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Popular Tales from the Norse

S >> Sir George Webbe Dasent >> Popular Tales from the Norse




[33]

M. Moe, _Introd. Norsk. Event_ (Christiania, 1851, 2d Ed.), to
which the writer is largely indebted.

[34]

Footnote: The following list, which only selects the more prominent
collections, will suffice to show that Popular Tales have a
literature of their own:--Sanscrit. The _Pantcha Tantra_, 'The
Five Books', a collection of fables of which only extracts have as
yet been published, but of which Professor Wilson has given an
analysis in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society, vol. I, sect. 2.
The _Hitopadesa_, or 'Wholesome Instruction', a selection of
tales and fables from the Pantcha Tantra, first edited by Carey at
Serampore in 1804; again by Hamilton in London in 1810; again in
Germany by A. W. von Schlegel in 1829, an edition which was followed
in 1831 by a critical commentary by Lassen; and again in 1830 at
Calcutta with a Bengali and English translation. The work had been
translated into English by Wilkins so early as 1787, when it was
published in London, and again by Sir William Jones, whose rendering,
which is not so good as that by Wilkins, appeared after his death in
the collected edition of his works. Into German it has been
translated in a masterly way by Max Müller, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1844.
Versions of these Sanscrit collections, the date of the latter of
which is ascribed to the end of the second century of the Christian
era, varying in many respects, but all possessing sufficient
resemblance to identify them with their Sanscrit originals, are found
in almost every Indian dialect, and in Zend, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew,
Greek and Turkish. We are happy to be able to state here that the
eminent Sanscrit scholar, Professor Benfey of Göttingen, is now
publishing a German translation of the _Pantcha Tantra_, which
will be accompanied by translations of numerous compositions of the
same kind, drawn from unpublished Sanscrit works, and from the
legends current amongst the Mongolian tribes. The work will be
preceded by an introduction embracing the whole question of the
origin and diffusion of fables and popular tales. The following will
be the title of Prof. Benfey's work: '_Pantcha Tantra. Erster
Theil, Fünf Bücher Indischer Fabeln, Märchen, and Erzählungen_. Aus
dem Sanskrit übersetzt, mit Anmerkungen and Einleitung über das
Indische Grundwerk und dessen Ausflüsse, so wie über die Quellen und
Verbreitung des Inhalts derselben. Zweiter Theil, Übersetzungen und
Anmerkungen.' Most interesting of all for our purpose is the
collection of Sanscrit Tales, collected in the twelfth century of our
era, by Somadeva Bhatta of Cashmere. This has been published in
Sanscrit, and translated into German by Hermann Brockhaus, and the
nature of its contents has already been sufficiently indicated. We
may add, however, that Somadeva's collection exhibits the Hindoo mind
in the twelfth century in a condition, as regards popular tales,
which the mind of Europe has not yet reached. How old these
stories and fables must have been in the East, we see both from
the _Pantcha Tantra_ and the _Hitopadesa_, which are strictly
didactic works, and only employ tales and fables to illustrate and
inculcate a moral lesson. We in the West have got beyond fables and
apologues, but we are only now collecting our popular tales. In
Somadeva's time the simple tale no longer sufficed; it had to be
fitted into and arranged with others, with an art and dexterity which
is really marvellous; and so cleverly is this done, that it requires
a mind of no little cultivation, and a head of more than ordinary
clearness, to carry without confusion all the wheels within wheels,
and fables within fables, which spring out of the original story as
it proceeds. In other respects the popular tale loses in simplicity
what it gains in intricacy by this artificial arrangement; and it is
evident that in the twelfth century the Hindoo tales had been long
since collected out of the mouths of the people, and reduced to
writing; in a word, that the popular element had disappeared, and
that they had passed into the written literature of the race. We may
take this opportunity, too, to mention that a most curious collection
of tales and fables, translated from Sanscrit, has recently been
discovered in Chinese. They are on the eve of publication by M.
Stanislas Julien, the first of Chinese scholars; and from the
information on the matter which Professor Max Müller has kindly
furnished to the translator, it appears that they passed with
Buddhism from India into China. The work from which M. Julien has
taken these fables, which are all the more precious because the
Sanscrit originals have in all probability perished,--is called
_Yu-lin_, or 'The Forest of Comparisons'. It was the work of
Youen-thai, a great Chinese scholar, who was President of the
Ministry of justice at Pekin in the year 1565 of our era. He
collected in twenty-four volumes, after the labour of twenty years,
during which he read upwards of four hundred works, all the fables
and comparisons he could find in ancient books. Of those works, two
hundred were translations from the Sanscrit made by Buddhist monks,
and it is from eleven of these that M. Julien has translated his
Chinese Fables. We need hardly say that this work is most anxiously
expected by all who take an interest in such matters. Let it be
allowed to add here, that it was through no want of respect towards
the memory of M. de Sacy that the translator has given so much
prominence to the views and labours of the Brothers Grimm in this
Introduction.

