Popular Tales Part 4

Sigurd is bidden to awaken her, and this he does, rending her mail with his magic sword. But the rest of the tragic story does not correspond with _La Belle au Bois Dormant_. Perrault's tale has its closest companion in Grimm's _Little Briar Rose_ (90), which lacks the conclusion about the wicked mother-in-law. Her conduct, again, recurs in various tales quite unlike _La Belle_ in general plot. The incident of the sleep-thorn, or something a.n.a.logous, occurs in _Surya Bai_ (_Old Deccan Days_), where a p.r.i.c.k from the poisoned nail of a demon acts as the soporific. To carry poison under the nail is one of the devices of the Voudou or Obi man in Hayti. Surya Bai, when wakened and married by a Rajah, is the victim of the jealousy, not of an ogress mother-in-law, but of another wife, and _that_ story glides into a form of the Egyptian tale _The Two Brothers_ (Maspero, i.). The sleep-thorn, or poisoned nail, takes again in Germany the shape of the poisoned comb.

_Snow-white_ is wounded therewith by the jealousy of a beautiful step-mother, with a yet fairer step-daughter (Grimm, 53). In mediaeval romances, as in _Perceforest_, an incident is introduced whereby the sleeping maid becomes a mother. Lucina, Themis, and Venus take the part of the Fairies, Fates, or Hathors. In the Neapolitan _Pentamerone_ the incident of the girl becoming a mother in her sleep is repeated. The father (as in _Surya Bai_) is a married man, and the girl, Thalia, suffers from the jealousy of the first wife, as Surya Bai does. The first wife wants to eat Thalia's children, _a diverses sauces_, which greatly resembles Perrault's _sauce Robert_. The children of Thalia are named Sun and Moon, while those of the Sleeping Beauty are L'Aurore et Le Jour. The jealous wife is punished, like the Ogre mother-in-law[41].

While the idea of a long sleep may possibly have been derived from the repose of Nature in winter, it seems useless to try to interpret _La Belle au Bois Dormant_ as a Nature myth throughout. The story, like all _contes_, is a patchwork of incidents, which recur elsewhere in different combinations. Even the names Le Jour and L'Aurore only appear in such late and literary forms as the _Pentamerone_, where they are mixed up with Thalia, clearly a fanciful name for the mother, as fanciful as that of the sleeping Zellandine, who marries the G.o.d Mars in _Perceforest_. As an example of the length to which some mythologists will go, may be mentioned M. Andre Lefevre's discovery that Poufle, the dog of the Sleeping Beauty, is the Vedic Sarama in search of the Dawn.

[Footnote 40: Maspero, _Contes Egyptiens_, p. 33.]

[Footnote 41: _Contes de Ma Mere L'Oye_, p. 157.]

LE PEt.i.t CHAPERON ROUGE[42].

_Little Red Riding Hood._

Perrault has not concealed the moral which he thought obvious in this brief narrative. There are wolves--

'_Qui suivent les jeunes Demoiselles Jusques dans les maisons, jusques dans les Ruelles!_'

Racine, in an early letter, admits that he himself has been one of these wolves.

'Il faut etre regulier avec les Reguliers, comme j'ai ete loup avec vous, et avec les autres loups, vos comperes.[43]'

But the nurses from whom Perrault or his little boy heard _Le pet.i.t Chaperon Rouge_ had probably no such moral ideas as these. They _may_ have hinted at the undesirable practice of loitering when one is sent on an errand, but the punishment is out of all proportion to the offence.

As it stands, the tale is merely meant to waken a child's terror and pity, and probably the narrator ends it by making a pounce, in the character of Wolf, _c'est pour te manger_, at the little listener. This was the correct 'business' in our old Scotch nurseries, when we were told _The Cattie sits in the Kiln-Ring Spinning_.

'By cam' a cattie and ate it a' up my loesome, Loesome Lady!

And sae will I you--worrie, worrie, gnash, gnash, Said she, said she!'

