Chapter 2

[4]Grimm,Kinder- und Hausmärchen. No. 89.

[5]Ballet des Arts, dansé par sa Majesté; le 8 Janvier, 1663.

[6]Madame de Maintenon d'après sa Correspondance.Geffroy, ii. 211. Paris, 1887.

[7]Madame de Maintenon d'après sa Correspondance.Geffroy, i. 322.

[8]Paris: de l'imprimerie de Jean Baptiste Coignard, imprimeur du Roy et de l'Académie Françoise, rue Saint Jacques, la Bible d'or, 1691. The Bibliothèque Nationale and the Arsenal possess copies of this duodecimo of 58 pages. One of the copies is inscribedDonné par Lautheur1691. (Lefèvre.Contes de Charles Perrault, p. 167. Paris,s. a.)

[9]Paul de Saint Victor,Les Contes des Fées, inHommes et Dieux, p. 475. Paris, 1883.

[10]Les Fées du Moyen Age, p. 101. Paris, 1843.

[11]Recueil, 1694.Peau d'Ane, p. 50.Les Souhaits Ridicules, p. 93.Griselidis, p. 233.

[12]Coignard Veuve. Paris.

[13]Dialogues des Morts par feu Messire François de Salignac de la Motte Fénelon, vol. i. p. 23. Paris, 1718. 'L'autre n'est qu'un amas de contes de vieilles.' Achilles thus anticipates Gerland'sAltgriechische Märchen in der Odyssee.

[14]Contes de Ma Mère L'Oye is the title on the frontispiece. The term occurs in Loret,La Muse Historique. (Lettre V. 11 Juin, 1650.)'Mais le cher motif de leur joye,Comme un conte de la Mère Oye,Se trouvant fabuleux et faux,Ils deviendront tous bien pénauts.'

[14]Contes de Ma Mère L'Oye is the title on the frontispiece. The term occurs in Loret,La Muse Historique. (Lettre V. 11 Juin, 1650.)

'Mais le cher motif de leur joye,Comme un conte de la Mère Oye,Se trouvant fabuleux et faux,Ils deviendront tous bien pénauts.'

[15]In herMoralité, Mlle. L'Heritier says,—'Cent fois ma nourrice ou ma mieM'ont fait ce beau recit le soir pres des tisons,Je n'y fais qu'ajouter un peu de broderie.'

[15]In herMoralité, Mlle. L'Heritier says,—

'Cent fois ma nourrice ou ma mieM'ont fait ce beau recit le soir pres des tisons,Je n'y fais qu'ajouter un peu de broderie.'

[16]TheFables d'animauxare probably even older thancontesDiamonds and Toads. A Mouse and a Frog, as well as the Old Woman who survives asLa Fée, take part in the tale as the Kaffirs tell it inThe Story of Five Heads, in Theal'sKaffir Folk Lore, pp. 48, 49. The Kaffir story slides into a form ofBeauty and the Beast. By some unexplained accident a story of Mlle. L'Heritier'sL'Adroite Princesseslipped into editions of Perrault'sContes, in 1721, if not earlier, and holds its place even now.

[17]Histoires ou Contes du Tems Passé, avec des Moralités.A Paris. Chez Claude Barbin, sur le second peron de la Sainte-Chapelle; au Palais. Avec Privilége de sa Majesté, 1697. In 12o. 230 pp. Bibliothèque de M. Cousin, 9677. The frontispiece, by Clouzier, represents an old woman spinning, and telling tales to a man, a girl, a little boy, and a cat which, from its broad and intelligent grin, naturalists believe to be of the Cheshire breed. On a placard is writtenCONTESDEMAMERELOYE.A copy, modified, of the engraving is printed on the cover of M. Charles Deulin'sLes Contes de Ma Mère L'Oye avant Perrault. (Paris, Dentu, 1879.) The design holds its own, with various slight alterations, in the English chap-books ofMother Goose's Tales, even in the present century. There is a vastly 'embroidered' reminiscence of Clouzier in the edition edited by M. Ch. Giraud, for Perrin of Lyon, 1865.

CONTES

DEMA

MERE

LOYE.

A copy, modified, of the engraving is printed on the cover of M. Charles Deulin'sLes Contes de Ma Mère L'Oye avant Perrault. (Paris, Dentu, 1879.) The design holds its own, with various slight alterations, in the English chap-books ofMother Goose's Tales, even in the present century. There is a vastly 'embroidered' reminiscence of Clouzier in the edition edited by M. Ch. Giraud, for Perrin of Lyon, 1865.

