More English Fairy Tales Part 31

_Remarks._--Prof. Child remarks that dipping into water or milk is necessary before transformation can take place, and gives examples, _l.c._, 338, to which may be added that of Catskin (see Notes _infra_).

He gives as the reason why the Elf-queen would have "ta'en out Tamlane's two grey eyne," so that henceforth he should not be able to see the fairies. Was it not rather that he should not henceforth see Burd Janet?--a subtle touch of jealousy. On dwelling in fairyland Mr.

Hartland has a monograph in his _Science of Fairy Tales_, pp. 161-254.

LXXVI. THE STARS IN THE SKY

_Source._--Mrs. Balfour's old nurse, now in New Zealand. The original is in broad Scots, which I have anglicised.

_Parallels._--The tradition is widespread that at the foot of the rainbow treasure is to be found; _cf._ Mr. John Payne's "Sir Edward's Questing" in his _Songs of Life and Death_.

_Remarks._--The "sell" at the end is scarcely after the manner of the folk, and various touches throughout indicate a transmission through minds tainted with culture and introspection.

LXXVII. NEWS!

_Source._--Bell's _Speaker_.

_Parallels._--Jacques de Vitry, _Exempla_, ed. Crane, No. ccv., a servant being asked the news by his master returned from a pilgrimage to Compostella, says the dog is lame, and goes on to explain: "While the dog was running near the mule, the mule kicked him and broke his own halter and ran through the house, scattering the fire with his hoofs, and burning down your house with your wife." It occurs even earlier in Alfonsi's _Disciplina Clericalis_, No. x.x.x., at beginning of the twelfth century, among the _Fabliaux_, and in Bebel, _Werke_, iii., 71, whence probably it was reintroduced into England. See Prof. Crane's note _ad loc._

_Remarks._--Almost all Alfonsi's _exempla_ are from the East. It is characteristic that the German version finishes up with a loss of honour, the English climax being loss of fortune.

LXXVIII. PUDDOCK, MOUSIE, AND RATTON

_Source._--Kirkpatrick Sharpe's _Ballad Book_, 1824, slightly anglicised.

_Parallels._--Mr. Bullen, in his _Lyrics from Elizabethan Song Books_, p. 202, gives a version, "The Marriage of the Frog and the Mouse," from T. Ravenscroft's _Melismata_, 1611. The nursery rhyme of the frog who would a-wooing go is clearly a variant of this, and has thus a sure pedigree of three hundred years; _cf._ "Frog husband" in my List of Incidents, or notes to "The Well of the World's End" (No. xli.).

LXXIX. LITTLE BULL-CALF

_Source._--_Gypsy Lore Journal_, iii., one of a number of tales told "In a Tent" to Mr. John Sampson. I have respelt and euphemised the bladder.

_Parallels._--The Perseus and Andromeda incident is frequent in folk-tales; see my List of Incidents _sub voce_ "Fight with Dragon."

"Cheese squeezing," as a test of prowess, is also common, as in "Jack the Giant Killer" and elsewhere (Kohler, _Jahrbuch_, vii., 252).

Lx.x.x. THE WEE WEE MANNIE

_Source._--From Mrs. Balfour's old nurse. I have again anglicised.

_Parallels._--This is one of the cla.s.s of acc.u.mulative stories like _The Old Woman and her Pig_ (No. iv.). The cla.s.s is well represented in these isles.

Lx.x.xI. HABETROT AND SCANTLIE MAB

_Source._--Henderson's _Folk-Lore of Northern Counties_, pp. 258-62 of Folk-Lore Society's edition. I have abridged and to some extent rewritten.

_Parallels._--This in its early part is a parallel to the _Tom t.i.t Tot_, which see. The latter part is more novel, and is best compared with the Grimms' _Spinners_.

_Remark._--Henderson makes out of Habetrot a G.o.ddess of the spinning-wheel, but with very little authority as it seems to me.

Lx.x.xII. OLD MOTHER WIGGLE WAGGLE

_Source._--I have inserted into Halliwell's version one current in Mr.

Batten's family, except that I have subst.i.tuted "Wiggle-Waggle" for "Slipper-Slopper." The two versions supplement one another.

_Remarks._--This is a pure bit of animal satire, which might have come from a rural Jefferies with somewhat more of wit than the native writer.

Lx.x.xIII. CATSKIN

_Source._--From the chap-book reprinted in Halliwell I have introduced the demand for magic dresses from Chambers's _Ras.h.i.+e Coat_, into which it had clearly been interpolated from some version of Catskin.

