Shakespeare’s time, is proved by that curious melange of nursery tales, Peele’s The Old Wives’ Tale. The main plot of this is the search of two brothers, Calypha and Thelea, for a lost sister, Delia, who has been bespelled by a sorcerer, Sacrapant (the names are taken from the “Orlando Furioso”). They are instructed by an old man (like Merlin in “Childe Rowland”) how to rescue their sister, and ultimately succeed. The play has besides this the themes of the Thankful Dead, the Three Heads of the Well (which see), the Life Index, and a transformation, so that it is not to be wondered at if some of the traits of “Childe Rowland” are observed in it.
But a still closer parallel is afforded by Milton’s Comus. Here again we have two brothers in search of a sister, who has got into the power of an enchanter. But besides this, there is the refusal of the heroine to touch the enchanted food, just as Childe Rowland finally refuses. And ultimately the bespelled heroine is liberated by a liquid, which is applied to her lips and finger-tips, just as Childe Rowland’s brothers are unspelled. Such a minute resemblance as this cannot be accidental, and it is therefore probable that Milton used the original form of “Childe Rowland,” or some variant of it, as heard in his youth, and adapted it to the purposes of the masque at Ludlow Castle, and of his allegory. Certainly no other folk- tale in the world can claim so distinguished an offspring.
Remarks.–Distinguished as “Childe Rowland” will be henceforth as the origin of Comus, if my affiliation be accepted, it has even more remarkable points of interest, both in form and matter, for the folklorist, unless I am much mistaken. I will therefore touch upon these points, reserving a more detailed examination for another occasion.
First, as to the form of the narrative. This begins with verse, then turns to prose, and throughout drops again at intervals into poetry in a friendly way like Mr. Wegg. Now this is a form of writing not unknown in other branches of literature, the cante-fable, of which “Aucassin et Nicolette” is the most distinguished example. Nor is the cante-fable confined to France. Many of the heroic verses of the Arabs contained in the Hamasa would be unintelligible without accompanying narrative, which is nowadays preserved in the commentary. The verses imbedded in the Arabian Nights give them something of the character of a cante- fable, and the same may be said of the Indian and Persian story-books, though the verse is usually of a sententious and moral kind, as in the gathas of the Buddhist Jatakas. Even as remote as Zanzibar, Mr. Lang notes, the folk-tales are told as cante-fables. There are even traces in the Old Testament of such screeds of verse amid the prose narrative, as in the story of Lamech or that of Balaam. All this suggests that this is a very early and common form of narrative.
Among folk-tales there are still many traces of the cante- fable. Thus, in Grimm’s collection, verses occur in Nos. 1, 5, 11, 12, 13, 15, 19, 21, 24, 28, 30, 36, 38a, b, 39a, 40, 45, 46, 47, out of the first fifty tales, 36 per cent. Of Chambers’ twenty-one folk-tales, in the Popular Rhymes of Scotland only five are without interspersed verses. Of the forty-three tales contained in this volume, three (ix., xxix., xxxiii.) are derived from ballads and do not therefore count in the present connection. Of the remaining forty, i., iii., vii., xvi., xix., xxi., xxiii., xxv., xxxi., xxxv., xxxviii., xli. (made up from verses), xliii., contain rhymed lines, while xiv., xxii., xxvi., and xxxvii., contain “survivals” of rhymes ('let me come in–chinny chin-chin'; “once again ... come to Spain;' 'it is not so–should be so'; “and his lady, him behind”); and x. and xxxii. are rhythmical if not rhyming. As most of the remainder are drolls, which have probably a different origin, there seems to be great probability that originally all folk-tales of a serious character were interspersed with rhyme, and took therefore the form of the cante-fable. It is indeed unlikely that the ballad itself began as continuous verse, and the cante-fable is probably the protoplasm out of which both ballad and folk-tale have been differentiated, the ballad by omitting the narrative prose, the folk-tale by expanding it. In “Childe Rowland” we have the nearest example to such protoplasm, and it is not difficult to see how it could have been shortened into a ballad or reduced to a prose folk-tale pure and simple.
