{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_8226/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_8226","id":"gutenberg_8226","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8226","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Fairy tales -- History and criticism"],"text":"Produced by David Deley\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFAIRY TALES, THEIR ORIGIN AND MEANING\n\nWith Some Account of Dwellers in Fairyland\n\nBy John Thackray Bunce\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY NOTE.\n\nThe substance of this volume was delivered as a course of Christmas\nHoliday Lectures, in 1877, at the Birmingham and Midland Institute, of\nwhich the author was then the senior Vice-president. It was found that\nboth the subject and the matter interested young people; and it was\ntherefore thought that, revised and extended, the Lectures might not\nprove unacceptable in the form of a Book. The volume does not pretend to\nscientific method, or to complete treatment of the subject. Its aim is\na very modest one: to furnish an inducement rather than a formal\nintroduction to the study of Folk Lore; a study which, when once begun,\nthe reader will pursue, with unflagging interest, in such works as\nthe various writings of Mr. Max-Muller; the \"Mythology of the Aryan\nNations,\" by Mr. Cox; Mr. Ralston's \"Russian Folk Tales;\" Mr. Kelly's\n\"Curiosities of Indo-European Folk Lore;\" the Introduction to\nMr. Campbell's \"Popular Tales of the West Highlands,\" and other\npublications, both English and German, bearing upon the same subject. In\nthe hope that his labour may serve this purpose, the author ventures\nto ask for an indulgent rather than a critical reception of this little\nvolume.\n\nBIRMINGHAM,\n\nSeptember, 1878.\n\n\n\nLIST OF CONTENTS.\n\nCHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF FAIRY TALES--THE ARYAN RACE: ITS CHARACTERISTICS,\nITS TRADITIONS, AND ITS MIGRATIONS\n\nCHAPTER II. KINDRED TALES FROM DIVERS LANDS\n\nCHAPTER III. DWELLERS IN FAIRYLAND: STORIES FROM THE EAST\n\nCHAPTER IV. DWELLERS IN FAIRYLAND: TEUTONIC, SCANDINAVIAN, ETC.\n\nCHAPTER V. DWELLERS IN FAIRYLAND: CELTIC, THE WEST HIGHLANDS\n\nCHAPTER VI. CONCLUSION-SOME POPULAR TALES EXPLAINED.\n\nINDEX\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.--ORIGIN OF FAIRY STORIES.\n\nWe are going into Fairy Land for a little while, to see what we can find\nthere to amuse and instruct us this Christmas time. Does anybody know\nthe way? There are no maps or guidebooks, and the places we meet with\nin our workaday world do not seem like the homes of the Fairies. Yet we\nhave only to put on our Wishing Caps, and we can get into Fairy Land in\na moment. The house-walls fade away, the winter sky brightens, the sun\nshines out, the weather grows warm and pleasant; flowers spring up,\ngreat trees cast a friendly shade, streams murmur cheerfully over their\npebbly beds, jewelled fruits are to be had for the trouble of gathering\nthem; invisible hands set out well-covered dinner-tables, brilliant and\ngraceful forms flit in and out across our path, and we all at once find\nourselves in the midst of a company of dear old friends whom we have\nknown and loved ever since we knew anything. There is Fortunatus with\nhis magic purse, and the square of carpet that carries him anywhere; and\nAladdin with his wonderful lamp; and Sindbad with the diamonds he has\npicked up in the Valley of Serpents; and the Invisible Prince, who uses\nthe fairy cat to get his dinner for him; and the Sleeping Beauty in\nthe Wood, just awakened by the young Prince, after her long sleep of a\nhundred years; and Puss in Boots curling his whiskers after having eaten\nup the ogre who foolishly changed himself into a mouse; and Beauty and\nthe Beast; and the Blue Bird; and Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack the\nGiant Killer, and Jack and the Bean Stalk; and the Yellow Dwarf; and\nCinderella and her fairy godmother; and great numbers besides, of whom\nwe haven't time to say anything now.\n\nAnd when we come to look about us, we see that there are other dwellers\nin Fairy Land; giants and dwarfs, dragons and griffins, ogres with\ngreat white teeth, and wearing seven-leagued boots; and enchanters and\nmagicians, who can change themselves into any forms they please, and\ncan turn other people into stone. And there are beasts and birds who can\ntalk, and fishes that come out on dry land, with golden rings in their\nmouths; and good maidens who drop rubies and pearls when they speak, and\nbad ones out of whose mouths come all kinds of ugly things. Then there\nare evil-minded fairies, who always want to be doing mischief; and there\nare good fairies, beautifully dressed, and with shining golden hair and\nbright blue eyes and jewelled coronets, and with magic wands in their\nhands, who go about watching the bad fairies, and always come just in\ntime to drive them away, and so prevent them from doing harm--the sort\nof Fairies you see once a year at the pantomimes, only more beautiful,\nand more handsomely dressed, and more graceful in shape, and not so fat,\nand who do not paint their faces, which is a bad thing for any woman to\ndo, whether fairy or mortal.\n\nAltogether, this Fairy Land that we can make for ourselves in a moment,\nis a very pleasant and most delightful place, and one which all of us,\nyoung and old, may well desire to get into, even if we have to come back\nfrom it sooner than we like. It is just the country to suit everybody,\nfor all of us can find in it whatever pleases him best. If he likes\nwork, there is plenty of adventure; he can climb up mountains of steel,\nor travel over seas of glass, or engage in single combat with a giant,\nor dive down into the caves of the little red dwarfs and bring up their\nhidden treasures, or mount a horse that goes more swiftly than the wind,\nor go off on a long journey to find the water of youth and life, or do\nanything else that happens to be very dangerous and troublesome. If\nhe doesn't like work, it is again just the place to suit idle people,\nbecause it is all Midsummer holidays. I never heard of a school in Fairy\nLand, nor of masters with canes or birch rods, nor of impositions and\nlong lessons to be learned when one gets home in the evening. Then the\nweather is so delightful. It is perpetual sunshine, so that you may lie\nout in the fields all day without catching cold; and yet it is not too\nhot, the sunshine being a sort of twilight, in which you see everything,\nquite clearly, but softly, and with beautiful colours, as if you were in\na delightful dream.\n\nAnd this goes on night and day, or at least what we call night, for\nthey don't burn gas there, or candles, or anything of that kind; so\nthat there is no regular going to bed and getting up; you just lie down\nanywhere when you want to rest, and when you have rested, you wake up\nagain, and go on with your travels. There is one capital thing about\nFairy Land. There are no doctors there; not one in the whole country.\nConsequently nobody is ill, and there are no pills or powders, or\nbrimstone and treacle, or senna tea, or being kept at home when you want\nto go out, or being obliged to go to bed early and have gruel instead\nof cake and sweetmeats. They don't want the doctors, because if you cut\nyour finger it gets well directly, and even when people are killed, or\nare turned into stones, or when anything else unpleasant happens, it can\nall be put right in a minute or two. All you have to do when you are in\ntrouble is to go and look for some wrinkled old woman in a patched old\nbrown cloak, and be very civil to her, and to do cheerfully and kindly\nany service she asks of you, and then she will throw off the dark cloak,\nand become a young and beautiful Fairy Queen, and wave her magic wand,\nand everything will fall out just as you would like to have it.\n\nAs to Time, they take no note of it in Fairy Land. The Princess falls\nasleep for a hundred years, and wakes up quite rosy, and young, and\nbeautiful. Friends and sweethearts are parted for years, and nobody\nseems to think they have grown older when they meet, or that life has\nbecome shorter, and so they fall to their youthful talk as if nothing\nhad happened. Thus the dwellers in Fairy Land have no cares about\nchronology. With them there is no past or future; it is all present--so\nthere are no disagreeable dates to learn, nor tables of kings, and when\nthey reigned, or who succeeded them, or what battles they fought, or\nanything of that kind. Indeed there are no such facts to be learned,\nfor when kings are wicked in Fairy Land, a powerful magician comes and\ntwists their heads off, or puts them to death somehow; and when they\nare good kings they seem to live for ever, and always to be wearing rich\nrobes and royal golden crowns, and to be entertaining Fairy Queens, and\nreceiving handsome brilliant gifts from everybody who knows them.\n\nNow this is Fairy Land, the dear sweet land of Once Upon a Time, where\nthere is constant light, and summer days, and everlasting flowers, and\npleasant fields and streams, and long dreams without rough waking, and\nease of life, and all things strange and beautiful; where nobody wonders\nat anything that may happen; where good fairies are ever on the watch to\nhelp those whom they love; where youth abides, and there is no pain or\ndeath, and all trouble fades away, and whatever seems hard is made easy,\nand all things that look wrong come right in the end, and truth and\ngoodness have their perpetual triumph, and the world is ever young.\n\nAnd Fairy Land is always the same, and always has been, whether it is\nclose to us--so close that we may enter it in a moment--or whether it is\nfar off; in the stories that have come to us from the most ancient\ndays, and the most distant lands, and in those which kind and clever\nstory-tellers write for us now. It is the same in the legends of the\nmysterious East, as old as the beginning of life; the same in the\nglowing South, in the myths of ancient Greece; the same in the frozen\nregions of the Scandinavian North, and in the forests of the great\nTeuton land, and in the Islands of the West; the same in the tales that\nnurses tell to the little ones by the fireside on winter evenings, and\nin the songs that mothers sing to hush their babes to sleep; the same in\nthe delightful folk-lore that Grimm has collected for us, and that dear\nHans Andersen has but just ceased to tell.\n\nAll the chief stories that we know so well are to be found in all\ntimes, and in almost all countries. Cinderella, for one, is told in the\nlanguage of every country in Europe, and the same legend is found in the\nfanciful tales related by the Greek poets; and still further back, it\nappears in very ancient Hindu legends. So, again, does Beauty and the\nBeast, so does our own familiar tale of Jack the Giant Killer, so also\ndo a great number of other fairy stories, each being told in different\ncountries and in different periods, with so much likeness as to show\nthat all the versions came from the same source, and yet with so much\ndifference as to show that none of the versions are directly copied from\neach other. Indeed, when we compare the myths and legends of one country\nwith another, and of one period with another, we find out how they have\ncome to be so much alike, and yet in some things so different. We see\nthat there must have been one origin for all these stories, that they\nmust have been invented by one people, that this people must have been\nafterwards divided, and that each part or division of it must have\nbrought into its new home the legends once common to them all, and must\nhave shaped and altered these according, to the kind of places in which\nthey came to live: those of the North being sterner and more terrible,\nthose of the South softer and fuller of light and colour, and adorned\nwith touches of more delicate fancy. And this, indeed, is really the\ncase. All the chief stories and legends are alike, because they were\nfirst made by one people; and all the nations in which they are now told\nin one form or another tell them because they are all descended from\nthis one common stock. If you travel amongst them, or talk to them, or\nread their history, and learn their languages, the nations of Europe\nseem to be altogether unlike each other; they have different speech\nand manners, and ways of thinking, and forms of government, and\neven different looks--for you can tell them from one another by some\npeculiarity of appearance. Yet, in fact, all these nations belong to one\ngreat family--English, and German, and Russian, and French, and Italian,\nand Spanish, the nations of the North, and the South, and the West, and\npartly of the East of Europe, all came from one stock; and so did the\nRomans and Greeks who went before them; and so also did the Medes\nand Persians, and the Hindus, and some other peoples who have always\nremained in Asia. And to the people from whom all these nations have\nsprung learned men have given two names. Sometimes they are called the\nIndo-Germanic or Indo-European race, to show how widely they extend; and\nsometimes they are called the Aryan race, from a word which is found in\ntheir language, and which comes from the root \"ar,\" to plough, and is\nsupposed to mean noble, or of a good family.\n\nBut how do we know that there were any such people, and that we in\nEngland are descended from them, or that they were the forefathers of\nthe other nations of Europe, and of the Hindus, and of the old Greeks\nand Romans? We know it by a most curious and ingenious process of what\nmay be called digging out and building up. Some of you may remember that\nyears ago there was found in New Zealand a strange-looking bone, which\nnobody could make anything of, and which seemed to have belonged to some\ncreature quite lost to the world as we know it. This bone was sent home\nto England to a great naturalist, Professor Owen, of the British Museum,\nwho looked at it, turned it over, thought about it, and then came to the\nconclusion that it was a bone which had once formed part of a gigantic\nbird. Then; by degrees, he began to see the kind of general form which\nsuch a bird must have presented, and finally, putting one thing to\nanother, and fitting part to part, he declared it to be a bird of\ngigantic size, and of a particular character, which he was able to\ndescribe; and this opinion was confirmed by later discoveries of other\nbones and fragments, so that an almost complete skeleton of the Dinornis\nmay now be seen in this country. Well, our knowledge of the Aryan\npeople, and of our own descent from them, has been found out in much\nthe same way. Learned men observed, as a curious thing, that in various\nEuropean languages there were words of the same kind, and having the\nsame root forms; they found also that these forms of roots existed in\nthe older language of Greece; and then they found that they existed\nalso in Sanskrit, the oldest language of India--that in which the sacred\nbooks of the Hindus are written. They discovered, further, that these\nwords and their roots meant always the same things, and this led to\nthe natural belief that they came from the same source. Then, by closer\ninquiry into the _Vedas_, or Hindu sacred books, another discovery was\nmade, namely, that while the Sanskrit has preserved the words of the\noriginal language in their most primitive or earliest state, the other\nlanguages derived from the same source have kept some forms plainly\ncoming from the same roots, but which Sanskrit has lost. Thus we are\ncarried back to a language older than Sanskrit, and of which this is\nonly one of the forms, and from this we know that there was a people\nwhich used a common tongue; and if different forms of this common tongue\nare found in India, in Persia, and throughout Europe, we know that the\nraces which inhabit these countries must, at sometime, have parted\nfrom the parent stock, and must have carried their language and their\ntraditions along with them. So, to find out who these people were, we\nhave to go back to the sacred books of the Hindus and the Persians, and\nto pick out whatever facts may be found there, and thus to build up the\nmemorial of the Aryan race, just as Professor Owen built up the great\nNew Zealand bird.\n\nIt would take too long, and would be much too dry, to show how this\nprocess has been completed step by step, and bit by bit. That belongs to\na study called comparative philology, and to another called comparative\nmythology--that is, the studies of words and of myths, or legends--which\nsome of those who read these pages may pursue with interest in after\nyears. All that need be done now is to bring together such accounts of\nthe Aryan people, our forefathers, as may be gathered from the writings\nof the learned men who have made this a subject of inquiry, and\nespecially from the works of German and French writers, and more\nparticularly from those of Mr. Max Muller, an eminent German, who lives\namongst us in England, who writes in English, and who has done more,\nperhaps, than anybody else, to tell us what we know about this matter.\n\nAs to when the Aryans lived we know nothing, but that it was thousands\nof years ago, long before history began. As to the kind of people\nthey were we know nothing in a direct way. They have left no traces of\nthemselves in buildings, or weapons, or enduring records of any kind.\nThere are no ruins of their temples or tombs, no pottery--which often\nhelps to throw light upon ancient peoples-no carvings upon rocks or\nstones. It is only by the remains of their language that we can\ntrace them; and we do this through the sacred books of the Hindus and\nPersians-the _Vedas_ and the _Zend Avesta_--in which remains of their\nlanguage are found, and by means of which, therefore, we get to know\nsomething about their dwelling-place, their manners, their customs,\ntheir religion, and their legends--the source and origin of our Fairy\nTales.\n\nIn the _Zend Avesta_--the oldest sacred book of the Persians--or in such\nfragments of it as are left, there are sixteen countries spoken of as\nhaving been given by Ormuzd, the Good Deity, for the Aryans to live\nin; and these countries are described as a land of delight, which was\nturned, by Ahriman, the Evil Deity, into a land of death and cold;\npartly, it is said, by a great flood, which is described as being like\nNoah's flood recorded in the Book of Genesis. This land, as nearly as we\ncan make it out, seems to have been the high, central district of Asia,\nto the north and west of the great chain of mountains of the Hindu\nKoush, which form the frontier barrier of the present country of the\nAfghans. It stretched, probably, from the sources of the river Oxus\nto the shores of the Caspian Sea; and when the Aryans moved from their\nhome, it is thought that the easterly portion of the tribes were those\nwho marched southwards into India and Persia, and that those who\nwere nearest the Caspian Sea marched westwards into Europe. It is not\nsupposed that they were all one united people, but rather a number of\ntribes, having a common origin--though what was this original stock\nis quite beyond any knowledge we have, or even beyond our powers of\nconjecture. But, though the Aryan peoples were divided into tribes, and\nwere spread over a tract of country nearly as large as half Europe, we\nmay properly describe them generally, for so far as our knowledge goes,\nall the tribes had the same character.\n\nThey were a pastoral people--that is, their chief work was to look after\ntheir herds of cattle and to till the earth. Of this we find proof in\nthe words and roots remaining of their language. From the same source,\nalso, we know that they lived in dwellings built with wood and stone;\nthat these dwellings were grouped together in villages; that they were\nfenced in against enemies, and that enclosures were formed to keep the\ncattle from straying, and that roads of some kind were made from one\nvillage to another. These things show that the Aryans had some claim to\nthe name they took, and that in comparison with their forefathers, or\nwith the savage or wandering tribes they knew, they had a right to call\nthemselves respectable, excellent, honourable, masters, heroes--for all\nthese are given as probable meanings of their name. Their progress was\nshown in another way. The rudest and earliest tribes of men used weapons\nof flint, roughly shaped into axes and spear-heads, or other cutting\nimplements, with which they defended themselves in conflict, or killed\nthe beasts of chase, or dug up the roots on which they lived. The Aryans\nwere far in advance of this condition. They did not, it is believed,\nknow the use of iron, but they knew and used gold, silver, and copper;\nthey made weapons and other implements of bronze; they had ploughs to\ntill the ground, and axes, and probably saws, for the purpose of cutting\nand shaping timber. Of pottery and weaving they knew something: the\nwestern tribes certainly used hemp and flax as materials for weaving,\nand when the stuff was woven the women made it into garments by the use\nof the needle. Thus we get a certain division of trades or occupations.\nThere were the tiller of the soil, the herdsman, the smith who forged\nthe tools and weapons of bronze, the joiner or carpenter who built the\nhouses, and the weaver who made the clothing required for protection\nagainst a climate which was usually cold. Then there was also the\nboat-builder, for the Aryans had boats, though moved only by oars.\nThere was yet another class, the makers of personal ornaments, for these\npeople had rings, bracelets, and necklaces made of the precious metals.\n\nOf trade the Aryans knew something; but they had no coined money--all\nthe trade was done by exchange of one kind of cattle, or grain or goods,\nfor another. They had regulations as to property, their laws punished\ncrime with fine, imprisonment, or death, just as ours do. They seem to\nhave been careful to keep their liberties, the families being formed\ninto groups, and these into tribes or clans, under the rule of an\nelected chief, while it is probable that a Great Chief or King ruled\nover several tribes and led them to war, or saw that the laws were put\ninto force.\n\nNow we begin to see something of these ancient forefathers of ours, and\nto understand what kind of people they were. Presently we shall have\nto look into their religion, out of which our Fairy Stories were really\nmade; but first, there are one or two other things to be said about\nthem. One of these shows that they were far in advance of savage races,\nfor they could count as high as one hundred, while savages can seldom\nget further than the number of their fingers; and they had also advanced\nso far as to divide the year into twelve months, which they took from\nthe changes of the moon. Then their family relations were very close and\ntender. \"Names were given to the members of families related by marriage\nas well as by blood. A welcome greeted the birth of children, as of\nthose who brought joy to the home; and the love that should be felt\nbetween brother and sister was shown in the names given to them:\n_bhratar_ (or brother) being he who sustains or helps; _svasar_ (or\nsister) she who pleases or consoles. The daughter of each household was\ncalled _duhitar,_ from _duh_, a root which in Sanskrit means to milk,\nby which we know that the girls in those days were the milking-maids.\nFather comes from a root, _pa_, which means to protect or support;\nmother, _matar_, has the meaning of maker.\"[1]\n\nNow we may sum up what we know of this ancient people and their ways;\nand we find in them much that is to be found in their descendants--the\nlove of parents and children, the closeness of family ties, the\nprotection of life and property, the maintenance of law and order, and,\nas we shall see presently, a great reverence for _God_. Also, they were\nwell versed in the arts of life--they built houses, formed villages or\ntowns, made roads, cultivated the soil, raised great herds of cattle and\nother animals; they made boats and land-carriages, worked in metals for\nuse and ornament, carried on trade with each other, knew how to count,\nand were able to divide their time so as to reckon by months and days\nas well as by seasons. Besides all this, they had something more and of\nstill higher value, for the fragments of their ancient poems or hymns\npreserved in the Hindu and Persian sacred books show that they thought\nmuch of the spirit of man as well as of his bodily life; that they\nlooked upon sin as an evil to be punished or forgiven by the Gods, that\nthey believed in a life after the death of the body, and that they had\na strong feeling for natural beauty and a love of searching into the\nwonders of the earth and of the heavens.\n\nThe religion of the Aryan races, in its beginning, was a very simple and\na very noble one. They looked up to the heavens and saw the bright sun,\nand the light and beauty and glory of the day. They saw the day fade\ninto night and the clouds draw themselves across the sky, and then they\nsaw the dawn and the light and life of another day. Seeing these things,\nthey felt that some Power higher than man ordered and guided them; and\nto this great Power they gave the name of _Dyaus_, from a root-word\nwhich means \"to shine.\" And when, out of the forces and forms of Nature,\nthey afterwards fashioned other Gods, this name of Dyaus became _Dyaus\npitar_, the Heaven-Father, or Lord of All; and in far later times, when\nthe western Aryans had found their home in Europe, the _Dyaus pitar_\nof the central Asian land became the Zeupater of the Greeks, and the\nJupiter of the Romans; and the first part of his name gave us the word\nDeity, which we apply to _God_. So, as Professor Max Muller tells us,\nthe descendants of the ancient Aryans, \"when they search for a name for\nwhat is most exalted and yet most dear to every one of us, when they\nwish to express both awe and love, the infinite and the finite, they can\ndo but what their old fathers did when gazing up to the eternal sky, and\nfeeling the presence of a Being as far as far, and as near as near can\nbe; they can but combine the self-same words and utter once more the\nprimeval Aryan prayer, Heaven-Father, in that form which will endure for\never, 'Our Father, which art in Heaven.'\"\n\nThe feeling which the Aryans had towards the Heaven-Father is very\nfinely shown in one of the oldest hymns in the _Rig Veda_, or the Book\nof Praise--a hymn written 4,000 years ago, and addressed to Varuna, or\nthe All-Surrounder, the ancient Hindu name for the chief deity:--\n\n    \"Let me not, O Varuna, enter into the house of clay.\n       Have mercy! Almighty, have mercy!\n    If I go trembling, like a cloud driven by the wind,\n       Have mercy! Almighty, have mercy!\n    Through want of strength, thou strong and bright God,\n         have I gone wrong;\n      Have mercy! Almighty, have mercy!\"\n\nBut, besides Dyaus pitar, or Varuna, the Aryans worshipped other gods,\nwhom they made for themselves out of the elements, and the changes of\nnight and day, and the succession of the seasons. They worshipped the\nsky, the earth, the sun, the dawn, fire, water, and wind. The chief of\nthese deities were Agni, the fire; Prithivi, the earth; Ushas, the dawn;\nMitra, or Surya, the sun; Indra, the sky; Maruts, the storm-winds; and\nVaruna, the All-Surrounder. To these deities sacrifice was offered and\nprayer addressed; but they had no priests or temples--these came in\nlater ages, when men thought they had need of others to stand between\nthem and _God_. But the ancient Aryans saw the Deity everywhere, and\nstood face to face with Him in Nature. He was to them the early morning,\nthe brightness of midday, the gloom of evening, the darkness of night,\nthe flash of the lightning, the roll of the thunder, and the rush of the\nmighty storm-wind. It seems strange to us that those who could imagine\nthe one Heaven-Father should degrade Him by making a multitude of Gods;\nbut this came easily to them, partly out of a desire to account for all\nthey saw in Nature, and which their fancy clothed in divine forms, and\npartly out of reverence for the great All Father, by filling up the\nspace between Him and themselves with inferior Gods, all helping to make\nHis greatness the greater and His power the mightier.