[18]Mademoiselle was Elizabeth Charlotte d'Orleans, born 1676, sister of Philippe, Duc de Chartres, later Duc d'Orleans, and Regent. See Paul Lacroix inContes de Perrault, Paris, s. d. (1826.)

[19]In the introduction to the Jouaust edition of 1876 M. Paul Lacroix has probably gone too far in attributing to Perrault's son the complete authorship of the Tales. It is true that the title of the Dutch reprint of 1697 describes the book as 'par le fils de Monsieur Perrault.' The Abbé de Villiers, however, in hisEntretiens sur les Contes des Fées(à Paris chez Jacques Collombat, 1699), makes one of his persons praise the stories 'que l'on attribue au fils d'un célèbre Académicien,' for their freshness and imitation of the style of nurses. Another speaker in the dialogue, The Parisian, replies, 'quelque estime que j'aie pour le fils de l'Académicien, j'ai peine à croire que le père n'ait pas mis la main à son ouvrage,' p. 109. This opinion is probably correct. It seems that Perrault was not troubled by attacks on hisContes, and, in biographical works the tales were long attributed to his son. But M. Paul Lacroix declares that this son was nineteen years of age when the stories appeared. This looks incredible on the face of it. Mlle. L'Heritier could hardly have said about a young man of nineteen, that he 'occupe si spirituellement les amusemens de son enfance' in writing outContes naifs. Nor would a man of that age, in a century too, when the young took on them manly duties so early, describe himself in his dedicatory letter as 'un enfant.' M. Charles Giraud gives the boy's age as ten, without citing his authority. (Lyons Edition of 1865, p. lxxiv.) Moreover the idea of educating a young man of that age by making him write outfairy taleswould have seemed, and would justly have seemed, ridiculous. We must believe that P. Darmancour was a child when the stories were published, and we may agree with the Abbé Villiers that the Academician 'put a hand to them.' M. Lacroix's authority is the discovery by M. Jal of the birth of Pierre Perrault, a son of Charles, who would have been nineteen in 1697. (Jal'sDictionnaire Critique, p. 1321.) But Jal did not find the register of baptism of Mademoiselle Perrault. It follows that he may have also failed to find that of other young Perraults, including 'P. Darmancour.' Each of Perrault's first sons (May 25, 1675; Oct. 20, 1676), was called Charles, the second had a Samuel added to the name. Perrault may also have had two or more Pierres; in any case, unless P. Darmancour were an idiot, his education could not have been conducted by making him write out nursery tales at nineteen.

[20]Even in the popular mouth almost any formula may glide into almost any other, and there is actually a female Hop o' My Thumb in Aberdeenshirefolklore.But Madame d'Aulnoy's seems a wanton confusion. The Aberdeen femaleHop o' My ThumbisMalty Whuppy, Folk Lore Journal, p. 68, 1884. ForFinette Cendron, seeNouveaux Contes des Fées, par Madame D——, Amsterdam, Roger, 1708.

[21]Paul de Saint Victor,Hommes et Dieux, p. 474.

[22]L'Histoire de Mélusine(Barbin, Paris, 1698) is dedicated likeHistoires et Contes du Tems PassétoMademoiselle. The author says, 'Si tost que la plus célèbre des Fées a sceu que votre Altesse Royale avoit eu la bonté de donner de favourables audiences aux Fées du bas ordre, et qu'elle avoit pris quelque plaisir au recit de leurs avanteures,' she came forward and asked Mademoiselle to patronise her own. A burlesque 'Privilége en faveur des Fées dans ce temps où l'on a tant d'engouement pour les Contes des Fées' ends the volume.

Fairies and Ogres.

The stories of Perrault are usually called 'Fairy Tales,' and they deserve the name more than mostcontes, except the artificial contemporary tales, because in them Fairies or Fées do play a considerable part. Thus there were seven Fairies, and an old one 'supposed dead or enchanted,' in theSleeping Beauty. There is a Fairy Godmother inCinderella, and, as will be shown in the study onCinderella, she takes the part usually given, in traditional versions, to a cow, a sheep, or a dead mother who has some mystic connection with the beast. The same remarks apply to the Fairy Godmother inPeau d'Ane. She, too, does for the heroine what beasts do in purely popular European variants, and in analogous tales from South Africa.

