Popular Tales from the Norse Part 73

Si quis a diabolo deceptus crediderit secundum morem. Paganorum, virum aliquem aut faeminam strigam esse et homines comedere, et propter hoc ipsum incenderit, vel carnem eius ad comedendum dederit, capitis sententia punietur.' And this of Rotharius, Lex. Roth., 379: 'Nullus praesumat aldiam alienam aut ancillam quasi strigam occidere, quod Christianis mentibus nullatenus est credendum nec possible est, ut hominem mulier vivum intrinsecus possit comedere.'

Here the law warns the common people from believing in witches, and from taking its functions into their own hands, and reasons with them against the absurdity of such delusions. So, too, that reasonable parish priest who thrashed the witch, though earlier in time, was far in advance of Gregory and his inquisitors, and even of our wise King James.

[22]

The following is the t.i.tle of this strange tract, _Newes from Scotland, declaring the d.a.m.nable life of Doctor Fian, a notable Sorcerer, who was burned at Edenbrough, in Januarie last 1591, which Doctor was register to the devil, that sundrie times preached at North Baricke Kirke to a number of notorious Witches. With the true examinations of the said Doctor and witches, as they uttered them in the presence of the Scottish king. Discovering how they pretended to bewitch and drowne his Majestic in the sea, comming from Denmarke, with such other wonderfull matters as the like, hath not bin heard at anie time_. Published according to the Scottish copie. Printed for William Wright. It was reprinted in 1816 for the Roxburghe Club by Mr H. Freeling, and is very scarce even in the reprint, which, all things considered, is perhaps just as well.

[23]

The following specimens of the tortures and confessions may suffice; but most of the crimes and confessions are unutterable. One Geillis Duncane was tortured by her master, David Seaton, dwelling within the town of Tranent, who, 'with the help of others, did torment her with the torture of the Pilliwinkes (thumbscrews), upon her fingers, and binding and wrinching her head with a cord or roape, which is a most cruel torment also.' So also Agnes Sampson, 'the eldest witch of them all, dwelling in Haddington, being brought to Haleriud House before the kinge's majestie and sundry other of the n.o.bilitie of Scotland, had her head thrawne with a rope according to the custom of that countrie, beeing a payne most greevous.' After the Devil's mark is found on her she confesses that she went to sea with two hundred others in sieves to the kirk of North Berwick in East Lothian, and after they had landed they 'took handes on the lande and daunted, this reill or short daunce, saying all with one voice:

Commer goe ye before, Commer goe ye, Gif ye will not goe before, Commer let me.

'At which time she confessed that this Geillis Duncane did goe before them playing this reill or daunce upon a small trumpe called a Jew's trump, until they entered into the kirk of North Barrick.' 'As touching the aforesaid Doctor Fian', he 'was taken and imprisoned, and used with the accustomed paine provided for these offences, inflicted upon the rest, as is aforesaid. First by thrawing of his head with a rope, whereat he would confesse nothing! Secondly, he was persuaded by faire means to confesse his follies, but that would prevaile as little. Lastly, he was put to the most severe and cruell paine in the world, called the Bootes, who, after he had received three strokes, being inquired if he would confesse his d.a.m.nable actes and wicked life, his toong would not serve him to spaake.' This inability, produced no doubt by pain, the other witches explain by saying that the Devil's mark had not been found, which, being found, 'the charm' was 'stinted', and the Doctor, in dread probably of a fourth stroke, confessed unutterably shameful things. Having escaped from prison, of course by the aid of the Devil, he was pursued, and brought back and re-examined before the king. 'But this Doctor, notwithstanding that his own confession appeareth remaining in recorde, under his owne handewriting, and the same thereunto fixed in the presence of the King's majestie and sundrie of his councell, yet did he utterly deny the same, whereupon the King's majestie, perceiving his stubborne wilfulness...he was commanded to have a most strange torment, which was done in this manner following: His nailes upon all his fingers were riven and pulled off with an instrument called in Scottish a Turkas, which in England wee call a payre of pincars, and under everie nayle there was thrust in two needels over even up to the heads. At all which torments, notwithstanding the Doctor never shronke anie whit; neither would he then confesse it the sooner for all the tortures inflicted upon him.