\n\nWe cannot look into this old religion of the Aryans any further, because\nour business is to see how their legends are connected with the myths\nand stories which are spread by their descendants over a great part of\nEast and West. Now this came about in the way we are going to describe.\n\nThe mind of the Aryan peoples in their ancient home was full of\nimagination. They never ceased to wonder at what they heard and saw in\nthe sky and upon the earth. Their language was highly figurative, and\nso the things which struck them with wonder, and which they could not\nexplain, were described under forms and names which were familiar to\nthem. Thus the thunder was to them the bellowing of a mighty beast or\nthe rolling of a great chariot. In the lightning they saw a brilliant\nserpent, or a spear shot across the sky, or a great fish darting swiftly\nthrough the sea of cloud. The clouds were heavenly cows, who shed milk\nupon the earth and refreshed it; or they were webs woven by heavenly\nwomen, who drew water from the fountains on high and poured it down as\nrain. The sun was a radiant wheel, or a golden bird, or an eye, or\na shining egg, or a horse of matchless speed, or a slayer of the\ncloud-dragons. Sometimes it was a frog, when it seemed to be sinking\ninto or squatting upon the water; and out of this fancy, when the\nmeaning of it was lost, there grew a Sanskrit legend, which is to be\nfound also in Teutonic and Celtic myths. This story is, that Bheki (the\nfrog) was a lovely maiden who was found by a king, who asked her to be\nhis wife. So she married him, but only on condition that he should never\nshow her a drop of water. One day she grew tired, and asked for water.\nThe king gave it to her, and she sank out of his sight; in other words,\nthe sun disappears when it touches the water.\n\nThis imagery of the Aryans was applied by them to all they saw in the\nsky. Sometimes, as we have said, the clouds were cows; they were also\ndragons, which sought to slay the sun; or great ships floating across\nthe sky, and casting anchor upon earth; or rocks, or mountains, or deep\ncaverns, in which evil deities hid the golden light. Then, also, they\nwere shaped by fancy into animals of various kinds-the bear, the wolf,\nthe dog, the ox; and into giant birds, and into monsters which were both\nbird and beast.\n\nThe Winds, again, in their fancy, were the companions or the ministers\nof Indra, the sky-god. The Maruts, or spirits of the winds, gathered\ninto their host the souls of the dead--thus giving birth to the\nScandinavian and Teutonic legend of the Wild Horseman, who rides at\nmidnight through the stormy sky, with his long train of dead behind\nhim, and his weird hounds before. The Ribhus, or Arbhus, again, were the\nsunbeams or the lightning, who forged the armour of the Gods, and made\ntheir thunderbolts, and turned old people young, and restored out of\nthe hide alone the slaughtered cow on which the Gods had feasted. Out\nof these heavenly artificers, the workers of the clouds, there came, in\nlater times, two of the most striking stories of ancient legend--that\nof Thor, the Scandinavian thunder-god, who feasted at night on the goats\nwhich drew his chariot, and in the morning, by a touch of his hammer,\nbrought them back to life; and that of Orpheus in the beautiful Greek\nlegend, the master of divine song, who moved the streams, and rocks, and\ntrees, by the beauty of his music, and brought back his wife Eurydike\nfrom the shades of death. In our Western fairy tales we still have these\nRibhus, or Arbhus, transformed, through various changes of language,\ninto Albs, and Elfen, and last into our English Elves. It is not needful\nto go further into the fanciful way in which the old Aryans slowly made\never-increasing deities and superhuman beings for themselves out of\nall the forms and aspects of Nature; or how their Hindu and Persian and\nGreek and Teuton descendants peopled all earth, and air, and sky, and\nwater, with good and bad spirits and imaginary powers. But, as we shall\nsee later, all these creatures grew out of one thing only--the Sun,\nand his influence upon the earth. Aryan myths were no more than poetic\nfancies about light and darkness, cloud and rain, night and day, storm\nand wind; and when they moved westward and southward, the Aryan races\nbrought these legends with them; and they were shaped by degrees into\nthe innumerable gods and demons of the Hindus, the divs and jinns of the\nPersians, the great gods, the minor deities, and nymphs, and fauns, and\nsatyrs of Greek mythology and poetry; the stormy divinities, the giants,\nand trolls of the cold and rugged North; the dwarfs of the German\nforests; the elves who dance merrily in the moonlight of an English\nsummer; and the \"good people\" who play mischievous tricks upon stray\npeasants amongst the Irish hills. Almost all, indeed, that we have of\na legendary kind comes to us from our Aryan forefathers; sometimes\nscarcely changed, sometimes so altered that we have to puzzle out the\nlinks between the old and the new; but all these myths and traditions,\nand Old-world stories, when we come to know the meaning of them, take us\nback to the time when the Aryan races dwelt together in the high\nlands of Central Asia, and they all mean the same things--that is, the\nrelation between the sun and the earth, the succession of night and\nday, of winter and summer, of storm and calm, of cloud and tempest, and\ngolden sunshine and bright blue sky. And this is the source from which\nwe get our Fairy Stories; for underneath all of them there are the same\nfanciful meanings, only changed and altered in the way of putting\nthem, by the lapse of ages of time, by the circumstances of different\ncountries, and by the fancy of those who kept the wonderful tales alive\nwithout knowing what they meant.\n\nWhen the change happened that brought about all this, we do not know. It\nwas thousands of years ago that the Aryan people began their march out\nof their old country in mid-Asia. But from the remains of their language\nand the likeness of their legends to those amongst other nations, we do\nknow that ages and ages ago their country grew too small for them, so\nthey were obliged to move away from it. They could not go eastward, for\nthe great mountains shut them in; they could not go northward, for the\ngreat desert was too barren for their flocks and herds. So they turned,\nsome of them southward into India and Persia, and some of them westward\ninto Europe--at the time, perhaps, when the land of Europe stretched\nfrom the borders of Asia to our own islands, and when there was no sea\nbetween us and what is now the mainland. How they made their long and\ntoilsome march we know not. But, as Kingsley writes of such a movement\nof an ancient tribe, so we may fancy these old Aryans marching\nwestward--\"the tall, bare-limbed men, with stone axes on their shoulders\nand horn bows at their backs, with herds of grey cattle, guarded by huge\nlop-eared mastiffs, with shaggy white horses, heavy-horned sheep and\nsilky goats, moving always westward through the boundless steppes,\nwhither or why we know not, but that the All-Father had sent them forth.\nAnd behind us [he makes them say] the rosy snow-peaks died into ghastly\ngrey, lower and lower, as every evening came; and before us the plains\nspread infinite, with gleaming salt-lakes, and ever-fresh tribes of\ngaudy flowers. Behind us, dark: lines of living beings streamed down\nthe mountain slopes; around us, dark lines crawled along the\nplains--westward, westward ever. Who could stand against us? We met the\nwild asses on the steppe, and tamed them, and made them our slaves. We\nslew the bison herds, and swam broad rivers on their skins. The Python\nsnake lay across our path; the wolves and wild dogs snarled at us out\nof their coverts; we slew them and went on. The forests rose in black\ntangled barriers, we hewed our way through them and went on. Strange\ngiant tribes met us, and eagle-visaged hordes, fierce and foolish; we\nsmote them, hip and thigh, and went on, west-ward ever.\" And so, as they\nwent on, straight towards the west, or as they turned north and south,\nand thus overspread new lands, they brought with them their old ways of\nthought and forms of belief, and the stories in which these had\ntaken form; and on these were built up the Gods and Heroes, and all\nwonder-working creatures and things, and the poetical fables and fancies\nwhich have come down to us, and which still linger in our customs and\nour Fairy Tales bright and sunny and many coloured in the warm regions\nof the south; sterner and wilder and rougher in the north; more homelike\nin the middle and western countries; but always alike in their main\nfeatures, and always having the same meaning when we come to dig it\nout; and these forms and this meaning being the same in the lands of the\nWestern Aryans as in those still peopled by the Aryans of the East.\n\nIt would take a very great book to give many examples of the myths and\nstories which are alike in all the Aryan countries; but we may see by\none instance what the likeness is; and it shall be a story which all\nwill know when they read it.\n\nOnce upon a time there was a Hindu Rajah, who had an only daughter, who\nwas born with a golden necklace. In this necklace was her soul; and\nif the necklace were taken off and worn by some one else, the Princess\nwould die. On one of her birthdays the Rajah gave his daughter a pair\nof slippers with ornaments of gold and gems upon them. The Princess went\nout upon a mountain to pluck the flowers that grew there, and while she\nwas stooping to pluck them one of her slippers came off and fell down\ninto a forest below. A Prince, who was hunting in the forest, picked up\nthe lost slipper, and was so charmed with it that he desired to make its\nowner his wife. So he made his wish known everywhere, but nobody came\nto claim the slipper, and the poor Prince grew very sad. At last some\npeople from the Rajah's country heard of it, and told the Prince where\nto find the Rajah's daughter; and he went there, and asked for her as\nhis wife, and they were married. Sometime after, another wife of the\nPrince, being jealous of the Rajah's daughter, stole her necklace, and\nput it on her own neck, and then the Rajah's daughter died. But her\nbody did not decay, nor did her face lose its bloom; and the Prince went\nevery day to see her, for he loved her very much although she was dead.\nThen he found out the secret of the necklace, and got it back again, and\nput it on his dead wife's neck, and her soul was born again in her, and\nshe came back to life, and they lived happy ever after.\n\nThis Hindu story of the lost slipper is met with again in a legend of\nthe ancient Greeks, which tells that while a beautiful woman, named\nRhodope--or the rosy-cheeked--was bathing, an eagle picked up one of her\nslippers and flew away with it, and carried it off to Egypt, and dropped\nit in the lap of the King of that country, as he sat at Memphis on the\njudgment-seat. The slipper was so small and beautiful that the King fell\nin love with the wearer of it, and had her sought for, and when she was\nfound he made her his wife. Another story of the same kind. It is found\nin many countries, in various forms, and is that of Cinderella, the poor\nneglected maiden, whom her stepmother set to work in the kitchen, while\nher sisters went to the grand balls and feasts at the King's palace.\nYou know how Cinderella's fairy godmother came and dressed her like a\nprincess, and sent her to the ball; how the King's son fell in love with\nher; how she lost one of her slippers, which the Prince picked up;\nhow he vowed that he would marry the maiden who could fit on the lost\nslipper; how all the ladies of the court tried to do it, and failed,\nCinderella's sisters amongst them; and how Cinderella herself put on the\nslipper, produced the fellow to it, was married to the King's son, and\nlived happily with him.\n\nNow the story of Cinderella helps us to find out the meaning of our\nFairy Tales; and takes us back straight to the far-off land where fairy\nlegends began, and to the people who made them. Cinderella, and Rhodope,\nand the Hindu Rajah's daughter, and the like, are but different forms\nof the same ancient myth. It is the story of the Sun and the Dawn.\nCinderella, grey and dark, and dull, is all neglected when she is away\nfrom the Sun, obscured by the envious Clouds her sisters, and by her\nstepmother the Night. So she is Aurora, the Dawn, and the fairy Prince\nis the Morning Sun, ever pursuing her, to claim her for his bride. This\nis the legend as we find it in the ancient Hindu sacred books; and this\nexplains at once the source and the meaning of the Fairy Tale.\n\nNor is it in the story of Cinderella alone that we trace the ancient\nHindu legends. There is scarcely a tale of Greek or Roman mythology, no\nlegend of Teutonic or Celtic or Scandinavian growth, no great romance of\nwhat we call the middle ages, no fairy story taken down from the lips of\nancient folk, and dressed for us in modern shape and tongue, that we\ndo not find, in some form or another, in these Eastern poems. The Greek\ngods are there--Zeus, the Heaven-Father, and his wife Hera, \"and Phoebus\nApollo the Sun-god, and Pallas Athene, who taught men wisdom and useful\narts, and Aphrodite the Queen of Beauty, and Poseidon the Ruler of the\nSea, and Hephaistos the King of the Fire, who taught men to work in\nmetals.\"[2] There, too, are legends which resemble those of Orpheus and\nEurydike, of Eros and Psyche, of Jason and the Golden Fleece, of the\nlabours of Herakles, of Sigurd and Brynhilt, of Arthur and the Knights\nof the Round Table. There, too, in forms which can be traced with ease,\nwe have the stories of Fairyland--the germs of the Thousand and One\nTales of the Arabian Nights, the narratives of giants, and dwarfs, and\nenchanters; of men and maidens transformed by magic arts into beasts\nand birds; of riches hidden in the caves and bowels of the earth, and\nguarded by trolls and gnomes; of blessed lands where all is bright and\nsunny, and where there is neither work nor care. Whatever, indeed, is\nstrange or fanciful, or takes us straight from our grey, hard-working\nworld into the sweet and peaceful country of Once Upon a Time, is to\nbe found in these ancient Hindu books, and is repeated, from the source\nwhence they were drawn, in many countries of the East and West; for the\npeople whose traditions the Vedas record were the forefathers of those\nwho now dwell in India, in Persia, in the border-lands, and in most\nparts of Europe. Yes; strange as it may seem, all of us, who differ so\nmuch in language, in looks in customs and ways of thought, in all that\nmarks out one nation from another--all of us have a common origin and a\ncommon kindred. Greek and Roman, and Teuton and Kelt and Slav, ancient\nand modern, all came from the same stock. English and French, Spanish\nand Germans, Italians and Russians, all unlike in outward show, are\nlinked together in race; and not only with each other, but also claim\nkindred with the people who now fill the fiery plains of India, and\ndwell on the banks of her mighty rivers, and on the slopes of her great\nmountain-chains, and who still recite the sacred books, and sing the\nancient hymns from which the mythology of the West is in great part\nderived, whence our folk-lore comes, and which give life and colour and\nmeaning to our legends of romance and our Tales of Fairyland.\n\nBy taking a number of stories containing the same idea, but related in\ndifferent ages and in countries far away from each other, we shall see\nhow this likeness of popular tradition runs through all of them, and\nshows their common origin. So we will go to the next chapter, and tell a\nfew kindred tales from East and West, and South and North.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.--KINDRED TALES FROM DIVERS LANDS: EROS AND PSYCHE.\n\nOnce upon a time there lived a king and a queen, who had three beautiful\ndaughters. The youngest of them, who was called Psyche, was the\nloveliest; she was so very beautiful that she was thought to be a\nsecond Aphrodite, the Goddess of Beauty and Love, and all who saw\nher worshipped her as if she were the goddess; so that the temples\nof Aphrodite were deserted and her worship neglected, and Psyche was\npreferred to her; and as she passed along the streets, or came into the\ntemples, the people crowded round her, and scattered flowers under her\nfeet, and offered garlands to her. Now, when Aphrodite knew this she\ngrew very angry, and resolved to punish Psyche, so as to make her a\nwonder and a shame for ever. So Aphrodite sent for her son Eros, the\nGod of Love, and took him to the city where Psyche lived, and showed the\nmaiden to him, and bade him afflict her with love for a man who should\nbe the most wicked and most miserable of mankind, an outcast, a beggar,\none who had done some great wrong, and had fallen so low that no man in\nthe whole world could be so wretched. Eros agreed that he would do what\nhis mother wished; but this was only a pretence, for when he saw Psyche\nhe fell in love with her himself, and made up his mind that she should\nbe his own wife. The first thing to do was to get the maiden into his\nown care and to hide her from the vengeance of Aphrodite. So he put it\ninto the mind of her father to go to the shrine of Phoebus, at Miletus,\nand ask the god what should be done with Psyche. The king did so, and he\nwas bidden by an oracle to dress Psyche as a bride, to take her to the\nbrow of a high mountain, and to leave her there, and that after a time\na great monster would come and take her away and make her his wife. So\nPsyche was decked in bridal garments, was taken to a rock on the top of\na mountain, and was left there as a sacrifice to turn away the wrath\nof Aphrodite. But Eros took care that she came to no harm. He went to\nZephyrus, the God of the West Wind, and told him to carry Psyche gently\ndown into a beautiful valley, and to lay her softly on the turf, amidst\nlovely flowers. So Zephyrus lulled Psyche to sleep, and then carried her\nsafely down, and laid her in the place where Eros had bidden him. When\nPsyche awoke from sleep she saw a thick grove, with a crystal fountain\nin it, and close to the fountain there was a stately palace, fit for the\ndwelling of a king or a god. She went into the palace, and found it very\nwonderful. The walls and ceilings were made of cedar and ivory, there\nwere golden columns holding up the roof, the floors were laid with\nprecious stones, so put together as to make pictures, and on the walls\nwere carvings in gold and silver of birds, and beasts, and flowers, and\nall kinds of strange and beautiful things. And there were also great\ntreasure places full of gold, and silver, and gems, in such great\nmeasure that it seemed as if all the riches of the world were gathered\nthere. But nowhere was there any living creature to be seen; all\nthe palace was empty, and Psyche was there alone. And while she went\ntrembling and fearing through the rooms, and wondering whose all this\nmight be, she heard voices, as of invisible maidens, which told her that\nthe palace was for her, and that they who spoke, but whom she might not\nsee, were her servants. And the voices bade her go first to the bath,\nand then to a royal banquet which was prepared for her. So Psyche, still\nwondering, went to the bath, and then to a great and noble room, where\nthere was a royal seat, and upon this she placed herself, and then\nunseen attendants put before her all kinds of delicate food and wine;\nand while she ate and drank there was a sound as of a great number of\npeople singing the most charming music, and of one playing upon the\nlyre; but none of them could she see. Then night came on, and all the\nbeautiful palace grew dark, and Psyche laid herself down upon a couch to\nsleep. Then a great terror fell upon her, for she heard footsteps, which\ncame nearer and nearer, and she thought it was the monster whose bride\nthe oracle of Phoebus had destined her to be. And the footsteps drew\ncloser to her, and then an unseen being came to her couch and lay down\nbeside her, and made her his wife; and he lay there until just before\nthe break of day, and then he departed, and it was still so dark that\nPsyche could not see his form; nor did he speak, so that she could not\nguess from his voice what kind of creature it was to whom the Fates had\nwedded her. So Psyche lived for a long while, wandering about her palace\nin the daytime, tended by her unseen guardians, and every night her\nhusband came to her and stayed until daybreak. Then she began to long to\nhear about her father and mother, and to see her sisters, and she begged\nleave of her husband that these might come to her for a time. To this\nEros agreed, and gave her leave to give her sisters rich gifts, but\nwarned her that she must answer no questions they might ask about him,\nand that she must not listen to any advice they might give her to find\nout who he was, or else a great misfortune would happen to her. Then\nZephyrus brought the sisters of Psyche to her, and they stayed with her\nfor a little while, and were very curious to know who her husband was,\nand what he was like. But Psyche, mindful of the commands of Eros, put\nthem off, first with one story and then with another, and at last sent\nthem away, loaded with jewels. Now Psyche's sisters were envious of her,\nbecause such good fortune had not happened to themselves, to have such\na grand palace, and such store of wealth, and they plotted between\nthemselves to make her discover her husband, hoping to get some good\nfor themselves out of it, and not caring what happened to her. And it\nso fell out that they had their way, for Psyche again getting tired of\nsolitude, again begged of her husband that her sisters might come to see\nher once more, to which, with much sorrow, he consented, but warned her\nagain that if she spoke of him, or sought to see him, all her happiness\nwould vanish, and that she would have to bear a life of misery. But it\nwas fated that Psyche should disobey her husband; and it fell out in\nthis way. When her sisters came to her again they questioned her about\nher husband, and persuaded her that she was married to a monster too\nterrible to be looked at, and they told her that this was the reason\nwhy he never came in the daytime, and refused to let himself be seen at\nnight. Then they also persuaded her that she ought to put an end to the\nenchantment by killing the monster; and for this purpose they gave her a\nsharp knife, and they gave her also a lamp, so that while he was asleep\nshe might look at him, so as to know where to strike. Then, being left\nalone, poor Psyche's mind was full of terror, and she resolved to follow\nthe advice of her sisters. So when her husband was asleep, she went and\nfetched the lamp, and looked at him by its light; and then she saw that,\ninstead of a deadly monster, it was Eros himself, the God of Love, to\nwhom she was married. But while she was filled with awe and delight at\nthis discovery, the misfortune happened which Eros had foretold. A drop\nof oil from the lamp fell upon the shoulder of the god, and he sprang up\nfrom the couch, reproached Psyche for her fatal curiosity, and vanished\nfrom her sight; and then the beautiful palace vanished also, and Psyche\nfound herself lying on the bare cold earth, weeping, deserted, and\nalone.\n\nThen poor Psyche began a long and weary journey, to try to find the\nhusband she had lost, but she could not, for he had gone to his mother\nAphrodite, to be cured of his wound; and Aphrodite, finding out that\nEros had fallen in love with Psyche, determined to punish her, and to\nprevent her from finding Eros. First Psyche went to the god Pan, but\nhe could not help her; then she went to the goddess Demeter, the\nEarth-Mother, but she warned her against the vengeance of Aphrodite,\nand sent her away. And the great goddess Hera did the same; and at\nlast, abandoned by every one, Psyche went to Aphrodite herself, and the\ngoddess, who had caused great search to be made for her, now ordered her\nto be beaten and tormented, and then ridiculed her sorrows, and taunted\nher with the loss of Eros, and set her to work at many tasks that seemed\nimpossible to be done. First the goddess took a great heap of seeds of\nwheat, barley, millet, poppy, lentils, and beans, and mixed them all\ntogether, and then bade Psyche separate them into their different kinds\nby nightfall. Now there were so many of them that this was impossible;\nbut Eros, who pitied Psyche, though she had lost him, sent a great many\nants, who parted the seeds from each other and arranged them in their\nproper heaps, so that by evening all that Aphrodite had commanded was\ndone. Then the goddess was very angry, and fed Psyche on bread and\nwater, and next day she set Psyche another task. This was to collect\na quantity of golden wool from the sheep of the goddess, creatures so\nfierce and wild that no mortal could venture near them and escape with\nlife. Then Psyche thought herself lost; but Pan came to her help and\nbade her wait until evening, when the golden sheep would be at rest,\nand then she might from the trees and shrubs collect all the wool she\nneeded. So Psyche fulfilled this task also. But Aphrodite was still\nunsatisfied. She now demanded a crystal urn, filled with icy waters from\nthe fountain of Oblivion. The fountain was placed on the summit of a\ngreat mountain; it issued from a fissure in a lofty rock, too steep for\nany one to ascend, and from thence it fell into a narrow channel, deep,\nwinding, and rugged, and guarded on each side by terrible dragons, which\nnever slept. And the rush of the waters, as they rolled along, resembled\na human voice, always crying out to the adventurous explorer--\"Beware!\nfly! or you perish!\" Here Psyche thought her sufferings at an end;\nsooner than face the dragons and climb the rugged rocks she must\ndie. But again Eros helped her, for he sent the eagle of Zeus, the\nAll-Father, and the eagle took the crystal urn in his claws, flew\npast the dragons, settled on the rock, and drew the water of the\nblack fountain, and gave it safely to Psyche, who carried it back and\npresented it to the angry Aphrodite. But the goddess, still determined\nthat Psyche should perish, set her another task, the hardest and most\ndangerous of all. \"Take this box,\" she said, \"go with it into the\ninfernal regions to Persephone, and ask her for a portion of her beauty,\nthat I may adorn myself with it for the supper of the gods.\" Now on\nhearing this, poor Psyche knew that the goddess meant to destroy her; so\nshe went up to a lofty tower, meaning to throw herself down headlong so\nthat she might be killed, and thus pass into the realm of Hades, never\nto return. But the tower was an enchanted place, and a voice from it\nspoke to her and bade her be of good cheer, and told her what to do. She\nwas to go to a city of Achaia and find near it a mountain, and in the\nmountain she would see a gap, from which a narrow road led straight into\nthe infernal regions. But the voice warned her of many things which must\nbe done on the journey, and of others which must be avoided. She was to\ntake in each hand a piece of barley bread, soaked in honey, and in her\nmouth she was to put two pieces of money. On entering the dreary path\nshe would meet an old man driving a lame ass, laden with wood, and the\nold man would ask her for help, but she was to pass him by in silence.\nThen she would come to the bank of the black river, over which the\nboatman Charon ferries the souls of the dead; and from her mouth Charon\nmust take one piece of money, she saying not a word. In crossing the\nriver a dead hand would stretch itself up to her, and a dead face, like\nthat of her father, would appear, and a voice would issue from the dead\nman's mouth, begging for the other piece of money, that he might pay for\nhis passage, and get released from the doom of floating for ever in the\ngrim flood of Styx. But still she was to keep silence, and to let the\ndead man cry out in vain; for all these, the voice told her, were snares\nprepared by Aphrodite, to make her let go the money, and to let fall the\npieces of bread. Then, at the gate of the palace of Persephone she would\nmeet the great three-headed dog, Kerberos, who keeps watch there for\never, and to him, to quiet his terrible barking, she must give one piece\nof the bread, and pass on, still never speaking. So Kerberos would allow\nher to pass; but still another danger would await her. Persephone would\ngreet her kindly, and ask her to sit upon soft cushions, and to eat of\na fine banquet. But she must refuse both offers--sitting only on the\nground, and eating only of the bread of mortals, or else she must remain\nfor ever in the gloomy regions below the earth. Psyche listened to this\ncounsel, and obeyed it. Everything happened as the voice had foretold.