(B.)—Contes des Fées, derived directly from the French.
We do not suppose that the tales here given are the only ones in our collection which are derived more or less directly from or through the French. Several of those previously given under different heads we believe to have been so. The question, however, still remains: Whence did Madame d’Aulnoy, Perrault, and the other writers of the charming “Contes des Fées,” derive their materials? Place their talent as high as we may, we still believe them to have been incapable of inventing them. Combine, transpose, dress up, refine—all this they did in an incomparable manner. Some portions they may have culled, directly or indirectly, from Eastern stories; their own imagination may have filled up many a blank, expanded many a hint, clothed many a half-dressed body in the habit of their own times—as heraldic painters formed grotesque monsters by selecting and putting together parts from many diverse animals; but to create, even in fancy, was beyond their line, if it is not altogether beyond the power of man. Therefore, when we hear these tales related by peasants ignorant of French, we may still ask how far they have learnt them at second or third hand from the printed works, and how far they are reciting the crude materials out of which those works were originally composed? This is a question which can only be fully answered when all the legends in all the languages and patois of France shall have been collected and compared. Meanwhile, we beg our readers to accept these few tales as a small and not very valuable stone contributed towards the erection of so vast an edifice.
Ass’-Skin.[77]
Like many others in the world, there was a king and a queen. One day there came to them a young girl who wished for a situation. They asked her her name, and she said “Faithful.”[78] The king said to her, “Are you like your name?” and she said “Yes.”
She stopped there seven years. Her master gave her all the keys, even that of the treasure. One day, when the king and queen were out, Faithful goes to the fountain, and she sees seven robbers coming out of the house. Judge what a state this poor girl was in! She runs straight to the treasury, and sees that more than half the treasure is missing. She did not know what would become of her—she was all of a tremble. When the king and queen came home she told them what had happened, but they would not believe her, and they put her in prison. She stays there a year. She kept saying that she was not in fault, but they would not believe her. The king condemns her to death, and sends her with four men to the forest to kill her, telling them to bring him her heart.
They go off, but these men thought it a pity to kill this young girl, for she was very pretty, and she told them that she was innocent of this robbery; and they say to her:
“If you will not come any more into this land, we will spare your life.”
She promises them that she will not be seen again in those parts. The men see an ass, and they tell her that they will carry its heart to the king. The young girl said to them:
“Flay this ass, I pray you; and, in order that no one may know me, I will never take this skin off me.”
The men (do so), and go off to the king, and the young girl goes to look for some shelter. At nightfall she finds a beautiful house. She asks if they want some one to keep the geese. They tell her, “Yes, yes, yes.” They put her along with the geese, and tell her that she must go with them every day to such a field. She went out very early in the morning and came back late. It was the king’s house, and it was the queen-mother and her son who lived there.
After some time there appeared to her one day an old woman, who called to her:
“Faithful, you have done penance enough. The son of the king is going to give some grand feasts, and you must go to them. This evening you will ask madame permission, and you will tell her that you will give her all the news of the ball if she will let you go for a little while. And, see, here is a nut. All the dresses and things you want will come out of that. You will break it as you go to the place of the festival.”[79]
That evening she asked permission of her mistress to go and see the festival which the king is going to give, for a short time only, and that she will return directly and tell her all that she has seen there. Her mistress said, “Yes.” That evening she goes then. On her way she breaks the nut, and there comes out of it a silver robe. She puts it on, and goes there, and immediately she enters all the world looks at her. The king is bewitched, he does not quit her for an instant, and they always dance together. He pays no attention at all to the other young ladies. They enjoy the refreshments very much. Some friends of the king call him, and he has to go there; and in this interval Faithful makes her escape to the house.
She tells the queen how that a young girl had come to the ball, how she had dazzled everybody, and especially the king, who paid attention to her alone, but that she had escaped.
When the son comes to the house, his mother says to him:
“She escaped from you then, your young lady? She did not care for you, doubtless.”
He says to his mother, “Who told you that?”
“Ass’-skin; she wished to go and see it.”
The king goes to where Faithful was and gives her two blows with his slipper, saying to her:
“If you return there again I will kill you on the spot.”
The next day Ass’-skin goes with her geese, and there appears to her again the old woman. She tells her that she ought to go to the ball again this evening—that her mistress would give her permission. “Here is a walnut; you have there all that is necessary to dress yourself with. The king will ask you your name—Braf-le-mandoufle.”[80]
In the evening she asks permission of her mistress, but she is astonished (at her asking), and says to her:
“You do not know what the king has said—that if he catches you he will kill you on the spot?”
“I am not afraid. He will be sure not to catch me.”
“Go, then.”
She goes off, and on the way she breaks the walnut, and there comes out of it a golden robe. She goes in. The king comes with a thousand compliments, and asks her how she had escaped the evening before without saying anything to him, and that he had been very much hurt at it.
They amuse themselves thoroughly. The king has eyes for her alone. He asks her her name. She tells him, “Braf-le-mandoufle.” They feast themselves well, and some friends having called to him he goes to them, and the young lady escapes.
Ass’-skin goes to tell the queen that yesterday evening’s young lady had come, but still more beautiful—that she had escaped in the very middle of the ball. She goes off to her geese. The king comes to his house. His mother says to him:
“She came then, the young lady you love? but she only loves you so-so, since she has gone off in this fashion.”
“Ass’-skin.”
He goes off to her and gives her two kicks with his slipper, and says to her:
“Woe to you if you go there again; I will kill you on the very spot.”
She goes off to her geese, and the old woman comes to her again and tells her to ask permission again for this evening—that she must go to the dance. She gives her a peach, and tells her that she will have there all that is necessary to dress herself with. She goes then to ask her mistress if she will give her permission, like last night, to go to the ball. She says to her:
“Yes, yes, I will give you leave. But are you not afraid lest the king should catch you? He has said that he will kill you if you go there.”
“I am not afraid, because I am sure that he will not catch me. Yesterday he looked for me again, but he could not catch me.”
She goes off then. On the way she opens her peach, and finds there a dress entirely of diamonds, and if she was beautiful before, judge what she is now! She shone like the sun. The king was plunged into joy when he saw her. He was in an ecstasy. He did not wish to dance, but they sat down at their ease on beautiful arm-chairs, and with their refreshments before them they passed such a long time together. The king asked her to give him her promise of marriage. The young lady gives him her word, and the king takes his diamond ring off his finger and gives it to her. His friends call him away to come quickly to see something very rare, and off he goes, leaving his lady. She takes advantage of this opportunity to escape.[81] She tells her mistress all that has passed—how that this young lady had come with a dress of diamonds, that all the world was dazzled by her beauty, that they could not even look at her she shone so brightly, that the king did not know where he was for happiness, that they had given each other their promise of marriage, and that the king had given her his diamond ring, but that the best thing of all was that to-day again she has escaped him.
The king comes in at that very instant. His mother says to him:
“She has not, she certainly has not, any wish for you. She has gone off with your diamond ring. Where will you go and look for her? You do not know where she lives. Where will you ask for a young lady who has such a name as ‘Braf-le-mandoufle!’ She has given you her promise of marriage too; but she does not wish to have you, since she has acted like that.”
Our king did not even ask his mother who has told her that. He went straight to bed thoroughly ill, and so Ass’-skin did not have her two kicks that evening.
The queen was in great trouble at seeing her son ill like that. She was continually turning over in her head who this young lady might be. She said to her son, “Is this young lady our Ass’-skin? How else could she have known that you had given your promise to one another, and that you had given her the ring too? She must have been very close to you. Did you see her?”
He says, “No,” but remains buried in thought.
His mother says, “She has a very pretty face under her ass’-skin.”
And she says that she must send for her, and that he must have a good look at her too; that he shall have some broth brought up by her.
She sends for Ass’-skin to the kitchen, has the broth made for her son, and Ass’-skin puts in the middle of the bread the ring which the king had given her. The lady had her well dressed, and she goes to the king. The king, after having seen her, was still doubtful. He drank his broth; but when he puts the bread into his mouth he finds something (hard), and is very much astonished at seeing his ring. He was ill no longer. He goes and runs to his mother to tell her his joy that he has found his lady. He wishes to marry directly, and all the kings of the neighbourhood are invited to the feast; and, while they were dining, everyone had some fine news to relate. They ask the bride, too, if she had not something to tell them. She says “Yes,” but that she cannot tell what she knows—that it would not please all at the table. Her husband tells her to speak out boldly; he draws his sword, and says,
“Whosoever shall speak a word shall be run through with this sword.”
