A specimen of the way in which folk-tales are interpreted mythologically will, I think, show at once the ingenuity of the interpreter and the baselessness of the interpretation. The tale which I cite as a specimen of this kind of treatment is one which, like folk-tales in general, occurs in several forms in England, in Southern Italy, in Germany, in the Tyrol, in Hungary, in Iceland, Swabia, Wallachia, and Greece, and probably in other countries. I give it in the form in which it appears in the ‘Modern Greek Household Tales,’ edited by Von Hahn, because the Greek version of this tale has the merit of being ‘shorter than most of its variants.’ The ingenious though fanciful explanation will be found in the appendix to Mr. Henderson’s ‘Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England’:—
‘A man and a woman had no children; the woman prayed that she might be granted one, even though it were a serpent; and in due course of time she brought forth a serpent, which left the house and took up its abode in a hole.
‘The woman is a terrible shrew, and a bad woman to boot; she brings the house to poverty, and then goes to the serpent to ask for relief. The serpent gives his mother a gold-dropping ass, warning her never to let it touch water. The couple live on the gold for some while, but at last the woman leads the ass to the water, and it runs away and is lost. She goes once more to her child, who gives her a pitcher, which does all she wants; she sells this to the king, and is reduced to poverty. The old man now goes to the serpent’s lair and obtains a stick, to which he says, “Up stick, and do your duty!” whereupon it knocks the woman on the head and kills her; so the man lives in happiness ever after.’
On this, the writer who undertakes to interpret this tale observes—
‘That these stories rest upon a common mythological foundation, there is strong evidence to prove. The gold-dropping animal, the magic table or napkin, the self-acting cudgel, appear in some of the tales of ancient India, and their original signification is made apparent.
‘The master, who gives the three precious gifts, is the All Father—the Supreme Spirit. The gold and jewel dropping ass is the spring cloud hanging in the sky, and shedding the bright productive Vernal showers. The table which covers itself is the earth becoming covered with flowers and fruit at the bidding of the New Year. But there is a check; rain is withheld, the process of vegetation is stayed, by some evil influence. Then comes the Thunder cloud, out of which leaps the bolt and rains pour down, the earth receives them, and is covered with abundance—all that was lost is restored.’
The incident of the dropping of jewels only appears in the Neapolitan version, given in the ‘Pentamerone’ of Giambattista Basile,[17] and is apparently an addition made by him to the original story. The explanation of the meaning of the tale, it appears to me, might as fittingly have been taken from the region of science, or of history, and might have been as easily interpreted in a thousand and one other ways as in this. So that if, originally, the folk-tale embodied a mythological truth, which, however, may be affirmed or denied with equal right, the fact is of no value in aiding us to determine what the intentions of the inventor of the tale must have been.
Mythological symbolism, like very much of what passes current as ecclesiastical symbolism, is a testimony to the ingenuity of the interpreter; it has, oftentimes, no existence in the object interpreted. We may, to our own satisfaction, perhaps, resolve the sternest facts into impalpable fancies; the fact remains, and will remain when the fancy has faded into its original nothingness or lingers only as a beautiful freak of fancy. The twelve Cæsars were living and historical personages, though an ingenious apologist has reduced them into mythological non-existences, and has traced in them a likeness to the twelve signs of the Zodiac. Mythological and legendary incidents, it is true, have a tendency to fasten themselves upon real men and women until, like parasitical plants round the trunk of a tree, they conceal the true character of those who are thus clothed. Sir Richard Whittington, however, was Lord Mayor of London, though the sounds heard from the brow of Highgate Hill—
‘When he, a friendless and a drooping boy,
Sat on a stone, and heard the bells speak out—
Articulate music’—[18]