\nShe saw the old man with the overladen ass, she permitted Charon to take\nthe piece of money from her lips, she stopped her ears against the cry\nof the dead man floating in the black river, she gave the honey bread to\nKerberos, and she refused the soft cushions and the banquet offered to\nher by the queen of the infernal regions. Then Persephone gave her the\nprecious beauty demanded by Aphrodite, and shut it up in the box, and\nPsyche came safely back into the light of day, giving to Kerberos, the\nthree-headed dog, the remaining piece of honey bread, and to Charon\nthe remaining piece of money. But now she fell into a great danger. The\nvoice in the tower had warned her not to look into the box; but she was\ntempted by a strong desire, and so she opened it, that she might see and\nuse for herself the beauty of the gods. But when she opened the box it\nwas empty, save of a vapour of sleep, which seized upon Psyche, and made\nher as if she were dead. In this unhappy state, brought upon her by the\nvengeance of Aphrodite, she would have been lost for ever, but Eros,\nhealed of the wound caused by the burning oil, came himself to her help,\nroused her from the death-like sleep, and put her in a place of safety.\nThen Eros flew up into the abode of the gods, and besought Zeus to\nprotect Psyche against his mother Aphrodite; and Zeus, calling an\nassembly of the gods, sent Hermes to bring Psyche thither, and then he\ndeclared her immortal, and she and Eros were wedded to each other; and\nthere was a great feast in Olympus. And the sisters of Psyche, who had\nstriven to ruin her, were punished for their crimes, for Eros appeared\nto them one after the other in a dream, and promised to make each of\nthem his wife, in place of Psyche, and bade each throw herself from\nthe great rock whence Psyche was carried into the beautiful valley by\nZephyrus; and both the sisters did as the dream told them, and they were\ndashed to pieces, and perished miserably.\n\nNow this is the story of Eros and Psyche, as it is told by Apuleius, in\nhis book of _Metamorphoses_, written nearly two thousand years ago. But\nthe story was told ages before Apuleius by people other than the Greeks,\nand in a language which existed long before theirs. It is the tale of\nUrvasi and Pururavas, which is to be found in one of the oldest of the\nVedas, or Sanskrit sacred books, which contain the legends of the Aryan\nrace before it broke up and went in great fragments southward into\nIndia, and westward into Persia and Europe. A translation of the story\nof Urvasi and Pururavas is given by Mr. Max-Muller,[3] who also tells\nwhat the story means, and this helps us to see the meaning of the tale\nof Eros and Psyche, and of many other myths which occur among all the\nbranches of the Aryan family; among the Teutons, the Scandinavians, and\nthe Slavs, as well as among the Greeks. Urvasi, then, was an immortal\nbeing, a kind of fairy, who fell in love with Pururavas, a hero and a\nking; and she married him, and lived with him, on this condition--that\nshe should never see him unless he was dressed in his royal robes.\nNow there was a ewe, with two lambs, tied to the couch of Urvasi and\nPururavas; and the fairies--or Gandharvas, as the kinsfolk of Urvasi\nwere called--wished to get her back amongst them; and so they stole one\nof the lambs. Then Urvasi reproached her husband, and said, \"They take\naway my darling, as if I lived in a land where there is no hero and\nno man.\" The fairies stole the other lamb, and Urvasi reproached her\nhusband again, saying, \"How can that be a land without heroes or men\nwhere I am?\" Then Pururavas hastened to bring back the pet lamb; so\neager was he that he stayed not to clothe himself, and so sprang up\nnaked. Then the Gandharvas sent a flash of lightning, and Urvasi saw her\nhusband naked as if by daylight; and then she cried out to her kinsfolk,\n\"I come back,\" and she vanished. And Pururavas, made wretched by the\nloss of his love, sought her everywhere, and once he was permitted to\nsee her, and when he saw her, he said he should die if she did not come\nback to him. But Urvasi could not return; but she gave him leave to\ncome to her, on the last night of the year, to the golden seats; and he\nstayed with her for that night. And Urvasi said to him, \"The Gandharvas\nwill to-morrow grant thee a wish; choose.\" He said; \"Choose thou for\nme.\" She replied, \"Say to them, Let me be one of you.\" And he said this,\nand they taught him how to make the sacred fire, and he became one of\nthem, and dwelt with Urvasi for ever.\n\nNow this, we see, is like the story of Eros and Psyche; and Mr.\nMax-Muller teaches us what it means. It is the story of the Sun and the\nDawn. Urvasi is the Dawn, which must vanish or die when it beholds\nthe risen Sum; and Pururavas is the Sun; and they are united again at\nsunset, when the Sun dies away into night. So, in the Greek myth, Eros\nis the dawning Sun, and when Psyche, the Dawn, sees him, he flies from\nher, and it is only at nightfall that they can be again united. In the\nsame paper Mr. Max-Muller shows how this root idea of the Aryan race\nis found again in another of the most beautiful of Greek myths or\nstories--that of Orpheus and Eurydike. In the Greek legends the Dawn has\nmany names; one of them is Eurydike. The name of her husband, Orpheus,\ncomes straight from the Sanskrit: it is the same as Ribhu or Arbhu,\nwhich is a name of Indra, or the Sun, or which may be used for the rays\nof the Sun. The old story, then, says our teacher, was this: \"Eurydike\n(the Dawn) is bitten by a serpent (the Night); she dies, and descends\ninto the lower regions. Orpheus follows her, and obtains from the\ngods that his wife should follow him, if he promised not to look back.\nOrpheus promises--ascends from the dark world below; Eurydike is behind\nhim as he rises, but, drawn by doubt or by love, he looks round; the\nfirst ray of the Sun glances at the Dawn; and the Dawn fades away.\"\n\nWe have now seen that the Greek myth is like a much older myth existing\namongst the Aryan race before it passed westward. We have but to look\nto other collections of Aryan folk-lore to find that in some of its\nfeatures the legend is common to all branches of the Aryan family. In\nour own familiar story of \"Beauty and the Beast,\" for instance, we have\nthe same idea. There are the three sisters, one of whom is chosen as the\nbride of an enchanted monster, who dwells in a beautiful palace. By the\narts of her sisters she is kept away from him, and he is at the point of\ndeath through his grief. Then she returns, and he revives, and becomes\nchanged into a handsome Prince, and they live happy ever after. One\nfeature of these legends is that beings closely united to each other--as\nclosely, that is, as the Sun and the Dawn--may not look upon each other\nwithout misfortune. This is illustrated in the charming Scandinavian\nstory of \"The Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon,\" which is told\nin various forms; the best of them being in Mr. Morris's beautiful poem\nin \"The Earthly Paradise,\" and in Dr. Dasent's Norse Tales.[4] We shall\nabridge Dr. Dasent's version, telling the story in our own way:\n\nThere was a poor peasant who had a large family whom he could scarcely\nkeep; and there were several daughters amongst them. The loveliest was\nthe youngest daughter; who was very beautiful indeed. One evening in\nautumn, in bad weather, the family sat round the fire; and there came\nthree taps at the window. The father went out to see who it was, and\nhe found only a great White Bear. And the White Bear said, \"If you will\ngive me your youngest daughter, I will make you rich.\" So the peasant\nwent in and asked his daughter if she would be the wife of the White\nBear; and the daughter said \"No.\" So the White Bear went away, but said\nhe would come back in a few days to see if the maiden had changed her\nmind. Now her father and mother talked to her so much about it, and\nseemed so anxious to be well off, that the maiden agreed to be the wife\nof the White Bear: and when he came again, she said \"Yes,\" and the White\nBear told her to sit upon his back, and hold by his shaggy coat, and\naway they went together. After the maiden had ridden for a long way,\nthey came to a great hill, and the White Bear gave a knock on the hill\nwith his paw, and the hill opened, and they went in. Now inside the hill\nthere was a palace with fine rooms, ornamented with gold and silver,\nand all lighted up; and there was a table ready laid; and the White Bear\ngave the maiden a silver bell, and told her to ring it when she wanted\nanything. And when the maiden had eaten and drank, she went to bed, in\na beautiful bed with silk pillows and curtains, and gold fringe to them.\nThen, in the dark, a man came and lay down beside her. This was the\nWhite Bear, who was an Enchanted Prince, and who was able to put off\nthe shape of a beast at night, and to become a man again; but before\ndaylight, he went away and turned once more into a White Bear, so that\nhis wife could never see him in the human form. Well, this went on for\nsome time, and the wife of the White Bear was very happy with her kind\nhusband, in the beautiful palace he had made for her. Then she grew dull\nand miserable for want of company, and she asked leave to go home for a\nlittle while to see her father and mother, and her brothers and sisters.\nSo the White Bear took her home again, but he told her that there was\none thing she must not do; she must not go into a room with her mother\nalone, to talk to her, or a great misfortune would happen. When the wife\nof the White Bear got home, she found that her family lived in a grand\nhouse, and they were all very glad to see her; and then her mother took\nher into a room by themselves, and asked about her husband. And the wife\nof the White Bear forgot the warning, and told her mother that every\nnight a man came and lay down with her, and went away before daylight,\nand that she had never seen him, and wanted to see him, very much. Then\nthe mother said it might be a Troll she slept with; and that she ought\nto see what it was; and she gave her daughter a piece of candle, and\nsaid, \"Light this while he is asleep, and look at him, but take care you\ndon't drop the tallow upon him.\" So then the White Bear came to fetch\nhis wife, and they went back to the palace in the hill, and that night\nshe lit the candle, while her husband was asleep, and then she saw that\nhe was a handsome Prince, and she felt quite in love with him, and\ngave him a soft kiss. But just as she kissed him she let three drops of\ntallow fall upon his shirt, and he woke up. Then the White Bear was very\nsorrowful, and said that he was enchanted by a wicked fairy, and that\nif his wife had only waited for a year before looking at him, the\nenchantment would be broken, and he would be a man again always. But now\nthat she had given way to curiosity, he must go to a dreary castle East\nof the Sun and West of the Moon, and marry a witch Princess, with a nose\nthree ells long. And then he vanished, and so did his palace, and his\npoor wife found herself lying in the middle of a gloomy wood, and she\nwas dressed in rags, and was very wretched. But she did not stop to cry\nabout her hard fate, for she was a brave girl, and made up her mind to\ngo at once in search of her husband. So she walked for days, and then\nshe met an old woman sitting on a hillside, and playing with a golden\napple; and she asked the old woman the way to the Land East of the Sun\nand West of the Moon. And the old woman listened to her story, and then\nshe said, \"I don't know where it is; but you can go on and ask my next\nneighbour. Ride there on my horse, and when you have done with him, give\nhim a pat under the left ear and say, 'Go home again;' and take this\ngolden apple with you, it may be useful.\" So she rode on for a long\nway, and then came to another old woman, who was playing with a golden\ncarding comb; and she asked her the way to the Land East of the Sun and\nWest of the Moon? But this old woman couldn't tell her, and bade her\ngo on to another old woman, a long way off. And she gave her the golden\ncarding comb, and lent her a horse just like the first one. And the\nthird old woman was playing with a golden spinning wheel; and she gave\nthis to the wife of the White Bear, and lent her another horse, and told\nher to ride on to the East Wind, and ask him the way to the enchanted\nland. Now after a weary journey she got to the home of the East Wind,\nand he said he had heard of the Enchanted Prince, and of the country\nEast of the Sun and West of the Moon, but he did not know where it was,\nfor he had never been so far. But, he said, \"Get on my back, and we will\ngo to my brother the West Wind; perhaps he knows.\" So they sailed off to\nthe West Wind, and told him the story, and he took it quite kindly,\nbut said he didn't know the way. But perhaps his brother the South Wind\nmight know; and they would go to him. So the White Bear's wife got\non the back of the West Wind, and he blew straight away to the\ndwelling-place of the South Wind, and asked him where to find the Land\nEast of the Sun and West of the Moon. But the South Wind said that\nalthough he had blown pretty nearly everywhere, he had never blown\nthere; but he would take her to his brother the North Wind, the oldest,\nand strongest, and wisest Wind of all; and he would be sure to know.\nNow the North Wind was very cross at being disturbed, and he used bad\nlanguage, and was quite rude and unpleasant. But he was a kind Wind\nafter all, and when his brother the West Wind told him the story, he\nbecame quite fatherly, and said he would do what he could, for he knew\nthe Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon very well. But, he said,\n\"It is a long way off; so far off that once in my life I blew an aspen\nleaf there, and was so tired with it that I couldn't blow or puff for\never so many days after.\" So they rested that night, and next morning\nthe North Wind puffed himself out, and got stout, and big, and strong,\nready for the journey; and the maiden got upon his back, and away they\nwent to the country East of the Sun and West of the Moon. It was a\nterrible journey, high up in the air, in a great storm, and over the\nmountains and the sea, and before they got to the end of it the North\nWind grew very tired, and drooped, and nearly fell into the sea, and got\nso low down that the crests of the waves washed over him. But he blew as\nhard as he could, and at last he put the maiden down on the shore, just\nin front of the Enchanted Castle that stood in the Land East of the Sun\nand West of the Moon; and there he had to stop and rest many days before\nhe became strong enough to blow home again.\n\nNow the wife of the White Bear sat down before the castle, and began to\nplay with the golden apple. And then the wicked Princess with the nose\nthree ells long opened a window, and asked if she would sell the apple?\nBut she said \"No;\" she would give the golden apple for leave to spend\nthe night in the bed-chamber of the Prince who lived there. So the\nPrincess with the long nose said \"Yes,\" and the wife of the White Bear\nwas allowed to pass the night in her husband's chamber. But a sleeping\ndraught had been given to the Prince, and she could not wake him, though\nshe wept greatly, and spent the whole night in crying out to him; and in\nthe morning before he woke she was driven away by the wicked Princess.\nWell, next day she sat and played with the golden carding comb, and the\nPrincess wanted that too; and the same bargain was made; but again a\nsleeping draught was given to the Prince, and he slept all night, and\nnothing could waken him; and at the first peep of daylight the wicked\nPrincess drove the poor wife out again. Now it was the third day, and\nthe wife of the White Bear had only the golden spinning-wheel left. So\nshe sat and played with it, and the Princess bought it on the same terms\nas before. But some kind folk who slept in the next room to the Prince\ntold him that for two nights a woman had been in his chamber, weeping\nbitterly, and crying out to him to wake and see her. So, being warned,\nthe Prince only pretended to drink the sleeping draught, and so when his\nwife came into the room that night he was wide awake, and was rejoiced\nto see her; and they spent the whole night in loving talk. Now the next\nday was to be the Prince's wedding day; but now that his lost wife had\nfound him, he hit upon a plan to escape marrying the Princess with the\nlong nose. So when morning came, he said he should like to see what his\nbride was fit for? \"Certainly,\" said the Witch-mother and the Princess,\nboth together. Then the Prince said he had a fine shirt, with three\ndrops of tallow upon it; and he would marry only the woman who could\nwash them out, for no other would be worth having. So they laughed at\nthis, for they thought it would be easily done. And the Princess began,\nbut the more she rubbed, the worse the tallow stuck to the shirt. And\nthe old Witch-mother tried; but it got deeper and blacker than ever.\nAnd all the Trolls in the enchanted castle tried; but none of them could\nwash the shirt clean. Then said the Prince, \"Call in the lassie who\nsits outside, and let her try.\" And she came in, and took the shirt,\nand washed it quite clean and white, all in a minute. Then the old\nWitch-mother put herself into such a rage that she burst into pieces,\nand so did the Princess with the long nose, and so did all the Trolls\nin the castle; and the Prince took his wife away with him, and all the\nsilver and gold, and a number of Christian people who had been enchanted\nby the witch; and away they went for ever from the dreary Land East of\nthe Sun and West of the Moon.\n\nIn the story of \"The Soaring Lark,\" in the collection of German popular\ntales made by the brothers Grimm, we have another version of the same\nidea; and here, as in Eros and Psyche, and in the Land East of the Sun\nand West of the Moon, it is the woman to whose fault the misfortunes are\nlaid, and upon whom falls the long and weary task of search. The story\ntold in brief, is this. A merchant went on a journey, and promised to\nbring back for his three daughters whatever they wished. The eldest\nasked for diamonds, the second for pearls, and the youngest, who was her\nfather's favourite, for a singing, soaring lark. As the merchant came\nhome, he passed through a great forest, and on the top bough of a tall\ntree he found a lark, and tried to take it. Then a Lion sprang from\nbehind the tree, and said the lark was his, and that he would eat up\nthe merchant for trying to steal it. The merchant told the Lion why he\nwanted the bird, and then the Lion said that he would give him the lark,\nand let him go, on one condition, namely, that he should give to the\nLion the first thing or person that met him on his return. Now the first\nperson who met the merchant when he got home was his youngest daughter,\nand the poor merchant told her the story, and wept very much, and said\nthat she should not go into the forest. But the daughter said, \"What you\nhave promised you must do;\" and so she went into the forest, to find the\nLion. The Lion was an Enchanted Prince, and all his servants were also\nturned into lions; and so they remained all day; but at night they all\nchanged back again into men. Now when the Lion Prince saw the merchant's\ndaughter, he fell in love with her, and took her to a fine castle,\nand at night, when he became a man, they were married, and lived very\nhappily, and in great splendour. One day the Prince said to his wife,\n\"To-morrow your eldest sister is to be married; if you would like to be\nthere, my lions shall go with you.\" So she went, and the lions with her,\nand there were great rejoicings in her father's house, because they were\nafraid that she had been torn to pieces in the forest; and after staying\nsome time, she went back to her husband. After a while, the Prince said\nto his wife, \"To-morrow your second sister is going to be married,\" and\nshe replied, \"This time I will not go alone, for you shall go with me.\"\nThen he told her how dangerous that would be, for if a single ray from\na burning light fell upon him, he would be changed into a Dove, and in\nthat form would have to fly about for seven years. But the Princess very\nmuch wanted him to go, and in order to protect him from the light, she\nhad a room built with thick walls, so that no light could get through,\nand there he was to sit while the bridal candles were burning. But by\nsome accident, the door of the room was made of new wood, which split,\nand made a little chink, and through this chink one ray of light from\nthe torches of the bridal procession fell like a hair upon the Prince,\nand he was instantly changed in form; and when his wife came to tell\nhim that all danger was over, she found only a White Dove, who said very\nsadly to her--\n\n\"For seven years I must fly about in the world, but at every seventh\nmile I will let fall a white feather and a drop of red blood, which will\nshow you the way, and if you follow it, you may save me.\"\n\nThen the White Dove flew out of the door, and the Princess followed it,\nand at every seventh mile the Dove let fall a white feather and a drop\nof red blood; and so, guided by the feathers and the drops of blood,\nshe followed the Dove, until the seven years had almost passed, and she\nbegan to hope that the Prince's enchantment would be at an end. But one\nday there was no white feather to be seen, nor any drop of red blood,\nand the Dove had flown quite away. Then the poor Princess thought, \"No\nman can help me now;\" and so she mounted up to the Sun, and said, \"Thou\nshinest into every chasm and over every peak; hast thou seen a White\nDove on the wing?\"\n\n\"No,\" answered the Sun. \"I have not seen one; but take this casket, and\nopen it when you are in need of help.\"\n\nShe took the casket, and thanked the Sun. When evening came, she asked\nthe Moon--\n\n\"Hast thou seen a White Dove? for thou shinest all night long over every\nfield and through every wood.\"\n\n\"No,\" said the Moon, \"I have not seen a White Dove; but here is an\negg--break it when you are in great trouble.\"\n\nShe thanked the Moon, and took the egg; and then the North Wind came by;\nand she said to the North Wind:\n\n\"Hast thou not seen a White Dove? for thou passest through all the\nboughs, and shakest every leaf under heaven.\"\n\n\"No,\" said the North Wind, \"I have not seen one; but I will ask my\nbrothers, the East Wind, and the West Wind, and the South Wind.\"\n\nSo he asked them all three; and the East Wind and the West Wind said,\n\"No, they had not seen the White Dove;\" but the South Wind said--\n\n\"I have seen the White Dove; he has flown to the Red Sea, and has again\nbeen changed into a Lion, for the seven years are up; and the Lion\nstands there in combat with an Enchanted Princess, who is in the form of\na great Caterpillar.\"\n\nThen the North Wind knew what to do; and he said to the Princess--\n\n\"Go to the Red Sea; on the right-hand shore there are great reeds, count\nthem, and cut off the eleventh reed, and beat the Caterpillar with it.\nThen the Caterpillar and the Lion will take their human forms. Then look\nfor the Griffin which sits on the Red Sea, and leap upon its back with\nthe Prince, and the Griffin will carry you safely home. Here is a nut;\nlet it fall when you are in the midst of the sea, and a large nut-tree\nwill grow out of the water, and the Griffin will rest upon it.\"\n\nSo the Princess went to the Red Sea, and counted the reeds, and cut off\nthe eleventh reed, and beat the Caterpillar with it, and then the Lion\nconquered in the fight, and both of them took their human forms again.\nBut the Enchanted Princess was too quick for the poor wife, for she\ninstantly seized the Prince and sprang upon the back of the Griffin, and\naway they flew, quite out of sight. Now the poor deserted wife sat down\non the desolate shore, and cried bitterly; and then she said, \"So far\nas the wind blows, and so long as the cock crows, will I search for my\nhusband, till I find him;\" and so she travelled on and on, until one day\nshe came to the palace whither the Enchanted Princess had carried the\nPrince; and there was great feasting going on, and they told her that\nthe Prince and Princess were about to be married. Then she remembered\nwhat the Sun had said, and took out the casket and opened it, and there\nwas the most beautiful dress in all the world; as brilliant as the\nSun himself. So she put it on, and went into the palace, and everybody\nadmired the dress, and the Enchanted Princess asked if she would sell\nit?\n\n\"Not for gold or silver,\" she said, \"but for flesh and blood.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" the Princess asked.\n\n\"Let me sleep for one night in the bridegroom's chamber,\" the wife said.\nSo the Enchanted Princess agreed, but she gave the Prince a sleeping\ndraught, so that he could not hear his wife's cries; and in the morning\nshe was driven out, without a word from him, for he slept so soundly\nthat all she said seemed to him only like the rushing of the wind\nthrough the fir-trees.\n\nThen the poor wife sat down and wept again, until she thought of the egg\nthe Moon had given her; and when she took the egg and broke it, there\ncame out of it a hen with twelve chickens, all of gold, and the chickens\npecked quite prettily, and then ran under the wings of the hen for\nshelter. Presently, the Enchanted Princess looked out of the window, and\nsaw the hen and the chickens, and asked if they were for sale. \"Not for\ngold or silver, but for flesh and blood,\" was the answer she got; and\nthen the wife made the same bargain as before--that she should spend the\nnight in the bridegroom's chamber. Now this night the Prince was warned\nby his servant, and so he poured away the sleeping draught instead of\ndrinking it; and when his wife came, and told her sorrowful story, he\nknew her, and said, \"Now I am saved;\" and then they both went as quickly\nas possible, and set themselves upon the Griffin, who carried them over\nthe Red Sea; and when they got to the middle of the sea, the Princess\nlet fall the nut which the North Wind had given to her, and a great\nnut-tree grew up at once, on which the Griffin rested; and then it went\nstraight to their home, where they lived happy ever after.\n\nOne more story of the same kind must be told, for three reasons: because\nit is very good reading, because it brings together various legends, and\nbecause it shows that these were common to Celtic as well as to Hindu,\nGreek, Teutonic, and Scandinavian peoples. It is called \"The Battle\nof the Birds,\" and is given at full length, and in several different\nversions, in Campbell's \"Popular Tales of the West Highlands.\"[5] To\nbring it within our space we must tell it in our own way.