Celtic Fairy Tales (28 page)

Remarks
.—Dr. Hyde (
l.c.
Pref. xxix.) thinks our tale
cannot be older than 1362, because of a reference to one O'Connor
Sligo which occurs in all its variants; it is, however, omitted in
our somewhat abridged version. Mr Nutt (
ap.
Campbell,
The
Fians
, Introd. xix.) thinks that this does not prevent a still
earlier version having existed. I should have thought that the
existence of so distinctly Eastern a trick in the tale, and the fact
that it is a framework story (another Eastern characteristic), would
imply that it is a rather late importation, with local allusions
superadded (
cf.
notes on "Conal Yellowclaw," No v.)

The passages in verse from pp 137, 139, and the description of the
Beggarman, pp. 136, 140, are instances of a curious characteristic
of Gaelic folk-tales called "runs." Collections of conventional
epithets are used over and over again to describe the same incident,
the beaching of a boat, sea-faring, travelling and the like, and are
inserted in different tales. These "runs" are often similar in both
the Irish and the Scotch form of the same tale or of the same
incident. The volumes of
Waifs and Strays
contain numerous
examples of these "runs," which have been indexed in each volume.
These "runs" are another confirmation of my view that the original
form of the folk-tale was that of the
Cante-fable
(see note
on "Connla" and on "Childe Rowland" in
English Fairy Tales
).

XVII. SEA-MAIDEN.

Source
.—Campbell,
Pop. Tales
, No. 4. I have omitted
the births of the animal comrades and transposed the carlin to the
middle of the tale. Mr. Batten has considerately idealised the Sea-
Maiden in his frontispiece. When she restores the husband to the
wife in one of the variants, she brings him out of her mouth! "So
the sea-maiden put up his head (
Who do you mean? Out of her mouth
to be sure. She had swallowed him
)."

Parallels
.—The early part of the story occurs in No. xv.,
"Shee an Gannon," and the last part in No. xix., "Fair, Brown, and
Trembling" (both from Curtin), Campbell's No. 1. "The Young King" is
much like it; also MacInnes' No. iv., "Herding of Cruachan" and No.
viii., "Lod the Farmer's Son." The third of Mr. Britten's Irish
folk-tales in the
Folk-Lore Journal
is a Sea-Maiden story.
The story is obviously a favourite one among the Celts. Yet its main
incidents occur with frequency in Continental folk-tales. Prof.
Köhler has collected a number in his notes on Campbell's Tales in
Orient und Occident
, Bnd. ii. 115-8. The trial of the sword
occurs in the saga of Sigurd, yet it is also frequent in Celtic saga
and folk-tales (see Mr. Nutt's note, MacInnes'
Tales
, 473,
and add. Curtin, 320). The hideous carlin and her three giant sons
is also a common form in Celtic. The external soul of the Sea-Maiden
carried about in an egg, in a trout, in a hoodie, in a hind, is a
remarkable instance of a peculiarly savage conception which has been
studied by Major Temple,
Wide-awake Stories
, 404-5; by Mr. E.
Clodd, in the "Philosophy of Punchkin," in
Folk-Lore Journal
,
vol. ii., and by Mr. Frazer in his
Golden Bough
, vol. ii.

Remarks
.—As both Prof. Rhys (
Hibbert Lect.
, 464) and
Mr. Nutt (MacInnes'
Tales
, 477) have pointed out, practically
the same story (that of Perseus and Andromeda) is told of the
Ultonian hero, Cuchulain, in the
Wooing of Emer
, a tale which
occurs in the Book of Leinster, a MS. of the twelfth century, and
was probably copied from one of the eighth. Unfortunately it is not
complete, and the Sea-Maiden incident is only to be found in a
British Museum MS. of about 1300. In this Cuchulain finds that the
daughter of Ruad is to be given as a tribute to the Fomori, who,
according to Prof. Rhys,
Folk-Lore
, ii. 293, have something
of the night
mare
about their etymology. Cuchulain fights
three
of them successively, has his wounds bound up by a
strip of the maiden's garment, and then departs. Thereafter many
boasted of having slain the Fomori, but the maiden believed them not
till at last by a stratagem she recognises Cuchulain. I may add to
this that in Mr. Curtin's
Myths
, 330, the threefold trial of
the sword is told of Cuchulain. This would seem to trace our story
back to the seventh or eighth century and certainly to the
thirteenth. If so, it is likely enough that it spread from Ireland
through Europe with the Irish missions (for the wide extent of which
see map in Mrs. Bryant's
Celtic Ireland
). The very letters
that have spread through all Europe except Russia, are to be traced
to the script of these Irish monks: why not certain folk-tales?
There is a further question whether the story was originally told of
Cuchulain as a hero-tale and then became departicularised as a folk-
tale, or was the process
vice versa
. Certainly in the form in
which it appears in the
Tochmarc Emer
it is not complete, so
that here, as elsewhere, we seem to have an instance of a folk-tale
applied to a well-known heroic name, and becoming a hero-tale or
saga.

