Myths and myth-makers Part 8

HISELY, J. J. Recherches critiques sur l'histoire de Guillaume Tell.

Lausanne, 1843.

LIEBENAU, H. Die Tell-Sage zu dem Jahre 1230 historisoh nach neuesten Quellen. Aarau, 1864.

VISCHER, W. Die Sage von der Befreinng der Waldstatte, etc. Nebst einer Beilage: das alteste Tellensehauspiel. Leipzig, 1867.

BORDIER, H. L. Le Grutli et Guillaume Tell, ou defense de la tradition vulgaire sur les origines de la confederation suisse. Geneve et Bale, 1869.

The same. La querelle sur les traditions concernant l'origine de la confederation suisse. Geneve et Bale, 1869.

RILLIET, A. Les origines de la confederation suisse: histoire et legende. 2eS ed., revue et corrigee. Geneve et Bale, 1869.

The same. Lettre a M. Henri Bordier a propos de sa defense de la tradition vulgaire sur les origines de la confederation suisse. Geneve et Bale, 1869.

HUNGERBUHLER, H. Etude critique sur les traditions relatives aux origines de la confederation suisse. Geneve et Bale, 1869.

MEYER, KARL. Die Tellsage. [In Bartsch, Germanistische Studien, I.

159-170. Wien, 1872.]

See also the articles by M. Scherer, in Le Temps, 18 Feb., 1868; by M.

Reuss, in the Revue critique d'histoire, 1868; by M. de Wiss, in the Journal de Geneve, 7 July, 1868; also Revue critique, 17 July, 1869; Journal de Geneve, 24 Oct., 1868; Gazette de Lausanne, feuilleton litteraire, 2-5 Nov., 1868, "Les origines de la confederation suisse,"

par M. Secretan; Edinburgh Review, Jan., 1869, "The Legend of Tell and Rutli."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: See Delepierre, Historical Difficulties, p. 75.]

[Footnote 2: Saxo Grammaticus, Bk. X. p. 166, ed. Frankf. 1576.]

[Footnote 3: According to Mr. Isaac Taylor, the name is really derived from "St. Celert, a Welsh saint of the fifth century, to whom the church of Llangeller is consecrated." (Words and Places, p. 339.)]

[Footnote 4: Compare Krilof's story of the Gnat and the Shepherd, in Mr. Ralston's excellent version, Krilof and his Fables, p. 170. Many parallel examples are cited by Mr. Baring-Gould, Curious Myths, Vol. I.

pp. 126-136. See also the story of Folliculus,--Swan, Gesta Romanorum, ad. Wright, Vol. I. p. lx.x.xii]

[Footnote 5: See c.o.x, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, Vol. I. pp.

145-149.]

[Footnote 6: The same incident occurs in the Arabian story of Seyf-el-Mulook and Bedeea-el-Jemal, where the Jinni's soul is enclosed in the crop of a sparrow, and the sparrow imprisoned in a small box, and this enclosed in another small box, and this again in seven other boxes, which are put into seven chests, contained in a coffer of marble, which is sunk in the ocean that surrounds the world. Seyf-el-Mulook raises the coffer by the aid of Suleyman's seal-ring, and having extricated the sparrow, strangles it, whereupon the Jinni's body is converted into a heap of black ashes, and Seyf-el-Mulook escapes with the maiden Dolet-Khatoon. See Lane's Arabian Nights, Vol. III. p. 316.]

[Footnote 7: The same incident is repeated in the story of Ha.s.san of El-Basrah. See Lane's Arabian Nights, Vol. III p. 452.]

[Footnote 8: "Retrancher le merveilleux d'un mythe, c'est le supprimer."--Breal, Hercule et Cacus, p. 50.]

[Footnote 9: "No distinction between the animate and inanimate is made in the languages of the Eskimos, the Choctaws, the Muskoghee, and the Caddo. Only the Iroquois, Cherokee, and the Algonquin-Lenape have it, so far as is known, and with them it is partial." According to the Fijians, "vegetables and stones, nay, even tools and weapons, pots and canoes, have souls that are immortal, and that, like the souls of men, pa.s.s on at last to Mbulu, the abode of departed spirits."--M'Lennan, The Wors.h.i.+p of Animals and Plants, Fortnightly Review, Vol. XII. p, 416.]