She then tells how a poor girl was servant at a king’s house; how she remained there seven years; that they liked her very much, and treated her with confidence, even to giving her the keys of the treasure. One day, when the king and his wife were out, robbers entered, and stole almost all the treasure. The king would not believe that robbers had come. He puts the young girl in prison for a whole year, and at the end of that time he sends her to execution, telling the executioners to bring her heart to the house. The executioners were better than the king; they believed in her innocence, and, after having killed an ass, they carried its heart to the king; “and for the proof, it is I who was servant to this king.”
The bridegroom says to her, “Who can this king be? Is it my uncle?”
The lady says, “I do not know if he is your uncle, but it is that gentleman there.”
The bridegroom takes his sword and kills him on the spot, saying to his wife,
“You shall not be afraid of him any more.”
They lived very happily. Some time afterwards they had two children, a boy and a girl. When the elder was seven years old he died, telling his father and mother that he was going to Heaven to get a place there ready for them. At the end of a week the other child dies too, and she says to them that she, too, is going to Heaven, and that she will keep their place ready; that they, too, would quickly go to them. And, as she had said, at the end of a year, at exactly the very same time, both the gentleman and lady died, and they both went to Heaven.
Laurentine.
We have four other variations of the above story, written down, with others, that we heard, but did not copy out. One, which much resembles the above, excepting in the commencement, opens with the proposal of a king’s son to marry one of the three daughters of another king. This king asks his three daughters (like King Lear) how much they love him. The eldest says, “As much as I do my little finger.” That did not please him. The second says, “As much as my middle finger.” The youngest says, “As much as the bread loves the salt.” In a rage the father sends her into the forest, with two servants, to be killed. They spare her, and carry the horse’s heart to the king, and the girl lives in the forest “on the plants which the birds brought her, and on the flowers which the bees brought her.” The king’s son finds her there while hunting, takes her home, and marries her. At the wedding feast she gives her father bread without salt, and then discovers herself, and all is made right, and they live all happily, except the two sisters, who remain old maids.
Two others open like Campbell’s “The King who Wished to Marry his Daughter.” A king loses his wife, who on her deathbed makes him promise only to marry some one just like her. This is, of course, her daughter. The daughter will not, and takes counsel of her godmother. She bids her ask for a wedding dress made of the wings of flies; but this impossibility is performed. Then the daughter escapes—in the one tale in a ship, in the other on foot—and takes a place as servant. The king has a ball; the old woman appears, and gives her the nut with the dresses, etc. But in one of these tales, on the wedding-day she was more handsomely dressed than ever before, “and think! they had their dresses made for each other”—i.e., they dress each other! “I don’t understand how it is,” said the narrator, “but the story says so.”
Our fifth version is short, and, as it puts the step-mother in an unusual light, we give it entire:—
The Step-Mother and the Step-Daughter.
A father and his daughter were living together. The daughter told her father to marry again. The father said, “Why? you will be unhappy.” “It is all the same to me; I prefer to see you happy.” And after some time he marries again. This lady asked her husband to give her full power over this young girl to do what she will with her. The husband consents, and does not think any more about her; he did not even see her again. This lady says to the young girl, “If you do all I tell you, you will be the better for it.” The king lived near their house, and one day her step-mother gave her the keys of the king’s house and told her to go at such an hour of the night into the king’s bed-room, “and without waking him you will bring me back his sash.” The daughter did not like it at all, but in spite of that she goes off, and without any person seeing her, she returns home with the king’s girdle. The next day the step-mother says to her step-daughter, “You must go again, and you must bring the king’s watch chain.” While she was taking it, the king moved in his bed, and the young girl is so frightened that she runs off, and loses her shoe at the door of the king’s room. At the end of some days they hear that the king has made a proclamation that he will go from house to house with a shoe, and that she whom it fits perfectly shall be his wife. The king goes looking and looking, first of all, in the houses of the rich; but he had said that he would go into all the houses. He goes then to this gentleman’s who had married again, because it was close at hand. The persons of his suite asked him why he went there, for they were only poor people. The king will go all the same. He finds this lady, who says that they are poor, and that she is ashamed to receive the king in her bed-room; but it was there she had her step-daughter very nicely dressed, with only one shoe on her feet. She was dazzling with beauty, and the king finds her very much to his taste. They are married immediately; he takes the father and step-mother to his house, and they all live happily, and this step-daughter owed her good fortune to her step-mother.
Louise Lanusse.
There are two curious versions of these tales in Bladé’s “Contes Populaires Recueillis en Agenais” (Paris, Baer, 1874), Nos. I. and VIII. Those who wish to compare others may follow up the references there given by Reinhold Köhler, on pp. 145 and 153; also those given at pp. 44 and 47 of Brueyre’s “Contes Populaires de la Grande Bretagne” (Paris, Hachette, 1875).
Beauty and the Beast.[82]
As there are many in the world in its state now, there was a king who had three daughters. He used continually to bring handsome presents to his two elder daughters, but did not pay any attention at all to his youngest daughter, and yet she was the prettiest and most amiable.
The king kept going from fair to fair, and from feast to feast, and from everywhere he used to bring something for the two eldest daughters. One day, when he was going to a feast, he said to his youngest daughter:
“I never bring anything home for you; tell me then what you want and you shall have it.”
She said to her father: “And I do not want anything.”
“Yes, yes, I am going to bring you something.”
“Very well then, bring me a flower.”
He goes off, and is busy buying and buying; for one a hat, for the other a beautiful piece of stuff for a dress, and for the first again a shawl; and he was returning home, when in passing before a beautiful castle, he sees a garden quite full of flowers, and he says to himself:
“What! I was going home without a flower for my daughter; here I shall have plenty of them.”
He takes some then, and as soon as he has done so, a voice says to him:
“Who gave you permission to take that flower? As you have three daughters, if you do not bring me one of them before the year be finished, you shall be burnt wherever you are—you, and your whole kingdom.”
The king goes off home. He gives his elder daughters their presents, and her nosegay to the youngest. She thanks her father. After a certain time this king became sad. His eldest daughter said to him:
“What is the matter with you?”
He says to her: “If one of my daughters will not go to such a spot before the end of the year, I shall be burned.”
His eldest daughter answers him, “Be burned if you like; as for me, I shall not go. I have no wish at all to go there. Settle it with the others.”
The second also asks him, “You seem very sad, papa; what is the matter with you?”
He told her how he is bound to send one of his daughters to such a place before the end of the year, otherwise he should be burned.
This one too says to him, “Manage your own business as you like, but do not reckon upon me.”
The youngest, after some days, said to him, “What is the matter with you, my father, that you are so sad? Has someone done you some hurt?”
He said to her, “When I went to get your nosegay, a voice said to me, ‘I must have one of your daughters before the year be completed,’[83] and now I do not know what I must do. It told me that I shall be burned.”
This daughter said to him, “My father, do not be troubled about it. I will go.”
And she sets out immediately in a carriage. She arrives at the castle and goes in, and she hears music and sounds of rejoicing everywhere, and yet she did not see anyone. She finds her chocolate ready (in the morning), and her dinner the same. She goes to bed, and still she does not see anyone. The next morning a voice says to her:
“Shut your eyes; I wish to place my head on your knees for a moment.”
“Come, come; I am not afraid.”
There appears then an enormous serpent. Without intending it, the young lady could not help giving a little shudder. An instant after the serpent went away; and the young lady lived very happily, without lacking anything. One day the voice asked her if she did not wish to go home.
She answers, “I am very happy here. I have no longing for it.”
“Yes, if you like, you may go for three days.”
He gives her a ring, and says to her, “If that changes colour, I shall be ill, and if it turns to blood, I shall be in great misery.”[84]
The young lady sets out for her father’s house. Her father was very glad (to see her). Her sisters said to her:
“You must be happy there. You are prettier than you were before. With whom do you live there?”