'Then was he with all convenient speed, by commandement convaied againe to the torment of the Bootes, wherein hee continued a long time, and did abide so many blowes in them, that his legges were crusht and beaten together as small as might bee, and the bones and flesh so brused that the blond and marrow spouted forth in great abundance, wherby they were made unserviceable for ever. And notwithstanding all these grievous panes and cruel torments, he would not confesse aniething, so deepely had the Devil entered into his heart, that hee utterly denied all that which he had before avouched, and would saie nothing thereunto but this, that what he had done and sayde before, was onely done and saide for fear of paynes which he had endured.' Thereupon as 'a due execution of justice' 'and 'for example sake', he was tried, sentenced, put into a cart, strangled and immediately put into a great fire, being readie provided for that purpose, and there burned in the Castle Hill of Edenbrough on a saterdaie, in the ende of Januaire last past, 1591.' The tract ends significantly: 'The rest of the witches which are not yet executed remayne in prison till further triall and knowledge of his majestie's pleasure.'

[24]

_Ecl._, viii, 97:

His ego saepe lupum fieri et se condere silvis Maerin--vidi.

[25]

See Grimm's _D.M._, 1,047 fol.; and for this translation from Petronius, a very interesting letter prefixed to Madden's Ed. of the old English Romance of _William and the Werewolf_, 1832, one of the Roxburghe Club Publications. This letter, which was by the hand of Mr Herbert of Petworth, contains all that was known on this subject before Grimm; but when Grimm came he was, compared with all who had treated the subject, as a sober man amongst drunkards.

[26]

_Bisclavaret_ in the _Lais_ of Marie de France, 1, 178 seems to be a corruption of Bleizgarou, as the Norman _garwal_ is of _garwolf_. See also Jamieson Dict., under _warwolf_.

[27]

_Troldham, at kaste ham paa._ Comp. the old Norse _hamr, hamfor, hammadr, hamrammr_, which occur repeatedly in the same sense.

[28]

Comp. Vict. Hugo, _Notre-Dame de Paris_, where he tells us that the gipsies called the wolf _piedgris_. See also Grimm, _D.

M._, 633 and _Reinhart_, lv, ccvii, and 446.

[29]

Thus from the earliest times 'dog', 'hound', has been a term of reproach. Great instances of fidelity, such as 'Gellert' or the 'Dog of Montargis', both of which are Eastern and primeval, have scarcely redeemed the cringing currish nature of the race in general from disgrace. M. Francisque Michel, in his _Histoire des Races Maudites de da France et de l'Espagne_, thinks it probable that _Cagot_, the nickname by which the heretical Goths who fled into Aquitaine in the time of Charles Martel, and received protection from that king and his successors, were called by the Franks, was derived from the term _Canis Gothicus_ or _Canes Gothi_. In modern French the word means hypocrite, and this would come from the notion of the outward conformity to the Catholic formularies imposed on the Arian Goths by their orthodox protectors. Etymologically, the derivation is good enough, according to Diez, _Romanisches Worterbuch_; Provencal _ca_, dog; _Get_, Gothic. Before quitting _Cagot_, we may observe that the derivation of _bigot_, our bigot, another word of the same kind, is not so clear. Michel says it comes from _Vizigothus, Bizigothus_. Diez says this is too far-fetched, especially as 'Bigot', 'BiG.o.d', was a term applied to the Normans, and not to the population of the South of France. There is, besides another derivation given by Ducange from a Latin chronicle of the twelfth century. In speaking of the homage done by Rollo, the first Duke of Normandy, to the King of France, he says:

Hic non dignatus pedem Caroli osculari nisi ad os suum levaret, c.u.mque sui comites illum admonerent ut pedem Regis in acceptione tanti muneris, Neustriae provinciae, oscularetur, Anglica lingua respondit '_ne se bi got_', quod interpretatur 'ne per deum'.

Rex vero et sui illum deridentes, et sermonem ejus corrupte referentes, illum vocaverunt Bigottum; unde Normanni adhuc Bigothi vocantur.

Wace, too, says, in the _Roman de Rou_, that the French had abused the Normans in many ways, calling them Bigos. It is also termed, in a French record of the year 1429, '_un mot tres injurieux_'. Diez says it was not used in its present sense before the sixteenth century.

[30]

The most common word for a giant in the Eddas was Jotunn (A. S.

_coten_), which, strange to say, survives in the Scotch Etin. In one or two places the word _ogre_ has been used, which is properly a Romance word, and comes from the French _ogre_, Ital.

_orco_, Lat. _orcus_. Here, too, we have an old Roman G.o.d of the nether world degraded.

[31]

These paroxysms were called in Old Norse _Jotunmodr_, the _Etin mood_, as opposed to _Asmodr, the mood of the Aesir_, that diviner wrath which, though burning hot, was still under the control of reason.

[32]

It may be worth while here to shew how old and widespread this custom or notion of the 'naked sword' was. In the North, besides being told of Sigurd and Brynhildr, we hear it of Hrolf and Ingigerd, who took rest at night in a hut of leaves in the wood, and lay together, 'but laid a naked sword between them'. So also Saxo Grammaticus says of King Gorm, 'Caeterum ne inconcessum virginis amorem libidinoso complexu praeripere videretur, vicina latera non solum alterius complexibus exult, sed etiam _districto mucrone_ secrevit. Lib.

9, p.179. So also Tristan and Isolt in Gottfried of Strasburg's poem, line 17,407-17.

Hieru ber vant Tristan einen sin, Si giengen an ir bette wider, Und leiten sich da wider nider, Von einander wol pin dan, Reht als man and man, Niht als man and wip; Da lac lip and lip, In fremder gelegenheit, Ouch hat Tristan geleit Sin _swert bar_ enzwischen si.

And the old French Tristan in the same way:

Et qant il vit la nue espee Qui entre eus deus les deseurout.

So the old English Tristrem, line 2,002-3:

His sword he drough t.i.tly And laid it hem bitvene.

And the old German ballad in _Des Knaben Wunderhorn_, 2, 276:

Der Herzog zog aus sein goldiges schwert, Er leit es zwischen beide hert Das schwert soll weder hauen noch schneiden, Das Annelein soll ein megedli bleiben.

So Fonzo and Fenizia in the _Pentamerone_, I, 9:

Ma segnenno havere fatto vuto a Diana, de non toccare la mogliere la notte, mese la spata arranata comme staccione 'miezo ad isso ed a Fenizia.

And in Grimm's story of 'The Two Brothers' where the second brother lays 'a double-edged sword' at night between himself and his brother's wife, who has mistaken him for his twin brother. In fact the custom as William Wackernagel has shewn in _Haupt's Zeitschrift fur Deutsches Alterthum_ was one recognized by the law; and so late as 1477, when Lewis, County Palatine of Veldenz represented Maximilian of Austria as his proxy at the betrothal of Mary of Burgundy, he got into the bed of state, booted and spurred, and laid a naked sword between him and the bride. Comp. Birkens Ehrenspiegel, p. 885. See also as a proof that the custom was known in England as late as the seventeenth century, _The Jovial Crew_, a comedy first acted in 1641, and quoted by Sir W. Scott in his _Tristrem_, p. 345, where it is said (Act V, sc. 2): 'He told him that he would be his proxy, and marry her for him, and lie with her the first night with a naked cudgel betwixt them.' And see for the whole subject, J. Grimm's _Deutsche Rechts-Alterthumer_, Gottingen, 1828, p. 168-70.

[33]

M. Moe, _Introd. Norsk. Event_ (Christiania, 1851, 2d Ed.), to which the writer is largely indebted.

[34]

Footnote: The following list, which only selects the more prominent collections, will suffice to show that Popular Tales have a literature of their own:--Sanscrit. The _Pantcha Tantra_, 'The Five Books', a collection of fables of which only extracts have as yet been published, but of which Professor Wilson has given an a.n.a.lysis in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society, vol. I, sect. 2.

The _Hitopadesa_, or 'Wholesome Instruction', a selection of tales and fables from the Pantcha Tantra, first edited by Carey at Serampore in 1804; again by Hamilton in London in 1810; again in Germany by A. W. von Schlegel in 1829, an edition which was followed in 1831 by a critical commentary by La.s.sen; and again in 1830 at Calcutta with a Bengali and English translation. The work had been translated into English by Wilkins so early as 1787, when it was published in London, and again by Sir William Jones, whose rendering, which is not so good as that by Wilkins, appeared after his death in the collected edition of his works. Into German it has been translated in a masterly way by Max Muller, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1844.

Versions of these Sanscrit collections, the date of the latter of which is ascribed to the end of the second century of the Christian era, varying in many respects, but all possessing sufficient resemblance to identify them with their Sanscrit originals, are found in almost every Indian dialect, and in Zend, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Greek and Turkish. We are happy to be able to state here that the eminent Sanscrit scholar, Professor Benfey of Gottingen, is now publis.h.i.+ng a German translation of the _Pantcha Tantra_, which will be accompanied by translations of numerous compositions of the same kind, drawn from unpublished Sanscrit works, and from the legends current amongst the Mongolian tribes. The work will be preceded by an introduction embracing the whole question of the origin and diffusion of fables and popular tales. The following will be the t.i.tle of Prof. Benfey's work: '_Pantcha Tantra. Erster Theil, Funf Bucher Indischer Fabeln, Marchen, and Erzahlungen_. Aus dem Sanskrit ubersetzt, mit Anmerkungen and Einleitung uber das Indische Grundwerk und dessen Ausflusse, so wie uber die Quellen und Verbreitung des Inhalts derselben. Zweiter Theil, ubersetzungen und Anmerkungen.' Most interesting of all for our purpose is the collection of Sanscrit Tales, collected in the twelfth century of our era, by Somadeva Bhatta of Cashmere. This has been published in Sanscrit, and translated into German by Hermann Brockhaus, and the nature of its contents has already been sufficiently indicated. We may add, however, that Somadeva's collection exhibits the Hindoo mind in the twelfth century in a condition, as regards popular tales, which the mind of Europe has not yet reached. How old these stories and fables must have been in the East, we see both from the _Pantcha Tantra_ and the _Hitopadesa_, which are strictly didactic works, and only employ tales and fables to ill.u.s.trate and inculcate a moral lesson. We in the West have got beyond fables and apologues, but we are only now collecting our popular tales. In Somadeva's time the simple tale no longer sufficed; it had to be fitted into and arranged with others, with an art and dexterity which is really marvellous; and so cleverly is this done, that it requires a mind of no little cultivation, and a head of more than ordinary clearness, to carry without confusion all the wheels within wheels, and fables within fables, which spring out of the original story as it proceeds. In other respects the popular tale loses in simplicity what it gains in intricacy by this artificial arrangement; and it is evident that in the twelfth century the Hindoo tales had been long since collected out of the mouths of the people, and reduced to writing; in a word, that the popular element had disappeared, and that they had pa.s.sed into the written literature of the race. We may take this opportunity, too, to mention that a most curious collection of tales and fables, translated from Sanscrit, has recently been discovered in Chinese. They are on the eve of publication by M.

Stanislas Julien, the first of Chinese scholars; and from the information on the matter which Professor Max Muller has kindly furnished to the translator, it appears that they pa.s.sed with Buddhism from India into China. The work from which M. Julien has taken these fables, which are all the more precious because the Sanscrit originals have in all probability perished,--is called _Yu-lin_, or 'The Forest of Comparisons'. It was the work of Youen-thai, a great Chinese scholar, who was President of the Ministry of justice at Pekin in the year 1565 of our era. He collected in twenty-four volumes, after the labour of twenty years, during which he read upwards of four hundred works, all the fables and comparisons he could find in ancient books. Of those works, two hundred were translations from the Sanscrit made by Buddhist monks, and it is from eleven of these that M. Julien has translated his Chinese Fables. We need hardly say that this work is most anxiously expected by all who take an interest in such matters. Let it be allowed to add here, that it was through no want of respect towards the memory of M. de Sacy that the translator has given so much prominence to the views and labours of the Brothers Grimm in this Introduction.

To M. de Sacy belongs all the merit of exploring what may be called the old written world of fable. He, and Warton, and Dunlop, and Price, too, did the day's work of Giants, in tracing out and cla.s.sifying those tales and fables which had pa.s.sed into the literature of the Aryan race. But, besides this old region, there is another new hemisphere of fiction which lies in the mouths and in the minds of the people. This new world of fable the Grimms discovered, and to them belongs the glory of having brought all its fruits and flowers to the light of day. This is why their names must ever be foremost in a work on Popular Tales, s.h.i.+ning, as their names must ever s.h.i.+ne, a bright double star in that new hemisphere. In more modern times, the earliest collection of popular tales is to be found in the _Piacevoli Notte_ of John Francis Straparola of Caravaggio, near Milan, the first edition of which appeared at Venice in 1550. The book, which is shamefully indecent, even for that age, and which at last, in 1606, was placed in the _Index Expurgatorius_, contains stories from all sources, and amongst them nineteen genuine popular tales, which are not disfigured by the filth with which the rest of the volume is full.

Straparola's work has been twice translated into German, once at Vienna, 1791, and again by Schmidt in a more complete form, _Marchen-Saal_, Berlin, 1817. But a much more interesting Italian collection appeared at Naples in the next century. This was the _Pentamerone_ of Giambattista Basile, who wrote in the Neapolitan dialect, and whose book appeared in 1637. This collection contains forty-eight tales, and is in tone, and keeping, and diction, one of the best that has ever appeared in any language. It has been repeatedly reprinted at Naples. It has been translated into German, and a portion of it, a year or two back, by Mr. Taylor, into English.

In France the first collection of this kind was made by Charles Perrault, who, in 1697, published eight tales, under a t.i.tle taken from an old _Fabliau_, _Contes de ma mere L'Oye_, whence comes our 'Mother Goose'. To these eight, three more tales were added in later editions. Perrault was shortly followed by Madame D'Aulnoy (born in 1650, died 1705), whose manner of treating her tales is far less true to nature than Perrault's, and who inserts at will, verses, alterations, additions, and moral reflections. Her style is sentimental and over-refined; the courtly airs of the age of Louis XIV predominate, and nature suffers by the change from the cottage to the palace. Madame d'Aulnoy was followed by a host of imitators; the Countess Murat, who died in 1710; Countess d'Auneuil, who died in 1700; M. de Preschac, born 1676, who composed tales of utter worthlessness, which may be read as examples of what popular tales are not, in the collection called _Le Cabinet des Fees_, which was published in Paris in 1785. Not much better are the attempts of Count Hamilton, who died in 1720; of M. de Moncrif, who died in 1770; of Mademoiselle de la Force, died 1724; of Mademoiselle l'Heritier died 1737; of Count Caylus, who wrote his _Feeries Nouvelles_ in the first half of the 18th century, for the popular element fails almost entirely in their works. Such as they are, they may also be read in the _Cabinet des Fees_, a collection which ran to no fewer than forty-one volumes, and with which no lover of popular tradition need trouble himself much. To the playwright and the story- teller it has been a great repository, which has supplied the lack of original invention. In Germany we need trouble ourselves with none of the collections before the time of the Grimms, except to say that they are nearly worthless. In 1812-14 the two brothers, Jacob and William, brought out the first edition of their _Kinder-und Haus- Marchen_, which was followed by a second and more complete one in 1822: 3 vols., Berlin, Reimer. The two first volumes have been repeatedly republished, but few readers in England are aware of the existence of the third, a third edition of which appeared in 1856 at Gottingen, which contains the literature of these traditions, and is a monument of the care and pains with which the brothers, or rather William, for it is his work, even so far back as 1820, had traced out parallel traditions in other tribes and lands. This work formed an era in popular literature, and has been adopted as a model by all true collectors ever since. It proceeded on the principle of faithfully collecting these traditions from the mouths of the people, without adding one jot or t.i.ttle, or in any way interfering with them, except to select this or that variation as most apt or beautiful. To the adoption of this principle we owe the excellent Swedish collection of George Stephens and Hylten Cavallius, _Svenska Folk-Sagor og Aefventyr_, 2 vols. Stockholm 1844, and following years; and also this beautiful Norse one, to which Jacob Grimm awards the palm over all collections, except perhaps the Scottish, of MM. Asbjornsen and Moe. To it also we owe many most excellent collections in Germany, over nearly the whole of which an active band of the Grimm's pupils have gone gathering up as gleaners the ears which their great masters had let fall or let lie. In Denmark the collection of M. Winther, _Danske Folkeeventyr_, Copenhagen, 1823, is a praiseworthy attempt in the same direction; nor does it at all detract from the merit of H. C. Andersen as an original writer, to observe how often his creative mind has fastened on one of these national stories, and worked out of that piece of native rock a finished work of art. Though last not least, are to be reckoned the Scottish stories collected by Mr. Robert Chambers, of the merit of which we have already expressed our opinion in the text.