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Popular Tales from the Norse

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




Nor is it unprofitable here to remark how the professions fare when
they appear in these tales. The Church cannot be said to be treated
with respect, for 'Father Lawrence' is ludicrously deceived and
scurvily treated by the Master-Thief, No. xxxv; nor does the priest
come off any better in Goosey Grizzel, No. xxxiii, where he is thrown
by the Farmer into the wet moss. Indeed, it seems as if the popular
mind were determined to revenge itself when left to itself, for the
superstition of Rome on the one hand, and the severity of strict
Lutheranism on the other. It has little to say of either of them, but
when it does speak, its accents are not those of reverence and love.
The Law, too, as represented by those awful personages the Constable,
the Attorney, and the Sheriff in 'The Mastermaid', No. xi, is held up
to ridicule, and treated with anything but tenderness. But there is
one profession for which a good word is said, a single word, but
enough to show the feeling of the people. In the 'Twelve Wild Ducks'
No. viii, the king is 'as soft and kind' to Snow-white and Rosy-red
'as a doctor'--a doctor, alas! not of laws, but of medicine; and thus
this profession, so often despised, but in reality the noblest, has
homage paid to it in that single sentence, which neither the Church
with all its dignity, nor the Law with all its cunning, have been
able to extort from the popular mind. Yet even this profession has a
hard word uttered against it in 'Katie Woodencloak', No. l, where the
doctor takes a great fee from the wicked queen to say she will never
be well unless she has some of the Dun Bull's flesh to eat.

And now it is time to bring this introduction to an end, lest it
should play the Wolf's part to Odin, and swallow up the Tales
themselves. Enough has been said, at least, to prove that even
nursery tales may have a science of their own, and to show how the
old Nornir and divine spinners can revenge themselves if their old
wives' tales are insulted and attacked. The inquiry itself might be
almost indefinitely prolonged, for this is a journey where each turn
of the road brings out a new point of view, and the longer we linger
on our path, the longer we find something fresh to see. Popular
mythology is a virgin mine, and its ore, so far from being exhausted
or worked out, has here, in England at least, been scarcely touched.
It may, indeed, be dreaded lest the time for collecting such English
traditions is not past and gone; whether the steam-engine and
printing-press have not played their great work of enlightenment too
well; and whether the popular tales, of which, no doubt, the land was
once full, have not faded away before those great inventions, as the
race of Giants waned before the might of Odin and the Aesir. Still
the example of this very Norway, which at one time was thought, even
by her own sons, to have few tales of her own, and now has been found
to have them so fresh and full, may serve as a warning not to abandon
a search, which, indeed, can scarcely be said to have been ever
begun; and to suggest a doubt whether the ill success which may have
attended this or that particular attempt, may not have been from the
fault rather of the seekers after traditions, than from the want of
the traditions themselves. In point of fact, it is a matter of the
utmost difficulty to gather such tales in any country, as those who
have collected them most successfully will be the first to confess.
It is hard to make old and feeble women, who generally are the
depositaries of these national treasures, believe that the inquirer
can have any real interest in the matter. They fear that the question
is only put to turn them into ridicule; for the popular mind is a
sensitive plant; it becomes coy, and closes its leaves at the first
rude touch; and when once shut, it is hard to make these aged lips
reveal the secrets of the memory. There they remain, however, forming
part of an under-current of tradition, of which the educated classes,
through whose minds flows the bright upper-current of faith, are apt
to forget the very existence. Things out of sight, and therefore out
of mind. Now and then a wave of chance tosses them to the surface
from those hidden depths, and all Her Majesty's inspectors of schools
are shocked at the wild shapes which still haunt the minds of the
great mass of the community. It cannot be said that the English are
not a superstitious people. Here we have gone on for more than a
hundred years proclaiming our opinion that the belief in witches, and
wizards, and ghosts, and fetches, was extinct throughout the land.
Ministers of all denominations have preached them down, and
philosophers convinced all the world of the absurdity of such vain
superstitions; and yet it has been reserved for another learned
profession, the Law, to produce in one trial at the Staffordshire
assizes, a year or two ago, such a host of witnesses, who firmly
believed in witchcraft, and swore to their belief in spectre dogs and
wizards, as to show that, in the Midland counties at least, such
traditions are anything but extinct. If so much of the bad has been
spared by steam, by natural philosophy, and by the Church, let us
hope that some of the good may still linger along with it, and that
an English Grimm may yet arise who may carry out what Mr. Chambers
has so well begun in Scotland, and discover in the mouth of an Anglo-
Saxon Gammer Grethel, some, at least, of those popular tales which
England once had in common with all the Aryan race.