The fairies inRiquet of the Tuftare of little importance, as the narrative is not really traditional, but of literary invention for the most part. The fairy inThe Two Wishesis not a fairy in the South African variants where divers magical or animal characters appear, nor canMother Hollein Grimm (24) be properly styled a fairy. Thus, of all Perrault's Fairies only the Fairies of theSleeping Beauty(repeated inRiquet of the Tuft) answer to Fairies as they appear in genuine popular traditions, under such names as Moirai, or Hathors, in ancient Greek, and Egyptian versions. These beings attend women in child-bed, as they attended Althea when she bore Meleager, and they predict the fortunes of the infant.

Perrault's fairy godmothers (unlike the fairies of real legend) are machinery of his own, and even he dispenses with Fairies altogether inBlue Beard,Hop o' my Thumb, andPuss in Boots; while inLes Trois Souhaitsthe mythological machinery of the classics is employed, and Jupiter does what a fairy might have done. It is true that the key of the forbidden door, inBlue Beard, is said to beFée; but this only means that, like the seven-leagued Boots inHop o' my Thumb('elles estoient Fées'), the key has magical qualities. The part of Fairies, then, is very restricted, even in Perrault, while, in traditionalMärchenall over the world, Fairies or beings analogous to the Fairies appear comparatively seldom.

In spite of this the Fairies have so successfully asserted their title over popular tales, that a few words on their character and origin seem not out of place. Fairies are doubtless much older than their name; as old as the belief in spirits of woods, hills, lonely places, and the nether world. The familiar names,fées,fades, are apparently connected withFatum, the thing spoken, and withFata, the Fates who speak it, and the GodFatuus, or Faunus, and his sister or wifeFatua[23]. Preller quotes theFatuaeas spiritual maidens of the forests and elements, adding the other names ofSagaeandSciae, to Fatuae, and Fata[24]. He compares the Slavonic Wilis: and, to be brief, the Apsaras of India, the Nereids of ancient and modern Greece, and the Good Ladies and Fairies of Scotland, with many of the Melanesian Vuis, forest-haunting spirits, are all of the same class, are fairy beings informing the streams and wilds. To these good folk were ascribed gifts of prophecy, commonly exercised beside the cradle of infancy,deabus illis quae fata nascentibus canunt, et dicuntur Carmentes[25]. As Maury shows[26], the local Fairies of Roman Gaul were propitiated with altars:

FATISDERVONIBUSV. S. L. M. M. RVFNVSSEVERVS.

Just as the Scotch Fairies are euphemistically styled 'The Good Folks,' 'The People of Peace,' the 'Good Ladies,' so it befell the daughter of Faunus. She was styled 'The Good Goddess,' and her real name was tabooed[27].

It was natural that when Christianity reached Gaul, where the native spirits of woods and wells had acquired the name ofFata, these minor goddesses should survive the official heathen religion. The temples of the high gods were overthrown, or turned into churches, but who could destroy all the woodland fanes of the Fata, who could uproot the dread of them from the hearts of peasants? Saints and Councils denounced the rural offerings to fountains and the roots of trees, but the secret shame-faced worship lasted deep into the middle ages[28]. It is conjectured by Maury, as by Walckenaer (Lettres sur les Contes de Fées; Paris, 1826), that the functions of prophetic Gaulish Maidens and Druidesses were confused with those of the Fairies. Certainly superstitious ideas of many kinds came under the general head of belief inFata,Faes,Fadae, and theFéesof the forest of Broceliande. TheFéesanswered, as in theSleeping Beauty, to GreekMoiraior EgyptianHathors[29]. They nursed women in labour: they foretold the fate of children. It is said that when a Breton lady was giving birth to a child, a banquet for theFéeswas set in the neighbouring chamber[30]. But, in popular superstition, if not in Perrault's tales, theFéeshad many other attributes. They certainly inherited much from the pre-Christian idea of Hades. In the old MS.Prophesia Thomae de Erseldoun[31]the subterranean fairy-world is the under-world of pagan belief. In the mediæval form of Orpheus and Eurydice (Orfeo and Heurodis), it is not the King of the Dead, but the king of Fairy that carries off the minstrel's bride. Fairyland, when Orpheus visits it, is like Homer's Hades.

'And sum thurch the bodi hadde woundeWives ther lay on childe beddeSum dede and sum awedde.'

In the same way Chaucer calls Pluto 'King of Fayrie,' and speaks of 'Proserpine and all her fayrie,' in theMerchant's Tale. Moreover Alison Pearson, when she visited Elfland, found there many of the dead, among them Maitland of Lethington, and one of the Buccleughs. For all this dealing with fairies and the dead was Alison burned (Scott,Border Minstrelsy, ii. 137-152).

