Tot, which see. The latter part is more novel, and is best compared with the Grimms’ Spinners.
Remark.—Henderson makes out of Habetrot a goddess of the spinning-wheel, but with very little authority as it seems to me.
LXXXII. OLD MOTHER WIGGLE WAGGLE
Source.—I have inserted into Halliwell’s version one current in Mr. Batten’s family, except that I have substituted “Wiggle-Waggle” for “Slipper-Slopper.” The two versions supplement one another.
Remarks.—This is a pure bit of animal satire, which might have come from a rural Jefferies with somewhat more of wit than the native writer.
Source.—From the chap-book reprinted in Halliwell I have introduced the demand for magic dresses from Chambers’s Rashie Coat, into which it had clearly been interpolated from some version of Catskin.
Parallels.—Miss Cox’s admirable volume of variants of Cinderella also contains seventy-three variants of Catskin, besides thirteen “indeterminate” ones which approximate to that type. Of these eighty-six, five exist in the British Isles, two chap-books given in Halliwell and in Dixon’s Songs of English Peasantry, two by Campbell, Nos. xiv. and xiva, “The King who Wished to Marry his Daughter,” and one by Kennedy’s Fireside Stories, “The Princess in the Catskins.” Goldsmith knew the story by the name of “Catskin,” as he refers to it in the Vicar. There is a fragment from Cornwall in Folk-Lore, i., App. p. 149.
Remarks.—Catskin, or the Wandering Gentlewomen, now exists in English only in two chap-book ballads. But Chambers’s first variant of Rashie Coat begins with the Catskin formula in a euphemised form. The full formula may be said to run in abbreviated form—Death-bed promise—Deceased wife’s resemblance marriage test—Unnatural father (desiring to marry his own daughter)—Helpful animal—Counter tasks—Magic dresses—Heroine flight—Heroine disguise—Menial heroine—Meeting-place—Token objects named—Threefold flight—Lovesick prince—Recognition ring—Happy marriage. Of these the chap-book versions contain scarcely anything of the opening motifs. Yet they existed in England, for Miss Isabella Barclay, in a variant which Miss Cox has overlooked (Folk-Lore, i., l.c.), remembers having heard the Unnatural Father incident from a Cornish servant-girl. Campbell’s two versions also contain the incident, from which one of them receives its name. One wonders in what form Mr. Burchell knew Catskin, for “he gave the [Primrose] children the Buck of Beverland,[3] with the history of Patient Grissel, the adventures of Catskin and the Fair Rosamond’s Bower” (Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, c. vi.). Pity that “Goldy” did not tell the story himself, as he had probably heard it in Ireland, where Kennedy gives a poor version in his Fireside Stories.
Yet, imperfect as the chap-book versions are, they yet retain not a few archaic touches. It is clear from them, at any rate, that the Heroine was at one time transformed into a Cat. For when the basin of water is thrown in her face she “shakes her ears” just as a cat would. Again, before putting on her magic dresses she bathes in a pellucid pool. Now, Professor Child has pointed out in his notes on Tamlane and elsewhere (English and Scotch Ballads, i., 338; ii., 505; iii., 505) that dipping into water or milk is necessary before transformation can take place. It is clear, therefore, that Catskin was originally transformed into an animal by the spirit of her mother, also transformed into an animal.
If I understand Mr. Nutt rightly (Folk-Lore, iv, 135, seq.), he is inclined to think, from the evidence of the hero-tales which have the unsavoury motif of the Unnatural Father, that the original home of the story was England, where most of the hero-tales locate the incident. I would merely remark on this that there are only very slight traces of the story in these islands nowadays, while it abounds in Italy, which possesses one almost perfect version of the formula (Miss Cox, No. 142, from Sardinia).
Mr. Newell, on the other hand (American Folk-Lore Journal, ii., 160), considers Catskin the earliest of the three types contained in Miss Cox’s book, and considers that Cinderella was derived from this as a softening of the original. His chief reason appears to be the earlier appearance of Catskin in Straparola,[4] 1550, a hundred years earlier than Cinderella in Basile, 1636. This appears to be a somewhat insufficient basis for such a conclusion. Nor is there, after all, so close a relation between the two types in their full development as to necessitate the derivation of one from the other.
Source.—Folk-Lore Record, iii., 152-5, by the veteran Prof. Stephens. I have changed “dog and bitch” of original to “dog and cat,” and euphemised the liver and lights.
Parallels.—Prof. Stephens gives parallels from Denmark. Germany (the Grimms’ Up Riesensohn) and Ireland (Kennedy, Fireside Stories, p. 30).
Source.—Henderson’s Folk-Lore of Northern Counties, pp. 287-9, I have rewritten, as the original was rather high falutin’.
Parallels.—Worms or dragons form the subject of the whole of the eighth chapter of Henderson. “The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh” (No. xxxiii.) also requires the milk of nine kye for its daily rations, and cow’s milk is the ordinary provender of such kittle cattle (Grimms’ Teut. Myth. 687), the mythological explanation being that cows = the clouds and the dragon = the storm. Jephtha vows are also frequent in folk-tales: Miss Cox gives many examples in her Cinderella, p. 511.
Remarks.—Nine generations back from the last of the Lambtons, Henry Lambton, M.P., ob. 1761, reaches Sir John Lambton, Knight of Rhodes, and several instances of violent death occur in the interim. Dragons are possibly survivals into historic times of antedeluvian monsters, or reminiscences of classical legend (Perseus, etc.). Who shall say which is which, as Mr. Lang would observe.
LXXXVI. WISE MEN OF GOTHAM