The subject-matter of “Childe Rowland” has also claims on our attention especially with regard to recent views on the true nature and origin of elves, trolls, and fairies. I refer to the recently published work of Mr. D. MacRitchie, “The Testimony of Tradition' (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.)–i.e., of tradition about the fairies and the rest. Briefly put, Mr. MacRitchie’s view is that the elves, trolls, and fairies represented in popular tradition are really the mound-dwellers, whose remains have been discovered in some abundance in the form of green hillocks, which have been artificially raised over a long and low passage leading to a central chamber open to the sky. Mr. MacRitchie shows that in several instances traditions about trolls or “good people” have attached themselves to mounds, which have afterwards on investigation turned out to be evidently the former residence of men of smaller build than the mortals of to-day. He goes on further to identify these with the Picts–fairies are called “Pechs” in Scotland–and other early races, but with these ethnological equations we need not much concern ourselves. It is otherwise with the mound-traditions and their relation, if not to fairy tales in general, to tales about fairies, trolls, elves, etc. These are very few in number, and generally bear the character of anecdotes. The fairies, etc., steal a child, they help a wanderer to a drink and then disappear into a green hill, they help cottagers with their work at night but disappear if their presence is noticed; human midwives are asked to help fairy mothers, fairy maidens marry ordinary men or girls marry and live with fairy husbands. All such things may have happened and bear no such a priori marks of impossibility as speaking animals, flying through the air, and similar incidents of the folk-tale pure and simple. If, as archaeologists tell us, there was once a race of men in Northern Europe, very short and hairy, that dwelt in underground chambers artificially concealed by green hillocks, it does not seem unlikely that odd survivors of the race should have lived on after they had been conquered and nearly exterminated by Aryan invaders and should occasionally have performed something like the pranks told of fairies and trolls.
Certainly the description of the Dark Tower of the King of Elfland in 'Childe Rowland,” has a remarkable resemblance to the dwellings of the 'good folk,” which recent excavations have revealed. By the kindness of Mr. MacRitchie, I am enabled to give the reader illustrations of one of the most interesting of these, the Maes-How of Orkney. This is a green mound some 100 feet in length and 35 in breadth at its broadest part. Tradition had long located a goblin in its centre, but it was not till 1861 that it was discovered to be pierced by a long passage 53 feet in length, and only two feet four inches high, for half of its length. This led into a central chamber 15 feet square and open to the sky.
Now it is remarkable how accurately all this corresponds to the Dark Tower of “Childe Rowland,” allowing for a little idealisation on the part of the narrator. We have the long dark passage leading into the well-lit central chamber, and all enclosed in a green hill or mound. It is of course curious to contrast Mr. Batten’s frontispiece with the central chamber of the How, but the essential features are the same. Even such a minute touch as the terraces on the hill have their bearing, I believe, on Mr. MacRitchie’s “realistic” views of Faerie. For in quite another connection Mr. G. L. Gomme, in his recent 'Village Community” (W. Scott), pp. 75-98, has given reasons and examples for believing that terrace cultivation along the sides of hills was a practice of the non-Aryan and pre-Aryan inhabitants of these isles. [Footnote: To these may be added Iona (cf. Duke of Argyll, Iona, p. 109).] Here then from a quarter quite unexpected by Mr. MacRitchie, we have evidence of the association of the King of Elfland with a non-Aryan mode of cultivation of the soil. By Mr. Gomme’s kindness I am enabled to give an illustration of this.
Altogether it seems not improbable that in such a tale as “Childe Rowland” we have an idealised picture of a “marriage by capture” of one of the diminutive non-Aryan dwellers of the green hills with an Aryan maiden, and her re-capture by her brothers. It is otherwise difficult to account for such a circumstantial description of the interior of these mounds, and especially of such a detail as the terrace cultivation on them. At the same time it must not be thought that Mr. MacRitchie’s views explain all fairy tales, or that his identifications of Finns = Fenians = Fairies = Sidhe = “Pechs” = Picts, will necessarily be accepted. His interesting book, so far as it goes, seems to throw light on tales about mermaids (Finnish women in their 'kayaks,”) and trolls, but not necessarily, on fairy tales in general. Thus, in the present volume, besides “Childe Rowland,” there is only 'Tom Tit Tot” in his hollow, the green hill in “Kate Crackernuts,” the 'Cauld Lad of Hilton,” and perhaps the “Fairy Ointment,” that are affected by his views.
Finally, there are a couple of words in the narrative that deserve a couple of words of explanation: “Widershins” is probably, as Mr. Batten suggests, analogous to the German “wider Schein,” against the appearance of the sun, “counter-clockwise” as the mathematicians say– i.e., W., S., E.,