For these Norse Tales one may say that nothing can equal the
tenderness and skill with which MM. Asbjörnsen and Moe have collected
them. Some of that tenderness and beauty may, it is hoped, be found
in this English translation; but to those who have never been in the
country where they are current, and who are not familiar with that
hearty simple people, no words can tell the freshness and truth of
the originals. It is not that the idioms of the two languages are
different, for they are more nearly allied, both in vocabulary and
construction, than any other two tongues, but it is the face of
nature herself, and the character of the race that looks up to her,
that fail to the mind's eye. The West Coast of Scotland is something
like that nature in a general way, except that it is infinitely
smaller and less grand; but that constant, bright blue sky, those
deeply-indented, sinuous, gleaming friths, those headstrong rivers
and headlong falls, those steep hillsides, those long ridges of
fells, those peaks and needles rising sharp above them, those hanging
glaciers and wreaths of everlasting snow, those towering endless pine
forests, relieved by slender stems of silver birch, those green spots
in the midst of the forest, those winding dales and upland lakes,
those various shapes of birds and beasts, the mighty crashing elk,
the fleet reindeer, the fearless bear, the nimble lynx, the shy wolf,
those eagles and swans, and seabirds, those many tones and notes of
Nature's voice making distant music through the twilight summer
night, those brilliant, flashing, northern lights when days grow
short, those dazzling, blinding storms of autumn snow, that cheerful
winter frost and cold, that joy of sledging over the smooth ice, when
the sharp-shod horse careers at full speed with the light sledge, or
rushes down the steep pitches over the crackling snow through the
green spruce wood--all these form a Nature of their own. These
particular features belong in their fulness and combination to no
other land. When in the midst of all this natural scenery, we find an
honest manly race, not the race of the towns and cities, but of the
dales and fells, free and unsubdued, holding its own in a country
where there are neither lords nor ladies, but simple men and women.
Brave men and fair women, who cling to the traditions of their
forefathers, and whose memory reflects as from the faithful mirror of
their native steel the whole history and progress of their race--when
all these natural features, and such a manly race meet; then we have
the stuff out of which these tales are made, the living rocks out of
which these sharp-cut national forms are hewn. Then, too, our task of
introducing them is over, we may lay aside our pen, and leave the
reader and the tales to themselves.




TALES FROM THE NORSE

TRUE AND UNTRUE


Once on a time there were two brothers; one was called True, and the
other Untrue. True was always upright and good towards all, but
Untrue was bad and full of lies, so that no one could believe what he
said. Their mother was a widow, and hadn't much to live on; so when
her sons had grown up, she was forced to send them away, that they
might earn their bread in the world. Each got a little scrip with
some food in it, and then they went their way.

Now, when they had walked till evening, they sat down on a windfall
in the wood, and took out their scraps, for they were hungry after
walking the whole day, and thought a morsel of food would be sweet
enough.

'If you're of my mind', said Untrue, 'I think we had better eat out
of your scrip, so long as there is anything in it, and after that we
can take to mine.'

Yes! True was well pleased with this, so they fell to eating, but
Untrue got all the best bits, and stuffed himself with them, while
True got only the burnt crusts and scraps.

Next morning they broke their fast off True's food, and they dined
off it too, and then there was nothing left in his scrip. So when
they had walked till late at night, and were ready to eats again,
True wanted to eat out of his brother's scrip, but Untrue said 'No',
the food was his, and he had only enough for himself.

'Nay! but you know you ate out of my scrip so long as there was
anything in it', said True.

'All very fine, I daresay', answered Untrue; 'but if you are such a
fool as to let others eat up your food before your face, you must
make the best of it; for now all you have to do is to sit here and
starve.'

'Very well!' said True, 'you're Untrue by name and untrue by nature;
so you have been, and so you will be all your life long.'

