several sections of the tale were fully and clearly narrated. I will add, that this early Hindu tale appears to me to be indicated as the source from which all the variants of the 77tdrchen, of both types, in Asia and in Europe, have descended.^ ^ 1. Memoires de V Acad. Impir. des Sciences de St. PMersbourg, 7 Ser., xix, No. 6, 1873, A. Schiefner, Awarisrhe Texte, xxvi-xlv. A hunter, by advice of a hermit, in a lake in the forest captures Manohara, a princess whose power of flight resides in her head-jewel. She is bestowed in marriage on the prince. Com- pelled to go to the wars, he leaves her in charge of his mother ; being in danger of being sacrificed, she obtains the jewel, and takes flight. On her way she visits the hermit, and leaves her ring, with directions for her lover. The latter returning, sets out in quest, asks all animals, and finally comes to the hermit, of whom he gets the ring, with advice and magic apparatus. After a long and dangerous journey through the wilderness, he comes to Manohara's city, and places the ring in the water in which she washes. At her intercession he is received by the father, being required to prove his princely qualities by tests (cutting down trees with his sword, shooting an arrow), and is allowed to return, 2. The Burmese drama is only imperfectly translated in the Jour, oj the Asiatic Soc. of Bengal, viii, 1839, 536. The name here is Manahurr}'. After performing the task of taming wild horses, etc., the prince is compelled to distinguish the little finger of the maid from those ol the other princesses. [This seems connected with the trait in European tales, in which the princess loses her little finger in the last task.] The king of the flies assists him. The drama is interesting, and deserves to be more fully given. 3. The story of Janshah, Lady Burton's ed. of Arabian Nights, iii, 1886, 401. A prince, hiding under a tree near a fountain, gets possession of the feather-robe of one of three bird-maidens \oi green colour ; the hue of the dress and number ol the fairies are the same in the French tale of E. Cosquin]. He takes her home, but she smells out her garment, and flies away, leaving him to seek her at the Castle of Jewels. The prince now proceeds on his quest, and inquires of the birds and beasts, and is carried on bird-back to the hermit, bef'^'^e whom appear all animals. One belated bird only knows of the Castle of Jewels, and carries the hero to a place from which he sees its distant glory. The end of the tale is abbreviated. [The incident of the delayed bird has found its way into several European versions of the tale.] The other tale is the story of Hasan of El Basrah, E. W. Lane, Arabian Nights Entertainments, London, 1865, iii, 352. This version contains a modified reminiscence of the flight. The hero accomplishes his undertaking by aid of a magic wand and a cap of invisibility, which he gets from two youths who quarrel. [This trait is found in several European tales of the family.] 4. Modern Hindu tales : (d), Indian Antiquary, 1875, 10. The daughters 01 the Sun, who live in heaven, descend to bathe. Toria gets the shirt of one ; among the tasks is to dig a tank (see Malagasy tale). She visits her father's house, and Newelu— Lady Featherflight. 59 In attempting to trace a folk-tale, little attention should be paid to analogies. It is necessary that the several incidents should occur in their order, or at least in a form which indicates an original having the proper arrangement of sections and traits. In such cases, it is obvious that the theory of separate origination can have no application. The discussion is not concerning tale- ^^ments, which may be common to many countries, but concerning a complicated narration, as unlikely to have been independently invented as a modern novel and its foreign translations. Applying this test, we find our tale, as a whole, among others in Celebes and in Madagascar, in such a form that ultimate derivation from the Hindu story already examined can scarcely be questioned.^ warns him not to follow. The end is obscured. Mention is made of the habits of Rakshasa to travel through the air. This explains why in European versions the appearance of the pursuer is so often compared to that of a cloud, (b") Stokes, Indian Fairy-tales, p. 6. [I have not seen this tale.] The story of Janshah has found its way to Zanzibar, where it is orally current (E. Steere, Swahili Tales, London, 1870, p. 333), and also to South Siberia; see notes of Cosquin. 1 The Celebes tale in Z. f. d. Morgenlandische Gesellschaft, vi, 1852. Utahagi, with other nymphs, descends from heaven in order to bathe in a fountain. The hero obtains her robe, and carries her home ; in consequence of his disobedience, she departs. He sets out in quest, reaches heaven by climbing a thorn-tree, and, by the assistance of animals, finds the house. Her brother, a demi-god, obliges him to make choice among nine caskets, one of which is indicated by a i^y [the caskets are a substitute for the sisters in the Hindu tale, where the fly plays a like part]. Eventually he becomes a god, but sends down from heaven his son, from whom the Bantiks descend. For the Malagasy story of Ibonia see Folk-lore Journal, i, 1883, 202. The hero, being directed by a diviner to capture a maid in a lake, succeeds, after repeated failure, by transforming himself into an ant, and carries the girl home. During his absence, his wife is left in charge of his parents, who contrive her death by inducing her to drink rum, which is fatal to her as a spirit, and which she has stipulated shall not be offered her. On his return, she is disinterred, and comes to life, but returns to heaven, warning him against the danger of following her. He makes friends with birds and beasts, and with his other wife : goes to the sky, where he is severely received by his father-in-law. Follow the tasks (cutting down trees, bringing spades from lake), which he performs by aid of the animals. Then the selection, accomplished by the aid of the king of the flies. [But this trial is confused ; he is required to tell the mother from the daughters, and also which are the mothers among many cattle ] The tale ends happily, the flight being eliminated. Other and longer versions are given by H. Dahle, Specimens of Malagasy Folk-lore, Antananarivo, 1 887, unluckily without translation. Dahle observes that the tale of Ibonia has a suspiciously Oriental colour, and that the proper name has no etymology in the Malagasy (p. 3). 6o Folk-tale Section. There may be some doubt as to whether a New Zealand myth of a kindred character is to be considered as an off-shoot from the folk-tale of the Bird-wife ; but that it is so seems to be indicated by its resemblance to the tale of Celebes, already mentioned.! There are several tales from the New World, which, though much modified, seem probably of the same origin ; yet this con- clusion cannot be regarded as certain, nor is it clear whether the tales are to be supposed to have reached American aborigines from Europe or Asia.^ The first section of our tale, that which recites how a bird- maiden is captured, and ultimately recovers her feather-robe and returns to her own heavenly country, is widely diffused as a separate narration. It is not to be assumed that all these stories are derived from our longer tale by the suppression of the second portion ; on the contrary, many of them seem to be independent, and to give only one of the elements out of which the later mdrchen has been formed. In some cases, however, it would ^ G. Grey, Polynesian Mythology, London, 185J, pp. 59-80. Tawhaki (a mythological character whose prayers cause a deluge) is visited by a maid from heaven, who becomes offended with him, and departs. He searches for her, comes to the house of a blind ancestress, and gets directions as to his route ; he climbs by the tendrils of a vine, and reaches the dwelling of his wife. 2 (a) A>fe;w, H. Rink, Tales of the EsAi'mo, trans. R. Brown, Edinb., 1885, p. 1 54. A man seizes the robes of a bird-maiden, and takes her home ; children are born, on whom she places wings, and they fly away, the mother at last doing the same during the absence of her husband. The man returns, and is sad ; he obtains directions from an old man, and, sitting on the tail of a salmon, is carried to a shore inhabited only by women. A woman with a pug-nose presses him to marry her ; the man endeavours to recover his wife, but the women are transformed into gulls, he into a duck, [This introduction of the ugly rival of the heroine seems very much like a reminiscence of a form of the European tale.] (b) Algonkin Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, N. Y., 1839. "The Celestial Sisters," i, 67, a Shawnee tale. Maidens from sky descend to the earth in a basket ; the hero, taking various forms (compare Malagasy tale), succeeds in seizing one. A son is born, who makes a basket, and goes to heaven, together with the wife. The hero, proceeding in quest of the latter, comes to heaven, and is allowed his choice of gifts. He selects a white hawk's feather, which takes him and his wife to earth. Another tale, " Nishosha," ii, 91, opens curiously like that of Somadeva. The hero, going to seek an arrow, comes to the house of a magician. The daughter of the latter takes pity on him. He is sent to gather gulls' eggs, and deserted on a desert island, but finally induces the heroine to become his wife. Newell.— /:«^ Featherflight. 6i seem likely that such a suppression of the latter part of the story has taken place.' Returning to European versions, it is to be remarked that the older form of the folk-tale, that in which the heroine is carried home and afterwards returns to her native heaven, is also repre- sented in Europe ; while some versions exhibiting the modified form of the morchen — to which, for example, "Lady Featherflight" belongs — appear also to have incorporated incidents properly belonging to the more ancient type. Such intermixture, in which a later variant takes up some features of an earlier form of the story, might be expected as a natural consequence of the com- plications arising from continual diffusion and alteration.^ If all the versions belonging to our folk-tale in its different types, and all the confused and modernised forms founded upon it were enumerated, the number of variants would run up to many hundreds, and would be found to form no inconsiderable part of the whole volume of modern mdrchen in Europe.^ It remains to be inquired whether anything can be affirmed respecting the date and method of composition of the Hindu tale, which appears to have obtained so wide a circulation. An early example of a story of bride-winning, having many analogies to that now considered, is supplied by the tale of Medea and Jason. The hero journeys to a far country, probably origin- ally conceived as a giant-land beyond the limits of the world of ^ For example, in the Persian tale contained in the Bakar-Danush, and in Chinese and .Samoyede tales, mentioned by Cosquin, our mdrchen seems to be at the basis, an elision of a section having taken place ; on the other hand, in the Nibelungenlied and the Edda, where swan-maidens are mentioned, it is perhaps only a tale-element which is in question. 2 AEuropean variant is the Polish tale given byToppen,/4<^fr^/aM^i??z aus Masuren p. 140. The heroine departs, giving the hero directions as to the land in which he is to seek her, in which it is always summer. Other examples could be quoted. In many cases, where the tale is of the usual European type, the inci- dents of the quest, of the inquiry of birds and beasts, and riding to a remote land on the back of a bird, are introduced ; these seem to properly belong to the older story, in which the heroine departs and has to be sought, and to have been engrafted on the later tales; so in the early portion of the Gaelic and Russian tales above mentioned. s In the work of Wratislaw cited, seven tales out of the sixty ultimately belong to our marchen ; in the Folk-tales of the Magyars (Jones and Kropf I.ond., 1889) I reckon the same number, making about one-sixth of the material. 62 Folk-tale Section. men ; the daughter of his host falls in love with him, and assists him in the accomplishment of tasks closely resembling those of our folk-tale. The adventure ends in a flight, in which the heroine uses a device to delay her pursuing father. The relationship with the first part of the tale of the Bird-wife is unquestionable, and cannot be accidental ; but the first section is wanting ; Medea does not appear to have been a bird-maiden, nor do we learn that Jason had made her acquaintance before his journey. If the complete story, containing both sections, had existed in Greece, it is very unlikely that there should be no indication of it. A\'e cannot, therefore, regard this tale as a variant of the story of the Bird-wife ; on the contrary, we must consider it as an earlier tale, and as containing evidence of the existence, in Greece, at a time before authentic history, of elements which, at a later date and in another land, entered into the composition of our folk-tale. On the other hand, the first part of the history is contained in the Hindu legend of Puriiruvas and Urvagi, referred to in a well- known hymn of the Rig Veda. This hymn describes the inter- view of the hero with the nymph, by whom he has been deserted, at a lake where she and her companions are bathing in bird-form. The fairy remains obdurate to all entreaties of the mortal ; but she consoles him with the promise of a son, who shall one day seek out his human parent. It would appear, from the text of the hymn, that Urva9i had originally been won by being seized, as a swan-maiden who had laid aside her robe of flight, presum- ably in the same lake at which the scene is laid. The poem accordingly depends upon a folk-tale, answering to the first section of our mcirchen, but suggesting the non-existence at the time of composition of the second section, that in which the nymph is sought for and recovered from her own heavenly abode. The marchen must therefore be later than the hymn.^ Somewhat different from the preceding is the tale of Amor and Psyche, as given by Apuleius. This narrative is a literary recen- sion, altered and confused to such a degree that it is now impossible 1 See the translation of this hymn by K. F. Geldner, in Pischel and Geldner's Vedische Studien, Stuttgart, 1889, p. 253 f. Geldner gives also the later prose tales. These approach the form of our marchen.^ representing the hero as making a journey to the land of the Gandharvas ; he is also related to have recovered Urva^i. Newell. — Lady Featherflight. 63 to determine the exact nature of the folk-tale on which it de- pended. It is nevertheless clear that this marcheft used by Apuleius contained two sections, the first part reciting the manner in which a mortal maiden obtains and loses a divine husband ; the second part relating her quest, her arrival at his heavenly home, severe reception at the hands of his relatives, and per- formance of the tasks imposed. The .end is obviously altered : Mercury, appearing as deus ex machina, conveys the heroine to heaven. Perhaps, in the original tale, the history closed with a flight. It would appear that the tale, therefore, belongs to the same type as that of the mdrchen we are examining ; the chief difference is in the sex of the actors. As the classic tale has neither internal consistency, nor root in Greek mythology, it may probably have been borrowed from the Orient, its source being a tale of the same class as that of the Bird-wife. At all events, by its contrast to the earlier heroic literature, the tale of Psyche strengthens the argument for the later date of such marchen, while, on the other hand, it carries back the currency of this class of stories to a reasonably early period. It seems pretty safe, therefore, to conclude that the Hindu tale of the Bird-wife, while perhaps older than our era, was by no means of primitive antiquity. It is only in Hindu mythology that the idea at the basis of our tale is represented in a clear and simple form. This mythology presents us with a race of female beings of divine nature, who appear on earth as water-birds, and have at the same time their proper dwelling in heaven. These beings (Apsaras) are connected with the principle of water ; as such, they have the power to bestow fertility, and are the objects of worship. In accordance with their nature they are amorous, and disposed to union with mortals, regulated solely by inclination ; but, as themselves immortal, they are averse to such continued union as may affect their celestial rights. Their power of flight lies in their bird-form, the loss of which compels them to remain among mankind, a resi- dence which they accept with reluctance, and a desire to escape at the first opportunity from the dearest ties. In connection with this mythology our tale seems clear and simple ; in other parts of the world it appears as a narrative subject to obscurity, and not in close connection with national 64 Folk- tale Section. ideas. The kind reception given to the tale, and its wide diffu- sion through the whole world, seem to have been due solely to its power to agreeably impress the fancy of the listener. In this discussion no attention has been paid to explanation of the elements out of which the tale was composed, such as the tasks and flight. These incidents occur also in other tales ; they are not derived from the present story, but existed before the latter was constructed and entered into its composition. Of these elements some are perhaps derived from primitive belief, others from primitive custom ; but whether they are expUcable by one or the other has no relation to the diffusion of the tale, for reciters and hearers of the latter received these incidents as parts of a complicated whole, having no direct relation to tribal ideas and customs, though naturally and inevitably so altered as to present certain features characteristic of each community in which the story was told. The origin and history of a folk-tale common to many countries, such as the one which has been the subject of discussion, may be figuratively represented by the illustration of a species of vegetable which has originated in an early civilisation at a time so remote that from the first moment of its discernible history it possesses a cultivated character. This vegetable, again, under the influence of civilisation, is differentiated into new varieties, arising in different localities, each one of which, on account of advantages which it appears to offer, may in its turn be introduced into distant regions, and even supersede the original out of which it was developed, this dissemination following the routes of com- merce, and ordinarily proceeding from the more highly organised countries to those inferior in the scale of culture. \Owing to the necessity of the case, the author of this article has not been able to revise the proof, and tlierefore requests indulgence for any errors which may in consequence appear in the text.