The Fairy Mythology
by Thomas Keightley · English · Gutenberg #41006 · 1,204,369 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Fairy Mythology
Author: Thomas Keightley
Release date: October 9, 2012 [eBook #41006]
Language: English
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[Illustration]
THE FAIRY MYTHOLOGY,
ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE
Romance and Superstition of Various Countries;
BY
THOMAS KEIGHTLEY,
Author of the Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy; Histories of
Greece, Rome, England, and India, The Crusaders, &c., &c.
Another sort there be, that will
Be talking of the Fairies still;
Nor never can they have their fill,
As they were wedded to them
DRAYTON.
A NEW EDITION, REVISED AND GREATLY ENLARGED
LONDON:
GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN,
AND NEW YORK.
1892.
LONDON:
REPRINTED FROM STEREOTYPE PLATES BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED.
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
FRANCIS EARL OF ELLESMERE,
IN TESTIMONY OF
ESTEEM AND RESPECT FOR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE VIRTUE,
LITERARY TASTE, TALENT, AND ACQUIREMENTS,
AND PATRONAGE OF LITERATURE AND THE ARTS.
This Volume is Inscribed
BY
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
A preface is to a book what a prologue is to a play--a usual, often
agreeable, but by no means necessary precursor. It may therefore be
altered or omitted at pleasure. I have at times exercised this right,
and this is the third I have written for the present work.
In the first, after briefly stating what had given occasion to it, I
gave the germs of the theory which I afterwards developed in the Tales
and Popular Fictions. The second contained the following paragraph:--
"I never heard of any one who read it that was not pleased with it. It
was translated into German as soon as it appeared, and was very
favourably received. Goethe thought well of it. Dr. Jacob Grimm--perhaps
the first authority on these matters in Europe--wrote me a letter
commending it, and assuring me that even to _him_ it offered something
new; and I was one Christmas most agreeably surprised by the receipt of
a letter from Vienna, from the celebrated orientalist, Jos Von Hammer,
informing me that it had been the companion of a journey he had lately
made to his native province of Styria, and had afforded much pleasure
and information to himself and to some ladies of high rank and
cultivated minds in that country. The initials at the end of the
preface, he said, led him to suppose it was a work of mine. So far for
the Continent. In this country, when I mention the name of Robert
Southey as that of one who has more than once expressed his decided
approbation of this performance, I am sure I shall have said quite
enough to satisfy any one that the work is not devoid of merit."
I could now add many names of distinguished persons who have been
pleased with this work and its pendent, the Tales and Popular Fictions.
I shall only mention that of the late Mr. Douce, who, very shortly
before his death, on the occasion of the publication of this last work,
called on me to assure me that "it was many, many years indeed, since he
had read a book which had yielded him so much delight."
The contents of the work which gave such pleasure to this learned
antiquary are as follows:--
I. Introduction--Similarity of Arts and Customs--Similarity of
Names--Origin of the Work--Imitation--Casual
Coincidence--Milton--Dante. II. The Thousand and One
Nights--Bedoween Audience around a Story-teller--Cleomades and
Claremond--Enchanted Horses--Peter of Provence and the fair
Maguelone. III. The Pleasant Nights--The Dancing Water, the Singing
Apple, and the Beautiful Green Bird--The Three Little
Birds--Lactantius--Ulysses and Sindbad. IV. The Shâh-Nâmeh--Roostem
and Soohrâb--Conloch and Cuchullin--Macpherson's Ossian--Irish
Antiquities. V. The Pentamerone--Tale of the Serpent--Hindoo Legend.
VI. Jack the Giant-killer--The Brave Tailoring--Thor's Journey to
Utgard--Ameen of Isfahan and the Ghool--The Lion and the Goat--The
Lion and the Ass. VII. Whittington and his Cat--Danish
Legends--Italian Stories--Persian Legend. VIII. The Edda--Sigurd and
Brynhilda--Völund--Helgi--Holger Danske--Ogier le
Danois--Toko--William Tell. IX. Peruonto--Peter the Fool--Emelyan
the Fool--Conclusion. Appendix.
Never, I am convinced, did any one enter on a literary career with
more reluctance than I did when I found it to be my only
resource--fortune being gone, ill health and delicacy of constitution
excluding me from the learned professions, want of interest from
every thing else. As I journeyed to the metropolis, I might have sung
with the page whom Don Quixote met going a-soldiering:
A la guerra me lleva--mi necesidad,
Si tuviera dineros--no fuera en verdad
for of all arts and professions in this country, that of literature is
the least respected and the worst remunerated. There is something
actually degrading in the expression "an author by trade," which I have
seen used even of Southey, and that by one who did not mean to disparage
him in the slightest degree. My advice to those who may read these pages
is to shun literature, if not already blest with competence.
One of my earliest literary friends in London was T. Crofton Croker,
who was then engaged in collecting materials for the Fairy Legends of
the South of Ireland. He of course applied to his friends for aid and
information; and I, having most leisure, and, I may add, most
knowledge, was able to give him the greatest amount of assistance. My
inquiries on the subject led to the writing of the present work, which
was succeeded by the Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy, and the
Tales and Popular Fictions; so that, in effect, if Mr. Croker had not
planned the Fairy Legends, these works, be their value what it may,
would in all probability never have been written.
Writing and reading about Fairies some may deem to be the mark of a
trifling turn of mind. On this subject I have given my ideas in the
Conclusion; here I will only remind such critics, that as soon as this
work was completed, I commenced, and wrote in the space of a few
weeks, my Outlines of History; and whatever the faults of that work
may be, no one has ever reckoned among them want of vigour in either
thought or expression. It was also necessary, in order to write this
work and its pendent, to be able to read, perhaps, as many as eighteen
or twenty different languages, dialects, and modes of orthography,
and to employ different styles both in prose and verse. At all events,
even if it were trifling, _dulce est desipere in loco_; and I shall
never forget the happy hours it caused me, especially those spent over
the black-letter pages of the French romances of chivalry, in the old
reading-room of the British Museum.
Many years have elapsed since this work was first published. In that
period much new matter has appeared in various works, especially in the
valuable Deutsche Mythologie of Dr. Grimm. Hence it will be found to be
greatly enlarged, particularly in the sections of England and France. I
have also inserted much which want of space obliged me to omit in the
former edition. In its present form, I am presumptuous enough to expect
that it may live for many years, and be an authority on the subject of
popular lore. The active industry of the Grimms, of Thiele, and others,
had collected the popular traditions of various countries. I came then
and gathered in the harvest, leaving little, I apprehend, but gleanings
for future writers on this subject. The legends will probably fade fast
away from the popular memory; it is not likely that any one will relate
those which I have given over again; and it therefore seems more
probable that this volume may in future be reprinted, with notes and
additions. For human nature will ever remain unchanged; the love of gain
and of material enjoyments, omnipotent as it appears to be at present,
will never totally extinguish the higher and purer aspirations of mind;
and there will always be those, however limited in number, who will
desire to know how the former dwellers of earth thought, felt, and
acted. For these mythology, as connected with religion and history, will
always have attractions.
October, 1850.
Whatever errors have been discovered are corrected in this impression.
January, 1870. T. K.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION. Page
Origin of the Belief in Fairies 1
Origin of the Word Fairy 4
ORIENTAL ROMANCE.
PERSIAN ROMANCE 14
The Peri-Wife 20
ARABIAN ROMANCE 24
MIDDLE-AGE ROMANCE.
FAIRY-LAND 44
SPENSER'S FAERIE QUEENE 55
EDDAS AND SAGAS 60
THE ALFAR 64
THE DUERGAR 66
Loki and the Dwarf 68
Thorston and the Dwarf 70
The Dwarf-Sword Tirfing 72
SCANDINAVIA.
ELVES 78
Sir Olof in the Elve-Dance 82
The Elf-Woman and Sir Olof 84
The Young Swain and the Elves 86
Svend Faelling and the Elle-Maid 88
The Elle-Maids 89
Maid Væ 89
The Elle-Maid near Ebeltoft 90
Hans Puntleder 91
DWARFS OR TROLLS 94
Sir Thynnè 97
Proud Margaret 103
The Troll Wife 108
The Altar-Cup in Aagerup 109
Origin of Tiis Lake 111
A Farmer tricks a Troll 113
Skotte in the Fire 113
The Legend of Bodedys 115
Kallundborg Church 116
The Hill-Man invited to the Christening 118
The Troll turned Cat 120
Kirsten's Hill 121
The Troll-Labour 122
The Hill-Smith 123
The Girl at the Troll-Dance 125
The Changeling 125
The Tile-Stove jumping over the Brook 127
Departure of the Trolls From Vendsyssel 127
Svend Faelling 128
The Dwarfs' Banquet 130
NISSES 139
The Nis Removing 140
The Penitent Nis 141
The Nis and the Boy 142
The Nis Stealing Corn 143
The Nis and the Mare 144
The Nis Riding 145
The Nisses in Vosborg 146
NECKS, MERMEN, AND MERMAIDS 147
The Power of the Harp 150
Duke Magnus and the Mermaid 154
NORTHERN ISLANDS.
ICELAND 157
FEROES 162
SHETLAND 164
Gioga's Son 167
The Mermaid Wife 169
ORKNEYS 171
ISLE OF RÜGEN 174
Adventures of John Dietrich 178
The Little Glass Shoe 194
The Wonderful Plough 197
The Lost Bell 200
The Black Dwarfs of Granitz 204
GERMANY.
DWARFS 216
The Hill-Man at the Dance 217
The Dwarf's Feast 218
The Friendly Dwarfs 220
Wedding-Feast of the Little People 220
Smith Riechert 221
Dwarfs stealing Corn 222
Journey of Dwarfs over the Mountain 223
The Dwarfs borrowing Bread 226
The Changeling 227
The Dwarf-Husband 232
Inge of Rantum 232
THE WILD-WOMEN 234
The Oldenburg Horn 237
KOBOLDS 239
Hinzelmann 240
Hödeken 255
King Goldemar 256
The Heinzelmänchen 257
NIXES 258
The Peasant and the Waterman 259
The Water-Smith 260
The Working Waterman 261
The Nix-Labour 261
SWITZERLAND.
DWARFS 264
Gertrude and Rosy 266
The Chamois-Hunter 271
The Dwarfs on the Tree 273
Curiosity punished 273
The Rejected Gift 275
The Wonderful Little Pouch 276
Aid and Punishment 277
The Dwarf in search of Lodging 278
GREAT BRITAIN.
ENGLAND.
The Green Children 281
The Fairy-Banquet 283
The Fairy-Horn 284
The Portunes 285
The Grant 286
The Luck of Eden Hall 292
The Fairy-Fair 294
The Fairies' Caldron 295
The Cauld Lad of Hilton 296
The Pixy-Labour 301
Pixy-Vengeance 303
Pixy-Gratitude 304
The Fairy-Thieves 305
The Boggart 307
Addlers and Menters 308
The Fary-Nurseling 310
The Fary-Labour 311
Ainsel 313
Puck 314
SCOTTISH LOWLANDS.
The Fairies' Nurse 353
The Fairy-Rade 354
The Changeling 355
Departure of the Fairies 356
The Brownie 357
CELTS AND CYMRY.
IRELAND.
Clever Tom and the Leprechaun 373
The Leprechaun in the Garden 376
The Three Leprechauns 379
The Little Shoe 382
SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS.
The Fairy's Inquiry 385
The Young Man in the Shian 386
The two Fiddlers 387
The Fairy-Labour 388
The Fairy borrowing Oatmeal 389
The Fairy-Gift 389
The Stolen Ox 390
The Stolen Lady 391
The Changeling 393
The Wounded Seal 394
The Brownies 395
The Urisk 396
ISLE OF MAN.
The Fairy-Chapman 398
The Fairy-Banquet 399
The Fairies' Christening 400
The Fairy-Whipping 400
The Fairy-Hunt 401
The Fiddler and the Fairy 402
The Phynnodderee 402
WALES.
Tale of Elidurus 404
The Tylwyth Têg 408
The Spirit of the Van 409
Rhys at the Fairy-Dance 415
Gitto Bach 416
The Fairies banished 417
BRITTANY.
Lai D'Ywenec 422
Lord Nann and the Korrigan 433
The Dance and Song of the Korred 438
SOUTHERN EUROPE.
GREECE 443
ITALY 447
SPAIN 456
The Daughter of Peter do Cabinam 456
Origin of the House of Haro 458
La Infantina 459
Pepito el Corcovado 461
FRANCE.
Legend of Melusina 480
EASTERN EUROPE.
FINNS 487
SLAVES 490
Vilas 492
Deer and Vila 493
AFRICANS, JEWS,
AFRICANS 495
JEWS 497
The Broken Oaths 498
The Moohel 506
The Mazik-Ass 510
APPENDIX 513
INDEX 557
THE FAIRY MYTHOLOGY
INTRODUCTION.
In oldè dayès of the King Artoúr,
Of which that Bretons spoken gret honoúr,
All was this lond fulfilled of faërie;
The elf-qrene with hir jolie companie
Danced full oft in many a grenè mede.
CHAUCER.
ORIGIN OF THE BELIEF IN FAIRIES.
According to a well-known law of our nature, effects suggest causes;
and another law, perhaps equally general, impels us to ascribe to the
actual and efficient cause the attribute of intelligence. The mind of
the deepest philosopher is thus acted upon equally with that of the
peasant or the savage; the only difference lies in the nature of the
intelligent cause at which they respectively stop. The one pursues the
chain of cause and effect, and traces out its various links till he
arrives at the great intelligent cause of all, however he may
designate him; the other, when unusual phenomena excite his attention,
ascribes their production to the immediate agency of some of the
inferior beings recognised by his legendary creed.
The action of this latter principle must forcibly strike the minds of
those who disdain not to bestow a portion of their attention on the
popular legends and traditions of different countries. Every
extraordinary appearance is found to have its extraordinary cause
assigned; a cause always connected with the history or religion,
ancient or modern, of the country, and not unfrequently varying with a
change of faith.[1]
The noises and eruptions of Ætna and Stromboli were, in ancient times,
ascribed to Typhon or Vulcan, and at this day the popular belief
connects them with the infernal regions. The sounds resembling the
clanking of chains, hammering of iron, and blowing of bellows, once to
be heard in the island of Barrie, were made by the fiends whom Merlin
had set to work to frame the wall of brass to surround Caermarthen.[2]
The marks which natural causes have impressed on the solid and
unyielding granite rock were produced, according to the popular creed,
by the contact of the hero, the saint, or the god: masses of stone,
resembling domestic implements in form, were the toys, or the
corresponding implements of the heroes and giants of old. Grecian
imagination ascribed to the galaxy or milky way an origin in the teeming
breast of the queen of heaven: marks appeared in the petals of flowers
on the occasion of a youth's or a hero's untimely death: the rose
derived its present hue from the blood of Venus, as she hurried barefoot
through the woods and lawns; while the professors of Islâm, less
fancifully, refer the origin of this flower to the moisture that exuded
from the sacred person of their prophet. Under a purer form of religion,
the cruciform stripes which mark the back and shoulders of the patient
ass first appeared, according to the popular tradition, when the Son of
God condescended to enter the Holy City, mounted on that animal; and a
fish only to be found in the sea[3] stills bears the impress of the
finger and thumb of the apostle, who drew him out of the waters of Lake
Tiberias to take the tribute-money that lay in his mouth. The repetition
of the voice among the hills is, in Norway and Sweden, ascribed to the
Dwarfs mocking the human speaker, while the more elegant fancy of Greece
gave birth to Echo, a nymph who pined for love, and who still fondly
repeats the accents that she hears. The magic scenery occasionally
presented on the waters of the Straits of Messina is produced by the
power of the Fata Morgana; the gossamers that float through the haze of
an autumnal morning, are woven by the ingenious dwarfs; the verdant
circlets in the mead are traced beneath the light steps of the dancing
elves; and St. Cuthbert forges and fashions the beads that bear his
name, and lie scattered along the shore of Lindisfarne.[4]
In accordance with these laws, we find in most countries a popular
belief in different classes of beings distinct from men, and from the
higher orders of divinities. These beings are usually believed to
inhabit, in the caverns of earth, or the depths of the waters, a
region of their own. They generally excel mankind in power and in
knowledge, and like them are subject to the inevitable laws of death,
though after a more prolonged period of existence.
How these classes were first called into existence it is not easy to
say; but if, as some assert, all the ancient systems of heathen
religion were devised by philosophers for the instruction of rude
tribes by appeals to their senses, we might suppose that the minds
which peopled the skies with their thousands and tens of thousands of
divinities gave birth also to the inhabitants of the field and flood,
and that the numerous tales of their exploits and adventures are the
production of poetic fiction or rude invention. It may further be
observed, that not unfrequently a change of religious faith has
invested with dark and malignant attributes beings once the objects of
love, confidence, and veneration.[5]
It is not our intention in the following pages to treat of the awful
or lovely deities of Olympus, Valhalla, or Merû. Our subject is less
aspiring; and we confine ourselves to those beings who are our
fellow-inhabitants of earth, whose manners we aim to describe, and
whose deeds we propose to record. We write of FAIRIES, FAYS, ELVES,
_aut alio quo nomine gaudent_.
ORIGIN OF THE WORD FAIRY.
Like every other word in extensive use, whose derivation is not
historically certain, the word Fairy has obtained various and opposite
etymons. Meyric Casaubon, and those who like him deduce everything
from a classic source, however unlikely, derive Fairy from Φηρ, a
Homeric name of the Centaurs;[6] or think that _fée_, whence Fairy, is
the last syllable of _nympha_. Sir W. Ouseley derives it from the
Hebrew פאר (_peër_), _to adorn_; Skinner, from the Anglo-Saxon [Old
English: faran], _to fare_, _to go_; others from Feres, companions, or
think that Fairy-folk is _quasi_ Fair-folk. Finally, it has been
queried if it be not Celtic.[7]
But no theory is so plausible, or is supported by such names, as that
which deduces the English Fairy from the Persian Peri. It is said that
the Paynim foe, whom the warriors of the Cross encountered in
Palestine, spoke only Arabic; the alphabet of which language, it is
well known, possesses no _p_, and therefore organically substitutes an
_f_ in such foreign words as contain the former letter; consequently
Peri became, in the mouth of an Arab, Feri, whence the crusaders and
pilgrims, who carried back to Europe the marvellous tales of Asia,
introduced into the West the Arabo-Persian word _Fairy_. It is further
added, that the Morgain or Morgana, so celebrated in old romance, is
Merjan Peri, equally celebrated all over the East.
All that is wanting to this so very plausible theory is something like
proof, and some slight agreement with the ordinary rules of etymology.
Had Feërie, or Fairy, originally signified the individual in the
French and English, the only languages in which the word occurs, we
might feel disposed to acquiesce in it. But they do not: and even if
they did, how should we deduce from them the Italian Fata, and the
Spanish Fada or Hada, (words which unquestionably stand for the same
imaginary being,) unless on the principle by which Menage must have
deduced Lutin from Lemur--the first letter being the same in both? As
to the fair Merjan Peri (D'Herbelot calls her Merjan Banou[8]), we
fancy a little too much importance has been attached to her. Her name,
as far as we can learn, only occurs in the Cahermân Nâmeh, a Turkish
romance, though perhaps translated from the Persian.
The foregoing etymologies, it is to be observed, are all the
conjectures of English scholars; for the English is the only language
in which the name of the individual, Fairy, has the canine letter to
afford any foundation for them.
Leaving, then, these sports of fancy, we will discuss the true origin
of the words used in the Romanic languages to express the being which
we name Fairy of Romance. These are _Faée_, _Fée_, French; _Fada_,
Provençal (whence _Hada_, Spanish); and _Fata_, Italian.
The root is evidently, we think, the Latin _fatum_. In the fourth
century of our æra we find this word made plural, and even feminine, and
used as the equivalent of Parcæ. On the reverse of a gold medal of the
Emperor Diocletian are three female figures, with the legend _Fatis
victricibus_; a _cippus_, found at Valencia in Spain, has on one of its
sides _Fatis Q. Fabius ex voto_, and on the other, three female
figures, with the attributes of the Mœræ or Parcæ.[9] In this last place
the gender is uncertain, but the figures would lead us to suppose it
feminine. On the other hand, Ausonius[10] has _tres Charites_, _tria
Fata_; and Procopius[11] names a building at the Roman Forum τα τρια
φατα, adding ουτω γαρ ῥωμαιοι τας μοιρας νενομικασι καλειν. The Fatæ or
Fata, then, being persons, and their name coinciding so exactly with the
modern terms, and it being observed that the Mœræ were, at the birth of
Meleager, just as the Fées were at that of Ogier le Danois, and other
heroes of romance and tale, their identity has been at once asserted,
and this is now, we believe, the most prevalent theory. To this it may
be added, that in Gervase of Tilbury, and other writers of the
thirteenth century, the Fada or Fée seems to be regarded as a being
different from human kind.[12]
On the other hand, in a passage presently to be quoted from a
celebrated old romance, we shall meet a definition of the word _Fée_,
which expressly asserts that such a being was nothing more than a
woman skilled in magic; and such, on examination, we shall find to
have been all the Fées of the romances of chivalry and of the popular
tales; in effect, that _fée_ is a participle, and the words _dame_ or
_femme_ is to be understood.