Now when Untrue heard this, he flew into a rage, and rushed at his
brother, and plucked out both his eyes. 'Now, try if you can see
whether folk are untrue or not, you blind buzzard!' and so saying, he
ran away and left him.

Poor True! there he went walking along and feeling his way through
the thick wood. Blind and alone, he scarce knew which way to turn,
when all at once he caught hold of the trunk of a great bushy lime-
tree, so he thought he would climb up into it, and sit there till the
night was over for fear of the wild beasts.

'When the birds begin to sing', he said to himself, 'then I shall
know it is day, and I can try to grope my way farther on.' So he
climbed up into the lime-tree. After he had sat there a little time,
he heard how some one came and began to make a stir and clatter
under the tree, and soon after others came; and when they began to
greet one another, he found out it was Bruin the bear, and Greylegs
the wolf, and Slyboots the fox, and Longears the hare who had come
to keep St. John's eve under the tree. So they began to eat and drink,
and be merry; and when they had done eating, they fell to gossipping
together. At last the Fox said:

'Shan't we, each of us, tell a little story while we sit here?' Well!
the others had nothing against that. It would be good fun, they said,
and the Bear began; for you may fancy he was king of the company.

'The king of England', said Bruin, 'has such bad eyesight, he can
scarce see a yard before him; but if he only came to this lime-tree
in the morning, while the dew is still on the leaves, and took and
rubbed his eyes with the dew, he would get back his sight as good as
ever.'

'Very true!' said Greylegs. 'The king of England has a deaf and dumb
daughter too; but if he only knew what I know, he would soon cure
her. Last year she went to the communion. She let a crumb of the
bread fall out of her mouth, and a great toad came and swallowed it
down; but if they only dug up the chancel floor, they would find the
toad sitting right under the altar rails, with the bread still
sticking in his throat. If they were to cut the toad open and take
and give the bread to the princess, she would be like other folk
again as to her speech and hearing.'

'That's all very well', said the Fox; 'but if the king of England
knew what I know, he would not be so badly off for water in his
palace; for under the great stone, in his palace-yard, is a spring of
the clearest water one could wish for, if he only knew to dig for it
there.'

'Ah!' said the Hare in a small voice; 'the king of England has the
finest orchard in the whole land, but it does not bear so much as a
crab, for there lies a heavy gold chain in three turns round the
orchard. If he got that dug up, there would not be a garden like it
for bearing in all his kingdom.'

'Very true, I dare say', said the Fox; 'but now it's getting very
late, and we may as well go home.'

So they all went away together.

After they were gone, True fell asleep as he sat up in the tree; but
when the birds began to sing at dawn, he woke up, and took the dew
from the leaves, and rubbed his eyes with it, and so got his sight
back as good as it was before Untrue plucked his eyes out.

Then he went straight to the king of England's palace, and begged for
work, and got it on the spot. So one day the king came out into the
palace-yard, and when he had walked about a bit, he wanted to drink
out of his pump; for you must know the day was hot, and the king very
thirsty; but when they poured him out a glass, it was so muddy, and
nasty, and foul, that the king got quite vexed.

'I don't think there's ever a man in my whole kingdom who has such
bad water in his yard as I, and yet I bring it in pipes from far,
over hill and dale', cried out the king. 'Like enough, your Majesty',
said True; 'but if you would let me have some men to help me to dig
up this great stone which lies here in the middle of your yard, you
would soon see good water, and plenty of it.'

Well! the king was willing enough; and they had scarcely got the
stone well out, and dug under it a while, before a jet of water
sprang out high up into the air, as clear and full as if it came out
of a conduit, and clearer water was not to be found in all England.

A little while after the king was out in his palace-yard again, and
there came a great hawk flying after his chicken, and all the king's
men began to clap their hands and bawl out, 'There he flies!' 'There
he flies!' The king caught up his gun and tried to shoot the hawk,
but he couldn't see so far, so he fell into great grief.

'Would to Heaven', he said, 'there was any one who could tell me a
cure for my eyes; for I think I shall soon go quite blind!'

'I can tell you one soon enough', said True; and then he told the
king what he had done to cure his own eyes, and the king set off that
very afternoon to the lime-tree, as you may fancy, and his eyes were
quite cured as soon as he rubbed them with the dew which was on the
leaves in the morning. From that time forth there was no one whom the
king held so dear as True, and he had to be with him wherever he
went, both at home and abroad.