Because the mediæval Fairies had fallen heir to much of the pre-Christian theory of Hades, it does not follow, of course, that the Fairies were originally ancestral ghosts. This origin has been claimed for them, however, and it is pointed out that the stone arrow-heads of an earlier race are, when found by peasants, called 'elf-shots,' and attributed to the Fairies. Now the real owners and makers were certainly a race dead and gone, as far as a race can die. But probably the ownership of the arrows by elves is only the first explanation that occurs to the rural fancy. On the other hand, it is candid to note that the Zulu Amatongo, certainly 'ancestral ghosts,' have much in common with Scotch and Irish fairies. 'It appears to be supposed,' says Dr. Callaway, 'that the dead become "good people," as the dead among the Amazulu become Amatongo, and, in the funeral processions of the "good people" which some profess to see, are recognised the forms of those who have lately died, as Umkatshana saw his relatives among the Abapansi,' and as Alison saw Maitland of Lethington and Buccleuch in Elfland. This Umkatshana followed a deer into a hole in the ground, where he found dead men whom he knew[32]. Compare Campbell,Tales from the West Highlands, ii. 56, 65, 66, 106, where it is written, 'the Red Book of Clanranald is said not to have been dug up, but foundonthe moss. It seemed as if the ancestors sent it.'

Those rather gloomy fairies of the nether-world have little but the name in common with the fairies of Herrick, of theMidsummer Night's Dream, and of Drayton'sNymphidia. The gay and dancing elves have a way, in Greece, of making girls 'dance with the Nereids' till they dance themselves to death. In the same way it is told of Anne Jefferies, of St. Teath in Cornwall (born 1626), that one had seen her 'dancing in the orchard, among the trees, and that she informed him she was then dancing with the Fairies.' She lived to be seventy, in spite of the Fairies and the local magistrates who tried her case (Scott,B.M.ii. 156).

Perrault's fairies do not wed mortal men, in this differing from the Indian Apsaras, and the fairies of New Zealand and of Wales. (Taylor'sNew Zealand, p. 143. Compare story of Urvasi and Pururavas, Max Müller,Selected Essays, i. 408. A number of other examples of Fairy loves, including one from America, is given inCustom and Myth, pp. 68-86.)

On a general view of the evidence, it appears as if the fashion forfairytales, in Perrault's time, had made rather free with the oldFataorFées. Perrault sins much less than the Comtesse d'Aulnoy, or the Comtesse de Murat, but even he brings in aFatua ex machinawhere popular tradition used other expedients.

As to the Ogres in Perrault, a very few words may suffice. They are simply the survival, in civilisedfolklore, of the cannibals,Rakshasas,Weendigoes, and man-eating monsters who are the dread of savage life in Africa, India, and America. Concerning them, their ferocity, and their stupidity, enough will be said in the study ofLe Petit Poucet. As to the name of Ogre, Walckenaer derives it fromOigour, a term for the Hungarian invaders of the ninth century, a Tartar tribe[33]. Hence he concludes that the Ogre-stories are later than the others, though, even if 'Ogre' meant 'Tartar,' only the name is recent, and the Cannibal tales are of extreme antiquity. Littré, on the other hand, derivesogrefromOrcus,cum Orco rationem haberemeaning to risk one's life. Hop o' my Thumb certainly risked his, when he had to do 'cum Orco,' if Orcus beOgre(Lettres sur les Contes de Fées, p. 169-172).

[23]Fauno fuit uxor nomine Fatua. Justin, xliii. I. Preller,R. M.I. 385.

[24]Römische Mythologie, i. 100. Berlin, 1881.

[25]Preller,op. cit.ii. 194, quoting Tertullian,De An.39, and Augustine,Civitas Dei, iv. 11.

[26]Les Fées du Moyen Age, p. 13. Paris, 1843.

[27]Quam quidam, quod nomine dici prohibitum fuerat,Bonam Deamappellatam volunt. Servius,Æneid, viii. 315.

[28]Maury,Les Fées du Moyen Age, pp. 15, 16, and his authorities in theCapitulairesandLife of Saint Eloi.

[29]Amyot, in his Plutarch, actually rendersMoiraibyFées(1567).

[30]Maury, p. 31.

[31]Scott,Border Minstrelsy, iii. 381.

[32]Nursery Tales of the Zulus, p. 317;Amatongo, p. 227.