In the middle ages there was in use a Latin verb, _fatare_,[13] derived
from _fatum_ or _fata_, and signifying to enchant. This verb was
adopted by the Italian, Provençal[14] and Spanish languages; in French
it became, according to the analogy of that tongue, _faer_, _féer_. Of
this verb the past participle _faé_, _fé_; hence in the romances we
continually meet with _les chevaliers faés_, _les dames faées_, _Oberon
la faé_, _le cheval étoit faé_, _la clef était fée_, and such like. We
have further, we think, demonstrated[15] that it was the practice of the
Latin language to elide accented syllables, especially in the past
participle of verbs of the first conjugation, and that this practice had
been transmitted to the Italian, whence _fatato-a_ would form _fato-a_,
and _una donna fatata_ might thus become _una fata_. Whether the same
was the case in the Provençal we cannot affirm, as our knowledge of that
dialect is very slight; but, judging from analogy, we would say it was,
for in Spanish _Hadada_ and _Hada_ are synonymous. In the Neapolitan
Pentamerone _Fata_ and _Maga_ are the same, and a Fata sends the heroine
of it to a sister of hers, _pure fatata_.
Ariosto says of Medea--
E perchè per virtù d' erbe e d'incanti
Delle Fate una ed immortal fatta era.
_I Cinque Canti_, ii. 106.
The same poet, however, elsewhere says--
Queste che or Fate e dagli antichi foro
Già dette Ninfe e Dee con più bel nome.--_Ibid._ i. 9.
and,
Nascemmo ad un punto che d'ogni altro male
Siamo capaci fuorchè della morte.--_Orl. Fur._ xliii. 48.
which last, however, is not decisive. Bojardo also calls the
water-nymphs Fate; and our old translators of the Classics named them
_fairies_. From all this can only, we apprehend, be collected, that
the ideas of the Italian poets, and others, were somewhat vague on the
subject.
From the verb _faer_, _féer_, to enchant, illude, the French made a
substantive _faerie_, _féerie_,[16] illusion, enchantment, the meaning
of which was afterwards extended, particularly after it had been
adopted into the English language.
We find the word Faerie, in fact, to be employed in four different
senses, which we will now arrange and exemplify.
1. Illusion, enchantment.
Plusieurs parlent de Guenart,
Du Loup, de l'Asne, de Renart,
De _faeries_ et de songes,
De phantosmes et de mensonges.
_Gul. Giar. ap. Ducange._
Where we must observe, as Sir Walter Scott seems not to have been
aware of it, that the four last substantives bear the same relation to
each other as those in the two first verses do.
Me bifel a ferly
Of _faërie_, me thought.
_Vision of Piers Plowman_, v. 11.
Maius that sit with so benigne a chere,
Hire to behold it seemed _faërie_.
_Chaucer, Marchante's Tale._
It (_the horse of brass_) was of _faërie_, as the peple semed,
Diversè folk diversëly han demed.--_Squier's Tale._
The Emperor said on high,
Certes it is a _faërie_,
Or elles a vanité.--_Emare._
With phantasme and _faërie_,
Thus she bleredè his eye.--_Libeaus Disconus._
The God of her has made an end,
And fro this worldès _faërie_
Hath taken her into companie.--_Gower, Constance._
Mr. Ritson professes not to understand the meaning of _faerie_ in this
last passage. Mr. Ritson should, as Sir Hugh Evans says, have 'prayed
his pible petter;' where, among other things that might have been of
service to him, he would have learned that 'man walketh in a _vain_
shew,' that 'all is _vanity_,' and that 'the fashion of this world
passeth away;' and then he would have found no difficulty in
comprehending the pious language of 'moral Gower,' in his allusion to
the transitory and deceptive vanities of the world.
2. From the sense of illusion simply, the transition was easy to that
of the land of illusions, the abode of the Faés, who produced them;
and Faerie next came to signify the country of the Fays. Analogy also
was here aiding; for as a Nonnerie was a place inhabited by Nonnes, a
Jewerie a place inhabited by Jews, so a Faerie was naturally a place
inhabited by Fays. Its termination, too, corresponded with a usual one
in the names of countries: Tartarie, for instance, and 'the regne of
Feminie.'
Here beside an elfish knight
Hath taken my lord in fight,
And hath him led with him away
Into the _Faërie_, sir, parmafay.--_Sir Guy._
La puissance qu'il avoit sur toutes _faeries_ du monde.
_Huon de Bordeaux._
En effect, s'il me falloit retourner en _faerie_, je ne sçauroye
ou prendre mon chemin.--_Ogier le Dannoys._
That Gawain with his oldè curtesie,
Though he were come agen out of _faërie_.
_Squier's Tale._
He (Arthur) is a king y-crowned in _Faërie_,
With sceptre and pall, and with his regalty
Shallè resort, as lord and sovereigne,
Out of _Faerie_, and reignè in Bretaine,
And repair again the ouldè Roundè Table.
_Lydgate, Fall of Princes_, bk. viii. c. 24.
3. From the country the appellation passed to the inhabitants in their
collective capacity, and the Faerie now signified the people of
Fairy-land.[17]
Of the fourth kind of Spritis called the Phairie.
_K. James, Demonologie_, 1. 3.
Full often time he, Pluto, and his quene
Proserpina, and alle hir _faërie_,
Disporten hem, and maken melodie
About that well.--_Marchante's Tale._
The feasts that underground the _Faërie_ did him make,
And there how he enjoyed the Lady of the Lake.
_Drayton, Poly-Olb., Song IV._
4. Lastly, the word came to signify the individual denizen of
Fairy-land, and was equally applied to the full-sized fairy knights
and ladies of romance, and to the pygmy elves that haunt the woods and
dells. At what precise period it got this its last, and subsequently
most usual sense, we are unable to say positively; but it was probably
posterior to Chaucer, in whom it never occurs, and certainly anterior
to Spenser, to whom, however, it seems chiefly indebted for its future
general currency.[18] It was employed during the sixteenth century[19]
for the Fays of romance, and also, especially by translators, for the
Elves, as corresponding to the Latin Nympha.
They believed that king Arthur was not dead, but carried awaie by
the _Fairies_ into some pleasant place, where he should remaine
for a time, and then returne again and reign in as great authority
as ever.
_Hollingshed_, bk. v. c. 14. Printed 1577.
Semicaper Pan
Nunc tenet, at quodam tenuerunt tempore nymphæ.
_Ovid, Met._ xiv. 520.
The halfe-goate Pan that howre
Possessed it, but heretofore it was the _Faries'_ bower.
_Golding_, 1567.
Hæc nemora indigenæ fauni nymphæque tenebant,
Gensque virum truncis et duro robore nata.
_Virgil, Æneis_, viii. 314.
With nymphis and faunis apoun every side,
Qwhilk _Farefolkis_ or than _Elfis_ clepen we.
_Gawin Dowglas._
The woods (quoth he) sometime both fauns and nymphs, and gods of
ground,
And _Fairy-queens_ did keep, and under them a nation rough.
_Phaer_, 1562.
Inter Hamadryadas celeberrima Nonacrinas
Naïas una fuit.--_Ovid, Met._ l. i. 690.
Of all the nymphes of Nonacris and _Fairie_ ferre and neere,
In beautie and in personage this ladie had no peere.
_Golding._
Pan ibi dum teneris jactat sua carmina nymphis.
_Ov. Ib._ xi. 153.
There Pan among the _Fairie-elves_, that daunced round
togither.
_Golding._
Solaque Naïadum celeri non nota Dianæ.--_Ov. Ib._ iv. 304.
Of all the _water-fayries_, she alonely was unknowne
To swift Diana.--_Golding._
Nymphis latura coronas.--_Ov. Ib._ ix. 337.
Was to the _fairies_ of the lake fresh garlands for to bear.
_Golding._
Thus we have endeavoured to trace out the origin, and mark the progress
of the word Fairy, through its varying significations, and trust that
the subject will now appear placed in a clear and intelligible light.
After the appearance of the Faerie Queene, all distinctions were
confounded, the name and attributes of the real Fays or Fairies of
romance were completely transferred to the little beings who,
according to the popular belief, made 'the green sour ringlets whereof
the ewe not bites.' The change thus operated by the poets established
itself firmly among the people; a strong proof, if this idea be
correct, of the power of the poetry of a nation in altering the
phraseology of even the lowest classes[20] of its society.
Shakspeare must be regarded as a principal agent in this revolution;
yet even he uses Fairy once in the proper sense of Fay; a sense it
seems to have nearly lost, till it was again brought into use by the
translators of the French Contes des Fées in the last century.
To this great Fairy I'll commend thy acts.
_Antony and Cleopatra_, act iv. sc. 8.
And Milton speaks
Of Faery damsels met in forests wide
By knights of Logres or of Lyones,
Lancelot, or Pelleas, or Pellinore.
Yet he elsewhere mentions the
Faery elves,
Whose midnight revels by a forest side
Or fountain some belated peasant sees.
Finally, Randolph, in his Amyntas, employs it, for perhaps the last
time, in its second sense, Fairy-land:
I do think
There will be of Jocastus' brood in Fairy.
Act i. sc. 3.
We must not here omit to mention that the Germans, along with the
French romances, early adopted the name of the Fées. They called them
Feen and Feinen.[21] In the Tristram of Gottfried von Strazburg we are
told that Duke Gylan had a syren-like little dog,
Dez wart dem Herzoge gesandt 'Twas sent unto the duke, pardé,
Uz Avalun, der _Feinen_ land, From Avalun, the Fays' countrie,
Von einer Gottinne.--V. 1673. By a gentle goddess.
In the old German romance of Isotte and Blanscheflur, the hunter who
sees Isotte asleep says, I doubt
Dez sie menschlich sei, If she human be,
Sie ist schöner denn eine _Feine_, She is fairer than a Fay.
Von Fleische noch von Beine Of flesh or bone, I say,
Kunte nit gewerden Never could have birth
So schönes auf der erden. A thing so fair on earth.
Our subject naturally divides itself into two principal branches,
corresponding to the different classes of beings to which the name
Fairy has been applied. The first, beings of the human race, but
endowed with powers beyond those usually allotted to men, whom we
shall term FAYS, or FAIRIES OF ROMANCE. The second, those little
beings of the popular creeds, whose descent we propose to trace from
the cunning and ingenious Duergar or dwarfs of northern mythology, and
whom we shall denominate ELVES or POPULAR FAIRIES.
It cannot be expected that our classifications should vie in accuracy
and determinateness with those of natural science. The human
imagination, of which these beings are the offspring, works not, at
least that we can discover, like nature, by fixed and invariable laws;
and it would be hard indeed to exact from the Fairy historian the
rigid distinction of classes and orders which we expect from the
botanist or chemist. The various species so run into and are
confounded with one another; the actions and attributes of one kind
are so frequently ascribed to another, that scarcely have we begun to
erect our system, when we find the foundation crumbling under our
feet. Indeed it could not well be otherwise, when we recollect that
all these beings once formed parts of ancient and exploded systems of
religion, and that it is chiefly in the traditions of the peasantry
that their memorial has been preserved.
We will now proceed to consider the Fairies of romance; and as they
are indebted, though not for their name, yet perhaps for some of their
attributes, to the Peries of Persia, we will commence with that
country. We will thence pursue our course through Arabia, till we
arrive at the middle-age romance of Europe, and the gorgeous realms of
Fairy-land; and thence, casting a glance at the Faerie Queene, advance
to the mountains and forests of the North, there to trace the origin
of the light-hearted, night-tripping elves.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The mark on Adam's Peak in Ceylon is, by the Buddhists, ascribed to
Buddha; by the Mohammedans, to Adam. It reminds one of the story of the
lady and the vicar, viewing the moon through a telescope; they saw in
it, as they thought, two figures inclined toward each other: "Methinks,"
says the lady, "they are two fond lovers, meeting to pour forth their
vows by earth-light." "Not at all," says the vicar, taking his turn at
the glass; "they are the steeples of two neighbouring churches."
[2] Faerie Queene, III. c. iii. st. 8, 9, 10, 11. Drayton,
Poly-Olbion, Song VI. We fear, however, that there is only poetic
authority for this belief. Mr. Todd merely quotes Warton, who says
that Spenser borrowed it from Giraldus Cambrensis, who picked it up
among the romantic traditions propagated by the Welsh bards. The
reader will be, perhaps, surprised to hear that Giraldus says nothing
of the demons. He mentions the sounds, and endeavours to explain them
by natural causes. Hollingshed indeed (l. i. c. 24.) says, "whereof
the superstitious sort do gather many toys."
[3] The Haddock.
[4] For a well-chosen collection of examples, see the very learned and
philosophical preface of the late Mr. Price to his edition of Warton's
History of English Poetry, p. 28 _et seq._
[5] In the Middle Ages the gods of the heathens were all held to be
devils.
[6] Φηρ is the Ionic form of θηρ, and is nearly related to the German
_thier_, beast, animal. The Scandinavian _dyr_, and the Anglo-Saxon
[Old English: deor], have the same signification; and it is curious to
observe the restricted sense which this last has gotten in the English
_deer_.
[7] Preface to Warton, p. 44; and Breton philologists furnish us with
an etymon; not, indeed, of Fairy, but of Fada. "Fada, fata, etc.,"
says M. de Cambry (Monumens Celtiques), "come from the Breton _mat_ or
_mad_, in construction _fat_, good; whence the English, _maid_."
[8] D'Herbelot _titre_ Mergian says, "C'est du nom de cette Fée que
nos anciens romans ont formé celui de _Morgante la Déconnue_." He here
confounds Morgana with Urganda, and he has been followed in his
mistake. D'Herbelot also thinks it possible that _Féerie_ may come
from _Peri_; but he regards the common derivation from _Fata_ as much
more probable. Cambrian etymologists, by the way, say that Morgain is
Mor Gwynn, the _White Maid_.
[9] These two instances are given by Mdlle. Amélie Bosquet (La
Normandie Romanesque, etc. p. 91.) from Dom Martin, _Rel. des
Gaulois_, ii. ch. 23 and 24.
[10] Gryphus ternarii numeri.
[11] De Bell. Got. i. 25.
[12] See below, _France_. It is also remarked that in some of the
tales of the Pentamerone, the number of the _Fate_ is three; but to
this it may be replied, that in Italy every thing took a classic
tinge, and that the Fate of those tales are only Maghe; so in the
Amadigi of Bernardo Tasso we meet with La _Fata_ Urganda. In Spain and
France the number would rather seem to have been seven. Cervantes
speaks of "los siete castillos de las _siete_ fadas;" in the Rom. de
la Infantina it is said, "_siete_ fadas me _fadaron_, en brazos de una
ama mia," and the _Fées_ are _seven_ in La Belle au Bois dormant. In
the romance, however, of Guillaume au Court-nez, the _Fées_ who carry
the sleeping Renoart out of the boat are _three_ in number.--See Grimm
Deutsche Mythologie, p. 383.
[13] A MS. of the 13th century, quoted by Grimm (_ut sup._ p. 405),
thus relates the origin of Aquisgrani (Aix la Chapelle): Aquisgrani
dicitur Ays, et dicitur eo, quod Karolus tenebat ibi quandam _mulierem
fatatam_, sive quandam _fatam_, quæ alio nomine _nimpha_ vel _dea_ vel
_adriades_ (l. _dryas_) appellatur, et ad hanc consuetudinem habebat,
et eam cognoscebat; et ita erat, quod ipso accedente ad eam vivebat
ipsa, ipso Karolo recedente moriebatur. Contigit dum quadam vice ad
ipsam accessisset ut cum ea delectaretur, radius solis intravit os
ejus, et tunc Karolus vidit _granum auri_ lingue ejus affixum, quod
fecit abscindi et contingenti (l. in continenti) mortua est, nec
postea revixit.
[14]
"Aissim _fadaro_ tres serors
En aquella ora qu' ieu sui natz
Que totz temps fos enamoratz."--_Folquet de Romans._
(Thus three sisters _fated_, in the hour that I was born, that I
should be at all times in love.)
"Aissi fuy de nueitz _fadatz_ sobr' un puegau."--_Guilh. de Poitou._
(Thus was I _fated_ by night on a hill.)--Grimm, _ut sup._ p. 383.
[15] See our Virgil, Excurs. ix.
[16] Following the analogy of the Gotho-German tongues, _zauberei_,
Germ. _trylleri_, Dan. _trolleri_, Swed. illusion, enchantment. The
Italian word is _fattucchieria_.
[17] Here too there is _perhaps_ an analogy with _cavalry_,
_infantry_, _squierie_, and similar collective terms.
[18] The Faerie Queene was published some years before the Midsummer
Night's Dream. Warton (Obs. on the Faerie Queene) observes: "It appears
from Marston's Satires, printed 1598, that the Faerie Queene occasioned
many publications in which Fairies were the principal actors.
Go buy some ballad of the FAERY KING.--_Ad Lectorem._
Out steps some Faery with quick motion,
And tells him wonders of some flowerie vale--
Awakes, straight rubs his eyes, and prints his tale.
B. III. Sat. 6."
[19] It is in this century that we first meet with _Fairy_ as a
dissyllable, and with a plural. It is then used in its fourth and last
sense.
[20] The Fata Morgana of the Straits of Messina is an example; for the
name of Morgana, whencesoever derived, was probably brought into Italy
by the poets.
[21] Dobenek, des deutschen Mittelalters und Volksglauben. Berlin, 1816.
ORIENTAL ROMANCE.[22]
[Illustration: SADEE.]
All human beings must in beauty yield
To you; a PERI I have ne'er beheld.
PERSIAN ROMANCE.
The pure and simple religion of ancient Persia, originating, it is
said, with a pastoral and hunting race among the lofty hills of
Aderbijân, or, as others think, in the elevated plains of Bactria, in
a region where light appears in all its splendour, took as its
fundamental principle the opposition between light and darkness, and
viewed that opposition as a conflict. Light was happiness; and the
people of Irân, the land of light, were the favourites of Heaven;
while those of Turân, the gloomy region beyond the mountains to the
north, were its enemies. In the realms of supernal light sits
enthroned Ormuzd, the first-born of beings; around him are the six
Amshaspands, the twenty-eight Izeds, and the countless myriads of
Ferohers.[23] In the opposite kingdom of darkness Aherman is supreme,
and his throne is encompassed by the six Arch-Deevs, and the numerous
hosts of inferior Deevs. Between these rival powers ceaseless warfare
prevails; but at the end the prince of darkness will be subdued, and
peace and happiness prevail beneath the righteous sway of Ormuzd.
From this sublime system of religion probably arose the Peri-[24] or
Fairy-system of modern Persia; and thus what was once taught by sages,
and believed by monarchs, has shared the fate of everything human, and
has sunk from its pristine rank to become the material and the
machinery of poets and romancers. The wars waged by the fanatical
successors of the Prophet, in which literature was confounded with
idolatry, have deprived us of the means of judging of this system in
its perfect form; and in what has been written respecting the Peries
and their country since Persia has received the law of Mohammed, the
admixture of the tenets and ideas of Islam is evidently perceptible.
If, however, Orientalists be right in their interpretation of the name
of Artaxerxes' queen, Parisatis, as Pari-zadeh[25] (_Peri-born_), the
Peri must be coeval with the religion of Zoroaster.
The Peries and Deevs of the modern Persians answer to the good and
evil Jinn of the Arabs, of whose origin and nature we shall presently
give an account. The same Suleymans ruled over them as over the Jinn,
and both alike were punished for disobedience. It is difficult to say
which is the original; but when we recollect in how much higher a
state of culture the Persians were than the Arabs, and how well this
view accords with their ancient system of religion, we shall feel
inclined to believe that the Arabs were the borrowers, and that by
mingling with the Persian system ideas derived from the Jews, that one
was formed by them which is now the common property of all Moslems.
In like manner we regard the mountains of Kâf, the abode alike of Jinn
and of Peries and Deevs, as having belonged originally to Persian
geography. The fullest account of it appears in the Persian romance of
Hatim Taï,[26] the hero of which often visited its regions. From this it
would seem that this mountain-range was regarded as, like that of the
ancient Greek cosmology, surrounding the flat circular earth like a
ring, or rather like the bulwarks of a ship, outside of which flowed the
ocean; while some Arab authorities make it to lie beyond, and to enclose
the ocean as well as the earth.[27] It is said to be composed of green
chrysolite, the reflection of which gives its greenish tint to the sky.
According to some, its height is two thousand English miles.
Jinnestân is the common appellation of the whole of this ideal region.
Its respective empires were divided into many kingdoms, containing
numerous provinces and cities. Thus in the Peri-realms we meet with
the luxuriant province of Shad-u-kâm (_Pleasure and Delight_), with
its magnificent capital Juherabâd (_Jewel-city_), whose two kings
solicited the aid of Cahermân against the Deevs,[28] and also the
stately Amberabâd (_Amber-city_), and others equally splendid. The
metropolis of the Deev-empire is named Ahermanabâd (_Aherman's city_);
and imagination has lavished its stores in the description of the
enchanted castle, palace, and gallery of the Deev monarch, Arzshenk.