She told them, “With a serpent.” They would not believe her. The three days flew by like a dream, and she forgot her serpent. The fourth day she looked at her ring, and she saw that it was changed. She rubs it with her finger, and it begins to bleed. Seeing that she goes running to her father, and says to him that she is going. She arrives at the castle, and finds everything sad. The music will not play—everything was shut up. She called the serpent (his name was Azor, and hers Fifine). She kept on calling and crying out to him, but Azor appeared nowhere. After having searched the whole house, after having taken off her shoes, she goes to the garden, and there too she cries out. She finds a corner of the earth in the garden quite frozen, and immediately she makes a great fire over this spot, and there Azor comes out, and he says to her:[85]
“You had forgotten me, then. If you had not made this fire, it would have been all up with me.”
Fifine said to him, “Yes, I had forgotten you, but the ring made me think of you.”
Azor said to her, “I knew what was going to happen; that is why I gave you the ring.”
And coming into the house, she finds it as before, all full of rejoicings—the music was playing on all sides. Some days after that Azor said to her:
“You must marry me.”
Fifine gives no answer. He asks her again like that three times, and still she remained silent, silent. The whole house becomes sad again. She has no more her meals ready. Again Azor asks her if she will marry him. Still she does not answer, and she remains like that in darkness several days without eating anything, and she said to herself, “Whatever it shall cost me I must say, Yes.”
When the serpent asks her again, “Will you marry me?” she answers, “Not with the serpent, but with the man.”
As soon as she had said that the music begins as before. Azor says to her that she must go to her father’s house and get all things ready that are necessary, and they will marry the next day. The young lady goes as he had told her. She says to her father that she is going to be married to the serpent to-morrow, (and asks him) if he will prepare everything for that. The father consents, but he is vexed. Her sisters, too, ask her whom she is going to marry, and they are astounded at hearing that it is with a serpent. Fifine goes back again, and Azor says to her:
“Which would you prefer, from the house to the church, serpent, or from the church to the house, (serpent)?”
Fifine says to him, “From the house to the church, serpent.”
Azor says to her, “I, too.”
A beautiful carriage comes to the door. The serpent gets in, and Fifine places herself at his side, and when they arrive at the king’s house the serpent says to her:
“Shut the doors and the curtains, that nobody may see.”
Fifine says to him, “But they will see you as you get down.”
“No matter; shut them all the same.”
She goes to her father. Her father comes with all his court to fetch the serpent. He opens the door, and who is astonished? Why, everybody. Instead of a serpent there is a charming young man; and they all go to the church. When they come out there is a grand dinner at the king’s, but the bridegroom says to his wife:
“To-day we must not make a feast at all. We have a great business to do in the house; we will come another day for the feast.”
She told that to her father, and they go on to their house. When they are come there her husband brings her in a large basket a serpent’s skin, and says to her:
“You will make a great fire, and when you hear the first stroke of midnight you will throw this serpent’s skin into the fire. That must be burnt up, and you must throw the ashes out of window before the last stroke of twelve has ceased striking. If you do not do that I shall be wretched for ever.”
The lady says to him, “Certainly; I will do everything that I can to succeed.”
She begins before midnight to make the fire. As soon as she heard the first stroke she throws the serpent’s skin (on the fire), and takes two spits and stirs the fire, and moves about the skin and burns it, till ten strokes have gone. Then she takes a shovel, and throws the ashes outside as the last twelfth stroke is ending. Then a terrible voice says:
“I curse your cleverness, and what you have just done.”
At the same time her husband comes in. He did not know where he was for joy. He kisses her, and does not know how to tell his wife what great good she has done him.
“Now I do not fear anything. If you had not done as I told you, I should have been enchanted for twenty-one years more. Now it is all over, and we will go at our ease to-morrow to your father’s house for the wedding feast.”
They go the next day and enjoy themselves very much. They return to their palace to take away the handsomest things, because they did not wish to stop any more in that corner of the mountain. They load all their valuable things in carts and waggons, and go to live with the king. This young lady has four children, two boys and two girls, and as her sisters were very jealous of her, their father sent them out of the house. The king gave his crown to his son-in-law, who was already a son of a king. As they had lived well, they died well too.
Laurentine.
We have another version of this tale, which is a little more like its prototype, the “Cupid and Psyche” of Apuleius. In this the monster comes only at night. At first she is horribly frightened at it, but little by little she becomes accustomed to it, and loves it. At last, after having been left alone for some days, a magnificent young man appears to her, a king’s son, who had been bewitched into the monster until some one should love him. Of course they marry and are happy.
In a third version, which was not taken down, the father was a sailor instead of a king.
The Cobbler and his Three Daughters (Blue Beard).
Like many others in the world, there was a cobbler who had three daughters. They were very poor. He only earned enough just to feed his children. He did not know what would become of him. He went about in his grief, walking, walking sadly on, and he meets a gentleman, who asks him where he is going, melancholy like that. He answers him,
“Even if I shall tell you, I shall get no relief.”
“Yes, yes; who knows? Tell it.”
“I have three daughters, and I have not work enough to maintain them. I have famine in the house.”
“If it is only that, we will manage it. You will give me one of your daughters, and I will give you so much money.”
The father was very grieved to make any such bargain; but at last he comes down to that. He gives him his eldest daughter. This gentleman takes her to his palace, and, after having passed some time there, he said to her that he has a short journey to make—that he will leave her all the keys, that she might see everything, but that there is one key that she must not make use of—that it would bring misfortune on her. He locks the door on the young lady. This young girl goes into all the rooms, and finds them very beautiful, and she was curious to see what there was in that which was forbidden. She goes in, and sees heaps of dead bodies. Judge of her fright! With her trembling she lets the key fall upon the ground. She trembles for the coming of her husband. He arrives, and asks her if she has entered the forbidden chamber. She tells him “Yes.” He takes her and puts her into an underground dungeon; hardly, hardly did he give her enough to eat (to live on), and that was human flesh.
This cobbler had finished his money, and he was again melancholy. The gentleman meets him again, and says to him,
“Your other daughter is not happy alone; you must give me another daughter. When she is happy, I will send her back; and I will give you so much money.”
The father did not like it; but he was so poor that, in order to have a little money, he gives him his daughter. The gentleman takes her home with him, like the other. After some days he said to her too,
“I must take a short journey. I will give you all the keys of the house, but do not touch such a key of such a room.”
He locks the house-door, and goes off, after having left her the food she needed. This young girl goes into all the rooms, and, as she was curious, she went to look into the forbidden chamber. She was so terribly frightened at the sight of so many dead bodies in this room, that she lets the key fall, and it gets stained. Our young girl was trembling as to what should become of her when the master should come back. He arrives, and the first thing he asks—
“Have you been in that room?”
She told him “Yes.” He takes her underground, like her other sister.
This cobbler had finished his money, and he was in misery; when the gentleman comes to him again, and says to him,
“I will give you a great deal of money if you will let your daughter come to my house for a few days; the three will be happier together, and I will send you the two back again together.”
The father believes it, and gives him his third daughter. The gentleman gives him the money, and he takes this young girl, like the others. At the end of some days he leaves her, saying that he is going to make a short journey. He gives her all the keys of the house, saying to her—
“You will go into all the rooms except this one,” pointing out the key to her. He locks the outside door, and goes off. This young girl goes straight, straight to the forbidden chamber; she opens it, and think of her horror at seeing so many dead people. She thought that he would kill her too, and, as there were all kinds of arms in this chamber, she takes a sabre with her, and hides it under her dress. She goes a little further on, and sees her two sisters almost dying with hunger, and a young man in the same condition. She takes care of them as well as she can till the gentleman comes home. On his arrival, he asks her—
“Have you been in that room?”
She says, “Yes;” and, in giving him back the keys, she lets them fall on the ground, on purpose, and at the instant that this gentleman stoops to pick them up, the young lady cuts off his head (with her sword). Oh, how glad she was! Quickly she runs to deliver her sisters and that young man, who was the son of a king. She sends for her father, the cobbler, and leaves him there with his two daughters, and the youngest daughter goes away with her young gentleman, after being married to him. If they lived well, they died well too.
In another version, by Estefanella Hirigaray, we have the more ordinary tale of “Blue Beard”—that of a widower who has killed twenty wives, and marries a twenty-first, who has two brothers. She drops the key in the forbidden chamber, and is detected by the blood on it. She manages to write to her brothers, and the dialogue by which she endeavours to gain time is rather spirited. She is allowed to put on her wedding-dress, etc., to die in. She goes to get ready, and she hears the cries of her husband, “Are you ready?” “I am putting on my dress.” He bawls out again, “Are you ready?” “Give me a moment more.” “Are you ready?” “I am fastening my dress.” “Are you ready yet?” “I am putting on my stockings.” And she kept constantly looking out of window to see if her brothers were coming. “Are you ready?” “Stop one moment; I am putting on my shoes.” “Are you ready?” “I am brushing my hair.” “Are you ready?” “Let me put on my wreath.” And she sees her brothers coming on horseback in the forest, but a very long way off. She hears again, “Are you ready?” “I am coming in an instant.” “You are coming? I’ll come, if you do not come down.” “Don’t come; I will come down myself, without you.” He seizes her on the stairs to kill her; but the brothers rush in just in time to prevent her death, and they put him in prison.
We heard, also, another version, which, unfortunately, we did not take down. It had something about a horse in it, and was like “The Widow and her Daughters,” in Campbell, Vol. II., Tale xli., p. 265.
The Singing Tree, the Bird which tells the Truth, and the Water that makes Young.
Like many others in the world, there were three young girls. They were spinning together, and as girls must always talk about something while they are spinning, the eldest said:
“You will not guess what I am thinking about?”
“Tell it us, tell it us,” (said the other two).
“That I should like to be married to the king’s valet.”
“And I with his son-in-law,” said the second.
And the third said: “And I with the king himself.”
Now, the king lived not far from these girls, and just at that moment he was passing before the door of their house, and heard what they said. The next day the king asked the eldest:
“What were you saying yesterday at such a time?”
And she was ashamed to tell him, but the king pressed her so much that at last she told it:
“I said that I wished to be married to your servant.”
He made the second come, and asked her the same question: “What were you talking about yesterday?”
She would not tell; but the king pressed her so much that she said:
“I—I was saying that I wished to marry your son-in-law.”
He sends them back home, and sends for the third, and asks her what she said the evening before. She never dared to tell it, because that would have been too great an impudence, but at the last she told it him; and the king told her that they must really be married together, because she was so very pretty. This young girl goes running off home. She told her sisters that she is to marry the king, and all three go to live in the king’s house. The two sisters were very jealous. The princess became in the family-way; and the king was obliged to go to another kingdom. His poor wife was confined of a fine girl. But her sisters made the queen believe that she had given birth to a cat, and they wrote this too to the king. The king wrote back to them:
“If it be a cat, take all possible care of it.”[86]
When the king returned he did not mention the cat at all. She became pregnant a second time, and the king was obliged to go to another kingdom, and when the princess was confined her sisters made her believe that she had given birth to a dog. Think what grief and pain this poor queen suffered. Her sisters wrote to the king that his wife had given birth to a dog, and that without doubt she had something to do with animals. He wrote again: “If it be a dog, take all possible care of it.” But they said that they had already thrown it into the water, as they had done with the cat.
Fortunately a gardener was there, the same that had been there the first time. He caught hold of the basket, and finds a beautiful child inside. He is very glad, and carries the child to his wife, who puts the infant out to nurse.
The princess became pregnant the third time. The king had intended to stop at home; but at the moment of the confinement he was obliged to go away somewhere, and the sisters wrote to the king that she had been confined of a bear. The king flew into a great rage, and ordered her to be put into a dungeon underground. They gave her a little food through a hole, so that she might not die of starvation; and nevertheless she had given birth to a handsome boy. The same gardener found this basket too, which they had thrown into the water. He carries it to his wife, and she gave it to the same nurse. They were very happy with it, and said that Heaven had sent them these three children, and they loved their father and mother very much; but when they were very old they both died.
The two brothers and their sister got on very well together. They loved each other very much. The boys used to go out hunting and shooting, and they were so well off that they had something to give to the poor. One day there came an old woman begging, and she said to them:
“You cannot be happy.”
“Yes, yes, we certainly are,” they answered.
And the woman said to them: “No, no, you want three things before you can be happy—the tree which sings, the bird which tells the truth, and the water which makes young again.”
The young girl grows sad at that. Her brothers remarked it immediately, and they asked her what was the matter with her. But she would not tell them. At last they forced her to tell it to them. She told them what this woman had told her.
The elder of the brothers sets out immediately, taking with him a horse and a little money. He gives an apple to his sister, saying to her:[87]
“If this apple changes I shall be in some trouble, and if it turns rotten I shall be dead.”
And he starts off, and travels on, and on, and on. He finds a monk who tells him to retrace his steps, that there are great dangers before him; but he will go on notwithstanding. He meets again another monk, who tells him that he will never return. He confesses himself and prepares for death, such great dangers will he have to pass through. He said to him:
“You will hear terrible cries. It will seem to you as if they will pull you by your clothes, but never turn your head round.”[88]
But our lad grew frightened and turned his head round, and was changed into stone.
After some days the apple begins to get bad, and they fall into great sorrow because something must have happened to their brother, and the second brother said that he must go off too; and off he goes with a horse and a little money. Like the other brother he meets a monk, who wishes to stop him; but he said to him that it was all the same to him. He goes on till he meets another monk. This one also said to him:
“Return on your steps. You will not be able to pass; you will hear cries and see horrors and terrible things—you will never be able to pass through.”
But he prepares himself to go forward. He warned him well not to look round. He leaves his horse and sets out. When he has gone a short distance he hears frightful cries, and (sees) terrible things; and after having gone some distance further he looks on one side, and is changed into stone.
The apple which he had left with his sister first changes, then goes quite rotten. You may judge of the sorrow and the grief of this poor girl. She says to herself that she must dress herself like a man. She locks the door (of their house), and sets out on horseback. The same monk wishes to prevent her going on. But she has a still greater desire to do so, and, notwithstanding all she hears, she will go on. She arrives at the last monk, who was a great saint. He did not recognise that it was a young girl. For a hundred years past he had been on the same spot, until someone should get to the end of the mountain, and he hoped that this young girl might pass. He gives her a bottle into which she might put the water that makes young again, and says to her:
“You will sprinkle one drop on each stone, and they will live.”
She sets off. The horrible cries did not frighten her. All kinds of things were said to her. She goes on and on, constantly running, and gets to the top of the mountain, and she is saved.
At the same instant she hears a thrilling song from a tree, which was warbling like a bird. A bird, too, flies on to her shoulder, and tells her so many things that she is quite astounded. But she does not lose her time—she takes out her bottle and fills it with water. She pours a drop on each stone, and finds her brothers at last. Think, think how they all three rejoiced together! They take their horses (they too had been changed into stones) and go home with their tree, and the bird, and the water.
They lived very happily. The brothers went out hunting every day, and sometimes they met the king. One day the king invited them to dine with him, but they said that they must first ask permission of their sister. When they came home they asked her, and the bird answered immediately:
“On condition that the king will come here to-morrow.”
They go with this answer to the king, and he says, “Yes.”
They dine very well with the king, but their sister was not at all pleased; she did not know how to receive the king. The bird says to her:
“Lay the table with a fine cloth, and three dishes; put lentils into one, parched peas into the other, and haricot beans into the other.”
Next day the king comes with his two brothers. The king is astonished to hear this beautiful tree and this fine singing. He had never heard anything so wonderful. He was surprised to see these three dishes, and he said to them:
“Is it not strange to receive a king like this?”
And the bird, hopping out of its cage, begins, “It is not more strange than to see this young woman pass for a cat. Is she a cat?”
In the same way it points to the elder brother, “Is this a dog, this young man? Is not this a thing more astonishing?”
The king is confounded. And the same thing for the third time, pointing to the second son, “Is this a bear, this one? Is this not an astonishing thing?”
The king, in his amazement, does not know what to answer to the bird; but it continues:
“Is it not a shame to leave one’s wife, and make her live eighteen years in a dungeon underground?”
The king is terribly frightened, and off he goes with his sons and his daughter, intending to free their mother; but they did not forget the precious water, and they wash this princess in it, and she becomes as young as at eighteen years old. Judge of the joy of the king, of the queen, and of their children! The king fell into a great rage, and condemns the queen’s sisters to be burnt alive in the midst of the market-place, with shirts of sulphur on them.
Catherine Elizondo.