[33]In popular French versions the Ogre is often calledLe Sarrasinto this day (Sébillot inMélusine, May 5, 1887).

NOTES ON THE

AND THEIR VARIANTS.

Les Trois Souhaits.

The Three Wishes.

The story ofThe Three Wishesis very valuable as an illustration of the difficulties which baffle, and perhaps will never cease to baffle, the student of popular Tales and their diffusion. The fundamental idea is that a supernatural being of one sort or another can grant to a mortal the fulfilment of a wish, or wishes, and that the mortal can waste the boon. Now probably this idea might occur to any human mind which entertained the belief in communication between men, and powerful persons of any sort, Gods, Saints, Tree-spirits, fairies,folletsor the like. The mere habit of prayer, universally human as it is, contains the germs of the conception. But the notion, as we find it in story, branches out into a vast variety of shapes, and the problem is to determine which of these, or whether any one of these is the original type, and whether the others have been adapted or burlesqued from that first form, and whether these processes have been the result of literary transmission, and literary handling, or of oral traditions and popular fancy. Perhaps a compact statement of some (by no means all) of the shapes ofThe Three Wishesmay here be serviceable.

1. The granters of the Wishes are gods. The gift is accepted in a pious spirit, and the desires are noble, and worthy of the donors.

This tale occurs in Ovid,Metamorphoses, viii. 610-724. Baucis and Philemon entertain the gods, who convert their hut into a Temple. Theywish(the man is the speaker) to serve the gods in this fane, and that neither may outlive the other:

Nec conjugis umquamBusta meae videam: neu sim tumulandus ab illa.

Their wishes are fulfilled.

2. In German popular tales, this idea appears, with additions, inRich and Poor(Grimm 87). Here the virtue of the good is contrasted with the folly of the bad. The Poor man hospitably receives our Lord, and, for his three wishes, chooses eternal happiness, health and daily bread, and a new house. The Rich man rejects our Lord, but getting a second chance, loses his temper, wishes his horse dead, the saddle on his wife's back, and—the saddle off again!

Now popular fancy has been better pleased with the burlesque ideas in the second part of this fable, than with the serious moral; and most of the tales turn on burlesque wishes, leaving the virtuous wishers out of the story. The narrative also shews a Protean power of altering details, the wishes vary, the power who grants the wish is different in differentMärchen, the person whose folly wastes the wish may be the husband, or may be the wife.

A very old form of the Wasted Wish, originally no doubt a popular form, won its way into literature in thePantschatantra. The tale has also been annexed by Buddhism, as Buddhism annexed most tales, by the simple process of making Sakya Muni the hero or narrator of the adventures.

ThePantschatantrais a collection of fables in Sanskrit. In its original form, according to Mr. Max Müller, its date can be fixed, by aid of an ancient Persian translation, as previous to 550A.D.'At that time a collection somewhat like the Pankatantra, though much more extensive, must have existed[34].' By various channels the stories of thePantschatantrareached Persia, Arabia, Greece, and thence were rendered into Latin, and again, were paraphrased in different vernacular languages, by literary people. But when we find, as we do, a story in thePantschatantraand a similar or analogous story in the ArabicBook of Sindibad(earlier than the tenth century), and again in the GreekSyntipas(eleventh and twelfth century), and again in Latin, or Spanish, or French literature, we cannot, perhaps, always be sure that the tale is derived from India through literary channels. Whoever will compare theWishstory of theDouble-headed Weaverin thePantschatantra[35]withThe Three Wishesin theBook of Sindibad(Comparetti.Folk Lore Society, 1882, p. 147), and again, with Marie de France's twenty-fourth Fable (Dou Vilain qui prist un folet), and yet again with Perrault'sTrois Souhaits, and, lastly, with the popular tales among Grimm's variants, will find many perplexing problems before him[36]. The differences in the details and in the conduct of the story are immense. Did the various authors borrow little but the main conception—the wasted wishes? Are the variations the result of literary caprice and choice? Has the story travelled from India by two channels,—(1) literary, inPantschatantra, andSyntipaswith the translations; (2) oral, by word of mouth from people to people? Are thepopularversions derived from literature, or from oral tradition? Is the oldest literary version, that of thePantschatantra, more akin to theoriginalversion than some of the others which meet us later? Finally, might not the idea of wasted wishes occur independently to minds in different ages and countries, and may not some of the versions be of independent origin, and in no way borrowed from India? Is there, indeed, any reason at all for supposing that so simple a notion was invented, once for all, in India?