The Deevs and Peries wage incessant war with each other. Like mankind,
they are subject to death, but after a much longer period of
existence; and, though far superior to man in power, they partake of
his sentiments and passions.
We are told that when the Deevs in their wars make prisoners of the
Peries, they shut them up in iron cages, and hang them from the tops
of the highest trees, exposed to every gaze and to every chilling
blast. Here their companions visit them, and bring them the choicest
odours to feed on; for the ethereal Peri lives on perfume, which has
moreover the property of repelling the cruel Deevs, whose malignant
nature is impatient of fragrance.[29]
When the Peries are unable to withstand their foes, they solicit the
aid of some mortal hero. Enchanted arms and talismans enable him to cope
with the gigantic Deevs, and he is conveyed to Jinnestân on the back of
some strange and wonderful animal. His adventures in that country
usually furnish a wide field for poetry and romance to expatiate in.
The most celebrated adventurer in Jinnestân was Tahmuras, surnamed
Deev-bend (_Deev-binder_),[30] one of the ancient kings of Persia. The
Peries sent him a splendid embassy, and the Deevs, who dreaded him,
despatched another. Tahmuras, in doubt how to act, consults the
wonderful bird Seemurgh,[31] who speaks all languages, and whose
knowledge embraces futurity. She advises him to aid the Peries, warns
him of the dangers he has to encounter, and discloses his proper line
of action. She further offers to convey him to Jinnestân, and plucks
some feathers from her breast, with which the Persian monarch adorns
his helmet.
Mounted on the Seemurgh, and bracing on his arm the potent buckler of
Jân-ibn-Jân,[32] Tahmuras crosses the abyss impassable to unaided
mortality. The vizier Imlân, who had headed the Deev embassy,
deserting his original friends, had gone over to Tahmuras, and through
the magic arts of the Deev, and his own daring valour, the Persian
hero defeats the Deev-king Arzshenk. He next vanquishes a Deev still
more fierce, named Demrush, who dwelt in a gloomy cavern, surrounded
by piles of wealth plundered from the neighbouring realms of Persia
and India. Here Tahmuras finds a fair captive, the Peri Merjân,[33]
whom Demrush had carried off, and whom her brothers, Dâl Peri and
Milân Shâh Peri, had long sought in vain. He chains the Deev in the
centre of the mountain, and at the suit of Merjân hastens to attack
another powerful Deev named Houndkonz; but here, alas! fortune deserts
him, and, maugre his talismans and enchanted arms, the gallant
Tahmuras falls beneath his foe.
The great Deev-bend, or conqueror of Deevs, of the Shâh-Nâmeh[34] is the
illustrious Roostem. In the third of his Seven Tables or adventures, on
his way to relieve the Shâh Ky-Caoos, whom the artifice of a Deev had
led to Mazenderân, where he was in danger of perishing, he encounters in
the dark of the night a Deev named Asdeev, who stole on him in a
dragon's form as he slept. Twice the hero's steed, Reksh, awoke him, but
each time the Deev vanished, and Roostem was near slaying his good steed
for giving him a false alarm. The third time he saw the Deev and slew
him after a fearful combat. He then pursued his way to the cleft in the
mountain in which abode the great Deev Sefeed, or White Deev. The
seventh Table brought him to where lay an army of the Deev Sefeed's
Deevs, commanded by Arzshenk, whose head he struck off, and put his
troops to flight. At length he reached the gloomy cavern of the Deev
Sefeed himself, whom he found asleep, and scorning the advantage he
awoke him, and after a terrific combat deprived him also of life.
Many years after, when Ky-Khosroo sat on the throne, a wild ass of
huge size, his skin like the sun, and a black stripe along his back,
appeared among the royal herds and destroyed the horses. It was
supposed to be the Deev Akvân, who was known to haunt an adjacent
spring. Roostem went in quest of him; on the fourth day he found him
and cast his noose at him, but the Deev vanished. He re-appeared; the
hero shot at him, but he became again invisible. Roostem then let
Reksh graze, and laid him to sleep by the fount. As he slept, Akvân
came and flew up into the air with him; and when he awoke, he gave him
his choice of being let fall on the mountains or the sea. Roostem
secretly chose the latter, and to obtain it he pretended to have heard
that he who was drowned never entered paradise. Akvân thereupon let
him fall into the sea, from which he escaped, and returning to the
fount, he there met and slew the Deev. Roostem's last encounter with
Deevs was with Akvân's son, Berkhyas, and his army, when he went to
deliver Peshen from the dry well in which he was confined by Afrasiâb.
He slew him and two-thirds of his troops. Berkhyas is described as
being a mountain in size, his face black, his body covered with hair,
his neck like that of a dragon, two boar's tusks from his mouth, his
eyes wells of blood, his hair bristling like needles, his height 140
ells, his breadth 17, pigeons nestling in his snaky locks. Akvân had
had a head like an elephant.
In the Hindoo-Persian Bahar Danush (_Garden of Knowledge_) of
Ynâyet-ûllah, written in India A.D. 1650,[35] we find the following
tale of the Peries, which has a surprising resemblance to European
legends hereafter to be noticed.[36]
_The Peri-Wife._
The son of a merchant in a city of Hindostan, having been driven from
his father's house on account of his undutiful conduct, assumed the
garb of a Kalenderee or wandering Derweesh, and left his native town.
On the first day of his travels, being overcome with fatigue before he
reached any place of rest, he went off the high road and sat down at
the foot of a tree by a piece of water: while he sat there, he saw at
sunset four doves alight from a tree on the edge of the pond, and
resuming their natural form (for they were Peries) take off their
clothes and amuse themselves by bathing in the water. He immediately
advanced softly, took up their garments, without being seen, and
concealed them in the hollow of a tree, behind which he placed
himself. The Peries when they came out of the water and missed their
clothes were distressed beyond measure. They ran about on all sides
looking for them, but in vain. At length, finding the young man and
judging that he had possessed himself of them, they implored him to
restore them. He would only consent on one condition, which was that
one of them should become his wife. The Peries asserted that such a
union was impossible between them whose bodies were formed of fire and
a mortal who was composed of clay and water; but he persisted, and
selected the one which was the youngest and handsomest. They were at
last obliged to consent, and having endeavoured to console their
sister, who shed copious floods of tears at the idea of parting with
them and spending her days with one of the sons of Adam; and having
received their garments, they took leave of her and flew away.
The young merchant then led home his fair bride and clad her
magnificently; but he took care to bury her Peri-raiment in a secret
place, that she might not be able to leave him. He made every effort
to gain her affections, and at length succeeded in his object "she
placed her foot in the path of regard, and her head on the carpet of
affection." She bore him children, and gradually began to take
pleasure in the society of his female relatives and neighbours. All
doubts of her affection now vanished from his mind, and he became
assured of her love and attachment.
At the end of ten years the merchant became embarrassed in his
circumstances, and he found it necessary to undertake a long voyage.
He committed the Peri to the care of an aged matron in whom he had the
greatest confidence, and to whom he revealed the secret of her real
nature, and showed the spot where he had concealed her raiment. He
then "placed the foot of departure in the stirrup of travel," and set
out on his journey. The Peri was now overwhelmed with sorrow for his
absence, or for some more secret cause, and continually uttered
expressions of regret. The old woman sought to console her, assuring
her that "the dark night of absence would soon come to an end, and the
bright dawn of interview gleam from the horizon of divine bounty." One
day when the Peri had bathed, and was drying her amber-scented tresses
with a corner of her veil, the old woman burst out into expressions of
admiration at her dazzling beauty. "Ah, nurse," replied she, "though
you think my present charms great, yet had you seen me in my native
raiment, you would have witnessed what beauty and grace the Divine
Creator has bestowed upon Peries; for know that we are among the most
finished portraits on the tablets of existence. If then thou desirest
to behold the skill of the divine artist, and admire the wonders of
creation, bring the robes which my husband has kept concealed, that I
may wear them for an instant, and show thee my native beauty, the like
of which no human eye, but my lord's, hath gazed upon."
The simple woman assented, and fetched the robes and presented them to
the Peri. She put them on, and then, like a bird escaped from the
cage, spread her wings, and, crying Farewell, soared to the sky and
was seen no more. When the merchant returned from his voyage "and
found no signs of the rose of enjoyment on the tree of hope, but the
lamp of bliss extinguished in the chamber of felicity, he became as
one Peri-stricken,[37] a recluse in the cell of madness. Banished
from the path of understanding, he remained lost to all the bounties
of fortune and the useful purposes of life."
* * * * *
The Peri has been styled "the fairest creation of poetical imagination."
No description can equal the beauty of the female Peri,[38] and the
highest compliment a Persian poet can pay a lady is to liken her to one
of these lovely aerial beings.[39] Thus Sâdee, in the lines prefixed to
this section, declares that only the beauty of a Peri can be compared
with that of the fair one he addresses; and more lately, Aboo Taleeb
Khân says to Lady Elgin, as he is translated by M. von Hammer,[40]
The sun, the moon, the Peries, and mankind,
Compared with you, do far remain behind;
For sun and moon have never form so mild,
The Peries have, but roam in deserts wild.
Sir W. Ouseley is at a loss what to compare them to. They do not, he
thinks, resemble the Angels, the Cherubim and Seraphim of the Hebrews,
the Dæmons of the Platonists, or the Genii of the Romans; neither do
they accord with the Houri of the Arabs. Still less do they agree with
the Fairies of Shakspeare; for though fond of fragrance, and living
on that sweet essential food, we never find them employed in
Killing cankers in the musk-rose buds,
or obliged
To serve the fairy queen
To dew her orbs upon the green.
Neither is their stature ever represented so diminutive as to make
key-holes pervious to their flight, or the bells of flowers their
habitations. But Milton's sublime idea of a 'faery vision,' he thinks,
corresponds more nearly with what the Persian poets have conceived of
the Peries.
Their port was more than human, as they stood;
I took it for a faery vision
Of some gay creatures of the element
That in the colours of the rainbow live
And play i' the plighted clouds. I was awestruck,
And as I pass'd I worshipp'd.--_Comus._
"I can venture to affirm," concludes Sir William gallantly, "that he
will entertain a pretty just idea of a Persian Peri, who shall fix his
eyes on the charms of a beloved and beautiful mistress."
If poetic imagination exhausted itself in portraying the beauty of the
Peries, it was no less strenuous in heaping attributes of deformity on
the Deevs. They may well vie in ugliness with the devils of our
forefathers. "At Lahore, in the Mogul's palace," says William Finch,
"are pictures of Dews, or Dives, intermixed in most ugly shapes, with
long horns, staring eyes, shaggy hair, great fangs, ugly paws, long
tails, with such horrible difformity and deformity, that I wonder the
poor women are not frightened therewith."[41]
Such then is the Peri-system of the Mohammedan Persians, in which the
influence of Islâm is clearly perceptible, the very names of their
fabled country and its kings being Arabic. Had we it as it was before
the Arabs forced their law on Persia, we should doubtless find it more
consistent in all its parts, more light, fanciful, and etherial.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] See D'Herbelot, Richardson's Dissertation, Ouseley's Persian
Miscellanies, Wahl in the Mines de l'Orient, Lane, Thousand and One
Nights, Forbes, Hatim Taï, etc., etc.
[23] Ormuzd employed himself for three thousand years in making the
heavens and their celestial inhabitants, the Ferohers, which are the
angels and the unembodied souls of all intelligent beings. All nature
is filled with Ferohers, or guardian angels, who watch over its
various departments, and are occupied in performing their various
tasks for the benefit of mankind.--_Erskine on the Sacred Books and
Religion of the Parsis, in the Transactions of the Literary Society of
Bombay_, vol. ii. p. 318. The Feroher bears in fact a very strong
resemblance to the Genius of the ancient Roman religion: see our
Mythology of Greece and Italy.
[24] This word is pronounced _Perry_ or rather _Parry_.
[25] [Illustration] Hence it follows that the very plausible idea of
the Peri having been the same with the Feroher cannot be correct.
[26] Translated by Mr. Duncan Forbes. It is to be regretted that he
has employed the terms Fairies and Demons instead of Peries and Deevs.
[27] See Lane, Thousand and One Nights, i. p. 21, _seq._
[28] The Cahermân Nâmeh is a romance in Turkish. Cahermân was the
father of Sâm, the grandfather of the celebrated Roostem.
[29] It is in the Cahermân Nâmeh that this circumstance occurs.
[30] [Illustration] The Tahmuras Nâmeh is also in Turkish. It and the
Cahermân Nâmeh are probably translations from the Persian. As far as
we are aware, Richardson is the only orientalist who mentions these
two romances.
[31] [Illustration] It signifies 'thirty birds' and is thought to be
the roc of the Arabs. The poet Sâdee, to express the bounty of the
Almighty says
[Illustration]
His liberal board he spreadeth out so wide,
On Kâf the Seemurgh is with food supplied.
The Seemurgh probably belongs to the original mythology of Persia, for
she appears in the early part of the Shâh Nâmeh. When Zâl was born to
Sâm Nerimân, his hair proved to be white. The father regarding this as
a proof of Deev origin, resolved to expose him, and sent him for that
purpose to Mount Elburz. Here the poor babe lay crying and sucking his
fingers till he was found by the Seemurgh, who abode on the summit of
Elburz, as she was looking for food for her young ones. But God put
pity into her heart, and she took him to her nest and reared him with
her young. As he grew up, the caravans that passed by, spread the fame
of his beauty and his strength, and a vision having informed Sâm that
he was his son, he set out for Elburz to claim him from the Seemurgh.
It was with grief that Zâl quitted the maternal nest. The Seemurgh,
when parting with her foster-son, gave him one of her feathers, and
bade him, whenever he should be in trouble or danger, to cast it into
the fire, and he would have proof of her power; and she charged him at
the same time strictly never to forget his nurse.
[32] See _Arabian Romance_.
[33] [Illustration] a pearl. Life, soul also, according to Wilkins.
[34] Ferdousee's great heroic poem. It is remarkable that the Peries
are very rarely spoken of in this poem. They merely appear in it with
the birds and beasts among the subjects of the first Iranian monarchs.
[35] Chap. xx. translation of Jonathan Scott, 1799.
[36] See below, _Shetland_.
[37] _i. e._ possessed, insane. It is like the νυμφοληπτος of the
Greeks.
[38] It must be recollected that the Peries are of both sexes: we have
just spoken of Peri _kings_, and of the _brothers_ of Merjân.
[39] In the Shâh Nâmeh it is said of Prince Siyawush, that when he was
born he was _bright as a Peri_. We find the poets everywhere comparing
female beauty to that of superior beings. The Greeks and Romans
compared a lovely woman to Venus, Diana, or the nymphs; the Persians
to a Peri; the ancient Scandinavians would say she was Frith sem
Alfkone, "fair as an Alf-woman;" and an Anglo-Saxon poet says of
Judith that she was _Elf-sheen_, or fair as an Elf. In the Lay of
Gugemer it is said,
Dedenz la Dame unt trovée
Ki de biauté resanbloit _Fée_.
The same expression occurs in Méon (3, 412); and in the Romant de la
Rose we meet, _jure que plus belle est que fée_ (10, 425). In the
Pentamerone it is said of a king's son, _lo quale essenno bello comme
a no fato_.
[40] Mines de l'Orient, vol. iii. p. 40. To make his version
completely English, M. von Hammer uses the word Fairies; we have
ventured to change it.
[41] In Purchas' Pilgrims, vol. i., quoted by Sir W. Ouseley.
ARABIAN ROMANCE.
The Prophet is the centre round which every thing connected with Arabia
revolves. The period preceding his birth is regarded and designated as
the times of ignorance, and our knowledge of the ancient Arabian
mythology comprises little more than he has been pleased to transmit to
us. The Arabs, however, appear at no period of their history to have
been a people addicted to fanciful invention. Their minds are acute and
logical, and their poetry is that of the heart rather than of the fancy.
They dwell with fondness on the joys and pains of love, and with
enthusiasm describe the courage and daring deeds of warriors, or in
moving strains pour forth the plaintive elegy; but for the description
of gorgeous palaces and fragrant gardens, or for the wonders of magic,
they are indebted chiefly to their Persian neighbours.[42]
What classes of beings the popular creed may have recognised before
the establishment of Islâm we have no means of ascertaining.[43] The
Suspended Poems, and Antar, give us little or no information; we only
know that the tales of Persia were current among them, and were
listened to with such avidity as to rouse the indignation of the
Prophet. We must, therefore, quit the tents of the Bedoween, and the
valleys of 'Araby the Blest,' and accompany the khaleefehs to their
magnificent capital on the Tigris, whence emanated all that has thrown
such a halo of splendour around the genius and language of Arabia. It
is in this seat of empire that we must look to meet with the origin of
the marvels of Arabian literature.
Transplanted to a rich and fertile soil, the sons of the desert
speedily abandoned their former simple mode of life; and the court of
Bagdad equalled or surpassed in magnificence any thing that the East
has ever witnessed. Genius, whatever its direction, was encouraged and
rewarded, and the musician and the story-teller shared with the
astronomer and historian the favour of the munificent khaleefehs. The
tales which had amused the leisure of the Shahpoors and Yezdejirds
were not disdained by the Haroons and Almansoors. The expert narrators
altered them so as to accord with the new faith. And it was thus,
probably, that the delightful Thousand and One Nights[44] were
gradually produced and modified.
As the Genii or Jinn[45] are prominent actors in these tales, where
they take the place of the Persian Peries and Deevs, we will here give
some account of them.
According to Arabian writers, there is a species of beings named Jinn
or Jân (Jinnee _m._, Jinniyeh _f. sing._), which were created and
occupied the earth several thousand years before Adam. A tradition
from the Prophet says that they were formed of "smokeless fire,"
_i.e._ the fire of the wind Simoom. They were governed by a succession
of forty, or, as others say, seventy-two monarchs, named Suleyman, the
last of whom, called Jân-ibn-Jân, built the Pyramids of Egypt.
Prophets were sent from time to time to instruct and admonish them;
but on their continued disobedience, an army of angels appeared, who
drove them from the earth to the regions of the islands, making many
prisoners, and slaughtering many more. Among the prisoners, was a
young Jinnee, named 'Azâzeel, or El-Hârith (afterwards called Iblees,
from his _despair_), who grew up among the angels, and became at last
their chief. When Adam was created, God commanded the angels to
worship him; and they all obeyed except Iblees, who, for his
disobedience, was turned into a Sheytân or Devil, and he became the
father of the Sheytâns.[46]
The Jinn are not immortal; they are to survive mankind, but to die
before the general resurrection. Even at present many of them are slain
by other Jinn, or by men; but chiefly by shooting-stars hurled at them
from Heaven. The fire of which they were created, circulates in their
veins instead of blood, and when they receive a mortal wound, it bursts
forth and consumes them to ashes. They eat and drink, and propagate
their species. Sometimes they unite with human beings, and the offspring
partakes of the nature of both parents. Some of the Jinn are obedient to
the will of God, and believers in the Prophet, answering to the Peries
of the Persians; others are like the Deevs, disobedient and malignant.
Both kinds are divided into communities, and ruled over by princes. They
have the power to make themselves visible and invisible at pleasure.
They can assume the form of various animals, especially those of
serpents, cats, and dogs. When they appear in the human form, that of
the good Jinnee is usually of great beauty; that of the evil one, of
hideous deformity, and sometimes of gigantic size.
When the Zôba'ah, a whirlwind that raises the sand in the form of a
pillar of tremendous height, is seen sweeping over the desert, the
Arabs, who believe it to be caused by the flight of an evil Jinnee,
cry, Iron! Iron! (_Hadeed!_ _Hadeed!_) or Iron! thou unlucky one!
(_Hadeed! yâ meshoom!_) of which metal the Jinn are believed to have a
great dread. Or else they cry, God is most great! (_Allâhu akbar!_)
They do the same when they see a water-spout at sea; for they assign
the same cause to its origin.[47]
The chief abode of the Jinn of both kinds is the Mountains of Kâf,
already described. But they also are dispersed through the earth, and
they occasionally take up their residence in baths, wells, latrinæ,
ovens, and ruined houses.[48] They also frequent the sea and rivers,
cross-roads, and market-places. They ascend at times to the confines
of the lowest heaven, and by listening there to the conversation of
the angels, they obtain some knowledge of futurity, which they impart
to those men who, by means of talismans or magic arts, have been able
to reduce them to obedience.[49]
The following are anecdotes of the Jinn, given by historians of
eminence.[50]
It is related, says El-Kasweenee, by a certain narrator of traditions,
that he descended into a valley with his sheep, and a wolf carried off
a ewe from among them; and he arose and raised his voice, and cried,
"O inhabitant of the valley!" whereupon he heard a voice saying, "O
wolf, restore him his sheep!" and the wolf came with the ewe and left
her, and departed.