\n\nOnce upon a time every bird and other creature gathered to battle. The\nson of the King of Tethertoun went to see the battle, but it was over\nbefore he got there, all but one fight, between a great Raven and a\nSnake; and the Snake was getting the victory. The King's son helped\nthe Raven, and cut off the Snake's head. The Raven thanked him for his\nkindness and said, \"Now I will give thee a sight; come up on my wings;\"\nand then the Raven flew with him over seven mountains, and seven glens,\nand seven moors, and that night the King's son lodged in the house of\nthe Raven's sisters; and promised to meet the Raven next morning in the\nsame place. This went on for three nights and days, and on the third\nmorning, instead of a raven, there met him a handsome lad, who gave him\na bundle, and told him not to look into it, until he was in the place\nwhere he would most wish to dwell. But the King's son did look into the\nbundle, and then he found himself in a great castle with fine grounds\nabout it, and he was very sorry, because he wished the castle had been\nnear his father's house, but he could not put it back into the bundle\nagain. Then a great Giant met him, and offered to put the castle back\ninto a bundle for a reward, and this was to be the Prince's son, when\nthe son was seven years old. So the Prince promised, and the Giant put\neverything back into the bundle, and the Prince went home with it to his\nfather's house. When he got there he opened the bundle, and out came the\ncastle and all the rest, just as before, and at the castle door stood a\nbeautiful maiden who asked him to marry her, and they were married, and\nhad a son. When the seven years were up, the Giant came to ask for the\nboy, and then the King's son (who had now become a king himself) told\nhis wife about his promise. \"Leave that to me and the Giant,\" said the\nQueen. So she dressed the cook's son (who was the right age) in fine\nclothes, and gave him to the Giant; but the Giant gave the boy a rod,\nand asked him, \"If thy father had that rod, what would he do with it?\"\n\"He would beat the dogs if they went near the King's meat,\" said the\nboy. Then Said the Giant, \"Thou art the cook's son,\" and he killed\nhim. Then the Giant went back, very angry, and the Queen gave him the\nbutler's son; and the Giant gave him the rod, and asked him the same\nquestion, \"My father would beat the dogs if they came near the King's\nglasses,\" said the boy. \"Thou art the butler's son,\" said the Giant;\nand he killed him. Now the Giant went back the third time, and made a\ndreadful noise. \"Out here _thy_ son,\" he said, \"or the stone that is\nhighest in thy dwelling shall be the lowest.\" So they gave him the\nKing's son, and the Giant took him to his own house, and he stayed there\na long while. One day the youth heard sweet music at the top of the\nGiant's house, and he saw a sweet face. It was the Giant's youngest\ndaughter; and she said to him, \"My father wants you to marry one of my\nsisters, and he wants me to marry the King of the Green City, but I will\nnot. So when he asks, say thou wilt take me.\" Next day the Giant gave\nthe King's son choice of his two eldest daughters; but the Prince said,\n\"Give me this pretty little one?\" and then the Giant was angry, and said\nthat before he had her he must do three things. The first of these\nwas to clean out a byre or cattle place, where there was the dung of a\nhundred cattle, and it had not been cleaned for seven years. He tried to\ndo it, and worked till noon, but the filth was as bad as ever. Then the\nGiant's youngest daughter came, and bid him sleep, and she cleaned out\nthe stable, so that a golden apple would run from end to end of it. Next\nday the Giant set him to thatch the byre with birds' down, and he had\nto go out on the moors to catch the birds; but at midday, he had caught\nonly two blackbirds, and then the Giant's youngest daughter came again,\nand bid him sleep, and then she caught the birds, and thatched the\nbyre with the feathers before sundown. The third day the Giant set him\nanother task. In the forest there was a fir-tree, and at the top was a\nmagpie's nest, and in the nest were five eggs, and he was to bring these\nfive eggs to the Giant without breaking one of them. Now the tree was\nvery tall; from the ground to the first branch it was five hundred feet,\nso that the King's son could not climb up it. Then the Giant's youngest\ndaughter came again, and she put her fingers one after the other into\nthe tree, and made a ladder for the King's son to climb up by. When\nhe was at the nest at the very top, she said, \"Make haste now with the\neggs, for my father's breath is burning my back;\" and she was in such a\nhurry that she left her little finger sticking in the top of the tree.\nThen she told the King's son that the Giant would make all his daughters\nlook alike, and dress them alike, and that when the choosing time came\nhe was to look at their hands, and take the one that had not a little\nfinger on one hand. So it happened, and the King's son chose the\nyoungest daughter, because she put out her hand to guide him.\n\nThen they were married, and there was a great feast, and they went to\ntheir chamber. The Giant's daughter said to her husband, \"Sleep not, or\nthou diest; we must fly quick, or my father will kill thee.\" So first\nshe cut an apple into nine pieces, and put two pieces at the head of the\nbed, and two at the foot, and two at the door of the kitchen, and two at\nthe great door, and one outside the house. And then she and her husband\nwent to the stable, and mounted the fine grey filly, and rode off as\nfast as they could. Presently the Giant called out, \"Are you asleep\nyet?\" and the apple at the head of the bed said, \"We are not asleep.\"\nThen he called again, and the apple at the foot of the bed said the same\nthing; and then he asked again and again, until the apple outside the\nhouse door answered; and then he knew that a trick had been played on\nhim, and ran to the bedroom and found it empty. And then he pursued the\nrunaways as fast as possible. Now at day-break--\"at the mouth of day,\"\nthe story-teller says--the Giant's daughter said to her husband, \"My\nfather's breath is burning my back; put thy hand into the ear of the\ngrey filly, and whatever thou findest, throw it behind thee.\" \"There is\na twig of sloe-tree,\" he said. \"Throw it behind thee,\" said she; and he\ndid so, and twenty miles of black-thorn wood grew out of it, so thick\nthat a weasel could not get through. But the Giant cut through it with\nhis big axe and his wood-knife, and went after them again. At the heat\nof day the Giant's daughter said again, \"My father's breath is burning\nmy back;\" and then her husband put his finger in the filly's ear, and\ntook out a piece of grey stone, and threw it behind him, and there grew\nup directly a great rock twenty miles broad and twenty miles high. Then\nthe Giant got his mattock and his lever, and made a way through the\nrocks, and came after them again. Now it was near sunset, and once more\nthe Giant's daughter felt her father's breath burning her back. So, for\nthe third time, her husband put his hand into the filly's ear, and took\nout a bladder of water, and he threw it behind him, and there was a\nfresh-water loch, twenty miles long and twenty miles broad; and the\nGiant came on so fast that he ran into the middle of the loch and was\ndrowned.\n\nHere is clearly a Sun-myth, which is like those of ancient Hindu and\nGreek legend: the blue-grey Filly is the Dawn, on which the new day, the\nmaiden and her lover, speed away. The great Giant, whose breath burns\nthe maiden's back, is the morning Sun, whose progress is stopped by the\nthick shade of the trees. Then he rises higher, and at midday he breaks\nthrough the forest, and soars above the rocky mountains. At evening,\nstill powerful in speed and heat, he comes to the great lake, plunges\ninto it, and sets, and those whom he pursues escape. This ending is\nrepeated in one of the oldest Hindu mythical stories, that of Bheki,\nthe Frog Princess, who lives with her husband on condition that he never\nshows her a drop of water. One day he forgets, and she disappears: that\nis, the sun sets or dies on the water--a fanciful idea which takes us\nstraight as an arrow to Aryan myths.\n\nNow, however, we must complete the Gaelic story, which here becomes like\nthe Soaring Lark, and the Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and\nother Teutonic and Scandinavian tales.\n\nAfter the Giant's daughter and her husband had got free from the Giant,\nshe bade him go to his father's house, and tell them about her; but\nhe was not to suffer anything to kiss him, or he would forget her\naltogether. So he told everybody they were not to kiss him, but an old\ngreyhound leapt up at him, and touched his mouth, and then he forgot all\nabout the Giant's daughter, just as if she had never lived. Now when the\nKing's son left her, the poor forgotten wife sat beside a well, and when\nnight came she climbed into an oak-tree, and slept amongst the branches.\nThere was a shoemaker who lived near the well, and next day he sent his\nwife to fetch water, and as she drew it she saw what she fancied to be\nher own reflection in the water, but it was really the likeness of the\nmaiden in the tree above it. The shoemaker's wife, however, thinking it\nwas her own, imagined herself to be very handsome, and so she went back\nand told the shoemaker that she was too beautiful to be his thrall, or\nslave, any longer, and so she went off. The same thing happened to the\nshoemaker's daughter; and she went off too. Then the man himself went\nto the well, and saw the maiden in the tree, and understood it all, and\nasked her to come down and stay at his house, and to be his daughter.\nSo she went with him. After a while there came three gentlemen from the\nKing's Court, and each of them wanted to marry her; and she agreed with\neach of them privately, on condition that each should give a sum of\nmoney for a wedding gift. Well, they agreed to this, each unknown to the\nother; and she married one of them, but when he came and had paid the\nmoney, she gave him a cup of water to hold, and there he had to stand,\nall night long, unable to move or to let go the cup of water, and in\nthe morning he went away ashamed, but said nothing to his friends. Next\nnight it was the turn of the second; and she told him to see that the\ndoor-latch was fastened; and when he touched the latch he could not let\nit go, and had to stand there all night holding it; and so he went away,\nand said nothing. The next night the third came, and when he stepped\nupon the floor, one foot stuck so fast that he could not draw it out\nuntil morning; and then he did the same as the others--went off quite\ncast down. And then the maiden gave all the money to the shoemaker for\nhis kindness to her. This is like the story of \"The Master Maid,\" in Dr.\nDasent's collection of \"Tales from the Norse.\" But there is the end of\nit to come. The shoemaker had to finish some shoes because the young\nKing was going to be married; and the maiden said she should like to\nsee the King before he married. So the shoemaker took her to the King's\ncastle; and then she went into the wedding-room, and because of her\nbeauty they filled a vessel of wine for her. When she was going to drink\nit, there came a flame out of the glass, and out of the flame there\ncame a silver pigeon and a golden pigeon; and just then three grains of\nbarley fell upon the floor, and the silver pigeon ate them up. Then\nthe golden one said, \"If thou hadst mind when I cleaned the byre, thou\nwouldst not eat that without giving me a share.\" Then three more grains\nfell, and the silver pigeon ate them also. Then said the golden pigeon,\n\"If thou hadst mind when I thatched the byre, thou wouldst not eat that\nwithout giving me a share.\" Then three other grains fell, and the silver\npigeon ate them up. And the golden pigeon said, \"If thou hadst mind when\nI harried the magpie's nest, thou wouldst not eat that without giving\nme my share. I lost my little finger bringing it down, and I want it\nstill.\" Then, suddenly, the King's son remembered, and knew who it was,\nand sprang to her and kissed her from hand to mouth; and the priest\ncame, and they were married.\n\nThese stories will be enough to show how the same idea repeats itself in\ndifferent ways among various peoples who have come from the same stock:\nfor the ancient Hindu legend of Urvasi and Pururavas, the Greek fable of\nEros and Psyche, the Norse story of the Land East of the Sun and West of\nthe Moon, the Teutonic story of the Soaring Lark, and the Celtic story\nof the Battle of the Birds, are all one and the same in their general\ncharacter, their origin, and their meaning; and in all these respects\nthey resemble the story which we know so well in English--that of Beauty\nand the Beast. The same kind of likeness has already been shown in the\nstory of Cinderella, and in those which resemble it in the older Aryan\nlegends and in the later stories of the Greeks. If space allowed, such\ncomparisons might be carried much further; indeed, there is no famous\nfairy tale known to children in our day which has not proceeded from our\nAryan forefathers, thousands of years ago, and which is not repeated in\nHindu, Persian, Greek, Teutonic, Scandinavian, and Celtic folk-lore; the\nstories being always the same in their leading idea, and yet always so\ndifferent in their details as to show that the story-tellers have not\ncopied from each other, but that they are repeating, in their own way,\nlegends and fancies which existed thousands of years ago, before the\nAryan people broke up from their old homes, and went southward and\nwestward, and spread themselves over India and throughout Europe.\n\nNow there is a curious little German story, called \"The Wolf and the\nSeven Little Kids,\" which is told in Grimm's collection, and which shows\nat once the connection between Teutonic folk-lore, and Greek mythology,\nand Aryan legend. There was an old Goat who had seven young ones, and\nwhen she went into the forest for wood, she warned them against the\nWolf; if he came, they were not to open the door to him on any account.\nPresently the Wolf came, and knocked, and asked to be let in; but the\nlittle Kids said, \"No, you have a gruff voice; you are a wolf.\" So the\nWolf went and bought a large piece of chalk, and ate it up, and by this\nmeans he made his voice smooth; and then he came back to the cottage,\nand knocked, and again asked to be let in. The little Kids, however,\nsaw his black paws, and they said, \"No, your feet are black; you are\na wolf.\" Then the Wolf went to a baker, and got him to powder his feet\nwith flour; and when the little Kids saw his white feet, they thought\nit was their mother, and let him in. Then the little Kids were very much\nfrightened, and ran and hid themselves. The first got under the table,\nthe second into the bed, the third into the cupboard, the fourth into\nthe kitchen, the fifth into the oven, the sixth into the wash-tub, and\nthe seventh into the clock-case. The wicked Wolf, however, found all of\nthem out, and ate them up, excepting the one in the clock-case, where he\ndid not think of looking. And when the greedy monster had finished his\nmeal, he went into the meadow, and lay down and slept. Just at this time\nthe old Goat came home, and began crying for her children; but the only\none who answered was the youngest, who said, \"Here I am, dear mother,\nin the clock-case;\" and then he came out and told her all about it.\nPresently the Goat went out into the meadow, and there lay the Wolf,\nsnoring quite loud; and she thought she saw something stirring in his\nbody. So she ran back, and fetched a pair of scissors and a needle and\nthread, and then she cut open the monster's hairy coat, and out jumped\nfirst one little kid, and then another, until all the six stood round\nher, for the greedy Wolf was in such a hurry that he had swallowed them\nwhole. Then the Goat and the little Kids brought a number of stones, and\nput them into the Wolf's stomach, and sewed up the place again. When the\nWolf woke up, he felt very thirsty, and ran off to the brook to drink,\nand the heavy stones overbalanced him, so that he fell into the brook,\nand was drowned. And then the seven little Kids danced round their\nmother, singing joyfully, \"The wolf is dead! the wolf is dead!\" Now this\nstory is nothing but another version of an old Greek legend which tells\nhow Kronos (Time), an ancient god, devoured his children while they were\nquite young; and Kronos was the son of Ouranos, which means the heavens;\nand Ouranos is a name which comes from that of Varuna, a god of the sky\nin the old sacred books, or Vedas, of the Hindus; and the meaning of the\nlegend is that Night swallows up or devours the days of the week, all\nbut the youngest, which still exists, because, like the little kid in\nthe German tale, it is in the clock-case.\n\nAgain, in the Vedas we have many accounts of the fights of Indra, the\nsun-god, with dragons and monsters, which mean the dark-clouds, the\ntempest thunder-bearing clouds, which were supposed to have stolen the\nheavenly cows, or the light, pleasant, rain-bearing clouds, and to have\nshut them up in gloomy caverns. From this source we have an infinite\nnumber of Greek and Teutonic, and Scandinavian, and other legends.\nOne of these is the story of Polyphemos, the great one-eyed giant,\nor Kyklops, whom Odysseus blinded. Polyphemos is the storm-cloud, and\nOdysseus stands for the sun. The storm-cloud threatens the mariners; the\nlightnings dart from the spot which seems like an eye in the darkness;\nhe hides the blue heavens and the soft white clouds--the cows of the\nsky, or the white-fleeced flocks of heaven. Then comes Odysseus, the\nsun-god, the hero, and smites him blind, and chases him away, and\ndisperses the threatening and the danger, and brings light, and peace,\nand calm again.\n\nNow this legend of Polyphemos is to be found everywhere; in the oldest\nHindu books, in Teutonic, and Norse, and Slav stories; and everywhere\nalso the great giant, stormy, angry, and one-eyed, is always very\nstupid, and is always overthrown or outwitted by the hero, Odysseus,\nwhen he is shut up in the cavern of Polyphemos, cheats the monster by\ntying himself under the belly of the largest and oldest ram, and so\npasses out while the blind giant feels the fleece, and thinks that all\nis safe. Almost exactly the same trick is told in an old Gaelic story,\nthat of Conall Cra Bhuidhe.[6] A great Giant with only one eye seized\nupon Conall, who was hunting on the Giant's lands. Conall himself is\nmade to tell the story:\n\n\"I hear a great clattering coming, and what was there but a great Giant\nand his dozen of goats with him, and a buck at their head. And when the\nGiant had tied the goats, he came up, and he said to me, 'Hao O! Conall,\nit's long since my knife is rusting in my pouch waiting for thy tender\nflesh.' 'Och!' said I, 'it's not much thou wilt be bettered by me,\nthough thou shouldst tear me asunder; I will make but one meal for thee.\nBut I see that thou art one-eyed. I am a good leech, and I will give\nthee the sight of the other eye.' The Giant went and he drew the great\ncaldron on the site of the fire. I was telling him how he should heat\nthe water, so that I should give its sight to the other eye. I got\nleather and I made a rubber of it, and I set him upright in the caldron.\nI began at the eye that was well, till I left them as bad as each other.\nWhen he saw that he could not see a glimpse, and when I myself said to\nhim that I would get out in spite of him, he gave that spring out of the\nwater, and he stood in the mouth of the cave, and he said that he would\nhave revenge for the sight of his eye. I had but to stay there crouched\nthe length of the night, holding in my breath in such a way that he\nmight not feel where I was. When he felt the birds calling in the\nmorning, and knew that the day was, he said, 'Art thou sleeping? Awake,\nand let out my lot of goats!' I killed the buck. He cried, 'I will not\nbelieve that thou art not killing my buck.' 'I am not,' I said, 'but the\nropes are so tight that I take long to loose them.' I let out one of the\ngoats, and he was caressing her, and he said to her, 'There thou art,\nthou shaggy hairy white goat; and thou seest me, but I see thee not.'\nI was letting them out, by way of one by one, as I flayed the buck, and\nbefore the last one was out I had him flayed, bag-wise. Then I went and\nput my legs in the place of his legs, and my hands in the place of his\nfore-legs, and my head in the place of his head, and the horns on top of\nmy head, so that the brute might think it was the buck. I went out. When\nI was going out the Giant laid his hand on me, and said, 'There thou\nart, thou pretty buck; thou seest me, but I see thee not.' When I myself\ngot out, and I saw the world about me, surely joy was on me. When I was\nout and had shaken the skin off me, I said to the brute, 'I am out now,\nin spite of thee!'\"\n\nIt was a blind fiddler, in Islay, who told the story of Conall, as it\nhad been handed down by tradition from generation to generation; just as\nthousands of years before the story of Odysseus and Polyphemos was told\nby Greek bards to wondering villagers.\n\nHere we must stop; for volumes would not contain all that might be said\nof the likeness of legend to legend in all the branches of the Aryan\nfamily, or of the meaning of these stories, and of the lessons they\nteach--lessons of history, and religious belief, and customs, and morals\nand ways of thought, and poetic fancies, and of well-nigh all things,\nheavenly and human--stretching back to the very spring and cradle of our\nrace, older than the oldest writings, and yet so ever fresh and new that\nwhile great scholars ponder over them for their deep meaning, little\nchildren in the nursery or by the fire-side in winter listen to them\nwith delight for their wonder and their beauty. Else, if there were time\nand space we might tell the story of Jason, and show how it springs from\nthe changes of day and night, and how the hero, in his good ship Argo,\nour mother Earth, searches for and bears away in triumph the Golden\nFleece, the beams of the radiant sun. Or we might fly with Perseus\non his weary, endless journey--the light pursuing and scattering the\ndarkness; the glittering hero, borne by the mystic sandals of Hermes,\nbearing the sword of the sunlight, piercing the twilight or gloaming\nin the land of the mystic Graiae; slaying Medusa, the solemn star-lit\nnight; destroying the dark dragon, and setting free Andromeda the\ndawn-maiden; and doing many wonders more. Or in Hermes we might trace\nout the Master Thief of Teutonic, and Scandinavian, and Hindu legends;\nor in Herakles, the type of the heroes who are god-like in their\nstrength, yet who do the bidding of others, and who suffer toil and\nwrong, and die glorious deaths, and leave great names for men to wonder\nat: heroes such as Odysseus, and Theseus, and Phoebus, and Achilles, and\nSigurd, and Arthur, and all of whom represent, in one form or another,\nthe great mystery of Nature, and the conflict of light and darkness;\nand so, if we look to their deeper meaning, the constant triumph of good\nover evil, and of right over wrong.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.--DWELLERS IN FAIRYLAND: STORIES FROM THE EAST.\n\nWe have said something about the people and the countries which\ngave birth to our Fairy Stories, and about the meaning of such tales\ngenerally when they were first thought of. Then they were clearly\nunderstood, and those who told them and heard them knew what they meant;\nbut, as time went on, and as the Aryan race became scattered in various\ncountries, the old stories changed a great deal, and their meaning was\nlost, and all kinds of wild legends, and strange fables and fanciful\ntales, were made out of them. The earliest stories were about clouds,\nand winds, and the sun, and the waters, and the earth, which were turned\ninto Gods and other beings of a heavenly kind. By degrees, as the\nfirst meanings of the legends were lost, these beings gave place to\na multitude of others: some of them beautiful, and good, and kind and\nfriendly to mankind; and some of them terrible, and bad, and malignant,\nand always trying to do harm; and there were so many of both kinds that\nall the world was supposed to be full of them. There were Spirits of the\nwater, and the air, and the earth, forest and mountain demons, creatures\nwho dwelt in darkness and in fire, and others who lived in the\nsunshine, or loved to come out only in the moonlight. There were some,\nagain--Dwarfs, and other creatures of that kind--who made their homes\nin caves and underground places, and heaped up treasures of gold\nand silver, and gems, and made wonderful works in metals of all\ndescriptions; and there were giants, some of them with two heads, who\ncould lift mountains, and walk through rivers and seas, and who picked\nup great rocks and threw them about like pebbles. Then there were Ogres,\nwith shining rows of terrible teeth, who caught up men and women and\nchildren, and strung them together like larks, and carried them home,\nand cooked them for supper. Then, also, there were Good Spirits, of\nthe kind the Arabs call Peris, and we call Fairies, who made it their\nbusiness to defend deserving people against the wicked monsters; and\nthere were Magicians, and other wise or cunning people, who had power\nover the spirits, whether good or bad, as you read in the story of\nAladdin and his Ring, and his Wonderful Lamp, and in other tales in\nthe \"Arabian Nights,\" and collections of that kind. Many of these\nbeings--all of whom, for our purpose, may be called Dwellers in\nFairyland--had the power of taking any shape they pleased, like the Ogre\nin the story of \"Puss in Boots,\" who changed himself first into a lion,\nand then into an elephant, and then into a mouse, when he got eaten up;\nand they could also change human beings into different forms, or turn\nthem into stone, or carry them about in the air from place to place, and\nput them under the spells of enchantment, as they liked.\n\nSome of the most wonderful creatures of Fairyland are to be found in\nEastern stories, the tales of India, and Arabia, and Persia. Here we\nhave the Divs, and Jinns, and Peris, and Rakshas--who were the originals\nof our own Ogres--and terrible giants, and strange mis-shapen dwarfs,\nand vampires and monsters of various kinds. Many others, also very\nwonderful, are to be found in what is called the Mythology--that is, the\nfables and stories--of ancient Greece, such as the giant Atlas, who bore\nthe world upon his shoulders; and Polyphemus, the one-eyed giant, who\ncaught Odysseus and his companions, and shut them up in his cave; and\nKirke, the beautiful sorceress, who turned men into swine; and the\nCentaurs, creatures half men and half horses; and the Gorgon Medusa,\nwhose head, with its hair of serpents, turned into stone all who beheld\nit; and the great dragon, the Python, whom Phoebus killed, and who\nresembles the dragon Vritra, in Hindu legend--the dragon slain by Indra,\nthe god of the Sun, because he shut up the rain, and so scorched the\nearth--and who also resembles Fafnir, the dragon of Scandinavian legend,\nkilled by Sigurd; and the fabled dragon with whom St. George fought; and\nalso, the dragon of Wantley, whom our old English legends describe as\nbeing killed by More of More Hall. In the stories of the North lands of\nEurope, as we are told in the Eddas and Sagas (the songs and records),\nthere are likewise many wonderful beings--the Trolls, the Frost Giants,\ncurious dwarfs, elves, nisses, mermen and mermaids, and swan-maidens and\nthe like. The folk-lore--that is, the common traditionary stories--of\nGermany are full of such wonders. Here, again, we have giants and dwarfs\nand kobolds; and birds and beasts and fishes who can talk; and good\nfairies, who come in and help their friends just when they are wanted;\nand evil fairies, and witches; and the wild huntsman, who sweeps across\nthe sky with his ghostly train; and men and women who turn themselves\ninto wolves, and go about in the night devouring sheep and killing human\nbeings, In Russian tales we find many creatures of the same kind, and\nalso in those of Italy, and Spain, and France. And in our own islands\nwe have them too, for the traditions of English giants, and ogres, and\ndwarfs still linger in the tales of Jack the Giant-killer and Jack and\nthe Bean-stalk, and Hop o' my Thumb; and we have also the elves whom\nShakspeare draws for us so delightfully in \"Midsummer Night's Dream\" and\nin \"The Merry Wives of Windsor\"; and there are the Devonshire pixies;\nand the Scottish fairies and the brownies--the spirits who do the work\nof the house or the farm--and the Irish \"good people;\" and the Pooka,\nwhich comes in the form of a wild colt; and the Leprechaun, a dwarf\nwho makes himself look like a little old man, mending shoes; and the\nBanshee, which cries and moans when great people are going to die.