It is easy to ask these questions, it is desirable to bear them in mind, so that we may never lose sight of the complexity and difficulty of the topic. But it is practically impossible to answer them once for all.

The nature of the problem may now be illustrated by a few examples. In the story of thePantschatantra, the granter of the wish (there is but one wish) is a tree-dwelling spirit. A very stupid weaver one day broke part of his loom. He went out to cut down a tree near the shore, meaning to fashion it for his purpose, when a spirit, who dwelt in the timber, cried, 'Spare this tree.' The weaver said he must starve if he did not get the wood, when the spirit replied, 'Ask anything else you please.' The barber, being consulted, advised the weaver to wish to be king. The weaver's wife cried, 'No, stay as you are, but ask for two heads, and four hands, to do double work.' He got his wish, but was killed by the villagers, who very naturally supposed him to be a Rakshasa, or ogre. The moral is enunciated by the barber, 'Let no man take woman's counsel.' The poor woman's lack of immoderate ambition might seem laudable to some moralists.

Here the peculiarities are: A tree-ghost grants the wish.

There is only one wish.

It is made on a woman's advice.

It causes the death of the wisher[37].

The story is next found in the various forms of theBook of Sindibad, Greek, Hebrew, Persian, Arabic, and old Spanish, a book mentioned by all Arabic authors of the tenth century, and of Indian and Buddhistic origin[38]. As told in the various forms ofSindibad, the tale ofThe Three Wishestakes this shape. A man has a friendly spirit (a she-devil in the SpanishLibro de los Engannos), who is obliged to desert his company, but leaves him certain formulæ, by dint of repeating which he will have Three Wishes granted to him. The tree-spirit has disappeared, the one wish has become three. The man consults with his wife, who suggests that he should desire, not two heads and four hands, but an obscene and disgusting bodily transformation of another sort. He wishes the wish, is horrified by the result, and, on the woman's hint, asks to have all that embarrasses him removed. The granting of the wish leaves him with 'a frightfulminusquantity,' and he expends the third wish in getting restored to his pristine and natural condition. The woman explains that she had not counselled him to desire wealth, lest he should weary of her and desert her. This, at least, is the conclusion in the Hebrew version, in theParables of Sandabas(Deulin,Contes de Ma Mère L'Oye, p. 71).

How are we to account for this metamorphosis of the story in thePantschatantra? Is the alteration a piece of Arabian humour? Was there another Indian version corresponding to the shape of the tale in theBook of Sindibad? The questions cannot be answered with our present knowledge.

Another change, and a very remarkable one, occurs in theFablesof Marie de France. Of Marie not much is known. In theConclusionof her Fables, she says—

'Au finement de cest escritK'én Romanz ai turné et dit,Me numerai par remembraunceMarie ai num, si sui de Fraunce.* * * * *Pur amur le cumte WillaumeLe plus vaillant de cest Royaume,M'entremis de cest livre feireE de l'Angleiz en Roman treire,Ysopet apeluns ce livreQu'il traveilla et fist escrire;De Griu en Latin le turna.Li Rois Henris qui moult l'amaLe translata puis en EngleizE jeo l'ai rimé en Franceiz.'

'Au finement de cest escritK'én Romanz ai turné et dit,Me numerai par remembraunceMarie ai num, si sui de Fraunce.

* * * * *

Pur amur le cumte WillaumeLe plus vaillant de cest Royaume,M'entremis de cest livre feireE de l'Angleiz en Roman treire,Ysopet apeluns ce livreQu'il traveilla et fist escrire;De Griu en Latin le turna.Li Rois Henris qui moult l'amaLe translata puis en EngleizE jeo l'ai rimé en Franceiz.'

That is to say, King Henry had translated into English a collection of fables andcontesattributed to Æsop, and Marie rendered the English into French. Now Æsop certainly did not write the story ofThe Three Wishes. The text before Marie was probably a mere congeries of tales and fables, some of the set usually attributed to Æsop, some from various other sources. The Latin version, the model of the English version, was that assigned to a certain, or uncertain Romulus, whom Marie, in her preface, calls an emperor. Probably he borrowed from Phædrus, though he boasts that he rendered his fables out of the Greek. M. de Roquefort thinks he did not flourish before the eleventh or twelfth century[39]. Who wasli rois Henriswho turned the fables into Marie's English text? She lived under our Henry III. Perhaps conjecture may prefer Henry Beauclerk, our Henry I.