Ben Shohnah relates, that in the year 456 of the Hejra, in the reign
of Kaiem, the twenty-sixth khaleefeh of the house of Abbas, a report
was raised in Bagdad, which immediately spread throughout the whole
province of Irak, that some Turks being out hunting saw in the desert
a black tent, beneath which there was a number of people of both
sexes, who were beating their cheeks, and uttering loud cries, as is
the custom in the East when any one is dead. Amidst their cries they
heard these words--_The great king of the Jinn is dead, woe to this
country!_ and then there came out a great troop of women, followed by
a number of other rabble, who proceeded to a neighbouring cemetery,
still beating themselves in token of grief and mourning.
The celebrated historian Ebn Athir relates, that when he was at Mosul
on the Tigris, in the year 600 of the Hejra, there was in that country
an epidemic disease of the throat; and it was said that a woman, of
the race of the Jinn, having lost her son, all those who did not
condole with her on account of his death were attacked with that
disease; so that to be cured of it men and women assembled, and with
all their strength cried out, _O mother of Ankood, excuse us! Ankood
is dead, and we did not mind it!_
FOOTNOTES:
[42] Compare Antar and the Suspended Poems (translated by Sir W.
Jones) with the later Arabic works. Antar, though written by Asmai the
court-poet of Haroon-er-Rasheed, gives the manners and ideas of the
Arabs of the Desert.
[43] The Jinn are mentioned in the Kurân and also in Antar.
[44] See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 37, _seq._ Lane, Thousand and
One Nights, _passim_.
[45] Genius and Jinn, like Fairy and Peri, is a curious coincidence.
The Arabian Jinnee bears no resemblance whatever to the Roman Genius.
[46] "When we said unto the Angels, Worship ye Adam, and they
worshiped except Iblees (who) was of the Jinn."--Kurân. chap. xviii.
v. 48. Worship is here prostration. The reply of Iblees was, "Thou
hast created _me_ of fire, and hast created _him_ of earth."--_Ib._
vii. 11; xxxviii. 77.
[47] It was the belief of the Irish peasantry, that whirlwinds of dust
on the roads were raised by the Fairies, who were then on a journey. On
such occasions, unlike the Arabs, they used to raise their hats and say,
"God speed you, gentlemen!" For the power of iron, see _Scandinavia_.
[48] The Arabs when they pour water on the ground, let down a bucket
into a well, enter a bath, etc., say, "Permission!" (_Destoor!_) or,
Permission, ye blessed! (_Destoor, yâ mubârakeen!_)
[49] For the preceding account of the Jinn, we are wholly indebted to
Lane's valuable translation of the Thousand and One Nights, i. 30,
_seq._
[50] The first is given by Lane, the other two by D'Herbelot.
MIDDLE-AGE ROMANCE.
Ecco quei che le carte empion di sogni,
Lancilotto, Tristano e gli altri erranti,
Onde conven che il volgo errante agogni.
PETRARCA.
Few will now endeavour to trace romantic and marvellous fiction to any
individual source. An extensive survey of the regions of fancy and their
productions will incline us rather to consider the mental powers of man
as having an uniform operation under every sky, and under every form of
political existence, and to acknowledge that identity of invention is
not more to be wondered at than identity of action. It is strange how
limited the powers of the imagination are. Without due consideration of
the subject, it might be imagined that her stores of materials and
powers of combination are boundless; yet reflection, however slight,
will convince us that here also 'there is nothing new,' and charges of
plagiarism will in the majority of cases be justly suspected to be
devoid of foundation. The finest poetical expressions and similes of
occidental literature meet us when we turn our attention to the East,
and a striking analogy pervades the tales and fictions of every region.
The reason is, the materials presented to the inventive faculties are
scanty. The power of combination is therefore limited to a narrow
compass, and similar combinations must hence frequently occur.
Yet still there is a high degree of probability in the supposition of
the luxuriant fictions of the East having through Spain and Syria
operated on European fancy. The poetry and romance of the middle ages
are notoriously richer in detail, and more gorgeous in invention, than
the more correct and chaste strains of Greece and Latium; the island
of Calypso, for example, is in beauty and variety left far behind by
the retreats of the fairies of romance. Whence arises this difference?
No doubt
When ancient chivalry display'd
The pomp of her heroic games,
And crested knights and tissued dames
Assembled at the clarion's call,
In some proud castle's high-arch'd hall,
that a degree of pomp and splendour met the eye of the minstrel and
romancer on which the bards of the simple republics of ancient times had
never gazed, and this might account for the difference between the
poetry of ancient and of middle-age Europe. Yet, notwithstanding, we
discover such an Orientalism in the latter as would induce us to
acquiesce in the hypothesis of the fictions and the manner of the East
having been early transmitted to the West; and it is highly probable
that along with more splendid habits of life entered a more lavish use
of the gorgeous stores laid open to the plastic powers of fiction. The
tales of Arabia were undoubtedly known in Europe from a very early
period. The romance of Cleomades and Claremonde, which was written in
the thirteenth century,[51] not merely resembles, but actually is the
story of the Enchanted Horse in the Thousand and One Nights. Another
tale in the same collection, The two Sisters who envied their younger
Sister, may be found in Straparola, and is also a popular story in
Germany; and in the Pentamerone and other collections of tales published
long before the appearance of M. Galland's translation of the Eastern
ones, numerous traces of an oriental origin may be discerned. The
principal routes they came by may also be easily shown. The necessities
of commerce and the pilgrimage to Mecca occasioned a constant
intercourse between the Moors of Spain and their fellow-sectaries of the
East; and the Venetians, who were the owners of Candia, carried on an
extensive trade with Syria and Egypt. It is worthy of notice, that the
Notti Piacevoli of Straparola were first published in Venice, and that
Basile, the author of the Pentamerone, spent his youth in Candia, and
was afterwards a long time at Venice. Lastly, pilgrims were notorious
narrators of marvels, and each, as he visited the Holy Land, was anxious
to store his memory with those riches, the diffusal of which procured
him attention and hospitality at home.
We think, therefore, that European romance may be indebted, though not
for the name, yet for some of the attributes and exploits of its
fairies to Asia. This is more especially the case with the romances
composed or turned into prose in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and
sixteenth centuries; for in the earlier ones the Fairy Mythology is
much more sparingly introduced.
But beside the classic and oriental prototypes of its fairies, romance
may have had an additional one in the original mythology of the Celtic
tribes, of which a being very nearly allied to the fay of romance
appears to have formed a part. Such were the damoiselles who bestowed
their favours upon Lanval and Graelent. This subject shall, however,
be more fully considered under the head of Brittany.
Romances of chivalry, it is well known, may be divided into three
principal classes; those of Arthur and his Round Table, of Charlemagne
and his Paladins, and those of Amadis and Palmerin, and their
descendants and kindred. In the first, with the exception of Isaie le
Triste, which appears to be a work of the fifteenth century, the
fairies appear but seldom; the second exhibits them in all their
brilliancy and power; in the third, which all belong to the literature
of Spain, the name at least does not occur, but the enchantress
Urganda la Desconecida seems equal in power to La Dame du Lac, in the
romance of Lancelot du Lac.[52]
Among the incidents of the fine old romance just alluded to,[53] is
narrated the death of King Ban, occasioned by grief at the sight of
his castle taken and in flames through the treachery of his seneschal.
His afflicted queen had left her new-born infant on the margin of a
lake, while she went to soothe the last moments of the expiring
monarch. On her return, she finds her babe in the arms of a beautiful
lady. She entreats her pathetically to restore the orphan babe; but,
without heeding her entreaties, or even uttering a single word, she
moves to the edge of the lake, into which she plunges and disappears
with the child. The lady was the celebrated Dame du Lac: the child was
Lancelot, afterwards styled Du Lac. The name of the lady was Vivienne,
and she had dwelt "en la marche de la petite Bretaigne." Merlin the
demon-born, the renowned enchanter, became enamoured of her, and
taught her a portion of his art; and the ill-return she made is well
known in the annals of female treachery.[54] In consequence of the
knowledge thus acquired she became a fairy; for the author informs us
that "the damsel who carried Lancelot to the lake was a fay, and in
those times all those women were called fays who had to do with
enchantments and charms--and there were many of them then, principally
in Great Britain--and knew the power and virtues of words, of stones,
and of herbs, by which they were kept in youth and in beauty, and in
great riches, as they devised."[55]
The lake was a _feerie_, an illusion raised by the art which the devil
had taught Merlin, and Merlin the lady. The romance says: "The lady
who reared him conversed only in the forest, and dwelt on the summit
of a hill, which was much lower than that on which King Ban had died.
In this place, where it seemed that the wood was large and deep, the
lady had many fair houses, and very rich; and in the plain beneath
there was a gentle little river well-stored with fish; and this place
was so secret and so concealed, that right difficult was it for any
one to find, for the semblance of the said lake covered it so that it
could not be perceived."[56]
When her young _protégé_ had gone through his course of knightly
education, she took him to King Arthur's court, and presented him
there; and his subsequent history is well known.
In the romance of Maugis d'Aygremont et de Vivian son Frère, when
Tapinel and the female slave had stolen the two children of Duke Bevis
of Aygremont, the former sold to the wife of Sorgalant the child which
he had taken, whose name was Esclarmonde, and who was about fifteen
years of age, and was "plus belle et plus blanche qu'une fée." The
slave having laid herself to rest under a white-thorn (_aube-spine_),
was devoured by a lion and a leopard, who killed one another in their
dispute for the infant. "And the babe lay under the thorn, and cried
loudly, during which it came to pass that Oriande la Fée, who abode at
Rosefleur with four other fays, came straight to this thorn; for every
time she passed by there she used to repose under that white-thorn.
She got down, and hearing the child cry, she came that way and looked
at him, and said, 'By the god in whom we believe, this child here is
lying badly (_mal gist_), and this shall be his name;' and from that
time he was always called Maugis."
Oriande la Fée brought the child home with her and her damsels; and
having examined him, and found, by a precious ring that was in his ear,
that he was of noble lineage, "she prayed our Lord that he would be
pleased of his grace to make known his origin (_nation_)." When she had
finished her prayer, she sent for her nephew Espiet, "who was a dwarf,
and was not more than three feet high, and had his hair yellow as fine
gold, and looked like a child of seven years, but he was more than a
hundred; and he was one of the falsest knaves in the world, and knew
every kind of enchantment." Espiet informed her whose child he was; and
Oriande, having prayed to our Lord to preserve the child, took him with
her to her castle of Rosefleur, where she had him baptised and named
Maugis. She and her damsels reared him with great tenderness; and when
he was old enough she put him under the care of her brother Baudris,
"who knew all the arts of magic and necromancy, and was of the age of a
hundred years;" and he taught what he knew to Maugis.
When Maugis was grown a man, the Fay Oriande clad him in arms, and he
became her _ami_; and she loved him "de si grand amour qu'elle doute
fort qu'il ne se departe d'avecques elle."
Maugis shortly afterwards achieved the adventure of gaining the
enchanted horse Bayard, in the isle of Boucaut. Of Bayard it is said,
when Maugis spoke to him, "Bayard estoit _feyé_, si entendoit aussi
bien Maugis comme s'il (_Bayard_) eust parlé." On his return from the
island, Maugis conquers and slays the Saracen admiral Anthenor, who
had come to win the lands and castle of Oriande, and gains the sword
Flamberge (Floberge), which, together with Bayard, he afterwards gave
to his cousin Renaud.
In Perceforest, Sebille la Dame du Lac, whose castle was surrounded by
a river on which lay so dense a fog that no one could see across the
water, though not called so, was evidently a fay. The fortnight that
Alexander the Great and Floridas abode with her, to be cured of their
wounds, seemed to them but as one night. During that night, "la dame
demoura enceinte du roy dung filz, dont de ce lignage yssit le roi
Artus."[57]
In the same romance[58] we are told that "en lysle de Zellande jadis fut
demourante une _faee_ qui estoit appellee Morgane." This Morgane was
very intimate with "ung esperit (named Zephir) qui repairoit es lieux
acquatiques, mais jamais nestoit veu que de nuyt." Zephir had been in
the habit of repairing to Morgane la Faee from her youth up, "car elle
estoit malicieuse et subtille et tousjours avoit moult desire a
aucunement sçavoir des enchantemens et des conjurations." He had
committed to her charge the young Passelyon and his cousin Bennucq, to
be brought up, and Passelyon was detected in an intrigue with the young
Morgane, daughter of the fay. The various adventures of this amorous
youth form one of the most interesting portions of the romance.
In Tristan de Leonois,[59] king Meliadus, the father of Tristan, is
drawn to a chase _par mal engin et negromance_ of a fairy who was in
love with him, and carries him off, and from whose thraldom he was
only released by the power of the great enchanter Merlin.
In Parthenopex of Blois,[60] the beautiful fairy Melior, whose magic
bark carries the knight to her secret island, is daughter to the
emperor of Greece.
In no romance whatever is the fairy machinery more pleasingly
displayed than in Sir Launfal, a metrical romance, composed[61] by
Thomas Chestre, in the reign of Henry VI.
Before, however, we give the analysis of this poem, which will be
followed by that of another, and by our own imitations of this kind of
verse, we will take leave to offer some observations on a subject that
seems to us to be in general but little understood, namely, the
structure of our old English verse, and the proper mode of reading it.
Our forefathers, like their Gotho-German kindred, regulated their verse
by the number of accents, not of syllables. The foot, therefore, as we
term it, might consist of one, two, three, or even four syllables,
provided it had only one strongly marked accent. Further, the accent of
a word might be varied, chiefly by throwing it on the last syllable, as
_natúre_ for _náture_, _honoúr_ for _hónour_, etc. (the Italians, by the
way, throw it back when two accents come into collision, as, _Il Pástor
Fido_[62]); they also sounded what the French call the feminine e of
their words, as, _In oldè dayès of the King Artoúr_; and so well known
seems this practice to have been, that the copyists did not always write
this _e_, relying on the skill of the reader to supply it.[63] There was
only one restriction, namely, that it was never to come before a vowel,
unless where there was a pause. In this way the poetry of the middle
ages was just as regular as that of the present day; and Chaucer, when
properly read, is fully as harmonious as Pope. But the editors of our
ancient poems, with the exception of Tyrwhitt, seem to have been
ignorant or regardless of this principle; and in the Canterbury Tales
alone is the verse properly arranged.
We will now proceed to the analysis of the romance of Sir Launfal.
Sir Launfal was one of the knights of Arthur, who loved him well, and
made him his steward. But when Arthur married the beautiful but frail
Gwennere, daughter of Ryon, king of Ireland, Launfal and other
virtuous knights manifested their dissatisfaction when she came to
court. The queen was aware of this, and, at the first entertainment
given by the king,
The queen yaf (_gave_) giftès for the nones,
Gold and silver, precious stones,
Her courtesy to kythe (_show_):
Everiche knight she yaf broche other (_or_) ring,
But Sir Launfal she yaf no thing,
That grieved him many a sythe (_time_).
Launfal, under the feigned pretext of the illness of his father, takes
leave of the king, and retires to Karlyoun, where he lives in great
poverty. Having obtained the loan of a horse, one holyday, he rode into
a fair forest, where, overcome by the heat, he lay down under the shade
of a tree, and meditated on his wretched state. In this situation he is
attracted by the approach of two fair damsels splendidly arrayed.
Their faces were white as snow on down,
Their rode[64] was red, their eyne were brown;
I saw never none swiche.
That one bare of gold a basín,
That other a towel white and fine,
Of silk that was good and riche;
Their kerchevès were welè skire (_clear_)
Araid (_striped_) with richè goldè wire--
Launfal began to siche--
They comè to him over the hoth (_heath_),
He was curteís, and against them goeth,
And greet them mildeliche.
They greet him courteously in return, and invite him to visit their
mistress, whose pavilion is at hand. Sir Launfal complies with the
invitation, and they proceed to where the pavilion lies. Nothing could
exceed this pavilion in magnificence. It was surmounted by an _erne_
or eagle, adorned with precious stones so rich, that the poet
declares, and we believe, that neither Alexander nor Arthur possessed
"none swiche jewel."
He foundè in the paviloun
The kingès daughter of Oliroun,
Dame Tryamour that hight;
Her father was king of Faërie,
Of occientè[65] fer and nigh,
A man of mickle might.
The beauty of dame Tryamour was beyond conception.
For heat her cloathès down she dede
Almostè to her girdle stede (_place_),
Than lay she uncover't;
She was as white as lily in May,
Or snow that snoweth in winter's day:
He seigh (_saw_) never none so pert (_lively_).
The redè rose, when she is new,
Against her rode was naught of hew
I dare well say in cert;
Her hairè shone as goldè wire:
May no man redè her attire,
Ne naught well think in hert (_heart_).
This lovely dame bestows her heart on Sir Launfal, on condition of his
fidelity. As marks of her affection, she gives him a never-failing
purse and many other valuable presents, and dismisses him next morning
with the assurance, that whenever he wished to see her, his wish would
be gratified on withdrawing into a private room, where she would
instantly be with him. This information is accompanied with a charge
of profound secrecy on the subject of their loves.
The knight returns to court, and astonishes every one by his riches
and his munificence. He continues happy in the love of the fair
Tryamour, until an untoward adventure interrupts his bliss. One day
the queen beholds him dancing, with other knights, before her tower,
and, inspired with a sudden affection, makes amorous advances to the
knight. These passages of love are received on his part with an
indignant repulse, accompanied by a declaration more enthusiastic than
politic or courteous, that his heart was given to a dame, the foulest
of whose maidens surpassed the queen in beauty. The offence thus given
naturally effected an entire conversion in the queen's sentiments;
and, when Arthur returned from hunting, like Potiphar's wife, she
charges Launfal with attempting her honour. The charge is credited,
and the unhappy knight condemned to be burned alive, unless he shall,
against a certain day, produce that peerless beauty. The fatal day
arrives; the queen is urgent for the execution of the sentence, when
ten fair damsels, splendidly arrayed, and mounted on white palfreys,
are descried advancing toward the palace. They announce the approach
of their mistress, who soon appears, and by her beauty justifies the
assertion of her knight. Sir Launfal is instantly set at liberty, and,
vaulting on the courser his mistress had bestowed on him, and which
was held at hand by his squire, he follows her out of the town.
The lady rode down Cardevile,
Fer into a jolif ile,
Oliroun that hight;[66]
Every year upon a certain day,
Men may heare Launfales steedè neighe,
And him see with sight.
He that will there axsy (_ask_) justes
To keep his armès fro the rustes,
In turnement other (_or_) fight,
Dar (_need_) he never further gon;
There he may find justès anon,
With Sir Launfal the knight.
Thus Launful, withouten fable,
That noble knight of the roundè table,
Was taken into the faërie;
Since saw him in this land no man,
Ne no more of him tell I ne can,
For soothè, without lie.[67]
No romance is of more importance to the present subject than the
charming Huon de Bordeaux.[68] Generally known, as the story should
be, through Wieland's poem and Mr. Sotheby's translation, we trust
that we shall be excused for giving some passages from the original
French romance, as Le petit roy Oberon appears to form a kind of
connecting link between the fairies of romance and the Elves or Dwarfs
of the Teutonic nations. When we come to Germany it will be our
endeavour to show how the older part of Huon de Bordeaux has been
taken from the story of Otnit in the Heldenbuch, where the dwarf king
Elberich performs nearly the same services to Otnit that Oberon does
to Huon, and that, in fact, the name Oberon is only Elberich slightly
altered.[69]
Huon, our readers must know, encounters in Syria an old follower of his
family named Gerasmes; and when consulting with him on the way to
Babylon he is informed by him that there are two roads to that city, the
one long and safe, the other short and dangerous, leading through a
wood, "which is sixteen leagues long, but is so full of Fairie and
strange things that few people pass there without being lost or stopt,
because therewithin dwelleth a king, Oberon the Fay. He is but three
feet in height; he is all humpy; but he hath an angelic face; there is
no mortal man who should see him who would not take pleasure in looking
at him, he hath so fair a face. Now you will hardly have entered the
wood, if you are minded to pass that way, when he will find how to speak
to you, but of a surety if you speak to him, you are lost for evermore,
without ever returning; nor will it lie in you, for if you pass through
the wood, whether straightforwards or across it, you will always find
him before you, and it will be impossible for you to escape at all
without speaking to him, for his words are so pleasant to hear, that
there is no living man who can escape him. And if so be that he should
see that you are nowise inclined to speak to him, he will be passing
wroth with you. For before you have left the wood he will cause it so to
rain on you, to blow, to hail, and to make such right marvellous storms,
thunder and lightning, that you will think the world is going to end.
Then you will think that you see a great flowing river before you,
wondrously black and deep; but know, sire, that right easily will you be
able to go through it without wetting the feet of your horse, for it is
nothing but a phantom and enchantments that the dwarf will make for you,
because he wishes to have you with him, and if it so be that you keep
firm to your resolve, not to speak to him, you will be surely able to
escape," etc.[70]
Huon for some time followed the sage advice of Gerasmes, and avoided
Oberon le fayé. The storms of rain and thunder came on as predicted,
the magic horn set them all dancing, and at last the knight determined
to await and accost the dwarf.