[Footnote 10: Marcus Aurelius, V. 7.]

[Footnote 11: Some of these etymologies are attacked by Mr. Mahaffy in his Prolegomena to Ancient History, p. 49. After long consideration I am still disposed to follow Max Muller in adopting them, with the possible exception of Achilleus. With Mr. Mahaffy s suggestion (p. 52) that many of the Homeric legends may have cl.u.s.tered around some historical basis, I fully agree; as will appear, further on, from my paper on "Juventus Mundi."]

[Footnote 12: Les facultes qui engendrent la mythologie sont les memes que celles qui engendront la philosophie, et ce n'est pas sans raison que l'Inde et la Grece nous presentent le phenomene de la plus riche mythologie a cote de la plus profonde metaphysique. "La conception de la multiplicite dans l'univers, c'est le polytheisme chez les peuples enfants; c'est la science chez les peuples arrives a l'age mur."--Renan, Hist. des Langues Semitiques, Tom. I. p. 9.]

[Footnote 13: Cases coming under this head are discussed further on, in my paper on "Myths of the Barbaric World."]

[Footnote 14: A collection of these interesting legends may be found in Baring-Gould's "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages," of which work this paper was originally a review.]

[Footnote 15: See Procopius, De Bello Gothico, IV. 20; Villemarque, Barzas Breiz, I. 136. As a child I was instructed by an old nurse that Vas Diemen's Land is the home of ghosts and departed spirits.]

[Footnote 16: Baring-Gould, Curious Myths, Vol. I. p. 197.]

[Footnote 17: Hence perhaps the adage, "Always remember to pay the piper."]

[Footnote 18: And it reappears as the mysterious lyre of the Gaelic musician, who

"Could harp a fish out o' the water, Or bluid out of a stane, Or milk out of a maiden's breast, That bairns had never nane."]

[Footnote 19: Baring-Gould, Curious Myths, Vol. II. p. 159.]

[Footnote 20: Perhaps we may trace back to this source the frantic terror which Irish servant-girls often manifest at sight of a mouse.]

[Footnote 21: In Persia a dog is brought to the bedside of the person who is dying, in order that the soul may be sure of a prompt escort. The same custom exists in India. Breal, Hercule et Cacus, p. 123.]

[Footnote 22: The Devil, who is proverbially "active in a gale of wind,"

is none other than Hermes.]

[Footnote 23: "Il faut que la coeur devienne ancien parmi les aneiennes choses, et la plenitude de l'histoire ne se devoile qu'a celui qui descend, ainsi dispose, dans le pa.s.se. Mais il faut que l'esprit demeure moderne, et n'oublie jamais qu'il n'y a pour lui d'autre foi que la foi scientifique."--LITTRS.]

[Footnote 24: For an admirable example of scientific self-a.n.a.lysis tracing one of these illusions to its psychological sources, see the account of Dr. Lazarus, in Taine, De l'Intelligence, Vol. I. pp.

121-125.]

[Footnote 25: See the story of Aymar in Baring-Gould, Curious Myths, Vol. I. pp. 57-77. The learned author attributes the discomfiture to the uncongenial Parisian environment; which is a style of reasoning much like that of my village sorcerer, I fear.]

[Footnote 26: Kelly, Indo-European Folk-Lore, p. 177.]

[Footnote 27: The story of the luck-flower is well told in verse by Mr.

Baring Gould, in his Silver Store, p. 115, seq.]

[Footnote 28: 1 Kings vi. 7.]

[Footnote 29: Compare the Mussulman account of the building of the temple, in Baring-Gould, Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 337, 338. And see the story of Diocletian's ostrich, Swan, Gesta Romanorum, ed. Wright, Vol I. p. lxiv. See also the pretty story of the knight unjustly imprisoned, id. p. cii.]

[Footnote 30: "We have the receipt of fern-seed. We walk invisible."

--Shakespeare, Henry IV. See Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 98]

[Footnote 31: Henderson, Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England, p. 202]