In any case Marie manifestly did render the fables, or some of the fables, inLe dit d'Ysopetout of English. The presence of English words in her French seems to raise a strong presumption in favour of the truth of the assertion. One of these English words occurs in her form ofThe Three Wishes(Fable xxiv), calledDou Vilain qui prist un Folet, alsoDes Troiz Oremens, orDu Vileins et de sa Fame. A Vilein captured a Folet (fairy or brownie?) who granted him Three Wishes. TheFoletresembles the tree-bogle of thePantschatantra. The vilein gave two wishes to his wife. Long they lived without using the wishes. One day, when they had a marrow bone for dinner, and found it difficult to extract the marrow, the wife wished that her husband had—

'tel bec came li plereitE cum li Huite cox aveit.'

The Huite cox is an English word, woodcock, in disguise. The husband, in a rage, wished his wife a woodcock's beak also, and there they sat, each with a very long bill, and two wishes wasted. There Marie leaves them—

'Deus Oremanz unt ja perduzQue nus n'en est a bien venuz,'

'with two wishes lost, and no good gained thereby.' Manifestly the third wish was expended in a restoration of human noses to each of them. The moral is that ill befalls them—

'qui trop creient autrui parole.'

We naturally wonder whether this version was borrowed from one or other shape ofSyntipas. If it was, did the change come in the Latin handling of it, or in the English? Or is it not possible that the version worked on by Marie had apopularorigin, whether derived by oral transmission from some popular Indian shape of the story, which had filtered through to the West, or the child of native Teutonic wit? There seems to be no certain criterion in a case like this. Certainly no mediæval wag was likely to alter, out of modesty, the form of the tale inSyntipasand its derivatives, though Marie would not have rhymed that offensiveconteif she had met with it in the English collection. Unluckily one is not acquainted with any version ofThe Three Wishesamong backward and remote races, American or African. If such a version were known (and it may, of course, exist), we might argue that the tale was 'universally human.' There is nothing in it, as told inPantschatantra, to make it seem essentially and peculiarly Indian, and incapable of having been invented elsewhere.

A fourteenth-century version (quoted by M. Deulin fromFabliaux et Contespublished by St. Méon, vol. iv. p. 386) amplifies all that is least refined inSendabarand inSindibad. St. Martin grants the wishes, there are four of them, and nobody is one penny the better. With Philippe de Vigneules (1505-1514, the seventy-eighth of his hundredNouvelles), God grants three wishes to a wedded pair. The woman wishes a new leg for her pot, the man wishes herle pied au ventre, and then wishes it back again. M. Deulin found this form in living popular tradition, at Leuze in Hainaut.

TheSouhaitsof La Fontaine (Fables, vii. 6) has this peculiarity, that the giver of the wishes, as in Marie de France and inSindibad, is a Follet or brownie, or familiar spirit, obliged to leave his friends. He offers them three wishes; first, they ask for wealth and are embarrassed by their riches, then for a restoration of their mediocrity, then for wisdom.

'C'est un trésor qui n'embarrasse point.'

La Fontaine's source is obscure; had he knownSyntipas, he might (or might not) have introduced the story among hisContes. Perhaps it was too rude even for that unabashed collection.

As for Perrault, he probably drew from a popular tradition hisAune de Boudin. Collin de Plancy (Œuvres Choisies de Ch. Perrault, Paris, 1826, 240) gives a curious rustic version. Three brothers dance with the Fairies, who offer them a wish apiece. The eldest, as heir of the paternal property, wants no more, but, as wish he must, asks that their calf may cure the colic of every invalid who seizes it by the tail. (How manifestly Indian in origin is this introduction of the sacred beast whose tail is grasped by the pious Hindoo in his latest hours!) The youngest brother wishes the horns of cow and calf on his brother's head, the second wishes a bull's head on his brother's shoulders, and the Fairies make these wild wishes of none avail.

Manifestly the fundamental idea is capable of infinite transformations, literary or popular: a good example is the play ofLe Bucheron, by Guichard and Philidor, acted in 1763.

The story has no connection with the three successful wishes by aid of which the devil is defeated in a number of popular tales belonging to a different cycle. All these are inspired, however, by the great god Wunsch, who presides over Wishing Gates.

'Would I could wish my wishes all to rest,And know to wish the wish that should be best,

says Clough, better inspired than Perrault'sBucheron.

[34]Selected Essays, i. 504.

[35]Benfey, ii. 341.

[36]SeePoésies de Marie de France, Poète Anglo-Normande du xiiieSiècle, vol. ii. p. 140. Paris, 1820.