^ Newell.— Z«6 ; Km. 385 Partition of pay among beasts. Kg. 212; C. i, 170-2; ii, 130 Passers-by judges, G. ii, 391, 575; Kj. V, 6-7, 146; Kk. 359; C. i, 93, n., 1 70- 1 Patches, G. i, 453 Paunch cut, Kj. vii, 16; Kg. 231; C.ii, 51 Paws in vice, G. i, 402; C. i, 30-1 Pea for hen, hen for pig, etc., Cr. 373; C.ii, 205 Pearls from mouth, C. ii, 119; Lg. 225 [cf. T. 426] Peepo ! bride wager, Ka. 272 Pet animal denies it has eaten, C.ii, 116 Pilgrim from Paradise, C. i, 239; Cln. 205, 214-8 Pixy cobblers, G. i, 389; C. i, 84-5 Pledge left, G. ii, 405 Polyphemus, Ko. 122; Cr. 3453' Pot without fire sell, Cr. 305; C. i, III; ii, 136 Pound of flesh, Ko. 315-6 Prickly barrel punishment, G. i, 354 Princess brought through air, C. ii, 6, 84 Princess cured, Kj. vii, 6, 1 1 Princess guarded by dragon, C. i, 13, '2- Princess with golden hair, C. ii, 302 Prisoner of giant, C. ii, 13; R. 132 Promised before birth to demon, G.i,4i3; ",392; K0.115; Kj.vii, 145, 262; vii, 256; Kk. 362; Kg. 236; R. 132; C. i, 139-41, 164, 171-2, 269; ii, 13, 16, 232, 316; J. K. 384 Prophetic child. Kg. 222 Jacobs. — Science of Folk-tales. 95 Proud princess, G. i, 406; Kg. 216-7; C. ii, 100 Punishment evaded, G. i, 351 Punishment transferred, Cr. 291 Puppet in bed, Kg. 227 Puppets, R. 159-60 Puppies substituted for babes, C. i, 191 [cf. T. 397] Pursuer transformed, G. i, 414; Ko. 117; Kk. 362; Kg. 213,215; J. K. 398; C. i, 155-6; ii, 12, 26 Puss in boots, Ko. 686; Kg. 242-5; Ka. 286 Queen by spinning, G. i, 355, 413; C. i, 269; J. K. 330 Question task, Kj. v, 4 Quest test for heroship, C. i, 213, 265; ii, 235; Ch. i, 125 Quack doctor, Cln. 163 Quilt stealing, Kj. iii, 137 Rain of figs, Kj. viii, 266; Cr. 380 Rat's tail up nose, C. i Recognition by jewels, C. i, 220, «.; Lp. Ixxxix [cf. T. 414] Recognition by story telling. Kg. 222 Recognition of heroine among others. Kg. 246; R. 132; C. ii, 25; A. R. i, 28 Redcap, C. ii, 265 Reference tabu, Kj. vii, 146 Refusal to confess theft, G. i, 441; Kg. 218; C. i, 286-7; ii, 61 Refusal of grateful animal to in- jure benefactor, C. ii, 241 Rejuvenation, Kj. vii, 29; Kg. 248 Rescue of princess from giant, C. i, i72[cf T.417] Resuscitation, Kj. vii, 152; Kg. 222, 259; C. i, 287; ii, 345; Km. cv; Lp. Ixii; J. K. 341, 386 Resuscitation by sacrifice of child, G. i, 350, 375 [cf- T. 402] Revelation tabu, G. i, 350 [cf. T. 402] Rhampsinitus, Ko. 305 Riddle bride wager, G. i, 406; ii, 394 ; Ko. 320; Kg. 218; R. 247; Cr. 343; Ch. i, 415-9; ii, S'Q; C. ii, 113 Riddle bride wager reversed, Cr. 343 Riddle husband wager, Ch. i,8-io, 485; ii, 495 Riddle ^posers, G. ii, 448 Riddle posers, Ch. i, 405-10; ii, 505; Kj. V, 6-8 Riddles, G. ii, 449 Riddles guessed, G. ii, 414; Ko. 689; C. ii, 136; Cr. 378 Riddle task, Kj. vii, 273; Kg. 215 Riddling replies. Km. 275-6; Cr. 382 Ring in cup recognition, Ch.i,202, 502 Ring of recognition, Cr. 337'?; C. i, 277 [cf. T. 416] Ring stealing trick, Ka. 284 Rip van Winkle, G. i, 405 ; R. 306 Riverside waif, Kj. vii, 147 [cf. Outcast Child] Roast wheat sown, Cln. 120 Robber's tongue cut, C. i, 244-5 Robber wooer, G. i, 389, 395; C. i, 1 80- 1 Rob giant of three things task, C. i, 46-7 Sale of bed, Kb. 145; Ch. i, 391 Sale to animals, G. i, 351; Cln. 148 Sale to statue, Kj. v, 20; Cr. 379'^; C. ii, 178; Cln. 146 Scissors, R. 37; Cr. 378 96 Folk-tale Section. Scarecrow, Kg. 208 Scratching match with devil, G. ii, 463 Seeing tabu, Kg. 214,215; Lcp. xli-ix; Lg. Ixxiv Self-judgment, Kg. 209, 210, 212; C. i, 216 Serpent, man and fox {Inside again). Kg. 247; Ka. 279 Serpents, A. R. i, 166 Sesame, G. ii Seven brothers. Kg. 232 Seven veil beauty, Kg. 242 Sex test, Kg. 216 "Shall I enjoy the lamb?" Kg. 222 Sham resuscitation, Cr. 305 Sharing sorrow, G. ii, 455 Shining feather, C. ii, 296 Shoes of swiftness, Kk. 359 Shut door for enemy. Km. 214 Sick prince and secret remedy, Cr. 3257 Sieve pail, Cln. 200 Sight restored, G. ii, 409 [cf. T. 417] Silent couple, Cln. 107-17, 184 Silly son, Cln. c. v Singing bone, G. i, 376-7; Kg. 235; C. i, 266; Ch. i, 125, 493; iii, 499 Sitting on eggs, G. i, 382 ; Cr. 38018 .Sleep bride wager, Kg. 239; Ch. i, 391; ii, 506 Sleeping draught, Ch. i, 307, n. Sleeping princess, Kk. 359 Sleep paper. Kg. 209 Sleep thorn and apple, Ko. 682 Slipper token, Ko. 295-6; Lp. xcix Snake spouses, R. 119 (Benf. i, 242-7, 266-7) Snow-white, blood-red. Kg. 212 [cf. Nutt on Maclnnes] Solitary tower, C. i, 9, 11; ii, 144 Solomon^ s judgment, Cr. 382 Solomon's ring, Kk. 365 Son's greatness foretold, A. R. i, 85 Soul saving task, Kj. vii, 262 Sparrow avenges dog, G. i, 457 Speaking with mouth full, Cln. 58 Stable cleansing task, Ko. 104 Star on forehead, G. ii, 398; Kg. 207; C. i, 190-1; J. K. 338-7 Steed stealing task, Ka. 284 Stickfast, G. i, 429; Ka. 289; Cr. 262 Stone-on-cord, Kg. 241; C. i, 13-14 Stones tied up, Cln. 79 Story without end, G. i, 454; ii, 465; Cr. 371-2 Strict obedience, G. i, 383, 385; Cr. 381; Cln. 51,97, 124 Strong hero, G. ii, 382; Kj. v, II; vii, 25; C. i, no and n., 268 Submarine sheep, Kj. v, 12; G. i, 423; Cr. 381" Substituted animal's heart, C. ii, 324 Suckled for years, C. i, 18, n. Swan maidens, G. ii, 432 ; Kg. 207; Kb. 149; S. 242, 276; J. K. 363-5 Sweat power, Kg. 242 Table covered, Kj. v, 21 Tail down, G. ii, 404 Tail in barrel hole, Ka. 276 Tailor in heaven, G. i, 386 Tails planted, Kj. viii, 252; Km. 474; C. ii, 50; Cr. 380 Take care of door, Cln. 97 Take what you like best, Cr. 382^7 Talking bird. Km. 213 Talking animals reveal secret, C. i, 89; J. K. 322-3[cf.T.4i2] Jacobs. — Science of Folk-tales. 97 Taming of shrew, Kg. 216-7; C. ii, 100 Tap out, G. i, 418 Tarred and feathered, G. i, 383 Task of building castle, C. ii, 2 5 Task of cutting fruit, C. ii, 24 Tasks, G. ii, 414; Kg. 212; R. 132, 148-9; C. ii, no, 268, 309; J. K. 379, 389, 390,398, 415 [cf- T. 421, 43°] Tasks set heroine, C. ii, 237 Teeth whetting absence. Kg. 212 Telling tabu, Ch. i, 362 Tell's shot, Ch. iii, 15-21 Tempted by devils, Kj. vii, 275; Kk. 326 Thankfiil dead, K. Germ, iii, 199- 209; Kj. V, 3; Kg. 250; Ka. 323- 9; C. i, 214-5; ii, '4 and n. Thief discovered by answer, C. i, 317-9 Thirteen, Kj. vii, 138 "Thou hast it", Kb. 150; C. ii, m Three blows tabu, A. R.\,io<) Three brothers go seeking, Ko. 686; Kj. vii, 24; Kk. 357; C. i, 213-4; ii, 50 Three-eyed stepsister, G. ii, 429; Ko. 680; Kj. y, 21; R. 183; C.i, 251-2 Three fights in disguise, C. ii, 93 Three noodtes quest, Cln. l. vii [c£ Fool quest] Three princesses freed, Kj. vii, 24-6 Three stripes from back, Kj. viii, 250; R. 137; Km. 474 Throwing bet, Kj. v, 7 Thrown in water, C. i, 250 Thyestian dish, R. 168 Time flies in fairyland, Kj. v, 364 Toads from mouth, C. ii, 119; Lp. Ixxxiv Tom Thumb in cow, G. i, 393; C. ii, 190 Tom T. in horse's ear, G. i, 393 Tom T. in wolf C. i, 151 Tom T. sold to thieves, Kj. vii, 611 ; Cr. 372 Tongue cut proof, Kj. vii, 133; Kg. 230; Kb. 148; C. i, 78 [cf. Frazer, Gold Bough] "Top or, G. i, 341; C. ii, 159, 161; R. C. 7 Towers of steel, silver, and gold, R. 83; C. i, 13 and«.; ii, 93 Transformation into animals, C. i, 132 Treasure in statue, C. ii, 179 Treasure shown by ghosts, C. ii, 263; R. C. 3 Tree fruit only plucked by heroine, C. i, 252 Tree maiden, Kj. v, 21 ; Ch. i, 98-9 Truth or untruth bet, Kj. vii, 7 Turned into stone, Kj. vii, 134; Kg. 230; C. i, 78 (f); Kj. vii, 134 (f) [cf. T. 401] Twin brothers, Ko. 118, n.; Kj.vii, 132; Kg. 229 Underworld, Kg. 257-9; R. 80; Cr. 336; Lg. Ixxiv Unknown land, Kj. vii, 146; J. K. 375-8,406,410 Unsheathed sword in bed, Dasent cxxxiv-v; Kg. 230; J. K. 375; Ch. i, 298; ii, 127, 511 Untrue fails, Kj. vii, 6 Visit to robber wooer, Kj. 209; C. i, 184-5 Wakeful dead, Kj. vii, 282 ; Cln. 163 Water finding, Kj. vii, 1 1 Watching tree. Kg. 241 H 98 Folk-tale Section. Watching father's tomb, Kk. 359; R. 259; C. ii, 71-3; J- K. 390 [see Guarding] Water of life, G. ii, 400; Kg. 242; R. 17, n., 230-6; C. ii, 298, 302^ Water quench fire, C. i, 282-4; "> 35; Cr. 372, 3 Water of sight, Ko. 124 Water of strength, R. 237-9; J. K. 353; C. i, 13 Water of youth, C. i, 372-3 "What shall I bring back?" Kg. 208-9; C. ii, 218; Cr. 324 "What,ivader 0.\\, 0,1% When absurdities occur, Q\t\. 156 "When impossibles happen", Ch. i, 437; iii, 507 White feet sesame, G. i, 347; C. ii, 249 Whittington's cat. Kg. 251 W Iwlc forest at once boast, G. ii, 461; Kj. viii, 252 Why so dry ? Ka. 287 Widow's son, Ko. loi, 105, 117, 303 Wife killed, G. i, 453 Witches' oath, Kg. 214 Witch turned into horse, Ko. 321 Wolf and man, G. i, 435 Wolf down chimney, C. ii, 249 Wolf-ram, Kj. vii, 282 Wolf s paunch cut, Cr. 270-2; R. C. 6 Woman telling secret, C. ii, 318; Cr. 381=3 Wonder dresses demanded, Ko. 294; Kg. 229; C. 1,276 Wonderful bird, Kk. 357; Ka. 274 Wonder fruit disappears, Kj. vii, 24 Wonderful lamp, C. ii, 6, 68 Wooing by food, A. R. i, 28 Worn-out shoes, J. K. 329 Wounded bird hero. Km. Ixxxix X at a blow, G. i, 359-64; C. i, 96-7 Youngest best, G. i, 364-7, 415; Ko. 300-1, 689; Kj. vii, II, 24, 153; Kg. 206(f), 209, 2i8,2i9(f), 238, 241, 248; Ka. 283; R. 49, 80, 169,298; Km. 213; C. 1,213; ii, 123, 184; i, 190; ii,2l8; J.K. 335; Lp. xcvi-ix; Lg. Ixxv Zigzag transformation, Ch. 1,401; iii, 506 Jacobs. — Science of Folk-tales. 99 Discussion. Mr. W. F. KiRBY called the attention of the Conference to Mr. Jacobs' proposal of tabulating the incidents of folk-tales in such a way as to be able to get a whole tale in a few words for scientific purposes. It almost seemed to him that such a plan was feasible. He had never heartily approved of the present way of tabulating folk-tales, which seemed to him to involve too cumbersome and gigantic a task. The plan which Mr. Jacobs advocated seemed to him much more feasible, and the enormous material which had been collected for some years past by the folk-lore members of the Society of Antiquaries could pos- sibly be utilised much more readily for that purpose than for the tabulation of folk-tales. Mr. Alfred Nutt said that Mr. Newell's paper and Mr. Lang's remarks upon it touched subjects which must engage the attention of folk-lorists for many years to come, and which bore more or less on one or two particular folk-tales, one of which was the story dis- cussed by Mr. Newell and which Mr. Jacobs had alluded to by referring to some old remarks of his own (Mr. Nutt's) on the subject. He fully and cordially sympathised with the remarks which Mr. Lang had made on the subject of Mr. Newell's paper ; it seemed to him that the principle upon which Mr. Newell went was an entirely false one, and in so far as Mr. Jacobs countenanced that theory Mr. Jacobs also was wrong. To him it seemed certain that they must in all cases look to the root rather than the perfect flower : they must seek for the origin of these stories among the rudest and crudest, and not among the most highly perfect and most elaborate forms. If they found all over the world certain detached incidents, and in one particular case all 'the incidents put together in a story, they must seek for the origin of the incidents separately rather than in conjunction in one complete story. There- fore, it seemed to him that the anthropological school, of which their Chairman was a worthy representative, must be considered superior — in the view of history of mankind — to the school which confined its attention to a complete story, merely endeavouring to trace the origin of that story in a particular country. It seemed to him that the quest of the anthropologists was of more permanent value for the general store of human science than the other, which was only a subsidiary one. The task of the latter, although of great interest in itself, seemed to have its chief value in the hope of tracing by its means those races amongst which particular stories took their rise, and of obtaining some idea as to the special genius and character of that race; but that task was fraught H 2 100 Folk-tale Section. with immense difficulty, and could not be accomplished for a long time to come. Turning to the particular story which Mr. Newell had told them that morning, Mr. Nutt noted that the lecturer had left out of consideration that feature of the story which was most promi- nent in the greatest number of variants : the story of the flight, with regard to which he (Mr. Nutt) had endeavoured to trace some connec- tion between its incidents and the material feature of the Teutonic Hades. If any gentleman was present who had special knowledge of Teutonic mythology, he would have liked to hear some criticism on that theory. Mr. Jacobs had told them that he advocated three separate criteria, each one giving a fresh centre of diffusion for the story. He (Mr Nutt) thought that in seeking to determine the special centre of diffusion for a story which they found at all events among poeples speaking European and many non-European langTiages, they were pursuing a vain task. They could not even determine the Teutonic, Greek, or Latin share in the constitution of a story, and when it became evident that a great proportion of these stories was practically found all the world over, the task became exceedingly difficult. All they could do was to determine the origin of the ele- mentary facts of which the story was composed, and to say whether it was likely that those facts could ever have been spun out in such and such a state of society. It was comparatively unimportant to determine where they were put together in perfect form, and altogether unimportant to follow the subsequent wandering with an absolute de- gree of scientific certainty. All they could say, as their Chairman had pointed out this morning, was, that to find a home in a strange race, a story must find the soil prepared for it, as seeds could not possibly be planted on rocky ground. Supposing that at the end of the eighteenth century one of the Irish story-tellers, who perambulated the Western Highlands of Scotland, had carried Robiitson Crusoe in his pocket and told the story broadcast, he did not believe that five years afterwards a single trace of it could have been gathered there from tradition. His conclusion was this, that the stories still found traditionally in the Western Highlands must have originated in some such state of society as the folk of the district lives in to this day. It seemed to him that the most vital conclusion was this : the more they attempted to definitely fix the origin of a story at any particular period, the more they were likely to rely upon secondary and insufficient evidence. Professor John Rhys said, having come there without anyknowledge on the subject, his mind was now, after what he had heard from the Chair, from Mr. Nutt, and others, and contrasted it with what Mr. Newell and Mr. Jacobs had said, in a state of complete irresolution. He fought very hard to accept the Chairman's doctrine, but Mr. Jacobs Jacobs. — Science of Folk-tales. loi had settled that by applying the name of " Casualists" to the other side. He had not the advantage of being a Cambridge man, but he could not get over the doctrine of probabilities, which neither the Chairman nor Mr. Nutt had met. In order to get near closer quarters they ought to have a list of stories with a series of incidents — simple ones would not help them — and if they turned out to come in a certain sequence, then the doctrine of probabilities came in, and he did not see any escape from the consequences which Mr. Jacobs had been dilating upon. Mr. TCHERAZ (Armenia) said, that being a native of Turkey, he felt some difficulty in expressing himself in English. He had made Eastern folk-lore a special study, having read all the books on the subject published in Armenian. As regards the question whether the East had borrowed from the West or the West from the East, which Mr. Jacobs had touched upon, and on which also the Chairman's remarks with reference to Sicilian folk- tales had some bearing, the meeting would perhaps like to hear the opinion of an Eastern person. The argument of the Western folk-lorists was this, that the fact of a few folk-tales having distinctive characters, induced them to think that the East must have borrowed these materials. This argument, how- ever, might, with an equal show of reason, be reversed, so that there could not be much in it. For instance, the argument about the folk- tale hero speaking to doors, as mentioned by Mr. Hartland in his paper, was also found in many Armenian tales, especially in the tale of Saint Sergius, where the door was not only spoken to, but actually listened to and obeyed the hero. He regretted that this and many other folk-lore books, which were constantly published in Armenian, were absolutely unknown in Europe, and he strongly urged the Congress not to form any definite conclusion before they had heard all the witnesses in the case. Armenia was the oldest country in the world, according to Armenian tradition the Ark having been supported on top of the Mount Ararat, and the folk-lore of so old a country, he held, must be exceedingly interesting. During the eight winter months (there being neither spring nor autumn, and only four months of summer in Armenia) people spent their time telling folk-lore tales. Mr. Hartland had said this morning that it was time now to draw conclusions from the thousands of volumes they had ; but large though the number was, the Eastern part, such as Armenia, Persia, Turkey, Greece, and Russia, was not adequately represented, and, in his opinion, until the Eastern literature had been thoroughly studied, it was too early to form any conclusion. Mr. Jacobs, in reply, would content himself with a single remark in answer to Mr. Nutt. The scientific value of the anthropological I02 Folk-tale Section, evidence obtained from folk-tales was, in his opinion, of a very secondary kind. No anthropologist could accept the evidence of folk-tales as proving the existence of a folk-custom wherever the tale was spread, and if we learnt it elsewhere, what was the use of the folk-tale