We have also the more common version of this story—of an aged king with three sons. He reads of this water, and the three sons successively set out to fetch it. The two first fail, and stop, drinking, &c., in a certain city. The youngest meets an old woman, who tells him how to charm all the beasts in a forest he has to pass through, and how to get the water, but he is not to take anything else. But he steals the bird, and the magic horse as well, and when he gets to the forest finds all the animals awake. The old woman appears again, and gives him a magic stick, with the aid of which he passes. He finds his brothers against the advice of the old lady, and they throw him into a pit and take away the water, the horse, and the bird; but the water has no effect in their hands. The old woman appears, and sends a fox to help him out of the pit. He comes home, the horse neighs, the bird sings, he gives the water to his father, and from one hundred years old he becomes twenty.
E. Hirigaray.
The White Blackbird.
Like many others in the world, there was a king who had three sons. This king was blind, and he had heard one day that there was a king who had a white blackbird, which gave sight to the blind. When his eldest son heard that, he said to his father that he would go and fetch this white blackbird as quickly as possible.
The father said to him, “I prefer to remain blind rather than to separate myself from you, my child.”
The son says to him, “Have no fear for me; with a horse laden with money I will find it and bring it to you.”
He goes off then, far, far, far away. When night came he stopped. One evening he stopped at an inn where there were three very beautiful young ladies. They said to him that they must have a game of cards together. He refuses; but after many prayers and much pressing they begin. He loses all his money, his horse, and also has a large debt against his word of honour. In this country it was the custom for persons who did not pay their debts to be put in prison, and if they did not pay after a given time they were put to death, and then afterwards they were left at the church doors until someone should pay their debts.[89] They therefore put this king’s son in prison.
The second son, seeing that his brother did not return, said to his father that he wished to go off, (and asked him) to give him a horse and plenty of money, and that certainly he would not lose his time. He sets off, and, as was fated to occur, he goes to the inn where his brother had been ruined. After supper these young ladies say to him:
“You must have a game of cards with us.”
He refuses, but these young ladies cajole him so well, and turn him round their fingers, that he ends by consenting. They begin then, and he also loses all his money, his horse, and makes a great many debts besides. They put him in prison like his brother.
After some time the king and his youngest son are in deep grief because some misfortune must have happened to them, and the youngest asks leave to set out.
“I assure you that I will do something. Have no anxiety on my account.”
This poor father lets him go off, but not with a good will. He kept saying to him that he would prefer to be always blind; but the son would set off. His father gives him a beautiful horse, and as much gold as his horse could carry, and his crown. He goes off far, far, far away. They rested every night, and he happened, like his brothers, to go to the same inn. After supper these young ladies say to him:
“It is the custom for everyone to play at cards here.”
He says that it is not for him, and that he will not play. The young ladies beg him ever so much, but they do not succeed with this one in any fashion whatever. They cannot make him play. The next morning he gets up early, takes his horse, and goes off. He sees that they are leading two men to death. He asks what they have done, and recognises his two brothers. They tell him that they have not paid their debts within the appointed time, and that they must be put to death. But he pays the debts of both, and goes on. Passing before the church he sees that they are doing something. He asks what it is. They tell him that it is a man who has left some debts, and that until someone pays them he will be left there still. He pays the debts again.
He goes on his journey, and arrives at last at the king’s house where the blackbird was. Our king’s son asks if they have not a white blackbird which restores sight. They tell him, “Yes.” Our young gentleman relates how that his father is blind, and that he has come such a long way to fetch it to him.
The king says to him, “I will give you this white blackbird, when you shall have brought me from the house of such a king a young lady who is there.”
Our young man goes off far, far, far away. When he is near the king’s house a fox[90] comes out and says to him, “Where are you going to?”
He answers, “I want a young lady from the king’s house.”
He gives his horse to the fox to take care of, and the fox says to him:
“You will go to such a room; there will be the young lady whom you need. You will not recognise her because she has old clothes on, but there are beautiful dresses hanging up in the room. You will make her put on one of those. As soon as she shall have it on, she will begin to sing and will wake up everybody in the house.”
He goes inside as the fox had told him. He finds the young lady. He makes her put on the beautiful dresses, and as soon as she has them on she begins to sing and to carol. Everyone rushes into this young lady’s room. The king in a rage wished to put him in prison, but the king’s son shows his crown, and tells how such a king sent him to fetch this young lady, and when once he has brought her he promises him the white blackbird to open his father’s eyes.
The king then says to him, “You must go to the house of such a king, and you must bring me from there a white horse, which is very, very beautiful.”
Our young man sets out, and goes on, and on, and on. As he comes near the house of the king, the fox appears to him and says to him:
“The horse which you want is in such a place, but he has a bad saddle on. You will put on him that which is hanging up, and which is handsome and brilliant. As soon as he shall have it on he will begin to neigh, so much as not to be able to stop.[91] All the king’s people will come to see what is happening, but with your crown you will always get off scot free.”
He goes off as the fox had said to him. He finds the horse with the bad saddle, and puts on him the fine one, and then the horse begins to neigh and cannot stop himself. People arrive, and they wish to put the young man in prison, but he shows them his crown, and relates what king had sent him to fetch this horse in order to get a young lady. They give him the horse, and he sets off.
He comes to the house of the king where the young lady was. He shows his horse with its beautiful saddle, and asks the king if he would not like to see the young lady take a few turns on this beautiful horse in the courtyard. The king says, “Yes.” As the young lady was very handsomely dressed when she mounted the horse, our young man gives the horse a little touch with his stick, and they set off like the lightning. The king’s son follows them, and they go both together to the king who had the white blackbird. They ask him for the blackbird, and the bird goes of itself on to the knees of the young lady, who was still on horseback. The king’s son gives him a blow, and they set off at full gallop; he also escapes in order to rejoin them. They journey a long, long time, and approach their city.
His brothers had heard the news how that their brother was coming with the white blackbird. These two brothers had come back at last to their father’s house, and they had told their father a hundred falsehoods; how that robbers had taken away their money, and many things like that. The two brothers plotted together, and said that they must hinder their brother from reaching the house, and that they must rob him of the blackbird.
They keep expecting him always. One day they saw him coming, and they say that they must throw him into a cistern,[92] and they do as they say. They take the blackbird and throw him and the lady into the water, and leave the horse outside. The fox comes to them on the brink of the cistern, and says to them:
“I will leap in there; you will take hold of my tail one by one, and I will save you.”
The two wicked brothers had taken the blackbird, but he escaped from them as they entered the house, and went on to the white horse. Judge of the joy of the youngest brother when he sees that nothing is wanting to them! They go to the king. As soon as they enter the young lady begins to carol and to sing, the bird too, and the horse to neigh. The blackbird of its own accord goes on to the king’s knees, and there by its songs restored him to sight. The son relates to his father what labours he underwent until he had found these three things, and he told him how he had saved two men condemned to death by paying their debts, and that they were his two brothers; that he had also paid the debts of a dead man, and that his soul (the fox was his soul) had saved him from the cistern into which his brothers had thrown him.
Think of the joy of the father, and his sorrow at the same time, when he saw how wisely this young son had always behaved, and how wicked his two brothers had been. As he had well earned her, he was married to the young lady whom he had brought away with him, and they lived happily and joyfully. The father sent the two brothers into the desert to do penance. If they had lived well, they would have died well.
The Sister and her Seven Brothers.
There was a man and a woman very poor, and over-burdened with children. They had seven boys. When they had grown up a little, they said to their mother that it would be better that they should go on their own way—that they would get on better like that. The mother let them go with great regret. After their departure she gave birth to a little girl, and when this little girl was grown up a little she went one day to a neighbor’s to amuse herself, and having played some childish trick the neighbor said to her:
“You will be a good one, you too, as your brothers have been.”[93]
The child goes home and says to her mother, “Mother, have I some brothers?”[93]
The mother says, “Yes.”
“Where are they?”
“Oh, gone off somewhere.”
The daughter said to her, “I must go too, then. Give me a piece of linen enough to make seven shirts.”
And she would go off at once. The mother was very sorry for it, having already seven children away from home, and the only one she had wished to go away. She let her go then.
This young girl went off, far, far, far away. She asks in a town if they know seven brothers who work together. They tell her “No.” She goes off to a mountain and asks there too, and they tell her in what house they live. She goes to this house, and sees that all the household work is to be done, and that there is nobody at home. She makes the beds, and cleans the whole house, and puts it in order. She prepares the dinner, and then hides herself in the dust-hole. Her brothers come home, and are astonished to see all the household work done and the dinner ready. They begin to look if there is anyone in the house, but they never think of looking in the dust-hole, and they go off again to their work. Before night this young girl does all the rest of the work, and had the supper ready against the return of her brothers, and hides herself again in the dust-hole. Her brothers are astonished, and again search the house, but find nothing.
