the few English folk- tales that have been taken down from the mouths of the peasantry: this applies also to i., ii., xi.
Parallels.-There is a magic snuff-box with a friendly power in it in Kennedy’s Fictions of the Irish Celts, p. 49. The choice between a small cake with a blessing, &c., is frequent (cf. No. xxiii.), but the closest parallel to the whole story, including the mice, is afforded by a tale in Carnoy and Nicolaides’ Traditions populaires de l’Asie Mineure, which is translated as the first tale in Mr. Lang’s Blue Fairy Book. There is much in both that is similar to Aladdin, I beg his pardon, Allah-ed-din.
Source.–Verbatim et literatim from Southey, The Doctor, &c., quarto edition, p. 327.
Parallels.–None, as the story was invented by Southey. There is an Italian translation, I tre Orsi, Turin, 1868, and it would be curious to see if the tale ever acclimatises itself in Italy.
Remarks.–'The Three Bears” is the only example I know of where a tale that can be definitely traced to a specific author has become a folk-tale. Not alone is this so, but the folk has developed the tale in a curious and instructive way, by substituting a pretty little girl with golden locks for the naughty old woman. In Southey’s version there is nothing of Little Silverhair as the heroine: she seems to have been introduced in a metrical version by G. N., much be-praised by Southey. Silverhair seems to have become a favourite, and in Mrs. Valentine’s version of “The Three Bears,” in “The Old, Old Fairy Tales,” the visit to the bear-house is only the preliminary to a long succession of adventures of the pretty little girl, of which there is no trace in the original (and this in “The Old, Old Fairy Tales.” Oh! Mrs. Valentine!). I have, though somewhat reluctantly, cast back to the original form. After all, as Prof. Dowden remarks, Southey’s memory is kept alive more by “The Three Bears” than anything else, and the text of such a nursery classic should be retained in all its purity.
XIX. JACK THE GIANT-KILLER.
Source.–From two chap-books at the British Museum (London, 1805, Paisley, 1814). I have taken some hints from “Felix Summerly’s' (Sir Henry Cole’s) version, 1845. From the latter part, I have removed the incident of the Giant dragging the lady along by her hair.
Parallels.–The chap-book of “Jack the Giant-Killer” is a curious jumble. The second part, as in most chap-books, is a weak and late invention of the enemy, and is not volkstumlich at all. The first part is compounded of a comic and a serious theme. The first is that of the Valiant Tailor (Grimm, No. 20); to this belong the incidents of the fleabite blows (for variants of which see Kohler in Jahrb. rom. eng. Phil., viii. 252), and that of the slit paunch (cf. Cosquin, l.c., ii. 51). The Thankful Dead episode, where the hero is assisted by the soul of a person whom he has caused to be buried, is found as early as the Cento novelle antiche and Straparola, xi. 2. It has been best studied by Kohler in Germania, iii. 199-209 (cf. Cosquin, i. 214-5; ii. 14 and note; and Crane, Ital. Pop. Tales, 350, note 12). It occurs also in the curious play of Peele’s The Old Wives’ Tale, in which one of the characters is the Ghost of Jack. Practically the same story as this part of Jack the Giant-Killer occurs in Kennedy, Fictions of the Irish Celts, p. 32, “Jack the Master and Jack the Servant;” and Kennedy adds (p. 38), 'In some versions Jack the Servant is the spirit of the buried man.”
The “Fee-fi-fo-fum” formula is common to all English stories of giants and ogres; it also occurs in Peele’s play and in King Lear (see note on “Childe Rowland”). Messrs. Jones and Kropf have some remarks on it in their “Magyar Tales,” pp. 340-1; so has Mr. Lang in his 'Perrault,” p. lxiii., where he traces it to the Furies in Aeschylus’ Eumenides.
Source.–I give this as it was told me in Australia in 1860. The fun consists in the avoidance of all pronouns, which results in jaw-breaking sentences almost equal to the celebrated “She stood at the door of the fish-sauce shop, welcoming him in.”
Parallels.–Halliwell, p. 151, has the same with the title 'Chicken-Licken.” It occurs also in Chambers’s Popular Rhymes, p. 59, with the same names of the dramatis personae, as my version. For European parallels, see Crane, Ital. Pop. Tales, 377, and authorities there quoted.
Source.–Jamieson’s Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, 1814, p. 397 seq., who gives it as told by a tailor in his youth, c. 1770. I have Anglicised the Scotticisms, eliminated an unnecessary ox-herd and swine-herd, who lose their heads for directing the Childe, and I have called the Erlkonig’s lair the Dark Tower on the strength of the description and of Shakespeare’s reference. I have likewise suggested a reason why Burd Ellen fell into his power, chiefly in order to introduce a definition of “widershins.' 'All the rest is the original horse,” even including the erroneous description of the youngest son as the Childe or heir (cf. “Childe Harold” and Childe Wynd, infra, No. xxxiii.), unless this is some 'survival” of Junior Right or “Borough English,” the archaic custom of letting the heirship pass to the youngest son. I should add that, on the strength of the reference to Merlin, Jamieson calls Childe Rowland’s mother, Queen Guinevere, and introduces references to King Arthur and his Court. But as he confesses that these are his own improvements on the tailor’s narrative I have eliminated them.
Parallels.–The search for the Dark Tower is similar to that of the Red Ettin, (cf. Kohler on Gonzenbach, ii. 222). The formula 'youngest best,” in which the youngest of three brothers succeeds after the others have failed, is one of the most familiar in folk- tales amusingly parodied by Mr. Lang in his Prince Prigio. The taboo against taking food in the underworld occurs in the myth of Proserpine, and is also frequent in folk-tales (Child, i. 322). But the folk-tale parallels to our tale fade into insignificance before its brilliant literary relationships. There can be little doubt that Edgar, in his mad scene in King Lear, is alluding to our tale when he breaks into the lines:
“Childe Rowland to the Dark Tower came....” His word was still: “Fie, foh and fum, I smell the blood of a British man.” King Lear, act iii. sc. 4, ad fin.
[Footnote: “British” for “English.” This is one of the points that settles the date of the play; James I. was declared King of Great Britain, October 1604. I may add that Motherwell in his Minstrelsy, p. xiv. note, testifies that the story was still extant in the nursery at the time he wrote (1828).]
The latter reference is to the cry of the King of Elfland. That some such story was current in England in
