Chapter 30

E korole nao c'horrigan,Bleunvek ho bleo, gwisket gloan,Kelc'h ar feunteun, d'al loar-gann.Villemarqué,Barzan-Breiz, i. 8.Thec'hexpresses the guttural.[476]This manifestly alludes to Lanval or Graelent, or similar stories.[477]It follows, in M. de Roquefort's edition,"Deci ne muez fu ou désis."Of which we can make no sense, and the French translation gives no aid. In the Harleian MS. it is"De cine muez fu ou de sis,"which is more intelligible.[478]This tends to prove that this is a translation from the Breton; for Innocent III., in whose pontificate the cup was first refused to the laity, died in 1216, when Henry III., to whom Marie is supposed to have dedicated her Lais, was a child.[479]The same was the case with the Wünschelweib (Wish-woman) of German romance.Swenne du einêst wünschest nâch mir,Sô bin ich endelîchen bî dír,says the lady to the Staufenberger. She adds,Wâr ich wil dâ bin ich,Den Wunsch hât mir Got gegeben.He finds it to be true,Er wûnschte nach der frouwen sîn,Bî îm sô war diu schöne sîn.Grimm,Deut. Mythol., p. 391.[480]In the Shâh-nâmeh, Siyawush, when he foresees his own death by the treachery of Afrasiâb, tells his wife Ferengis, the daughter of that monarch, that she will bear a son whom she is to name Ky Khosroo, and who will avenge the death of his father: see Görres, Heldenbuch von Iran, ii. 32.[481]Desi k'a une hoge vint:En cele hoge ot une entree.M. de Roquefort, in his Glossaire de la Langue Romaine, correctly rendershogebycolline. In his translation of this Lai he renders it bycabane, not, perhaps, understanding how a hill could be pervious. The story, however, of Prince Ahmed, and the romance of Orfeo and Heurodis (see above, p.52), are good authority on this point: see also above, pp.405,408.[482]In the Harleian MS. Mandement. M. de Roquefort confesses his total ignorance of this people; we follow his example. May it not, however, be connected withmanant, and merely signify people, inhabitants?[483]Roman de Roux,v.ii. 234.[484]See Roquefort, Supplément au Glossaire de la Langue Romaines. v.Perron.[485]Barzan-Breiz, Chants Populaires de la Bretagne, recueilles et publiés par Th. Hersart de la Villemarqué. Paris, 1846. This is a most valuable work and deserving to take its place with the Ballads of Scotland, Scandinavia, and Servia, to none of which is it inferior. To the credit of France the edition which we use is the fourth. How different would the fate of such a work be in this country![486]We make this distinction, because in the ballads in which the personage is a Fay, the word used is Korrigan or Korrig, while in that in which the Dwarfs are actors, the words are Korr and Korred. But the truth is, they are all but different forms of Korr. They are all the same, singular and plural. The Breton changes its first consonant like the Irish: see p.371. We also meet with Crion, Goric, Couril, as names of these beings, but they are only forms of those given above.[487]Hence we may infer that they came originally from Scandinavia, communicated most probably by the Normans.[488]Stone-tables. They are called by the same name in Devon and Cornwall; in Irish their appellation is Cromleach.[489]Barzan-Breiz., i. xlix. 69.[490]Welsh.Breton.Gweliz mez ken gwelet derven,Gweliz vi ken guelet iar wenn,Gweliz vi ken gwelet iar wenn,Gweliz mez ken gwelet gwezen.Erioez ne wiliz evelhenn.Gweliz mez ha gweliz gwial,Gweliz derven e Koat Brezal,Biskoaz na weliz kemend all.[491]The tailor cries "Shut the door! Here are the littleDuzof the night" (Setu ann Duzigou nouz), and St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, c. xxiii.) speaks of "Daemones quosDusciosGalli nuncupant." It may remind us of our own wordDeuce.[492]In the original the word is Korrigan, but see above, p.431.[493]From an article signed H—Y in a cheap publication called Tracts for the People. The writer says he heard it in the neighbourhood of the Vale of Goel, and it has every appearance of being genuine. Villemarqué (i. 61) mentions the last circumstance as to the end of the penance of the Korred.[494]Monumens Celtiques, p. 2. An old sailor told M. de Cambry, that one of these stones covers an immense treasure, and that these thousands of them have been set up the better to conceal it. He added that a calculation, the key to which was to be found in the Tower of London, would alone indicate the spot where the treasure lies.[495]For what follows we are indebted to the MS. communication of Dr. W. Grimm. He quotes as his authority theZeitung der Gesellschafterfor 1826.[496]The former seems to be a house spirit, theGoblin,Follet, orLutinof the north of France; the latter is apparently theIgnis Fatuus.[497]So the Yorkshire Bar-guest.[498]See above, p.438.[499]See our Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy, where (p. 237) most of what follows will be found, with notes.[500]Parthenius Erotica, chap. xxix.[501]Aulularia, Prologue.[502]See our Mythology of Greece and Italy, p. 543; and our Ovid's Fasti, Excursus iv.[503]Satyricon, ch. 38.Sunt qui eundem(Hercules)Incubonem esse velint. Schol. Hor. Sat. ii. 6, 13.[504]Viessieux, Italy and the Italians, vol. i. pp. 161, 162.