So one day, as they were walking together in the orchard, the king
said, 'I can't tell how it is _that_ I can't! there isn't a, man in
England who spends so much on his orchard as I, and yet I can't get
one of the trees to bear so much as a crab.'

'Well! well!' said True; 'if I may have what lies three times twisted
round your orchard, and men to dig it up, your orchard will bear well
enough.'

Yes! the king was quite willing, so True got men and began to dig,
and at last he dug up the whole gold chain. Now True was a rich man;
far richer indeed than the king himself, but still the king was well
pleased, for his orchard bore so that the boughs of the trees hung
down to the ground, and such sweet apples and pears nobody had ever
tasted.

Another day too the king and True were walking about, and talking
together, when the princess passed them, and the king was quite
downcast when he saw her.

'Isn't it a pity, now, that so lovely a princess as mine should want
speech and hearing', he said to True.

'Ay, but there is a cure for that', said True.

When the king heard that, he was so glad that he promised him the
princess to wife, and half his kingdom into the bargain, if he could
get her right again. So True took a few men, and went into the
church, and dug up the toad which sat under the altar-rails. Then he
cut open the toad, and took out the bread and gave it to the king's
daughter; and from that hour she got back her speech, and could talk
like other people.

Now True was to have the princess, and they got ready for the bridal
feast, and such a feast had never been seen before; it was the talk
of the whole land. Just as they were in the midst of dancing the
bridal-dance in came a beggar lad, and begged for a morsel of food,
and he was so ragged and wretched that every one crossed themselves
when they looked at him; but True knew him at once, and saw that it
was Untrue, his brother.

'Do you know me again?' said True.

'Oh! where should such a one as I ever have seen so great a lord',
said Untrue.

'Still you _have_ seen me before', said True. 'It was I whose eyes
you plucked out a year ago this very day. Untrue by name, and untrue
by nature; so I said before, and so I say now; but you are still my
brother, and so you shall have some food. After that, you may go to
the lime-tree where I sat last year; if you hear anything that can do
you good, you will be lucky.'

So Untrue did not wait to be told twice. 'If True has got so much
good by sitting in the lime-tree, that in one year he has come to be
king over half England, what good may not I get', he thought. So he
set off and climbed up into the lime-tree. He had not sat there long,
before all the beasts came as before, and ate and drank, and kept St.
John's eve under the tree. When they had left off eating, the Fox
wished that they should begin to tell stories, and Untrue got ready
to listen with all his might, till his ears were almost fit to fall
off. But Bruin the bear was surly, and growled and said:

'Some one has been chattering about what we said last year, and so
now we will hold our tongues about what we know'; and with that the
beasts bade one another 'Good-night', and parted, and Untrue was just
as wise as he was before, and the reason was, that his name was
Untrue, and his nature untrue too.




WHY THE SEA IS SALT

Once on a time, but it was a long, long time ago, there were two
brothers, one rich and one poor. Now, one Christmas eve, the poor one
hadn't so much as a crumb in the house, either of meat or bread, so
he went to his brother to ask him for something to keep Christmas
with, in God's name. It was not the first time his brother had been
forced to help him, and you may fancy he wasn't very glad to see his
face, but he said:

'If you will do what I ask you to do, I'll give you a whole flitch of
bacon.'

So the poor brother said he would do anything, and was full of
thanks.

'Well, here is the flitch', said the rich brother, 'and now go
straight to Hell.'

'What I have given my word to do, I must stick to', said the other;
so he took the flitch and set off. He walked the whole day, and at
dusk he came to a place where he saw a very bright light.

'Maybe this is the place', said the man to himself. So he turned
aside, and the first thing he saw was an old, old man, with a long
white beard, who stood in an outhouse, hewing wood for the Christmas
fire.

'Good even', said the man with the flitch.

'The same to you; whither are you going so late?' said the man.

'Oh! I'm going to Hell, if I only knew the right way', answered the
poor man.

'Well, you're not far wrong, for this is Hell', said the old man;
'when you get inside they will be all for buying your flitch, for
meat is scarce in Hell; but mind, you don't sell it unless you get
the hand-quern which stands behind the door for it. When you come
out, I'll teach you how to handle the quern, for it's good to grind
almost anything.'