'The old nurse's imitation of the _gnash_, _gnash_, which she played off upon the youngest urchin lying in her lap, was electric' (Chambers, _Popular Rhymes of Scotland_, 1842, p. 54).

If _Little Red Riding Hood_ ended, in all variants, where it ends in Perrault, we might dismiss it, with the remark that the _machinery_ of the story is derived from 'the times when beasts spoke,' or were believed to be capable of speaking. But it is well known that in the German form, _Little Red Cap_ (Grimm 26), the tale by no means ends with the triumph of the wolf. Little Red Cap and her grandmother are resuscitated, 'the wolf it was that died.' This may either have been the original end, omitted by Perrault because it was too wildly impossible for the nurseries of the time of Louis XIV, or children may have insisted on having the story 'turn out well.' In either case the German _Marchen_ preserves one of the most widely spread mythical incidents in the world,--the reappearance of living people out of the monster that has devoured them.

In literature, this incident first meets us in the myth of Cronus (Hesiod, _Theog._ 497; Pausanias, x. 24), where Cronus disgorges his swallowed children alive, after gulping up the stone in swaddling bands which he had taken for Zeus, his youngest infant. He had previously dined on a young foal that he was a.s.sured his wife had just borne, when, in reality, the child was Poseidon. In this adventure Cronus united the mistake of the ogress mother-in-law, in _La Belle au Bois Dormant_, who ate the kid in place of the Sleeping Beauty's boy, the adventure of the king who hears his wife has borne a beast-child, and the adventure of the Wolf who disgorges his prey alive. The local fancy of Arne in Arcadia had combined all these ideas of _Marchen_ into one divine myth (Pausan. viii. 8, 2). It would be superfluous to enumerate here all the savage and civilised stories of beings first swallowed and then disgorged alive. A fabulous monster Kwai Hemm is the swallower in Bushman story. The Iqong qongqo takes the _role_ among the Kaffirs.

There are some five examples in Callaway's _Zulu Nursery Tales_. _Night_ is the swallower in Melanesia (Codrington, _Journal Anthrop. Inst._ Feb.

1881), while the Sun swallows the stars in a Piute myth. It is quite possible that a savage theory of Night swallowing and restoring Light, or of the Sun swallowing the stars, is the origin of the conception[44].

The Australians tell it in a shape not unlike Grimm's. The Eagle met the Moon and offered him some Kangaroo meat. The Moon ate up the Kangaroo, and then swallowed the Eagle. The wives of the Eagle met the Moon, who asked them the way to a spring. As he stooped to drink, they cut him open with a stone tomahawk, and extracted the Eagle, who came alive again[45]. In Germany it was with a pair of scissors that the Wolf was cut up, and he was then stuffed with stones (as in Grimm 5, _The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids_). The stones kill him in _Little Red Cap_; in the German tale, their weight drags him into the well, where he, like the Australian Moon, wants to drink after his banquet. In Pomerania a ghost takes the Wolf's _role_, the stones are felt to be rather 'heavy'

by the ghost, and the child escapes[46].

The whole story has been compared by M. Husson to the adventure of Vartika, whom the Asvins rescue from the throat of a wolf. Little Red Riding Hood thus becomes the Dawn. Vartika is a bird, the Quail, 'i.e.

the returning bird. But as a being delivered by the Asvins, the representatives of Day and Night, Vartika can only be the returning Dawn, delivered from the mouth of the wolf, i. e. the dark night[47].'

It is hard to see why the Night, as one of the Asvins, should deliver the Dawn from the Night, as the Wolf. On the identification of the Asvins with this or that aspect of Light and Darkness, Muir may be consulted. 'This allegorical interpretation seems unlikely to be correct, as it is difficult to suppose that the phenomena in question should have been alluded to under such a variety of names and circ.u.mstances.' (_Sanskrit Texts_, v. 248. Prof. Goldstucker thinks the Asvins are themselves the crepuscular mingling of light and dark, which, in the other theory, is the struggle of quail and wolf, _op. cit._ v.