"The Dwarf Fay came riding through the wood, and was clad in a robe so
exceeding fine and rich, that it would be a marvel to relate it for
the great and marvellous riches that were upon it; for so much was
there of precious stones, that the great lustre that they cast was
like unto the sun when he shineth full clear. And therewithal he bare
a right fair bow in his fist, so rich that no one could value it, so
fine it was; and the arrow that he bare was of such sort and manner,
that there was no beast in the world that he wished to have, that it
did not stop at that arrow. He had at his neck a rich horn, which was
hung by two rich strings of fine gold."[71]
This horn was wrought by four Fairies, who had endowed it with its
marvellous properties.
Oberon, on bringing Huon to speech, informed him that he was the son of
Julius Cæsar, and the lady of the Hidden Island, afterwards called
Cephalonia. This lady's first love had been Florimont of Albania, a
charming young prince, but being obliged to part from him, she married,
and had a son named Neptanebus, afterwards King of Egypt, who begot
Alexander the Great, who afterwards put him to death. Seven hundred
years later, Cæsar, on his way to Thessaly, was entertained in
Cephalonia by the lady of the isle, and he loved her, for she told him
he would defeat Pompey, and he became the father of Oberon. Many a noble
prince and noble fairy were at the birth, but one Fairy was unhappily
not invited, and the gift she gave was that he should not grow after his
third year, but repenting, she gave him to be the most beautiful of
nature's works. Other Fairies gave him the gift of penetrating the
thoughts of men, and of transporting himself and others from place to
place by a wish; and the faculty, by like easy means, of raising and
removing castles, palaces, gardens, banquets, and such like. He further
informed the knight, that he was king and lord of Mommur; and that when
he should leave this world his seat was prepared in Paradise--for
Oberon, like his prototype Elberich, was a veritable Christian.
When after a variety of adventures Oberon comes to Bordeaux to the aid
of Huon, and effects a reconciliation between him and Charlemagne, he
tells Huon that the time is at hand that he should leave this world
and take the seat prepared for him in Paradise, "en faerie ne veux
plus demeurer." He directs him to appear before him within four years
in his city of Mommur, where he will crown him as his successor.
Here the story properly ends, but an addition of considerable magnitude
has been made by a later hand, in which the story is carried on.
Many are the perils which Huon encounters before the period appointed
by Oberon arrives. At length, however, he and the fair Esclairmonde
(the Rezia of Wieland) come to Mommur. Here, in despite of Arthur
(who, with his sister Morgue la faée and a large train, arrives at
court, and sets himself in opposition to the will of the monarch, but
is reduced to order by Oberon's threat of turning him into a _Luyton
de Mer_[72]), Huon is crowned king of all Faerie "tant du pais des
Luytons comme des autres choses secretes reservées dire aux hommes."
Arthur gets the kingdom of Bouquant, and that which Sybilla held of
Oberon, and all the Faeries that were in the plains of Tartary. The
good king Oberon then gave Huon his last instructions, recommending
his officers and servants to him, and charging him to build an abbey
before the city, in the mead which the dwarf had loved, and there to
bury him. Then, falling asleep in death, a glorious troop of angels,
scattering odours as they flew, conveyed his soul to Paradise.
Isaie le Triste is probably one of the latest romances, certainly
posterior to Huon de Bordeaux, for the witty but deformed dwarf Tronc,
who is so important a personage in it, is, we are told, Oberon, whom
Destiny compelled to spend a certain period in that form. And we
shall, as we have promised, prove Oberon to be the handsome dwarf-king
Elberich. In Isaie the Faery ladies approach to the Fées of Perrault,
and Madame D'Aulnoy. Here, as at the birth of Oberon and of Ogier le
Danois, they interest themselves for the new-born child, and bestow
their gifts upon it. The description in this romance of the manner in
which the old hermit sees them occupied about the infant Isaie is very
pleasing. It was most probably Fairies of this kind, and not the
diminutive Elves, that Milton had in view when writing these lines:
Good luck betide thee, son, for, at thy birth,
The Faery ladies danced upon the hearth.
Thy drowsy nurse hath sworn she did them spy
Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie,
And, sweetly singing round about thy bed,
Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head.
The description of the Vergier des Fées in Isaie le Triste, and of the
beautiful valley in which it was situated, may rival in richness and
luxuriancy similar descriptions in Spenser and the Italian poets.[73]
We have now, we trust, abundantly proved our position of the Fairies
of romance being, at least at the commencement, only 'human mortals,'
endowed with superhuman powers, though we may perceive that, as the
knowledge of Oriental fiction increased, the Fairies began more and
more to assume the character of a distinct species. Our position will
acquire additional strength when in the course of our inquiry we
arrive at France and Italy.
Closely connected with the Fairies is the place of their abode, the
region to which they convey the mortals whom they love, 'the happy
lond of Faery.'
FOOTNOTES:
[51] On the subjects mentioned in this paragraph, see Tales and
Popular Fictions, chap. ii. and iii.
[52] In the Amadigi of B. Tasso, she is La Fata Urganda.
[53] Lancelot is regarded as probably the earliest prose romance of
chivalry. It was first printed in 1494. The metrical romance called La
Charrette, of which Lancelot is the hero, was begun by Chrestien de
Troyes, who died in 1191, and finished by Geoffrey de Ligny. We may
here observe that almost all the French romances of chivalry were
written originally in verse in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
principally by Chrestien de Troyes and Huon de Villeneuve. The prose
romances in general were made from them in the fifteenth century.
[54]
For while it was in hand, by loving of an elf,
For all his wondrous skill was cozened of himself:
For walking with his Fay, her to the rock he brought,
In which he oft before his nigromancies wrought.
And going in thereat, his magics to have shown,
She stopt the cavern's mouth with an enchanted stone,
Whose cunning strongly crossed, amazed while he did stand,
She captive him conveyed unto the Fairy-land.
Drayton, _Poly-Olb._ Song IV.--See above, p. 2.
[55] La damoiselle qui Lancelot porta au lac estoit une _fée_, et en
cellui temps estoient appellées _fees_ toutes celles qui
sentremcloient denchantements et de charmes, et moult en estoit pour
lors principallement en la Grand Bretaigne, et savoient la force et la
vertu des parolles, des pierres, et des herbes, parquoi elles estoient
en jeunesse, et en beaulte, et en grandes richesses, comment elles
divisoient.
[56] La dame qui le nourissoit ne conversoit que en forest, et estoit au
plain de ung tertre plus bas assez que celui ou le roy Ban estoit mort:
en ce lieu ou il sembloit que le bois fust grant et parfont (_profond_)
avoit la dame moult de belles maisons et moult riches; et au plain
dessoubs y avoit une gente petite riviere moult plantureuse de poissons;
et estoit ce lieu si cele et secret que bien difficille estoit a homme
de le trouver, car la semblance du dit lac le couvroit si que il ne
pouvoit estre apperceu. And farther, La damoiselle nestoit mie seulle,
mais y avoit grande compaignie de chevaliers et de dames et damoiselles.
[57] Vol. i. ch. 42.
[58] Vol. iii. ch. 31.
[59] Tristan was written in verse by Chrestien de Troyes. The prose
romance was first printed in 1489.
[60] Parthenopex was written in French in the twelfth century,
according to Le Grand; in the thirteenth, according to Roquefort.
[61] _Composed_--for to call it, with Ellis, Ritson, and others, a
translation, would be absurd. How Ellis, who had at least read Le
Grand's and Way's Fabliaux, could say of Chestre, that he "seems to
have given a _faithful_ as well as spirited version of this old Breton
story," is surprising. It is in fact no translation, but a poem on the
adventures of Sir Launfal, founded chiefly on the Lais de Lanval and
de Graelent, in Marie de France, with considerable additions of
Chestre's own invention, or derived from other sources. These Lais
will be considered under Brittany.
[62] Thus we ourselves say _the Príncess Royal, éxtreme need_, etc.
This, by the way, is the cause why the Greeks put a grave and not an
acute accent on words accented on the last syllable, to show that it
is easily moveable.
[63] As this seems to be one of the lost arts, we will here and
elsewhere mark the feminine _e_ and the change of accent.
[64] Rode--complexion; from _red_.
[65] Occient--_occident_ or _océan_? The Gascon peasantry call the Bay
of Biscay _La Mer d'Occient_. The Spaniards say _Mar Oceano_.
[66] It is strange to find the English poet changing the Avalon of the
Lai de Lanval into the well-known island of Oléron. It is rather
strange too, that Mr. Ritson, who has a note on "Oliroun," did not
notice this.
[67] The Lai ends thus:
Od (_avec_) li sen vait en Avalun,
Ceo nus recuntent le Bretun;
En une isle que mut est beaus,
La fut ravi li dameiseaus,
Nul humme nen ot plus parler,
Ne jeo nen sai avant cunter.
In Graelent it is said that the horse of the knight used to return
annually to the river where he lost his master. The rest is Thomas
Chestre's own, taken probably from the well-known story in Gervase of
Tilbury.
[68] Huon, Hue, or Hullin (for he is called by these three names in
the poetic romance) is, there can be little doubt, the same person
with Yon king of Bordeaux in the Quatre Filz Aymon, another
composition of Huon de Villeneuve, and with Lo Re Ivone, prince or
duke of Guienne in Bojardo and Ariosto. See the Orl. Inn. l. i. c. iv.
st. 46. I Cinque Canti, c. v. st. 42.
[69] Otnit was supposed to have been written by Wolfram von
Eschembach, in the early part of the thirteenth century. It is
possibly much older. Huon de Bordeaux was, it is said, written in
French verse by Huon de Villeneuve, some time in the same century. It
does not appear in the list of Huon de Villeneuve's works given by
Mons. de Roquefort. At the end of the prose romance we are told that
it was written at the desire of Charles seigneur de Rochefort, and
completed on the 29th of January, 1454.
[70] Qui a de long seizes lieues, mais tant est plain de faerie et
chose estrange que peu de gens y passent qui n'y soient perdus ou
arrestez, pour ce que la dedans demeure un roi, Oberon le fayé. Il n'a
que trois pieds de hauteur; il est tout bossu; mais il a un visage
angelique; il n'est homme mortel que le voye que plaisir ne prengne a
le regarder tant a beau visage. Ja si tost ne serez entrez au bois se
par la voulez passer qu'il ne trouve maniere de parler a vous, si
ainsi que a luy parliez perdu estus a tousjours sans jamais plus
revenir; ne il ne sera en vous, car se par le bois passez, soit de
long ou de travers, vous le trouverez tousjours au devant de vous, et
vous sera impossible que eschappiez nullement que ne parliez a luy,
car ses parolles sont tant plaisantes a ouyr qu'il n'est homme mortel
qui de luy se puisse eschapper. Et se chose est qu'il voye que
nullement ne vueillez parler a luy, il sera moult troublé envers vous.
Car avant que du bois soyez parti vous fera pleuvoir, ventrer,
gresiller, et faire si tres-mervueilleux orages, tonnerres, et
esclairs, que advis vous sera que le monde doive finir. Puis vous sera
advis que par devant vous verrez une grande riviere courante, noire et
parfonde a grand merveilles; mais sachez, sire, que bien y pourrez
aller sans mouiller les pieds de vostre cheval, car ce n'est que
fantosme et enchantemens que le nain vous fera pour vous cuider avoir
avec lui, et se chose est que bien tenez propos en vous de non parler
a luy, bien pourrez eschapper, etc.
[71] Le Nain Fee s'en vint chevauchant par le bois, et estoit vestu
d'une robbe si tres-belle et riche, que merveilles sera ce racompter
pour la grand et merveilleuse richesse que dessus estoit, car tant y
avoit de pierres precieuses, que la grand clarté qu'elles jettoient
estoit pareille au soleil quant il luit bien clair. Et avec ce portoit
un moult bel arc en son poing, tant riche que on ne le sauroit estimer
tant estoit beau. Et la fleche qu'il portoit est it de telle sorte et
maniere, qu'il n'estoit beste au monde qu'il vousist souhaiter qu'a
ieelle fleche elle ne s'arrestast. Il avoit a son cou un riche cor,
lequel estoit pendu a deux riches attaches de fin or.
[72] This sort of transformation appears to have been a usual mode of
punishing in a Fairy land. It may have come from Circe, but the
Thousand and One Nights is full of such transformations. For _luyton_
or _lutin_, see below, _France_.
[73] We are only acquainted with this romance through Mr. Dunlop's
analysis.
FAIRY LAND.
There, renewed the vital spring,
Again he reigns a mighty king
And many a fair and fragrant clime,
Blooming in immortal prime,
By gales of Eden ever fanned,
Owns the monarch's high command.
T. WARTON.
Among all nations the mixture of joy and pain, of exquisite delight
and intense misery in the present state, has led the imagination to
the conception of regions of unmixed bliss destined for the repose of
the good after the toils of this life, and of climes where happiness
prevails, the abode of beings superior to man. The imagination of the
Hindoo paints his Swergas as 'profuse of bliss,' and all the joys of
sense are collected into the Paradise of the Mussulman. The Persian
lavished the riches of his fancy in raising the Cities of Jewels and
of Amber that adorn the realms of Jinnestân; the romancer erected
castles and palaces filled with knights and ladies in Avalon and in
the land of Faerie; while the Hellenic bards, unused to pomp and
glare, filled the Elysian Fields and the Island of the Blest with
tepid gales and brilliant flowers. We shall quote without apology two
beautiful passages from Homer and Pindar, that our readers may at one
view satisfy themselves of the essential difference between classic
and romantic imagination.
In Homer, Proteus tells Menelaus that, because he had had the honour
of being the son-in-law of Zeus, he should not die in "horse-feeding
Argos."
But thee the ever-living gods will send
Unto the Elysian plain and distant bounds
Of Earth, where dwelleth fair-hair'd Rhadamanthus.
There life is easiest unto men; no snow,
Or wintry storm, or rain, at any time,
Is there; but evermore the Ocean sends
Soft-breathing airs of Zephyr to refresh
The habitants.--_Od._ iv. 563.
This passage is finely imitated by Pindar, and connected with that
noble tone of pensive morality, so akin to the Oriental spirit, and by
which the 'Dircæan Swan' is distinguished from all his fellows.
They speed their way
To Kronos' palace, where around
The Island of the Blest, the airs
Of Ocean breathe, and golden flowers
Blaze; some on land
From shining trees, and other kinds
The water feeds. Of these
Garlands and bracelets round their arms they bind,
Beneath the righteous sway
Of Rhadamanthus.--_Ol._ ii. 126.
Lucretius has transferred these fortunate fields to the superior
regions, to form the abode of his _fainéans_, gods; and Virgil has
placed them, with additional poetic splendour, in the bosom of the
earth.
Widely different from these calm and peaceful abodes of parted warriors
are the Faeries of the minstrels and romancers. In their eyes, and in
those of their auditors, nothing was beautiful or good divested of the
pomp and pride of chivalry; and chivalry has, accordingly, entered
deeply into the composition of their pictures of these ideal realms.
The Feeries of romance may be divided into three kinds: Avalon, placed
in the ocean, like the Island of the Blest; those that, like the palace
of Pari Banou, are within the earth; and, lastly, those that, like
Oberon's domains, are situate 'in wilderness among the holtis hairy.'
Of the castle and isle of Avalon,[74] the abode of Arthur and Oberon,
and Morgue la faye, the fullest description is to be seen in the
romance of Ogier le Danois, from which, as we know no sure quarter but
the work itself to refer to for the part connected with the present
subject, we will make some extracts.[75]
At the birth of Ogier several Fairies attended, who bestowed on him
various gifts. Among them was Morgue la Faye, who gave him that he
should be her lover and friend. Accordingly, when Ogier had long
distinguished himself in love and war, and had attained his hundredth
year, the affectionate Morgue thought it was time to withdraw him from
the toils and dangers of mortal life, and transport him to the joys
and the repose of the castle of Avalon. In pursuance of this design,
Ogier and king Caraheu are attacked by a storm on their return from
Jerusalem, and their vessels separated. The bark on which Ogier was
"floated along the sea till it came near the castle of loadstone,
which is called the castle of Avalon, which is not far on this side of
the terrestrial paradise, whither were rapt in a flame of fire Enock
and Helias; and where was Morgue la Faye, who at his birth had endowed
him with great gifts, noble and virtuous."[76]
The vessel is wrecked against the rock; the provisions are divided
among the crew, and it is agreed that every man, as his stock failed,
should be thrown into the sea. Ogier's stock holds out longest, and he
remains alone. He is nearly reduced to despair, when a voice from
heaven cries to him: "God commandeth thee that, as soon as it is
night, thou go unto a castle that thou wilt see shining, and pass from
bark to bark till thou be in an isle which thou wilt find. And when
thou wilt be in that isle thou wilt find a little path, and of what
thou mayest see within be not dismayed at anything. And then Ogier
looked, but he saw nothing."[77]
When night came, Ogier recommended himself to God, and seeing the
castle of loadstone all resplendent with light, he went from one to
the other of the vessels that were wrecked there, and so got into the
island where it was. On arriving at the gate he found it guarded by
two fierce lions. He slew them and entered; and making his way into a
hall, found a horse sitting at a table richly supplied. The courteous
animal treats him with the utmost respect, and the starving hero makes
a hearty supper. The horse then prevails on him to get on his back,
and carries him into a splendid chamber, where Ogier sleeps that
night. The name of this horse is Papillon, "who was a Luiton, and had
been a great prince, but king Arthur conquered him, so he was
condemned to be three hundred years a horse without speaking one
single word, but after the three hundred years he was to have the
crown of joy which they wore in Faerie."[78]
Next morning he cannot find Papillon, but on opening a door he meets a
huge serpent, whom he also slays, and follows a little path which
leads him into an orchard "tant bel et tant plaisant, que cestoit ung
petit paradis a veoir." He plucks an apple from one of the trees and
eats it, but is immediately afflicted by such violent sickness as to
be put in fear of speedy death. He prepares himself for his fate,
regretting "le bon pays de France, le roi Charlemaigne ... et
principallement la bonne royne dangleterre, sa bonne espouse et vraie
amie, ma dame Clarice, qui tant estoit belle et noble." While in this
dolorous state, happening to turn to the east, he perceived "une moult
belle dame, toute vestue de blanc, si bien et si richement aornee que
cestoit ung grant triumphe que de la veoir."
Ogier, thinking it is the Virgin Mary, commences an Ave; but the lady
tells him she is Morgue la Faye, who at his birth had kissed him, and
retained him for her loyal amoureux, though forgotten by him. She
places then on his finger a ring, which removes all infirmity, and
Ogier, a hundred years old, returns to the vigour and beauty of
thirty. She now leads him to the castle of Avalon, where were her
brother king Arthur, and Auberon, and Mallonbron, "ung luiton de mer."
"And when Morgue drew near to the said castle of Avalon, the Fays came
to meet Ogier, singing the most melodiously that ever could be heard, so
he entered into the hall to solace himself completely. There he saw
several Fay ladies adorned and all crowned with crowns most sumptuously
made, and very rich, and evermore they sung, danced, and led a right
joyous life, without thinking of any evil thing whatever, but of taking
their mundane pleasures."[79] Morgue here introduces the knight to
Arthur, and she places on his head a crown rich and splendid beyond
estimation, but which has the Lethean quality, that whoso wears it,
Forthwith his former state and being forgets,
Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain;
for Ogier instantly forgot country and friends. He had no thought
whatever "ni de la dame Clarice, qui tant estoit belle et noble," nor
of Guyon his brother, nor of his nephew Gauthier, "ne de creature
vivante." His days now rolled on in never-ceasing pleasure. "Such
joyous pastime did the Fay ladies make for him, that there is no
creature in this world who could imagine or think it, for to hear them
sing so sweetly it seemed to him actually that he was in Paradise; so
the time passed from day to day, from week to week, in such sort that
a year did not last a month to him."[80]
But Avalon was still on earth, and therefore its bliss was not
unmixed. One day Arthur took Ogier aside, and informed him that
Capalus, king of the Luitons, incessantly attacked the castle of
Faerie with design to eject king Arthur from its dominion, and was
accustomed to penetrate to the basse court, calling on Arthur to come
out and engage him. Ogier asked permission to encounter this
formidable personage, which Arthur willingly granted. No sooner,
however, did Capalus see Ogier than he surrendered to him; and the
knight had the satisfaction of leading him into the castle, and
reconciling him to its inhabitants.
Two hundred years passed away in these delights, and seemed to Ogier
but twenty: Charlemagne and all his lineage had failed, and even the
race of Ogier was extinct, when the Paynims invaded France and Italy
in vast numbers; and Morgue no longer thought herself justified in
withholding Ogier from the defence of the faith. Accordingly, she one
day took the Lethean crown from off his head: immediately all his old
ideas rushed on his mind, and inflamed him with an ardent desire to
revisit his country. The Fairy gave him a brand which was to be
preserved from burning, for so long as it was unconsumed, so long
should his life extend. She adds to her gift the horse Papillon and
his comrade Benoist. "And when they were both mounted, all the ladies
of the castle came to take leave of Ogier, by the command of king
Arthur and of Morgue la Faye, and they sounded an aubade of
instruments, the most melodious thing to hear that ever was listened
to; then, when the aubade was finished, they sung with the voice so
melodiously, that it was a thing so melodious that it seemed actually
to Ogier that he was in Paradise. Again, when that was over, they sung
with the instruments in such sweet concordance that it seemed rather
to be a thing divine than mortal."[81] The knight then took leave of
all, and a cloud, enveloping him and his companion, raised them, and
set them down by a fair fountain near Montpellier. Ogier displays his
ancient prowess, routs the infidels, and on the death of the king is
on the point of espousing the queen, when Morgue appears and takes him
back to Avalon. Since then Ogier has never reappeared in this world.