To M. de Sacy belongs all the merit of exploring what may be called
the old written world of fable. He, and Warton, and Dunlop, and
Price, too, did the day's work of Giants, in tracing out and
classifying those tales and fables which had passed into the
literature of the Aryan race. But, besides this old region, there is
another new hemisphere of fiction which lies in the mouths and in the
minds of the people. This new world of fable the Grimms discovered,
and to them belongs the glory of having brought all its fruits and
flowers to the light of day. This is why their names must ever be
foremost in a work on Popular Tales, shining, as their names
must ever shine, a bright double star in that new hemisphere. In
more modern times, the earliest collection of popular tales is to be
found in the _Piacevoli Notte_ of John Francis Straparola of
Caravaggio, near Milan, the first edition of which appeared at
Venice in 1550. The book, which is shamefully indecent, even
for that age, and which at last, in 1606, was placed in the
_Index Expurgatorius_, contains stories from all sources, and
amongst them nineteen genuine popular tales, which are not
disfigured by the filth with which the rest of the volume is full.
Straparola's work has been twice translated into German, once at
Vienna, 1791, and again by Schmidt in a more complete form,
_Märchen-Saal_, Berlin, 1817. But a much more interesting Italian
collection appeared at Naples in the next century. This was
the _Pentamerone_ of Giambattista Basile, who wrote in the
Neapolitan dialect, and whose book appeared in 1637. This collection
contains forty-eight tales, and is in tone, and keeping, and diction,
one of the best that has ever appeared in any language. It has been
repeatedly reprinted at Naples. It has been translated into German,
and a portion of it, a year or two back, by Mr. Taylor, into English.
In France the first collection of this kind was made by Charles
Perrault, who, in 1697, published eight tales, under a title taken
from an old _Fabliau_, _Contes de ma mère L'Oye_, whence comes
our 'Mother Goose'. To these eight, three more tales were added in
later editions. Perrault was shortly followed by Madame D'Aulnoy
(born in 1650, died 1705), whose manner of treating her tales is far
less true to nature than Perrault's, and who inserts at will, verses,
alterations, additions, and moral reflections. Her style is
sentimental and over-refined; the courtly airs of the age of Louis
XIV predominate, and nature suffers by the change from the cottage to
the palace. Madame d'Aulnoy was followed by a host of imitators; the
Countess Mürat, who died in 1710; Countess d'Auneuil, who died in
1700; M. de Preschac, born 1676, who composed tales of utter
worthlessness, which may be read as examples of what popular tales
are not, in the collection called _Le Cabinet des Fées_, which
was published in Paris in 1785. Not much better are the attempts of
Count Hamilton, who died in 1720; of M. de Moncrif, who died in 1770;
of Mademoiselle de la Force, died 1724; of Mademoiselle l'Heritier
died 1737; of Count Caylus, who wrote his _Féeries Nouvelles_ in
the first half of the 18th century, for the popular element fails
almost entirely in their works. Such as they are, they may also be
read in the _Cabinet des Fées_, a collection which ran to no
fewer than forty-one volumes, and with which no lover of popular
tradition need trouble himself much. To the playwright and the story-
teller it has been a great repository, which has supplied the lack of
original invention. In Germany we need trouble ourselves with none of
the collections before the time of the Grimms, except to say that
they are nearly worthless. In 1812-14 the two brothers, Jacob and
William, brought out the first edition of their _Kinder-und Haus-
Märchen_, which was followed by a second and more complete one in
1822: 3 vols., Berlin, Reimer. The two first volumes have been
repeatedly republished, but few readers in England are aware of the
existence of the third, a third edition of which appeared in 1856 at
Göttingen, which contains the literature of these traditions, and is
a monument of the care and pains with which the brothers, or rather
William, for it is his work, even so far back as 1820, had traced out
parallel traditions in other tribes and lands. This work formed an
era in popular literature, and has been adopted as a model by all
true collectors ever since. It proceeded on the principle of
faithfully collecting these traditions from the mouths of the people,
without adding one jot or tittle, or in any way interfering with
them, except to select this or that variation as most apt or
beautiful. To the adoption of this principle we owe the excellent
Swedish collection of George Stephens and Hylten Cavallius,
_Svenska Folk-Sagor og Aefventyr_, 2 vols. Stockholm 1844, and
following years; and also this beautiful Norse one, to which Jacob
Grimm awards the palm over all collections, except perhaps the
Scottish, of MM. Asbjörnsen and Moe. To it also we owe many most
excellent collections in Germany, over nearly the whole of which an
active band of the Grimm's pupils have gone gathering up as gleaners
the ears which their great masters had let fall or let lie. In
Denmark the collection of M. Winther, _Danske Folkeeventyr_,
Copenhagen, 1823, is a praiseworthy attempt in the same direction;
nor does it at all detract from the merit of H. C. Andersen as an
original writer, to observe how often his creative mind has fastened
on one of these national stories, and worked out of that piece of
native rock a finished work of art. Though last not least, are to be
reckoned the Scottish stories collected by Mr. Robert Chambers, of
the merit of which we have already expressed our opinion in the text.

[35]

After all, there is, it seems, a Scottish word which answers to
_Askepot_ to a hair. See Jamieson's _Dictionary_, where the
reader will find _Ashiepattle_ as used in Shetland for a
'neglected child'; and not in Shetland alone, but in Ayrshire,
_Ashypet_, an adjective, or rather a substantive degraded to do
the dirty work of an adjective, 'one employed in the lowest kitchen
work'. See too the quotation, 'when I reached Mrs. Damask's house she
was gone to bed, and nobody to let me in, dripping wet as I was, but
an _ashypet_ lassy, that helps her for a servant.'--_Steamboat_,
p. 259. So again _Assiepet_, substantive 'a dirty little creature,
one that is constantly soiled with _ass_ or ashes'.

[36]

The Sagas contain many instances of Norsemen who sat thus idly over
the fire, and were thence called _Kolbitr_, _coalbiters_, but who
afterwards became mighty men.

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