[505]L'huorco, the Orco of Bojardo and Ariosto, probably derived from the Latin Orcus: see Mythol. of Greece and Italy, p. 527. In this derivation we find that we had been anticipated by Minucci in his notes on the Malmantile Racquistato, c. ii. st. 50.In a work, from which we have derived some information (Lettres sur les Contes des Fées, Paris, 1826), considerable pains are taken, we think to little purpose, to deduce the French Ogre from the Oïgours, a Tartar tribe, who with the other tribes of that people invaded Europe in the twelfth century. In the Glossaire de la Langue Romaine, Ogre is explained by Hongrois. Any one, however, that reads the Pentamerone will see that the ugly, cruel, man-eating Huorco is plainly an Ogre; and those expert at thetours de passe passeof etymology will be at no loss to deduce Ogre from Orco. See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 223.[506]In another of these tales, it is said of a young man, who, on breaking open a cask, found a beautiful maiden in it, that he stood for a whilecomme o chillo che ha visto lo Monaciello.[507]See Tales and Popular Fictions, chap. ix. p. 269; see alsoSpainandFrance.[508]Vincentius apud Kornmann,de Miraculis Vivorum.[509]This being, unknown to classic mythology, is first mentioned by Lactantius. It was probably from Boccaccio's Genealogia Deorum that Bojardo got his knowledge of him.[510]I Cinque Canti, c. i. st. l.seq.[511]Lib.ii.xvii. 56,seq.[512]There is, however, a Maga or Fata named Falsirena in the Adone of Marini.[513]La Sabia and La Desconocida of the original romance, which Tasse follows very closely in everything relating to Amadis and Oriana.[514]Few of our readers, we presume, are acquainted with this poem, and they will perhaps be surprised to learn that it is, after the Furioso, the most beautiful romantic poem in the Italian language, graceful and sweet almost to excess. It is strange that it should be neglected in Italy also. One cause may be its length (One Hundred Cantos), another the constant and inartificial breaking off of the stories, and perhaps the chief one, its serious moral tone so different from that of Ariosto. It might be styled The Legend of Constancy, for the love of its heroes and heroines is proof against all temptations. Mr. Panizzi's charge of abounding in scandalous stories, is not correct, for it is in reality more delicate than even the Faerie Queene. Ginguené, who admired it, appreciates it far more justly.[515]See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 183. The Pentamerone we may observe, was not a title given to it by the author; in like manner the only title Fielding gave his great work was The History of a Foundling.[516]He was brother to Adriana and uncle to Leonora Baroni, the ladies whose musical talents Milton celebrates.[517]Ex. gr. Fiume isshiume; Fiore,shiure; Piaggia,chiaja; Piombo,chiummo; Biondo,ghiunno. There are likewise numerous Hispanicisms. Thusgaiolain Gagliuso which we all renderedcoffin, is the Spanishjaula, cage, and the meaning apparently is that he would have the cat stuffed and put in a glass-case; in like manner calling the eyes suns (as inna bellezza a doje sole) occurs in the plays of Calderon.[518]In the Taschenbuch für altdeutscher Zeit und Kunst, 1816.[519]Otia Imperialia, p. 982. The Demons must have been some kind of fairies: see above, p.4.[520]Related by Sir Francis Palgrave, but without giving any authority, in the Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. SeeFrance.[521]In Don Quixote (part i. chap. 50) we read of "los siete castillos de las siete Fadas" beneath the lake of boiling pitch, and of the fair princess who was enchanted in one of them.[522]Fadais certainly the elided part. of this verb, for the Latin mode of elision (see above p.7.) was retained in Spanish as well as Italian. Thusquedo,junto,harto,marchito,vacio,enjuto,violento, &c., come fromquedar,juntar,hartar, &c. As the Spanish, following the Latin, also frequently uses the past as a present participle, asun hombre atrevido, "a daring man;" and the same appears to take place in Italian, asun huomo accorto,saputo,avveduto,dispietato; and even in French, asun homme réfléchi,désespéré; may we not say thatfada,fata,fée, is enchantingrather than enchanted?[523]Montinais a small wood.[524]Romancero Castellano por Depping, ii. p. 198, 2nd edit. A translation of this romance will be found in Thoms's Lays and Legends of Spain.[525]i. e.Joey the Hunchback. Pepito is the dim. of Pepe,i. e.José, Joseph.[526]See Thoms's Lays and Legends of Spain, p. 83. It was related, he says, to a friend of his by the late Sir John Malcolm, who had heard it in Spain. It is also briefly related (probably on the same authority) in the Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. (see above pp.364,438). Redi, in his Letters, gives another form of it, in which the scene is at Benevento, the agents are witches, and the hump is taken off,senza verun suo dolor, with a saw of butter.Y Domingo sieteis, we are told, a common phrase when any thing is said or donemal à propos.[527]Teatro Critico, tom. ii. His object is to disprove their existence, and he very justly says that the Duende was usually a knavish servant who had his own reasons for making a noise and disturbing the family. This theory will also explain the Duende-tales of Torquemada.[528]See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 269.[529]The change ofrandnis not without examples. Thus we have αργυρον andargentum;water, English;vand, Danish;vatn, Swedish.CristoferoisCristofanoin Tuscan;homine,nomine,sanguine, arehombre,nombre,sangre, Spanish. InDuergwhenrbecamen, euphony changedgtod, orvice versâ. The changes words undergo when the derivation is certain, are often curious.Alguacil, Spanish, isEl-wezeerArab, asAzucenaSpanish,CecemPortuguese (white-lily) isSûsanArab;Guancia(cheek) Italian, isWangeGerman; Ναυπακτος has becomeLépanto. It might not be safe to assert that the Persiangurkand ourwolfare the same, and yet the letters in them taken in order are all commutable. OurGod be with youhas shrunk toGoodbye, and the SpanishVuestra mercedtoUsted, pr.Usté. There must, by the way, some time or other, have been an intimate connexion between Spain and England, so many of our familiar words seem to have a Spanish origin. Thusninnyis fromniño;boobyfrombobo;puckerfrompuchero;launch(a boat) fromlancha; and perhapsmonkey(if not frommannikin) frommono,monico. We pronounce ourcolonellike the Spanishcoronel.[530]Otia Imperialia, p. 987: see above p.302et alib.[531]Like the IrishPlay the Puck, above, p.371.[532]Otia Imper.p. 981: see above, p.394. It does not appear that the abode of these porpoise-knights was beneath the water.[533]Otia Imper.p. 897. See above p.407. Orthone, the House-spirit, who, according to Froissart, attended the Lord of Corasse, in Gascony, resembled Hinzelmann in many points.[534]Ibid.[535]Hujusmodi larvarum.He classes the Fadas with Sylvans and Pans.[536]P. 989. Speaking of the wonderful horse of Giraldus de Cabreriis; Gervase says,Si Fadus erat, i. e.says Leibnitz, incantatus, utFadæ, Fatæ, Fées.[537]Cambry, Monumens Celtiques, p. 342. The author says, that Esterelle, as well as all the Fairies, was the moon. This we very much doubt. He derives her name from the BretonEscler, Brightness, Lauza, fromLac'h(IrishCloch), a flat stone.[538]Monuments religieux des Volces Tectosages,ap.Mlle. Bosquet, Normandie, etc., p. 92: see above, pp.161,342.[539]See Leroux de Lincy,ap.Mlle. Bosquet, p. 93, who adds "In Lower Normandy, in the arrondissement of Bayeux, they never neglect laying a table for the protecting genius of the babe about to be born;" see our note on Virg. Buc. iv. 63. In a collection of decrees of Councils made by Burchard of Worms, who died in 1024, we read as follows: "Fecisti, ut quaedam mulieres in quibusdam temporibus anni facere solent, ut in domo tuamensam praepareset tuos cibos et potum cumtribus cultellissupra mensam poneres, ut si venissenttres illae sororesquas antiqua posteritas et antiqua stultitia Parcas nominavit, ibi reficirentur ... ut credens illas quas tu dieis esse sorores tibi posse aut hic aut in futuro prodesse?"Grimm.Deut. Mythol. Anhang, p. xxxviii., where we are also told that these Parcæ could give a man at his birth the power of becoming a Werwolf. All this, however, does not prove that they were the origin of theFées: see above, p.6.[540]This may remind us of the Neck or Kelpie above, p. 162. It seems confirmatory of our theory respecting the Visigoths, p. 466.[541]Greg. Tur. De Glor. Confess. ch. xxxi.,ap.Grimm. p. 466.[542]Pilgrimage to Auvergne, ii. p. 294,seq.[543]Cambry, Monuments Celtiques, p. 232.[544]It is evidently acromleach. What is said of the nature of the stones is also true of Stonehenge.[545]Lettres de Madame S. à sa Fille. Périgueux, 1830: by M. Jouannet of Bordeaux.[546]See Mlle. Bosquet, La Normandie Romanesque et Merveilleuse, and the works there quoted by this learned and ingenious lady. What follows is so extremely like what we have seen above of the Korrigan of the adjacent Brittany, that we hope she has been careful not to transfer any of their traits to her Fées.[547]Opera i. 1036; Paris, 1674,ap.Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 263.[548]Ap.Grimm,ut sup.Douce (Ill. of Shak. i. 382) was, we believe, the first who directed attention to Abundia. He quotes from an oldfabliau:Ceste richesse nus abonde,Nos l'avons de par Dame Abonde.[549]One kind of these the Italians Fatæ name;Fée the French; we Sybils; and the sameOther White Nymphs; and those that have them seen,Night Ladies some, of which Habundia queen.Hierarchie, viii. p. 507.[550]Mr. Thoms prefers a derivation from the Cymric,Mab, boy, child.[551]There is no satisfactory derivation ofLutin, for we cannot regard as such Grimm'sà luctu.Gobelin,Goblin, orGoubelin, is evidently the same asKobold.Follet(fromfol,fou) andFarfadet, are other names. BothGobelinandLutinwere in use in the 11th century. Orderic Vitalis, speaking of the demon whom St. Taurin drove out of the temple of Diana, says,Hunc vulgus Gobelinum appellat, and Wace (Roman de Rou,v9715) says of the familiar of bishop Mauger who excommunicated the ConquerorNe sei s'esteit lutin ou non.[552]Mothers also threaten their children with him.Le gobelin vous mangera, le gobelin vous emportera.Père L'Abbé,Etymologie, i. p. 262.[553]In another French tale a man to deceive a Fée, put on his wife's clothes and was minding the child, but she said as she came in, "Non, tu ne point la belle d'hier au soir, tu ne files, ni ne vogues, ni ton fuseau ne t'enveloppes," and to punish him she turned some apples that were roasting on the hearth into peas.Schreiberap.Grimm, p. 385.[554]See above, p.471.[555]Lubin may be only another form of Lutin, and connected with the English Lob. Its likeness toloupmay have given occasion to the fiction of their taking the lupine form.[556]Chartier.[557]See above, p.475.[558]Histoire de Mélusine, tirée des Chroniques de Poitou. Paris, 1698. Dobenek, des Deutschen Mittelalter und Volksglauben.[559]i. e.Cephalonia, see above, p.41.[560]It is at this day (1698) corruptly called La Font de Sée; and every year in the month of May a fair is held in the neighbouring mead, where the pastry-cooks sell figures of women,bien coiffées, called Merlusines.—French Author's Note.[561]A boar's tusk projected from his mouth. According to Brantôme, a figure of him, cut in stone, stood at the portal of the Mélusine tower, which was destroyed in 1574.[562]At her departure she left the mark of her foot on the stone of one of the windows, where it remained till the castle was destroyed.[563]In his poem of Melusina, dedicated to Christina of Sweden.[564]Mlle Bosquet,ut sup.p. 100.[565]Mlle. Bosquet,ut sup.p. 98. The castle of Argouges is near Bayeux, that of Rânes is in the arrondissement of Argentan.[566]This proverbial expression is to be met with in various languages: see Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 802.[567]See above, p.458.[568]Mnemosyne, Abo 1821,ap.Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 426.[569]Rühs, Finland und seine Bewohner.[570]Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 459.[571]Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 979. This is the fourth place where we have met this story. Could they have all come from the Odyssey, the hero of which tells the Cyclops, whom he blinds, that his name is Nobody?[572]Gaal, Märchen der Magyaren. Wien, 1822.[573]Mailath, Magyarische Sagen Mährchen, etc., 2 vols, 8vo. Stutg. 1837.[574]Delrio, Lib. ii. Sect. 2. Boxhorn Resp. Moscov. Pars I.[575]Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 447.[576]Mone, vol. i. p. 144. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 460.[577]Grimm,ut sup.p. 480.[578]Published by Wuk and translated by Talvi and others into German, by Bowring into English.[579]Bowring, p. 175.Sabejam oblake, Cloud-gatherer, is an epithet of the Vila, answering to the Νεφεληγερετης of the Grecian Zeus.[580]Death of Kralwich Marko. Bowring, p. 97.[581]The building of Skadra. Ibid. p. 64.[582]We have made this translation from a German version in the Wiener Jahrbücher, vol. xxx. which is evidently more faithful than Bowring's.[583]Bowring, This version differs considerably from the German one of Talvi. We feel quite convinced that the English translator has mistaken the sense.[584]Dalmatia and Montenegro, etc.[585]The Pang (Span.paño, cloth) is an oblong piece of cotton cloth, which the natives manufacture and wear wrapped round their bodies.[586]For the preceding account of the Yumboes we are indebted to a young lady, who spent several years of her childhood at Gorce. What she related to us she had heard from her maid, a Jaloff woman, who spoke no language but Jaloff.[587]שרים from שרר to lay waste, Deut. xxxii. 17.[588]שעירים from שער horreo, Isaiah, xiii. 22.[589]מויקין from נוק to hurt.[590]Moses Edrehi, our informant, says that the Mazikeen are called in the Arabic language,znoon(Sanskrit writing),i. e.Jinn.[591]Comp. Lane, Thousand and One Nights, iii. p. 91.[592]To signify that he appealed to them.[593]From a rabbinical book called Mahasee Yerusalemee,i. e.History of a Hebrew of Jerusalem.—"Very old," says Moses Edrehi, "and known by the Hebrews to be true." "Moreover," saith he of another tale, "it really happened, because every thing that is written in the Jewish books is true; for no one can print any new book without its being examined and approved of by the greatest and chiefest Rabbin and wise men of that time and city, and the proofs must be very strong and clear; so that all the wonderful stories in these books are true." The Jews are not singular in this mode of vouching for the truth of wonderful stories.[594]The moral here is apparent.[595]From a very ancient rabbinical book called R. H. It is needless to point out its resemblance to German and other tales.[596]See Davis's translation of The Fortunate Union, i. 68.[597]Under the title Similar Legends in the Index, legends of this kind are arranged with references to the places where they occur.[598]The legends from the German and other languages are, in general, faithfully translated, whence the style is at times rude and negligent; English legends are for the most part, also, merely transcribed.[599]As we have above given an etymon ofcobweb, we will here repeat our note on the wordgossamerin the Fairy Legends."Gossamers, Johnson says, are the long white cobwebs which fly in the air in calm sunny weather, and he derives the word from the Low Latingossapium. This is altogether unsatisfactory. The gossamers are the cobwebs which may be seen, particularly of a still autumnal morning, in such numbers on the furze-bushes, and which are raised by the wind and floated through the air, as thus exquisitely pictured by Browne in his Britannia's Pastorals (ii. 2),