They go to bed, and this young girl takes to sewing and sews a whole shirt. She gives it to her eldest brother, and in the same way she made a shirt every night, and took it to one of her brothers. They could not understand how that all happened. They always said that they would not go to sleep, but they fell asleep as soon as they were in bed. When the turn of the youngest came to have the shirt, he said to them, “Certainly I will not fall asleep.” After he is in bed the young girl goes and says to him, thinking that he is asleep:
“Your turn has come now at last, my dearly loved brother.”
And she begins to put the shirt on him on the bed, when her brother says to her:
“You are then my sister, you?”
And he kisses her. She tells him then how she had heard that she had brothers, and how she had wished to go to them to help them. The other brothers get up and rejoice, learning that it was their sister who had done all the household work.
The brothers forbad her ever to go to such a neighbour’s, whatever might happen. But one day, without thinking about it, when she was behindhand with her work, she went running to the house to ask for some fire,[94] in order to make the supper ready quicker. She was very well received; the woman offered to give her everything she wanted, but she said she was satisfied with a little fire. This woman was a witch, and gives her a parcel of herbs, telling her to put them as they were into the footbath—that they relieved the fatigue very much.[95] Every evening the seven brothers washed their feet at the same time in a large copper. She therefore put these herbs into the copper, and as soon as they had dipped their feet in they became six cows, and the seventh a Breton cow.[96] This poor girl was in such trouble as cannot be told. The poor cows all used to kiss their sister, but the young girl always loved much best the Breton one. Every day she took them to the field, and stopped with them to guard them.
One day when she was there the son of a king passes by, and is quite astonished to see so beautiful a girl there. He speaks to her, and tells her that he wishes to marry her. The young girl says to him that she is very poor, and that that cannot be. The king says, “Yes, yes, yes, that makes no difference.”
The young girl makes as conditions that, if she marries him, he must never kill these cows, and especially this little Breton one.[97] The king promises it her, and they are married.
The princess takes these cows home with her; they were always well treated. The princess became pregnant, and was confined while the king was absent. The witch comes, and takes her out of her bed, and throws her down a precipice that there was in the king’s grounds, and the witch puts herself into the princess’ bed. When the king comes home, he finds her very much changed, and tells her that he would not have recognised her. The princess tells him that it was her sufferings that had made her thus, and, in order to cure her more quickly, he must have the Breton cow killed.
The king says to her—
“What! Did you not make me promise that she should never be killed? How is it you ask me that?”
The witch considered that one her greatest enemy; and, as she left him no peace, he sent a servant to fetch the cows. He finds them all seven by the precipice; they were lowing, and he tried to drive them to the house, but he could not do it in any way; and he hears a voice, which says,
“It is not for myself that I grieve so much, but for my child, and for my husband, and for my dearly-loved cows. Who will take care of them?”
The lad could not succeed (in driving them), and goes and tells to the king what is taking place. The king himself goes to the precipice, and hears this voice. He quickly throws a long cord down, and, when he thinks that she has had time to take hold of it, he pulls it up, and sees that they have got the princess there. Judge of the joy of the king! She relates to her husband all that the witch had done to her, both formerly and now. The king goes to the witch’s bed, and says to her,
“I know your villanies now; and, if you do not immediately change these cows, as they were before, into fine boys, I will put you into a red-hot oven.”
The witch makes them fine men, and, notwithstanding that, the king had her burnt in a red-hot oven, and threw her ashes into the air. The king lived happily with his wife, and her seven brothers married ladies of the court, and sent for their mother, and they all lived happily together.
Louise Lanusse.
We have also, in Basque, a version of Madame d’Aulnoy’s “Abenan.” It seems to be a mixture of various legends strung together by this fanciful writer; but we do not think it worth either our own or our readers’ while to try to disentangle its separate parts. The pretty little tale of “The Faded Roses” has been told us from two quite different sources. This tale, though without doubt derived from the French, we can trace up in Basque further than any other. It was told us by a lady of between seventy and eighty, who heard it as a child from an old nurse, whom she distinctly remembers to have told her that she learnt it as a child from her mother. It must thus have existed in Basque over a century.
We have also two versions of Tom Thumb, who is called in the one “Ukhailtcho,” or “Baratchuri”—“a clove of garlic;”[98] in the other, “Mundua-mila-pes,” both containing the episode of his being swallowed by an ox; in the last, he himself is swallowed, as they are washing out the ox’ entrails, by “a thief of a dog”—“Ohoñ chakhurra.” It is singular that the same episode is preserved in the Gaelic; cf. Campbell, Vol. III., p. 114.
We have in MS. a long Rabelesian legend, which opens like Cenac-Moncaut’s tale of “Le Coffret de la Princesse,” in his “Littérature Populaire de la Gascogne” (Paris, 1868). A king will give one of his daughters to whoever can guess what the skin of a certain animal is. It is the devil who guesses it, and who marries the princess. She is saved by the “white mare,” which appears in so many of our tales. She then dresses as a man, but, nevertheless, a prince falls in love with her; and then follow a lot of scenes, the converse of the adventure of Achilles in Scyros. They marry; but, after seven years, the devil-husband reappears. After strange adventures, they are again succoured and united by the “white mare,” who binds the devil for ever, and then flies to heaven as a white pigeon, and the rest live happily ever after. This legend is from “Laurentine, Sister of Toutou,” and may be mingled with Cascarrot legends. We have given it as derived from the French, partly because the heroine’s name is Fifine, and because this, and “Petit Perroquet and the Tartaro,” are the only tales in our collection in which the term “prince” is employed in the Basque instead of “the king’s son.” Cf. Campbell’s “Highland Tales,” passim.
We owe the following notes to the kindness of M. H. Vinson, Judge at La Réole, Gironde. They may be of assistance to some of our readers in the endeavour to trace out the length of time which is required for the translations of exotic legends to become popular traditions among a people who know the language of the translation only by “social contact.”
| Premières Editions de laPremière Traduction en Français des Mille et uneNuits. | |
| Les Mille et une Nuits, Contes Arabes, trad. parGalland. Paris, 12 vols. in 12mo. | 1704–1717 |
| Les Mille et une Nuits, Contes Arabes, trad. parGalland. Paris, 6 vols. in 12mo. | 1774 |
| Les Mille et une Nuits, Revues et Corrigées parM. Caussin de Percival. Paris, Lenormant, 9 vols. 8vo. | 1806 |
| Première Traduction de Bidpai etLoqman. | |
| Contes et Fables Indiennes de Bidpai et de Loqman,trad. (posth.) par Ante Galland. Paris, 2 vols. in 12mo. | 1724 |
| Contes et Fables Indiennes, Traductiond’après la Version Turque d’Ali-Tchelebt-ben-Salet,par Galland, terminée et publiée par D. Gardonne. Paris,3 vols. 12mo. | 1778 |
| Fables de Loqman, Édition Arabe, accomp.d’une Traduction Franc: (par M. Mariel) au Caire, de l’imp.Nation, au VII. 8vo.[99] | 1799 |
| Contes de Grimm. | |
| Contes de la Famille, par les Frères Grimm,traduit de l’Allemand, par M. Martin et Pitre-Chevalier. Paris,Renouard, 12mo. | 1846 |
| Edition Originale, Kinder und Hausmärchen.Berlin, 2 vols. 16mo. | 1812–14 |
| Les Plus Anciens Recueils de Contes enFrançais. | |
| Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles. Paris, Ant. Verard, pet.in fol. Goth. | 1486 |
| Le Parangon de Nouvelles Honnestes. Lyon, in 8vo. | 1531 |
| Les Nouvelles Récreations de Bonaventure desPeriers. Lyon, in 4to. | 1558 |
| L’Heptameron de Margaret de Valois. Paris,8vo. | 1559 |
| Baliverneries ou Contes Nouveaux d’Entrapel,publ. par Noel Du Fail. Paris, 16mo. | 1548 |
| Les Serées de Guillaume Bouchet. Poitiers, 4to.Paris, 3 vols. 12mo. | 1584, 1608 |
| Nouvelles Choisies, par Ch. Sorel. Paris, 2 vols.8vo. | 1645 |
| Contes des Fées, par Madamed’Aulnoy. | 1630–1705 |
| Contes des Fées, par Ch. Perrault. | 1697 |
[1] See notes to “Juan Dekos,” p. 146.
