Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs (1886) Part 29

From reward to punishment is but a step, and next in order to the songs that refer to the recompense of good, sleepy children, must be placed those hinting at the serious consequences which will be the result of unyielding wakefulness. It must be confessed that retribution does not always a.s.sume a very awful form; in fact, in one German rhyme, it comes under so gracious a disguise, that a child might almost lie awake on purpose to look out for it:

Sleep, baby, sleep, I can see two little sheep; One is black and one is white, And, if you do not sleep to-night, First the black and then the white Will give your little toes a bite.

The translation is by "Hans Breitmann."

In the threatening style of lullaby, the bogey plays a considerable part. A history of the bogeys of all nations would be an instructive book. The hero of one people is the bogey of another. Wellington and Napoleon (or rather "Boney") served to scare naughty babies long after the latter, at least, was laid to rest. French children still have songs about "le Prince Noir," and the nurses sang during the siege of Paris:

As-tu vu Bismarck A la porte de Chatillon?

Il lance les obus Sur le Pantheon.

The Moor is the nursery terror of many parts of Southern Europe; not, however, it would seem of Sicily--a possible tribute to the enlightened rule of the Kalifs. The Greeks do not enjoy a like immunity: Signor Avolio mentions, in his "Canti popolari di Noto,"

that besides saying "the wolf is coming," it is common for mothers to frighten their little ones with, "Ztt.i.ti, ca vienunu i Riece; Nu sciri ca 'ncianu ci su i Rieci" ("Hush, for the Greeks are coming: don't go outside for the Greeks are there.") Noto was the centre of the district where the ancient Sikeli made their last stand against Greek supremacy: a coincidence that opens the way to bold speculation, though the originals of the bogey Greeks may have been only pirates of times far less remote.

In Germany the same person distributes rewards and punishments: St Nicholas in the Rhenish provinces, Knecht Ruprecht in Northern and Central Germany, Julklapp in Pomerania. On Christmas eve, some one cries out "Julklapp!" from behind a door, and throws the gift into the room with the child's name pinned upon it. Even the gentle St Lucy, the Santa Claus of Lombardy, withholds her cakes from erring babes, and little Tuscans stand a good deal in awe of their friend the Befana; delightful as are the treasures she puts in their shoes when satisfied with their behaviour, she is credited with an unpleasantly sharp eye for youthful transgressions. She has a relative in j.a.pan of the name of Hotii. Once upon a time Hotii, who belongs to the sterner s.e.x, lived on earth in the garb of a priest. His birthland was China, and he had the happy fame of being extremely kind to children. At present he walks about j.a.pan with a big sack full of good things for young people, but the eyes with which the back of his head is furnished, enable him to see in a second if any child misconducts itself. Of more dubious antecedents is another patron of the children of j.a.pan, Kis.h.i.+ Mojin, the mother of the child-demons. Once Kis.h.i.+ Mojin had the depraved habit of stealing any young child she could lay hands on and eating it. In spite of this, she was sincerely attached to her own family, which numbered one thousand, and when the exalted Amida Niorai hid one of its members to punish her for her cruel practices, she grieved bitterly. Finally the child was given back on condition that Kis.h.i.+ Mojin would never more devour her neighbours'

infants: she was advised to eat the fruit of the pomegranate whenever she had a craving for unnatural food. Apparently she took the advice and kept the compact, as she is honoured on the 28th day of every month, and little children are taught to solicit her protection. The kindness shown to children both in j.a.pan and China is well known; in China one baby is said to be of more service in insuring a safe journey than an armed escort.

"El coco," a Spanish bogey, figures in a sleep-song from Malaga: "Sleep, little child, sleep, my soul; sleep, little star of the morning. My child sleeps with eyes open like the hares. Little baby girl, who has beaten thee that thine eyes look as if they had been crying? Poor little girl! who has made thy face red? The rose on the rose-tree is going to sleep, and to sleep goes my child, for already it is late. Sleep little daughter for the _coco_ comes."

The folk-poet in Spain reaps the advantage of a recognised freedom of versification; with the great stress laid upon the vowels, a consonant more or less counts for nothing:

A dormir va la rosa De los rosales; A dormir va mi nina Porque ya es tarde.

All folk-poets, and notably the English, have recourse to an occasional a.s.sonant, but the Spaniard can trust altogether to such.