_Parallels._--Miss c.o.x's admirable volume of variants of _Cinderella_ also contains seventy-three variants of _Catskin_, besides thirteen "indeterminate" ones which approximate to that type. Of these eighty-six, five exist in the British Isles, two chap-books given in Halliwell and in Dixon's _Songs of English Peasantry_, two by Campbell, Nos. xiv. and xiv_a_, "The King who Wished to Marry his Daughter," and one by Kennedy's _Fireside Stories_, "The Princess in the Catskins."

Goldsmith knew the story by the name of "Catskin," as he refers to it in the _Vicar_. There is a fragment from Cornwall in _Folk-Lore_, i., App.

p. 149.

_Remarks._--_Catskin, or the Wandering Gentlewomen_, now exists in English only in two chap-book ballads. But Chambers's first variant of _Ras.h.i.+e Coat_ begins with the Catskin formula in a euphemised form. The full formula may be said to run in abbreviated form--_Death-bed promise--Deceased wife's resemblance marriage test--Unnatural father_ (desiring to marry his own daughter)--_Helpful animal--Counter tasks--Magic dresses--Heroine flight--Heroine disguise--Menial heroine--Meeting-place--Token objects named--Threefold flight--Lovesick prince--Recognition ring--Happy marriage_. Of these the chap-book versions contain scarcely anything of the opening _motifs_. Yet they existed in England, for Miss Isabella Barclay, in a variant which Miss c.o.x has overlooked (_Folk-Lore_, i., _l.c._), remembers having heard the Unnatural Father incident from a Cornish servant-girl. Campbell's two versions also contain the incident, from which one of them receives its name. One wonders in what form Mr. Burch.e.l.l knew Catskin, for "he gave the [Primrose] children the Buck of Beverland,[3] with the history of Patient Grissel, the adventures of Catskin and the Fair Rosamond's Bower" (_Vicar of Wakefield_, 1766, c. vi.). Pity that "Goldy" did not tell the story himself, as he had probably heard it in Ireland, where Kennedy gives a poor version in his _Fireside Stories_.

Yet, imperfect as the chap-book versions are, they yet retain not a few archaic touches. It is clear from them, at any rate, that the Heroine was at one time transformed into a Cat. For when the basin of water is thrown in her face she "shakes her ears" just as a cat would. Again, before putting on her magic dresses she bathes in a pellucid pool. Now, Professor Child has pointed out in his notes on Tamlane and elsewhere (_English and Scotch Ballads_, i., 338; ii., 505; iii., 505) that dipping into water or milk is necessary before transformation can take place. It is clear, therefore, that Catskin was originally transformed into an animal by the spirit of her mother, also transformed into an animal.

If I understand Mr. Nutt rightly (_Folk-Lore_, iv, 135, _seq._), he is inclined to think, from the evidence of the hero-tales which have the unsavoury _motif_ of the Unnatural Father, that the original home of the story was England, where most of the hero-tales locate the incident. I would merely remark on this that there are only very slight traces of the story in these islands nowadays, while it abounds in Italy, which possesses one almost perfect version of the formula (Miss c.o.x, No. 142, from Sardinia).

Mr. Newell, on the other hand (_American Folk-Lore Journal_, ii., 160), considers Catskin the earliest of the three types contained in Miss c.o.x's book, and considers that Cinderella was derived from this as a softening of the original. His chief reason appears to be the earlier appearance of Catskin in Straparola,[4] 1550, a hundred years earlier than Cinderella in Basile, 1636. This appears to be a somewhat insufficient basis for such a conclusion. Nor is there, after all, so close a relation between the two types in their full development as to necessitate the derivation of one from the other.

[Footnote 3: Who knows the Buck of Beverland nowadays?]

[Footnote 4: It is practically in Des Perier's _Recreations_, 1544.]

Lx.x.xIV. STUPID'S CRIES

_Source._--_Folk-Lore Record_, iii., 152-5, by the veteran Prof.

Stephens. I have changed "dog and b.i.t.c.h" of original to "dog and cat,"

and euphemised the liver and lights.

_Parallels._--Prof. Stephens gives parallels from Denmark. Germany (the Grimms' _Up Riesensohn_) and Ireland (Kennedy, _Fireside Stories_, p.

30).

Lx.x.xV. THE LAMBTON WORM

_Source._--Henderson's _Folk-Lore of Northern Counties_, pp. 287-9, I have rewritten, as the original was rather high falutin'.

_Parallels._--Worms or dragons form the subject of the whole of the eighth chapter of Henderson. "The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh" (No.