And the magician summons to his assistance stick, fire, water, calf, butcher, devil, which help him to expel the wolf.
Even more primitive than this tale is one current in Languedoc, in which a spell has fallen on a root or turnip, which is finally raised by the hog. It begins: "The old woman went into the garden in order to pull out a turnip. When the old man saw that the old woman did not come back, he went into the garden and saw the old woman pulling at the turnip. The old man pulled at the old woman, the old woman pulled at the turnip, but the turnip stuck fast." They were followed by daughter-in-law, son, man, maid, and so forth, including the cat and the rat. Finally the hog came to the rescue. Instead of pulling like the others, he attacked the turnip from below, and by doing so he succeeded in raising it, otherwise the spell would continue, "and the root would still be holding fast" (M. L., p. 541).
The comparison of these various tales or pieces shows that dog, stick, fire, water, ox, butcher, form a sequence of powers that was accepted over a wide geographical area. They were invoked wherever it was question of breaking a spell that had fallen on a coveted object, the object including pigs, pears, oats, berries, millet, and roots. These are products that were prized in Europe from a remote period in antiquity. As the products are primitive, so probably is the form of verse in which the story is told of their being made fast. For the same form of verse is used in a further class of pieces to which we now turn, and which, by their contents, betray a pre-Christian origin.
CHAPTER XII
CHANTS OF NUMBERS
AMONG our traditional games, some consist of a dialogue in which the answer is set in cumulative form. These include the game known as The Twelve Days of Christmas, which was played on Twelfth-Day night by the assembled company before eating mince-pies and twelfth cake. In the game of Twelve Days each player in succession repeated the gifts of the day, and raised his fingers and hand according to the number which he named. Each answer included the one that had gone before, and forfeits were paid for each mistake that was made. (1894, II, 315.)
The oldest printed version of the words used in playing Twelve Days stands in one of the diminutive toy-books exhibited at South Kensington Museum by E. Pearson. These words begin:—
[Pg 135] The first day of Christmas, my true love gave me
A partridge in a pear-tree.
The second day of Christmas, my true love gave me
Two turtle-doves and a partridge in a pear-tree.