Verse-making is thus made easy, provided ideas do not fail, and up to to-day, they have not failed the Spanish peasant. He has not, like the Italian, begun to leave off composing songs. My correspondent at Malaga writes that at that place improvisation seems innate in the people: they go before a house and sing the commonest thing they wish to express. Love and hate they also turn into songs, to be rehea.r.s.ed under the window of the individual loved or hated. There is even an old woman now living in Malaga who rhymes in Latin with extraordinary facility. To the present section falls one other lullaby--coo-aby, perhaps I ought to say, since the Spanish _arrullo_ means the cooing of doves as well as the lulling of children. It is quoted by Count Gubernatis:

Isabellita, do not pine Because the flowers fade away; If flowers hasten to decay Weep not, Isabellita mine.

Little one, now close thine eyes, Hark, the footsteps of the Moor!

And she asks from door to door, Who may be the child who cries?

When I was as small as thou And within my cradle lying, Angels came about me flying And they kissed me on my brow.

Sleep, then, little baby, sleep: Sleep, nor cry again to-night, Lest the angels take to flight So as not to see thee weep.

"The Moor" is in this instance a benignant kind of bogey, not far removed from harmless "wee Willie Winkie" who runs upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown:

Tapping at the window, Crying at the lock, "Are the babes in their beds?

For it's now ten o'clock."

These myths have some a.n.a.logy with a being known as "La Dormette" who frequents the neighbourhood of Poitou. She is a good old woman who throws sand and sleep on children's eyes, and is hailed with the words:

Pa.s.sez la Dormette, Pa.s.sez par chez nous!

Endormir gars et fillettes La nuit et le jou.

Now and then we hear of an angel who pa.s.ses by at nightfall; it is not clear what may be his mission, but he is plainly too much occupied to linger with his fellow seraphs, who have nothing to do but to kiss the babe in its sleep. A little French song speaks of this journeying angel:

Il est tard, l'ange a pa.s.se, Le jour a deja baisse; Et l'on n'entend pour tout bruit Que le ruisseau qui s'enfuit.

Endors toi, Mon fils! c'est moi.

Il est tard et ton ami, L'oiseau blue, s'est endormi.

In Calabria, when a b.u.t.terfly flits around a baby's cradle, it is believed to be either an angel or a baby's soul.

The pendulum of good and evil is set swinging from the moment that the infant draws its first breath. Angelical visitation has its complement in demonial influence; it is even difficult to resist the conclusion that the ministers of light are frequently outnumbered by the powers of darkness. In most Christian lands the unbaptised child is given over entirely to the latter. Sicilian women are loth to kiss a child before its christening, because they consider it a pagan or a Turk. In East Tyrol and Styria, persons who take a child to be baptised say on their return--"A Jew we took away, a Christian we bring back." Some Tyrolese mothers will not give any food to their babies till the rite has been performed. The unbaptised Greek is thought to be simply a small demon, and is called by no other designation than [Greek: srakos] if a boy, and [Greek: srakoula] if a girl. Once when a christening was unavoidably delayed, the parents got so accustomed to calling their little girl by the snake name, that they continued doing so even after she had been presented with one less equivocal.

Dead unchristened babes float about on the wind; in Tyrol they are marshalled along by Berchte, the wife of Pontius Pilate; in Scotland they may be heard moaning on calm nights. The state to which their baby souls are relegated, is probably a lingering recollection of that into which, in pagan days, all innocent spirits were conceived to pa.s.s: an explanation that has also the merit of being as little offensive as any that can be offered. There is naturally a general wish to make baptism follow as soon as possible after birth--an end that is sometimes pursued regardless of the bodily risks it may involve. A poor woman gave birth to a child at the mines of Vallauria; it was a bitterly cold winter; the snow lay deep enough to efface the mountain tracks, and all moisture froze the instant it was exposed to the air. However, the grandmother of the new-born babe carried it off immediately to Tenda--many miles away--for the christening rite. As she had been heard to remark that it was a useless enc.u.mbrance, there were some who attributed her action to other motives than religious zeal; but the child survived the ordeal and prospered. In several parts of the Swiss mountains a baptism, like a funeral, is an event for the whole community. I was present at a christening in a small village lying near the summit of the Julier Pa.s.s. The bare, little church was crowded, and the service was performed with a reverent carefulness contrasting sharply with the mechanical and hurried performance of a baptism witnessed shortly before in a very different place, the glorious baptistry at Florence. It ended with a Lutheran hymn, sung sweetly without accompaniment, by five or six young girls. More than half of the congregation consisted of men, whose weather-tried faces were wet with tears, almost without exception.

I could not find out that there was anything particularly sad in the circ.u.mstances of the case; the women certainly wore black, but then, the rule of attending the funerals even of mere acquaintances, causes the best dress in Switzerland to be always one suggestive of mourning.

It seemed that the pathos of the dedication of a dawning life to the Supreme Good was sufficient to touch the hearts of these simple folk, starved from coa.r.s.er emotion.

In Calabria it is thought unlucky to be either born or christened on a Friday. Sat.u.r.day is likewise esteemed an inauspicious day, which points to its a.s.sociation with the witches' Sabbath, once the subject of numerous superst.i.tious beliefs throughout the southern provinces of Italy. Not far from the battlefield near Benevento where Charles of Anjou defeated Manfred, grew a walnut tree, which had an almost European fame as the scene of Sabbatical orgies. People used to hang upon its branches the figure of a two-headed viper coiled into a ring, a symbol of incalculable antiquity. St Barbatus had the tree cut down, but the devil raised new shoots from the root and so it was renewed.

Shreds of snake-wors.h.i.+p may be still collected. The Calabrians hold that the cast-off skin of a snake is an excellent thing to put under the pillow of a sick baby. Even after their christening, children are unfortunately most susceptible to enchantment. When a beautiful and healthy child sickens and dies, the Irish peasant infers that the genuine baby has been stolen by fairies, and this miserable sprite left in its place. Two ancient antidotes have great power to counteract the effect of spells. One is the purifying Fire. In Scotland, as in Italy, bewitched children, within the memory of living men, have been set to rights by contact with its salutary heat. My relative, Count Belli of Viterbo, was "looked at" when an infant by a _Jettatrice_, and was in consequence put by his nurse into a mild oven for half-an-hour. One would think that the remedy was nearly as perilous as the practice of the lake-dwellers of cutting a little hole in their children's heads to let out the evil spirits, but in the case mentioned it seems to have answered well.

The other important curative agent is the purifying spittle. In Scotland and in Greece, any one who should exclaim, "What a beautiful child!" is expected to slightly spit upon the object of the remark, or some misfortune will follow. Ladies in a high position at Athens have been observed to do this quite lately. The Scotch and Greek uneasiness about the "well-faured" is by no means confined to those peoples; the same anxiety reappears in Madagascar; and the Arab does not like you to praise the beauty of his horse without adding the qualifying "an it please G.o.d." Persius gives an account of the precautions adopted by the friends of the infant Roman: "Look here--a grandmother or superst.i.tious aunt has taken baby from his cradle and is charming his forehead and his slavering lips against mischief by the joint action of her middle finger and her purifying spittle; for she knows right well how to check the evil eye. Then she dandles him in her arms, and packs off the little pinched hope of the family, so far as wis.h.i.+ng can do it, to the domains of Licinus, or to the palace of Cr[oe]sus. 'May he be a catch for my lord and lady's daughter! May the pretty ladies scramble for him! May the ground he walks on turn to a rose-bed.'"

(Prof. Conington's translation.)

One of the rare lullabies that contain allusion to enchantment is the following Roumanian "Nani-nani":

Lullaby, my little one, Thou art mother's darling son; Loving mother will defend thee, Mother she will rock and tend thee, Like a flower of delight, Or an angel swathed in white.

Sleep with mother, mother well Knows the charm for every spell.

Thou shalt be a hero as Our good lord, great Stephen, was, Brave in war, and strong in hand, To protect thy fatherland.

Sleep, my baby, in thy bed; G.o.d upon thee blessings shed.

Be thou dark, and be thine eyes Bright as stars that gem the skies.

Maidens' love be thine, and sweet Blossoms spring beneath thy feet.

The last lines might be taken for a paraphrase of--

....... puellae Hunc rapiant: quicquid calcaverit hic, rosa fiat.

The Three Fates have still their cult at Athens. When a child is three days old, the mother places by its cot a little table spread with a clean linen cloth, upon which she sets a pot of honey, sundry cakes and fruits, her wedding ring, and a few pieces of money belonging to her husband. In the honey are stuck three almonds. These are the preparations for the visit of the [Greek: Moirai]. In some places the Norns or Parcae have got transformed into the three Maries; in others they closely retain their original character. A perfect sample of the mixing up of pagan and Christian lore is to be found in a Bulgarian legend, which shows the three Fates weaving the destiny of the infant Saviour during a momentary absence of the Virgin--the whole scene occurring in the middle of a Balkan wood. In Sicily exists a belief in certain strange ladies ("donni-di-fora"), who take charge of the new-born babe, with or without permission. The Palermitan mother says aloud, when she lifts her child out of the cradle, "'Nnome di Dio!"