Nowhere is a Faerie of the second kind so fully and circumstantially
described as in the beautiful romance of Orfeo and Heurodis. There are,
indeed, copious extracts from this poem in Sir Walter Scott's Essay on
the Fairies of Popular Superstition; and we have no excuse to offer for
repeating what is to be found in a work so universally diffused as the
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, but that it is of absolute necessity
for our purpose, and that romantic poetry is rarely unwelcome.
Orfeo and Heurodis were king and queen of Winchester. The queen
happening one day to sleep under an ymp[82] tree in the palace
orchard, surrounded by her attendants, had a dream, which she thus
relates to the king:
As I lay this undertide (_afternoon_)
To sleep under the orchard-side,
There came to me two faire knightes
Well arrayed allè rightes,
And bade me come without lettíng
To speakè with their lord the king;
And I answér'd with wordès bolde
That I ne durstè ne I nolde:
Fast again they can (_did_) drive,
Then came their kingè all so blive (_quick_)
With a thousand knights and mo,
And with ladies fifty also,
And riden all on snow-white steedes,
And also whitè were their weedes.
I sey (_saw_) never sith I was borne
So fairè knightès me by forne.
The kingè had a crown on his head,
It was not silver ne gold red;
All it was of precious stone,
As bright as sun forsooth it shone.
All so soon he to me came,
Wold I, nold I he me name (_took_),
And madè me with him ride
On a white palfrey by his side,
And brought me in to his palís,
Right well ydight over all ywis.
He shewed me castels and toures,
Meadows, rivers, fields and flowres,
And his forests everiche one,
And sith he brought me again home.
The fairy-king orders her, under a dreadful penalty, to await him next
morning under the ymp tree. Her husband and ten hundred knights stand
in arms round the tree to protect her,
And yet amiddès them full right
The queenè was away y-twight (_snatched_);
With Faëry forth y-nome (_taken_);
Men wist never where she was become.
Orfeo in despair abandons his throne, and retires to the wilderness,
where he solaces himself with his harp, charming with his melody the
wild beasts, the inhabitants of the spot. Often while here,
He mightè see him besides
Oft in hot undertides
The king of Faëry with his rout
Come to hunt him all about,
With dim cry and blowíng,
And houndes also with him barkíng.
Ac (_yet_) no beastè they no nome,
Ne never he nist whither they be come;
And other while he might them see
As a great hostè by him te.[83]
Well atourned ten hundred knightes
Each well y-armed to his rightes,
Of countenancè stout and fierce,
With many displayéd bannérs,
And each his sword y-drawè hold;
Ac never he nistè whither they wold.
And otherwhile he seigh (_saw_) other thing,
Knightès and levedis (_ladies_) come dauncíng
In quaint attirè guisëly,
Quiet pace and softëly.
Tabours and trumpès gede (_went_) him by,
And allè manere minstracy.
And on a day he seigh him beside
Sixty levedis on horse ride,
Gentil and jolif as brid on ris (_bird on branch_),
Nought o (_one_) man amonges hem ther nis,
And each a faucoun on hond bare,
And riden on hauken by o rivér.
Of game they found well good haunt,
Mallardes, heron, and cormeraunt.
The fowlès of the water ariseth,
Each faucoun them well deviseth,
Each faucoun his preyè slough[84] (_slew_).
Among the ladies he recognises his lost queen, and he determines to
follow them, and attempt her rescue.
In at a roche (_rock_) the levedis rideth,
And he after and nought abideth.
When he was in the roche y-go
Well three milès other (_or_) mo,
He came into a fair countráy
As bright soonne summers day,
Smooth and plain and allè grene,
Hill ne dale nas none y-seen.
Amiddle the lond a castel he seigh,
Rich and real and wonder high.
Allè the utmostè wall
Was clear and shinè of cristal.
An hundred towers there were about,
Deguiselich and batailed stout.
The buttras come out of the ditch,
Of redè gold y-arched rich.
The bousour was anowed all
Of each manere diverse animal.
Within there werè widè wones
All of precious stones.
The worstè pillar to behold
Was all of burnished gold.
All that lond was ever light,
For when it should be therk (_dark_) and night,
The richè stonès lightè gonne (_yield_[85])
Bright as doth at nonne the sonne,
No man may tell ne think in thought
The richè work that there was wrought.
Orfeo makes his way into this palace, and so charms the king with his
minstrelsy, that he gives him back his wife. They return to
Winchester, and there reign, in peace and happiness.
Another instance of this kind of Feerie may be seen in Thomas the
Rymer, but, restricted by our limits, we must omit it, and pass to the
last kind.
Sir Thopas was written to ridicule the romancers; its incidents must
therefore accord with theirs, and the Feerie in it in fact resembles
those in Huon de Bordeaux. It has the farther merit of having
suggested incidents to Spenser, and perhaps of having given the idea
of a queen regnante of Fairy Land. Sir Thopas is chaste as Graelent.
Full many a maidè bright in bour
They mourned for him _par amour_;
When hem were bete to slepe;
But he was chaste and no lechour,
And sweet as is the bramble flour
That bereth the red hepe.
He was therefore a suitable object for the love of a gentle elf-queen.
So Sir Thopas one day "pricketh through a faire forest" till he is
weary, and he then lies down to sleep on the grass, where he dreams of
an elf-queen, and awakes, declaring
An elf-queen wol I love, ywis.
All other women I forsake,
And to an elf-queen I me take
By dale and eke by down.
He determines to set out in quest of her.
Into his sadel he clombe anon,
And pricked over style and stone,
An elf-quene for to espie;
Till he so long had ridden and gone,
That he found in a privee wone
The countree of Faerie,[86]
Wherein he soughtè north and south,
And oft he spied with his mouth
In many a forest wilde;
For in that countree n'as there none
That to him dorst ride or gon,
Neither wif ne childe.
The "gret giaunt" Sire Oliphaunt, however, informs him that
Here is the quene of Faërie,
With harpe and pipe and simphonie,
Dwelling in this place.
Owing to the fastidiousness of "mine hoste," we are unable to learn
how Sir Thopas fared with the elf-queen, and we have probably lost a
copious description of Fairy Land.
From the glimmering of the morning star of English poetry, the
transition is natural to its meridian splendour, the reign of
Elizabeth, and we will now make a few remarks on the poem of Spenser.
FOOTNOTES:
[74] Avalon was perhaps the Island of the Blest, of Celtic mythology,
and then the abode of the Fees, through the Breton Korrigan. Writers,
however, seem to be unanimous in regarding it and Glastonbury as the
same place, called an isle, it is stated, as being made nearly such by
the "river's embracement." It was named Avalon, we are told, from the
British word _Aval_, an apple, as it abounded with orchards; and _Ynys
gwydrin_; Saxon [Old English: Glastn-ey], glassy isle; Latin,
Glastonia, from the green hue of the water surrounding it.
[75] See Tales and Popular Fictions, ch. ix., for a further account of
Ogier.
[76] Tant nagea en mer qu'il arriva pres du chastel daymant quon nomme
le chasteau davallon, qui nest gueres deca paradis terrestre la ou
furent ravis en une raye de feu Enoc et Helye, et la ou estoit Morgue
la faye, qui a sa naissance lui avoit donne de grands dons, nobles et
vertueux.
[77] Dieu te mande que si tost que sera nuit que tu ailles en ung
chasteau que tu verras luire, et passe de bateau en bateau tant que tu
soies en une isle que tu trouveras. Et quand tu seras en lisle tu
trouveras une petite sente, et de chose que tu voies leans ne tesbahis
de rien. Et adone Ogier regarda mais il ne vit rien.
[78] Lequel estoit luiton, et avoit este ung grant prince; mais le roi
Artus le conquist, si fust condampne a estre trois cens ans cheval
sans parler ung tou seul mot; mais apres les trois cens ans, il devoit
avoir la couronue de joye de laquelle ils usuient en faerie.
[79] Et quand Morgue approcha du dit chasteau, les Faes vindrent au
devant dogier, chantant le plus melodieusement quon scauroit jamais
ouir, si entra dedans la salle pour se deduire totallement. Adonc vist
plusieurs dames Faees aournees et toutes courronnees de couronnes
tressomptueusement faictes, et moult riches, et tout jour chantoient,
dansoient, et menoient vie tresjoyeuse, sans penser a nulle quelconque
meschante chose, fors prandre leurs mondains plaisirs.
[80] Tant de joyeulx passetemps lui faisoient les dames Faees, quil
nest creature en ce monde quil le sceust imaginer ne penser, car les
ouir si doulcement chanter il lui sembloit proprement quil fut en
Paradis, si passoit temps de jour en jour, de sepmaine en sepmaine,
tellement que ung an ne lui duroit pas ung mois.
[81] Et quand ils furent tous deux montes, toutes les dames du chasteau
vindrent a la departie dogier, par le commandement du roi Artus et de
Morgue la fae, et sonnerent une aubade dinstrumens, la plus melodieuse
chose a ouir que on entendit jamais; puis, l'aubade achevee, chanterent
de gorge si melodieusement que cestoit une chose si melodieuse que il
sembloit proprement a Ogier quil estoit en Paradis. De rechief, cela
fini, ils chanterent avecques les instrumens par si doulce concordance
quil sembloit mieulx chose divine que humaine.
[82] Imp tree is a grafted tree. Sir W. Scott queries if it be not a
tree consecrated to the imps or fiends. Had imp that sense so early? A
grafted tree had perhaps the same relation to the Fairies that the
linden in Germany and the North had to the dwarfs.
[83] _Te_ or _tew_ (Drayton, Poly-Olb. xxv.) is to draw, to march;
from A.S. [Old English: teógan, tugan, teón] (Germ. _ziehen_), whence
_tug_, _team_.
[84] Beattie probably knew nothing of Orfeo and Heurodis, and the
Fairy Vision in the Minstrel (a dream that would never have occurred
to any minstrel) was derived from the Flower and the Leaf, Dryden's,
not Chaucer's, for the personages in the latter are not called
Fairies. In neither are they Elves.
[85] _Gönnen_, Germ.
[86] The "countrie of Faerie," situated in a "privee wone," plainly
accords rather with the Feeries of Huon de Bordeaux than with Avalon,
or the region into which Dame Heurodis was taken.
SPENSER'S FAERIE QUEENE.
A braver lady never tript on land,
Except the ever-living Faerie Queene,
Whose virtues by her swain so written been
That time shall call her high enhanced story,
In his rare song, the Muse's chiefest glory.
BROWN.
During the sixteenth century the study of classical literature, which
opened a new field to imagination, and gave it a new impulse, was
eagerly and vigorously pursued. A classic ardour was widely and
extensively diffused. The compositions of that age incessantly imitate
and allude to the beauties and incidents of the writings of ancient
Greece and Rome.
Yet amid this diffusion of classic taste and knowledge, romance had by
no means lost its influence. The black-letter pages of Lancelot du
Lac, Perceforest, Mort d'Arthur, and the other romances of chivalry,
were still listened to with solemn attention, when on winter-evenings
the family of the good old knight or baron 'crowded round the ample
fire,' to hear them made vocal, and probably no small degree of
credence was given to the wonders they recorded. The passion for
allegory, too, remained unabated. Fine moral webs were woven from the
fragile threads of the Innamorato and the Furioso; and even Tasso was
obliged, in compliance with the reigning taste, to extract an allegory
from his divine poem; which Fairfax, when translating the Jerusalem,
was careful to preserve. Spenser, therefore, when desirous of
consecrating his genius to the celebration of the glories of the
maiden reign, and the valiant warriors and grave statesmen who adorned
it, had his materials ready prepared. Fairy-land, as described by the
romancers, gave him a scene; the knights and dames with whom it was
peopled, actors; and its court, its manners, and usages, a facility of
transferring thither whatever real events might suit his design.
It is not easy to say positively to what romance the poet was chiefly
indebted for his Faery-land. We might, perhaps, venture to conjecture
that his principal authority was Huon de Bordeaux, which had been
translated some time before by Lord Berners, and from which it is most
likely that Shakespeare took his Oberon, who was thus removed from the
realms of romance, and brought back among his real kindred, the dwarfs
or elves. Spenser, it is evident, was acquainted with this romance,
for he says of Sir Guyon,
He was an elfin born of noble state
And mickle worship in his native land;
Well could he tourney and in lists debate,
And knighthood took of good _Sir Huon's_ hand,
When with King Oberon he came to Fairy-land.
B. ii. c. 1. st. vi.
And here, if such a thing were to be heeded, the poet commits an
anachronism in making Sir Huon, who slew the son of Charlemagne, a
contemporary of Arthur.
Where "this delightful land of Faery" lies, it were as idle to seek as
for Oberon's realm of Mommur, the island of Calypso, or the kingdom of
Lilliput. Though it shadow forth England, it is distinct from it; for
Cleopolis excels Troynovant in greatness and splendour, and Elfin, the
first Fairy king, ruled over India and America. To the curious the
poet says,
Of Faery-lond yet if he more inquire,
By certain signes here sett in sondrie place,
He may it fynd, ne let him then admyre,
But yield his sence to be too blunt and bace,
That no'te without an hound fine footing trace.
The idea of making a queen sole regnante of Fairy-land was the necessary
result of the plan of making "the fayrest princesse under sky" view her
"owne realmes in lond of faery." Yet there may have been sage authority
for this settlement of the fairy throne. Some old romancers may have
spoken only of a queen; and the gallant Sir Thopas does not seem to
apprehend that he is in pursuit of the wedded wife of another. This
doughty champion's dream was evidently the original of Arthur's.
Forwearied with my sportes, I did alight
From loftie steede, and downe to sleepe me layd;
The verdant grass my couch did goodly dight,
And pillow was my helmett fayre displayd;
Whiles every sence the humour sweet embayd,
Me seemed by my side a royall mayd
Her dainty limbes full softly down did lay,
So faire a creature yet saw never sunny day.
Most goodly glee and lovely blandishment
She to me made, and badd me love her deare,
For dearly, sure, her love was to me bent,
As, when iust time expired, should appeare:
But whether dreames delude, or true it were,
Was never hart so ravisht with delight,
Ne living man such wordes did never heare
As she to me delivered all that night,
And at her parting said, she queen of Faries hight.
* * * * *
From that day forth I cast in carefull mynd
To seek her out with labor and long tyne,
And never vow to rest till her I fynd--
Nyne months I seek in vain, yet n'ill that vow unbynd,
B. i. c. 9. st. xiii., xiv., xv.
The names given by Spenser to these beings are Fays (_Feés_), Farys or
Fairies, Elfes and Elfins, of which last words the former had been
already employed by Chaucer, and in one passage it is difficult to say
what class of beings is intended. Spenser's account of the origin of his
Fairies is evidently mere invention, as nothing in the least resembling
it is to be found in any preceding writer. It bears, indeed, some slight
and distant analogy to that of the origin of the inhabitants of
Jinnestân, as narrated by the Orientals. According to the usual practice
of Spenser, it is mixed up with the fables of antiquity.
Prometheus did create
A man of many parts from beasts deryved;
That man so made he called Elfe, to weet,
Quick,[87] the first author of all Elfin kynd,
Who, wandring through the world with wearie feet,
Did in the gardins of Adonis fynd
A goodly creature, whom he deemed in mynd
To be no earthly wight, but either spright
Or angell, the authour of all woman-kynd;
Therefore a Fay he her according hight,
Of whom all Faryes spring, and fetch their lignage right.
Of these a mighty people shortly grew,
And puissant kings, which all the world warrayd,
And to themselves all nations did subdue.
B. ii. c. 9. st. lxx., lxxi., lxxii.
Sir Walter Scott remarks with justice (though his memory played him
somewhat false on the occasion), that "the stealing of the Red Cross
Knight while a child, is the only incident in the poem which
approaches to the popular character of the Fairy." It is not exactly
the _only_ incident; but the only other, that of Arthegal, is a
precisely parallel one:--
He wonneth in the land of Fayëree,
Yet is no Fary born, ne sib at all
To Elfes, but sprung of seed terrestriall,
And whyleome by false Faries stolne away,
Whyles yet in infant cradle he did crall:
Ne other to himself is knowne this day,
But that he by an Elfe was gotten of a Fay.
B. iii. c. 3. st. xxvi.
Sir Walter has been duly animadverted on for this dangerous error by
the erudite Mr. Todd. It would be as little becoming as politic in us,
treading, as we do, on ground where error ever hovers around us, to
make any remark. Freedom from misconception and mistake,
unfortunately, forms no privilege of our nature.
We must here observe, that Spenser was extremely injudicious in his
selection of the circumstances by which he endeavoured to confound the
two classes of Fairies. It was quite incongruous to style the progeny
of the subjects of Gloriane a "base elfin brood," or themselves "false
Fairies," especially when we recollect that such a being as Belphœbe
whose
whole creation did her show
Pure and unspotted from all loathly crime,
That is ingenerate in fleshly slime,
was born of a Fairie.
Our poet seems to have forgotten himself also in the Legend of Sir
Calidore; for though the knight is a Faerie himself, and though such
we are to suppose were all the native inhabitants of Faerie-land, yet
to the "gentle flood" that tumbled down from Mount Acidale,
ne mote the ruder clown
Thereto approach ne filth mote therein drown;
But Nymphs and Faeries on the banks did sit
In the woods shade which did the waters crown.
B. vi. c. 10. st. vii.
And a little farther, when Calidore gazes on the "hundred naked
maidens lily white," that danced around the Graces, he wist not
Whether it were the train of beauty's queen,
Or Nymphs or Faeries, or enchanted show,
With which his eyes mote have deluded been.--St. xvii.
The popular Elves, who dance their circlets on the green, were
evidently here in Spenser's mind.[88]
It is now, we think, if not certain, at least highly probable, that
the Fairy-land and the Fairies of Spenser are those of romance, to
which the term Fairy properly belongs, and that it is without just
reason that the title of his poem has been styled a _misnomer_.[89]
After the appearance of his Faerie Queene, all distinction between the
different species was rapidly lost, and Fairies became the established
name of the popular Elves.
Here, then, we will take our leave of the potent ladies of romance,
and join the Elves of the popular creed, tracing their descent from
the Duergar of northern mythology, till we meet them enlivening the
cottage fireside with the tales of their pranks and gambols.
FOOTNOTES:
[87] That is, _elfe_ is _alive_.
[88] These Fairies thus coupled with Nymphs remind us of the Fairies
of the old translators. Spenser, in the Shepherd's Calendar, however,
had united them before, as
Nor elvish ghosts nor ghastly owls do flee,
But friendly _Faeries_ met with many Graces,
And light-foot _Nymphs_.--Æg. 6.
[89] "Spenser's _Fairy Queen_, which is one of the grossest misnomers in
romance or history, bears no features of the Fairy nation."--Gifford,
note on B. Jonson, vol. ii. p. 202.
EDDAS AND SAGAS.
En sång om strålende Valhalla,
Om Gudar och Gudinnar alla.
TEGNER.
A song of Vallhall's bright abodes,
Of all the goddesses and gods.
The ancient religion of Scandinavia, and probably of the whole
Gotho-German race, consisted, like all other systems devised by man,
in personifications of the various powers of nature and faculties of
mind. Of this system in its fulness and perfection we possess no
record. It is only from the poems of the elder or poetic Edda,[90]
from the narratives of the later or prose Edda and the various Sagas
or histories written in the Icelandic language,[91] that we can obtain
any knowledge of it.