E korole nao c'horrigan,Bleunvek ho bleo, gwisket gloan,Kelc'h ar feunteun, d'al loar-gann.Villemarqué,Barzan-Breiz, i. 8.

Thec'hexpresses the guttural.

[476]This manifestly alludes to Lanval or Graelent, or similar stories.

[477]It follows, in M. de Roquefort's edition,

"Deci ne muez fu ou désis."

Of which we can make no sense, and the French translation gives no aid. In the Harleian MS. it is

"De cine muez fu ou de sis,"

which is more intelligible.

[478]This tends to prove that this is a translation from the Breton; for Innocent III., in whose pontificate the cup was first refused to the laity, died in 1216, when Henry III., to whom Marie is supposed to have dedicated her Lais, was a child.

[479]The same was the case with the Wünschelweib (Wish-woman) of German romance.

Swenne du einêst wünschest nâch mir,Sô bin ich endelîchen bî dír,

says the lady to the Staufenberger. She adds,

Wâr ich wil dâ bin ich,Den Wunsch hât mir Got gegeben.

He finds it to be true,

Er wûnschte nach der frouwen sîn,Bî îm sô war diu schöne sîn.Grimm,Deut. Mythol., p. 391.

[480]In the Shâh-nâmeh, Siyawush, when he foresees his own death by the treachery of Afrasiâb, tells his wife Ferengis, the daughter of that monarch, that she will bear a son whom she is to name Ky Khosroo, and who will avenge the death of his father: see Görres, Heldenbuch von Iran, ii. 32.

[481]

Desi k'a une hoge vint:En cele hoge ot une entree.

M. de Roquefort, in his Glossaire de la Langue Romaine, correctly rendershogebycolline. In his translation of this Lai he renders it bycabane, not, perhaps, understanding how a hill could be pervious. The story, however, of Prince Ahmed, and the romance of Orfeo and Heurodis (see above, p.52), are good authority on this point: see also above, pp.405,408.

[482]In the Harleian MS. Mandement. M. de Roquefort confesses his total ignorance of this people; we follow his example. May it not, however, be connected withmanant, and merely signify people, inhabitants?

[483]Roman de Roux,v.ii. 234.

[484]See Roquefort, Supplément au Glossaire de la Langue Romaines. v.Perron.

[485]Barzan-Breiz, Chants Populaires de la Bretagne, recueilles et publiés par Th. Hersart de la Villemarqué. Paris, 1846. This is a most valuable work and deserving to take its place with the Ballads of Scotland, Scandinavia, and Servia, to none of which is it inferior. To the credit of France the edition which we use is the fourth. How different would the fate of such a work be in this country!

[486]We make this distinction, because in the ballads in which the personage is a Fay, the word used is Korrigan or Korrig, while in that in which the Dwarfs are actors, the words are Korr and Korred. But the truth is, they are all but different forms of Korr. They are all the same, singular and plural. The Breton changes its first consonant like the Irish: see p.371. We also meet with Crion, Goric, Couril, as names of these beings, but they are only forms of those given above.

[487]Hence we may infer that they came originally from Scandinavia, communicated most probably by the Normans.

[488]Stone-tables. They are called by the same name in Devon and Cornwall; in Irish their appellation is Cromleach.

[489]Barzan-Breiz., i. xlix. 69.

[490]

[491]The tailor cries "Shut the door! Here are the littleDuzof the night" (Setu ann Duzigou nouz), and St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, c. xxiii.) speaks of "Daemones quosDusciosGalli nuncupant." It may remind us of our own wordDeuce.

[492]In the original the word is Korrigan, but see above, p.431.

[493]From an article signed H—Y in a cheap publication called Tracts for the People. The writer says he heard it in the neighbourhood of the Vale of Goel, and it has every appearance of being genuine. Villemarqué (i. 61) mentions the last circumstance as to the end of the penance of the Korred.

[494]Monumens Celtiques, p. 2. An old sailor told M. de Cambry, that one of these stones covers an immense treasure, and that these thousands of them have been set up the better to conceal it. He added that a calculation, the key to which was to be found in the Tower of London, would alone indicate the spot where the treasure lies.

[495]For what follows we are indebted to the MS. communication of Dr. W. Grimm. He quotes as his authority theZeitung der Gesellschafterfor 1826.

[496]The former seems to be a house spirit, theGoblin,Follet, orLutinof the north of France; the latter is apparently theIgnis Fatuus.

[497]So the Yorkshire Bar-guest.

[498]See above, p.438.

[499]See our Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy, where (p. 237) most of what follows will be found, with notes.

[500]Parthenius Erotica, chap. xxix.

[501]Aulularia, Prologue.

[502]See our Mythology of Greece and Italy, p. 543; and our Ovid's Fasti, Excursus iv.

[503]Satyricon, ch. 38.Sunt qui eundem(Hercules)Incubonem esse velint. Schol. Hor. Sat. ii. 6, 13.

[504]Viessieux, Italy and the Italians, vol. i. pp. 161, 162.

[505]L'huorco, the Orco of Bojardo and Ariosto, probably derived from the Latin Orcus: see Mythol. of Greece and Italy, p. 527. In this derivation we find that we had been anticipated by Minucci in his notes on the Malmantile Racquistato, c. ii. st. 50.

