If the reader will take the trouble to compare the above rendering of this story with the Hindoo variant entitled "The Valiant Chattee-Maker,"[4] and the closely-related German version called by Grimm "The Valiant Little Tailor,"[5] he will see how far it surpasses them both in unity of conception, in coherence of detail, in keen appreciation of humor and in skill of literary treatment. The grotesque statement of impossibilities with which it begins is the Caucasian story-teller's conventional method of forewarning his hearers that they are about to listen to a burlesque, a pure extravaganza, lying entirely outside the domain of fact and reality. There is no attempt made to give it the air of truth: on the contrary, the narrator takes especial pains to demolish what little intrinsic probability the story has by introducing the conventional formula, "Travelled little, travelled much, travelled as far as a frog can jump," etc. This, like the jingle of a court-jester's bells, is intended to remind the hearer that nothing is to be taken seriously.
It is remarkable that men living in such wild, gloomy fastnesses as the tremendous ravines of the Eastern Caucasus—men whose characters have been hardened and tempered in the hot fires of war and the vendetta—men who have the pride and fortitude of American Indians with the sternness and ferocity of Scandinavian Berserkers—should still be capable of appreciating and enjoying such anecdotes as "The Kettle that Died" and "The Big Turnip," and such popular tales as "The Hero Naznai." The fierce lust of war, which is perhaps the most salient feature of the mountaineer's character, and the sternness and hardness of mental and moral fibre which it tends to produce, are generally supposed to be incompatible not only with the delicacy of perception upon which humor largely depends, but with the very taste for humor itself; and yet in the Caucasian mountaineer they are coexistent. How versatile the Caucasian character is, and how wide is the range of its tastes and sympathies, I shall show more fully hereafter.
The characters which figure in Caucasian popular tales are very numerous, and are taken, as might be expected, from a great variety of sources. There are the stereotyped three brothers of German and Russian stories; the dragons, giants, were-wolves, wicked magicians, and beautiful girls married to bears, of all Aryan folk-lore; and sundry nondescript personages with superhuman powers which have no exact analogues among the other Aryan races, and seem to be original products of Caucasian fancy. Among the latter are karts, female ogres with cannibalistic tastes; narts, or giants of protean shapes and variable dispositions; and certain mysterious equestrians who are always described as "hare-riders." These three classes of supernatural beings, karts, narts and hare-riders, are known to the whole body of the Caucasian mountaineers without distinction of tribe or race; and it is a significant fact that the two first mentioned have everywhere and in all Caucasian languages the same names. By whom they were originally invented, and from what tongue their appellations were derived, philologists can as yet only conjecture. Among the Ossetes, who are unquestionably an Aryan race, narts have a quasi-historical existence like the Knights of the Round Table, and their lives and adventures have been woven by popular tradition into a sort of mediæval epic resembling the Nibelungen Lied of Germany. Elsewhere, among the Chechenses, the Avars and the Circassians, narts are simply giants of the orthodox nursery type.
It is remarkable that we should also find among the dramatis personæ of Caucasian popular tales such Old-Testament heroes as Jonah and Solomon, and such historical characters as the Roman Cæsars. The former were very likely introduced by the Jews and Arabs, whose descendants form no inconsiderable part of the present population, but the Roman emperors must have gained a foothold in Caucasian traditional lore before the downfall of the Byzantine Empire, and may have done so as long ago as the reign of Augustus, when the lowlands of the Caucasus were under Roman rule.
Next to anecdotes and stories in importance and popularity come beast-fables, of which the mountaineers have an almost endless number and variety. Animals, especially birds and foxes, figure more or less extensively throughout Caucasian literature, but in the beast-fables, properly so called, they have the whole stage to themselves, and think, act and talk in perfect independence of natural laws and limitations. The view taken by the mountaineers of the animal world seems to be the view of the Aryan races generally. With them, as with us, the fox is the embodiment of cunning, the ass of stupidity, and the bear of clumsy strength and good-humored simplicity. If they can be said to have a favorite animal, it is the wolf, whose predatory life, ferocity when at bay and ability to die fighting and in silence comprise all that in a mountaineer's eyes is most worthy of admiration. "Short-eared wolf" is a Caucasian girl's pet name for her lover, and "wolf of the North" was the most complimentary title which the Chechenses could think of to head an address to a distinguished Russian general whose gallantry in battle had won their respect. The serpent, in the Caucasus, is the Cardinal Mezzofanti of the brute world. To know as many languages as a serpent is the ne plus ultra of polyglot erudition. A swaggering coward is compared to a drunken mouse; and many a boaster on the porch of the Caucasian village mosque has been silenced by some sceptical bystander with the well-known quotation from a popular beast-fable: "'What has become of all the cats?' inquired the drunken mouse." Of the Caucasian beast-fables the following is a characteristic specimen:
The Jackal and the Fox.—Once upon a time a hunter set a trap and baited it with a piece of fat mutton. Along came a hungry fox and discovered it, but, not daring to approach it, she proceeded to walk round and round it at a distance. In the mean time she was joined by a jackal. The fox asked the jackal where he was going. "Oh, I am almost dead with hunger," replied the jackal. "I started to go to the village in search of something to eat, but I am afraid of the dogs."—"Well, Brother Jackal," said the fox, "I know a place not far from here where there lies a big piece of fat mutton: how would you like that?"—"Why don't you eat it yourself?" inquired the jackal.—"I'm now keeping oroozh" [6] and now I am having a holiday."—"But when am I going to have my holiday?" asked the jackal.—"When the owner of the trap comes," answered the fox, and so saying walked away.
Most of the Caucasian literature to which I have hitherto had occasion to refer is the reflection of the lighter, more genial side of the mountaineer's character, and taken alone would give the impression that he is an amiable, jovial, good-humored fellow with a keen sense of the ludicrous and little knowledge of, or feeling for, the sorrows, the sufferings and the tragedies of life. Such an impression, however, would be a wholly mistaken one; and in order that the reader may see how full of sorrow and suffering and tragedy his life really is, I will, before taking up Caucasian poetry, give some extracts from a code of Caucasian criminal law. I do this partly because the code itself is a legal and literary curiosity, and partly because it shows better than any description could do the state of society in which a Caucasian mountaineer lives:
Laws of Ootsmee Rustem, Khan of Kaitaga.—1. To the reader of these ordinances a piece of silk from him in whose favor the case shall be decided.
2. He shall not read these laws for any one who has not a paper from the bek, with the impression of the bek's seal.
He who holds his tongue will save his head.