evidence ? THE HISTORICAL ASPECT OF FOLK-LORE. By DAVID MacRITCHIE. Although what is known as folk-lore, or popular belief, has been regarded from various points of view, from which it has been studied by many very eminent students, the importance of that phase of it which may be described as " traditional history" does not appear to me to have yet received due recognition. For, of course, folk-lore, in one of its aspects, is history ; and, conversely, every account professing to be historical, but not written immediately after the occurrence of the events chronicled, is, in a measure, folk-lore. Such accounts as those of the Gaelic " seannachies", which have been transmitted from father to son for many generations, but only recently committed to paper, are both unquestionably folk-lore, and at the same time, though with less certainty, history. And the same may be said of many other professedly historical works. Now, the important point is. How much of this "traditional history" is reliable ? How far does the popular memory go back, with precision ? That it may be trusted, within certain limits, is undeniable. For example, there may be men yet living in the neighbourhood of Waterloo who remember the great battle of 1815. Moreover, they may remember this or that detail of the fight that has never yet been placed on record. The right of such men to be regarded as actual historians, so long as they retain their faculties, cannot be disputed. What they relate is equally folk-lore and history. And the story related by them is also history, although it may be re-told by their sons or their grandsons. I have recently read of a Suffolk labourer who died in the year 1853, almost a centenarian, and who was once asked by the clergyman of his parish, " What is the earliest thing you can remember to have heard of?" "When I was a big bor," he answered, " I've heard my grandfather say he could remember the Dutch king comin' over." And, adds the narrator, by the register's I04 Folk-tale Section. showing, it was really quite possible. Now, had this man been asked anything about William of Orange, he would probably have professed entire ignorance of that personage. But, even although he had never opened a book in his life, he would have stoutly maintained that in or about the seventeenth century a certain king came over from Holland to ascend the British throne. Which was undoubtedly the case. Thus, what we know from books, he knew from tradition. Similarly, I have read of a peasant in Sussex, who, within the last few years, when in conversation with an archaeologist, referred to William the Conqueror as "Duke William" This term, we may be sure, he never learned in any school but that of tradition. Yet, by using this expression, he preserved the memory of an actual historical fact — the arrival in Sussex of " Duke "William of Normandy", not " William I of England". In both of these cases, then, tradition, or folk-lore, was history. But in these two cases folk-lore has only preserved what was otherwise known by written chronicle. The latter substantiates the former. Yet, if the popular memory may be trusted so far, ought it not to be trusted farther? May tradition not have preserved some things, perhaps many things, that written history has overlooked ? One interesting piece of evidence in this direc- tion is supplied in my own experience. Some years ago I was engaged in tracing the genealogy of a certain family, which I may call Family A. This family was socially of too little importance, during the past seven or eight generations, to find a place in even local history — that is to say, printed history. But it had retained, together with various family papers dating back to the year 1685, a certain family tradition, handed down from father to son. This was to the effect that the family was descended from an important clan, which I shall call B., and that the surname borne by Family A. had previously been that of the chiefs of the Clan B., from whom they believed ■ themselves descended. Owing, it was said, to some family feud, the ancestors of this minor family had relinquished their former surname, and assumed that of A., now borne by their descend- ants. Now, although the history of this important clan. Clan B., had recently been written by a gentleman very well qualified for the task, that history contained no reference to anyone of the MacRitchie. — Historical Aspect of Folk-lore. 105 surname A., and the historian himself knew nothing whatever of even an alleged connection between that family and the Clan B. Yet, after an interesting correspondence with that gentleman, and after some research on his part and mine, we found that various entries in public records, some relating to transference of land, others to marriages, others to political events of two or three centuries ago, clearly showed that a certain branch, or sub-division, of the Clan B., during the seventeenth century, was accustomed to style itself by the name now borne by the Family A., alternatively with the recognised surname of the clan. In short, the historian of the Clan B. recognised, as beyond a doubt, that, whatever the exact date of the separation, this Family A. was really (what it believed itself to be) a branch of the Clan B., whose surname it had once borne. It is to be remembered that the Family A. possessed not a single written evidence of this ancient connec- tion ; and the historian of Clan B. was previously quite ignorant of such a connection. What brought the fact to light was the existence of an oral tradition, reaching back two centuries or more, which, when accepted as a guide, led to the discovery of this truth. In this instance, then, we see that the memory — what I may call the inherited or transmitted memory — of a family may go back correctly two or three hundred years ; and not only, as in the case of the Suffolk peasant, agree with what has already been written down as "History", but, more than that, act as guide towards a " Supplementary History", which otherwise would never be written. And what applies to a family applies also, in this connection, to that larger family which constitutes a tribe or nation. Two similar examples of the trustworthiness of tradition were recently cited by Sir Herbert Maxwell in his address inaugurating the last meeting of the Royal Archseological Institute : and these go much farther back than any of those I have mentioned. Sir Herbert referred in one instance to a cave on the Wigtownshire coast, which, ten years ago, apparently "differed in no respect from scores of others on the same rocky coast" " But local tradition had assigned to this particular cleft in the rocks the name of St. Ninian — St. Ninian's Cave. There was no evidence beyond tradition of religious occupation, but some local anti- I06 Folk-tale Section. quaries in 1883 determined to dear out this cave, and verify or confute the tradition if possible; and after much labour, and removal of several hundred tons of earth and fallen rock, they did find ample confirmation of the legends. No fewer than eighteen crosses, carved either upon the walls of the cave or on detached rocks, a pavement, apparently that of a religious cell, and various objects of great interest were found, showing that the tradition had had sufficient vitality to survive the fourteen centuries and a half which had intervened since its occupation by St. Ninian." Another tradition in the same county was to the effect that a certain loch — Dowalton Loch — contained in its depths an ancient village. The loch was drained in the year 1862, though not for archaeological reasons ; and the old tradition was verified by the appearance of the remains of an ancient settlement of the lake- dwellers. In the last three instances, then, tradition appears, not as the mere henchman of history, but as the actual leader. Had the statements of the AVigtownshire countryfolk been listened to with respect a century ago, our grandfathers would have increased the sum of their knowledge by the addition of at least two facts. And the situation has its parallel at the present day. Folk-lore, as a popular inheritance, is perishing fast ; but there is, I believe, much veritable history yet to be gleaned from it. One cannot, of course, accept all its statements hterally ; but, because this or that traditional account appears at the first glance incredible, it does not follow that there is no actual germ of truth concealed in it. For example, when one hears some wild story of a dreaded giant or ogre living in a castle surrounded with walls of glass, one knows that, according to modern speech, such a castle could not have existed. But it seems to me that the real explanation of such a statement is indicated by Lady Ferguson, when speaking of the "Fomorians'' of Irish tradition and "their famous glass castle upon Tor Inis, or Tory Island", off the north coast of Ire- land. This glass castle, she suggests, "may possibly have been a vitrified fort''.^ And this, it appears to me, is the simple solution of the difficulty. Whether Tory Island does contain a vitrified fort, I do not know, but as there are many in the neighbouring district of Galloway, and in Western, Northern, and ^ The Story of the Irish before the ConqueU, London, 1868, p. 3. MacRitchie. — Historical Aspect of Folk-lore. 107 Central Scotland, it is quite likely that one or more may be found in that island. And all these vitrified forts are so many " glass castles". Not " glass'' as we now conventionally under- stand the word, but glass in its cruder form. Thus, the fairy tales which tell of kings or giants dwelling in castles surrounded by walls of glass may be historically true, in so far as concerns the materials of the castle walls. Of course, when a tale has out- lived by many centuries the circumstances in which it originated, the truth which it embodies may become gradually enshrouded with error. And in such a case as this one can see how the tale, long surviving the use of vitrified castles — whose very exist- ence became forgotten — would by degrees take on the appear- ance of impossibility. The walls of an impregnable castle could never have been formed of glass, as that word is understood by modern people ; and, owing to this misinterpretation of a word, the modern reciter of the tale and the modern artist, yielding to their own imagination, conspire to render the whole story utterly incredible, as they believe it to be. Now this solution of the "glass castle" of tradition — which I, at least, am ready to recognise as not only quite reasonable but also probably correct — represents a method which is capable of wide application. That these traditions of the common people are baseless nonsense I do not believe. Sir Walter Scott, by the mouth of his Mrs. Bethune Baliol, makes a remark in this connection which is well worth considering, although it cannot be held to have any direct application to any serious student of folk-lore. "I pro- fess to you," says Mrs. Baliol, in response to the arguments urged by her kinsman in support of the authenticity of tradition, "I pro- fess to you that I am very willing to be converted to your faith. We talk of a credulous vulgar, without always recollecting that there is a vulgar incredulity, which, in historical matters, as well as in those of religion, finds it easier to doubt than to examine, and endeavours to assume the credit of an esprit fort by denying whatever happens to be a little beyond the very limited compre- hension of the sceptic." Thus (to apply Mrs. Baliol's dictum to the case just cited), a man of this kind, ignorant of the existence of vitrified forts, will at once dismiss the "glass castles" of tradition as utter nonsense. Whereas a student of tradition, such as Lady Ferguson, will endeavour to find — as in this instance she has io8 Folk-tale Section. succeeded, I believe, in finding — a reasonable and plausible ex- planation of the statement, thereby reducing apparent nonsense to actual sense. A sceptic of another order, however, equally incredulous but less impatient, will explain the whole dififiiculty by assuming that the "glass castle" — to pursue this illustration — is the creation of the popular fancy. Now, although I hold no settled opinion on this subject, I am strongly inclined to doubt whether the uncul- tivated mind is more poetical and imaginative than the cultivated. The play of fancy seems to me much more the outcome of culture than of ignorance; and the imaginative faculty stronger in the gentleman than in the peasant. Unquestionably the lower class is swayed by deep-rooted feelings and beliefs which it cannot explain ; but are these not the shadows of what was once substan- tial ? AVhen the Saracen rider used to ask his startled horse, " If he thought King Richard was hiding behind that bush?" or when the Scottish peasant woman frightened her child into obedience with threats of " the Black Douglas", there was, it is true, no real cause for terror in either case, except during the brief lifetime of Richard and Douglas. But Richard and Douglas were not creations of the popular fancy, although the dread of them eventually became a popular imagination. This last illustration brings me to what I regard as the most interesting phase of this question — the popular recollections of real people, continuing long after those people ceased to exist. Nor is this theme rendered less interesting by the consideration that the features of such people may have become distorted and indistinct through lapse of time; until, like the "glass castles", they may seem, at the first glance, impossibilities or myths. But for their peculiarities, also, a reasonable explanation may be attainable. What folk-lore says of such real, or hypothetically real, people may require much sifting before the grain can be separated from the chaff The popular memory is far from perfect, and real events and real people are not always faithfully remembered by ignorant castes or nations. For example, we know that Columbus and his contemporaries appeared to the natives of the West Indies as supernatural beings, armed with strange power, and borne thither from the sky, or out of the ocean, in their white-winged vessels. Had this intercourse been only temporary, and America not again visited by Europeans until the present century, we should probably MacRitchie. — Historical A spect of Folk-lore. 109 find the record of those visits and visitors of four centuries ago still preserved in what some would call the "mythology" of the West Indians. Yet we should know that such visits were actual historical events, and that the visitors were ordinary human beings, whose alleged "supernatural" qualities are wholly explainable in the light of our superior knowledge. But it is certain that, if the European records of those visits had accidentally been lost, and if we had long ago forgotten that such visits ever were made, many modern investigators of West Indian folk-lore would at once pronounce those tales of "supernatural" beings to be nothing but the creation of West Indian fancy. There is, of course, nothing new in the belief that the so-called " mythology" of nations is simply their ancient traditional history more or less distorted. This theory, originated by Euhemerus fifteen centuries ago, has had many exponents; although it is not so much in vogue at the present day as it has been in former times. But, for my own part, I am not concerned in demonstrating that all mythology is nothing but traditional history. Whether so sweeping an assertion can or can not be defended is not the ques- tion which interests me primarily. What appears to me the most important view of folk-lore is this : That the first and most natural theme for the tales and traditions of unlettered castes or races is the recital of actual events in their own past, and that therefore no assertion made by tradition ought to be classified as fiction until it is clearly shown that it cannot possibly be grounded on fact. My own impression is that a vast amount of what many people regard as fiction is essentially fact; and, further, that a critical study of many so-called myths will eventually throw a great light upon history. Some of my views in this direction I have recently embodied in a published work, which is known to some gentle- men present — The Testimony of Tradition. I shall not further encroach upon the time of this meeting by any detailed reference to that work, but will merely explain that it deals specially with those traditions referring to the past existence of a race, or races, of dwarfs in Europe; the general correctness of which traditions is best demonstrated by the still-existing chambered mounds and underground chambers ascribed to those people; it being evident that such of those structures as have incontrovertibly been used as dwellings could not, by reason of their dimensions, have been inhabited by any but people of dwarfish size. no Folk-tale Section. Discussion. Professor A. C. Haddon said, in the course of his studies during the last one or two years he had come to the conclusion that savages never invented, but always copied patterns and designs. In collecting mate- rial in a district they would be able to hunt down any pattern or name to its origin (except a zig-zag line which could not be traced), as being originally a representation of some natural object. Therefore, in savage folk-lore, they must in the first place look for some natural original, and only in the second place to fancy. .Seeing that they had to deal with a complex matter, he rather reckoned himself on the side of the anthropologists. Professor JOHN RHYS said that he agreed with everything that Mr. MacRitchie had said. He had just lately published something on the same lines, and there come to the conclusion with regard to fairy tales that the materials certainly come from two sources — perhaps compara- tively few from the mere storehouse of imagination, and a good deal more from reflecting the traditions of some ancient race. With regard to dwarfs, the subject was very interesting, and he would like to hear more about it. Mr. .Stuart-Glennie did not think that people imagined things without having a certain basis for their ideas, either in their own expe- rience or that of others. Then exaggeration stepped in, just as in the case of a little boy who, having seen a large brown dog, ran home to tell his mother that he had seen a bear. He believed that fairy tales had originated on the same principle, and he