XVIII. LEGEND OF KNOCKMANY.

Source
.—W. Carleton,
Traits and Stories of the Irish
Peasantry
.

Parallels
.—Kennedy's "Fion MacCuil and the Scotch Giant,"
Legend. Fict.
, 203-5.

Remarks
.—Though the venerable names of Finn and Cucullin
(Cuchulain) are attached to the heroes of this story, this is
probably only to give an extrinsic interest to it. The two heroes
could not have come together in any early form of their sagas, since
Cuchulain's reputed date is of the first, Finn's of the third
century A.D. (
cf.
however, MacDougall's
Tales
, notes, 272).
Besides, the grotesque form of the legend is enough to remove
it from the region of the hero-tale. On the other hand, there is a
distinct reference to Finn's wisdom-tooth, which presaged the future
to him (on this see
Revue Celtique
, v. 201, Joyce,
Old Celt.
Rom.
, 434-5, and MacDougall,
l.c.
274). Cucullin's power-finger
is another instance of the life-index or external soul, on which see
remarks on Sea-Maiden. Mr. Nutt informs me that parodies of the
Irish sagas occur as early as the sixteenth century, and the present
tale may be regarded as a specimen.

XIX. FAIR, BROWN, AND TREMBLING.

Source
.—Curtin,
Myths, &c., of Ireland, 78 seq.

Parallels
.—The latter half resembles the second part of the
Sea-Maiden (No. xvii.), which see. The earlier portion is a
Cinderella tale (on which see the late Mr. Ralston's article in
Nineteenth Century
, Nov. 1879, and Mr. Lang's treatment in
his Perrault). Miss Roalfe Cox is about to publish for the Folk-Lore
Society a whole volume of variants of the Cinderella group of
stories, which are remarkably well represented in these isles,
nearly a dozen different versions being known in England, Ireland,
and Scotland.

XX. JACK AND HIS MASTER.

Source
.—Kennedy,
Fireside Stories of Ireland
, 74-80,
"Shan an Omadhan and his Master."

Parallels
.—It occurs also in Campbell, No. xlv., "Mac a
Rusgaich." It is a European droll, the wide occurrence of which—
"the loss of temper bet" I should call it—is bibliographised by M.
Cosquin,
l.c.
ii. 50 (
cf.
notes on No. vi.).

XXI. BETH GELLERT.

Source
.—I have paraphrased the well-known poem of Hon. W. R.
Spencer, "Beth Gêlert, or the Grave of the Greyhound," first printed
privately as a broadsheet in 1800 when it was composed ("August 11,
1800, Dolymalynllyn" is the colophon). It was published in Spencer's
Poems
, 1811, pp. 78-86. These dates, it will be seen, are of
importance. Spencer states in a note: "The story of this ballad is
traditionary in a village at the foot of Snowdon where Llewellyn the
Great had a house. The Greyhound named Gêlert was given him by his
father-in-law, King John, in the year 1205, and the place to this
day is called Beth-Gêlert, or the grave of Gêlert." As a matter of
fact, no trace of the tradition in connection with Bedd Gellert can
be found before Spencer's time. It is not mentioned in Leland's
Itinerary
, ed. Hearne, v. p. 37 ("Beth Kellarth"), in Pennant's
Tour
(1770), ii. 176, or in Bingley's
Tour in Wales
(1800).
Borrow in his
Wild Wales
, p. 146, gives the legend, but does
not profess to derive it from local tradition.