("In G.o.d's name!")--but she quickly adds _sotto voce_: "Cu licenzi, signuri miu!" ("By your leave, ladies").

At Noto, _Ronni-di-casa_, or house-women, take the place of the _Donni-di-fora_. They inhabit every house in which a fire burns. If offended by their host, they revenge themselves on the children: the mother finds the infant whom she left asleep and tucked into the cradle, rolling on the floor or screaming with sudden fright. When, however, the _Ronni-di-casa_ are amiably disposed, they make the sleeping child smile, after the fas.h.i.+on of angels in other parts of the world. Should they wish to leave an unmistakable mark of their good will, they twist a lock of the baby's hair into an inextricable tress. In England, elves were supposed to tangle the hair during sleep (_vide King Lear_: "Elf all my hair in knots;" and Mercutio's Mab speech). The favour of the Sicilian house-women is not without its drawbacks, for if by any mischance the knotted lock be cut off, they will probably twist the child's spine out of spite. "'Ccussi lu la.s.surii li Ronni-di-casa," says an inhabitant of Noto when he points out to you a child suffering from spinal curvature. The voice is lowered in mentioning these questionable guests, and there are Noticiani who will use any amount of circ.u.mlocution to avoid actually naming them. They are often called "certi signuri," as in this characteristic lullaby:

My love, I wish thee well; so lullaby!

Thy little eyes are like the cloudless sky, My little lovely girl, my pretty one, Mother will make of thee a little nun: A sister of the Saviour's Priory Where n.o.ble dames and ladies great there be.

Sleep, moon-faced treasure, sleep, the while I sing: Thou hadst thy cradle from the Spanish king.

When thou hast slept, I'll love thee better still.

(Sleep to my daughter comes and goes at will And in her slumber she is made to smile By certain ladies whom I dare not style.) Breath of my body, thou, my love, my care, Thou art without a flaw, so wondrous fair.

Sleep then, thy mother's breath, sleep, sleep, and rest, For thee my very soul forsakes my breast.

My very soul goes forth, and sore my heart: Thou criest; words of comfort I impart.

Daughter, my flame, lie still and take repose, Thou art a nosegay culled from off the rose.

At Palermo, mothers dazzled their little girls with the prospect of entering the convent of Santa Zita or Santa Chiara. In announcing the birth of his child, a Sicilian peasant commonly says, "My wife has a daughter-abbess." "What! has your wife a daughter old enough to be an abbess?" has sometimes been the innocent rejoinder of a traveller from the mainland. The Convent of the Saviour, which is the destination of the paragon of beauty described in the above lullaby, was one of the wealthiest, and what is still more to the point, one of the most aristocratic religious houses in the island. To have a relation among its members was a distinction ardently coveted by the citizens of Noto; a town which once rejoiced in thirty-three n.o.ble families, one loftier than the other. The number is now cut down, but according to Signor Avolio such as remain are regarded with undiminished reverence.

There are households in which the whole conversation runs on the _Barone_ and _Baronessa_, when not absorbed by the _Baronello_ and the _Baronessella_. It is just possible that the same phenomenon might be observed without going to Noto. _Tutto il mondo e paese_: a proverb which would serve as an excellent motto for the Folk-lore Society.

Outside Sicily the cradle-singer's ideal of felicity is rather matrimonial than monastic. The Venetian is convinced that who never loved before must succ.u.mb to her daughter's incomparable charms. It seems, by-the-by, that the "fatal gift" can be praised without fear or scruple in modern Italy; the visitors of a new-born babe e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e in a chorus, "Quant' e bellino! O bimbo! Bimbino!" and Italian lullabies, far more than any others, are one long catalogue of perfections, one drawn-out reiteration of the boast of a Greek mother of Terra d'Otranto: "There are children in the street, but like my boy there is not one; there are children before the house, but like my child there are none at all." The Sardinian who wishes to say something civil of a baby will not do less than predict that "his fame will go round the world." The cradle-singer of the Basilicata desires for her nursling that he may outstrip the sun and moon in their race. It has been seen that the Roumanian mother would have her son emulate the famous hero of Moldavia; for her daughter she cherishes a gentler ambition:

Sleep, my daughter, sleep an hour; Mother's darling gilliflower.

Mother rocks thee, standing near, She will wash thee in the clear Waters that from fountains run, To protect thee from the sun.