therefore thoroughly agreed with the theory propounded in Mr. MacRitchie's paper. Miss H. Dempster asked whether she might take the liberty of disagreeing with Mr. MacRitchie's paper. She had spent a great many years in the northern provinces of Sutherlandshire, to collect the native tales for a friend. She had found it a futile task to look for any his- torical basis for the stories she had found; there was a deeper, nobler, and greater foundation for them than anything we could dignify by the name of history. She thought those stories to -be true. There was certainly a true foundation for them. One was a very wonderful story of a great chief, who, getting into a cave, met the devil in the shape of a yellow dog whom he drove into a cask. But the devil escaped by the bung-hole. He sometimes did now. Upon further investigation she had found that these things were attributed to a certain, keen, grasping, clever Highlander of the hard-headed type, not of the sympathetic type. Patriotic man that he was, he had given his allegiance to William of Orange, for whom he raised a regiment, and who conferred MacRitchie. — Historical Aspect of Folk-lore. 1 1 1 great honours upon him, and gave him his title. Now, Miss Dempster asked, was the historical element the peg to hang these wild legends on ? All these stories, she contended, were much older ; they had some far distant root. According to the German saying, " es liegt ein tieferSinn ini kind'schen Spiel"; did they not think it possible that there was a higher ground even than history for these stories, that their real root was in the human emotions, in the love of wonder, in the fear of deliverance, in the necessity of the human creature to ally himself with the divine ? There had been an allusion to Cupid. That underlied the history of the relation of the sexes, the perpetual mystery. He always came to us as a tree, or a lizard, or something wonderful. Those emotions seemed to her to betray the wish to believe that we are in some way strange beings, and closely related to the beast, the tree, the flower, and the powers of nature. People would always wish to be delivered ; they had their hope everywhere, and that would last until there was no more sea. Mr. Oswald thought that Mr. Stuart-Glennie's illustration of the child's notion of the dog and the bear was a capital mistake: a child knowing a dog, but not knowing a bear, being more apt to exclaim that it had seen a big brown dog when really seeing a bear, than vice versd. To this Mr. Glennie retorted that the child knew the bear from the picture-books, and that the child's mind being predisposed to exag- gerate, he must maintain that his illustration held perfectly good. The incident he had described had actually happened with his own dog. Mr. GOMME was in doubt whether the historical people to which Mr. MacRitchie had drawn attention were the historical people of fifty or a hundred years ago, or the historical people which we called primitive. He had noticed in the book to which the lecturer had referred, that he started with the consideration of the historical people of fifty or a hundred years ago, and then gradually went back to the prehistoric houses, and one was at a loss to know whether he based his arguments on the aboriginal people or on the people of a hundred years ago. If enlightened on this point, they would be better able to test the theory before them on something like scientific ground. He agreed with the theory when applied to the conditions of the prehistoric race, but he found himself stopped when he applied the same argument to the people of only a century ago. The Rev. W. S. Lach-Szyrma said, in his studies of folk-lore he had noticed that scenes of horror dwelt more upon the mind than scenes of joy. He had tried to get some traditions of the battle of Sedgemoor in Somerset, and he found them to be very different from those chronicled by history. A child would remember certain things which seemed unimportant to a grown-up person, and thus the child's 112 Folk-tale Section. mind of the peasant would remember, and hand down in tradition, things which were not recorded in history. Mr. Hugh Nevill wished to explain that the behef that people in Ceylon lived in hollow trees had absolutely no foundation. The Ceylonese word for their habitations really meant " rock cave", and from the fact that the word had been translated into " hollow tree", some of our English historians had said that the Ceylonese lived in trees. Seeing that such a mistake had occurred, the idea suggested itself whether such a thing might not also have happened in folk-lore, and that, for instance, the word " glass tower" had perhaps never had the meaning which we now associated with it. PROBLEMS OF HEROIC LEGEND. By ALFRED NUTT. The present paper brings no new facts, and essays no new interpretation of familiar facts. It simply aims at setting forth clearly, briefly, and comprehensively the chief problems of heroic legend, and at suggesting in what way they may best be solved. These problems are : in how far heroic legend is indebted to historic fact ; in what manner does it transform historic fact to its own needs ; what is the nature of the portion which owes nothing to history and which we call mythic ; does this portion picture forth man's memory of the past or embody his ancient imaginings of the material universe ; is the marked similarity which obtains between the great heroic cycles due to a common conception of life, to descent from a common original, or to borrowing from one another ?i A brief survey of some of the more important Teutonic and Celtic hero-legends may throw some light upon the first of these questions. I have recently reviewed the foremost of the Teutonic sagas, the story of Siegfried and the Nibelungs, when noticing M. Lichtenberger's work upon the cycle (Folk-Lore, ii, 3). It will suffice to say here that the first of the two portions into which this saga naturally divides itself, the portion dealing with the youth of Siegfried, is mythic, i.e., to repeat my definition, necessarily non-historic. It is necessarily non-historic as relating ^ By history I understand the record of what has actually happened to a man or to a group of men ; by legend, an invented story, possibly but not necessarily non- historic ; by myth, an invented story necessarily non-historic and symbolising a natural or a historic process, in the latter case I use the term historic myth. The actors in a myth are generally gods or heroes. Gods differ from man or other animals chiefly in being the object of a cult and in the predicate of deathlessness ; heroes differ from man or other animals by the intensification of ordinary human or animal powers. The relations between gods and heroes are very close, and it is not always easy to establish a theoretical distinction between the two, but in practice the two classes are always clearly distinguished and no confusion arises. I 114 Folk-tale Section. occurrences which never happened because they never could happen. This is the characteristic of myth, its contents are not only invented, they are as a rule invented outside any possible limit of human experience. The second portion of the saga — the story of the doom wrought by the heroine upon her husband, slayer of her brethren (the older form), or upon her brethren, slayers of her first husband (the younger form) — is in so far historic that the names of certain personages manifestly coincide with the names of certain historic personages. Thus the Gibich, Gunther, Giselher, and Gemot of the saga manifestly correspond to the his- torical Burgundian kings, Gibica, Gundahar, Gondomar, Gislahar ; the Atli (older form), Etzel (younger form) of the saga manifestly correspond to the historical Attila ; the Kriemhild of the legend possibly corresponds to the historical Ildico that •' leaf on Danube rolled" ; the slaughter of the Burgundians at Atli's Court may possibly cor- respond to the extermination of Gundahar by the Huns in 436. It has been urged that this second portion has its origin in legendary accounts of these personages and events. But granting, for argument's sake, all these parallels, we nevertheless note that the historic march of events is utterly different from the saga march of events. The historic Attila had no hand in the destruction of the historic Gunther ; the historic Ildico, if she had any hand in the death of Attila — and this is in the last degree uncertain — had nothing whatever to do with the Burgundian chiefs, slain when she was a babe, perhaps even before her birth. If the second por- tion of the Siegfried-Nibelung story started with the destruction of Gundicarius in 436, with the death of Attila in 450, we have yet to explain why these events were utterly transformed, and, in especial, why they were fused into one with the Siegfried myth. The answers to the first question are mostly conditioned by theories of historical myth which cannot be said to be established. As for the second question, no answer has ever been given that satisfies even a small minority of those capable of judging. Similar problems confront us in the saga of Dietrich of Bern. The name manifestly corresponds to that of the great Ostrogoth Theodoric of Verona ; the name of his father Dietmar to that of Theodoric's father Theudemir. Theodoric, like Dietrich, " was for some years of his life a wanderer more or less dependent upon the NUTT. — Problems of Heroic Legend. 1 1 S favour of a powerful sovereign — his life during this period did get entangled with that of another Theodoric, even as the life of the hero of the saga becomes entangled with the life of Theodoric of Russia. After subduing all his enemies he did eventually rule in Rome."i Moreover, the Otakar of the Hildebrandlied, the oldest fragment, palseographically speaking, of the Dietrich saga, or indeed of any portion of Teutonic hero-legend, is obviously the Odoacer of history, and the Witig of the saga seems to answer the historical Witigis. But ... the legendary Dietrich is associated with Hermanrich who died eighty years, with Attila who died two years before the birth of the historical Theodoric ; it is the exile-period of Dietrich's life, the least fruitful in events of historic importance, which furnishes the staple of the saga ; then there is the barest trace in the legend of the mighty fabric of the Roman Empire against which Theodoric warred at first, and which it was the task of his years of manhood to uphold and transform. If indeed the saga- hero started his career in confused memories of the deeds of the historic king, he promptly renounced all that was historic in his origin save the most unimportant details. Had we the saga alone we should know worse than nothing, we should have an absolutely false idea of the strivings and con- dition of the Gothic race in the late fifth and early sixth centuries. One historic truth, and one only, has the saga preserved. Dietrich of Bern is the right-hand of Attila so long as he stays with the Hunnish chief; the Gothic under-kings were at once the brain and the right arm of the Scourge of God. The saga, which sub- ordinates the Hunnish element (Attila) to the Gothic (Dietrich), sums up in mythic form the story of the relations between the great Hun (whose very name is Gothic) and his Gothic subjects. But these relations, it will be observed, are pre-Theodorician. The saga in this one particular expresses the spirit of history, but only by disregarding its letter. For the rest, the various explanations of the Dietrich saga all start with certain assumptions concerning the historical mythopoeic process, assumptions which may be true, but which require to be proved from the sagas themselves. Thus the conquest of Italy by Theodoric is held to be symbolised by Dietrich's reconquest of the paternal kingdom, from which he had been expelled by his uncle. The later saga writers, it is urged, 1 Hodgkin, Theodoric the Goth. I 2 ii6 Folk-tale Section. familiar witli the long Gothic dominion in Italy, could not imagine a time in which that dominion had not subsisted, and hence could not think of Theodoric's conquest otherwise than as a reconquest. To this it may be objected, firstly, that it is strange to find the later saga writers ignoring the tragic downfall of the Ostrogothic empire, with its wealth of striking incident^ ; secondly, that the formula of the expelled nephew, or son, or grandson, occurs in numerous other heroic legends which are not susceptible of the same interpretation as the Dietrich saga. The " symbol" postulated in the one case must either have a different signifi- cation in other cases, a fact which certainly does not inspire con- fidence in the system of interpretation, or else its presence in different legends must be due to borrowing by the one from the others. This explanation will not serve, however, in the present instance, as several of the heroic legends which present sub- stantially the same formula as the Dietrich saga are much older than it, so that if there has been borrowing it is the Dietrich saga which has borrowed. But this comes to saying that Dietrich the hero does certain things, because heroes generally do these things, and not because the historical Theodoric did certain things which were translated by the songmen of his race into the formula we find in the saga. Let us turn to Celtic saga. The oldest of the Celtic heroic cycles which have been preserved to us is that of which Conchobor, chief of Ulster, and Cuchulainn, champion of Ulster, are the leading personages. It is the oldest, both by the alleged date of these personages and by the date of the stories themselves ; these we can follow back with reasonable certainty to the fifth century of our era. Now it is possible that an Ulster chief named Conchobor, that an Ulster brave named Cuchulainn, did live at a period corresponding to the beginning of the Christian era. It is, moreover, certain that if they lived Conchobor lusted after his neighbour's land and cattle and women, and did his best to gratify his lusts ; certain that Cuchulainn did his best to break the head of any Irish brave who was not, like him, a man of 1 W. Miiller, Mythologie der deutschen Heldenessage, holds, it is true, that this downfall is expressed in the saga by Dietrich's expulsion, but I cannot profess to take this explanation seriously. Professor Miiller's speculations are entertaining and suggestive, but I can only agree with Sijmons when {Paul's Grundiiss, ii, 3) he describes the book "als Ganzes seiner Methode nach als verfehlt". NUTT. — Problems of Heroic Legend. 117 Conchobor's. It is again certain that at the period mentioned every Irish chief of note was perpetually fighting with every other Irish chieftain, because that is the normal condition of the country from the earliest dawn of authentic history down to the time when peace was enforced by the strong hand of the foreigner. In so far, then, as the Ultonian saga is concerned, as it partly is, with the lusts of Conchobor, with the feats of Cuchulainn, with the broils of Ulster and Connaught, or Ulster and Munster, with cattle-raids and blood-feuds, it may be historic, indeed it is historic in this sense, that it probably gives a faithful picture of the social and political state of Ireland in the early centuries of our era. But to assert that it is historic in the sense that it proves the existence of Conchobor and of Cuchulainn, is, to my mind, to assert more than the evidence warrants, although I frankly admit that my caution is not shared by the most eminent Celtic scholars. In any case we have merely considered up to now one portion of the saga. There is another portion, the nature of which is best exemplified by stating some facts concern- ing Cuchulainn as we gather them from the oldest texts. He is a reincarnation of the god Lug, conceived by his mother as a virgin through the swallowing of an insect in water ; at the age of five he overcomes all the Ultonian youths at their games in the playing- fields ; at seven he sets out alone on the warpath, and returns laden with trophies ; when the battle fury is upon him he becomes distorted, so that his calves twist round to where his shins should be, his size becomes gigantic, and a spark of fire stands on every hair ; single-handed he holds all the warriors of Erin at bay, whilst the Ulster men are en couvade , he is beloved of a queen of Faery, in bird-shape, with whom he passes a year, and from whom he is separated by the direct intervention of Manannan nac Lir, the Celtic sea-god ; he fights with and over- comes the Irish war goddess, the Morrigu or great Queen. Now this portion of the saga — and I might go on quoting pages of similar instances — is manifestly mythic. Assuming for argu- ment's sake that Cuchulainn was a real and famous North Irish warrior of the first century, the interesting question is, why did the men of the seventh century at the latest (how much earlier the stories may be we cannot say) tell myths about him ? The cycle of Finn and Oisin is younger than that of Cuchulainn Ii8 Folk-tale Section. and Conchobor, both if we consider the alleged date of the personages, the third century of our era, and the date to which we can trace back with certainty the oldest stories concerning them, i.e., the ninth century. The alleged date of existence has recently been contested by Professor Zimmer,^ who would place Finn in the early ninth century. I do not think the hypothesis will hold water, but in any case it is perfectly indifferent to the student of the Fenian saga whether the real Finn, assuming for argument's sake that such a man existed, lived in the third or in the ninth century. All the historic fact that we can gather from the saga is that he lived, fought, and had love-adventures. We hardly require thousands of pages of romantic stories to assure us that this was so in the case of any Irishman, or indeed of any man worthy of being celebrated as a hero, whether he lived in the third or in the ninth century. What the staple of the saga is I can best describe in words written ten years ago {Folk-lore Record, vol. iv), " What does the legend know of Fionn : it knows about a youth who was brought up by a wise and powerful woman, who acquired knowledge of past and present by eating a magic salmon, who was fore-ordained to do vengeance upon his father's slayers, the centre afterwards of a circle of warriors, many stronger and more valorous than he, wise and cunning, grievously wronged by his sister's son, whom he pursues with unrelenting hatred, never dying, but found, from century to century, repelling an imaginary and unhistorical invader." Now much of this is manifestly mythic, i.e., necessarily non-historic, most of it is pro- bably mythic. In one sense, however, the Fenian saga may be said to be essentially historic. It deals largely with the resistance of Irish- men to over-sea raiders. Now for 150 years there was strife in Ireland between the invading Norse and Danish Vikings and the native Irish. The Fenian texts give in a legendary form a picture of historic fact.