The poetic or Sæmund's Edda was, as is generally believed, collected
about the end of the eleventh or beginning of the twelfth century by an
Icelander named Sæmund, and styled Hinns Fròda, or The Wise. It consists
of a number of mythological and historical songs, the production of the
ancient Scalds or poets, all, or the greater part, composed before the
introduction of Christianity into the north. The measure of these
venerable songs is alliterative rime, and they present not unfrequently
poetic beauties of a high and striking character.[92]
The prose Edda is supposed to have been compiled in the thirteenth
century by Snorro Sturleson, the celebrated historian of Norway. It is
a history of the gods and their actions formed from the songs of the
poetic Edda, and from other ancient poems, several stanzas of which
are incorporated in it. Beside the preface and conclusion, it consists
of two principal parts, the first consisting of the Gylfa-ginning
(_Gylfa's Deception_), or Hárs Lygi (_Hár's_ i. e. _Odin's Fiction_),
and the Braga-rædur (_Braga's Narrative_), each of which is divided
into several Dæmi-sagas or Illustrative Stories; and the second named
the Kenningar or list of poetic names and periphrases.[93]
The Gylfa-ginning narrates that Gylfa king of Sweden, struck with the
wisdom and power of the Æser,[94] as Odin and his followers were
called, journeyed in the likeness of an old man, and under the assumed
name of Ganglar, to Asgard their chief residence, to inquire into and
fathom their wisdom. Aware of his design, the Æser by their magic art
caused to arise before him a lofty and splendid palace, roofed with
golden shields. At the gate he found a man who was throwing up and
catching swords, seven of which were in the air at one time. This man
inquires the name of the stranger, whom he leads into the palace,
where Ganglar sees a number of persons drinking and playing, and three
thrones, each set higher than the other. On the thrones sat Har
(_High_), Jafnhar (_Equal-high_), and Thridi (_Third_). Ganglar asks
if there is any one there wise and learned. Har replies that he will
not depart in safety if he knows more than they.[95] Ganglar then
commences his interrogations, which embrace a variety of recondite
subjects, and extend from the creation to the end of all things. To
each he receives a satisfactory reply. At the last reply Ganglar hears
a loud rush and noise: the magic illusion suddenly vanishes, and he
finds himself alone on an extensive plain.
The Braga-rædur is the discourse of Braga to Ægir, the god of the sea,
at the banquet of the Immortals. This part contains many tales of gods
and heroes old, whose adventures had been sung by Skalds, of high
renown and lofty genius.
Though both the Eddas were compiled by Christians, there appears to be
very little reason for suspecting the compilers of having falsified or
interpolated the mythology of their forefathers. Sæmund's Edda may be
regarded as an Anthology of ancient Scandinavian poetry; and the
author of the prose Edda (who it is plain did not always understand
the true meaning of the tales he related) wrote it as a northern
Pantheon and Gradus ad Parnassum, to supply poets with incidents,
ornaments, and epithets. Fortunately they did so, or impenetrable
darkness had involved the ancient religion of the Gothic stock!
Beside the Eddas, much information is to be derived from the various
Sagas or northern histories. These Sagas, at times transmitting true
historical events, at other times containing the wildest fictions of
romance, preserve much valuable mythic lore, and the Ynglinga,
Volsunga, Hervarar, and other Sagas, will furnish many important
traits of northern mythology.
It is not intended here to attempt sounding the depths of Eddaic
mythology, a subject so obscure, and concerning which so many and
various opinions occur in the works of those who have occupied
themselves with it. Suffice it to observe that it goes back to the
most remote ages, and that two essential parts of it are the Alfar
(_Alfs_ or _Elves_) and the Duergar (_Dwarfs_), two classes of beings
whose names continue to the present day in all the languages of the
nations descended from the Gotho-German race.
"Our heathen forefathers," says Thorlacius,[96] "believed, like the
Pythagoreans, and the farther back in antiquity the more firmly, that
the whole world was filled with spirits of various kinds, to whom they
ascribed in general the same nature and properties as the Greeks did
to their Dæmons. These were divided into the Celestial and the
Terrestrial, from their places of abode. The former were, according
to the ideas of those times, of a good and elevated nature, and of a
friendly disposition toward men, whence they also received the name of
White or Light Alfs or Spirits. The latter, on the contrary, who were
classified after their abodes in air, sea, and earth, were not
regarded in so favourable a light. It was believed that they,
particularly the _land ones_, the δαιμονες επιχθονιοι of the Greeks,
constantly and on all occasions sought to torment or injure mankind,
and that they had their dwelling partly on the earth in great thick
woods, whence came the name Skovtrolde[97] (_Wood Trolls_), or in
other desert and lonely places, partly in and under the ground, or in
rocks and hills; these last were called Bjerg-Trolde (_Hill Trolls_):
to the first, on account of their different nature, was given the name
of Dverge (_Dwarfs_), and Alve, whence the word Ellefolk, which is
still in the Danish language. These Dæmons, particularly the
underground ones, were called Svartálfar, that is Black Spirits, and
inasmuch as they did mischief, Trolls."
This very nearly coincides with what is to be found in the Edda,
except that there would appear to be some foundation for a distinction
between the Dwarfs and the Dark Alfs.[98]
THE ALFAR.
Ther ro meth Alfum.
BRYNHILDAR QUIDA.
Those are with the Alfs.
In the prose Edda, Ganglar inquires what other cities beside that in
which the Nornir dwelt were by the Urdar fount, under the Ash
Yggdrasil.[99] Hár replies,
"There are many fair cities there. There is the city which is called
Alf-heim, where dwelleth the people that is called Liosálfar (_Light
Alfs_). But the Döckálfar (_Dark Alfs_) dwell below under ground, and
are unlike them in appearance, and still more unlike in actions. The
Liosálfar are whiter than the sun in appearance, but the Döckálfar are
blacker than pitch."[100]
The Nornir, the Parcæ, or Destinies of Scandinavian mythology, are
closely connected with the Alfar.
"Many fair cities are there in Heaven," says Hár, "and the divine
protection is over all. There standeth a city under the ash near the
spring, and out of its halls came three maids, who are thus named,
Udr, Verthandi, Skulld (_Past_, _Present_, _Future_). These maids
shape the life of man. We call them Nornir. But there are many Nornir;
those who come to each child that is born, to shape its life, are of
the race of the gods; but others are of the race of the Alfs; and the
third of the race of dwarfs. As is here expressed,
Sundry children deem I
The Nornir to be--the same
Race they have not.
Some are of Æser-kin,
Some are of Alf-kin,
Some are the daughters of Dualin." (_i.e._ of the Dwarfs.)
"Then," said Ganglar, "if the Nornir direct the future destiny of men,
they shape it very unequally. Some have a good life and rich, but some
have little wealth and praise, some long life, some short." "The good
Nornir, and well descended," says Hár, "shape a good life; but as to
those who meet with misfortune, it is caused by the malignant Nornir."
These Nornir bear a remarkable resemblance to the classical Parcæ and
to the fairies of romance. They are all alike represented as assisting
at the birth of eminent personages, as bestowing gifts either good or
evil, and as foretelling the future fortune of the being that has just
entered on existence.[101] This attribute of the fairies may have been
derived from either the north or the south, but certainly these did
not borrow from each other.
Of the origin of the word Alf nothing satisfactory is to be found.
Some think it is akin to the Latin _albus_, white; others, to _alpes_,
Alps, mountains. There is also supposed to be some mysterious
connexion between it and the word Elf, or Elv, signifying water in the
northern languages; an analogy which has been thought to correspond
with that between the Latin Nympha and Lympha. Both relations,
however, are perhaps rather fanciful than just. Of the derivation of
Alf, as just observed, we know nothing certain,[102] and the original
meaning of Nympha would appear to be a new-married woman,[103] and
thence a marriageable young woman; and it was applied to the supposed
inhabitants of the mountains, seas, and streams, on the same principle
that the northern nations gave them the appellation of men and women,
that is, from their imagined resemblance to the human form.
Whatever its origin, the word Alf has continued till the present day
in all the Teutonic languages. The Danes have _Elv_, pl. _Elve_; the
Swedes, _Elf_ pl. _Elfvar_ m. _Elfvor_ f.; and the words _Elf-dans_
and _Elf-blæst_, together with _Olof_ and other proper names, are
derived from them. The Germans call the nightmare _Alp_; and in their
old poems we meet with _Elbe_ and _Elbinne_, and _Elbisch_ occurs in
them in the bad sense of _elvish_ of Chaucer and our old romancers;
and a number of proper names, such as Alprecht, Alphart, Alpinc,
Alpwin,[104] were formed from it, undoubtedly before it got its
present ill sense.[105] In the Anglo-Saxon, [Old English: Ælf], or
[Old English: Ælfen], with its feminine and plural, frequently occurs.
The Oreas, Naias, and Hamodryas of the Greeks and Romans are rendered
in an Anglo-Saxon glossary by [Old English: Munt-ælfen], [Old English:
sǽ-ælfen], and [Old English: feld-ælfen].[106] [Old English: Ælf] is a
component part of the proper names Ælfred and Ælfric; and the author
of the poem of Judith says that his heroine was [Old English:
Ælf-seine] (_Elf-sheen_), bright or fair as an elf. But of the
character and acts of the elfs no traditions have been preserved in
Anglo-Saxon literature. In the English language, Elf, Elves, and their
derivatives are to be found in every period, from its first formation
down to this present time.
FOOTNOTES:
[90] _Edda_ signifies grandmother. Some regard it as the feminine of
_othr_, or _odr_, wisdom.
[91] This language is so called because still spoken in Iceland. Its
proper name is the Norræna Tunga (_northern tongue_). It was the
common language of the whole North.
[92] See Tales and Popular Fictions, chap. ix.
[93] It was first published by Resenius in 1665.
[94] By the Æser are understood the Asiatics, who with Odin brought
their arts and religion into Scandinavia. This derivation of the word,
however, is rather dubious. Though possibly the population and
religion of Scandinavia came originally from Asia there seems to be no
reason whatever for putting any faith in the legend of Odin. It is not
unlikely that the name of their gods, Æser, gave birth to the whole
theory. It is remarkable that the ancient Etrurians also should have
called the gods Æsar.
[95] So the lötunn or Giant Vafthrudnir to Odin in the
Vafthrudnismal.--Strophe vii.
[96] Thorlacius, Noget om Thor og hans Hammer, in the Skandinavisk
Museum for 1803.
[97] Thorlacius, _ut supra_, says the thundering Thor was regarded as
particularly inimical to the Skovtrolds, against whom he continually
employed his mighty weapon. He thinks that the _Bidental_ of the
Romans, and the rites connected with it, seem to suppose a similar
superstition, and that in the well-known passage of Horace,
Tu parum castis inimica mittes
Fulmina lucis,
the words _parum castis lucis_ may mean groves or parts of woods, the
haunt of unclean spirits or Skovtrolds, _satyri lascivi et salaces_.
The word _Trold_ will be explained below.
[98] The Dark Alfs were probably different from the Duergar, yet the
language of the prose Edda is in some places such as to lead to a
confusion of them. The following passage, however, seems to be decisive:
Náir, Dvergar
_Ok_ Döck-A'lfar.
Hrafna-Galdr Othins, xxiv. 7.
Ghosts, Dwarfs
_And_ Dark Alfs.
Yet the Scandinavian literati appear unanimous in regarding them as
the same. Grimm, however, agrees with us in viewing the Döck-Alfar as
distinct from the Duergar. As the abode of these last is named
Svartálfaheimr, he thinks that the Svartálfar and the Duergar were the
same.--Deutsche Mythologie, p. 413, _seq._ See below, _Isle of Rügen_.
[99] The ash-tree, Yggdrasil, is the symbol of the universe, the
Urdar-fount is the fount of light and heat, which invigorates and
sustains it. A good representation of this myth is given in Mr. Bohn's
edition of Mallet's "Northern Antiquities," which the reader is
recommended to consult.
[100] This Grimm (_ut sup._) regards as an error of the writer, who
confounded the _Döck_ and the _Svartálfar_.
[101] See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 274.
[102] The analogy of Deev, and other words of like import, might lead
to the supposition of Spirit being the primary meaning of Alf.
[103] See Mythology of Greece and Italy, p. 248, second edition.
[104] After the introduction of Christianity, _Engel_, angel, was
employed for _Alp_ in most proper names, as Engelrich, Engelhart, etc.
[105] See MM. Grimm's learned Introduction to their translation of the
Irish Fairy Legends, and the Deutsche Mythologie of J. Grimm.
[106] MM. Grimm suppose with a good deal of probability, that these
are compounds formed to render the Greek ones, and are not expressive
of a belief in analogous classes of spirits.
THE DUERGAR.
By ek fur jörth nethan,
A ek, undir stein, stath.
ALVIS-MAL.
I dwell the earth beneath,
I possess, under the stone, my seat.
These diminutive beings, dwelling in rocks and hills, and
distinguished for their skill in metallurgy, seem to be peculiar to
the Gotho-German mythology.[107] Perhaps the most probable account of
them is, that they are personifications of the subterraneous powers
of nature; for it may be again observed, that all the parts of every
ancient mythology are but personified powers, attributes, and moral
qualities. The Edda thus describes their origin:--
"Then the gods sat on their seats, and held a council, and called to
mind how the Duergar had become animated in the clay below in the
earth, like maggots in flesh. The Duergar had been first created, and
had taken life in Ymir's[108] flesh, and were maggots in it, and by
the will of the gods they became partakers of human knowledge, and had
the likeness of men, and yet they abode in the ground and in stones.
Modsogner was the first of them, and then Dyrin."
The Duergar are described as being of low stature, with short legs and
long arms, reaching almost down to the ground when they stand
erect.[109] They are skilful and expert workmen in gold, silver, iron,
and the other metals. They form many wonderful and extraordinary
things for the Æser, and for mortal heroes, and the arms and armour
that come from their forges are not to be paralleled. Yet the gift
must be spontaneously bestowed, for misfortune attends those extorted
from them by violence.[110]
In illustration of their character we bring forward the following
narratives from the Edda and Sagas. The homely garb in which they are
habited, will not, it is hoped, be displeasing to readers of taste. We
give as exact a copy as we are able of the originals in all their
rudeness. The tales are old, their date unknown, and they therefore
demand respect. Yet it is difficult to suppress a smile at finding such
familiar, nay almost vulgar terms[111] applied to the great supernal
powers of nature, as occur in the following tale from the Edda.
_Loki and the Dwarf._
Loki, the son of Laufeiar, had out of mischief cut off all the hair of
Sif. When Thor found this out he seized Loki, and would have broken
every bone in his body, only that he swore to get the Suartalfar to
make for Sif hair of gold, which would grow like any other hair.
Loki then went to the Dwarfs that are called the sons of Ivallda. They
first made the hair, which as soon as it was put on the head grew like
natural hair; then the ship Skidbladni,[112] which always had the wind
with it, wherever it would sail; and, thirdly, the spear Gugner, which
always hit in battle.
Then Loki laid his head against the dwarf Brock, that his brother
Eitri could not forge three such valuable things as these were. They
went to the forge; Eitri set the swine-skin (bellows) to the fire, and
bid his brother Brock to blow, and not to quit the fire till he should
have taken out the things he had put into it.
And when he was gone out of the forge, and that Brock was blowing,
there came a fly and settled upon his hand, and bit him; but he blew
without stopping till the smith took the work out of the fire; and it
was a boar, and its bristles were of gold.
He then put gold into the fire, and bid him not to stop blowing till
he came back. He went away, and then the fly came and settled on his
neck, and bit him more severely than before; but he blew on till the
smith came back and took out of the fire the gold-ring which is called
Drupner.[113]
Then he put iron into the fire, and bid him blow, and said that if he
stopped blowing all the work would be lost. The fly now settled between
his eyes, and bit so hard that the blood ran into his eyes, so that he
could not see; so when the bellows were down he caught at the fly in all
haste, and tore off its wings; but then came the smith, and said that
all that was in the fire had nearly been spoiled. He then took out of
the fire the hammer Miölner,[114] gave all the things to his brother
Brock, and bade him go with them to Asgard and settle the wager.
Loki also produced his jewels, and they took Odin, Thor, and Frey, for
judges. Then Loki gave to Odin the spear Gugner, and to Thor the hair
that Sif was to have, and to Frey Skidbladni, and told their virtues
as they have been already related. Brock took out his jewels, and gave
to Odin the ring, and said that every ninth night there would drop
from it eight other rings as valuable as itself. To Frey he gave the
boar, and said that he would run through air and water, by night and
by day, better than any horse, and that never was there night so dark
that the way by which he went would not be light from his hide. He
gave the hammer to Thor, and said that it would never fail to hit a
Troll, and that at whatever he threw it it would never miss it; and
that he could never fling it so far that it would not of itself return
to his hand; and when he chose, it would become so small that he might
put it into his pocket. But the fault of the hammer was that its
handle was too short.
Their judgment was, that the hammer was the best, and that the Dwarf had
won the wager. Then Loki prayed hard not to lose his head, but the Dwarf
said that could not be. "Catch me then," said Loki; and when he went to
catch him he was far away, for Loki had shoes with which he could run
through air and water. Then the Dwarf prayed Thor to catch him, and Thor
did so. The Dwarf now went to cut off his head, but Loki said he was to
have the head only, and not the neck. Then the Dwarf took a knife and a
thong, and went to sew up his mouth; but the knife was bad, so the Dwarf
wished that his brother's awl were there; and as soon as he wished it it
was there, and he sewed his lips together.[115]
Northern mythologists thus explain this very ancient fable. Sif is
the earth, and the wife of Thor, the heaven or atmosphere; her hair is
the trees, bushes, and plants, that adorn the surface of the earth.
Loki is the Fire-God, that delights in mischief, _bene servit_, _male
imperat_. When by immoderate heat he has burned off the hair of Sif,
her husband compels him so by temperate heat to warm the moisture of
the earth, that its former products may spring up more beautiful than
ever. The boar is given to Freyr, to whom and his sister Freya, as the
gods of animal and vegetable fecundity, the northern people offered
that animal, as the Italian people did, to the earth. Loki's bringing
the gifts from the under-ground people seems to indicate a belief that
metals were prepared by subterranean fire, and perhaps the forging of
Thor's hammer, the mythic emblem of thunder, by a terrestrial demon,
on a subterranean anvil, may suggest that the natural cause of thunder
is to be sought in the earth.
_Thorston and the Dwarf._
When spring came, Thorston made ready his ship, and put twenty-four
men on board of her. When they came to Vinland, they ran her into a
harbour, and every day he went on shore to amuse himself.
He came one day to an open part of the wood, where he saw a great
rock, and out a little way from it a Dwarf, who was horridly ugly, and
was looking up over his head with his mouth wide open; and it appeared
to Thorston that it ran from ear to ear, and that the lower jaw came
down to his knees. Thorston asked him, why he was acting so foolishly.
"Do not be surprised, my good lad," replied the Dwarf; "do you not see
that great dragon that is flying up there? He has taken off my son,
and I believe that it is Odin himself that has sent the monster to do
it. But I shall burst and die if I lose my son." Then Thorston shot at
the dragon, and hit him under one of the wings, so that he fell dead
to the earth; but Thorston caught the Dwarf's child in the air, and
brought him to his father.
The Dwarf was exceeding glad, and was more rejoiced than any one could
tell; and he said, "A great benefit have I to reward you for, who are
the deliverer of my son; and now choose your recompense in gold and
silver." "Cure your son," said Thorston, "but I am not used to take
rewards for my services." "It were not becoming," said the Dwarf, "if
I did not reward you; and let not my shirt of sheeps'-wool, which I
will give you, appear a contemptible gift, for you will never be tired
when swimming, or get a wound, if you wear it next your skin."
Thorston took the shirt and put it on, and it fitted him well, though it
had appeared too short for the Dwarf. The Dwarf now took a gold ring out
of his purse and gave it to Thorston, and bid him to take good care of
it, telling him that he never should want for money while he kept that
ring. He next took a black stone and gave it to Thorston, and said, "If
you hide this stone in the palm of your hand no one will see you. I have
not many more things to offer you, or that would be of any value to you;
I will, however, give you a fire-stone for your amusement."
He then took the stone out of his purse, and with a steel point. The
stone was triangular, white on one side and red on the other, and a
yellow border ran round it. The Dwarf then said, "If you prick the
stone with the point in the white side, there will come on such a
hail-storm that no one will be able to look at it; but if you want to
stop this shower, you have only to prick on the yellow part, and there
will come so much sunshine that the whole will melt away. But if you
should like to prick the red side, then there will come out of it such
fire, with sparks and crackling, that no one will be able to look at
it. You may also get whatever you will by means of this point and
stone, and they will come of themselves back to your hand when you
call them. I can now give you no more such gifts."
Thorston then thanked the Dwarf for his presents, and returned to his
men, and it was better for him to have made this voyage than to have
stayed at home.[116]
_The Dwarf-Sword Tirfing._
Suaforlami, the second in descent from Odin, was king over Gardarike
(Russia). One day he rode a-hunting, and sought long after a hart, but
could not find one the whole day. When the sun was setting he found
himself immersed so deep in the forest that he knew not where he was.
There lay a hill on his right hand, and before it he saw two Dwarfs;
he drew his sword against them, and cut off their retreat by getting
between them and the rock. They proffered him ransom for their lives,
and he asked them then their names, and one of them was called Dyren,
and the other Dualin. He knew then that they were the most ingenious
and expert of all the Dwarfs, and he therefore imposed on them that
they should forge him a sword, the best that they could form; its hilt
should be of gold, and its belt of the same metal. He moreover
enjoined, that the sword should never miss a blow, and should never
rust; and should cut through iron and stone, as through a garment; and
should be always victorious in war and in single combat for him who
bare it. These were the conditions on which he gave them their lives.
On the appointed day he returned, and the Dwarfs came forth and
delivered him the sword; and when Dualin stood in the door he said,
"This sword shall be the bane of a man every time it is drawn; and
with it shall be done three of the greatest atrocities. It shall also
be thy bane." Then Suaforlami struck at the Dwarf so, that the blade
of the sword penetrated into the solid rock. Thus Suaforlami became
possessed of this sword, and he called it Tirfing, and he bare it in
war and in single combat, and he slew with it the Giant Thiasse, and
took his daughter Fridur.