257. M. Bergaigne supposes that the Asvins are deities of dawn, _La Religion Vedique_, ii. 431.)

These considerations lead us far enough from Perrault into 'worlds not realised.' Vartika (who, in these theories, answers to _Le Pet.i.t Chaperon Rouge_) has been compared by Mr. Max Muller, not only to the returning Dawn, but to the returning year, _Vertumnus_. He notes that the Greek word for quail is _ortyx_, that Apollo and Artemis were born in Ortygia, an old name of Delos, and that 'here is a real traditional chain.' But 'it would be a bold a.s.sertion to say that the story of _Red Riding Hood_ was really a metamorphosis of an ancient story of the rosy-fingered Eos, or the Vedic Eos with her red horses, and that the two ends, Ushas and Rothkappchen, are really held together by an unbroken traditional chain.'

We shall leave the courage of this opinion to M. Husson, merely observing that, as a matter of fact, Dawn is _not_ swallowed by Night.

Sunset (which is red) is so swallowed, but then sunset is not 'a young maiden carrying messages,' like Red Riding Hood and Ushas. To be sure, the convenient Wolf is regarded by mythologists as 'a representative of the sun or of the night,' at will. He 'doubles the part,' and 'is the useful Wolf,' as the veteran Blenkinsopp, in _Pendennis_, was called 'The useful Blenkinsopp.'

[Footnote 42: _Contes de Charles Perrault_, Paris, _s. a._ p. lxiv.

Perrault's love of refining is not idle in _Le Chaperon Rouge_. In the _popular_ versions, in Brittany and the Nievre, the wolf puts the grandmother in the pot, and her blood in bottles, and makes the unconscious child eat and drink her ancestress! The c.o.c.k or the robin redbreast warns her in vain, and she is swallowed. (_Melusine_, May 5, 1887.)]

[Footnote 43: A. M. de la Fontaine, a Usez, le ii. Nov. 1661.]

[Footnote 44: Tylor, _Prim. Cult._ i. 338.]

[Footnote 45: Brough Smyth, _Natives of Victoria_, i. p. 432.]

[Footnote 46: Grimm, Note on 5.]

[Footnote 47: Max Muller's _Selected Essays_, i. 565.]

LA BARBE BLEUE.

_Blue Beard._

The story of Blue Beard, as told by Perrault, is, of all his collection, the most apt to move pity and terror. It has also least of the supernatural. Here are no talking beasts, no fairies, nor ogres. Only the enchanted key is _fee_, or _wakan_ as the Algonkins say, that is, possesses magical properties. In all else the story is a drama of daily and even of contemporary life, for Blue Beard has the gilded coaches and embroidered furniture of the seventeenth century, and his wife's brothers hold commissions in the dragoons and musketeers. The story relies for its interest on the curiosity of the wife (the moral motive), on the vision of the slain women, and on the suspense of waiting while Sister Anne watches from the tower. These simple materials, admirably handled, make up the terrible story of _Blue Beard_.

Attempts have been made to find for _Blue Beard_ an historical foundation. M. Collin de Plancy mentions a theory that the hero was a seigneur of the house of Beaumanoir (_OEuvres Choisies de Ch. Perrault_, p. 40, Paris, 1826). Others have fancied that Blue Beard was a popular version of the deeds of Gilles de Retz, the too celebrated monster of mediaeval history, or of a more or less mythical Breton prince of the sixth century, Cormorus or Comorre, who married Sainte Trophime or Triphime, and killed her, as he had killed his other wives, when she was about to become a mother. She was restored to life by St. Gildas[48]. If there is a trace of the _Blue Beard_ story in the legend of the Saint, it does not follow that the legend is the source of the story. The _Marchen_ of _Peau d'Ane_ has been absorbed into the legend of Sainte Dipne or Dympne, and the names of saints, like the names of G.o.ds and heroes in older faiths, had the power of attracting _Marchen_ into their cycle.