\n\nTo all these, and more, whom there is no room to mention, we must add\nother dwellers in Fairyland--forms, in one shape or other, of the great\nSun-myths of the ancient Aryan race--such as Arthur and the Knights\nof the Round Table and Vivien and Merlin, and Queen Morgan le hay, and\nOgier the Dane, and the story of Roland, and the Great Norse poems which\ntell of Sigurd, and Brynhilt, and Gudrun, and the Niblung folk. And to\nthese, again, there are to be added many of the heroes and heroines who\nfigure in the Thousand-and-one Nights--such, for example, as Aladdin,\nand Sindbad, and Ali Baba, and the Forty Thieves, and the Enchanted\nHorse, and the Fairy Peri Banou, with her wonderful tent that would\ncover an army, and her brother Schaibar, the dwarf, with his beard\nthirty feet long, and his great bar of iron with which he could sweep\ndown a city. Even yet we have not got to the end of the long list of\nFairy Folk, for there are still to be reckoned the well-known characters\nwho figure in our modern Fairy Tales, such as Cinderella, and the Yellow\nDwarf, and the White Cat, and Fortunatus, and Beauty and the Beast,\nand Riquet with the Tuft, and the Invisible Prince, and many more whom\nchildren know by heart, and whom all of us, however old we may be, still\ncherish with fond remembrance, because they give us glimpses into the\nbeautiful and wondrous land, the true Fairyland whither good King Arthur\nwent--\n\n            \"The island-valley of Avilion,\n    Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,\n    Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies\n    Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns,\n    And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea.\"\n\nNow it is plain that we cannot speak of all these dwellers in Fairyland;\nbut we can only pick out a few here and there, and those of you who want\nto know more must go to the books that tell of them. As to me, who have\nundertaken to tell something of these wonders, I feel very much like the\npoor boy in the little German story of \"The Golden Key.\" Do you know the\nstory? If you don't, I will tell it you. \"One winter, when a deep snow\nwas lying on the ground, a poor boy had to go out in a sledge to fetch\nwood. When he had got enough he thought he would make a fire to warm\nhimself, for his limbs were quite frozen. So he swept the snow away and\nmade a clear space, and there he found a golden key. Then he began to\nthink that where there was a key there must also be a lock; and digging\nin the earth he found a small iron chest. 'I hope the key will fit,' lie\nsaid to himself, 'for there must certainly be great treasures in this\nbox.' After looking all round the box he found a little keyhole, and to\nhis great joy, the golden key fitted it exactly. Then he turned the\nkey once round\"--and now we must wait till he has quite unlocked it and\nlifted the lid up, and then we shall learn what wonderful treasures were\nin the chest. This is all that this book can do for you. It can give you\nthe golden key, and show you where the chest is to be found, and then\nyou must unlock it for yourselves.\n\nWhere shall we begin our hasty journey into Wonderland? Suppose we\ntake a glance at those famous Hindu demons, the Rakshas, who are the\noriginals of all the ogres and giants of our nursery tales? Now the\nRakshas were very terrible creatures indeed, and in the minds of many\npeople in India are so still, for they are believed in even now. Their\nnatural form, so the stories say, is that of huge, unshapely giants,\nlike clouds, with hair and beard of the colour of the red lightning; but\nthey can take any form they please, to deceive those whom they wish to\ndevour, for their great delight, like that of the ogres, is to kill\nall they meet, and to eat the flesh of those whom they kill. Often they\nappear as hunters, of monstrous size, with tusks instead of teeth, and\nwith horns on their heads, and all kinds of grotesque and frightful\nweapons and ornaments. They are very strong, and make themselves\nstronger by various arts of magic; and they are strongest of all at\nnightfall, when they are supposed to roam about the jungles, to enter\nthe tombs, and even to make their way into the cities, and carry\noff their victims. But the Rakshas are not alone like ogres in their\ncruelty, but also in their fondness for money, and for precious stones,\nwhich they get together in great quantities and conceal in their\npalaces; for some of them are kings of their species, and have thousands\nupon thousands of inferior Rakshas under their command. But while they\nare so numerous and so powerful, the Rakshas, like all the ogres and\ngiants in Fairyland, are also very stupid, and are easily outwitted by\nclever people. There are many Hindu stories which are told to show this.\nI will tell you one of them.[7] Two little Princesses were badly treated\nat home, and so they ran away into a great forest, where they found a\npalace belonging to a Rakshas, who had gone out. So they went into the\nhouse and feasted, and swept the rooms, and made everything neat and\ntidy. Just as they had done this, the Rakshas and his wife came\nhome, and the two Princesses ran up to the top of the house, and hid\nthemselves on the flat roof. When the Rakshas got indoors he said to his\nwife: \"Somebody has been making everything clean and tidy. Wife, did you\ndo this?\" \"No,\" she said; \"I don't know who can have done it.\" \"Some\none has been sweeping the court-yard,\" said the Rakshas. \"Wife, did you\nsweep the court-yard?\" \"No,\" she answered; \"I did not do it.\" Then the\nRakshas walked round and round several times, with his nose up in the\nair, saying, \"Some one is here now; I smell flesh and blood. Where can\nthey be?\" \"Stuff and nonsense!\" cried the Rakshas' wife. \"You smell\nflesh and blood, indeed! Why, you have just been killing and eating a\nhundred thousand people. I should wonder if you didn't still smell flesh\nand blood!\" They went on disputing, till at last the Rakshas gave it\nup. \"Never mind,\" lie said; \"I don't know how it is--I am very thirsty:\nlet's come and drink some water.\" So they went to the well, and began\nletting down jars into it, and drawing them up, and drinking the water.\nThen the elder of the two Princesses, who was very bold and wise, said\nto her sister, \"I will do something that will be very good for us both.\"\nSo she ran quickly down stairs, and crept close behind the Rakshas and\nhis wife, as they stood on tip-toe more than half over the side of the\nwell, and catching hold of one of the Rakshas' heels, and one of his\nwife's, she gave each a little push, and down they both tumbled into the\nwell, and were drowned--the Rakshas and the Rakshas' wife. The Princess\nthen went back to her sister, and said, \"I have killed the Rakshas!\"\n\"What, both?\" cried her sister. \"Yes, both,\" she said. \"Won't they come\nback?\" said her sister. \"No, never,\" answered she.\n\nThis, you see, is something like the story of the Little Girl and the\nThree Bears, so well known amongst our Nursery Tales.\n\nAnother story will show you how stupid a Rakshas is, and how easily he\ncan be outwitted.[8]\n\nOnce upon a time a Blind Man and a Deaf Man made an agreement. The Blind\nMan was to hear for the Deaf Man; and the Deaf Man was to see for the\nBlind Man; and so they were to go about on their travels together. One\nday they went to a nautch--that is, a singing and dancing exhibition.\nThe Deaf Man said, \"The dancing is very good; but the music is not worth\nlistening to.\" \"I do not agree with you,\" the Blind Man said; \"I think\nthe music is very good; but the dancing is not worth looking at.\" So\nthey went away for a walk in the jungle. On the way they found a donkey,\nbelonging to a dhobee, or washerman, and a big chattee, or iron pot,\nwhich the washerman used to boil clothes in. \"Brother,\" said the Deaf\nMan, \"here is a donkey and a chattee; let us take them with us, they may\nbe useful.\" So they took them, and went on. Presently they came to an\nants' nest. \"Here,\" said the Deaf Man, \"are a number of very fine black\nants; let us take some of them to show our friends.\" \"Yes,\" said the\nBlind Man, \"they will do as presents to our friends.\" So the Deaf Man\ntook out a silver box from his pocket, and put several of the black ants\ninto it. After a time a terrible storm came on. \"Oh dear!\" cried the\nDeaf Man, \"how dreadful this lightning is! let us get to some place of\nshelter.\" \"I don't see that it's dreadful at all,\" said the Blind Man,\n\"but the thunder is terrible; let us get under shelter.\" So they went\nup to a building that looked like a temple, and went in, and took the\ndonkey and the big pot and the black ants with them. But it was not a\ntemple, it was the house of a powerful Rakshas, and the Rakshas came\nhome as soon as they had got inside and had fastened the door. Finding\nthat he couldn't get in, he began to make a great noise, louder than the\nthunder, and he beat upon the door with his great fists. Now the Deaf\nMan looked through a chink, and saw him, and was very frightened, for\nthe Rakshas was dreadful to look at. But the Blind Man, as he couldn't\nsee, was very brave; and he went to the door and called out, \"Who are\nyou? and what do you mean by coming here and battering at the door in\nthis way, and at this time of night?\" \"I'm a Rakshas,\" he answered, in\na rage; \"and this is my house, and if you don't let me in I will kill\nyou.\" Then the Blind Man called out in reply, \"Oh! you're a Rakshas,\nare you? Well, if you're Rakshas, I'm Bakshas, and Bakshas is as good as\nRakshas.\" \"What nonsense is this?\" cried the monster; \"there is no such\ncreature as a Bakshas.\" \"Go away,\" replied the Blind Man, \"if you make\nany further disturbance I'll punish you; for know that I _am_ Bakshas,\nand Bakshas is Rakshas' father.\" \"Heavens and earth!\" cried the Rakshas,\n\"I never heard such an extraordinary thing in my life. But if you are\nmy father, let me see your face,\"--for he began to get puzzled and\nfrightened, as the person inside was so very positive. Now the Blind Man\nand the Deaf Man didn't quite know what to do; but at last they opened\nthe door just a little, and poked the donkey's nose out. \"Bless me,\"\nthought the Rakshas, \"what a terribly ugly face my father Bakshas has\ngot.\" Then he called out again \"O! father Bakshas, you have a very big\nfierce face, but people have sometimes very big heads and very little\nbodies; let me see you, body and head, before I go away.\" Then the Blind\nMan and the Deaf Man rolled the great iron pot across the floor with\na thundering noise; and the Rakshas, who watched the chink of the door\nvery carefully, said to himself, \"He has got a great body as well, so I\nhad better go away.\" But he was still doubtful; so he said, \"Before I\ngo away let me hear you scream,\" for all the tribe of the Rakshas scream\ndreadfully. Then the Blind Man and the Deaf Man took two of the black\nants out of the box, and put one into each of the donkey's ears, and the\nants bit the donkey, and the donkey began to bray and to bellow as loud\nas he could; and then the Rakshas ran away quite frightened.\n\nIn the morning the Blind Man and the Deaf Man found that the floor\nof the house was covered with heaps of gold, and silver, and precious\nstones; and they made four great bundles of the treasure, and took one\neach, and put the other two on the donkey, and off they went, But the\nRakshas was waiting some distance off to see what his father Bakshas was\nlike by daylight; and he was very angry when he saw only a Deaf Man, and\na Blind Man, and a big iron pot, and a donkey, all loaded with his gold\nand silver. So he ran off and fetched six of his friends to help him,\nand each of the six had hair a yard long, and tusks like an elephant.\nWhen the Blind Man and the Deaf Man saw them coming they went and hid\nthe treasure in the bushes, and then they got up into a lofty betel palm\nand waited--the Deaf Man, because he could see, getting up first, to be\nfurthest out of harm's way. Now the seven Rakshas were not able to reach\nthem, and so they said, \"Let us get on each other's shoulders and pull\nthem down.\" So one Rakshas stooped down, and the second got on his\nshoulders, and the third on his, and the fourth on his, and the fifth on\nhis, and the sixth on his, and the seventh--the one who had invited\nthe others--was just climbing up, when the Deaf Man got frightened and\ncaught hold of the Blind Man's arm, and as he was sitting quite at\nease, not knowing that they were so close, the Blind Man was upset, and\ntumbled down on the neck of the seventh Rakshas. The Blind Man thought\nhe had fallen into the branches of another tree, and stretching out his\nhands for something to take hold of, he seized the Rakshas' two great\nears and pinched them very hard. This frightened the Rakshas, who lost\nhis balance and fell down to the ground, upsetting the other six of his\nfriends; the Blind Man all the while pinching harder than ever, and\nthe Deaf Man crying out from the top of the tree--\"You're all right,\nbrother, hold on tight, I'm coming down to help you\"--though he really\ndidn't mean to do anything of the kind. Well, the noise, and the\npinching, and all the confusion, so frightened the six Rakshas that they\nthought they had had enough of helping their friend, and so they ran\naway; and the seventh Rakshas, thinking that because they ran there must\nbe great danger, shook off the Blind Man and ran away too. And then the\nDeaf Man came down from the tree and embraced the Blind Man, and said,\n\"I could not have done better myself.\" Then the Deaf Man divided the\ntreasure; one great heap for himself, and one little heap for the Blind\nMan. But the Blind Man felt his heap and then felt the other, and then,\nbeing angry at the cheat, he gave the Deaf Man a box on the ear, so\ntremendous that it made the Deaf Man hear. And the Deaf Man, also being\nangry, gave the other such a blow in the face that it made the Blind Man\nsee. So they became good friends directly, and divided the treasure into\nequal shares, and went home laughing at the stupid Rakshas.\n\nFrom the legends of India we now go on to Persia and Arabia, to learn\nsomething about the Divs and the Peris, and the Jinns. When the ancient\nPersians separated from the Aryan race from which they sprang, they\naltered their religion as well as changed their country. They came to\nbelieve in two principal gods, Ormuzd, the spirit of goodness, who sits\nenthroned in the Realms of Light, with great numbers of angels around\nhim; and Ahriman, the spirit of evil, who reigns in the Realms of\nDarkness and Fire, and round whose throne are the great six arch-Divs,\nand vast numbers of inferior Divs, or evil beings; and these two powers\nare always at war with each other, and are always trying to obtain the\ngovernment of the world. From Ormuzd and Ahriman there came in time,\naccording to popular fancy, the two races of the Divs and the Peris,\ncreatures who were like mankind in some things, but who had great powers\nof magic; which made them visible and invisible at pleasure, enabled\nthem to change their shapes when they pleased, and to move about on\nthe earth or in the air. They dwelt in the land of Jinnestan, in the\nmountains of Kaf. These mountains were supposed to go round the earth\nlike a ring; they were thousands of miles in height, and they were made\nof the precious stone called chrysolite, which is of a green colour, and\nthis colour, so the Persian poets say, is reflected in the green which\nwe sometimes see in the sky at sunset. In this land of Jinnestan\nthere are many cities. The Peris have for their abode the kingdom\nof Shad-u-Kan, that is, of Pleasure and Delight, with its capital\nJuber-a-bad, or the Jewel City; and the Divs have for their dwelling\nAhermambad, or Ahriman's city, in which there are enchanted castles and\npalaces, guarded by terrible monsters and powerful magicians. The Peris\nare very beautiful beings, usually represented as women with wings, and\ncharming robes of all colours. The Divs are painted as demons of the\nmost frightful kind. One of them, a very famous one named Berkhyas, is\ndescribed as being a mountain in size, his face black, his body covered\nwith hair, his neck like that of a dragon; two boar's tusks proceed from\nhis mouth, his eyes are wells of blood, his hair bristles like needles,\nand is so thick and long that pigeons make their nests in it. Between\nthe Peris and the Divs there was always war; but the Divs were too\npowerful for the Peris, and used to capture them and hang them in iron\ncages from the tree-tops, where their companions came and fed them with\nperfumes, of which the Peris are very fond, and which the Divs very much\ndislike, so that the smell kept the evil spirits away. Sometimes the\nPeris used to call in the help of men against the Divs; and in the older\nPersian stories there are many tales of the wonders done by these\nheroes who fought against the Divs. The most famous of these were called\nTamuras and Rustem. Tamuras conquered so many of the evil spirits that\nhe was called the Div-binder. He began his fights in this way. He was\na great king, whose help both sides wished to get. So the Peris sent a\nsplendid embassy to him, and so did the Divs. Tamuras did not know what\nto do; so he went to consult a wonderful bird, called the Simurg, who\nspeaks all tongues, and who knows everything that has happened, or that\nwill happen. The Simurg told him to fight for the Peris. Then the Simurg\ngave him three feathers from her own breast, and also the magic shield\nof Jan-ibn-Jan, the Suleiman or King of the Jinns, and then she carried\nhim on her back into the country of Jinnestan, where he fought with and\nconquered the king of the Divs. The account of this battle is given\nat great length in the Persian romance poems. Then Tamuras conquered\nanother Div, named Demrush, who lived in a gloomy cavern, where he kept\nin prison the Peri Merjan, or the Pearl, a beautiful fairy, whom Tamuras\nset free. Rustem, however, is the great hero of Persian romance, and the\ngreatest defender of the Peris. His adventures, as told by the Persian\npoets, would make a very large book, so that we cannot attempt to\ndescribe them. But there are two stories of him which may be told. One\nnight, while he lay sleeping under a rock, a Div, named Asdiv, took the\nform of a dragon, and came upon him suddenly. Rustem's horse, Reksh, who\nhad magic powers, knew the Div in this disguise, and awakened his\nmaster twice, at which Rustem was angry, and tried to kill the horse for\ndisturbing him. Reksh, however, awakened him the third time, and then\nRustem saw the Div, and slew him after a fearful combat. The other story\nis this. There came a wild ass of enormous size, with a skin like the\nsun, and a black stripe along his back, and this creature got amongst\nthe king's horses and killed them. Now the wild ass was no other than\na very powerful Div, named Akvan, who haunted a particular fountain\nor spring. So Rustem, mounted on his horse Reksh, went to look for him\nthere. Three days he waited, but saw nothing. On the fourth day the Div\nappeared, and Rustem tried to throw a noose over his head, but the Div\nsuddenly vanished. Then he reappeared, and Rustem shot an arrow at him,\nbut he vanished again. Rustem then turned his horse to graze, and laid\nhimself down by the spring to sleep. This was what the cunning Akvan\nwanted, and while Rustem was asleep, Akvan seized him, and flew high\nup into the air with him. Then Rustem awoke, and the Div gave him\nhis choice of being dropped from the sky into the sea, or upon the\nmountains. Rustem knew that if he fell upon the mountains he would be\ndashed in pieces, so he secretly chose to fall into the sea; but he did\nnot say so to the Div. On the contrary, he pretended not to know what to\ndo, but he said he feared the sea, because those who were drowned\ncould not enter into Paradise. On hearing this, the Div at once dropped\nRustern into the sea--which was what he wanted--and then went back\nto his fountain. But when he got there, he found that Rustem had got\nashore, and was also at the fountain, and then they fought again and\nthe Div was killed. After this Rustem had a son named Zohrab, about whom\nmany wonderful things are told; and it so happened that Rustem and his\nson Zohrab came to fight each other without knowing one another; and\nRustem was killed, and while dying he slew his son. Now all these\nstories mean the same thing: they are only the old Aryan Sun-myths put\ninto another form by the poets and story-tellers: the Peris are the rays\nof the sun, or the morning or evening Aurora; the Divs are the black\nclouds of night; the hero is the sun who conquers them, and binds\nthem in the realms of darkness; and the death of Rustem is the\nsunset--Zohrab, his son, being either the moon or the rising sun.\n\nBut now we must leave the Peris and the Divs, and look at the jinns,\nof the Arabian stories. These also dwell in the mysterious country of\nJinnestan, and in the wonderful mountains of Kaf; but they likewise\nspread themselves all through the earth, and they specially liked to\nlive in ruined houses, or in tombs; on the sea shore, by the banks of\nrivers, and at the meeting of cross-roads. Sometimes, too, they were\nfound in deep forests, and many travellers are supposed to find them in\ndesolate mountain places. Even to this day they are firmly believed in\nby Arabs, and also by people in different parts of Persia and India. In\noutward form, in their natural shape, they resembled the Peris and the\nDivs of the ancient Persians, and they were divided into good and bad:\nthe good ones very beautiful and shining; the bad ones deformed, black,\nand ugly, and sometimes as big as giants. They did not, however, always\nappear in their own forms, for they could take the shape of any animal,\nespecially of serpents, and cats and dogs. They were governed by chief\nspirits or kings; and over all, good and bad alike, there were set a\nsuccession of powerful monarchs, named Suleiman, or Solomon, seventy-two\nin number--the last of whom, and the greatest, Jan-ibn-Jan, is said by\nArabian story-tellers to have built the pyramids of Egypt. There is an\nold tradition that the shield of Jan-ibn-Jan, which was a talisman of\nmagic power, was brought from Egypt to King Solomon the Wise, the son of\nKing David, and that it gave him power over all the tribes of the Jinns,\nand this is why, in the common stories about them, the Jinns are made to\ncall upon the name of Solomon.\n\nThe Jinns, according to Arabian tradition, lived upon the earth\nthousands of years before man was created. They were made, the Koran\nsays, of \"the smokeless fire,\" that is, the hot breath of the desert\nwind, Simoon. But they became disobedient, and prophets were sent to\nwarn them. They would not obey the prophets, and angels were then sent\nto punish them. The angels drove them out of Jinnestan into the islands\nof the seas, killed some, and shut some of them up in prison. Among the\nprisoners was a young Jinns, named Iblees, whose name means Despair; and\nwhen Adam was created, God commanded the angels and the Jinns to do him\nreverence, and they all obeyed but Iblees, who was then turned into a\nShaitan, or devil, and became the father of all the Shaitan tribe, the\nmortal enemies of mankind. Since their dispersion the Jinns are not\nimmortal; they are to live longer than man, but they must die before the\ngeneral resurrection. Some of them are killed by other Jinns, some can\nbe slain by man, and some are destroyed by shooting stars sent from\nheaven. When they receive a mortal wound, the fire which burns in their\nveins breaks forth and burns them into ashes.\n\nSuch are the Arab fancies about the Jinns. The meaning of them is clear,\nfor the Jinns are the winds, derived plainly from the Ribhus and the\nMaruts of the ancient Aryan myths; and they still survive in European\nfolk-lore in the train of Woden, or the Wild Huntsman, who sweeps at\nmidnight over the German forests.\n\nSome of the stories of the Jinns are to be found in the book of the\nThousand and One Nights.\n\nOne of these stories is that of \"the Fisherman and the Genie.\" A poor\nfisherman, you remember, goes out to cast his nets; but he draws no\nfish, but only, at the third cast, a vase of yellow copper, sealed with\na seal of lead. He cuts open the seal, and then there issues from the\nvase a thick cloud of smoke, which rises to the sky, and spreads itself\nover land and sea. Presently the smoke gathers itself together, and\nbecomes a solid body, taking the form of a Genie, twice as big as any\nof the giants; and the Genie cries out, with a terrible voice, \"Solomon,\nSolomon, great prophet of Allah! Pardon! I will never more oppose thy\nwill, but will obey all thy commands.\" At first the fisherman is very\nmuch frightened; but he grows bolder, and tells the Genie that Solomon\nhas been dead these eighteen hundred years, to which the Genie answers\nthat he means to kill the fisherman, and tells him why. I told you just\nnow that the Jinns rebelled, and were punished. The Genie tells the\nfisherman that he is one of these rebellious spirits, that he was taken\nprisoner, and brought up for judgment before Solomon himself, and that\nSolomon confined him in the copper vase, and ordered him to be thrown\ninto the sea, and that upon the leaden cover of the vase he put the\nimpression of the royal seal, upon which the name of God is engraved.\n\nWhen he was thrown into the sea the Genie made three vows--each in a\nperiod of a hundred years. I swore, he says, that \"if any man delivered\nme within the first hundred years, I would make him rich, even after his\ndeath. In the second hundred years I swore that if any one set me free\nI would discover to him all the treasures of the earth; still no help\ncame. In the third period, I swore to make my deliverer a most powerful\nmonarch, to be always at his command, and to grant him every day any\nthree requests he chose to make. Then, being still a prisoner, I swore\nthat I would without mercy kill any man who set me free, and that the\nonly favour I would grant him should be the manner of his death.\" And so\nthe Genie proposed to kill the fisherman. Now the fisherman did not\nlike the idea of being killed; and he and the Genie had a long discourse\nabout it; but the Genie would have his own way, and the poor fisherman\nwas going to be killed, when he thought of a trick he might play upon\nthe Genie. He knew two things--first that the Jinns are obliged to\nanswer questions put to them in the name of Allah, or God; and also that\nthough very powerful, they are very stupid, and do not see when they are\nbeing led into a pitfall. So he said, \"I consent to die; but before\nI choose the manner of my death, I conjure thee, by the great name of\nAllah, which is graven upon the seal of the prophet Solomon, the son of\nDavid, to answer me truly a question I am going to put to thee.\"\n\nThen the Genie trembled, and said, \"Ask, but make haste.\"\n\nNow when he knew that the Genie would speak the truth, the Fisherman\nsaid, \"Darest thou swear by the great name of Allah that thou really\nwert in that vase?\"\n\n\"I swear it, by the great name of Allah,\" said the Genie.\n\nBut the Fisherman said he would not believe it, unless he saw it with\nhis own eyes. Then, being too stupid to perceive the meaning of the\nFisherman, the Genie fell into the trap. Immediately the form of the\nGenie began to change into smoke, and to spread itself as before over\nthe shore and the sea, and then gathering itself together, it began to\nenter the vase, and continued to do so, with a slow and even motion,\nuntil nothing remained outside. Then, out of the vase there issued the\nvoice of the Genie, saying, \"Now, thou unbeliever, art thou convinced\nthat I am in the vase?\"\n\nBut instead of answering, the Fisherman quickly took up the leaden\ncover, and put it on the vase; and then he cried out, \"O, Genie! it is\nnow thy turn to ask pardon, and to choose the sort of death thou wilt\nhave; or I will again cast thee into the sea, and I will build upon the\nshore a house where I will live, to warn all fishermen against a Genie\nso wicked as thou art.