VI. HUDDEN AND DUDDEN.
Source.—From oral tradition, by the late D. W. Logie, taken down by Mr. Alfred Nutt.
Parallels.—Lover has a tale, "Little Fairly," obviously derived from this folk-tale; and there is another very similar, "Darby Darly." Another version of our tale is given under the title "Donald and his Neighbours," in the chapbook Hibernian Tales, whence it was reprinted by Thackeray in his Irish Sketch-Book, c. xvi. This has the incident of the "accidental matricide," on which see Prof. R. Köhler on Gonzenbach Sicil. Mährchen, ii. 224. No less than four tales of Campbell are of this type (Pop. Tales, ii. 218-31). M. Cosquin, in his "Contes populaires de Lorraine," the storehouse of "storiology," has elaborate excursuses in this class of tales attached to his Nos. x. and xx. Mr. Clouston discusses it also in his Pop. Tales, ii. 229-88. Both these writers are inclined to trace the chief incidents to India. It is to be observed that one of the earliest popular drolls in Europe, Unibos, a Latin poem of the eleventh, and perhaps the tenth, century, has the main outlines of the story, the fraudulent sale of worthless objects and the escape from the sack trick. The same story occurs in Straparola, the European earliest collection of folk-tales in the sixteenth century. On the other hand, the gold sticking to the scales is familiar to us in Ali Baba. (Cf. Cosquin, l.c., i. 225-6, 229).
Remarks.—It is indeed curious to find, as M. Cosquin points out, a cunning fellow tied in a sack getting out by crying, "I won't marry the princess," in countries so far apart as Ireland, Sicily (Gonzenbach, No. 71), Afghanistan (Thorburn, Bannu, p. 184), and Jamaica (Folk-Lore Record, iii. 53). It is indeed impossible to think these are disconnected, and for drolls of this kind a good case has been made out for the borrowing hypotheses by M. Cosquin and Mr. Clouston. Who borrowed from whom is another and more difficult question which has to be judged on its merits in each individual case.
This is a type of Celtic folk-tales which are European in spread, have analogies with the East, and can only be said to be Celtic by adoption and by colouring. They form a distinct section of the tales told by the Celts, and must be represented in any characteristic selection. Other examples are xi., xv., xx., and perhaps xxii.
VII. SHEPHERD OF MYDDVAI.
Source.—Preface to the edition of "The Physicians of Myddvai"; their prescription-book, from the Red Book of Hergest, published by the Welsh MS. Society in 1861. The legend is not given in the Red Book, but from oral tradition by Mr. W. Rees, p. xxi. As this is the first of the Welsh tales in this book it may be as well to give the reader such guidance as I can afford him on the intricacies of Welsh pronunciation, especially with regard to the mysterious w's and y's of Welsh orthography. For w substitute double o, as in "fool," and for y, the short u in b_u_t, and as near approach to Cymric speech will be reached as is possible for the outlander. It maybe added that double d equals th, and double l is something like Fl, as Shakespeare knew in calling his Welsh soldier Fluellen (Llewelyn). Thus "Meddygon Myddvai" would be Anglicè "Methugon Muthvai."
Parallels.—Other versions of the legend of the Van Pool are given in Cambro-Briton, ii. 315; W. Sikes, British Goblins, p. 40. Mr. E. Sidney Hartland has discussed these and others in a set of papers contributed to the first volume of The Archaeological Review (now incorporated into Folk-Lore), the substance of which is now given in his Science of Fairy Tales, 274-332. (See also the references given in Revue Celtique, iv., 187 and 268). Mr. Hartland gives there an ecumenical collection of parallels to the several incidents that go to make up our story—(1) The bride-capture of the Swan-Maiden, (2) the recognition of the bride, (3) the taboo against causeless blows, (4) doomed to be broken, and (5) disappearance of the Swan-Maiden, with (6) her return as Guardian Spirit to her descendants. In each case Mr. Hartland gives what he considers to be the most primitive form of the incident. With reference to our present tale, he comes to the conclusion, if I understand him aright, that the lake-maiden was once regarded as a local divinity. The physicians of Myddvai were historic personages, renowned for their medical skill for some six centuries, till the race died out with John Jones, fl. 1743. To explain their skill and uncanny knowledge of herbs, the folk traced them to a supernatural ancestress, who taught them their craft in a place still called Pant-y-Meddygon ("Doctors' Dingle"). Their medical knowledge did not require any such remarkable origin, as Mr. Hartland has shown in a paper "On Welsh Folk-Medicine," contributed to Y Cymmrodor, vol. xii. On the other hand, the Swan-Maiden type of story is widespread through the Old World. Mr. Morris' "Land East of the Moon and West of the Sun," in The Earthly Paradise, is taken from the Norse version. Parallels are accumulated by the Grimms, ii. 432; Köhler on Gonzenbach, ii. 20; or Blade, 149; Stokes' Indian Fairy Tales, 243, 276; and Messrs. Jones and Koopf, Magyar Folk-Tales, 362-5. It remains to be proved that one of these versions did not travel to Wales, and become there localised. We shall see other instances of such localisation or specialisation of general legends.
VIII. THE SPRIGHTLY TAILOR.
Source.—Notes and Queries for December 21, 1861; to which it was communicated by "Cuthbert Bede," the author of Verdant Green, who collected it in Cantyre.