_Blue Beard_ is essentially popular and traditional. The elements are found in countries where Gilles de Retz and Comorre and Sainte Triphime were never known. The leading idea, of curiosity punished, of the box or door which may not be opened, and of the prohibition infringed with evil results, is of world-wide distribution. In many countries this notion inspires the myths of the origin of Death[49]. In German _Marchen_ there are several parallels, more or less close, to _Blue Beard_ (Grimm 3, 40, 46). In _Our Lady's Child_ (3) the Virgin entrusts a little girl with keys of thirteen doors, of which she may only open twelve. Behind each door she found an apostle, behind the thirteenth the Trinity, in a glory of flame, like Zeus when he consumed Semele. The girl's finger became golden with the light, as Blue Beard's key was dyed with the blood. The child was banished from heaven, and her later adventures are on the lines of the falsely accused wife, like those of the _Belle au Bois Dormant_, with the Virgin for mother-in-law and with a repentance for a moral conclusion. In the _Robber Bridegroom_ there is a girl betrothed to a woman-slayer; she detects and denounces him, pretending, as in the old English tale, she is describing a dream. 'Like the old tale, my Lord, it is not so, nor 'twas not so; but indeed G.o.d forbid that it should be so[50].' Except for the 'larder' of the Robber, and of Mr. Fox in the English variant, these stories do not closely resemble _Blue Beard_. In Grimm's _Fitcher's Bird_ (46) the resemblance is closer. A man, apparently a beggar, carries off the eldest of three sisters to a magnificent house, and leaves her with the keys, an egg, and the prohibition to open a certain door. She opens it, finds a block, an axe, a basin of blood, and the egg falling into the blood refuses to be cleansed. The man slays her, her second sister shares her fate, the third leaves the egg behind when she visits the secret room, and miraculously restores her sisters to life by reuniting their limbs. The same idea occurs in the Kaffir tale of the Ox (Callaway, _Nursery Tales of the Zulus_, p. 230). The rest of the story, with the escape from the monster, has no connection with _Blue Beard_, except that the wretch is put to death. Indeed, it would have been highly inconvenient for Blue Beard's surviving bride if the dead ladies had been resuscitated. Her legal position would have been ambiguous, and she could not have inherited the gold coaches and embroidered furniture. Grimm originally published another German form of _Blue Beard_ (62 in first edition), but withdrew it, being of opinion that it might have been derived from Perrault. The story of the Third Calender in the _Arabian Nights_ (Night 66) has nothing in common with Blue Beard but the prohibition to open a door.

In Italy[51] the Devil is the wooer, the closed door opens on h.e.l.l: the rest, the adventures of three sisters, resembles Grimm's _Fitcher's Bird_, with a touch of humour. The Devil, seeing the resuscitated girls, is daunted by the idea of facing three wives, and decamps. He had no scruple, it will be seen, about marrying his deceased wife's sister. The Russian like the Oriental stories generally make a man indulge the fatal curiosity, and open the forbidden door. Mr. Ralston quotes from Lowe's _Esthnische Marchen_ (No. 20) a tale almost too closely like Perrault's.

There is a sister, and the goose boy takes the _role_ of rescuer. M. de Gubernatis thinks that the key 'is perhaps the Moon!' (_Zoological Mythology_, 1. 168). In the Gaelic version the heroine is cleansed of blood by a grateful Cat, whose services her sisters had neglected (Campbell, _Tales of West Highlands_, No. 41). In the _Katha Sarit Sagara_ (iii. p. 223) a hero, Saktideva, is forbidden to approach a certain palace terrace. He breaks the taboo, and finds three dead maidens in three pavilions. A horse then kicks him into a lake, and, whereas he had been in the Golden City, hard to win, he finds himself at home in Vardhamana. The affair is but an incident in the medley of incidents, some resembling pa.s.sages in the Odyssey, which make up the story (compare Ralston's note, _Russian Fairy Tales_, p. 99).