[2] I think this word occurs in some “Chanson de Gestes,” and in the Basque “Pastorales,” as a Mahommedan devil. If not, it is probably our own “Duke of Marlborough” thus transformed. Cf. the song, ”Malbrouk s’en va en guerre.”
[3] This is again, “red, angry.”
[4] Cf. Campbell, “The Tale of Connal,” Vol. I., p. 142.
[5] This looks uncommonly like “Ho, you!” but it is given by Salaberry as a Basque cry, “Appel par un cri fort, par la voix élevée.” “Play,” as an exclamation to begin at games of ball, has no meaning in Basque, and is believed to come from the English. We have borrowed “Jingo,” “by Jingo,” from “Jinkoa,” “the deity.”
[6] In Campbell’s first tale, “The Young King of Easaidh Ruadh, the hero is assisted by a dog, a falcon, and an otter. Cf. the notes in the translation of this tale in Brueyre’s “Contes de la Grande Bretagne;” cf. also, “The Sea-Maiden,” pp. 73 and 94, for a still closer resemblance.
[7] Cf. “Tabakiera,” p. 94, and “Old Deccan Days,” pp. 83–91. It is curious to hear of the Red Sea from narrators so far apart, on opposite sides, as the Lingaets of the Deccan and the Basques, neither of whom, probably, had the most distant idea of its geographical position; certainly our Basque narrators had not.
[8] In Campbell’s “Sea-Maiden,” the hero has only to think of the animals, and they are at his side; but he is not transformed into them.
[9] Campbell refers to “The Giant who had no Heart in his Body,” “Norse Tales,” 1859. See his references, and those in the “Contes Populaires de la Grande Bretagne,” cited above. M. d’Abbadie has also communicated to us the outlines of a wild Tartaro story, told in Basque, in which the hero “fights with a body without a soul.”
[10] Cf. Campbell’s “Tales,” before quoted, and “Old Deccan Days” (“Punchkin”), pp. 14, 15, for the whole of this incident.
[11] Malbrouk seems now to assume the character of “Hermes, the clever thief.” If we mistake not, this cow appears also in Indian mythology.
[12] For the whole of this tale compare Campbell’s “Sea-Maiden,” Vol. I., p. 71. The sea-maiden takes the place of the fish. Besides the three sons, the three foals, and the three puppies, three trees grow behind the house, and serve as a sign like the well boiling. Bladé’s “Les Deux Jumeaux,” in his “Contes Agenais,” is identical with this; cf. also Köhler’s notes, p. 148.
[13] Much more is made of the sword in the Gaelic tales. In them it is always a magic or a mystic weapon.
[14] This episode of the fight with the seven-headed beast is introduced in the same way in the Gaelic—“The Sea-Maiden,” pp. 76, 77. Cf. also “Rouge Etin,” in Brueyre.
[15] In the Gaelic the charcoal-burner is a general.
[16] This takes place not on the wedding night, but some time after in the “Sea-Maiden,” p. 82. The wife at prayers and the husband standing by indifferent is but too true a picture, we fear.
[17] The “Sea-Maiden,” p. 82—“Go not, go not,” said she, “there never went man to this castle that returned.” See below.
[18] Basque, “as must needs be.”
[19] We were also told, in Basque, “The Powerful Lantern,” which was the story of Aladdin’s lamp, with only one incident omitted. The present is much more like the Gaelic, but there (Campbell, Vol. II., 297–9) it is a lady who gives the snuff-box, which says, “Eege gu djeege,” on being opened. Campbell’s note is:—“The explanation of these sounds was, that it was ‘as if they were asking.’ The sounds mean nothing, that I know of, in any language.” “Que quieres?” is pure Spanish—“What dost thou want?”
[20] Cf. MacCraw’s variation in Campbell, note, Vol. II., p. 301, for the rest of the story.
[21] “Power” in these tales, in the Basque, seems always to mean “magic power,” some wonder-working gift or charm.
[22] In Campbell’s versions it is “the realm of the king under the waves,” or “the realm of the rats;” but a voyage has to be made to that, and a rat takes the place of the servant in stealing the box again for the hero. “The Deccan Tales” mention the Red Sea.
[23] The south wind is the most dreaded local wind in the Pays Basque. It is always hot, and sometimes very violent. After two or three days it usually brings on a violent thunderstorm and rain.
[24] The lad here calls his snuff-box affectionately “Que quieres,” as if that were its name.
[25] The likeness and the variation of this tale from Campbell’s Gaelic one, “The Widow’s Son,” etc., Vol. II., pp. 293–303, prove that both must be independent versions of some original like Aladdin’s lamp, but not mere copies of it.
[26] This doubling of a price is to get a thing more quickly done—in half the usual time. At least, that was the narrator’s explanation.
[27] These three clever men are found in Gascon (Bladé’s “Armagnac Tales,” p. 10), in Spanish, in Campbell’s “The King of Lochlin’s Three Daughters,” Vol. I., p. 238, and in many others. Cf. Brueyre, pp. 113–120, and notes.
[28] Cf. The tale from the Servian, in Naaké’s “Slavonic Fairy Tales,” p. 7.
[29] i.e., the piece of “braise,” or glowing ember from the wood fire, which is always nearly on a level with the floor in a Basque house.
[30] Through the whole of the South of Europe, in Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc., the firing of guns, pistols, crackers, is universal at all kinds of “fêtes,” especially religious ones; the half-deafened foreigner often longs for some such law as that infringed by “Mahistruba;” but cf. “Juan de Kalais,” p. 151.
[31] Cf. supra, p. 38, “The Serpent in the Wood.”
[32] This tale is somewhat like Campbell’s “Three Soldiers,” with the variations, Vol. I., p. 176. It is said to be very widely spread.
[33] This is an interpolation by the narrator.
[34] At Bayonne one part of the town is called “Les Cinq Cantons.”
[35] For like involuntary sleep, where the lady cannot awaken her lover, cf. Campbell, “The Widow’s Son,” Vol. II., p. 296.
[36] For the incident of the eagle, cf. Campbell, “The King of Lochlin’s Three Daughters,” Vol. I., pp. 238–9:—“When they were at the mouth of the hole, the stots were expended, and she was going to turn back; but he took a steak out of his own thigh, and he gave this to the eagle, and with one spring she was on the surface of the earth.”
[37] Cf. the horse in Naaké’s “Slavonic Fairy Tales,” “Ivan Kruchina” (from the Russian), p. 117, and “the dun shaggy filly,” in Campbell’s “The Young King of Easaidh Ruadh,” Vol. I., p. 5, and elsewhere; also the horse in the “Uso-Andre,” and “The Unknown Animal,” below. Campbell, Vol. I., p. 63, remarks that the horses in Gaelic stories are always feminine; but they are red as well as grey.
[38] In this, and the following tale, Ezkabi’s golden hair is evidently like “Diarmaid’s” beauty spot. “He used to keep his cap always down on the beauty-spot; for any woman that might chance to see it, she would be in love with him.”—Campbell’s “Diarmaid and Grainne,” Vol. III., p. 39, notes and variations.
[39] Compare the following legend, and “Old Deccan Days” (“Truth’s Triumph”), pp. 62, 63.
[40] Cf. above, “The Grateful Tartaro and the Heren-Suge,” p. 22.
[41] Cf. note, supra, p. 113, and Grainne seeing Diarmaid as he lifts his cap or helmet. These beauty-spots seem to be the counterpart of Aphrodite’s cestus.
[42] Cf. the two golden pears in the Spanish “Juanillo el Loco,” Patrañas, p. 38, given in exchange for the same water.
[43] Cf. below, “The Singing Tree,” etc., p. 176.
[44] Cf. “Old Deccan Days,” p. 139; and Cox, “Aryan Mythology,” Vol. I., p. 160, seq.
[45] Cf. below, p. 156.
[46] The word “Ezkabi” is “the scab;” he either really had it, as in the next version, or was supposed to have it from keeping his head covered, as in this. In both cases the hair is most beautiful, precious, golden, and love-compelling.