So the man with the flitch thanked the other for his good advice, and
gave a great knock at the Devil's door.

When he got in, everything went just as the old man had said. All the
devils, great and small, came swarming up to him like ants round an
anthill, and each tried to outbid the other for the flitch.

'Well!' said the man, 'by rights my old dame and I ought to have this
flitch for our Christmas dinner; but since you have all set your
hearts on it, I suppose I must give it up to you; but if I sell it at
all, I'll have for it that quern behind the door yonder.'

At first the Devil wouldn't hear of such a bargain, and chaffered and
haggled with the man; but he stuck to what he said, and at last the
Devil had to part with his quern. When the man got out into the yard,
he asked the old woodcutter how he was to handle the quern; and after
he had learned how to use it, he thanked the old man and went off
home as fast as he could, but still the clock had struck twelve on
Christmas eve before he reached his own door.

'Wherever in the world have you been?' said his old dame, 'here have
I sat hour after hour waiting and watching, without so much as two
sticks to lay together under the Christmas brose.'

'Oh!' said the man, 'I couldn't get back before, for I had to go a
long way first for one thing, and then for another; but now you shall
see what you shall see.'

So he put the quern on the table, and bade it first of all grind
lights, then a table-cloth, then meat, then ale, and so on till they
had got everything that was nice for Christmas fare. He had only to
speak the word, and the quern ground out what he wanted. The old dame
stood by blessing her stars, and kept on asking where he had got this
wonderful quern, but he wouldn't tell her.

'It's all one where I got it from; you see the quern is a good one,
and the mill-stream never freezes, that's enough.'

So he ground meat and drink and dainties enough to last out till
Twelfth Day, and on the third day he asked all his friends and kin to
his house, and gave a great feast. Now, when his rich brother saw all
that was on the table, and all that was behind in the larder, he grew
quite spiteful and wild, for he couldn't bear that his brother should
have anything.

''Twas only on Christmas eve', he said to the rest, 'he was in such
straits, that he came and asked for a morsel of food in God's name,
and now he gives a feast as if he were count or king'; and he turned
to his brother and said:

'But whence, in Hell's name, have you got all this wealth?'

'From behind the door', answered the owner of the quern, for he
didn't care to let the cat out of the bag. But later on the evening,
when he had got a drop too much, he could keep his secret no longer,
and brought out the quern and said:

'There, you see what has gotten me all this wealth'; and so he made
the quern grind all kind of things. When his brother saw it, he set
his heart on having the quern, and, after a deal of coaxing, he got
it; but he had to pay three hundred dollars for it, and his brother
bargained to keep it till hay-harvest, for he thought, if I keep it
till then, I can make it grind meat and drink that will last for
years. So you may fancy the quern didn't grow rusty for want of work,
and when hay-harvest came, the rich brother got it, but the other
took care not to teach him how to handle it.

It was evening when the rich brother got the quern home, and next
morning he told his wife to go out into the hay-field and toss, while
the mowers cut the grass, and he would stay at home and get the
dinner ready. So, when dinner-time drew near, he put the quern on the
kitchen table and said:

'Grind herrings and broth, and grind them good and fast.'

So the quern began to grind herrings and broth; first of all, all the
dishes full, then all the tubs full, and so on till the kitchen floor
was quite covered. Then the man twisted and twirled at the quern to
get it to stop, but for all his twisting and fingering the quern went
on grinding, and in a little while the broth rose so high that the
man was like to drown. So he threw open the kitchen door and ran into
the parlour, but it wasn't long before the quern had ground the
parlour full too, and it was only at the risk of his life that the
man could get hold of the latch of the house door through the stream
of broth. When he got the door open, he ran out and set off down the
road, with the stream of herrings and broth at his heels, roaring
like a waterfall over the whole farm. Now, his old dame, who was in
the field tossing hay, thought it a long time to dinner, and at last
she said:

'Well! though the master doesn't call us home, we may as well go.
Maybe he finds it hard work to boil the broth, and will be glad of my
help.'

The men were willing enough, so they sauntered homewards; but just as
they had got a little way up the hill, what should they meet but
herrings, and broth, and bread, all running and dashing, and
splashing together in a stream, and the master himself running before
them for his life, and as he passed them he bawled out:

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