\"\n\nAt this the Genie was very angry. First he tried to get out of the vase;\nbut the seal of Solomon kept him fast shut up. Then he pretended that he\nwas but making a jest of the Fisherman when he threatened to kill him.\nThen he begged and prayed to be released; but the Fisherman only\nmocked him. Next he promised that if set at liberty, he would make the\nFisherman rich. To this the Fisherman replied by telling him a long\nstory of how a physician who cured a king was murdered instead of being\nrewarded, and of how he revenged himself. And then he preached a little\nsermon to the Genie on the sin of ingratitude, which only caused the\nGenie to cry out all the more to be set free. But still the Fisherman\nwould not consent, and so to induce him the Genie offered to tell him a\nstory, to which the Fisherman was quite ready to listen; but the Genie\nsaid, \"Dost thou think I am in the humour, shut up in this narrow\nprison, to tell stories? I will tell thee as many as thou wilt if thou\nwilt let me out.\" But the Fisherman only answered, \"No, I will cast thee\ninto the sea.\"\n\nAt last they struck a bargain, the Genie swearing by Allah that he would\nmake the Fisherman rich, and then the Fisherman cut the seal again, and\nthe Genie came out of the vase. The first thing he did when he got out\nwas to kick the vase into the sea, which frightened the Fisherman, who\nbegan to beg and pray for his life. But the Genie kept his word; and\ntook him past the city, over a mountain and over a vast plain, to a\nlittle lake between four hills, where he caught four little fish, of\ndifferent colours--white, red, blue, and yellow--which the Genie bade\nhim carry to the Sultan, who would give him more money than he had ever\nseen in his life. And then, the story says, he struck his foot against\nthe ground, which opened, and he disappeared, the earth closing over\nhim.\n\nAnother story is that of the Genie Maimoun, the son of Dimdim, who took\nprisoner a young Prince, and conveyed him to an enchanted palace, and\nchanged him into the form of an ape, and the ape got on board a ship,\nand was carried to the country of a great Sultan, and when the Sultan\nheard that there was an ape who could write beautiful poems, he sent\nfor him to the palace, and they had dinner together, and they played at\nchess afterwards, the ape behaving in all respects like a man, excepting\nthat he could not speak. Then the Sultan sent for his daughter, the\nQueen of Beauty, to see this great wonder. But when the Queen of Beauty\ncame into the room she was very angry with her father for showing her to\na man, for the Princess was a great magician, and thus she knew that it\nwas a man turned into an ape, and she told her father that the change\nhad been made by a powerful Genie, the son of the daughter of Eblis.\nSo the Sultan ordered the Queen of Beauty to disenchant the Prince, and\nthen she should have him for her husband. On this the Queen of Beauty\nwent to her chamber, and came back with a knife, with Hebrew characters\nengraved upon the blade. And then she went into the middle of the court\nand drew a large circle in it, and in the centre she traced several\nwords in Arabic letters, and others in Egyptian letters. Then putting\nherself in the middle of the circle, she repeated several verses of the\nKoran. By degrees the air was darkened, as if night were coming on, and\nthe whole world seemed to be vanishing. And in the midst of the darkness\nthe Genie, the son of the daughter of Eblis, appeared in the shape of a\nhuge, terrible lion, which ran at the Princess as if to devour her.\nBut she sprang back, and plucked out a hair from her head, and then,\npronouncing two or three words, she changed the hair into a sharp\nscythe, and with the scythe she cut the lion into two pieces through the\nmiddle. The body of the lion now vanished, and only the head remained.\nThis changed itself into a large scorpion. The Princess changed herself\ninto a serpent and attacked the scorpion, which then changed into an\neagle, and flew away; and the serpent changed itself into a fierce black\neagle, larger and more powerful and flew after it. Soon after the eagles\nhad vanished the earth opened, and a great black and white cat appeared,\nmewing and crying out terribly, and with its hairs standing straight\non end. A black wolf followed the cat, and attacked it. Then the cat\nchanged into a worm, which buried itself in a pomegranate that\nhad fallen from a tree over-hanging the tank in the court, and the\npomegranate began to swell until it became as large as a gourd, which\nthen rose into the air, rolled backwards and forwards several times, and\nthen fell into the court and broke into a thousand pieces. The wolf now\ntransformed itself into a cock, and ran as fast as possible, and ate up\nthe pomegranate seeds. But one of them fell into the tank and changed\ninto a little fish. On this the cock changed itself into a pike, darted\ninto the water, and pursued the little fish. Then comes the end of the\nstory, which is told by the Prince transformed into the Ape:--\"They were\nboth hid hours under water, and we knew not what was become of them,\nwhen suddenly we heard horrible cries that made us tremble. Then we saw\nthe Princess and the Genie all on fire. They darted flames against each\nother with their breath, and at last came to a close attack. Then the\nfire increased, and all was hidden in smoke and cloud, which rose to a\ngreat height. We had other cause for terror. The Genie, breaking away\nfrom the Princess, came towards us, and blew his flames all over us.\"\nThe Princess followed him; but she could not prevent the Sultan from\nhaving his beard singed and his face scorched; a spark flew into the\nright eye of the Ape-Prince and blinded him, and the chief of the\neunuchs was killed on the spot. Then they heard the cry of \"Victory!\nvictory!\" and the Princess appeared in her own form, and the Genie was\nreduced to a heap of ashes. Unhappily the Princess herself was also\nfatally hurt. If she had swallowed all the pomegranate seeds she would\nhave conquered the Genie without harm to herself; but one seed being\nlost, she was obliged to fight with flames between earth and heaven, and\nshe had only just time enough to disenchant the ape and to turn him back\nagain into his human form, when she, too, fell to the earth, burnt to\nashes.\n\nThis story is repeated in various forms in the Fairy Tales of other\nlands. The hair which the Princess changed into a scythe is like the\nsword of sharpness which appears in Scandinavian legends and in the tale\nof Jack the Giant Killer; the transformation of the magician reminds\nus of the changes of the Ogre in Puss in Boots; and the death of\nthe Princess by fire because she failed to eat up the last of the\npomegranate seeds, brings to mind the Greek myth of Persephone, who ate\npomegranate seeds, and so fell into the power of Aidoneus, the God of\nthe lower regions, and was carried down into Hades to live with him as\nhis wife; and in many German and Russian tales are to be found incidents\nlike those of the terrible battle between the Princess and the Genie\nMaimoun.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.--DWELLERS IN FAIRYLAND: TEUTONIC, AND SCANDINAVIAN.\n\nNow we come to an entirely new region, in which, however, we find, under\nother forms, the same creatures which have already been described.\nFrom the sunny East we pass to the cold and frozen North. Here the\nScandinavian countries--Norway, Sweden, and Denmark--are wonderfully\nrich in dwarfs, and giants, and trolls, and necks, and nisses, and other\ninhabitants of Fairyland; and with these we must also class the Teutonic\nbeings of the same kind; and likewise the fairy creatures who were once\nsupposed to dwell in our islands. The Elves of Scandinavia, with whom\nour own Fairies are closely allied, were a very interesting people. They\nwere of two kinds, the White and the Black. The white elves dwelt in\nthe air, amongst the leaves of trees, and in the long grass, and at\nmoonlight they came out from their lurking-places, and danced merrily\non the greensward, and played all manner of fantastic tricks. The black\nelves lived underground, and, like the dwarfs, worked in metals, and\nheaped up great stores of riches. When they came out amongst men they\nwere often of a malicious turn of mind; they caused sickness or death,\nstole things from the houses, bewitched the cattle, and did a great deal\nof mischief in all ways. The good elves were not only friendly to man,\nbut they had a great desire to get to heaven; and in the summer nights\nthey were heard singing sweetly but sadly about themselves, and their\nhopes of future happiness; and there are many stories of their having\nspoken to mortals, to ask what hope or chance they had of salvation.\nThis feeling is believed to have come from the sympathy felt by the\nfirst converts to Christianity with their heathen forefathers, whose\nspirits were supposed by them to wander about, in the air or in the\nwoods, or to sigh within their graves, waiting for the day of judgment.\nIn one place there is a story that on a hill at Garun people used to\nhear very beautiful music. This was played by the elves, or hill folk,\nand any one who had a fiddle, and went there, and promised the elves\nthat they should be saved, was taught in a moment how to play; but those\nwho mocked them, and told them they could never be saved, used to hear\nthe poor elves, inside the hill, breaking their fairy fiddles into\npieces, and weeping very sadly. There is a particular tune they play,\ncalled the Elf-King's tune, which, the story-tellers say, some good\nfiddlers know very well, but never venture to play, because everybody\nwho hears it is obliged to dance, and to go on dancing till somebody\ncomes behind the musician and cuts the fiddle-strings; and out of this\ntradition we have the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Some of the\nunderground elves come up into the houses built above their dwellings,\nand are fond of playing tricks upon servants; but they like only those\nwho are clean in their habits, and they do not like even these to laugh\nat them. There is a story of a servant-girl whom the elves liked very\nmuch, because she used to carry all dirt and foul water away from the\nhouse, and so they invited her to an Elf Wedding, at which they made\nher a present of some chips, which she put into her pocket. But when\nthe bridegroom and the bride were coming home there was a straw lying in\ntheir way. The bridegroom got over it; but the bride stumbled, and fell\nupon her face. At this the servant-girl laughed out loud, and then all\nthe elves vanished, but she found that the chips they had given her were\npieces of pure gold. At Odensee another servant was not so fortunate.\nShe was very dirty, and would not clean the cow-house for them; so they\nkilled all the cows, and took the girl and set her up on the top of\na hay-rick. Then they removed from the cow-house into a meadow on the\nfarm; and some people say that they were seen going there in little\ncoaches, their king riding first, in a coach much handsomer than the\nrest. Amongst the Danes there is another kind of elves--the Moon Folk.\nThe man is like an old man with a low-crowned hat upon his head; the\nwoman is very beautiful in front, but behind she is hollow, like a\ndough-trough, and she has a sort of harp on which she plays, and lures\nyoung men with it, and then kills them. The man is also an evil being,\nfor if any one comes near him he opens his mouth and breathes upon them,\nand his breath causes sickness. It is easy to see what this tradition\nmeans: it is the damp marsh wind, laden with foul and dangerous odours;\nand the woman's harp is the wind playing across the marsh rushes at\nnightfall. Sometimes these elves take the shape of trees, which brings\nback to mind the Greek fairy tales of nymphs who live and die with the\ntrees to which they are united.\n\nThese Scandinavian elves were like beings of the same kind who were once\nsupposed to live in England, Ireland, and Scotland, and who are still\nbelieved in by some country people. Scattered about in the traditions\nwhich have been brought together at different times are many stories of\nthese fanciful beings. One story is of some children of a green colour\nwho were found in Suffolk, and who said they had lived in a country\nwhere all the people were of a green colour, and where they saw no sun,\nbut had a light like the glow which comes after sunset. They said, also,\nthat while tending their flocks they wandered into a great cavern, and\nheard the sound of delightful bells, which they followed, and so came\nout upon the upper world of the earth. There is a Yorkshire legend of a\npeasant coming home by night, and hearing the voices of people singing.\nThe noise came from a hill-side, where there was a door, and inside was\na great company of little people, feasting. One of them offered the man\na cup, out of which he poured the liquor, and then ran off with the\ncup, and got safe away. A similar story is told also of a place in\nGloucestershire, and of another in Cumberland, where the cup is called\n\"the Luck of Edenhall,\" as the owners of it are to be always prosperous,\nso long as the cup remains unbroken. Such stories as this are common in\nthe countries of the North of Europe, and show the connection between\nour Elf-land and theirs.\n\nThe Pixies, or the Devonshire fairies, are just like the\nnorthern elves. The popular idea of them is that they are small\ncreatures--pigmies--dressed in green, and are fond of dancing. Some of\nthem live in the mines, where they show the miners the richest veins of\nmetal just like the German dwarfs; others live on the moors, or under\nthe shelter of rocks; others take up their abode in houses, and, like\nthe Danish and Swedish elves, are very cross if the maids do not keep\nthe places clean and tidy others, like the will-o'-the-wisps, lead\ntravellers astray, and then laugh at them. The Pixies are said to\nbe very fond of pure water. There is a story of two servant-maids at\nTavistock who used to leave them a bucket of water, into which the\nPixies dropped silver pennies. Once it was forgotten, and the Pixies\ncame up into the girls' bedroom, and made a noise about the neglect. One\ngirl got up and went to put the water in its usual place, but the\nother said she would not stir out of bed to please all the fairies in\nDevonshire. The girl who filled the water-bucket found a handful of\nsilver pennies in it next morning, and she heard the Pixies debating\nwhat to do with the other girl. At last they said they would give her a\nlame leg for seven years, and that then they would cure her by striking\nher leg with a herb growing on Dartmoor. So next day Molly found herself\nlame, and kept so for seven years, when, as she was picking mushrooms on\nDartmoor, a strange-looking boy started up, struck her leg with a plant\nhe held in his hand, and sent her home sound again. There is another\nstory of the Pixies which is very beautiful. An old woman near Tavistock\nhad in her garden a fine bed of tulips, of which the Pixies became very\nfond, and might be heard at midnight singing their babes to rest amongst\nthem; and as the old woman would never let any of the tulips be plucked,\nthe Pixies had them all to themselves, and made them smell like the\nrose, and bloom more beautifully than any flowers in the place. Well,\nthe old woman died, and the tulip-bed was pulled up and a parsley-bed\nmade in its place. But the Pixies blighted it, and nothing grew in it;\nbut they kept the grave of the old woman quite green, never suffered a\nweed to grow upon it, and in spring-time they always spangled it with\nwild-flowers.\n\nAll over the country, in the far North as in the South, we find traces\nof elfin beings like the Pixies--the fairies of the common traditions\nand of the poets--some such fairies as Shakspeare describes for us in\nseveral of his plays, especially in \"Midsummer-Night's Dream,\" \"The\nMerry Wives of Windsor,\" \"The Tempest,\" and \"Romeo and Juliet\"--fairies\nwho gambol sportively.\n\n        \"On hill, in dale, forest, or mead,\n    By paved fountain, or by rushing brook,\n    Or by the beached margent of the sea,\n    To dance their ringlets to the whistling wind.\"\n\nBut the Fairy tribe were not the only graceful elves described by the\npoets. The Germans had their Kobolds, and the Scotch their Brownies, and\nthe English had their Boggarts and Robin Goodfellow and Lubberkin--all\nof them beings of the same description: house and farm spirits, who\nliked to live amongst men, and who sometimes did hard, rough work out of\ngood-nature, and sometimes were spiteful and mischievous, especially to\nthose who teased them, or spoke of them disrespectfully, or tried to see\nthem when they did not wish to be seen. To the same family belongs the\nDanish Nis, a house spirit of whom many curious legends are related.\nRobin Goodfellow was the original of Shakspeare's Puck: his frolics are\nrelated for us in \"The Midsummer Night's Dream,\" where a hairy says to\nhim--\n\n        \"You are that shrewd and knavish sprite\n    Called Robin Goodfellow. Are you not he\n    That frights the maidens of the villagery,\n    Skims milk, and sometimes labours in the quern,\n    And bootless makes the breathless housewife churn;\n    And sometimes makes the drink to bear no harm,\n    Misleads night wanderers, laughing at their harm?\n    Those that Hob-Goblin call you, and sweet Puck;\n    You do their work, and they shall have good luck.\"\n\nIn the \"Jests of Robin Goodfellow,\" first printed in Queen Elizabeth's\nreign, the tricks which this creature is said to have played are told in\nplenty. Here is one of them:--Robin went as fiddler to a wedding. When\nthe candles came he blew them out, and giving the men boxes on the ears\nhe set them fighting. He kissed the prettiest girls, and pinched the\nugly ones, till he made them scratch one another like cats. When the\nposset was brought he turned himself into a bear, frightened them all\naway, and had it all to himself.\n\nThe Boggart was another form of Robin Goodfellow. Stories of him are\nto be found amongst Yorkshire legends, as of a creature--always\ninvisible--who played tricks upon the people in the houses in which he\nlived: shaking the bed-curtains, rattling the doors, whistling through\nthe keyholes, snatching away the bread-and-butter from the children,\nplaying pranks upon the servants, and doing all kinds of mischief. There\nis a story of a Yorkshire boggart who teased the family so much that the\nfarmer made up his mind to leave the house. So he packed up his goods\nand began to move off. Then a neighbour came up, and said, \"So, Georgey,\nyou're leaving the old house?\" \"Yes,\" said the farmer, \"the boggart\ntorments us so that we must go.\" Then a voice came out of a churn,\nsaying, \"Ay, ay, Georgey, _we're_ flitting, ye see.\" \"Oh!\" cried the\npoor farmer, \"if thou'rt with us we'll go back again;\" and he went\nback.--Mr. Tennyson puts this story into his poem of \"Walking to the\nMail.\"\n\n                         \"His house, they say,\n    Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook\n    The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at doors,\n    And rummaged like a rat: no servant stayed:\n    The farmer, vext, packs up his beds and chairs,\n    And all his household stuff, and with his boy\n    Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt,\n    Sets out, and meets a friend who hails him, 'What!\n    You're flitting!'  'Yes, we're flitting,' says the ghost\n    (For they had packed the thing among the beds).\n    'Oh, well,' says he, 'you flitting with us, too;\n    Jack, turn the horses' heads and home again.'\"\n\nThe same story is told in Denmark, of a Nis--which is the same as an\nEnglish boggart, a Scotch brownie, and a German kobold--who troubled a\nman very much, so that he took away his goods to a new house. All but\nthe last load had gone, and when they came for that, the Nis popped his\nhead out of a tub, and said to the man, \"We're moving, you see.\"\n\nThe Brownies, though mischievous, like the Boggarts, were more helpful,\nfor they did a good deal of house-work; and would bake, and brew, and\nwash, and sweep, but they would never let themselves be seen; or if any\none did manage to see them, or tried to do so, they went away. There are\nstories of this kind about them in English folk-lore, in Scotch, Welsh,\nin the Isle of Man, and in Germany, where they were called Kobolds.\nOne Kobold, of whom many accounts are given, lived in the castle of\nHudemuhler, in Luneberg, and used to talk with the people of the house,\nand with visitors, and ate and drank at table, just like Leander in the\nstory of \"The Invisible Prince;\" and he used also to scour the pots and\npans, wash the dishes, and clean the tubs, and he was useful, too, in\nthe stable, where he curried the horses, and made them quite fat and\nsmooth. In return for this he had a room to himself, where he made\na straw-plaited chair, and had a little round table, and a bed and\nbedstead, and, where he expected every day to find a dish of sweetened\nmilk, with bread crumbs; and if he did not get served in time, or if\nanything went wrong, he used to beat the servants with a stick. This\nKobold was named Heinzelman, and in Grimm's collection of folklore there\nis a long history of him drawn up by the minister of the parish. Another\nKobold, named Hodeken, who lived with the Bishop of Hildesheim, was\nusually of a kind and obliging turn of mind, but he revenged himself on\nthose who offended him. A scullion in the bishop's kitchen flung dirt\nupon him, and Hodeken found him fast asleep and strangled him, and put\nhim in the pot on the fire. Then the head cook scolded Hodeken, who in\nrevenge squeezed toads all over the meat that was being cooked for\nthe bishop, and then took the cook himself and tumbled him over the\ndrawbridge into the moat. Then the bishop got angry, and took bell, and\nbook, and candle, and banished Hodeken by the form of exorcism provided\nfor evil spirits.\n\nNow there are a great many other kinds of creatures in the Wonderland of\nall European countries; but I must not stop to tell you about them or\nwe shall never have done. But there is one little story of the Danish\nNis--who answers to the German Kobold--which I may tell you, because it\nis like the story of Hodeken which you have just read, and shows that\nthe creatures were of the same kind. There was a Nis in Jutland who was\nvery much teased by a mischievous boy. When the Nis had done his work he\nsat down to have his supper, and he found that the boy had been playing\ntricks with his porridge and made it unpleasant. So he made up his\nmind to be revenged, and he did it in this way. The boy slept with\na servant-man in the loft. The Nis went up to them and took off the\nbed-clothes. Then, looking at the little boy lying beside the tall man,\nhe said, \"Long and short don't match,\" and he took the boy by the\nlegs and pulled him down to the man's legs. This was not to his mind,\nhowever, so he went to the head of the bed and looked at them, Then said\nthe Nis--\"Short and long don't match,\" and he pulled the boy up again;\nand so he went on all through the night, up and down, down and up, till\nthe boy was punished enough. Another Nis in Jutland went with a boy to\nsteal corn for his master's horses. The Nis was moderate, but the boy\nwas covetous, and said, \"Oh, take more; we can rest now and then!\"\n\"Rest,\" said the Nis, \"rest! what is rest?\" \"Do what I tell you,\"\nreplied the boy; \"take more, and we shall find rest when we get out of\nthis.\" So they took more corn, and when they had got nearly home the boy\nsaid, \"Here now is rest;\" and so they sat down on a hill-side. \"If I had\nknown,\" said the Nis, as they were sitting there, \"if I had known that\nrest was so good I'd have carried off all that was in the barn.\"\n\nNow we must leave out much more that might be said, and many stories\nthat might be told, about elves, and fairies, and nixes, or water\nspirits, and swan maidens who become women when they lay aside their\nswan dresses to bathe; and mermaids and seal maidens, who used to live\nin the islands of the North seas. And we must leave out also a number\nof curious Scotch tales and accounts of Welsh fairies, and stories about\nthe good people of the Irish legends, and the Leprechaun, a little old\nman who mends shoes, and who gives you as much gold as you want if\nyou hold him tight enough; and there are wonderful fairy legends of\nBrittany, and some of Spain and Italy, and a great many Russian and\nSlavonic tales which are well worth telling, if we only had room. For\nthe same reason we must omit the fairy tales of ancient Greece, some\nof which are told so beautifully by Mr. Kingsley in his book about the\nHeroes; and we must also pass by the legends of King Arthur, and of\nromances of the same kind which you may read at length in Mr. Ludlow's\n\"Popular Epics of the Middle Ages;\" and the wonderful tales from the\nNorse which are told by Dr. Dasent, and in Mr. Morris's noble poem of\n\"Sigurd the Volsung.\"\n\nBut before we leave this part of Wonderland we must say something about\nsome kinds of beings who have not yet been mentioned--the Scandinavian\nGiants and Trolls, and the German Dwarfs. The Trolls--some of whom were\nGiants and some Dwarfs--were a very curious people. They lived inside\nhills or mounds of earth, sometimes alone, and sometimes in great\nnumbers. Inside these hills, according to the stories of the common\nfolk, are fine houses made of gold and crystal, full of gold and jewels,\nwhich the Trolls amuse themselves by counting. They marry and have\nfamilies; they bake and brew, and live just like human beings; and they\ndo not object, sometimes, to come out and talk to men and women whom\nthey happen to meet on the road. They are described as being friendly,\nand quite ready to help those to whom they take a fancy--lending them\nuseful or precious things out of the hill treasures, and giving\nthem rich gifts. But, to balance this, they are very mischievous and\nthievish, and sometimes they carry off women and children. They dislike\nnoise. This, so the old stories say, is because the god Thor used to\nfling his hammer at them; and since he left off doing that the Trolls\nhave suffered a great deal from the ringing of church bells, which they\nvery much dislike. There are many stories about this. At a place called\nEbeltoft the Trolls used to come and steal food out of the pantries. The\npeople consulted a Saint as to what they were to do, and he told them\nto hang up a bell in the church steeple, which they did, and then the\nTrolls went away. There is another story of the same kind. A Troll lived\nnear the town of Kund, in Sweden, but was driven away by the church\nbells. Then he went over to the island of Funen and lived in peace. But\nhe meant to be revenged on the people of Kund, and he tried to take his\nrevenge in this way: He met a man from Kund--a stranger, who did not\nknow him--and asked the man to take a letter into the town and to throw\nit into the churchyard, but he was not to take it out of his pocket\nuntil he got there. The man received the letter, but forgot the message,\nuntil he sat down in a meadow to rest, and then he took out the letter\nto look at it. When he did so, a drop of water fell from under the seal,\nthen a little stream, and then quite a torrent, till all the valley was\nflooded, and the man had hard work to escape. The Troll had shut up a\nlake in the letter, and with this he meant to drown the people of Kund.\n\nSome of the Trolls are very stupid, and there are many stories as to how\nthey have been outwitted. One of them is very droll. A farmer ploughed\na hill-side field. Out came a Troll and said, \"What do you mean by\nploughing up the roof of my house?\" Then the farmer, being frightened,\nbegged his pardon, but said it was a pity such a fine piece of land\nshould lie idle. The Troll agreed to this, and then they struck a\nbargain that the farmer should till the land and that each of them\nshould share the crops. One year the Troll was to have, for his share,\nwhat grew above ground, and the next year what grew underground. So in\nthe first year the farmer sowed carrots, and the Troll had the tops; and\nthe next year the farmer sowed wheat, and the Troll had the roots; and\nthe story says he was very well content.