[47] Cf. with the whole of this tale, Campbell’s second tale, “The Battle of the Birds,” and the variations, especially the one of “Auburn Mary,” Vol. I. pp. 52–58.
[48] Cf. Baring Gould’s chapter, “Swan-Maidens”—“Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,” p. 561, seq.
[49] In the Gaelic the labours are more like those of Herakles—to clean out a byre, to shoot birds, and to rob a magpie’s nest. The Basque incidents seem to fit better into a climatological myth.
[50] In “Old Deccan Days” (“Truth’s Triumph”) it is the hair and not the comb that does the wonders. In M. Cerquand’s “Récits” the comb is an attribute of the Basa-Andre.
[51] In Campbell’s “Battle of the Birds” the hero always sleeps while the giant’s daughter does his task for him.
[52] Here the narrator interposed, “You see it is just as it happens; the women are always the worst.” But in Campbell it is the giant himself who says, “My own daughter’s tricks are trying me.”
[53] In Campbell the finger is lost in climbing the tree to get the magpie’s nest; but, as here, the bride is recognised by the loss of it.
[54] In “Auburn Mary” the hero has to catch a young filly, “with an old, black, rusty bridle.”—Campbell, Vol. I., p. 55.
[55] See below for a second marriage. In Campbell, p. 37, there is a double marriage.
[56] In Campbell, p. 55, “Auburn Mary,” there is the same “talking spittle.”
[57] Cf. “Truth’s Triumph,” in “Old Deccan Days;” and Campbell, pp. 33, 34; and supra, “Ezkabi-Fidel,” pp. 113, 114.
[58] Campbell, pp. 34 and 56.
[59] In Campbell, it is an old greyhound that kisses him, but with the same result, pp. 34 and 56.
[60] In one of Campbell’s “Variations,” pp. 51, 52, the ending is something like this. In more than one, the hero marries another bride in his period of oblivion.
[61] Cf. Campbell’s “The Chest,” Vol. II., p. 1. The tales seem almost identical.
[62] The usual term for “the Pope;” the French, “Le Saint-Père.”
[63] This is a curious testimony to an ancient practice. In the same way the Basques call “La Fête Dieu,” “Corpus Christi Day;” “Phestaberria,” “The New Feast,” though it was instituted in the thirteenth century.
[64] This is a very old and wide-spread story. The Gaelic versions are given in Campbell, Vol. II., p. 239, seq. Cf. also Cox, “Aryan Mythology,” Vol. I., p. 111, seq.
[65] In the Gaelic it is the bishop’s horse.
[66] This is in the Norse and Teutonic versions.
[67] This, again, is more like the Gaelic.
[68] This name was written thus phonetically from the Basque, and it was not till I saw the Gaelic tale that it struck me that it is simply “Jean d’Ecosse”—“John of Scotland,” or “Scotch John.” In the analogous tale in Campbell, “The Barra Widow’s Son,” Vol. II., p. 111, we read—“It was Iain Albanach” (literally, Jean d’Ecosse) “the boy was called at first; he gave him the name of Iain Mac a Maighstir” (John, master’s son) “because he himself was master of the vessel.” This seems decisive that in some way the Basques have borrowed this tale from the Kelts since their occupation of the Hebrides. The Spanish versions, too, are termed “The Irish Princess” (Patrañas, p. 234).
[69] See note on preceding page, and Campbell, Vol. II., p. 3.
[70] Whether this refers to any real custom about dead men’s debts, we cannot say. It occurs in the Gaelic, in “Ezkabi,” and in other tales and versions, notably in the Spanish; see as above, and “The White Blackbird,” below, p. 182.
[71] In other versions it is the soul of the man whose debts he had paid, either in the shape of a hermit or a fox. In the Gaelic it is left vague and undetermined. He is called “one,” or “the asker.” (Campbell, Vol. II., pp. 119 and 121.) The same contract is made in each case, and with the same result.
[72] This is, of course, “Jean de Calais”—“John of Calais”—and would seem to show that it was through some French, and not Spanish, versions that the Basques learnt it.
[73] This seems inserted from “Mahistruba,” p. 105.
[74] In the Gaelic it is a general, as here, and not a lame second officer, as in “Juan Dekos,” who wants to marry the lady, and who sets the hero on a desert island.—Campbell, Vol. II., p. 118.
[75] See note on page 149.
[76] We had put this tale aside, with some others, as worthless, until we found from Campbell how widely it is spread. The earliest version seems to be the Italian of Straparola, 1567. The first incident there, persuading that a pig is an ass, we have in another Basque tale; the last two incidents are identical. They are found, too, in the Gaelic, though in separate versions. For killing the wife, see Campbell, Vol. II., p. 232; for the last, pp. 222 and 234. Cf. also “The Three Widows,” with all the variations and notes, Vol. II., pp. 218–238. Is this a case of transmission from one people to another of the Italian of Straparola? or do all the versions point back to some lost original? and is there, or can there be, any allegorical meaning to such a tale? The answer to these questions seems of great importance, and the present tale to be a good instance to work upon. Petarillo seems an Italian name.
[77] “Peau d’Ane.”
[78] “Fidèle.”
[79] The narrator was here asked “if the place of the dance was at the king’s palace.” “No,” she gravely replied, “it was at the mairie.” In other tales it is on the “place,” i.e., the open square or market-place which there is in most French towns and villages in the south. It is generally in front either of the church or of the mairie.
[80] This was explained as meaning “Beaten with the Slipper.” This version came from the Cascarrot, or half-gipsy quarter of St. Jean de Luz, and may not be purely Basque. Except in one or two words the language is correct enough—for St. Jean de Luz.
[81] At an exclamation of surprise from one of the auditors, the narrator piously said, “It is the Holy Virgin who permitted all that.”
[82] Cf. “The Serpent in the Wood,” p. 38.
[83] Literally, “be full.”
[84] Cf. the well behind the house in the “Fisherman and his Three Sons,” p. 87.
[85] Cf. “Dragon,” p. 108.]
[86] Here the narrator evidently forgot to tell about the child’s being exposed, and the gardener finding it, as appears by the sequel.
[87] Cf. the well that boils in “The Fisherman and his Three Sons,” and the ring in “Beauty and the Beast.”
[88] Can Bunyan have taken his description of the “Valley of the Shadow of Death,” in the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” partly from such tales as this?
[89] Cf. above in “Ezkabi” and “Juan Dekos.” There is some similarity between this tale and Campbell’s “Mac Ian Direach,” Vol. II., p. 328. Compare also “The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener,” in Kennedy’s “Fireside Stories of Ireland.” We know only the French translation of this last in Brueyre, p. 145. “Le Merle Blanc” is one of the best known of French stories.
[90] Cf. “Juan Dekos” for paying the debts, and the fox. In the Gaelic the fox is called “An Gille Mairtean,” “the fox.” (Campbell, Vol. II., p. 329, seq.)
[91] Cf. the stealing of the bay filly in Campbell’s “Mac Iain Direach,” Vol. II., p. 334.
[92] Huge cisterns, partly underground, for holding rain water, are common in the Pays Basque. They are, of course, near the houses off which the water drains.
[93] Cf. “Basa-Jauna,” p. 49.
[94] A piece of the braise, or burnt stick. This is constantly done all through the South of France, where wood is burnt. If your fire is out you run to get a stick from your neighbour’s fire.
[95] Cf. note to “Basa-Jauna,” p. 49.
[96] Cf. “Old Deccan Days” (“Truth’s Triumph”), pp. 57–58. The little girl is the rose tree there among the mango trees, her brothers. Cows are very gentle in the Pays Basque, and are often petted, especially the tiny black and white Breton ones. We have known a strong man weep at the death of a favourite cow, and this one of ten others.
[97] The Ranee makes the same conditions in “Truth’s Triumph”—“You will let me take these crows” (her brothers) “with me, will you not? for I love them dearly, and I cannot go away unless they may come too.”—“Old Deccan Days,” p. 59.
[98] This was recited to M. Vinson, and has been published by him in the “Revue de Linguistique,” p. 241 (Janvier, 1876). We have since heard of a longer form preserved at Renteria, in Guipuzcoa.
[99] To these should perhaps be added the Latin of the Dolopathos and “Gesta Romanorum” of the 12th or 13th century.