^ But it will be found, I believe, that this element is due to the final redaction of our texts at a period when the ' I have summarised Prof. Zimmer's arguments in the Introduction to vol. iv of Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition. ^ This is equally true whether or no Professor Rhys' theory be correct, that the antagonism betvveen the Irish and Norse (Lochlannaich) takes the place of an older mythic antagonism between the denizens pf this world and of the other- world, conceived of a land under the waves. NuTT. — Problems of Heroic Legend. 119 Irish imagination was still quivering and bleeding from the Viking raids, rather than to the fact, as urged by Professor Zimmer, that the chief personage of the saga was himself prominent in the con- flict. If this is so, it exemplifies a law which must always be borne in mind when studying heroic legend : the history which in- fluences it is the history of the period in which it assumes final shape, not the history of the period at which it is supposed to originate. This law has recently been illustrated with his wonted acute- ness and ingenuity in Professor Zimmer's masterly investigations upon the third great Celtic heroic cycle, that of Arthur. ^ In this case there is an undeniable historic substratum. I see no reason to doubt the existence of a Romanised British chieftain, who, at the end of the fifth and during the first third of the sixth century, held the Saxon invaders at bay. The problems connected with this historic Arthur are of the utmost complexity and perplexity. But they affect to a most inappreciable extent the real Arthur, the Arthur, that is, of romance, the Arthur who owes his birth to wizardry and shape-shifting, who is reared heedless of his descent and fate, who withdraws the sword from the stone, to whom the ladies of the lake present Excalibur, who begets his destined slayer unwittingly on his own sister, who warred with the Palug cat, who harried Annvwn, who hunted the boar Trwyth, whom after death the ladies of the lake carry to Avalon. Whether the date of the Mount Badon battle be 493 or 516, whether the historic Arthur warred mainly in the north or in the south of these islands, all this is profoundly indifferent to the real Arthur, the king in the land of Faery, the Arthur of the Celtic storytellers, of the French minstrels, of Malory and of English poetry for the last four hundred years. But, as Professor Zimmer has convinc- ingly shown, it is not indifferent to the Arthurian romance, as we now have it, that certain wars took place between Bretons and Normans in the ninth and tenth centuries, or that the Normans invaded England, establishing a new order of things, tlie influence of which was as potent upon the Celtic as upon the English inhabitants of this island. In all these cases heroic legend and history are not so much 1 Allusion is here made to Professor Zimmer's papers: Gottingischt gel. Anzeigen, 1890, Oct. i ; Zeitschrift fiir franz. Sprache vnd Littratur, xii, J snd his article in vpl, xiii of the same periodical, I20 Folk-tale Section. opposed as disconnected. Had we heroic ■ legend alone, we should know worse than nothing of history, we could only guess at false history. History may seem to give the form and frarne- work of heroic legend, the vital plastic organic element is fur- nished by something quite different. Myth, like a hermit-crab, may creep into the shell of history, none the less does it retain its own nature. Moreover, in all these instances the reference to history facili- tates to a very slight extent the criticism and interpretation of the legends themselves, as apart from the question of their origin. It remains indifferent whether Etzel grew out of Attila, whether the real Arthur of romance grew out of the shadowy Arthur of history. In neither case does the fact explain the essence, in neither case does it account for the development of the story. In one case, however, I think that an historic basis has been formed for a legend, a basis which provides and accounts for its subsequent growth. But then the legend in question can hardly be properly called an heroic legend. I allude to the story of Tristan and Iseult. Professor Zimmer, whom I must quote at every step, and always with fresh admiration for his marvellous ingenuity and his amazing erudition, has recently challenged the traditional interpretation of this story.' As is well known, the personages are commonly ascribed to South-Western England and to the fifth and sixth centuries. But Professor Zimmer would assign them to the ninth century and to North-Eastern Scotland. His Tristan is a Pictish warrior, striving against the invading Danish Vikings from Dublin. The evidence in support of this theory may be briefly stated thus : The name Tristan is undoubtedly Pictish, and is not known to occur in Southern Britain before the eleventh century ; the names of Tristan's adversaries, and of the Irish princess he woos for his uncle and loves for himself, are Norse and not Irish ; it is certain that the Dublin Danes did harry Pictland, lay it under tribute, and carry away hostages from it in the ninth century ; it is not known, and it is unlikely that such conditions obtained between Ireland and Cornwall in the fifth century. I would add that there are obvious, too obvious resemblances between the Tristan story as we have it and the Greek hero-legend of Theseus. If the former was shaped in the ' In the above-cited article, Z. f, franz. Lit., xiii. NuTT. — Problems of Heroic Legend. i fifth and sixth centuries, and had a long traditional existence be- hind it when it came into the hands of the eleventh-century roman- cers, it seems unlikely that it could have been seriously modified ; but if it was a comparatively recent story, without the sanction of long age or of national association (and for the South-Briton Pictland was a remote country), one can understand that the marked similarity in the positions of Tristan and Theseus should lead a storyteller acquainted with classic fable to amplify and modify the one story in accordance with the other. Here, then, the historic reference throws light both upon the origin and upon the after-growth of the story. But here also we note that the story lives on divorced from its historic basis, that it straightway assimilates a number of legendary incidents which are in all probability of mythical origin, that this ex hypothesi genuine historic legend owes its existence to the fact that it trans- forms its historic and subordinates them to non-historic elements. Moreover, it is doubtful if the story of Tristan can be placed in the same category as the stories of Arthur, of Finn, of Cuchulainn or of Siegfried. We can by no means feel sure that he was believed in in the same sense that they were. To our nineteenth-century conceptions it would seem that belief should be strongest in the hero whose feats transcend least the limits of human achieve- ments. But it is an open question whether among the races which shaped the great heroic cycles it was not precisely the im- possible elements which won credence, whether a hero could be considered such unless he was more than man, whether the vitality of an heroic legend is not directly proportionate to the more or less of myth which it contains. Thus it comes that the Tristan story, which is about the most historical of those we have examined, is also the least heroic, and that its survival is probably due, firstly, to its being remoulded upon the lines of a genuine hero-legend, the story of Theseus ; secondly, to its having been incorporated (in flat defiance of history) into a genuine hero-legend, the story of Arthur.^ ^ In this paragraph the correctness of Professor Zimmer's theory is assumed. I may say that I believe it to be true in the main, although I cannot accept every detail of his explanations. Of course, if the theory is not true, if the traditional explanation is the correct one, the story is as good an exemplification of my general view of heroic legend as could be desired. I have preferred, however, to assume 122 Folk-tale Section. Thus heroic legend contains many incidents that cannot pos- sibly have their origin in history. Let us examine a couple of these incidents, chosen because they figure in most of the stories we have been examining, and see if light is thereby thrown upon the nature and origin of these mythical elements. These two in- cidents are : (a) The miraculous birth of the hero; (^) the combat of father and son. The Miraculous Birth of the Hero. This occurs in the Cuchulainn cycle, where, as already stated, that hero is a rebirth of the god Lug, who, as an insect in a draught of water, impregnates his mother; in the Arthur cycle, where Arthur himself owes his birth to his father's change of shape, effected by Merlin; where Merlin isthesonof an zW^fe^r, and where theconcep- tion of Taliesin is effected much as that of Cuchulainn — i.e., by his mother's swallowing his father Gwion in the shape of a grain ; in the Finn cycle, where Oisin is born whilst his mother is in doe shape ; in the Nibelung cycle, where Signy, the grandmother of Siegfried, changes shape, and, thanks to the change, is enabled to bear Sinfjotli to her own brother Siegmund, and where Hogni's birth occurs in much the same wise as Merlin's, his mother being visited by an elf in her sleep. There seems also to be an indica- tion of the incident in Hogni's taunt to Dietrich that he is a devil's son. Moreover, we may note that in these cycles very similar stories are told about the birth and youth of Finn and Siegfried, both being posthumous children, and reared in ignorance of their origin. 1 The Cuchulainn story is certainly older than the redaction of Gaelic sagas preserved in the Leabhar na K Uidhre, a MS. copied at the end of the eleventh century, the redaction itself being assigned with strong plausibility by Professor Zimmer to Flann Manistrech, the leading Irish antiquary of the early eleventh century. A characteristic feature of the redaction is that Flann (or whoever the author was) endeavoured to harmonise in it conflicting accounts respecting the Gaelic gods and heroes. This feature is the correctness of the theory most opposed to the general view. It is always wise to state the arguments against oneself as strongly as possible. ' I have studied these in my paper, " The Expulsion and Return Fornmla among the Ce'ts", Folk-lore Record, vol, iv, NUTT. — Problems of Heroic Legend. 123 prominent in the L U. version of Cuchulainn's conception ; it so happens that one of the versions which Flann must have used has been preserved to us by a later (fourteenth century) MS. If we put aside the chance remark of Nennius as to the low birth of Arthur, we cannot carry the latter's birth-story back beyond the late eleventh century, it being vouched for by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the early twelfth century. The birth-story told in Geoffrey of Merlin, is told in Nennius, i.e. goes back to the ninth century, of Ambrosius. The birth- story of Taliesin is first told in connected form in a MS. of the late sixteenth century, but there are allusions to it in Welsh poems of uncertain date found in .the fourteenth and fifteenth century MSS., the Book of Taliesin and the Red Book of Hergest. There, is I believe, no older MS. authority for the Oisin birth- story than the fourteenth century. The birth story of Sinfjotli is first found in the twelfth century Volsungasaga, that of Hagen in the thirteenth century Thidreks- saga, which also preserves the hint of a possible supernatural birth of Dietrich, noted above. The story of Finn's birth and youth is certainly older than the eleventh century, as it is found in Z ZZ ; that of Siegfried is partly told in the Eddaic ballads, partly in the Volsungasaga based upon these, partly in the thirteenth-century High-German Siegfriedslied. The date of the Eddaic ballads in their present form is almost certainly prior to the eleventh and posterior to the eighth century. Now is the likeness between all the stories due to the presence in them of common mythical elements, common, because the races which evolved these legends were akin in blood, culture, and creed, or is it due to borrowing by one race from the other ? Questions of date are in such investigations of first-rate impor- tance. If the stories only appear among races at a period long subsequent to the time when the hypothetical mythical elements contained in them ceased to predominately influence the culture of the race, and if we are not warranted in carrying the stories back much beyond the date of appearance, then we must admit that they were told chiefly for entertainment, and without reference to the historic past or to the traditional creed of the race. In this case the spread of the story from one race to another, rather than the hypothesis of independent composition, seems the readiest and 124 Folk-tale Section. soundest way of accounting for the likeness. Again, if the story first appears among one race in the tenth and among another in the twelfth century, and unless in the latter case its earlier existence is a matter of fair certainty though not susceptible of actual proof, it seems more reasonable to assume that, if borrow- ing has taken place, the second race has borrowed rather than the first. Let us apply these principles to the present case. Amongst other points upon which Professor Zimmer relied to prove influence of Teutonic upon Celtic heroic legend is the very incident we have been considering {Kelt. Beitrdge, i, 316 et ff.). For him it is evident that the Cuchulainn birth story is more or less modelled upon that of Hagen, and hence cannot be used as an illustration of Celtic mythic belief or fancy. Palaeographically speaking, the story of Cuchulainn's birth is 150 years older than that of Hagen, and it can be carried back in its present form another 100 years. Now the Hagen story belongs to the second stratum of the Nibelung legend, the texts of which may have assumed their present shape somewhere in the ninth century. But only one of the texts of the second stratum (the Thidrekssaga), and that the latest, the most artificial, the most interpolated, relates this story; the other texts (the Niebelungenlied, the Siegfriedslied, etc.), whilst containing nothing which directly contradicts, con- tain nothing which directly confirms it. The texts of the first stratum of the Nibelung legend, on the contrary, directly contra- dict it in several important respects. It seems to me that, by every rule of sound criticism, if borrowing be postulated at all, we should start, provisionally at least, with the hypothesis that the Celts were the lenders and not the borrowers. This contention is strengthened by an examination of the manner in which the stories have come down to us. The Thidrekssaga is a highly artificial and artistic harmony of romantic traditions. The com- piler admitted stories which are obviously of different date and provenance ; he was a man of the thirteenth, or at latest twelfth century, and was evidently accessible to the literary influences of the day. How stands it with the Cuchulainn story ? this, as we have seen, dates back certainly before the eleventh century in its present form, but that form is itself a confused jumble of jarring and misunderstood traditions. By collating the three existing NUTT. — Problems of Heroic Legend. 125 versions we can fairly recover the mythic form of Cuchulainn's birth, that which gave him for father Lug, the Celtic Mercury. Which is the more likely? That the Irish scribe of the early eleventh century tried to harmonise conflicting old traditions about the great national hero, with the almost inevitable result of obscuring their pristine mythical character, or that he, a Christian monk and scholar, having heard somewhere a tale about the elf descent of Hagen, invented in imitation of it (for this is the hypothesis), a tale which made Cuchulainn the son of a god, but invented so badly that it is only by careful comparison of three independent versions that one can make out what he is driving at.i What relation does the incident bear to the mythic belief and fancies of the two races as we know them from other sources. As regards the Cuchulainn birth-story, it is in perfect accord with all we know of Celtic religious doctrine and of Celtic mythic fancy. On the one hand classical writers insist upon the transmigration of souls doctrine held by the Druids ; on the other, the incidents connected with Cuchulainn's birth are almost a commonplace in Irish mythic legend. They occur in the birth story of Aed Slane, as told by Flann Manistrech (/.«., a pre-eleventh-century story — Aed Slane is a sixth-century Irish king), and translated by Professor Windisch (Berichte der phil.-hist. Classe der Kg. Sachs. Gesell- schaft der Wtss., 1884), and in that of Conchobor (text and trans- lation by Professor Kuno Meyer, /?ev. Celt., ii, 175 etseq.), whilst the idea of re-birth is a prominent feature in the stories of Mongan-Finn, and of Etain.^ The most curious instance, however, with which I am acquainted, and one which has the greatest interest for folk-lorists, is that preserved in the story entitled " De Cophur in da Muccida", " The Engendering of the Two Swineherds", one of the remsdla or introductions to the Tain bb Cuailgne.