\n\nWe can give only one more story of the Trolls. They have power over\nhuman beings until their names are found out, and when the Troll's name\nis mentioned his power goes from him. One day St. Olaf, a very great\nSaint, was thinking how he could build a very large church without any\nmoney, and he didn't quite see his way to it. Then a Giant Troll met him\nand they chatted together, and St. Olaf mentioned his difficulty. So the\nTroll said he would build the church, within a year, on condition that\nif it was done in the time he should have for his reward the sun, and\nthe moon, or St. Olaf himself. The church was to be so big that seven\npriests could say mass at seven altars in it without hearing each other;\nand it was all to be built of flint stone and to be richly carved. When\nthe time was nearly up the church was finished, all but the top of the\nspire; and St. Olaf was in sad trouble about his promise. So he walked\nout into a wood to think, and there he heard the Troll's wife hushing\nher child inside a hill, and saying to it, \"To-morrow, Wind and Weather,\nyour father, will come home in the morning, and bring with him the sun\nand the moon, or St. Olaf himself.\" Then St. Olaf knew what to do. He\nwent home, and there was the church, all ready except the very top of\nthe weather-cock, and the Troll was just putting the finishing-touch to\nthat. Then St. Olaf called out to him, \"Oh! ho! Wind and Weather, you\nhave set the spire crooked!\" And then, with a great noise, the Troll\nfell down from the steeple and broke into pieces, and every piece was a\nflint-stone.\n\nThe same thing is told in the German story of Rumpelstiltskin. A maiden\nis ordered by a King to spin a roomful of straw into gold, or else she\nis to die. A Dwarf appears, she promises him her necklace, and he does\nthe task for her. Next day she has to spin a larger roomful of straw\ninto gold. She gives the Dwarf the ring off her finger, and he does this\ntask also. Next day she is set to work at a larger room, and then, when\nthe Dwarf comes, she has nothing to give him. Then he says, \"If you\nbecome Queen, give me your first-born child.\" Now the girl is only a\nmiller's daughter, and thinks she never can be Queen, so she makes the\npromise, and the Dwarf spins the straw into gold. But she does become\nQueen, for the King marries her because of the gold; and she forgets\nthe Dwarf, and is very happy, especially when her little baby comes.\nDirectly it is born the Dwarf appears also, and claims the child,\nbecause it was promised to him. The Queen offers him anything he likes\nbesides; but he will have that, and that only. Then she cries and prays,\nand the Dwarf says that if she can tell him his name she may keep the\nbaby; and he feels quite safe in saying this, because nobody knows\nhis name, only himself. So the Queen calls him by all kinds of strange\nnames, but none of them is the right one. Then she begs for three days\nto find out the name, and sends people everywhere to see if they can\nhear it. But all of them come back, unable to find any name that is\nlikely, excepting one, who says, \"I have not found a name, but as I came\nto a high mountain near the edge of a forest, where the foxes and the\nhares say 'good-night' to each other, I saw a little house, and before\nthe door a fire was burning, and round the fire a little man was dancing\non one leg, and singing:--\n\n    \"To-day I stew, and then I'll bake,\n     To-morrow shall I the Queen's child take.\n     How glad I am that nobody knows\n     That my name is Rumpelstiltskin.\"\n\nThen the Dwarf came again, and the Queen said to him, \"Is your name\nHans?\" \"No,\" said the Dwarf, with an ugly leer, and he held out his\nhands for the baby. \"Is it Conrade?\" asked the Queen. \"No,\" cried\nthe Dwarf, \"give me the child.\" \"Then,\" said the Queen, \"is it\nRumpelstiltskin?\" \"A witch has told you that!\" cried the Dwarf; and then\nhe stamped his right foot so hard upon the ground that it sank quite in,\nand he could not draw it out again. Then he took hold of his left leg\nwith both his hands and pulled so hard that his right leg came off, and\nhe hopped away howling, and nobody ever saw him again.\n\nThe Giant in the story of St. Olaf, as we have seen, was a rather stupid\ngiant, and easily tricked; and indeed most of the giants seem to have\nbeen dull people, from the great Greek Kyklops, Polyphemos the One-Eyed,\ndownwards to the ogres in Puss in Boots, and Jack and the Bean Stalk,\nand the giants in Jack the Giant Killer. The old northern giants were no\nwiser. There was one in the island of Rugen, a very mighty giant, named\nBalderich. He wanted to go from his island, dry-footed, to the mainland.\nSo he got a great apron made, and filled it with earth, and set off to\nmake a causeway from Rugen to Pomerania. But there was a hole in the\napron, and the clay that fell out formed a chain of nine hills. The\ngiant stopped the hole and went on, but another hole tore in the apron,\nand thirteen more hills fell out. Then he got to the sea-side, and\npoured the rest of the load into the water; but it didn't quite reach\nthe mainland, which made giant Balderich so angry that he fell down\nand died; and so his work has never been finished. But a giant maiden\nthought she would try to make another causeway from the mainland to an\nisland, so that she might not wet her slippers in going over. So she\nfilled her apron with sand, and ran down to the sea-side. But a hole\ncame in the apron, and the sand which ran out formed a hill at Sagard.\nThe giant maiden said, \"Ah! now my mother will scold me!\" Then she\nstopped the hole with her hand and ran on again. But the giant mother\nlooked over the wood, and cried, \"You nasty child! what are you about?\nCome here, and you'll get a good whipping.\" The daughter in a fright let\ngo her apron, and all the sand ran out, and made the barren hills near\nLitzow, which the white and brown dwarfs took for their dwelling-place.\n\nThere are many other stories of the same kind. One of them tells of\na Troll Giant who wanted to punish a farmer; so he filled one of his\ngloves with sand, and poured it out over the farmer's house, which it\nquite covered up; and with what was left in the fingers he made a row of\nlittle sand hillocks to mark the spot.\n\nThe Giants had their day, and died out, and their places were taken by\nthe Dwarfs. Some of the most wonderful dwarf stories are those which\nare told in the island of Rugen, in the Baltic Sea. These stories are of\nthree kinds of dwarfs: the White, and the Brown, and the Black, who live\nin the sand-hills. The white dwarfs, in the spring and summer, dance and\nfrolic all their time in sunshine and starlight, and climb up into\nthe flowers and trees, and sit amongst the leaves and blossoms, and\nsometimes they take the form of bright little birds, or white doves, or\nbutterflies, and are very kind to good people. In the winter, when the\nsnow falls, they go underground, and spend their time in making the most\nbeautiful ornaments of silver and gold. The brown dwarfs are stronger\nand rougher than the white; they wear little brown coats and brown caps,\nand when they dance--which they are fond of doing--they wear little\nglass shoes; and in dress and appearance they are very handsome. Their\ndisposition is good, with one exception--that they carry off children\ninto their underground dwellings; and those who go there have to serve\nthem for fifty years. They can change themselves into any shape, and\ncan go through key-holes, so that they enter any house they please, and\nsometimes they bring gifts for the children, like the good Santa Klaus\nin the German stories; but they also play sad tricks, and frighten\npeople with bad dreams. Like the white dwarfs, the brown ones work in\ngold and silver, and the gifts they bring are of their own workmanship.\nThe black dwarfs are very bad people, and are ugly in looks and\nmalicious in temper; they never dance or sing, but keep underground,\nor, when they come up, they sit in the elder-trees, and screech horribly\nlike owls, or mew like cats. They, too, are great metal-workers,\nespecially in steel; and in old days they used to make arms and armour\nfor the gods and heroes: shirts of mail as fine as cobwebs, yet so\nstrong that no sword could go through them; and swords that would bend\nlike rushes, and yet were as hard as diamonds, and would cut through any\nhelmet, however thick.\n\nSo long as they keep their caps on their heads the dwarfs are invisible;\nbut if any one can get possession of a dwarf's cap he can see them, and\nbecomes their master. This is the foundation of one of the best of the\ndwarf stories--the story of John Dietrich, who went out to the sandhills\nat Ramfin, in the isle of Rugen, on the eve of St. John, a very, very\nlong time ago, and managed to strike off the cap from the head of one\nof the brown dwarfs, and went down with them into their underground\ndwelling-place. This was quite a little town, where the rooms were\ndecorated with diamonds and rubies, and the dwarf people had gold and\nsilver and crystal table-services, and there were artificial birds that\nflew about like real ones, and the most beautiful flowers and fruits;\nand the dwarfs, who were thousands in number, had great feasts, where\nthe tables, ready spread, came up through the floor, and cleared\nthemselves away at the ringing of a bell, and left the rooms free for\ndancing to the strains of the loveliest music. And in the city there\nwere fields and gardens, and lakes and rivers; and instead of the sun\nand the moon to give light, there were large carbuncles and diamonds\nwhich supplied all that was wanted. John Dietrich, who was very well\ntreated, liked it very much, all but one thing--which was that the\nservants who waited upon the dwarfs were earth children, whom they had\nstolen and carried underground; and amongst them was Elizabeth Krabbin,\nonce a playmate of his own, and who was a lovely girl, with clear blue\neyes and ringlets of fair hair. John Dietrich of course fell in love\nwith Elizabeth, and determined to get her out of the dwarf people's\nhands, and with her all the earth children they held captive. And when\nhe had been ten years underground, and he and Elizabeth were grown up,\nhe demanded leave to depart, and to take Elizabeth. But the dwarfs,\nthough they could not hinder him from going, would not let her go, and\nno threats or entreaties could move them. Then John Dietrich remembered\nthat the little people cannot bear an evil smell; and one day he\nhappened to break a large stone, out of which jumped a toad, which gave\nhim power to do what he pleased with the dwarfs, for the sight or smell\nof a toad causes them pain beyond all bearing. So he sent for the chiefs\nof the dwarfs, and bade them let Elizabeth go. But they refused; and\nthen he went and fetched the toad. Then the story goes on in this way:--\n\n\"He was hardly come within a hundred paces of them when they all fell\nto the ground as if struck with a thunderbolt, and began to howl and\nwhimper, and to writhe as if suffering the most excruciating pain. The\ndwarfs stretched out their hands, and cried, 'Have mercy, have mercy!\nwe feel that you have a toad, and there is no escape for us. Take the\nodious beast away, and we will do all you require.' He let them kneel a\nfew seconds longer, and then took the toad away. They then stood up,\nand felt no more pain. John let all depart but the six chief persons, to\nwhom he said, 'This night, between twelve and one, Elizabeth and I\nwill depart, Load for me three waggons with gold, silver, and precious\nstones. I might, you know, take all that is in the hill; but I will be\nmerciful. Further, you must put into two waggons all the furniture of my\nchamber (which was covered with emeralds and other precious stones, and\nin the ceiling was a diamond as big as a nine-pin bowl), and get ready\nfor me the handsomest travelling carriage that is in the hill, with six\nblack horses. Moreover, you must set at liberty all the servants who\nhave been so long here that on earth they would be twenty years old and\nupwards, and you must give them as much silver and gold as will make\nthem rich for life; and you must make a law that no one shall be kept\nhere longer than his twentieth year.'\n\n\"The six took the oath, and went away quite melancholy, and John\nburied his toad deep in the ground. The little people laboured hard\nand prepared everything, and at midnight John and Elizabeth, and their\ncompanions, and all their treasures, were drawn up out of the hill. It\nwas then one o'clock, and it was midsummer--the very time that, twelve\nyears before, John had gone down into the hill. Music sounded around\nthem, and they saw the glass hill open, and the rays of the light of\nheaven shine on them after so many years; and when they got out they saw\nthe first streaks of dawn already in the East. Crowds of the underground\npeople were around them, busied about the waggons. John bid them a last\nfarewell, waved his brown cap in the air, and then flung it among them.\nAnd at the same moment he ceased to see them; he beheld nothing but a\ngreen hill, and the well-known bushes and fields, and heard the church\nclock of Ramfin strike two. When all was still, save a few larks, who\nwere tuning their morning song, they all fell upon their knees and\nworshipped God, resolving henceforth to lead a pious and Christian\nlife.\" And then John married Elizabeth, and was made a count, and built\nseveral churches, and presented to them some of the precious cups and\nplates made by the underground people, and kept his own and Elizabeth's\nglass shoes, in memory of what had befallen them in their youth. \"And\nthey were all taken away,\" the story says, \"in the time of the great\nCharles the Twelfth of Sweden, when the Russians came on the island, and\nthe Cossacks plundered even the churches, and took away everything.\"\n\nNow there is much more to be told about the dwarfs, if only we had\nspace--how there were thousands of them in German lands, in the Saxon\nmines, and the Black Forest, and the Harz mountains and in other places,\nand in Switzerland, and indeed everywhere almost--how they gave gifts\nto good men, and borrowed of them, and paid honestly; how they punished\nthose who injured them; how they moved about from country to country;\nhow they helped great kings and nobles, and showed themselves to\nwandering travellers and to simple country folk. But all this must\nbe left for you to read for yourselves in Grimm's stories, and in the\nlegends of northern lands, and in many collections of ancient poems, and\nromances, and popular tales. And in these, and in other books which\ndeal with such subjects, you will find out that all these dwellers in\nWonderland, and the tales that are told about them, and the stories\nof the gods and heroes, all come from the one source of which we read\nsomething in the first chapter--the tradition's of the ancient Aryan\npeople, from whom all of us have sprung--and how they all mean the same\nthings; the conflict between light and darkness, the succession of day\nand night, the changes of the seasons, the blue and bright summer skies,\nthe rain-clouds, the storm-winds, the thunder and the lightning, and all\nthe varied and infinite forms of Nature in her moods of calm and storm,\npeace and tempest, brightness and gloom, sweet and pleasant and hopeful\nlife and stern and cold death, which causes all brightness to fade and\nmoulder away.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.--DWELLERS IN FAIRYLAND: WEST HIGHLAND STORIES.\n\nIn a very delightful book which has already been mentioned, Campbell's\n\"Popular Tales of the West Highlands,\" there are many curious stories\nof fairy folk and other creatures of the like kind, described in the\ntraditions of the west of Scotland, and which are still believed in by\nmany of the country people. There are Brownies, for instance, the farm\nspirits. One of these, so the story goes, inhabited the island of Inch,\nand looked after the cattle of the Mac Dougalls; but if the dairymaid\nneglected to leave a portion of milk for him at night, one of the cattle\nwould be sure to fall over the rocks. Another kind of Brownie, called\nthe Bocan, haunted a place called Moran, opposite the Isle of Skye, and\nprotected the family of the Macdonalds of Moran, but was very savage\nto other people, whom he beat or killed. At last Big John, the son of\nM'Leod of Raasay, went and fought the creature in the dark, and tucked\nhim under his arm, to carry him to the nearest light and see what he was\nlike. But the Brownies hate to be seen, and this one begged hard to be\nlet off, promising that he would never come back. So Big John let him\noff, and he flew away singing:--\n\n     \"Far from me is the hill of Ben Hederin;\n      Far from me is the Pass of Murmuring;\"\n\nand the common story says that the tune is still remembered and sung by\nthe people of that country. It is also told of a farmer, named Callum\nMohr MacIntosh, near Loch Traig, in Lochaber, that he had a fight with\na Bocan, and in the fight he lost a charmed handkerchief. When he went\nback to get it again, he found the Bocan rubbing the handkerchief hard\non a flat stone, and the Bocan said, \"It is well for you that you are\nback, for if I had rubbed a hole in this you were a dead man.\" This\nBocan became very friendly with MacIntosh, and used to bring him peats\nfor fire in the deep winter snows; and when MacIntosh moved to another\nfarm, and left a hogshead of hides behind him by accident, the Bocan\ncarried it to his new house next morning, over paths that only a goat\ncould have crossed.\n\nAnother creature of the same kind is a mischievous spirit, a Goblin\nor Brownie, who is called in the Manx language, the Glashan, and who\nappears under various names in Highland stories: sometimes as a hairy\nman, and sometimes as a water-horse turned into a man. He usually\nattacks lonely women, who outwit him, and throw hot peats or scalding\nwater at him, and then he flies off howling. One feature is common\nto the stories about him. He asks the woman what her name is, and she\nalways replies \"Myself.\" So when the companions of the Glashan ask who\nburned or scalded him, he says \"Myself,\" and then they laugh at him.\nThis answer marks the connection between these tales and those of other\ncountries. Polyphemos asks Odysseus his name, and is told that it is\nOutis, or \"Nobody.\" So when Odysseus blinds Polyphemos, and the other\nKyklopes ask the monster who did it, he says, \"Nobody did it.\" There is\na Slavonian story, also, in which a cunning smith puts out the eyes\nof the Devil, and says that his name is Issi, \"myself;\" and when the\ntortured demon is asked who hurt him, he says, \"Issi did it;\" and then\nhis companions ridicule him.\n\nAmong other Highland fairy monsters are the water-horses (like the\nScandinavian and Teutonic Kelpies) and the water-bulls, which inhabit\nlonely lochs. The water-bulls are described as being friendly to man;\nthe water-horses are dangerous--when men get upon their backs they are\ncarried off and drowned. Sometimes the water-horse takes the shape of a\nman. Here is a story of this kind from the island of Islay: There was a\nfarmer who had a great many cattle. Once a strange-looking bull-calf was\nborn amongst them, and an old woman who saw it knew it for a water-bull,\nand ordered it to be kept in a house by itself for seven years, and fed\non the milk of three cows. When the time was up, a servant-maid went to\nwatch the cattle graze on the side of a loch. In a little while a man\ncame to her and asked her to dress or comb his hair. So he laid his head\nupon her knees, and she began to arrange his hair. Presently she got\na great fright, for amongst the hair she found a great quantity of\nwater-weed; and she knew that it was a transformed water-horse. Like\na brave girl she did not cry out, but went on dressing the man's hair\nuntil he fell asleep. Then she slid her apron off her knees, and ran\nhome as fast as she could, and when she got nearly home, the creature\nwas pursuing her in the shape of a horse. Then the old woman cried out\nto them to open the door of the wild bull's house, and out sprang the\nbull and rushed at the horse, and they never stopped fighting until they\ndrove each other out into the sea. \"Next day,\" says the story, \"the body\nof the bull was found on the shore all torn and spoilt, but the horse\nwas never more seen at all.\"\n\nSometimes the water-spirit appears in the shape of a great bird, which\nthe West Highlanders called the Boobrie, who has a long neck, great\nwebbed feet with tremendous claws, a powerful bill hooked like an\neagle's, and a voice like the roar of an angry bull. The lochs,\naccording to popular fancy, are also inhabited by water-spirits. In\nSutherlandshire this kind of creature is called the Fuath; there are,\nMr. Campbell says, males and females; they have web-feet, yellow hair,\ngreen dresses, tails, manes, and no noses; they marry human beings, are\nkilled by light, are hurt by steel weapons, and in crossing a stream\nthey become restless. These spirits resemble mermen and mermaids, and\nare also like the Kelpies, and they have also been somehow confused with\nthe kind of spirit known in Ireland as the Banshee. Many stories are\ntold of them. A shepherd found one, an old woman seemingly crippled, at\nthe edge of a bog. He offered to carry her over on his back. In going\nover, he saw that she was webfooted; so he threw her down, and ran for\nhis life. By the side of Loch Middle a woman saw one--\"about three years\nago,\" she told the narrator--she sat on a stone, quiet, and dressed in\ngreen silk, the sleeves of the dress curiously puffed from the wrists to\nthe shoulder; her hair was yellow, like ripe corn; but on a nearer view,\nshe had no nose. A man at Tubernan made a bet that he would seize the\nFuath or Kelpie who haunted the loch at Moulin na Fouah. So he took a\nbrown right-sided maned horse, and a brown black-muzzled dog, and with\nthe help of the dog he captured the Fuath, and tied her on the horse\nbehind him. She was very fierce, but he pinned her down with an awl\nand a needle. Crossing the burn or brook near Loch Migdal she grew very\nrestless, and the man stuck the awl and the needle into her with great\nforce. Then she cried, \"Pierce me with the awl, but keep that slender\nhair-like slave (the needle) out of me.\" When the man reached an inn at\nInveran, he called his friends to come out and look at the Fuath. They\ncame out with lights, and when the light fell upon her she dropped off\nthe horse, and fell to the earth like a small lump of jelly.\n\nThe Fairies of the West Highlands in some degree resembled the\nScandinavian Dwarfs. They milked the deer; they lived underground, and\nworked at trades, especially metal-working and weaving. They had hammers\nand anvils, but had to steal wool and to borrow looms; and they had\ngreat hoards of treasure hidden in their dwelling places. Sometimes they\nhelped the people whom they liked, but at other times they were spiteful\nand evil minded; and according to tradition all over the Highlands, they\nenticed men and women into their dwellings in the hills, and kept them\nthere sometimes for years, always dancing without stopping. There are\nmany stories of this kind; and there are also many about the fondness of\nthe Fairies for carrying off human children, and leaving Imps of their\nown in their places--these Imps being generally old men disguised as\nchildren. Some of these tales are very curious, and are like others that\nare found amongst the folk-lore of Celtic peoples elsewhere. Here is the\nsubstance of one told in Islay:--\n\nYears ago there lived in Crossbrig a smith named MacEachern, who had\nan only son, about fourteen; a strong, healthy, cheerful boy. All of a\nsudden he fell ill, took to his bed, and moped for days, getting thin,\nand odd-looking, and yellow, and wasting away fast, so that they thought\nhe must die. Now a \"wise\" old man, who knew about Fairies, came to see\nthe smith at work, and the poor man told him all about his trouble. The\nold man said, \"It is not your son you have got; the boy has been carried\noff by the Dacorie Sith (the Fairies), and they have left a sibhreach\n(changeling) in his place.\" Then the old man told him what to do. \"Take\nas many egg-shells as you can get, go with them into the room, spread\nthem out before him, then draw water with them, carrying them two and\ntwo in your hands as if they were a great weight, and when they are\nfull, range them round the fire.\" The smith did as he was told; and he\nhad not been long at work before there came from the bed a great shout\nof laughter, and the supposed boy cried out, \"I am eight hundred years\nold, and I never saw the like of _that_ before.\" Then the smith knew\nthat it was not his own son. The wise man advised him again. \"Your son,\"\nhe said, \"is in a green round hill where the Fairies live; get rid of\nthis creature, and then go and look for him.\" So the smith lit a fire in\nfront of the bed. \"What is that for?\" asked the supposed boy. \"You will\nsee presently,\" said the smith; and then he took him and threw him into\nthe middle of it; and the sibhreach gave an awful yell, and flew up\nthrough the roof, where a hole was left to let the smoke out. Now the\nold man said that on a certain night the green round hill, where the\nFairies kept the smith's boy, would be open. The father was to take a\nBible, a dirk, and a crowing cock, and go there. He would hear singing,\nand dancing, and much merriment, but he was to go boldly in. The Bible\nwould protect him against the Fairies, and he was to stick the dirk into\nthe threshold, to prevent the hill closing upon him. Then he would see\na grand room, and there, working at a forge, he would find his own son;\nand when the Fairies questioned him he was to say that he had come for\nhis boy, and would not go away without him. So the smith went, and did\nwhat the old man told him. He heard the music, found the hill open, went\nin, stuck the dirk in the threshold, carried the Bible on his breast,\nand took the cock in his hand. Then the Fairies angrily asked what he\nwanted, and he said, \"I want my son whom I see down there, and I will\nnot go without him.\" Upon this the whole company of the Fairies gave\na loud laugh, which woke up the cock, and he leaped on the smith's\nshoulders, clapped his wings, and crowed lustily. Then the Fairies took\nthe smith and his son, put them out of the hill, flung the dirk after\nthem, and the hill-side closed up again. For a year and a day after he\ngot home the boy never did any work, and scarcely spoke a word; but at\nlast one day sitting by his father, and seeing him finish a sword for\nthe chieftain, he suddenly said, \"That's not the way to do it,\" and he\ntook the tools, and fashioned a sword the like of which was never seen\nin that country before; and from that day he worked and lived as usual.\n\nHere is another story. A woman was going through a wild glen in Strath\nCarron, in Sutherland--the Glen Garaig--carrying her infant child\nwrapped in her plaid. Below the path, overhung with trees, ran a very\ndeep ravine, called Glen Odhar, or the dun glen. The child, not a year\nold, suddenly spoke, and said:--\n\n    \"Many a dun hummel cow,\n     With a calf below her,\n     Have I seen milking\n     In that dun glen yonder,\n     Without dog, without man,\n     Without woman, without gillie,\n     But one man; and he hoary.\"\n\nThen the woman knew that it was a fairy changeling she was carrying, and\nshe flung down the child and the plaid, and ran home, where her own baby\nlay smiling in the cradle.\n\nA tailor went to a farm-house to work, and just as he was going in,\nsomebody put into his hands a child of a month old, which a little lady\ndressed in green seemed to be waiting to receive. The tailor ran home\nand gave the child to his wife. When he got back to the farm-house he\nfound the farmer's child crying and yelping, and disturbing everybody.\nIt was a fairy changeling which the nurse had taken in, meaning to give\nthe farmer's own child to the fairy in exchange; but nobody knew this\nbut the tailor. When they were all gone out he began to talk to the\nchild. \"Hae ye your pipes?