Chapter V: Introduction (3)

It may be asked, if this theory is correct, if these tales and legends were brought first into Thrace and then spread from that country to the other nations, how does it come to pass that so few traces of them can be found in Greek folk-lore? Paradoxical as it may sound, the absence of such creation and other legends and tales from the Greek folk-lore is, if anything, a further proof of the accuracy of the theory advanced. It must be remembered that there was no more ruthless persecution of ancient paganism, idolatry, ceremonies and legends than that carried out by the Greek Church against anything that reminded them of the Hellenic or pagan past. Nothing was spared, neither shrines nor books. The Greek's subtle mind devised the first thorough system of heresy-hunting and persecution. It ranged from polemical and harmless dialogues to the handing over of the so-called heretics to fire and sword. The secular power was there more than anywhere else the representative of the religious power, and justified its existence, as it were, only as the executor of the Church's mandate.

One has only to read about the innumerable decrees of councils and synods, to see the way in which Manichaeism, Arianism and Gnosticism in every shape and form were mercilessly uprooted, and to understand that this fight did not stop at Bogomilism. The polemics were carried out even down to the time of Eutemios Zygabenos and even the Emperors on the throne of Byzance did not consider it below their dignity to combat heretical teaching, the followers of which were given no pardon. There was also another factor which militated against the success of the Gnostic teaching--the literary past of the Greeks. To the circulation of apocryphal books and legendary tales, the Greeks were able to oppose a vast literary array. In Greece the Bogomils did not deal with simple-minded, illiterate folk at the beginning of whose literature they stood; on the contrary, they had to fight against an ancient influential literature, and against minds trained in the subtlest dialectics. They could not, therefore, succeed so easily, if at all.

Quite different were the conditions of the other nations with which they came in contact. None of these had yet more than the very beginnings of a literature. They were rude, simple-minded folk, and wherever the Greek Church or Greek Emperors did not wield any influence at all, as it happened in the Bulgaro-Vallachian kingdom established by Peter and Asan (1185 to 1257), the Bogomils had an easy task. For centuries, then, the Rumanians formed with the Bulgarians not only a religious, but also a political unity. The Bulgaro-Vallachian kingdom stretched from the Haemus to the Carpathians, and down to the end of the seventeenth century Slavonic was the official language of State and Church in Rumania. There could not have been a more close intimacy than between these two nations, despite the difference of the language which each of them spoke. They had their literature in common, and no doubt shared the same traditions. Bogomilism was just as rife in Vallachia as it was in Bulgaria. Even the written literature of Rumania shows how profound its influence has been: still more so does the oral literature of tales and legends, of fables and beliefs. Though the Bogomils did not bring Christianity to these peoples, for they were Christians, they brought at any rate a kind of religion to the mass of the folk. It was one of their own making and in their own image. It was clothed in beautiful tales, and answered the expectations of the rank and file, satisfied their curiosity, and gave them a glimpse of the moral beauty underlying the work of creation. In a way, it tended to purify the heart and to elevate the soul by allegories, parables and apologues, and thus it found ready acceptance, and struck deep root in the heart of the people, unaffected by decrees of Councils and by the fanatical intolerance of the established Church.

Not so successful, therefore, if successful at all, was the fight of the Greek Church against the heretical sects even in the Balkan Peninsula, where they were so numerous and so powerful. They persisted down to the time of the capture of Constantinople and the Turkish rule. A large number of the aristocracy in Bosnia and Dalmatia still adhered to the teaching of the Cathars, and when the Turks occupied the country in the sixteenth century, the majority of them embraced Islam, instead of entering either the Catholic or the Greek Church. A whole mass of apocryphal and spurious literature placed on the Index, has been preserved in Slavonic and Rumanian texts with outspoken dualistic views. Many of them have found their way into the Lucidaria, or "Questions and Answers," a kind of catechism, very popular among the nations of the Balkans, the Rumanians and the Russians. Similar Lucidaria were known in the West, but there they have been thoroughly expurgated, whilst, in the above-mentioned "questions," many an answer is found to which no orthodox Church would subscribe, but which form now a popular living belief among these nations. The political lethargy which settled upon most of these nations after the Turkish conquest created a happy brooding-place for such tales, and thus it can easily be understood why they have lived to this very day practically undisturbed and little changed.