Suaforlami was shortly after slain by the Berserker[117] Andgrim, who
then became master of the sword. When the twelve sons of Andgrim were
to fight with Hialmar and Oddur for Ingaborg, the beautiful daughter
of King Inges, Angantyr bore the dangerous Tirfing; but all the
brethren were slain in the combat, and were buried with their arms.
Angantyr left an only daughter, Hervor, who, when she grew up, dressed
herself in man's attire, and took the name of Hervardar, and joined a
party of Vikinger, or Pirates. Knowing that Tirfing lay buried with
her father, she determined to awaken the dead, and obtain the charmed
blade; and perhaps nothing in northern poetry equals in interest and
sublimity the description of her landing alone in the evening on the
island of Sams, where her father and uncles lay in their sepulchral
mounds, and at night ascending to the tombs, that were enveloped in
flame,[118] and by force of entreaty obtaining from the reluctant
Angantyr the formidable Tirfing.
Hervor proceeded to the court of King Gudmund, and there one day, as
she was playing at tables with the king, one of the servants chanced
to take up and draw Tirfing, which shone like a sunbeam. But Tirfing
was never to see the light but for the bane of man, and Hervor, by a
sudden impulse, sprang from her seat, snatched the sword and struck
off the head of the unfortunate man. Hervor, after this, returned to
the house of her grandfather, Jarl Biartmar, where she resumed her
female attire, and was married to Haufud, the son of King Gudmund. She
bare him two sons, Angantyr and Heidreker; the former of a mild and
gentle disposition, the latter violent and fierce. Haufud would not
permit Heidreker to remain at his court; and as he was departing, his
mother, with other gifts, presented him Tirfing. His brother
accompanied him out of the castle. Before they parted, Heidreker drew
out his sword to look at and admire it; but scarcely did the rays of
light fall on the magic blade, when the Berserker rage came on its
owner, and he slew his gentle brother.
After this he joined a body of Vikinger, and became so distinguished,
that King Harold, for the aid he lent him, gave him his daughter Helga
in marriage. But it was the destiny of Tirfing to commit crime, and
Harold fell by the hand of his son-in-law. Heidreker was afterwards in
Russia, and the son of the king was his foster-son. One day, as they
were out hunting, Heidreker and his foster-son happened to be separated
from the rest of the party, when a wild boar appeared before them;
Heidreker ran at him with his spear, but the beast caught it in his
mouth and broke it across. He then alighted and drew Tirfing, and killed
the boar; but on looking around, he could see no one but his foster-son,
and Tirfing could only be appeased with warm human blood, and he slew
the unfortunate youth. Finally, King Heidreker was murdered in his bed
by his Scottish slaves, who carried off Tirfing; but his son Angantyr,
who succeeded him, discovered and put them to death, and recovered the
magic blade. In battle against the Huns he afterwards made great
slaughter; but among the slain was found his own brother Laudur. And so
ends the history of the Dwarf-sword Tirfing.[119]
* * * * *
Like Alf, the word Duergr has retained its place in the Teutonic
languages. Dverg[120] is the term still used in the north; the Germans
have Zwerg, and we Dwarf,[121] which, however, is never synonymous
with Fairy, as Elf is. Ihre rejects all the etymons proposed for it,
such, for example, as that of Gudmund Andreæ, θεοι εργον; and with
abundant reason.
Some have thought that by the Dwarfs were to be understood the Finns,
the original inhabitants of the country, who were driven to the
mountains by the Scandinavians, and who probably excelled the
new-comers in the art of working their mines and manufacturing their
produce. Thorlacius, on the contrary, thinks that it was Odin and his
followers, who came from the country of the Chalybes, that brought the
metallurgic arts into Scandinavia.
Perhaps the simplest account of the origin of the Dwarfs is, that
when, in the spirit of all ancient religions, the subterranean powers
of nature were to be personified, the authors of the system, from
observing that people of small stature usually excel in craft and
ingenuity, took occasion to represent the beings who formed crystals
and purified metals within the bowels of the earth as of diminutive
size, which also corresponded better with the power assigned them of
slipping through the fissures and interstices of rocks and stones.
Similar observations led to the representation of the wild and awful
powers of brute nature under the form of huge giants.
FOOTNOTES:
[107] Some think, but with little reason, they were originally a part
of the Finnish mythology, and were adopted into the Gothic system.
[108] The giant Ymir is a personification of Chaos, the undigested
primal matter. The sons of Börr (other personifications) slew him. Out
of him they formed the world; his blood made the sea, his flesh the
land, his bones the mountains; rocks and cliffs were his teeth, jaws,
and broken pieces of bones; his skull formed the heavens.
[109] Gudmund Andreas in notis ad Völuspá.
[110] That they are not insensible to kindness one of the succeeding
tales will show.
[111] The habitual reader of the northern and German writers, or even
our old English ones, will observe with surprise his gradually
diminished contempt for many expressions now become vulgar. He will
find himself imperceptibly falling into the habit of regarding them in
the light of their pristine dignity.
[112] Skidbladni, like Pari Banou's tent, could expand and contract as
required. It would carry all the Æser and their arms, and when not in
use it could be taken asunder and put in a purse. "A good ship," says
Ganglar, "is Skidbladni, but great art must have been employed in
making it." Mythologists say it is the clouds.
[113] _i. e._ The _Dripper_.
[114] _i. e._ The _Bruiser_ or _Crusher_, from _Myla_, to bruise or
crush. Little the Fancy know of the high connexions of their phrase
_Mill_.
[115] Edda Resenii, Dæmisaga 59.
[116] Thorston's Saga, c. 3, in the Kämpa Dater.
[117] The Berserkers were warriors who used to be inflamed with such
rage and fury at the thoughts of combats as to bite their shields, run
through fire, swallow burning coals, and perform such like mad feats.
"Whether the avidity for fighting or the ferocity of their nature,"
says Saxo, "brought this madness on them, is uncertain."
[118] The northern nations believed that the tombs of their heroes
emitted a kind of lambent flame, which was always visible in the
night, and served to guard the ashes of the dead; they called it
_Hauga Elldr_, or The Sepulchral Fire. It was supposed more
particularly to surround such tombs as contained hidden
treasures.--_Bartholin, de Contempt. a Dan. Morte_, p. 275.
[119] Hervarar Saga _passim_. The Tirfing Saga would be its more
proper appellation. In poetic and romantic interest it exceeds all the
northern Sagas.
[120] In Swedish Dverg also signifies a spider.
[121] In the old Swedish metrical history of Alexander, the word
_Duerf_ occurs. The progress in the English word is as follows:
Anglo-Saxon [Old English: dþeorg]; thence _dwerke_;
A maid that is a messingere
And a _dwerkè_ me brought here,
Her to do socoúr.
_Lybeaus Disconus._
lastly, _dwarf_, as in old Swedish.
SCANDINAVIA.
De vare syv og hundrede Trolde,
De vare baade grumme og lede,
De vilde gjöre Bonden et Gjæsterie,
Med hannem baade drikke og æde.
ELINE AF VILLENSZOV.
There were seven and a hundred Trolls,
They were both ugly and grim,
A visit they would the farmer make,
Both eat and drink with him.
Under the name of Scandinavia are included the kingdoms of Sweden,
Denmark, and Norway, which once had a common religion and a common
language. Their religion is still one, and their languages differ but
little; we therefore feel that we may safely treat of their Fairy
Mythology together.
Our principal authorities are the collection of Danish popular
traditions, published by Mr. Thiele,[122] the select Danish ballads of
Nyerup and Rahbek,[123] and the Swedish ballads of Geijer and
Afzelius.[124] As most of the principal Danish ballads treating of
Elves, etc., have been already translated by Dr. Jamieson, we will not
insert them here; but translate, instead, the corresponding Swedish
ones, which are in general of greater simplicity, and often contain
additional traits of popular belief. As we prefer fidelity to polish,
the reader must not be offended at antique modes of expression and
imperfect rimes. Our rimes we can, however, safely say shall be at
least as perfect as those of our originals.
These ballads, none of which are later than the fifteenth century,
are written in a strain of the most artless simplicity; not the
slightest attempt at ornament is to be discerned in them; the same
ideas and expressions continually recur; and the rimes are the most
careless imaginable, often a mere _assonnance_ in vowels or
consonants; sometimes not possessing even that slight similarity of
sound. Every Visa or ballad has its single or double Omquæd[125] or
burden, which, like a running accompaniment in music, frequently falls
in with the most happy effect; sometimes recalling former joys or
sorrows; sometimes, by the continual mention of some attribute of one
of the seasons, especially the summer, keeping up in the mind of the
reader or hearers the forms of external nature.
It is singular to observe the strong resemblance between the
Scandinavian ballads and those of England and Scotland, not merely in
manner but in subject. The Scottish ballad first mentioned below is an
instance; it is to be met with in England, in the Feroes, in Denmark,
and in Sweden, with very slight differences. Geijer observes, that the
two last stanzas of 'William and Margaret,' in Percy's Reliques, are
nearly word for word the same as the two last in the Swedish ballad of
'Rosa Lilla,'[126] and in the corresponding Danish one. This might
perhaps lead to the supposition of many of these ballads having come
down from the time when the connexion was so intimate between this
country and Scandinavia.
We will divide the Scandinavian objects of popular belief into four
classes:--1. The Elves; 2. The Dwarfs, or Trolls, as they are usually
called; 3. The Nisses; and 4. The Necks, Mermen, and Mermaids.[127]
FOOTNOTES:
[122] Danske Folkesagn, 4 vols. 12mo. Copenh. 1818-22.
[123] Udvalgde Danske Viser fra Middelaldaren, 5 vols. 12mo. Copenh.
1812.
[124] Svenska Folk-Visor från Forntiden, 3 vols. 8vo. Stockholm,
1814-16. We have not seen the late collection of Arvidsson named
Svenska Fornsånger, in 3 vols. 8vo.
[125] The reader will find a beautiful instance of a double Omquæd in
the Scottish ballad of the Cruel Sister.
There were two sisters sat in a bower,
_Binnōrie o Binnōrie_
There came a knight to be their wooer
_By the bonny mill-dams of Binnōrie._
And in the Cruel Brother,
There were three ladies played at the ba',
_With a heigh ho and a lily gay_;
There came a knight and played o'er them a',
_As the primrose spreads so sweetly_.
The second and fourth lines are repeated in every stanza.
[126] These are the Swedish verses:
Det växte upp _Liljor_ på begge deres graf,
_Med äran och med dygd_--
De växte tilsamman med alla sina blad.
_J vinnen väl, J vinnen väl både rosor och liljor._
Det växte upp _Rosor_ ur båda deras mun,
_Med äran och med dygd_--
De växte tilsammans i fagreste lund.
_J vinnen väl, J vinnen väl både rosor och liljor._
[127] Some readers may wish to know the proper mode of pronouncing such
Danish and Swedish words as occur in the following legends. For their
satisfaction we give the following information. J is pronounced as our
_y_; when it comes between a consonant and a vowel, it is very short,
like the y that is expressed, but not written, in many English words
after _c_ and _g_: thus _kjær_ is pronounced very nearly as _care_: _ö_
sounds like the German _ö_, or French _eu_: _d_ after another consonant
is rarely sounded, Trold is pronounced Troll: _aa_, which the Swedes
write _å_, as o in _more_, _tore_. Aarhuus is pronounced _Ore-hoos_.
ELVES.
Säg, kännar du Elfvornas glada slägt?
De bygga ved flodernas rand;
De spinna af månsken sin högtidsdrägt,
Med liljehvit spelande hand.
STAGNELIUS.
Say, knowest thou the Elves' gay and joyous race?
The banks of streams are their home;
They spin of the moonshine their holiday-dress,
With their lily-white hands frolicsome.
The Alfar still live in the memory and traditions of the peasantry of
Scandinavia. They also, to a certain extent, retain their distinction
into White and Black. The former, or the Good Elves, dwell in the air,
dance on the grass, or sit in the leaves of trees; the latter, or Evil
Elves, are regarded as an underground people, who frequently inflict
sickness or injury on mankind; for which there is a particular kind of
doctors called _Kloka män_,[128] to be met with in all parts of the
country.
The Elves are believed to have their kings, and to celebrate their
weddings and banquets, just the same as the dwellers above ground. There
is an interesting intermediate class of them in popular tradition called
the Hill-people (_Högfolk_), who are believed to dwell in caves and
small hills: when they show themselves they have a handsome human form.
The common people seem to connect with them a deep feeling of
melancholy, as if bewailing a half-quenched hope of redemption.[129]
There are only a few old persons now who can tell any thing more about
them than of the sweet singing that may occasionally on summer nights
be heard out of their hills, when one stands still and listens, or, as
it is expressed in the ballads, "lays his ear to the Elve-hill"
(_lägger sitt öra till Elfvehögg_): but no one must be so cruel as, by
the slightest word, to destroy their hopes of salvation, for then the
spritely music will be turned into weeping and lamentation.[130]
The Norwegians call the Elves Huldrafolk, and their music Huldraslaat:
it is in the minor key, and of a dull and mournful sound. The
mountaineers sometimes play it, and pretend they have learned it by
listening to the underground people among the hills and rocks. There
is also a tune called the Elf-king's tune, which several of the good
fiddlers know right well, but never venture to play, for as soon as it
begins both old and young, and even inanimate objects, are impelled to
dance, and the player cannot stop unless he can play the air
backwards, or that some one comes behind him and cuts the strings of
his fiddle.[131]
The little underground Elves, who are believed to dwell under the
houses of mankind, are described as sportive and mischievous, and as
imitating all the actions of men. They are said to love cleanliness
about the house and place, and to reward such servants as are neat and
cleanly.
There was one time, it is said, a servant girl, who was for her cleanly,
tidy habits, greatly beloved by the Elves, particularly as she was
careful to carry away all dirt and foul water to a distance from the
house, and they once invited her to a wedding. Every thing was conducted
in the greatest order, and they made her a present of some chips, which
she took good-humouredly and put into her pocket. But when the
bride-pair was coming there was a straw unluckily lying in the way, the
bridegroom got cleverly over it, but the poor bride fell on her face. At
the sight of this the girl could not restrain herself, but burst out
a-laughing, and that instant the whole vanished from her sight. Next
day, to her utter amazement, she found that what she had taken to be
nothing but chips, were so many pieces of pure gold.[132]
A dairy-maid at a place called Skibshuset (_the Ship-house_), in Odense,
was not so fortunate. A colony of Elves had taken up their abode under
the floor of the cowhouse, or it is more likely, were there before it
was made a cowhouse. However, the dirt and filth that the cattle made
annoyed them beyond measure, and they gave the dairy-maid to understand
that if she did not remove the cows, she would have reason to repent it.
She gave little heed to their representations; and it was not very long
till they set her up on top of the hay-rick, and killed all the cows. It
is said that they were seen on the same night removing in a great hurry
from the cowhouse down to the meadow, and that they went in little
coaches; and their king was in the first coach, which was far more
stately and magnificent than the rest. They have ever since lived in the
meadow.[133]
The Elves are extremely fond of dancing in the meadows, where they form
those circles of a livelier green which from them are called Elf-dance
(_Elfdans_). When the country people see in the morning stripes along
the dewy grass in the woods and meadows, they say the Elves have been
dancing there. If any one should at midnight get within their circle,
they become visible to him, and they may then illude him. It is not
every one that can see the Elves; and one person may see them dancing
while another perceives nothing. Sunday children, as they are called,
_i. e._ those born on Sunday, are remarkable for possessing this
property of seeing Elves and similar beings. The Elves, however, have
the power to bestow this gift on whomsoever they please. People also
used to speak of Elf-books which they gave to those whom they loved, and
which enabled them to foretell future events.
The Elves often sit in little stones that are of a circular form, and
are called Elf-mills (_Elf-quärnor_); the sound of their voice is said
to be sweet and soft like the air.[134]
The Danish peasantry give the following account of their Ellefolk or
Elve-people.
The Elle-people live in the Elle-moors. The appearance of the man is
that of an old man with a low-crowned hat on his head; the Elle-woman
is young and of a fair and attractive countenance, but behind she is
hollow like a dough-trough. Young men should be especially on their
guard against her, for it is very difficult to resist her; and she
has, moreover, a stringed instrument, which, when she plays on it,
quite ravishes their hearts. The man may be often seen near the
Elle-moors, bathing himself in the sunbeams, but if any one comes too
near him, he opens his mouth wide and breathes upon them, and his
breath produces sickness and pestilence. But the women are most
frequently to be seen by moonshine; then they dance their rounds in
the high grass so lightly and so gracefully, that they seldom meet a
denial when they offer their hand to a rash young man. It is also
necessary to watch cattle, that they may not graze in any place where
the Elle-people have been; for if any animal come to a place where
the Elle-people have spit, or done what is worse, it is attacked by
some grievous disease which can only be cured by giving it to eat a
handful of St. John's wort, which had been pulled at twelve o'clock on
St. John's night. It might also happen that they might sustain some
injury by mixing with the Elle-people's cattle, which are very large,
and of a blue colour, and which may sometimes be seen in the fields
licking up the dew, on which they live. But the farmer has an easy
remedy against this evil; for he has only to go to the Elle-hill when
he is turning out his cattle and to say, "Thou little Troll! may I
graze my cows on thy hill?" And if he is not prohibited, he may set
his mind at rest.[135]
The following ballads and tales will fully justify what has been said
respecting the tone of melancholy connected with the subject of the
Elves.[136]
_Sir Olof in the Elve-Dance._
Sir Olof he rode out at early day,
And so came he unto an Elve-dance gay.
The dance it goes well,
So well in the grove.
The Elve-father reached out his white hand free,
"Come, come, Sir Olof, tread the dance with me."
The dance it goes well,
So well in the grove.
"O nought I will, and nought I may,
To-morrow will be my wedding-day."
The dance it goes well,
So well in the grove.
And the Elve-mother reached out her white hand free,
"Come, come, Sir Olof, tread the dance with me."
The dance it goes well,
So well in the grove.
"O nought I will, and nought I may,
To-morrow will be my wedding-day."
The dance it goes well,
So well in the grove.
And the Elve-sister reached out her white hand free,
"Come, come, Sir Olof, tread the dance with me."
The dance it goes well,
So well in the grove.
"O nought I will, and nought I may,
To-morrow will be my wedding-day."
The dance it goes well,
So well in the grove.
And the bride she spake with her bride-maids so,
"What may it mean that the bells thus go?"
The dance it goes well,
So well in the grove.
"'Tis the custom of this our isle," they replied;
"Each young swain ringeth home his bride."
The dance it goes well,
So well in the grove.
"And the truth from you to conceal I fear,
Sir Olof is dead, and lies on his bier."
The dance it goes well,
So well in the grove.
And on the morrow, ere light was the day,
In Sir Olof's house three corpses lay.
The dance it goes well,
So well in the grove.
It was Sir Olof, his bonny bride,
And eke his mother, of sorrow she died.
The dance it goes well,
So well in the grove.[137]
_The Elf-woman and Sir Olof._
Sir Olof rideth out ere dawn,
Breaketh day, falleth rime;
Bright day him came on.
Sir Olof cometh home,
When the wood it is leaf-green.
Sir Olof rides by Borgya,
Breaketh day, falleth rime;
Meets a dance of Elves so gay.
Sir Olof cometh home,
When the wood it is leaf-green.
There danceth Elf and Elve-maid,
Breaketh day, falleth rime;
Elve-king's daughter, with her flying hair.
Sir Olof cometh home,
When the wood it is leaf-green.
Elve-king's daughter reacheth her hand free,
Breaketh day, falleth rime;
"Come here, Sir Olof, tread the dance with me."
Sir Olof cometh home,
When the wood it is leaf-green.
"Nought I tread the dance with thee,"
Breaketh day, falleth rime;
"My bride hath that forbidden me."
Sir Olof cometh home,
When the wood it is leaf-green.
"Nought I will and nought I may,"
Breaketh day, falleth rime;
"To-morrow is my wedding-day."
Sir Olof cometh home,
When the wood it is leaf-green.
"Wilt thou not tread the dance with me?"
Breaketh day, falleth rime;
"An evil shall I fix on thee."
Sir Olof cometh home,
When the wood it is leaf-green.
Sir Olof turned his horse therefrom,
Breaketh day, falleth rime;
Sickness and plague follow him home.
Sir Olof cometh home,
When the wood it is leaf-green.
Sir Olof to his mother's rode,
Breaketh day, falleth rime;
Out before him his mother stood.
Sir Olof cometh home,
When the wood it is leaf-green.
"Welcome, welcome, my dear son,"
Breaketh day, falleth rime;
"Why is thy rosy cheek so wan?"
Sir Olof cometh home,
When the wood it is leaf-green.
"My colt was swift and I tardy,"
Breaketh day, falleth rime;
"I knocked against a green oak-tree."
Sir Olof cometh home,
When the wood it is leaf-green.
"My dear sister, pr
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