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MYTHICAL RELATIONS OF CINDERELLA.

;

house, treated him with the best food she had, and in the morning brought him a shirt of fine linen, which she had made some time before but all night she kept a candle burning in her room that the stranger, if he awoke, might suppose she was making his shirt. After breakfast, she accompanied him out of the village; and when they parted, he said, 'May the first work you undertake last till evening!' She went her way home, thinking the whole time of her linen, and anticipating its wonderful increase; but just then her cows began to low. 'Before I measure my linen,' said she, 'I will quickly fetch the cows some water.' But when she poured the water into the trough, her pail never emptied; she went on pouring, the stream increased, and soon her house and yard were under water; the neighbours complained that everything was ruined; the cattle were drowned, and with difficulty she saved her life, for the water never ceased flowing until the setting of the sun."

66

Baron Haxthausen relates this in a very interesting chapter of his work on Transcaucasia," reciting a number of Armenian legends and tales. To trace the analogies of even a hundredth part of these stories would be, not the work of a brief Essay, but of volumes—our object rather is to suggest. Thus we find the story of "Jack and the Bean-stalk" in Polynesia; a hero goes up to the sky on a ladder made of a plant, and brings thence three precious gifts, in much the same way as that in which Jack does ; but this is one of those stories which seem to be common to all the world; but it has its distinct character in the Highlands. Mr. Campbell gives several versions of it. Cinderella also, is another of these common stories, existing in many varieties. Here is one told to Mr. Campbell in an inn, at the sound of Benbecula, by a girl named Morag a Chota Bhain, -in English, Margery White Coats. The likeness of the Cinderella in the following story, may be seen, in her white coats and short gown, blowing the fire in Highland inns.

"A king had four daughters, and his wife died, and he said he would marry one whom his dead wife's clothes would fit. One day the daughters tried, and the youngest only could wear them. The king saw them from a window, and wished to marry her; and she went for advice to her mother's brother. He advised her to promise to marry the king if he would bring her a gown of birds' down, and a gown of the colours of the sky, woven with silver; and when he had got that, a gown of the colour of the stars, woven with gold, and glass shoes. When he had got them, she escaped with all her clothes, by the help of her uncle, on a filly with a magic bridle, she on one side, and her chest of clothes on the other. She rode to a king's palace, hid the chest in a hill under a bush of rushes, turned the filly loose, and went to the palace with nothing on but a white petticoat and a shift. She took service with the cook, and grew dirty and ugly, and slept on a bench by the kitchen fire; and her work was to blow under the great caldron all day long. One day the king's son came home, and was to hold a feast; she went to the queen and asked leave to go, and was refused because she was so dirty. The queen had a basin of

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PARABOLIC MYTHS.

9

water in her hand, and threw it at her, and it broke. She went to the hill, took out the dress of down and silver, and shook her magic bridle; the filly came, and she mounted, and rode to the feast. The king's son took her by the hand, and took her up as high as any there, and set her on his own lap; and when the feast was over, there was no reel that she danced but he gave it to her.' He asked her whence she came, and she said from the Kingdom of Broken Basins; and the prince said that he had never heard of that land, though he had travelled far. She escaped and returned to the cook, and all were talking about the beautiful lady. She asked about her, and was told not to talk about what she did not understand, a dirty little wretch like her.' Then the prince had another feast; and she asked leave again, and the queen refused, and threw a candlestick at her, and it broke, and she did as before. She put on another dress and went; the king's son had eight men on each side of the door to catch her. The same scene went on, and she said she came from the country of Candlesticks-Tir nan Coillearan,' and escaped, leaving a glass shoe. Then the king's son fell sick (of course), and would only marry the woman whom the shoe would fit; and all the ladies came and cut off their toes and heels, but in vain. Then he asked if there was none other. Then a small creature put his head in at the door and said, 'If thou didst but know, she whom thou seekest is under the cook.' Then he got the history of the basin and the candlestick from his mother. The shoe was tried and fitted, and he was to marry Morag. All were in despair, and abused her; but she went out to her chest, shook the magic bridle, and arrayed herself, and came back on the filly, with a 'powney behind with the chest. Then all there that had despised her fell on their knees, and she was married to the prince. And I did not get a bit there at the wedding,' said the girl."