[37]Benfey,Pantschatantra, ii. 341.

[38]Comparetti,Book of Sindibad, p. 3. Benfey,Pantschatantra, i. 38.

[39]Poésies de Marie de France, vol. ii. p. 53.

La Belle au Bois Dormant.

The Sleeping Beauty.

The idea of a life which passes ages in a secular sleep is as old as the myth of Endymion. But it would be difficult to name any classical legend which closely corresponds with the story of the Sleeping Beauty. The first incident of importance is connected with the very widely spread belief in the Fates, or Moirai, or Hathors (in Ancient Egypt), or fairies, who come to the bedside of Althæa, or of the Egyptian Queen, or to the christening of the child inLa Belle au Bois Dormant, and predict the fortunes of the newly born. In an Egyptian papyrus of the Twentieth Dynasty there is a tale, beginning, just like Perrault's, with the grief of a king and queen, who have no child, or at least no son. Instead of goingà toutes les Eaux du monde, they appeal to the gods, who hear their prayers, and the queen gives birth to a little boy. Beside his cradle the Hathors announce that he shall perish by a crocodile, a serpent, or a dog. The story, in Egyptian, now turns into one of the common myths as to the impossibility of evading Destiny[40]. In Perrault'sConte, of course, fairies take the place of the Fates from whom perhapsFéeis derived. When the fairies have met comes in another old incident—one of them, like Discord at the wedding of Peleus, has not been invited, and she prophesies the death of the Princess. This is commuted, by a friendly fay, into a sleep of a hundred years: the sleep to be caused, as the death was to have been, by a prick from a spindle. The efforts of the royal family to evade the doom by proscribing spindles are as futile as usual in these cases. The Princess and all her people fall asleep, and the story enters the cycle of which Brynhild's wooing, in theVolsung's Saga, is the heroic type. Brynhild is thus described by the singing wood-peckers,—

'Soft on the fellA shield-may sleepeth,The lime-trees' red plaguePlaying about her.The sleep-thorn set OdinInto that maidenFor her choosing in warThe one he willed not.'

Sigurd is bidden to awaken her, and this he does, rending her mail with his magic sword. But the rest of the tragic story does not correspond withLa Belle au Bois Dormant. Perrault's tale has its closest companion in Grimm'sLittle Briar Rose(90), which lacks the conclusion about the wicked mother-in-law. Her conduct, again, recurs in various tales quite unlikeLa Bellein general plot. The incident of the sleep-thorn, or something analogous, occurs inSurya Bai(Old Deccan Days), where a prick from the poisoned nail of a demon acts as the soporific. To carry poison under the nail is one of the devices of the Voudou or Obi man in Hayti. Surya Bai, when wakened and married by a Rajah, is the victim of the jealousy, not of an ogress mother-in-law, but of another wife, andthatstory glides into a form of the Egyptian taleThe Two Brothers(Maspero, i.). The sleep-thorn, or poisoned nail, takes again in Germany the shape of the poisoned comb.Snow-whiteis wounded therewith by the jealousy of a beautiful step-mother, with a yet fairer step-daughter (Grimm, 53). In mediæval romances, as inPerceforest, an incident is introduced whereby the sleeping maid becomes a mother. Lucina, Themis, and Venus take the part of the Fairies, Fates, or Hathors. In the NeapolitanPentameronethe incident of the girl becoming a mother in her sleep is repeated. The father (as inSurya Bai) is a married man, and the girl, Thalia, suffers from the jealousy of the first wife, as Surya Bai does. The first wife wants to eat Thalia's children,à diverses sauces, which greatly resembles Perrault'ssauce Robert. The children of Thalia are named Sun and Moon, while those of the Sleeping Beauty are L'Aurore et Le Jour. The jealous wife is punished, like the Ogre mother-in-law[41].

While the idea of a long sleep may possibly have been derived from the repose of Nature in winter, it seems useless to try to interpretLa Belle au Bois Dormantas a Nature myth throughout. The story, like allcontes, is a patchwork of incidents, which recur elsewhere in different combinations. Even the names Le Jour and L'Aurore only appear in such late and literary forms as thePentamerone, where they are mixed up with Thalia, clearly a fanciful name for the mother, as fanciful as that of the sleeping Zellandine, who marries the god Mars inPerceforest. As an example of the length to which some mythologists will go, may be mentioned M. André Lefèvre's discovery that Poufle, the dog of the Sleeping Beauty, is the Vedic Sarama in search of the Dawn.

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