O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother!—Shakespeare.
Who can foretell for what high cause
This Darling of the Gods was born?—Marvell.
The haughty eye shall seek in vain
What innocence beholds;
No cunning finds the keys of heaven,
No strength its gate unfolds.
Alone to guilelessness and love
That gate shall open fall;
The mind of pride is nothingness,
The childlike heart is all.—Whittier.
Carlyle has said: "The History of the World is the Biography of Great Men." He might have added, that in primitive times much of the History of the World is the Biography of Great Children. Andrew Lang, in his edition of Perrault's Tales, speaking of Le Petit Poucet (Hop o' My Thumb), says: "While these main incidents of Hop o' My Thumb are so widely current, the general idea of a small and tricksy being is found frequently, from the Hermes of the Homeric Hymn to the Namaqua Heitsi Eibib, the other Poucet, or Tom Thumb, and the Zulu Uhlakanyana. Extraordinary precocity, even from the day of birth, distinguishes these beings (as Indra and Hermes) in myth. In Marchen, it is rather their smallness and astuteness than their youth that commands admiration, though they are often very precocious. The general sense of the humour of 'infant prodigies' is perhaps the origin of these romances" (p. ex.).
This world-homage to childhood finds apt expression in the verses of
Mrs. Darmesteter:—
"Laying at the children's feet
Each his kingly crown,
Each, the conquering power to greet,
Laying humbly down.
Sword and sceptre as is meet."
All over the globe we find wonder-tales of childhood, stories of the great deeds of children, whose venturesomeness has saved whole communities from destruction, whose heroism has rid the world of giants and monsters of every sort, whose daring travels and excursions into lands or skies unknown have resulted in the great increase of human knowledge and the advancement of culture and civilization. In almost all departments of life the child-hero has left his mark, and there is much to tell of his wonderful achievements.
Finnish Child-Heroes.
In Finnish story we meet with Pikku mies, the dwarf-god, and in Altaic legend the child Kan Püdai, who was fed upon two hundred hares, who tames wild animals, makes himself a bow and bow-string, and becomes a mighty hero. In Esthonian folk-lore we have the tale of the seven-year-old wise girl, the persecution to which she was subjected at the hands of her stepmother, and the great deeds she accomplished (422. II. 144, 147, 154). But, outside of the wonderful infancy of Wäinämöinen, the culture-hero of the Finns, whom the Kalevala has immortalized, we find some striking tributes to the child-spirit. In the closing canto of this great epic, which, according to Andrew Lang, tells, in savage fashion, the story of the introduction of Christianity, we learn how the maiden Marjatta, "as pure as the dew is, as holy as stars are that live without stain," was feeding her flocks and listening to the singing of the golden cuckoo, when a berry fell into her bosom, and she conceived and bore a son, whereupon the people despised and rejected her. Moreover, no one would baptize the infant: "The god of the wilderness refused, and Wäinämöinen would have had the young child slain. Then the infant rebuked the ancient demi-god, who fled in anger to the sea." As Wäinämöinen was borne away in his magic barque by the tide, he lifted up his voice and sang how when men should have need of him they would look for his return, "bringing back sunlight and moonshine, and the joy that is vanished from the world." Thus did the rebuke of the babe close the reign of the demi-gods of old (484. 171-177).