In a work, from which we have derived some information (Lettres sur les Contes des Fées, Paris, 1826), considerable pains are taken, we think to little purpose, to deduce the French Ogre from the Oïgours, a Tartar tribe, who with the other tribes of that people invaded Europe in the twelfth century. In the Glossaire de la Langue Romaine, Ogre is explained by Hongrois. Any one, however, that reads the Pentamerone will see that the ugly, cruel, man-eating Huorco is plainly an Ogre; and those expert at thetours de passe passeof etymology will be at no loss to deduce Ogre from Orco. See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 223.

[506]In another of these tales, it is said of a young man, who, on breaking open a cask, found a beautiful maiden in it, that he stood for a whilecomme o chillo che ha visto lo Monaciello.

[507]See Tales and Popular Fictions, chap. ix. p. 269; see alsoSpainandFrance.

[508]Vincentius apud Kornmann,de Miraculis Vivorum.

[509]This being, unknown to classic mythology, is first mentioned by Lactantius. It was probably from Boccaccio's Genealogia Deorum that Bojardo got his knowledge of him.

[510]I Cinque Canti, c. i. st. l.seq.

[511]Lib.ii.xvii. 56,seq.

[512]There is, however, a Maga or Fata named Falsirena in the Adone of Marini.

[513]La Sabia and La Desconocida of the original romance, which Tasse follows very closely in everything relating to Amadis and Oriana.

[514]Few of our readers, we presume, are acquainted with this poem, and they will perhaps be surprised to learn that it is, after the Furioso, the most beautiful romantic poem in the Italian language, graceful and sweet almost to excess. It is strange that it should be neglected in Italy also. One cause may be its length (One Hundred Cantos), another the constant and inartificial breaking off of the stories, and perhaps the chief one, its serious moral tone so different from that of Ariosto. It might be styled The Legend of Constancy, for the love of its heroes and heroines is proof against all temptations. Mr. Panizzi's charge of abounding in scandalous stories, is not correct, for it is in reality more delicate than even the Faerie Queene. Ginguené, who admired it, appreciates it far more justly.

[515]See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 183. The Pentamerone we may observe, was not a title given to it by the author; in like manner the only title Fielding gave his great work was The History of a Foundling.

[516]He was brother to Adriana and uncle to Leonora Baroni, the ladies whose musical talents Milton celebrates.

[517]Ex. gr. Fiume isshiume; Fiore,shiure; Piaggia,chiaja; Piombo,chiummo; Biondo,ghiunno. There are likewise numerous Hispanicisms. Thusgaiolain Gagliuso which we all renderedcoffin, is the Spanishjaula, cage, and the meaning apparently is that he would have the cat stuffed and put in a glass-case; in like manner calling the eyes suns (as inna bellezza a doje sole) occurs in the plays of Calderon.

[518]In the Taschenbuch für altdeutscher Zeit und Kunst, 1816.

[519]Otia Imperialia, p. 982. The Demons must have been some kind of fairies: see above, p.4.

[520]Related by Sir Francis Palgrave, but without giving any authority, in the Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. SeeFrance.

[521]In Don Quixote (part i. chap. 50) we read of "los siete castillos de las siete Fadas" beneath the lake of boiling pitch, and of the fair princess who was enchanted in one of them.

[522]Fadais certainly the elided part. of this verb, for the Latin mode of elision (see above p.7.) was retained in Spanish as well as Italian. Thusquedo,junto,harto,marchito,vacio,enjuto,violento, &c., come fromquedar,juntar,hartar, &c. As the Spanish, following the Latin, also frequently uses the past as a present participle, asun hombre atrevido, "a daring man;" and the same appears to take place in Italian, asun huomo accorto,saputo,avveduto,dispietato; and even in French, asun homme réfléchi,désespéré; may we not say thatfada,fata,fée, is enchantingrather than enchanted?

[523]Montinais a small wood.

[524]Romancero Castellano por Depping, ii. p. 198, 2nd edit. A translation of this romance will be found in Thoms's Lays and Legends of Spain.

[525]i. e.Joey the Hunchback. Pepito is the dim. of Pepe,i. e.José, Joseph.

[526]See Thoms's Lays and Legends of Spain, p. 83. It was related, he says, to a friend of his by the late Sir John Malcolm, who had heard it in Spain. It is also briefly related (probably on the same authority) in the Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. (see above pp.364,438). Redi, in his Letters, gives another form of it, in which the scene is at Benevento, the agents are witches, and the hump is taken off,senza verun suo dolor, with a saw of butter.Y Domingo sieteis, we are told, a common phrase when any thing is said or donemal à propos.

[527]Teatro Critico, tom. ii. His object is to disprove their existence, and he very justly says that the Duende was usually a knavish servant who had his own reasons for making a noise and disturbing the family. This theory will also explain the Duende-tales of Torquemada.

[528]See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 269.