^ This relates how Fruich, swineherd of the fairy king Bodb, and Rucht, swineherd of Ochall Ochne, from being friends, become rivals. First they strive in their natural form, then they change into ravens and war upon each other for two years, making the provinces of Ireland hideous 1 For the various versions of the Cuchulainn birth-story, see Revue Celt., vol. ix, where they are translated and commented upon by M. Louis Duvau. ' These two stories are summarised by M. H. d'Arbois de Jubainville in his Cycle Mythologique Irlandais, pp. 311 et seq. ' Edited and translated by Prof. E. Windisch, Jrische Texte, iii, ■, pp. 230 et siq. 126 Folk-tale Section. with their clamour; then they turn into sea monsters, then back to human shape again as two mighty champions, then into two awe- inspiring demons, "a third of the host perished through horror of them" ; then into two worms, and the one worm dwelt in a spring of Connaught, and the other in a spring of Ulster ; and being drunk by two cows, they were re-born as the Donn of Cualgne and as Finbennach, and it was the rivalry of these two bulls which was the ultimate cause of the war between Connaught and Ulster described in the Tain bb Cuailgne. I lay stress upon this story not only as illustrating the incident of Cuchulainn's conception, but as being, to the best of my knowledge, the oldest known example of the " transformation fight" which figures in so many folk-tales. It is evident that if any one of the stories I have just cited can be shown to be older than the contact of Norseman and Celt (i.e., than the year 800), the explanation of Cuchulainn's birth-story as a loan from the Norse account of Hagen's birth becomes unnecessary, not to say impossible. Now, although we cannot affirm that any of these stories is in its present shape older than that contact, we can with almost absolute certainty affirm that substantially several of them are much older — belong indeed to the very earliest stratum of Irish mythic fancy. This is notably the case with the Two Swineherds. But indeed it is quite immaterial whether they are older or not. For if these different variants of the same mythic conceptions are not genuinely Irish, they must all, ex hypothesi, be modelled upon the Cuchulainn story imitation of an incident in a Norse saga. I confidently leave this hypothesis to the judgment of all capable of exercising their reasoning powers, and I can only wonder that a scholar of Professor Zimmer's extraordinary acuteness and critical insight should not have seen to what conclusions he was being led by his passion for claiming everything that bears the faintest resemblance to an incident in a German hero story as a loan therefrom.' I maintain that in our present state of knowledge there is no scientific warrant for asserting that the incident of the miraculous conception or birth of the hero, which occurs in half-a-dozen ' I have dwelt at some length upon this incident, as Prof. Zimmer's statements with reference to the influence of Teutonic upon Celtic saga have been accepted far too readily, and conclusions have been drawn from them which do not support a moment's examination. NuTT. — Problems of Heroic Legend. 127 varying forms in the heroic legends of Ireland, Wales, and the various Teutonic-speaking countries, has been borrowed by the Celts from the Teutons, or by the Teutons from the Celts. Within the limits of Celtdom we may surmise borrowing by the Welsh or Bretons from the Irish, but we are not in a position to prove it, nor is there any scientific necessity for postulating it. Any statements to the contrary are made either in ignorance or in defiance of the facts. The Father and Son Combat. The incident we have just examined is mythical ; that which I now propose to examine is not necessarily so ; there is nothing in it outside possibility, or, indeed, outside proba- bility, in a time of incessant warfare between race and race, of perpetual and considerable shifting of racial boundaries, and of widely developed mercenary service. Of this incident three main forms are known : the son may slay the father, ■ the father the son, or the issue may be bloodless. Greek heroic legend furnishes an example of the first class : Odysseus and Telegonus (the story of CEdipous and Laios is connected with a different though allied narrative group) ; of the second class we have the stories of Cuchulainn and Conlaoch, of Rustem and Sohrab, and possibly^ of the early form of Hildebrand and Hadubrand, the one written down in Ireland some time in the twelfth century at the latest, though traceable with reasonable certainty to the eighth century in its present form ; the other written down in Persia some time in the tenth century at the latest ; the third written down in Germany at the latest in the eighth century. We also have in the lai of Milun and in that of Doon, both written down some time in the twelfth century at the latest, stories of the same type, but without the tragic issue ; of the third class the best known example is the later form of Hildebrand and Hadubrand, as found in the Thidrekssaga and in a fourteenth-fifteenth century German narrative poem. I am privileged to communicate to the Congress that Professor Kuno ' I say possibly, as we have only the beginning of the old German lay, and cannot be sure how it ended. Scholari are generally agreed (e.g., both the writers who deal with the subject in Paul's Grundriss) that the lay ended tragically. Sijmons, indeed, quotes both the Irish and Persian instances in support of this contention. But this is practically to assume descent of all three versions from a common original, and this is precisely what has to be proved. 128 Folk-tale Section. Meyer has discovered an example of the third class in the Finn or Ossianic saga. I give below the substance of his communi- cation from Harl. 5280 (f. 3Sb i), a MS. of the fifteenth century.^ Now, I do not think it can be contended that the Hilda- brand ■ episode (even assuming that its issue was tragic) gave rise on the one hand to the story of Rustem and Sohrab, on the other to that of Cuchulainn and Conlaoch ; nor do I think it can be contended that the original of these three stories is to be found in what late Greek legend relates of Odysseus and Telegonus. The idea that the Persian and Irish versions, which are astonishingly alike, can have influenced each other, is of course not to be' entertained for one moment. Dates alone forbid such a possibility. I can come to no other conclusion but that in the father and son combat we have a pan-Aryan heroic tale which has been shaped differently by different members of the race, and which has reached its extreme limit of beauty and pathos among the Celts and the Persians. Whether they reached it independently of each other by developing it from an incident once common to both races, or whether they alone retained the full version of what was once common to the various Aryan- speaking peoples, is a question that probably cannot be decided. It is noteworthy that among the Celts, along with the profoundly tragic version of the Cuchulainn cycle, we find in Milun and in Doon two presentments of the same theme, from which the tragic ' Finn O'Baiscne was seeking his son Oisin throughout Ireland. Oisin had been a year without anyone knowing his whereabouts. He was angry with his father. Then Finn found him in a waste, cooking a pig. Finn upset it and gave him a thrust. Oisin seized his weapons. He did not recognise him at once. Then said Finn that it was a foolish thing for a young warrior to fight with a grey man. Oisin dixit, I am sure, though the grey man .... me, his spears are not sharp, his shield is not Finn. Though his spear-points are not sharp, though his shield is not . . . . , at the hour of combat the grey man will have the upper hand. Oisin. It is clear, though his arm is stronger, and though his .... is broad, he is not narrow in his ribs Finn. I am not like a young calf, a grey man who has been wounded, who has been wounded Oisin evil is his luck of the hour against the young warrior. Finn. I know what will come of it; the young man's nose will be split. Oisin. When ague has seized every bone, the spear from his hand is not bitter . . . . (The poem goes on for several more verses.) NUTT. — Problems of Heroic Legend. 129 issue has been eliminated. If the Hildebrandhed really was originally tragic, the same development obtained in Germany. Now the keenest partisan of the borrowing theory will hardly maintain that the author of the Thidrekssaga changed the tragic nature of the older German version because the author of Milun had changed the tragic nature of the older Celtic version. Surely here is an example of independent development achieving the same result. With respect to Professor Meyer's lucky find, we must wait for a fuller critical examination of this tale before we can decide whether it is genuinely Celtic or an Irish adaptation of the Hil- debrand story. I do not think, to judge from the fragment published, that this will prove to be the case, as the situation and the conduct of the personages are by no means the same in the two stories. It will, of course, have occurred to my readers that Arthur and Modred exemplify the same theme. Here, however, the circum- stances are so different that the story cannot with advantage be placed in the same category as those we have been considering. Thus a close examination of two of the most important and characteristic incidents of a group of hero tales presenting marked similarities, fails to countenance explanation of them as due to borrowing by one race from another. There are, moreover, psychological difficulties, which, to my mind, stand in the way of accepting to any large extent the borrowing theory as applied to hero tales. It seems certain that the Irishmen who told of Cuchulainn, the Germans who sang of Siegfried, the Persians who celebrated Rustem, not only beheved in the existence and deeds of these heroes (as firmly in the mythical — the impossible elements — as in the purely human ones), but also looked upon them as the crowning glory and as the standing examplar of the race. The traditions connected with them formed a heritage of an especially sacred character, a heritage which it was the pride of the clan chief, the duty of ttie clan wiseman and singer to foster. Is it likely that these traditions should to any great extent be a simple adaptation or echo of stories told by strangers to the clan senti- ment, this, too, at a time when strangers were almost invariably enemies ? If we put aside the borrowing hypothesis, if we account for the K 130 Folk-tale Section. other elements common to the heroic cycles of Europe by the theory of their origin in a common stage of culture, or of descent from one common pro-ethnic original, we go far towards answer- ing the question, " What is the nature of that portion of heroic legend which owes nothing to history, and which we call mythic ?" For it will, I think, be admitted by the majority of students that myth embodies man's imaginings of the material universe rather than that it pictures forth his memory of past events. In any case a significant clue is afforded by the miraculous birth in- cident. It is not so much that this standing feature of heroic legend is also prominent in the stories told about gods — it should be quite unnecessary at this time of day to prove that heroic saga and divine saga are largely made up of the same elements — as for the witness borne to the close relation between god and hero. Moreover, this relation is set forth' in the different versions precisely as the critical estimate of their age would lead us to expect. The Cuchulainn story, as we saw, is probably the oldest and most original ; it also occurs amongst a race which accepted Christianity comparatively early, but which certainly retained a most kindly feeling for the older paganism, and a most charming toleration of its personages. Cuchulainn is the son of a god. But the birth- stories of Merlin and of Hagen are of much later date, and were fashioned by men whose Christianity was of a far more bigoted and disagreeable kind than that of the Irish ollamhs, and so the god becomes an incubus or an elf. Surely this is the natural logical course of development, and those who start from the incubus form of the episode as the earliest are putting the cart before the horse in defiance of every principle of sound criticism. Some scholars of to-day seem most loth to admit that our Celtic and Teutonic forefathers had an organised cult and mythology, at least they look with suspicion upon stories in which such a mythology is set forth. But the evidence for these religious beliefs and practices is independent of and anterior to that of the stories which it is sought to discredit. The Romans found both among the Gauls and the Germans deities whom they assimilated at once and unhesitatingly to figures in their own Pantheon. Their conduct may be compared with that of the Spanish conquerors of America ; these, too, were struck by similarities between their own worship and that of Mexico and Peru, and they accounted for these NuTT. — Problems of Heroic Legend. 131 similarities by diabolic intervention, whilst the Roman frankly admitted essential identity. In neither case does the modern scholar feel compelled to overstrain the force of the testimony ; he by no means assumes that the Gaulish or German deity was in all points akin to the Roman one, or that there was more than a superficial likeness of ceremonial between Mexico and Rome. But in either case he concludes that the invader found before him a fairly complex and highly-developed system of cult and behef. Such a system must have left traces both in Germany and in Celtdom, and where we find what profess to be such traces, we have no prima facie grounds for referring them to a much later stage of development. The explanation of the similarity between certain incidents of the heroic legends of various Aryan races, by reference to the divine legends of those races, by no means prejudges the ques- tion whether these legends were evolved by the Aryans or borrowed from older races; nor whether, within the Aryan group, they are representatives of one common original or indepen- dent developments of common mythic germs ; nor even whether they are mainly natural or historical myths, though I am strongly inclined for my own part to believe that they are mainly the former. I may point out, however, that even if the myths are mainly historical, i.e., if they symbolise events which im- pressed the imagination and modified the condition of the race, it by no means follows that similarity of heroic legend implies a common history. In other words, stories which are alike among Celts, Teutons, and Greeks, need not be the special Celtic, Teutonic, or Greek recollection of a past once shared in by all these peoples, any more than, assuming them to be nature- myths, they need be the special representatives of a common mythology. All that is necessarily implied is a common method of symbolism, since, if this is granted, it follows that the inevit- able likeness between the history of races in a primitive and essen- tially warlike state will bring about likeness between the legends m which that history is embodied. Thus, if the subjection of one race by another is symbolised by a hero's gaining possession of the daughter or wife of another hero, the abduction or elopement formula will necessarily bulk largely in the sagas ot any warlike race, K 2 132 Folk- tale Section. One single instance, selected from recent research, must suttice of the way in which the same heroic incident lends itself to varying interpretations.^ In the last quarter of the fourth century, Ammianus Marcellinus tells how the mighty king of the Ostrogoth, Hermanaricus, fear- ing the onslaught of the Hunnish invaders, slew himself In the middle of the sixth century, Jordanes adds that Hermanaricus had been deserted by the faithless folk of the Rosomoni, for that, in- censed at the treachery of her husband, he had caused a noble woman of this folk, Sunilda by name, to be torn by wild horses, whereupon her brothers, Sarus and Ammius, had attacked and wounded him, so that he sickened and was unable to defend his land against the Huns. In the heroic narrative poems preserved in the Eddaic collection, and in the euhemerising S3.ga.-ri/ad- mento of Saxo Grammaticus, the story runs as follows : Jormun- rekr sends his son Randwer to woo Swanhild, daughter of Sigurd ; but Randwer, misled by the evil counsel of Bikki, wins her love for himself, whereat his father, enraged, has him hanged, and Swanhild trampled to death by wild horses — and so long as she looked at them with open eyes they refused to do so, but when a sack was thrown over her head, or she was laid on her face, they did their office. Gudrun, Swanhild's mother, incites her son Sorli and Hamdir to avenge their sister's death, and advises them to take their youngest brother Erpr with them, and she gives them armour of such starkness that no iron will bite on it. The elder sons will have nothing to do with their younger (half-)brother Erpr and slay him. But they miss him when they come to attack Jormunrekr ; his hands they hew off and his feet ; had Erpr been there he would have cut off the head. The brothers are crushed by stones hurled at them, in one ver- sion by Jormunrekr's, in another by Odin's counsel. It is universally admitted that the Ermenrich, or Jormunrekr, in the saga is the historical Hermanaricus, the last king of the Ostrogoths, and that the names Sarus and Ammius mean the "armed" the " weaponed" ones. It is also generally agreed that the story is in no sense of the word history, i.e., a record, how- 1 I refer to W. Miiller's Mythologie der deutschen Heldensage, pp. 148 et seq., and to Max Roediger's Die Sage von Ermenrich nnd Schivanhild {Zettschrift (les Vereinsfiir Volkskunde, ■■ 3). NUTT. — Problems of Heroic Legend. 