It must be admitted that some of the stories seem to give the shadowy myth character to the forces and powers of labour. The smith easily becomes ennobled into something half infernal half divine; but it was perceived apparently that there was something more divine than mere strength. We have the story of the wife who had fairy blood in her veins, but was married to a smith in a forest of Nordland, who at last hated her for her fairy blood. He cursed her, ill-used her, and upbraided her while she suffered and repented; till one day she went into the smithy to see, with a friendly eye, her husband at work; but he began as before; but on its coming to blows, she, by way of proving her superior strength, seized an iron bar and twisted it round her husband as if it had been a wire. The husband was now forced to submission and to promise domestic peace. The parable sometimes suspiciously oozes out; but rarely, we believe, in the oldest traditions. Our readers know the story of the Giantess whose daughter one day saw a husbandman ploughing in the field; she ran and picked him up with her finger and thumb, put him, and his plough and oxen, into her apron, and ran home to her mother, saying, "Mother! mother! what sort of beetle is this I have found wriggling

10

PARABOLIC STORIES.

in the sand?" But the mother said, "Ah, put it down, child, put it down. We must be gone out of this land now, for these people have come to live in it." The saturnine humour and conscious reverence which peep out from a tradition like this, assures us that it does not belong to a very old age, but to a period when narrators had begun to reason and to know; it might pass for one of Hans Andersen's fairy tales. Stories about smiths and swords are common to these tribes--the sword of light, the bright sword, that is, we suppose stripped of supernatural qualities, the sword of well-tempered steel, to which, of course, extraordinary virtues were attributed. Such stories, in which the mystic sword appears a kind of god, as in the romance of Arthur, point, most likely, to the first use of iron; the sword shines, cries out, the lives of men are bound up in it. We have the story even of a fox who changed himself into a sword of light; and the edge of the real sword touching an old witch, she fell into a withered faggot. Hints like these point to the dawn of time, when Cunning, Strength, and Science,-the mighty, almost omnipotent three— grasped hands together and became one. Hence we suppose the origin of the veneration which still continues for iron, as symbolizing man's power over the hidden strong forces of nature; the old iron horse-shoe, still seen fastened over many a farm-door, points to the faith in which many of these popular stories were first uttered. Illustrations of this the reader will find in the "Knight of the Red Shield." We also notice the frequent intimations of faith in the weakest; faith in results, sometimes coming out expressed in a clumsy but yet not indistinct manner. Only a short time since, a friend of ours was admiring a magnificent field of wheat. The old farmer, to whom some pleasant remarks were made, said, “Ay, and some years ago we had three grains of wheat in a pound of plums, and I said to my old wife, 'Now, for curiosity, we'll plant these in a flowerpot;' and we did, and we planted all next year, next year, and next; and now; from they three grains, we've got that field, and two more yonder." Really, one would think that some of our moralizing fathers had known. some such incident, before they recited the following legend of—

The Master and his Man.

There were, at some time ere now, bad times, and there were many servants seeking places, and there were not many places for them.

There was a farmer there, and he would not take any servant but one who would stay with him till the end of seven years, and who would not ask for wages, but what he could catch in his mouth of the seed corn, when he should be thrashing corn in the barn. None were taking (service) with him. At last he said that he would let them plant their seed in the best ground that he might have, and they should get his own horses and plough to make the thraive, and his own horses to harrow it.

There was a young lad there, and he said, "I will take wages with thee," and the farmer set wages on that lad; and the bargain that they

A PARABLE OF THRIFT AND INDUSTRY.

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made was, that the wages which the lad was to have were to be as many grains of seed as he could catch in his mouth when they were beating sheaves in the barn, and he was to get (leave) to plant that seed in the best land that the farmer had, and he was to keep as much as grew upon that seed, and to put with it what seed soever he might catch in his mouth when he was thrashing corn, and to plant that in the best land which the farmer had on the next year. He was to have horses, and plough, or any other "gairios "* he might want for planting or reaping, from his master, and so on to the end of the seven years. That he should have seven winters in the barn thrashing, seven springs to plant, seven summers of growth for the crop, and seven autumns of reaping, and whatsoever were the outcoming that might be in the lad's seed, that was the wage that he was to have when he should go away.