[529]The change ofrandnis not without examples. Thus we have αργυρον andargentum;water, English;vand, Danish;vatn, Swedish.CristoferoisCristofanoin Tuscan;homine,nomine,sanguine, arehombre,nombre,sangre, Spanish. InDuergwhenrbecamen, euphony changedgtod, orvice versâ. The changes words undergo when the derivation is certain, are often curious.Alguacil, Spanish, isEl-wezeerArab, asAzucenaSpanish,CecemPortuguese (white-lily) isSûsanArab;Guancia(cheek) Italian, isWangeGerman; Ναυπακτος has becomeLépanto. It might not be safe to assert that the Persiangurkand ourwolfare the same, and yet the letters in them taken in order are all commutable. OurGod be with youhas shrunk toGoodbye, and the SpanishVuestra mercedtoUsted, pr.Usté. There must, by the way, some time or other, have been an intimate connexion between Spain and England, so many of our familiar words seem to have a Spanish origin. Thusninnyis fromniño;boobyfrombobo;puckerfrompuchero;launch(a boat) fromlancha; and perhapsmonkey(if not frommannikin) frommono,monico. We pronounce ourcolonellike the Spanishcoronel.

[530]Otia Imperialia, p. 987: see above p.302et alib.

[531]Like the IrishPlay the Puck, above, p.371.

[532]Otia Imper.p. 981: see above, p.394. It does not appear that the abode of these porpoise-knights was beneath the water.

[533]Otia Imper.p. 897. See above p.407. Orthone, the House-spirit, who, according to Froissart, attended the Lord of Corasse, in Gascony, resembled Hinzelmann in many points.

[534]Ibid.

[535]Hujusmodi larvarum.He classes the Fadas with Sylvans and Pans.

[536]P. 989. Speaking of the wonderful horse of Giraldus de Cabreriis; Gervase says,Si Fadus erat, i. e.says Leibnitz, incantatus, utFadæ, Fatæ, Fées.

[537]Cambry, Monumens Celtiques, p. 342. The author says, that Esterelle, as well as all the Fairies, was the moon. This we very much doubt. He derives her name from the BretonEscler, Brightness, Lauza, fromLac'h(IrishCloch), a flat stone.

[538]Monuments religieux des Volces Tectosages,ap.Mlle. Bosquet, Normandie, etc., p. 92: see above, pp.161,342.

[539]See Leroux de Lincy,ap.Mlle. Bosquet, p. 93, who adds "In Lower Normandy, in the arrondissement of Bayeux, they never neglect laying a table for the protecting genius of the babe about to be born;" see our note on Virg. Buc. iv. 63. In a collection of decrees of Councils made by Burchard of Worms, who died in 1024, we read as follows: "Fecisti, ut quaedam mulieres in quibusdam temporibus anni facere solent, ut in domo tuamensam praepareset tuos cibos et potum cumtribus cultellissupra mensam poneres, ut si venissenttres illae sororesquas antiqua posteritas et antiqua stultitia Parcas nominavit, ibi reficirentur ... ut credens illas quas tu dieis esse sorores tibi posse aut hic aut in futuro prodesse?"Grimm.Deut. Mythol. Anhang, p. xxxviii., where we are also told that these Parcæ could give a man at his birth the power of becoming a Werwolf. All this, however, does not prove that they were the origin of theFées: see above, p.6.

[540]This may remind us of the Neck or Kelpie above, p. 162. It seems confirmatory of our theory respecting the Visigoths, p. 466.

[541]Greg. Tur. De Glor. Confess. ch. xxxi.,ap.Grimm. p. 466.

[542]Pilgrimage to Auvergne, ii. p. 294,seq.

[543]Cambry, Monuments Celtiques, p. 232.

[544]It is evidently acromleach. What is said of the nature of the stones is also true of Stonehenge.

[545]Lettres de Madame S. à sa Fille. Périgueux, 1830: by M. Jouannet of Bordeaux.

[546]See Mlle. Bosquet, La Normandie Romanesque et Merveilleuse, and the works there quoted by this learned and ingenious lady. What follows is so extremely like what we have seen above of the Korrigan of the adjacent Brittany, that we hope she has been careful not to transfer any of their traits to her Fées.

[547]Opera i. 1036; Paris, 1674,ap.Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 263.

[548]Ap.Grimm,ut sup.Douce (Ill. of Shak. i. 382) was, we believe, the first who directed attention to Abundia. He quotes from an oldfabliau:

Ceste richesse nus abonde,Nos l'avons de par Dame Abonde.

[549]

One kind of these the Italians Fatæ name;Fée the French; we Sybils; and the sameOther White Nymphs; and those that have them seen,Night Ladies some, of which Habundia queen.Hierarchie, viii. p. 507.

[550]Mr. Thoms prefers a derivation from the Cymric,Mab, boy, child.

[551]There is no satisfactory derivation ofLutin, for we cannot regard as such Grimm'sà luctu.Gobelin,Goblin, orGoubelin, is evidently the same asKobold.Follet(fromfol,fou) andFarfadet, are other names. BothGobelinandLutinwere in use in the 11th century. Orderic Vitalis, speaking of the demon whom St. Taurin drove out of the temple of Diana, says,Hunc vulgus Gobelinum appellat, and Wace (Roman de Rou,v9715) says of the familiar of bishop Mauger who excommunicated the Conqueror

Ne sei s'esteit lutin ou non.

[552]Mothers also threaten their children with him.Le gobelin vous mangera, le gobelin vous emportera.Père L'Abbé,Etymologie, i. p. 262.