From these brief a.n.a.lyses it will be plain that, in point of art, Perrault's tale has a great advantage over its popular rivals. It is at once more sober and more terrible, and (especially when compared with the confusion of incidents in the _Katha Sarit Sagara_) possesses an epical unity of idea and action.

In spite of this artistic character, Perrault's tale is clearly of popular origin, as the existence of variants in the folklore of other countries demonstrates. But the details are so fluctuating, that we need not hope to find in them memories of ancient myth, nor is it safe to follow M. Andre Lefevre, when he thinks that, in the two avenging brothers, he recognises the Vedic Asvins.

[Footnote 48: The pa.s.sages in the legend of Sainte Triphime are quoted by M. Deulin, _Contes de Ma Mere l'Oye_, p. 178. See also _Annuaire Hist. et Arch. de Bretagne_, Annee 1862. The Saint has a warning vision of the dead wives, but not in consequence of opening a forbidden door.]

[Footnote 49: A partial collection of these will be found in _La Mythologie_, Lang. Paris 1886. Australians, Ningphos, Greeks (Pandora's box), the Montaguais of Labrador (_Relations de la Nouvelle France_, 1634), the Odahwah Indians (Hind's _Explorations in Labrador_, i. 61, note 2), are examples of races which believe death to have come into the world as the punishment of an infringed prohibition of this sort. The deathly swoon of Psyche, in _The Golden a.s.s_ of Apuleius, when she has opened the pyx of Proserpine, is another instance.]

[Footnote 50: Compare Mrs. Hunt's note to Grimm, i. 389.]

[Footnote 51: Crane, p. 78.]

LE MAISTRE CHAT, OU LE CHAT BOTTe.

_Puss in Boots._

Everybody knows Puss in Boots. He is, as Nodier says, the Figaro of the nursery, as Hop o' My Thumb is the Ulysses, and Blue Beard the Oth.e.l.lo; and thus he is of interest to all children, and to all men who remember their childhood. Ulysses himself did not travel farther than the story of the patron of the Marquis de Carabas has wandered, and few things can be more curious than to follow the Master-Cat in his migrations. For many reasons the history of _Puss in Boots_, though it has been rather neglected, throws a good deal of light on that very dark question, the diffusion of popular tales. As soon as we read it in Perrault, we find that Monsieur Perrault was at a loss for a moral to his narrative. In fact, as he tells it, there is _no_ moral to the Master-Cat. Puss is a perfectly unscrupulous adventurer who, for no reason but the fun of the thing, dubs the miller's son marquis, makes a royal marriage for him, by a series of amusing frauds, and finally enriches him with the spoils of a murdered ogre. In the absence of any moral Perrault has to invent one--which does not apply.

'Aux jeunes gens pour l'ordinaire, L'industrie et le savoir-faire Valent mieux que des biens acquis.'

Now the 'young person,' the cat's master, had shown no 'industry'

whatever, except in so far as he was a _chevalier d'industrie_, thanks to his cat. These obvious truths pained Mr. George Cruikshank when he tried to ill.u.s.trate _Puss in Boots_, and found that the romance was quite unfit for the young. 'When I came to look carefully at that story, I felt _compelled_ to rewrite it, and alter the character of it to a certain extent, for, as it stood, the tale was a succession of successful falsehoods--a _clever_ lesson in lying, a system of _imposture_ rewarded by the greatest worldly advantages. A _useful_ lesson, truly, to be impressed upon the minds of children.' So Mr.

Cruikshank made the tale didactic, showing how the Marquis de Carabas was the real heir, 'kep' out of his own' by the landgrabbing ogre, and how puss was a gamekeeper metamorphosed into a cat as a punishment for his repining disposition. This performance of Mr. Cruikshank was denounced by Mr. d.i.c.kens in _Household Words_ as a 'fraud on the fairies,' and 'the intrusion of a whole hog of unwieldy dimensions into the fairy flower-garden[52].'