Parallels
.—The only parallel in Celtdom is that noticed by
Croker in his third volume, the legend of Partholan who killed his
wife's greyhound from jealousy: this is found sculptured in stone at
Ap Brune, co. Limerick. As is well known, and has been elaborately
discussed by Mr. Baring-Gould (
Curious Myths of the Middle
Ages
, p. 134
seq.
), and Mr. W. A. Clouston (
Popular Tales
and Fictions
, ii. 166,
seq.
), the story of the man who
rashly slew the dog (ichneumon, weasel, &c.) that had saved his
babe from death, is one of those which have spread from East to
West. It is indeed, as Mr. Clouston points out, still current in
India, the land of its birth. There is little doubt that it is
originally Buddhistic: the late Prof. S. Beal gave the earliest
known version from the Chinese translation of the
Vinaya
Pitaka
in the
Academy
of Nov. 4, 1882. The conception of
an animal sacrificing itself for the sake of others is peculiarly
Buddhistic; the "hare in the moon" is an apotheosis of such a piece
of self-sacrifice on the part of Buddha (
Sasa Jataka
). There
are two forms that have reached the West, the first being that of an
animal saving men at the cost of its own life. I pointed out an
early instance of this, quoted by a Rabbi of the second century, in
my
Fables of Aesop
, i. 105. This concludes with a strangely
close parallel to Gellert; "They raised a cairn over his grave,
and the place is still called The Dog's Grave." The
Culex
attributed to Virgil seems to be another variant of this. The second
form of the legend is always told as a moral apologue against
precipitate action, and originally occurred in
The Fables of
Bidpai
in its hundred and one forms, all founded on Buddhistic
originals (
cf.
Benfey,
Pantschatantra
, Einleitung, section 201).
(Footnote: It occurs in the same chapter as the story of La
Perrette, which has been traced, after Benfey, by Prof. M. Müller in
his "Migration of Fables" (
Sel. Essays
, i. 500-74): exactly
the same history applies to Gellert.)
Thence, according to Benfey,
it was inserted in the
Book of Sindibad
, another collection
of Oriental Apologues framed on what may be called the Mrs. Potiphar
formula. This came to Europe with the Crusades, and is known in its
Western versions as the
Seven Sages of Rome
. The Gellert
story occurs in all the Oriental and Occidental versions;
e.g.
, it is the First Master's story in Wynkyn de Worde's
(ed. G. L. Gomme, for the Villon Society.) From the
Seven
Sages
it was taken into the particular branch of the
Gesta
Romanorum
current in England and known as the English
Gesta
,
where it occurs as c. xxxii., "Story of Folliculus." We have thus traced
it to England whence it passed to Wales, where I have discovered it as
the second apologue of "The Fables of Cattwg the Wise," in the Iolo
MS. published by the Welsh MS. Society, p.561, "The man who
killed his Greyhound." (These Fables, Mr. Nutt informs me, are a
pseudonymous production probably of the sixteenth century.) This
concludes the literary route of the Legend of Gellert from India to
Wales: Buddhistic
Vinaya Pitaka—Fables of Bidpai
;—Oriental
Sindibad
;—Occidental
Seven Sages of Rome
;—"English" (Latin),
Gesta Romanorum
;—Welsh,
Fables of Cattwg
.

Remarks
.—We have still to connect the legend with Llewelyn
and with Bedd Gelert. But first it may be desirable to point out why
it is necessary to assume that the legend is a legend and not a
fact. The saving of an infant's life by a dog, and the mistaken
slaughter of the dog, are not such an improbable combination as to
make it impossible that the same event occurred in many places. But
what is impossible, in my opinion, is that such an event should have
independently been used in different places as the typical instance
of, and warning against, rash action. That the Gellert legend,
before it was localised, was used as a moral apologue in Wales is
shown by the fact that it occurs among the Fables of Cattwg, which
are all of that character. It was also utilised as a proverb: "
Yr
wy'n edivaru cymmaint a'r Gwr a laddodd ei Vilgi
" ("I repent as
much as the man who slew his greyhound"). The fable indeed, from
this point of view, seems greatly to have attracted the Welsh mind,
perhaps as of especial value to a proverbially impetuous
temperament. Croker (
Fairy Legends of Ireland
, vol. iii. p.
165) points out several places where the legend seems to have been
localised in place-names—two places, called "Gwal y Vilast"
("Greyhound's Couch"), in Carmarthen and Glamorganshire; "Llech y
Asp" ("Dog's Stone"), in Cardigan, and another place named in Welsh
"Spring of the Greyhound's Stone." Mr. Baring-Gould mentions that
the legend is told of an ordinary tombstone, with a knight and a
greyhound, in Abergavenny Church; while the Fable of Cattwg is told
of a man in Abergarwan. So widespread and well known was the legend
that it was in Richard III's time adopted as the national crest. In
the Warwick Roll, at the Herald's Office, after giving separate
crests for England, Scotland, and Ireland, that for Wales is given
as figured in the margin, and blazoned "on a coronet in a cradle or,
a greyhound argent for Walys" (see J. R. Planché,
Twelve Designs
for the Costume of Shakespeare's Richard III.
, 1830, frontispiece).
If this Roll is authentic, the popularity of the legend is thrown back
into the fifteenth century. It still remains to explain how and when this
general legend of rash action was localised and specialised at Bedd
Gelert: I believe I have discovered this. There certainly was a local
legend about a dog named Gelert at that place; E. Jones, in the first
edition of his
Musical Relicks of the Welsh Bards
, 1784, p. 40, gives
the following
englyn
or epigram: