CHAPTER II.
Discussion on the Source of Fiction Renewed—The King and the Glutton—Guido, the Perfect Servant—The Middle-Age Allegories—Pliny and Mandeville’s Wonders Allegorized.
“Surely,” said Henry Herbert, when the friends were again assembled, “surely the poems of the northern Scalds, the legends of the Arabians of Spain, the songs of the Armoricans, and the classics of the ancient world, have been the sources of the most prevalent fictions.”
“The sources from which the monks themselves compiled these stories, but by no means the original sources,” replied Lathom. “Theimmediatesource must be sought in even earlier times and more eastern climes. In some instances perverted notions of Scripture characters furnished the supernatural agency of the legend; in the majority the machinery came direct from the East, already dilated and improved. In many parts of the old Scriptures we learn how familiar the nations of the East were with spells; and the elevation of Solomon Daoud to the throne of the Genii and to the lordship of the Talisman, proves thetraditionalintercourse between God’s own people and the nations of the far East.”
“The theory is probable,” said Thompson. “We can easily conceive how the contest of David and Goliath may have formed the foundation of many a fierce encounter between knight and giant, and the feats of Samsonbeen dilated into the miracles of the heroes of chivalry.”
“There is one very pertinent instance of such a conversion in this very book. In the Book of Tobit, which is indeed referred to in the application of the tale of ‘The Emperor Vespasian and the Two Rings,’ we find an angel in the place of a saint, enchantments, antidotes, distressed damsels, demons, and nearly all the recognized machinery of fiction. The vagaries of the Talmud, clearly derived from Eastern sources, were no small treasure on which to draw for wonders and miracles. And when we find all the machinery of the East in the poems of the Scalds, we cannot but perceive how much more reasonable it is to suppose the cold conceptions of the Northern bards to have been fed from the East, than the warm imaginations of the East to have drawn their inspiration from the North.”
“Very plausible, Lathom,” replied Herbert; “but still this objection must not be neglected—the ignorance and misrepresentation of the religions of the East, shown through every page of the popular legends of the chivalric age.”
“An objection of apparent weight, I will admit; and yet may it not have been the aim of the Christian writers to represent the infidels in the worst possible light, to pervert their creed, to exaggerate their vices? The charge of idolatry, and the adoration of the golden image of Mahomet, may have been mere pious frauds.”
“Admitting even this apology,” rejoined Herbert, “the difference of religion in the East and North seems another objection. The Romans adopted the legends of Greece, and naturalized them. With the mythology came the religious rites appendant to it. How did it happen that the Scalds adopted the one without falling into the other error?”
“Are the cases similar?” replied Lathom; “were thenations alike? Was there no difference of predisposition in the Romans and the Scalds as to the adoption of the mythologies of the East and Greece? Had not long intercourse in the one case prepared the Romans to receive? did it not agree with their preconceived notions? Such was not the case with the Northern nations. Children, and rude children of nature, they were in no way prepared for a similar effect; but, seizing on the prominent features of the legends presented to them, they engrafted them on their own wild and terrible stories, adding to the original matter in some cases, and rejecting portions of it in others.”
“Well, I will not carry this discussion further,” said Herbert, “for fear of losing a story to-night; but I by no means give up my sources of didactic fictions.”
“Well, then, a truce for this evening. I will read the tale of The King and the Glutton, by which the old monk wished to illustrate the moral, that men are blinded by their own avarice.”