The lad went home to his master; and always when he was thrashing in the barn his master was thrashing with him, and he caught but three grains of seed in his mouth that winter; and he kept these carefully till the spring came, and he planted them in the best land the carle had.

There grew out of these three ears, and there were on each ear threescore good grains of seed. The lad kept these carefully, and what grains soever he caught he put them together with them. He planted these again in the spring; and in the autumn again he had as good as he had the year before that.

The lad put his seed by carefully, and anything he caught in his mouth when he was thrashing the next winter he put it with the other lot; and so with the seed from year to year, till at last, to make a long story short, the lad planted on the last year every (bit of) ploughing land that the carle had, and he had more seed to set, and the carle was almost harried. He had to pay rent to the farmer who was nearest to him, for land in which the lad might set the excess of seed which he had, and to sell part of his cattle for want of ground on which they might browse; and he would not make a bargain in the same way with a servant for ever after.

As the primeval family increase in age and knowledge, the fable and the riddle are invented. Something of this we have pointed out in the story of the "Giantess's Daughter; " so also in the story of the fox, who finding the bagpipes, which were usually made of tough hide, proceeded to eat the bag, and making a groan, exclaimed, "Ah! here's meat and music." But this range of tradition might open quite another class of selection; our object has been rather to call attention to the unity of the race; as manifesting itself through the variations of popular fiction. The more closely the interesting subject of Storyology is explored, the more curious and interesting become its revelations. Viewed from the scientific side, as a systematic study, we repeat, it furnishes us interesting contributions to the theory of the unity of the human family; studied

Apparatus; also spelt goireas and gairaois.

12

MYTHS THE DEBRIS OF SUN WORSHIP.

from any side, numbers of incidents seem to be repeated over and over again; the documentary value and peculiarity being, that they are never repeated twice in the same words, though they are so easily recognised. Mr. Campbell refers to the story of the Giant, whose life was not in his body, but stowed away somewhere else, and to his finding the same incident in hieroglyph on an Egyptian papyrus; and the Norse Giant, with no heart in his body, and the Arabic Djin, who kept his life at the bottom of the sea, are evidently Eastern and Western varieties. "Nursery tales are the débris of natural religions, now fast fading away before the light of revealed religion, but which subsisted along with it before the flood." Very many years since, Mr. Carlyle struck a fine key of explanation in his lecture on Odin in the Hero-Worship; and whoso reads a little into the old Norse Eddas and Sagas, will see how plain men and women are found dealing with heroes and heroines, great birds, dragons, and subterranean powers; the elements personified, worshipped, dethroned; demons and hobgoblins, fiends, fairies, and furies; ghosts, bogies, and, high over all, some power greater and more powerful than they, the hidden reason and seed of all, to which all were certainly tending, and which could not be reached without his aid. In the same way, unconscious, and yet traditional, mannerisms point in the direction of the popular tale, both point sun-wise and south-ways. The worship of the sun, the usages and memories connected with it, hold in many an unconscious popular observance. There was a time when it was necessary, in order to propitiate popular divinities, " to put the best foot foremost.' The boat was rowed sun-wise—the English sailor coils a rope sun-wise; when a soldier faces about, he goes right-about-face; girls dance in a circle, and usually, we believe, face the centre, and move to the left, which is sunwise. It is so all over Norseland, not only in the lonely Faroe Isles, where Mr. Campbell saw the men, women, and girls circling round the room, singing old heroic ballads in the Norse tongue, but in some benighted villages in England, where still they dance round the May-pole. Mr. Campbell says

"Now, if a man anywhere north of the Equator will face the sun all day, and the place where he is all night, he will revolve right-about-face in twenty-four hours, and meet the rising sun in the morning with his right hand to the south, and his back to the west, his left hand to the north, and his face towards his object of worship, if he worships the sun. If he walk round the gnomon of a dial on the sunny side, seeking light and avoiding shade, he will describe a portion of a circle from left to right, and if he cross the Arctic Circle he may so perform a whole circle in a summer's day; but if an Asian or European walks continually towards the sun at an even pace, whenever he can see him, he will necessarily walk westwards and southwards, in the direction in which Western Aryans are supposed to have migrated.

"The Gaelic language points the same way. Deas means south, and right, and ready, dexterous, well-proportioned, ready-witted, eloquent.