More English Fairy Tales - Jacobs Joseph - Страница 40

LIV. GOBBORN SEER

Source.—Collected by Mrs. Gomme from an old woman at Deptford. It is to be remarked that “Gobborn Seer” is Irish (Goban Saor = free carpenter), and is the Irish equivalent of Wayland Smith, and occurs in several place names in Ireland.

Parallels.—The essence of the tale occurs in Kennedy, l.c., p. 67, seq. Gobborn Seer’s daughter was clearly the clever lass who is found in all parts of the Indo-European world. An instance in my Indian Fairy Tales, “Why the Fish Laughed” (No. xxiv.). She has been made a special study by Prof. Child, English and Scotch Ballads, i., 485, while an elaborate monograph by Prof. Benfey under the title “Die Kluge Dirne” (reprinted in his Kleine Schriften, ii., 156, seq.), formed the occasion for his first presentation of his now well-known hypothesis of the derivation of all folk-tales from India.

Remarks.—But for the accident of the title being preserved there would have been nothing to show that this tale had been imported into England from Ireland, whither it had probably been carried all the way from India.

LV. LAWKAMERCYME

Source.—Halliwell, Nursery Rhymes.

Parallels.—It is possible that this is an Eastern “sell”: it occurs at any rate as the first episode in Fitzgerald’s translation of Jami’s Salaman and Absal. Jami, ob. 1492, introduces the story to illustrate the perplexities of the problem of individuality in a pantheistic system.

In other words, M. Bourget’s Cruelle Enigme. The Arab yokel coming to Bagdad is fearful of losing his identity, and ties a pumpkin to his leg before going to sleep. His companion transfers it to his own leg. The yokel awaking is perplexed like the pantheist.

LVI. TATTERCOATS

Source.—Told to Mrs. Balfour by a little girl named Sally Brown, when she lived in the Cars in Lincolnshire. Sally had got it from her mother, who worked for Mrs. Balfour. It was originally told in dialect, which Mrs. Balfour has omitted.

Parallels.—Miss Cox has included “Tattercoats” in her exhaustive collection of parallels of Cinderella (Folk-Lore Society Publications, 1892), No. 274 from the MS. which I had lent her. Miss Cox rightly classes it as “Indeterminate,” and it has only the Menial Heroine and Happy Marriage episodes in common with stories of the Cinderella type.

Remarks.—Tattercoats is of interest chiefly as being without any “fairy” or supernatural elements, unless the magic pipe can be so considered; it certainly gives the tale a fairy-like element. It is practically a prose variant of King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid, and is thus an instance of the folk-novel pure and simple, without any admixture of those unnatural incidents which transform the folk-novel into the serious folk-tale as we are accustomed to have it. Which is the prior, folk-novel or tale, it would be hard to say.

LVII. THE WEE BANNOCK

Source.—Chambers’s Popular Rhymes of Scotland. I have attempted an impossibility, I fear, in trying to anglicise, but the fun of the original tempted me. There still remain several technical trade terms requiring elucidation. I owe the following to the kindness of the Rev. Mr. Todd Martin, of Belfast. Lawtrod = lap board on which the tailor irons; tow cards, the comb with which tow is carded; the clove, a heavy wooden knife for breaking up the flax. Heckling is combing it with a heckle or wooden comb; binnings are halters for cattle made of sprit or rushes. Spurtle = spoon; whins = gorse.

Parallels.—This is clearly a variant of Johnny-cake = journey-cake, No. xxviii., where see Notes.

Remarks.—But here the interest is with the pursuers rather than with the pursued. The subtle characterisation of the various occupations reaches a high level of artistic merit. Mr. Barrie himself could scarcely have succeeded better in a very difficult task.

LVIII. JOHNNY GLOKE

Source.—Contributed by Mr. W. Gregor to Folk-Lore Journal, vii. I have rechristened “Johnny Glaik” for the sake of the rhyme, and anglicised the few Scotticisms.

Parallels.—This is clearly The Valiant Tailor of the Grimms: “x at a blow” has been bibliographised. (See my List of Incidents in Trans. Folk-Lore Congress, 1892, sub voce.)

Remarks.—How The Valiant Tailor got to Aberdeen one cannot tell, though the resemblance is close enough to suggest a direct “lifting” from some English version of Grimm’s Goblins. At the same time it must be remembered that Jack the Giant Killer (see Notes on No. xix.) contains some of the incidents of The Valiant Tailor.

LIX. COAT O CLAY

Source.—Contributed by Mrs. Balfour originally to Longman’s Magazine, and thence to Folk-Lore, Sept., 1890.

Remarks.—A rustic apologue, which is scarcely more than a prolonged pun on “Coat o’ Clay.” Mrs. Balfour’s telling redeems it from the usual dulness of folk-tales with a moral or a double meaning.

LX. THE THREE COWS

Source.—Contributed to Henderson, l.c., pp. 321-2, by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould.

Parallels.—The incident “Bones together” occurs in Rushen Coatie (infra, No. lxx.), and has been discussed by the Grimms, i., 399, and by Prof. Kohler, Or. und Occ., ii., 680.

LXI. THE BLINDED GIANT

Source.—Henderson’s Folk-Lore of Northern Counties. See also Folk-Lore.

Parallels.—Polyphemus in the Odyssey and the Celtic parallels in Celtic Fairy Tales, No. v., “Conall Yellowclaw.” The same incident occurs in one of Sindbad’s voyages.

Remarks.—Here we have another instance of the localisation of a well-known myth. There can be little doubt that the version is ultimately to be traced back to the Odyssey. The one-eyed giant, the barred door, the escape through the blinded giant’s legs in the skin of a slaughtered animal, are a series of incidents that could not have arisen independently and casually. Yet till lately the mill stood to prove if the narrator lied, and every circumstance of local particularity seemed to vouch for the autochthonous character of the myth. The incident is an instructive one, and I have therefore included it in this volume, though it is little more than an anecdote in its present shape.