133 ever distorted, of actual events, but a myth, i.e., an invented symbol. It is held by W. Miiller that the legend symbolises history. The faithlessness of Hermanaricus' wife signifies the loss of Gothic power and territory which followed the great king's death ; the two brothers are the armour-clad Romans of the eastern and western empires who attack the Goths ; that Her- manaricus' hands and feet, but not his head, are cut off signifies that the Gothic power, though greatly weakened, was not finally broken. According to Roediger, the saga, as we have it, is an effort of Gothic imagination to explain the self-slaying of the mightiest of Gothic kings. This could only be due to some special malign cause ; hence the defection of the Rosomoni, explained by the king's cruelty to Sunilda and the avenging action of her brethren, who inflicted on the tyrant wounds which made him incapable of resisting the Huns. The material for this explanation was furnished by an early nature-myth, which told how the sky-god, Irmintiu, was wronged by his sons, the twin mail-clad riders of the dawn, who retained the sun-bride for themselves. She is trampled to death by the steed-clouds, but only when the open eye of the sun is obscured ; her brothers are similarly crushed beneath the gathering clouds of night. But the sky-god, though sorely wounded, is immortal, as is signified by his keeping his head. Erpr is a demon of darkness, whose help the dawn heroes contemn. The likeness of name between " Irmintiu" — Tiu the above-all, the incomparable — and " Ermanarikaz" — the incomparable, all-powerful king — suggested the idea of weaving the old nature-myth into the legendary account of the downfall of the Gothic kingdom. With regard to W. Miiller's theory in this particular instance, and to theories generally of historical myth, I would venture to raise an initial query as to whether the process postulated by partisans of this theory actually does take place. Do races sum up their past history in the life-record of one individual ? Have they a conventional series of formulas by means of which an historic process extending over long periods of time, covering stretches of wide land, and affecting various races, can be steno- graphed, as it were, in the story of a small group of men and women living at the same time ? 134 Folk-tale Section. This query seems to me to indicate the true line of research, by pursuing which we may hope to solve the problem of heroic legend. We are sure that the natural mythopoeic process is possible ; we can still observe it at work among different races. Can we be equally sure about the historical mythopceic process ? There are now living races in substantially the same style of social and artistic culture as the Celts, or Teutons, or Greeks, when the great heroic legends took shape. These races are still given to mythic invention. Do they treat their past history, con- cerning which we have in many cases authentic records, in the manner in which ex hypothesi the Greeks and Teutons and Celts treated theirs. This is a matter for investigation. The great merit of the anthropological school of folk-lorists was that it confronted the theories of mythologists with facts de- rived from personal observation of the living subject. It seems to me that this requires to be done in the case of heroic legend, a comprehensive study of which should start with an exhaustive comparison of every known saga-form all over the world, classified according to age, land, and culture-level of the race among whom found. This will enable us to ehminate a certain number of duplicates due to borrowing within historical periods, and leave us face to face with primary forms, presenting substantially the same phenomena. Then, where we can interrogate men who still fashion hero-tales, still believe in and are still inspired by them, let us do so, and let us see if their answer will enable us to interpret these monuments of a dead past which have engaged our attention for a short space to-day, and concerning the inter- pretation of which it may be said, Quot homines tot sententia. P..S. — The pi'eceding article was in type when (December) Mons. H. d'Arbois de Jubainville's Epopee celtique en Irlande came into my hands. Amongst other early Irish sagas Mons. d'Arbois studies the Cuchulainn and Conlaoch story, and comes to the conclusion that the Irish version is older than either the Persian or the Teutonic one, and that it is indeed the direct original of the latter. I mention this to show that other scholars are prepared to make much larger claims on behalf of Irish heroic legend than I am, and that if I err, I err on the side of caution rather than of over-rashness. — A. N. LA CHANSON POPULAIRE EN FINLANDE. Par ILMARI KROHN. La chanson populaire en Finlande ne peut pas s'offrir a une etude si complete, que celle de beaucoup d'autres pays, parce que tous las recueils sont recents at pas du tout encore finis. Pourtant les recueils actuals presantent des faits qui ne manqueront pas d'interet. L'honorable Monsieur J. Tiarsot a prouve dans son Histoire de la chanson populaire en France que dans sa patrie at da meme dans la plus granda partie de I'Europe la chanson populaire, c'est-a-dire la vraie, la belle chanson populaire, est de plus an plus aneantia par la chanson de rua, et que seulement dans quelques provinces Isoldes le peuple a conserve Thdritaga musicale de sas ancetras, quelquafois degdnere, depravd, souvent capandant plus ou moins iramaculd at intact dans son originalla baaute. En Finlande, outre cas deux diverses phases de developpamant de la chanson populaire, il y en a encore deux autres. Tandis qua la gouvarnamant d'Archangel se trouve encore dans I'etat primitive des chants epiques aux mdlodies monotones et toujours se rep6tant, la chanson lyrique est deja vivante, se produisant, se developpant dans le Centra de notre pays at dans la Carelie septentrionale. Entre ces daux contrees est situee la Savolaxie septentrionale, qui n'est pas encore suffisamment connue a cet dgard ; mais probablement cette province-ci est la troisieme source vivante, d'ou se repandent les nouvellas chansons dans las provinces environnantes, en rajeunissant continuellement la sentiment musical du peuple. Dans le Centra p. ex. pendant six semaines de I'etd 1890 deux musiciens ont recueilli prfes de 150 melodies, toutes vraiment belles at dignes de publication. Dans les memes contrdas un coUectionnaur il y a trente ans n'en trouvait que trfes-peu. Les paysans me dirent une fois, que dans chaque village a present une nouvalle chanson est faite chaque etd par 136 Folk-tale Section. les jeunes fiUes. Bien que ceci n'ait egard qu'aux textes des chansons, la melodie etant composee tout naivement sans que le compositeur s'en rende compte, il n'est pas a douter cependant qu'avec ces textes toujours nouveaux aussi beaucoup de melodies nouvelles soient produites. Leur modernite, qui d'ailleurs est bien prouvee par I'existence de plusieurs variantes des memes melodies, les unes primitives, les autres plus developpees, se manifeste aussi dans leur caractere plus hardi, que celui des chansons des recueils plus anciens. Dans notre musique populaire on peut trouver deux categories de caractfere distinct : les chansons careliennes et celles du Centre. Le caractere de celles-la est d'une abondante gaiete ou d'une melancofie trfes-douce ; celles-ci sont austferes et d'une passion a demi-retenue ou profondement reveuses. Les chansons careliennes sont influencees par la musique russe, celles du Centre reflfetent purement le caractere finnois. Ce caractere, difficile a decrire, vous serait cependant tout d'un coup saisissable, si vous vous pouviez imaginer la nature des provinces du Centre, les etroits lacs qui se trainent dans tout coin du pays en le decoupant en iles et en presqu'iles innombrables, les bouleaux souriants qui garnissent les rivages, les sombres hauteurs couvertes des bois en vert fonce, ouvrantes parfois ii I'ceil I'aspect d'un vaste paysage, oil les terres et les eaux se remplacent tour a tour jusqu'a I'horizon limite de collines bleuatres ; vous devriez eprouver le sentiment de solitude de cette nature presque sauvage, les cultures se derobant en general dans les bois. Si alors du milieu de la foret ou d'un bateau cache la-bas derriere une presqu'ile, una chanson se fait entendre, on la croirait produite par la nature meme, tant elle en porte le caractere, et, la chanson finie, le leger soufflement du vent fait vibrer les cordes de Fame par les memes sentiments. — Dans les derniers temps on peut remarquer quelque tendance de rupture avec le calme classique de la nature, qui ne laisse jamais son equilibre s'ebranler meme par les plus violents orages ; mais quand les sentiments subjectifs de Fame humaine commencent a s'emanciper de la nature, alors suivra aus.-)! I'emancipation du talent individuel et I'aboutissement de la chanson populaire en Fart nationale. La forme des melodies s'est faite d'abord de 4 tactes; puis encore 4 tactes sc forment en s'accrochant a quelque motif de la Krohn. — La Chanson, PopuLaire en Finlatidc. i 37 premiere moitie, ou bien deux melodies independantes se reu- nissent en una formation d' 8 tactes qui alors est tres-apte a s'elargir jusqu'a 12 ou 16 tactes. Plusieurs variantes de la meme melodie donnent souvent d'interessants details sur les diverses formations. Une tendance individuelle se laisse voir dans la forme par des irregularites, comme p. ex. I'intercalation d'un tacte repetant son predecesseur ou I'elargissement des notes d'un tacte a leur double valeur. La mesure est le plus souvent celle de |, \ ow \\ celle de f est probablement due a I'influence suedoise, mais la mesure de f est une vraie finnoise, qui regne absolument dans les melodies epiques et de la s'est egare dans quelques melodies lyriques. Aussi les mesures mixtes se trouvent quelquefois. Quant a la tonalite, la majeure est bien representee par les gaies chansons careliennes, mais dans le Centre elle n'est guere usee, que dans les melodies triviales et sentimentales, avant- gardes de la chanson de rue, qui depravera assurement le sen- timent musical du peuple, s'il n'apprend pas a connaitre la valeur de son propre bien. Cependant il y a quelques rares chansons en tonaliti! majeure, qui sont des plus belles. La plupart des vrais chansons populaires dans le Centre appartient aux tonalites dorienne, phrygienne, eolienne et mixolydienne, par laquelle quelquefois des chansons triviales en majeure sont ennoblies et embellies. La tonality mineure n'est point du tout rare, mais en general les finnois ont le goiit pour la septieme abaissee ; ce s. d. ton sensible est pourtant un peu plus haut que la septieme petite de la musique savante ; meme les chanteurs, qui ont la meilleure intonation sur les autres tons, faussent regulierement celui-la. Les modulations, encore tres-rares, sont un produit recent de la tendance individuelle. Le texte est a present rarement bien forme. Les temps du Kanteletar ne sont plus. La poesie lyrique est remplacee par la musique lyrique. Pourtant au moment du remplacement les deux ont ete reunies dans quelques unes des plus belles chansons, p. ex. la ballade du fratricide. Dans les chansons modernes la poesie s'est refugiee dans la pensee, mais elle n'a pas pu se maintenir intacte de trivialite. Quand on s'est rejoui de quelques strophes poetiques, aussitot les suivants detruisent I'illusion. Caracteristiques sont les chansons d'amour trompe, qui contiennent des touchants 138 Folk- tale Section. traits de tendresse fidfele et des sevferes jugements centre I'infidele. Je tacherai de vous en traduire une : " Oh qui, qui a plante des fleurs Dans les sfeches pierres ? Oh qui, qui a caus^ les pleurs De son amie chfere ? " Un bleu nuage recouvrant Le ciel, mais sans pluie ! Hdlas, quel coeur a un amant Qui trompe son amie ! " Le bouleau vert, le soir venu. Fait reposer ses rameaux ; Jamais ne me sera perdu L'amour qui est dans I'Elme. " Mon pauvre ami, que feras-tu Au jour enfin supreme, Quand face en face tu auras vu Et I'autre, et moi qui t'aime ?! " Ce noble sentiment de la morale ne montre pas encore le plus haut degrd, jusqu'ou s'est elev^ la phantaisie du peuple finnois. Les chansons religieuses, recemment decouvertes, ont une valeur musicale, qui ne pent gubre etre depassde par la musique popu- laire. La tendance individuelle y est pouss^e le plus loin pos- sible. Les formes se conforment librement a la pensee par une grande variability du rhythme et des mesures ; la mdlodie invite absolument a une harmonisation bien dlue pour exprimer le sentiment du texte, les serieuX combats de I'ame, la consolation par l'amour divin, la fervente reconnaissance et la forte confiance en la victoire de la verity. Les plus recentes de ces chansons sont compos^es il y a cinquante ans ; elles ne sont chanties plus, que par les vieux gens 9a et la dans tout le pays. Leur origine est trfes-discutde. II y a ceux qui les croient issues des chansons de la Reformation allemande. Pour ^claircir ce sujet il faudra les efforts r^unis des musiciens folk-loristes de toutes les nations, chez lesquelles la R^forme de I'eglise s'est manifestde aussi dans la musique populaire. Ce qu'il y a de certain, c'est que la plupart de ces chansons ont un caractere tout k fait finnois et qu'elles sont chanties en differentes variantes dans toutes les provinces outre Krohn. — La Chanson Populaire en Finlande. 139 la Carelie, jusqu'oii ne s'^tait 6tendu le mouvement pidtiste, auquel certes nous devons leur propagation et peut-etre leur creation. Cette musique sera en tout cas un temoin de la pro- fondeur du sentiment religieux de notre peuple. Meme dans les provinces de I'Ouest, oil Ton croyait toute musique populaire tarie depuis longtemps, le reveil des cceurs pour embrasser la foi en Jesus-Christ avait rouvert ses sources cachees. La r^colte de I'annee passee, publi^e en hiver, ne sera pas la seule ; cet ete (1891) nous en a fourni encore un grand nombre et dbs a present que le tresor est decouvert, on le ramassera pendant qu'il est temps encore ; bientot on aurait d^ja peine inutile. Maintenant au contraire nous gardons Tespoir, que ces chansons publiees se repandront de nouveau partout parmi le peuple. De la population su6doise d'une partie de nos cotes de mer on a recueilli des chansons de niarins, des ballades et quelques autres. Leur caractfere est le meme qu'en Suede. L'influence reciproque des deux musiques populaires, finnoise et suedoise, n'est pas grande. Les chansons suedoises, qui se sont rdpandues chez les finnois, ont le plus souvent subi un assez curieux change- ment de tonalite et de mesure. Je vais finir cet expose de la musique populaire de mon peuple en exprimant ma conviction de ce qu'elle ne sera pas vaincue par la chanson de rue, comma cela c'est fait chez tant d'autres nations ; notre jeune musique savante, en sugant I'esprit de la chanson populaire, le redonnera dans un travesti artistique au peuple, qu'elle instruira ainsi a estimer et conserver sa propriete. Alors Fart vrai aura un large fondement pour se preparer a la lutte dangereuse et acharnee contre le mauvais goflt ; en s'appuyant sur la musique populaire vivante et en se maintenant en rapport reciproque avec elle, la musique savante remportera la victoire sur son ennemi et cessera alors d'etre un objet de luxe des classes superieures, en arrivant a son vrai but, a sa vraie mission, d'etre un moyen de culture nationale et humaine. MYTHOLOGICAL SECTION. {Myth, Ritual, and Magic) Chairman— PROF. JOHN RHYS. OCTOBER sth, 1891. THE CHAIRMAN'S ADDRESS. I HAVE been a little exercised to discover why in the world I was fixed upon to fill the chair to-day, and I have come to the con- clusion that it was for the sake, perhaps, of providing me with an opportunity of doing public penance for my many grievous sins against the muse of Mythology. There might be something in that, since the penitence of a thorough-paced sinner is apt to be eloquent ; but I cannot promise eloquence ; nor do I feel like one flowing over with a great and fertilizing mission to you. So my remarks will be of a very miscellaneous nature, but I find that they group themselves under the following three heads : A word or two on the recent history of mythology in this country ; The relations between mythology and glottology, as I may briefly call comparative philology ; And some of the difficulties attaching to mythological studies generally. It has been well said, that while it is not science to know the contents of myths, it is science to know why the human race has produced them. It is not my intention to trace minutely the history of that science, but I may hazard the remark that she could not be said to have reached years of discretion till she became comparative ; and even when mythology had become comparative mythology, her horizon remained till within recent years compara- tively narrow. In other words, the comparisons were wont to be very circumscribed : you might, it is true, compare the myths of Greeks and Teutons and Hindus, because these nations were considered to be of the same stock; but even within that range com- parisons were scarcely contemplated except in the case of myths enshrined in the most classical literatures of those nations. This kind of mythology was eclectic rather than comparative, and it was apt to regard myths as a mere disease of language. By-and-by, 144 Mythological Section. however, the student showed a preference for a larger and broader field, and in so doing he was, whether consciously or uncon- sciously, beginning to keep step with a wider movement extending to the march of all the kindred sciences, especially that of language. At one time the student of language was satisfied with mummi- fied speech wrapped up as it were in the musty coils of the records of the past ; in fact, he often became a mere researcher of the dead letter of language instead of a careful observer of the breath of life animating her frame. So long as that remained the case glottology deserved the whole irony of Voltaire's well-known account of etymology : " L'dtymologie est une science ou les voyelles ne font rien, et les consonnes fort peu de chose." In the course, however, of recent years a great change has come over the scene : not only have the laws of the Aryan consonants gained greatly in precision, but those of the Aryan vowels have at last been dis- covered to a considerable extent. The result for me and others who learnt that the Aryan peasant of idyllic habits harped eternally on the three notes of dvTT]'i EvaTp6ov or ^Xaovio? lepoas Kind, i, p. 161). In Nias, an island of the Malay Archipelago, the change of name is made, in the case of men, on their marriage, in the case of girls, at puberty. In Engano, another island of the archipelago, the name is changed when a 206 Mythological Section. death occurs in the house. The same custom is found among certain South American tribes. See Folk-Lore Journal, viii, p. 156; the explanation there given, viz., that the change is made from a fear of recalHng the spirits is, it seems to me, wrong : the danger which enjoins the change is rather that incidental to the impurity contracted by contact with a corpse. (4) Names are concealed from strangers, because strangers are supposed to possess peculiar magical powers (see Frazer, Golden Bough, i, p. 150, and for instances, Folk-Lore Journal, viii, p. 158). Under the second category — concealment of name when its bearer is not specially exposed to evil influences, but in special need of protection from them, because they would prove fatal to himself or others — comes first the change of name in grievous sickness. This is, or was, done among the Jews, in Borneo {Folk-Lore Journal, viii, p. 156), and among the Mongols (Ploss, Das Kind, i, p. 17s). The name may be concealed also by persons who lead an especially dangerous life, or rely much on luck. Ammianus (xxii, 16, 23) tells us that the most terrible tortures would not induce Egyptian brigands to reveal their names. The persons in early society to whom protection from evil influence was most necessary were kings and priests ; for disaster to them meant disaster to the community (see Frazer, Golden Bough, i, ch. 2), and we naturally find among the precautions taken to ensure their safety the concealment of name. The best known instance is that of the Emperor of China, whose real name is never pro- nounced. The concealment of the names of the Eleusinian priests comes, of course, under this category. II. The committal of the name to the sea. — The symbolism of this action is evident. What we wish to annihilate we throw into the sea, like Polycrates his ring, and the Athenians the stelae con- demning Alcibiades. But the committal of a name to the sea suggests interesting thoughts on one light in which baptism may be regarded. What is the origin of that association among primi- tive peoples of the lustral ceremony with name-giving which our present rite perpetuates ? The simplest, and perhaps the correct, answer seems to be that the name was given simultaneously with the lustration, because, as we have seen, it was undesirable that it should be given before, while the child was yet impure and exposed to malign influence ; but, when we find instances of Paton. — Holy Names of the Eleusinian Priests. 