[553]In another French tale a man to deceive a Fée, put on his wife's clothes and was minding the child, but she said as she came in, "Non, tu ne point la belle d'hier au soir, tu ne files, ni ne vogues, ni ton fuseau ne t'enveloppes," and to punish him she turned some apples that were roasting on the hearth into peas.Schreiberap.Grimm, p. 385.

[554]See above, p.471.

[555]Lubin may be only another form of Lutin, and connected with the English Lob. Its likeness toloupmay have given occasion to the fiction of their taking the lupine form.

[556]Chartier.

[557]See above, p.475.

[558]Histoire de Mélusine, tirée des Chroniques de Poitou. Paris, 1698. Dobenek, des Deutschen Mittelalter und Volksglauben.

[559]i. e.Cephalonia, see above, p.41.

[560]It is at this day (1698) corruptly called La Font de Sée; and every year in the month of May a fair is held in the neighbouring mead, where the pastry-cooks sell figures of women,bien coiffées, called Merlusines.—French Author's Note.

[561]A boar's tusk projected from his mouth. According to Brantôme, a figure of him, cut in stone, stood at the portal of the Mélusine tower, which was destroyed in 1574.

[562]At her departure she left the mark of her foot on the stone of one of the windows, where it remained till the castle was destroyed.

[563]In his poem of Melusina, dedicated to Christina of Sweden.

[564]Mlle Bosquet,ut sup.p. 100.

[565]Mlle. Bosquet,ut sup.p. 98. The castle of Argouges is near Bayeux, that of Rânes is in the arrondissement of Argentan.

[566]This proverbial expression is to be met with in various languages: see Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 802.

[567]See above, p.458.

[568]Mnemosyne, Abo 1821,ap.Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 426.

[569]Rühs, Finland und seine Bewohner.

[570]Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 459.

[571]Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 979. This is the fourth place where we have met this story. Could they have all come from the Odyssey, the hero of which tells the Cyclops, whom he blinds, that his name is Nobody?

[572]Gaal, Märchen der Magyaren. Wien, 1822.

[573]Mailath, Magyarische Sagen Mährchen, etc., 2 vols, 8vo. Stutg. 1837.

[574]Delrio, Lib. ii. Sect. 2. Boxhorn Resp. Moscov. Pars I.

[575]Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 447.

[576]Mone, vol. i. p. 144. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 460.

[577]Grimm,ut sup.p. 480.

[578]Published by Wuk and translated by Talvi and others into German, by Bowring into English.

[579]Bowring, p. 175.Sabejam oblake, Cloud-gatherer, is an epithet of the Vila, answering to the Νεφεληγερετης of the Grecian Zeus.

[580]Death of Kralwich Marko. Bowring, p. 97.

[581]The building of Skadra. Ibid. p. 64.

[582]We have made this translation from a German version in the Wiener Jahrbücher, vol. xxx. which is evidently more faithful than Bowring's.

[583]Bowring, This version differs considerably from the German one of Talvi. We feel quite convinced that the English translator has mistaken the sense.

[584]Dalmatia and Montenegro, etc.

[585]The Pang (Span.paño, cloth) is an oblong piece of cotton cloth, which the natives manufacture and wear wrapped round their bodies.

[586]For the preceding account of the Yumboes we are indebted to a young lady, who spent several years of her childhood at Gorce. What she related to us she had heard from her maid, a Jaloff woman, who spoke no language but Jaloff.

[587]שרים from שרר to lay waste, Deut. xxxii. 17.

[588]שעירים from שער horreo, Isaiah, xiii. 22.

[589]מויקין from נוק to hurt.

[590]Moses Edrehi, our informant, says that the Mazikeen are called in the Arabic language,znoon(Sanskrit writing),i. e.Jinn.

[591]Comp. Lane, Thousand and One Nights, iii. p. 91.

[592]To signify that he appealed to them.

[593]From a rabbinical book called Mahasee Yerusalemee,i. e.History of a Hebrew of Jerusalem.—"Very old," says Moses Edrehi, "and known by the Hebrews to be true." "Moreover," saith he of another tale, "it really happened, because every thing that is written in the Jewish books is true; for no one can print any new book without its being examined and approved of by the greatest and chiefest Rabbin and wise men of that time and city, and the proofs must be very strong and clear; so that all the wonderful stories in these books are true." The Jews are not singular in this mode of vouching for the truth of wonderful stories.

[594]The moral here is apparent.

[595]From a very ancient rabbinical book called R. H. It is needless to point out its resemblance to German and other tales.

[596]See Davis's translation of The Fortunate Union, i. 68.

[597]Under the title Similar Legends in the Index, legends of this kind are arranged with references to the places where they occur.

[598]The legends from the German and other languages are, in general, faithfully translated, whence the style is at times rude and negligent; English legends are for the most part, also, merely transcribed.

[599]As we have above given an etymon ofcobweb, we will here repeat our note on the wordgossamerin the Fairy Legends.

"Gossamers, Johnson says, are the long white cobwebs which fly in the air in calm sunny weather, and he derives the word from the Low Latingossapium. This is altogether unsatisfactory. The gossamers are the cobwebs which may be seen, particularly of a still autumnal morning, in such numbers on the furze-bushes, and which are raised by the wind and floated through the air, as thus exquisitely pictured by Browne in his Britannia's Pastorals (ii. 2),

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