\" said the Tailor. \"They're below my head,\"\nsaid the Changeling. \"Play me a spring,\" said the Tailor. Out sprang\nthe little man and played the bagpipes round the room. Then there was a\nnoise outside, and the Elf said, \"Its my folk wanting me,\" and away he\nwent up the chimney; and then they fetched back the farmer's child from\nthe tailor's house.\n\nOne more story: it is told by the Sutherland-shire folk. A small farmer\nhad a boy who was so cross that nothing could be done with him. One\nday the farmer and his wife went out, and put the child to bed in the\nkitchen; and they bid the farm lad to go and look at it now and then,\nand to thrash out the straw in the barn. The lad went to look at the\nchild, and the Child said to him in a sharp voice, \"What are you going\nto do?\" \"Thrash out a pickle of straw,\" said the Lad, \"lie still and\ndon't grin, like a good bairn.\" But the little Imp of out of bed, and\nsaid, \"Go east, Donald, and when ye come to the big brae (or brow of\nthe hill), rap three times, and when _they_ come, say ye are seeking\nJohnnie's flail.\" Donald did so, and out came a little fairy man, and\ngave him a flail. Then Johnnie took the flail, thrashed away at the\nstraw, finished it, sent the flail back, and went to bed again. When the\nparents came back, Donald told them all about it; and so they took the\nImp out of the cradle, put it in a basket, and set the basket on the\nfire. No sooner did the creature feel the fire than he vanished up the\nchimney. Then there was a low crying noise at the door, and when they\nopened it, a pretty little lad, whom the mother knew to be her own,\nstood shivering outside.\n\nA few notes about West Highland giants must end this account of wonder\ncreatures in this region. There was a giant in Glen Eiti, a terrible\nbeing, who comes into a wild strange story, too long to be told here.\nHe is described as having one hand only, coming out of the middle of his\nchest, one leg coming out of his haunch, and one eye in the middle\nof his face. And in the same story there is another giant called the\nFachan, and the story says, \"Ugly was the make of the Fachan; there was\none hand out of the ridge of his chest, and one tuft out of the top of\nhis head; it were easier to take a mountain from the root than to\nbend that tuft.\" Usually, the Highland giants were not such dreadful\ncreatures as this. Like giants in all stories, they were very stupid,\nand were easily outwitted by cunning men. \"The Gaelic giants (Mr.\nCampbell says)[9] are very like those of Norse and German tales,\nbut they are much nearer to real men than the giants of Germany and\nScandinavia and Greece and Rome, who are almost, if not quite, equal to\nthe gods. Their world is generally, though not always, underground; it\nhas castles, and parks, and pasture, and all that is found above on the\nearth. Gold, and silver, and copper abound in the giants' land, jewels\nare seldom mentioned, but cattle, and horses, and spoil of dresses, and\narms, and armour, combs, and basins, apples, shields, bows, spears, and\nhorses are all to be gained by a fight with the giants. Still, now and\nthen a giant does some feat quite beyond the power of man, such as\na giant in Barra, who fished up a hero, boat and all, with his\nfishing-rod, from a rock and threw him over his head, as little boys do\n'cuddies' from the pier end. So the giants may be degraded gods, after\nall.\" In the story of Connal, told by Kenneth MacLennan of Pool Ewe,\nthere is a giant who was beaten by the hero of the tale. Connal was the\nson of King Cruachan, of Eirinn, and he set out on his adventures. He\nmet a giant who had a great treasure of silver and gold, in a cave at\nthe bottom of a rock, and the giant used to promise a bag of gold to\nanybody who would allow himself to be let down in a creel or basket,\nand send some of it up. Many people were lost in trying it, for when the\ngiant had let them down, and they had filled the creel, the giant used\nto draw up the creel of gold, and then he would not let it down again,\nand so those who had gone down for it were left to perish in the deep\ncavern. Now Connal agreed to go down, and the giant served him in the\nsame way that he had done the rest, and Connal was left in the cave\namong the dead men and the gold. Now the giant could not get anybody\nelse to go down, and as he wanted more gold, he let his own son down in\nthe creel, and gave him the sword of light, so that he might see his\nway before him. When the young giant got into the cave, Connal took the\nsword of light very quickly, and cut off the young giant's head, Then\nConnal put gold into the bottom of the creel, and got in himself, and\ncovered himself over with gold, and gave a pull at the rope, and the\ngiant drew up the creel, and when he did not see his son, he threw the\ncreel over the back of his head; and Connal took the sword of light,\nand cut off the giant's head, and went away home with the sword and the\ngold.\n\nThere was a King of Lochlin, who had three daughters, and three giants\nstole them, and carried them down under the earth; and a wise man told\nthe King that the only way to get them back was to make a ship that\nwould sail over land or sea. So the King said that anybody who would\nmake such a ship should marry his eldest daughter. There was a widow who\nhad three sons, and the eldest of them said he would go into the forest\nand cut wood, and make the ship; and his mother gave him a large bannock\n(oat cake), and away he went. Then a Fairy came out of the river, and\nasked for a bit of the bannock, but he would not give her a morsel; so\nhe began cutting the wood, but as fast as he cut them down, the trees\ngrew up again, and he went home sorrowful. Then the next brother did the\nsame, and he failed also. Then the youngest brother went, and he took a\nlittle bannock, instead of a big one, and the Fairy came again, and he\ngave her a share of the bannock; and she told him to meet her there in a\nyear and a day, and the ship should be ready. And it was ready, and the\nyoungest son sailed away in it. Then he came to a man who was drinking\nup a river; and the youngest son hired him for a servant. After a time,\nhe found a man who was eating a whole ox, and he hired him too. Then he\nsaw another man, with his ear to the earth, and he said he was hearing\nthe grass grow; so he hired him also. Then they got to a great cave, and\nthe last man listened, and said it was where the three giants kept the\nKing's three daughters, and they went down into the cave, and up to the\nhouse of the biggest giant. \"Ha! ha!\" said the Giant, \"you are seeking\nthe King's daughter, but thou wilt not have her, unless thou hast a man\nwho will drink as much water as I.\" Then the river-drinker set to work,\nand so did the giant, and before the man was half satisfied, the giant\nburst. Then they went to where the second giant was. \"Ho! ho!\" said the\nGiant, \"thou art seeking the King's daughter, but thou wilt not get\nher, if thou hast not a man who will eat as much flesh as I.\" Then\nthe ox-eater began, and so did the giant; but before the man was half\nsatisfied, the giant burst. Then they went on to the third Giant;\nand the Giant said to the youngest son that he should have the King's\ndaughter if he would stay with him for a year and a day as a slave. Then\nthey sent up the King's three daughters, and the three men out of the\ncave; and the youngest son stayed with the giant for a year and a day.\nWhen the time was up the youngest son said, \"Now I am going.\" Then the\nGiant said, \"I have an eagle that will take thee up;\" and he put him on\nthe eagle's back, and fifteen oxen for the eagle to eat on her way up;\nbut before the eagle had got half way up she had eaten all the oxen,\nand came back again. So the youngest son had to stay with the giant for\nanother year and a day. When the time was up, the Giant put him on the\neagle again, and thirty oxen to last her for food; but before she got to\nthe top she ate them all, and so went back again; and the young man had\nto stay another year and a day with the giant. At the end of the third\nyear and a day, the Giant put him on the eagle's back a third time, and\ngave her three score of oxen to eat; and just when they got to the mouth\nof the cave, where the earth began, all the oxen were eaten, and the\neagle was going back again. But the young man cut a piece out of his\nown thigh, and gave it to the eagle, and with one spring she was on the\nsurface of the earth. Then the Eagle said to him, \"Any hard lot that\ncomes to thee, whistle, and I will be at thy side.\" Now the youngest son\nwent to the town where the King of Lochlin lived with the daughters he\nhad got back from the giants; and he hired himself to work at blowing\nthe bellows for a smith. And the King's oldest daughter ordered the\nsmith to make her a golden crown like that she had when she was with the\ngiant, or she would cut off his head. The bellows-blower said he would\ndo it. So the smith gave him the gold, and he shut himself up, and broke\nthe gold into splinters, and threw it out of the window, and people\npicked it up. Then he whistled for the Eagle, and she came, and he\nordered her to fetch the gold crown that belonged to the biggest giant;\nand the Eagle fetched it, and the smith took it to the King's daughter,\nwho was quite satisfied. Then the King's second daughter wanted a silver\ncrown like that she had when she was with the second giant; and the\nKing's youngest daughter wanted a copper crown, like that she had when\nshe was with the third Giant; and the Eagle fetched them both for the\nyoung man, and the smith took them to the King's daughters. Then the\nKing asked the smith how he did all this; and the smith said it was his\nbellows-blower who did it. So the King sent a coach and four horses for\nthe bellows-blower, and the servants took him, all dirty as he was, and\nthrew him into the coach like a dog. But on the way he called the eagle,\nwho took him out of the coach, and filled it with stones, and when the\nKing opened the door, the stones fell out upon him, and nearly killed\nhim; and then, the story says, \"There was catching of the horse gillies,\nand hanging them for giving such an affront to the King.\" Then the King\nsent a second time, and these messengers also were very rude to the\nbellows-blower, so he made the eagle fill the coach with dirt, which\nfell about the King's ears, and the second set of servants were\npunished. The third time the King sent his trusty servant, who was very\ncivil, and asked the bellows-blower to wash himself, and he did so,\nand the eagle brought a gold and silver dress that had belonged to the\nbiggest giant, and when the King opened the coach door there was sitting\ninside the very finest man he ever saw. And the young man told the King\nall that had happened, and they gave him the King's eldest daughter for\nhis wife, and the wedding lasted twenty days and twenty nights.\n\nOne story more, of how a Giant was outwitted by a maiden. It is told\nin the island of Islay. There was a widow, who had three daughters, who\nwent out to seek their fortunes. The two elder ones did not want the\nyoungest, and they tied her in turns to a rock, a peat-stack, and a\ntree, but she got loose and came after them. They got to the house of a\nGiant, and had leave to stop for the night, and were put to bed with the\nGiant's daughters. The Giant came home and said, \"The smell of strange\ngirls is here,\" and he ordered his gillie to kill them; and the gillie\nwas to know them from the Giant's daughters by these having twists\nof amber beads round their necks, and the others having twists of\nhorse-hair. Now Maol o Chliobain, the youngest of the widow's daughters,\nheard this, and she changed the necklaces, and so the gillie came and\nkilled the Giant's daughters, and Maol o Chliobain took the golden cloth\nthat was on the bed, and ran away with her sisters. But the cloth was\nan enchanted cloth, and it cried out to the Giant, who pursued them till\nthey came to a river, and then Maol plucked out a hair of her head, and\nmade a bridge of it; but the Giant could not get over; so he called out\nto Maol, \"And when wilt thou come again?\" \"I will come when my business\nbrings me,\" she said; and then he went home again. They got to a\nfarmer's house, and told him their history. Said the Farmer, who had\nthree sons, \"I will give my eldest son to thy eldest sister; get for me\nthe fine comb of gold and the coarse comb of silver that the Giant has.\"\nSo she went and fetched the combs, and the Giant followed her till they\ncame to the river, which the Giant could not get over; so he went back\nagain. Then the farmer said he would marry his second son to the second\nsister, if Maol would get him the sword of light that the Giant had. So\nshe went to the Giant's house, and got up into a tree that was over the\nwell; and when the Giant's gillie came to draw water, she came down and\npushed him into the well, and carried away the sword of light that he\nhad with him. Then the Giant followed her again, and again the river\nstopped him; and he went back. Now the farmer said he would give his\nyoungest son to Maol o Chliobain herself, if she would bring him the\nbuck the Giant had. So she went, but when she had caught the buck, the\nGiant caught her. And he said, \"Thou least killed my three daughters,\nand stolen my combs of gold and silver; what wouldst thou do to me if\nI had done as much harm to thee as thou to me?\" She said, \"I would make\nthee burst thyself with milk porridge, I would then put thee in a sack,\nI would hang thee to the roof-tree, I would set fire under thee, and\nI would lay on thee with clubs till thou shouldst fall as a faggot\nof withered sticks on the floor.\" So the Giant made milk porridge and\nforced her to drink it, and she lay down as if she were dead. Then the\nGiant put her in a sack, and hung her to the roof tree, and he went away\nto the forest to get wood to burn her, and he left his old mother to\nwatch till he came back. When the Giant was gone Maol o Chliobain began\nto cry out, \"I am in the light; I am in the city of gold.\" \"Wilt thou\nlet me in?\" said the Giant's mother. \"I will not let thee in,\" said\nMaol o Chliobain. Then the Giant's mother let the sack down, and Maol o\nChliobain got out, and she put into the sack the Giant's mother, and the\ncat, and the calf, and the cream-dish; and then she took the buck and\nwent away. When the Giant came back he began beating the sack with\nclubs, and his Mother cried out, \"Tis I myself that am in it.\" \"I know\nthat thyself is in it,\" said the Giant, and he laid on all the harder.\nThen the sack fell down like a bundle of withered sticks, and the Giant\nfound that he had killed his mother. So he knew that Maol o Chliobain\nhad played him a trick, and he went after her, and got up to her just as\nshe leaped over the river. \"Thou art over there, Maol o Chliobain\" said\nthe Giant. \"I am over,\" she said. \"Thou killedst my three bald brown\ndaughters?\" \"I killed them, though it is hard for thee.\" \"Thou stolest\nmy golden comb, and my silver comb?\" \"I stole them.\" \"Thou killedst\nmy bald rough-skinned gillie?\" \"I killed him.\" \"Thou stolest my glaive\n(sword) of light?\" \"I stole it.\" \"Thou killedst my mother?\" \"I killed\nher, though it is hard for thee.\" \"Thou stolest my buck?\" \"I stole it.\"\n\"When wilt thou come again?\" \"I will come when my business brings me.\"\n\"If thou wert over here, and I yonder,\" said the Giant, \"what wouldst\nthou do to follow me?\" \"I would kneel down,\" she said, \"and I would\ndrink till I should dry the river.\" Then the poor foolish Giant knelt\ndown, and he drank till he burst; and then Maol o Chliobain went off\nwith the buck and married the youngest son of the farmer.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.--CONCLUSION: SOME POPULAR TALES EXPLAINED.\n\nThis brings us towards the end--that is, to show how some of our own\nfamiliar stories connect themselves with the old Aryan myths, and also\nto show something of what they mean. There are four stories which we\nknow best--Cinderella, and Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack the Giant\nKiller, and Jack and the Bean Stalk--and the last two of these belong\nespecially to English fairy lore.\n\nNow about the story of Cinderella. We saw something of her in the first\nchapter: How she is Ushas, the Dawn Maiden of the Aryans, and the Aurora\nof the Greeks; and how the Prince is the Sun, ever seeking to make\nthe Dawn his bride, and how the envious stepmother and sisters are the\nClouds and the Night, which strive to keep the Dawn and the Sun apart.\nThe story of Little Red Riding Hood, as we call her, or Little Red Cap,\nas she is called in the German tales, also comes from the same source,\nand refers to the Sun and the Night. You all know the story so well that\nI need not repeat it: how Little Red Riding Hood goes with nice cakes\nand a pat of butter to her poor old grandmother; how she meets on the\nway with a wolf, and gets into talk with him, and tells him where she is\ngoing; how the wolf runs off to the cottage to get there first, and eats\nup the poor grandmother, and puts on her clothes, and lies down in her\nbed; how Little Red Riding hood, knowing nothing of what the wicked\nwolf has done, comes to the cottage, and gets ready to go to bed to her\ngrandmother, and how the story goes on in this way:--\n\n\"Grandmother,\" (says Little Red Riding Hood), \"what great arms you have\ngot!\"\n\n\"That is to hug you the better, my dear.\"\n\n\"Grandmother, what, great ears you have got!\"\n\n\"That is to hear you the better, my dear.\"\n\n\"Grandmother, what great eyes you have got!\"\n\n\"That is to see you the better, my dear.\"\n\n\"Grandmother, what a great mouth you have got!\"\n\n\"That is to eat you up!\" cried the wicked wolf; and then he leaped out\nof bed, and fell upon poor Little Red Riding Hood, and ate her up in a\nmoment.\n\nThis is the English version of the story, and here it stops; but in the\nGerman story there is another ending to it. After the wolf has eaten up\nLittle Red Riding Hood he lies down in bed again, and begins to\nsnore very loudly. A huntsman, who is going by, thinks it is the old\ngrandmother snoring, and he says, \"How loudly the old woman snores; I\nmust see if she wants anything.\" So he stepped into the cottage, and\nwhen he came to the bed he found the wolf lying in it. \"What! do I find\nyou here, you old sinner?\" cried the huntsman; and then, taking aim with\nhis gun, he shot the wolf quite dead.\n\nNow this ending helps us to see the full meaning of the story. One of\nthe fancies in the most ancient Aryan or Hindu stories was that there\nwas a great dragon that was trying to devour the sun, and to prevent him\nfrom shining upon the earth and filling it with brightness and life and\nbeauty, and that Indra, the sun-god, killed the dragon. Now this is the\nmeaning of Little Red Riding Hood, as it is told in our nursery tales.\nLittle Red Riding Hood is the evening sun, which is always described as\nred or golden; the old Grandmother is the earth, to whom the rays of the\nsun bring warmth and comfort. The Wolf--which is a well-known figure for\nthe clouds and blackness of night--is the dragon in another form; first\nhe devours the grandmother, that is, he wraps the earth in thick clouds,\nwhich the evening sun is not strong enough to pierce through. Then, with\nthe darkness of night he swallows up the evening sun itself, and all is\ndark and desolate. Then, as in the German tale, the night-thunder and\nthe storm winds are represented by the loud snoring of the Wolf; and\nthen the Huntsman, the morning sun, comes in all his strength and\nmajesty, and chases away the night-clouds and kills the Wolf, and\nrevives old Grandmother Earth, and brings Little Red Riding Hood to\nlife again. Or another explanation may be that the Wolf is the dark and\ndreary winter that kills the earth with frost, and hides the sun with\nfog and mist; and then the Spring comes, with the huntsman, and drives\nwinter down to his ice-caves again, and brings the Earth and the Sun\nback to life. Thus, you see, how closely the most ancient myth is\npreserved in the nursery tale, and how full of beautiful and hopeful\nmeaning this is when we come to understand it. The same idea is repeated\nin another story, that of \"The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood,\" where the\nMaiden is the Morning Dawn, and the young Prince, who awakens her with\na kiss, is the Sun which comes to release her from the long sleep of\nwintry night.\n\nThe germ of the story of \"Jack and the Bean Stalk\" is to be found in old\nHindu tales, in which the beans are used as the symbols of abundance,\nor as meaning the moon, and in which the white cow is the clay and the\nblack cow is the night. There is also a Russian story in which a bean\nfalls upon the ground and grows up to the sky, and an old man, meaning\nthe sun, climbs up by it to heaven, and sees everything. This comes very\nnear the story of Jack, who sells his cow for a handful of beans, and\nhis mother scatters them in the garden, and throws her apron over her\nhead and weeps, thus figuring the Night and the Rain; and, shielded by\nthe night and watered by the rain, the bean grows up to the sky, and\nJack climbs to the Ogre's land, and carries off the bags of gold, and\nthe wonderful hen that lays a golden egg every day, and the golden harp\nthat plays tunes by itself. It is also possible that the bean-stalk\nwhich grows from earth to heaven is a remembrance, brought by the\nNorsemen, of the great tree, Ygdrassil, which, in the Norse mythology,\nhas its roots in hell and its top in heaven; and the evil Demons dwell\nin the roots, and the earth is placed in the middle, and the Gods live\nin the branches. And there is another explanation given, namely, that\n\"the Ogre in the land above the skies, who was once the All-father,\npossessed three treasures: a harp which played of itself enchanting\nmusic, bags of gold and diamonds, and a hen which daily laid a golden\negg. The harp is the wind, the bags are the clouds dropping the\nsparkling rain, and the golden egg laid every day by the red hen is the\ndawn-produced sun.\"[10] Thus, in the story of \"Jack and the Bean Stalk\"\nwe find repeated the same idea which appears in Northern and Eastern\nfairy tales, and in Greek legends; and so we are carried back to the\nancient Hindu traditions, and to the myths of Nature-worship amongst the\nold Aryan race.\n\nIt is the same with the story of \"Jack the Giant Killer,\" which also has\nits connection with the legends of various countries and all ages, and\nhas also its inner meaning, drawn from the beliefs and traditions of the\nancient past. There is no need to tell you the adventures of Jack the\nGiant Killer; how he kills the Cornish giant Cormoran by tumbling\nhim into a pit and striking him on the head with a pick-axe; how he\nstrangles Giant Blunderbore and his friend by throwing ropes over their\nheads and drawing the nooses fast until they are choked; how he cheats\nthe Welsh giant by putting a block of wood into his own bed for the\ngiant to hammer at and by slipping the hasty-pudding into a leathern\nbag, and then ripping it up, to induce the giant to do the same with his\nown stomach, which he does, and so kills himself; or how he frightens\nthe giant with three heads, and so gets the coat of darkness, the cap of\nknowledge, the shoes of swiftness, and the sword of sharpness, and uses\nthese to escape from other and more terrible masters, and to kill them;\nand gets the duke's daughter for his wife, and lives honoured and happy\never after.\n\nNow Jack the Giant Killer is really one of the very oldest and most\nwidely-known characters in Wonderland. He is the hero who, in all\ncountries and ages, fights with monsters and overcomes them; like Indra,\nthe ancient Hindu sun-god, whose thunderbolts slew the demons of drought\nin the far East; or Perseus, who, in Greek story, delivers the maiden\nfrom the sea-monster; or Odysseus, who tricks the giant Polyphemus, and\ncauses him to throw himself into the sea; or Thor, whose hammer beats\ndown the frost-giants of the North. The gifts bestowed upon Jack are\nfound in Tartar stories, in Hindu tales, in German legends, and in the\nfables of Scandinavia. The cloak is the cloud cloak of Alberich, king\nof the old Teutonic dwarfs, the cap is found in many tales of Fairyland,\nthe shoes are like the sandals of Hermes, the sword is like Arthur's\nExcalibur, or like the sword forged for Sigurd, or that which was\nmade by the horse-smith, Velent, the original of Wayland Smith, of old\nEnglish legends. This sword was so sharp, that when Velent smote his\nadversary it seemed only as if cold water had glided down him. \"Shake\nthyself,\" said Velent; and he shook himself, and fell dead in two\nhalves. The trick which Jack played upon the Welsh giant is related\nin the legend of the god Thor and the giant Skrimner. The giant laid\nhimself down to sleep under an oak, and Thor struck him with his mighty\nhammer. \"Hath a leaf fallen upon me from the tree?\" said the giant. Thor\nstruck him again on the forehead. \"What is the matter,\" said Skrimner,\n\"hath an acorn fallen upon my head?\" A third time Thor struck his\ntremendous blow. Skrimner rubbed his cheek and said, \"Methinks some moss\nhas fallen upon my face.\" The giant had done what Jack did: he put a\ngreat rock upon the place where Thor supposed him to be sleeping, and\nthe rock received all the blows. The whole story probably means no\nmore than this: Jack the Giant Killer is the Wind and the Light which\ndisperses the mists and overthrows the cloud giants; and popular fancy,\nages ago, dressed him out as a person combating real giants of flesh and\nblood, just as in all ages and all countries the forces of nature have\ntaken personal shape, and have given us these tales of miraculous gifts,\nof great deeds done, and of monsters destroyed by men with the courage\nand the strength of heroes.\n\nNow our task is done. We have seen that the Fairy Stories came from\nAsia, where they were made, ages and ages ago, by a people who spread\nthemselves over our Western world, and formed the nations which dwell\nin it, and brought their myths and legends with them; and we have seen,\ntoo, how the ancient meanings are still to be found in the tales\nthat are put now into children's books, and are told by nurses at the\nfireside. And we have seen something of the lessons they teach us,\nand which are taught by all the famous tales of Wonderland; lessons of\nkindness to the feeble and the old, and to birds, and beasts, and all\ndumb creatures; lessons of courtesy, courage, and truth-speaking; and\nabove all, the first and noblest lesson believed in by those who were\nthe founders of our race, that God is very near to us, and is about us\nalways; and that now, as in all times, He helps and comforts those who\nlive good and honest lives, and do whatever duty lies clear before them.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Edward Clodd, _The Childhood of Religions: Embracing a\n    Simple Account of the Birth and Growth of Myths and\n    Legends_, p. 76-77. (1878)]\n\n[Footnote 2: Kingsley's _Heroes_, preface, p. xv.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Oxford Essays:_ \"Comparative Mythology,\" p. 69.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Popular Tales from the Norse_, by George Webbe Dasent, D.C.L.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Popular Titles of the West Highlands_. Orally collected,\n    with a Translation by J. F. Campbell. Edinburgh: Edmonton\n    and Douglas. 4 vols.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, i. 112.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Old Deccan Days_. Miss and Sir Bartle Frere.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Old Deccan Days_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, vol. i., Introduction, p. c.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Baring-Gould, _Myths of the Middle Ages._]","title":"Fairy Tales, Their Origin and Meaning; With Some Account of Dwellers in Fairyland","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":42250}