207 peoples who do not afterwards use names thus conferred, e.g., the Abyssinians, the thought inevitably arises that to them the name is one of the impure and prejudicial things which the lustral water washes away. Lustration and committal to the sea are ceremonies so closely aUied as to be almost identical. This is shown by a comparison of the properties and virtues of the sea, as a whole, with those of the materials used for lustration. The sea washes away all impurities, makes them disappear ; QaXacraa icKv'i^ei iravra TavOpmTrwv KaKa, says Euripides. In ancient Greece we need only instance the ceremony in the Iliad {^ 3iS> o' S' aireXvfiijvavTO koX el<; oka Xv/xaT e^aWov where the plague is committed to the sea, and the rite of casting into the sea the scape-goat in Leucas (Strabo, x, p. 452), and the ashes of the scape-goats in Asia Minor (Tretzes ad Lye, 1141, and Chil., 726-761). A curious survival at Sidon of a rite analogous to these last is mentioned by Sebillot {Legendes de la Mer, i, p. 88). The Turkish women meet on the shore, and cast their sins upon a Christian woman, if they can find one ; if not, they cast them into the sea. It is evident that the unmutilated rite would be to cast their sins upon the Christian woman and then throw her into the sea. Many modern instances of the committal of sins to the sea, sometimes in a ship, are given by Mr. Frazer (^Golden Bough, ii, p. 192), and an ancient parallel is the untenanted ship which was sent to sea at the great festival of Isis, so graphically described by Appuleius. It is possible that the original signifi- cance of the Doge wedding the Adriatic by throwing a ring into it was no other; the Isiac ceremony, like this, was interpreted as invoking a blessing on navigation and commerce. This power of the sea, as a whole, is transferred not to water generally, but (i) to running water or spring-water which is on its way to the sea, and was supposed by a prinjitive philosophy, of which we find the trace in Thales and his disciples, to come directly from the sea by underground channels, losing its saltness on the way (see Seneca, de Aquis, iii, 5, and cp. Berl. Phil. Woch., 1891, p. 964); (2) to sea water, salted water, or salt. The lustral virtues of running water are familiar, and need not concern us here. The use of sea or salt water in lustration by the ancient Greeks is too well known to need illustration. I may refer to Dr. Verrall's remarks in an Appendix to his edition of the Agamem- 2o8 Mythological Section. non. This use was not confined to the Greeks, but was probably very general. The Ebionites, like Mahomedans, purified them- selves from sexual intercourse by washing ; they used sea-water by preference (Colonna, Hydragiologia, p. 448). It is, of course, universally known that the holy water in both the Eastern and Western Churches derives part of its virtue from an admixture of salt. Sea-water, or salt, was used to purify wells. Elisha purifies the well at Jericho by casting salt into it (2 Kings, ii), and the prayer used at the exorcism of the salt to be mixed with the holy water makes special mention of this miracle. M. Sebillot {L^gendes, etc., p. 94) mentions that, nowadays, at Tyre there is a well which in the autumn becomes troubled. The people of the country bring on a certain day buckets of sea-water and pour them into the well, which recovers its clearness. When we read this we remember Lucian's description of what he calls the Great Festival of the Syrian Goddess at Hierapolis, in the same part of the world. Her temple was on a lake. The festival was called 'ETrl daXaaaav, " To the sea". There was a solemn procession to the sea, and sea-water, in jars carefully sealed, was brought back. The seals were broken by a ministrant of the goddess, and the water was then used as a libation. One may conjecture that it was poured into the lake.^ As, however, water (I am not here speaking of sea-water, but of water in general) does not annihilate material impurities, but holds them in solution, it was naturally regarded as holding in solution immaterial impurities also. Moses gives the Israelites to drink a solution of the brazen calf, seemingly with the view of making them remember their transgressions. In the extraordinary trial of jealousy (Numbers v) the suspected woman has to drink a solu- tion of curses, and probably St. Jerome is right in interpreting in the same sense the ceremony at Mizpah (i Sam. vii) when the Israelites, abjuring their idols, drew water and poured it on the ground. The analogous stories of savages who drink solutions of doctors' prescriptions are familiar to us. By a primitive, and here correct, generalisation this solvent power of water is attributed to the sea as a whole. A\'hile it washes away and hides secrets and evils committed to it, it does not annihilate them, but holds them ' .See, however, Robertson-Smith, Relii>xon oj (he Semiles, p. 182. Paton. — Holy Names of the Ekiisinian Priests. 209 in solution, and may, if it will, render them again — a terrible power, the consciousness of which makes itself felt in the common notion that the sea throws up the bodies of murdered people. (Cp. Seneca, Ep. 26.) The sea is therefore the storehouse of the secrets of the whole world's past, and, by an easy transition, it comes to be regarded as the storehouse of the secrets of the future. It is for this reason that the sea is the home of prophetic beings — Proteus, Glaucus, and countless others in old Greece. I do not speak with com- plete confidence when I say that in the transference of its attri- butes in this respect to running water lies the explanation of spring-oracles. It is certain that the oldest oracles of Greece, just like the latest — a still existing oracle in the island of Amorgos — were water oracles, and that the Poseidon, who was, as legend tells us, the original oracle-god at Delphi, cannot be dissociated from the Poseidon of the sea and the prophetic beings who inhabit its depths. The question is this. Was the prophetic power of the sea transferred to springs or vice versa ? The two ideas cannot have grown up independently. The transference of this virtue of the sea to salt water is shown by a curious instance of the use of the latter among the Greeks. Athenaeus (p. 458) tells us that those who could not guess riddles were obliged, as a penalty, to drink salt water (oX/jLtjv iriveiv). The meaning of this custom is, that having failed to divine the secret by help of their wits they might find it thus. This is a rough statement of the powers attributed to the sea and to salt water, and by such light as it affords we may consider the ceremony of baptism. AA'ashing a child after birth was always a ceremony. It occa sionally survives among Christian peoples as a ceremony distinct from baptism, but, in most instances, its ceremonial elements have naturally been transferred to the rite prescribed by religion, the child's first bath retaining nothing but its hygienic purpose. Among these ceremonial elements the use of sea-water, salt water, or salt is prominent. The newly-born child is, among many peoples, bathed in the sea, or in salt water, or rubbed with salt; the Isaurians in Asia Minor go so far as to put the child in pickle for twenty-four hours (see Sdbillot, Legendes, etc., i, p. 90, and Ploss, Das Kind, i, p. 280, and ii, pp. 16 and 17). Tavernier p 2IO Mythological Section. (quoted by Sebillot) tells us that Kaffir babies, immediately after birth, were given salt water to drink, and Napier (quoted by Ploss) says that in the west of Scotland, on the first occasion when the mother takes a newly-born child to a friend's house the friend puts salt in its mouth. Ploss and others are inclined to regard the use of salt as simply a diaetetic measure, and salt baths are recom- mended for babies by Galen, Soranus, and modern physicians, but no one will maintain that the health of little Kaffirs and little Hebrideans is improved by their drinking sea-water or eating salt ; and I think that, other reasons apart, if this has a ceremonial meaning, then the sea bath or salt bath has it also. It is interest- ing to observe how the Christian Church has been obliged, here as elsewhere, by the power of customs older than it, and more deeply rooted in the consciousness of the people than the teach- ing or example of Christ, to adopt, in the rite of baptism, the use of salt. Salt was always an ingredient of the holy water, but, because Christ was baptised in the Jordan, the baptismal water was not salted. St. Augustine regarded baptism in the sea as a relic of paganism, and in some parts of Germany (Grimm, Deutsche Myth., p. 877) witches were supposed to use salt for baptising beasts. AVe find, howe\'er, the impositio sails, i.e., the placing a grain of salt in the candidate's mouth, existing already in the early Roman rite of the catechumenate (preceding adult baptism), and this ceremony has now become part of the baptismal service in the Roman Church. The addition of salt to the baptismal, as distinct from the holy, water dates only from somewhere between the sixth and ninth centuries (Ploss, ibid., p. 283). Salt is now mixed with the baptismal water both in the Eastern and AVestern Churches. In the Greek Church the baptismal water is poured after the ceremony into the sea, or, where the sea is not accessible, into a receptacle in the church representative of the sea and called QaKaaaa (Ducange j. v.). According to Colonna (Hydragiologia, p. 218), the Burgundians were the first people who used salt in baptism, and they were hence called "Saliti Burgundi." In Brandenburg (Ploss, p. 216) if a child is baptised in fresh water it will certainly have red hair — the attribute of the Egyptian Typhon. Notwithstanding the efforts of the Church to distinguish the two, we find the baptismal water credited in early times with the virtues of the holy water. St. Gregory of Tours (Colonna, Hydrag., PaTON. — Holy Names of the Eleusinian Priests. 2 1 1 p. 350) mentions a wonderful baptistery in Portugal. The water supplied by a spring used to rise above the level of the edges of the font as if it were a solid substance. It was distributed to the devout, who took it home and poured it on their vineyards and cornfields. It became necessary to make a special rule, that this water should be distributed ante infusionem chrismatis (ibid., p. 446). I have above indicated that the most prominent attributes of the sea as a whole were (i) its purifying, (2) its prophetic, virtue, and that both these attributes were transferred to salt water and salt. We find the baptismal water credited with the same powers. Like the water from the Portuguese baptistery, the salt used at baptism and provided by the sponsors is in Brabant (Ploss, i, p. 286) carried home and used to protect the corn from disease. Gregor, in his Folk-lore of the N.E. of Scotland, mentions two very signifi- cant superstitions with regard to baptismal water. None of the water must go in the child's eyes or it will see ghosts. It is drunk in order to strengthen the memory. This last is very much akin to the drinking of salt water among the Greeks by those who could not answer riddles. I am sorry that in this matter my material is at fault. I do not know if the question of the virtue attributed to baptismal water has received the attention it deserves. Now if the lustral ceremony after birth is equivalent to the committal of impurities to the sea, and if the name is a thing which is analogous to other impurities, in that it makes us especi- ally liable to injury by evil spirits, may not the primitive associa- tion of the ceremonies of name-giving and lustration come very close to the committal of the name to the sea by the priests at Eleusis. Perhaps the precautions taken to do away with the baptismal water may enforce this analogy. In the east of Scotland it is poured under the foundations of the house (Gregor, ibid.); in the Eastern Church it is, as I have said, thrown into the sea. A\'e should, it is true, find in this case more instances of an aversion to the use of the baptismal name, but the single instance of the Abyssinians is perhaps sufficient to show that this notion of washing away the name at the same time at which it was given was one which was likely to suggest itself, and must be taken into account as a possibihty. 2 I 2 Mythological Section. APPENDIX. I HERE follow Topffer in his list of named hierophants (Att. Gen.., pp. 55-61). I have supplied one or two omissions in this list, and there are probably others. My objects are — (i) To review the facts in the light of my conception of the " hieronymia", and to show that they support it ; (2) to show that there is no evidence of any radi- cal change of usage in this matter at any period covered by our authorities. The supposed evidence for such a change is discussed under Nos. 5, 6, and 7. 1. Zaxopoi (Lysias, vi, 54) is the name of a hierophant long since dead. It is, therefore, the holy name. 2. BeoSiupo'i (Plut., Atcid., 33) is doubtless the holy name. We may assume that the original authority for the incident here related wrote after the death of the hierophant. 3. AuKpaTeibrjs (Isaeus, vii, 9), the original, not the holy, name of the hierophant, as the speaker expressly says (^AaxpaTeicrj tw vvv lepotpavTTj r^evofievw). 4. 'Apx'at (Demosth., lix {/n Nearani), 116 ; Y\\x\..,Pelop., 10, and De Gen. Socr., 30). The passages of Plutarch show that he was hierophant ' in 378 B.C. The date of the speech In Neceram is about 340 B.C. The speaker there states that Archias was punished for impiety, and the phrase t'ov lepofpavTiiv ''levop.evov implies that he ceased to hold the office. In this case he would ha\e resumed his original name, Archias. It is a matter of no importance for the question at issue whether he were dead or alive at the date of this speech. 4a. Eiipvfidcwv (Diog. Laert., v, 5, in I'l'/a Aristotelis). Aristotle fled to ChalciS, Ev^w^e^oivTO? ainov rod lepofpavrov tiKi^v ace^eius i^pa^afiivov. Here, as in the case of other non-contemporary men- tions, we may take Eurymedon to be the holy name. It is an epithet of several gods. 5 and 7. EipvKKeibti'i (Diog. Laert., ii, loi) ; "Xuiprjitoi {£pA. Arch., 1883, p. 82). I couple these two because they supply two in- stances of the use of a hierophant's name in his lifetime. Eurycleides is not an epithet of any divinity, and there is, therefore, no reason to suppose that it was the holy name. It is the original name of the hierophant used, perhaps intentionally, by the irreverent philosopher Theodorus. That the use of the original name was improper is clearly shown by the passage of Lucian's Lcxifi/mnes to which we owe the Paton. — Holy Names of the Eleusinian Priests. 213 preservation of the word lepuivvfioi. (Lucian is of course making fun of the word and the institution, but this makes no difference.) E7r' evOvi evTv^j-^avu) lafoxiyyj le Kai lepoipavrn Ka\ Tot's aWois oppTjiOTTOtoifi ^etviav avpovaiv w/Stji' eV( njv ap-^rjv t'^y/fXT^/ia eTro'yoi'Te?, ot( lovofiacrev aoTov! KUt rat'Ta ev eidtd on, e^ ov-rrep wffiwOijffui^, oviovv^oi re e.iai vat ovKUTi ouotififfroi W't uv lepwpvfXOL rjhrj '^er'^eVTj/jevoi. Deinias was put in prison for his offence. This offence did not consist in revealing the holy names of the priests. These names could only have been known to him if he had been himself initiated by them. Their reve- lation would have been a violation of his initiatory oath, and would have entailed gra\er penalties. What he did do, as the phraseology of the passage clearly shows, was to address them by their discarded family names. The case of Chasretios stands on a different footing from that of Eurycleides, for here we have a hierophant named during his lifetime in a public document. A decree (3rd century B.C.) of the Eumolpidse and Kerykes in his honour begins thus : Se^oy^Oat Kripv^t Kat KvfioXnt^ai^ €7raiv€{Tat lou lepo(pav7rjv 'KaipTjrtov IlpoipTjTov 'EXevai'i'iov. There is no indication that XaiprjTtov has been added after the hierophant's death in a space left blank for the purpose, and it does not seem prima facie to be a holy, but an ordinary, name. This inscription is the only evidence upon which the view that the iepwvvfiia of the hierophant was a late institution rests. All we are justified in saying is however, not either that this hierophant had not changed his name, or that he had changed it but did not conceal the assumed name, but that he is in this instance designated by his original name. The universal usage of siate documents, and the passage of the LexipAanes, show that the use of the original name was generally improper. It is quite possible that for some reason unknown to us its use was permissible to the members of the priestly -{eyr), the authors of this decree. The phrase hpocpai'jrj^- . . . i TToTe