To those who have followed the history of the religious development of the Russians, it will therefore not be surprising to find among their popular tales a number of variants closely allied to the Rumanian animal tales, and, what is of the utmost importance in this connection, not a few of the "creation" tales. No country perhaps has been so much torn by religious discussions and sects as Russia. The number of sects is legion. The most extraordinary notions, extreme views on dogma and practice, heterodox principles expressed in worship, belief and popular song or tale are all found in Russia: unadulterated Dualism, Bogomilism, Manichaean teaching are openly professed by a number of the sects persecuted and condemned by the Orthodox Church. Almost all the books condemned as heretical in the early Indices Expurgatoria put forth by Councils and Church Assemblies, have been preserved almost intact in the old Slavonic and Russian language, and the religious and epic songs of the "blind" minstrels of Russia are full of the legendary lore of those heterodox sects. This fact has been established beyond doubt by the researches of Russian scholars, and notably by Wesselofsky. Among the Russians, then, we find the nearest parallels to the Rumanian "creation" stories; a clear evidence of common origin, both drawing upon the same source of information; the religious in the form of apologues, legends and tales, so prominent a feature of heterodox propaganda.

The weapons used by the Catholic Church in its persecution of heretical sects are, almost every one of them, borrowed from the Greek armoury. One learns to know this fact more and more from a closer enquiry into the inner history of Byzance, its laws, decrees, administration and practice. And, precisely the same influence destroyed later the heretical teaching in the West as it destroyed it among the Greeks. The power of the Church and the secular arm were both used ruthlessly for exterminating any idea or any belief that ran counter to the doctrines taught by the established Church. The Cathars had also a much more difficult task in converting the East of Europe, inasmuch as they were also confronted there by some amount of literary tradition. Illiterate as were the masses, there were still among them and among their clerics, men of ability, men of learning, men trained in the scholastic schools, able, if not to refute, at any rate to confuse, the strange doctrine.

All these forces combined, produced in the East the same result as they have produced among the Greeks. We are thus on the track of one of the most important sources of Western European folk-lore, always remembering that the medium in which this propaganda flourished differed considerably in the West from that in the East. In the former such propaganda met with a more ancient layer of well-established literary tradition. The Catholic Church, as mentioned above, was first in possession. It was not a tabula rasa on which the new teaching could be written, but yet that which existed was profoundly modified and a new fund of highly poetic yet popular material was added to the small store of knowledge possessed by the common people. But in time the Church took up the challenge, and remorselessly hunted down the apostles of popular heterodox teaching, just as the Greeks had done, going even further. It punished with sword and fire the followers of unauthorised practices, and branded every deviation from the strait path as rank heresy. The books containing legends and tales were burnt, and their possessors were often treated in like fashion.

Inquisition, Church and other influences helped, as already mentioned, to destroy them. In the tragedy of heresy-hunting and burning of witches, the charge of devil worship was the basic principle, the chief head of accusation. It was clearly devised against the followers of the dualistic teaching. To tell a tale like any of these Rumanian "creation" tales, would have been inviting the heaviest punishment--to believe in it would have meant sure death. No wonder that they disappeared quickly, or were changed into harmless satires, as in the Reynard Cycle, or were even used for political cartoons, in broadsides, like the Cock Robin Cycle in the time of Charles II., which, when transplanted to Russia, became a political lampoon on Peter and his Court.

Heresy-hunting becomes a popular distraction only when the official clergy find it profitable to make it so, and when the people are made to trace their own ills and troubles, their losses in field and stable, to the evil machinations of these tools of the devil. So long as they are not suffering in body or purse, the folk are absolutely indifferent to dogmas, and they will eagerly accept anything that pleases them. It will therefore not come as a surprise, in view of what has been stated, if we find some weird conceptions among the Rumanian peasantry.

Studied from the point of view of heresiology or rather of popular psychology, some of these tales will appear to us as so many living records of the great spiritual movement, which for centuries dominated Europe, and which has since died out.

Too little attention has been given hitherto to the influence of those numerous sects, which stretched from Asia Minor to the south of France, and overflowed even into England. Their dualism, the strong belief in the Power of Evil, Satan and his host, the consequent duty of the faithful to banish him or to subdue him, thus developed into belief in sorcery and witchcraft, with the attending horrors of the Inquisition.

Then came a period of wider education still less tolerant of old women's superstition and nursery tales. What was left still standing has been, and is being, finally destroyed by our modern schools and schoolmasters. From this dire fate, the folk-lore of the nearer East has as yet been preserved. The importance of the study of folk-lore has happily been recognised in those countries, early enough to stop the blight which had set in and which threatened to destroy it more ruthlessly than even in the West. The modern "man of science" is a more relentless iconoclast than the religious fanatic. He starts from the mind in his attempt to destroy folk-lore, using to this end cold reasoning, logical conclusions, spiritual prepossession and intolerance. The religious fanatic starts from the heart, with overwhelming passion, fiery zeal, unreasoning hatred, from which there is a possible escape for mysticism and mythical lore, whilst from the former there is none. Happily, our science of folk-lore with its deep sympathy and profound appreciation of these manifestations of the popular psyche has come in the nick of time to rescue from total extinction what the schoolmaster and the heresy-hunter have not yet annihilated.

I turn now to another aspect of these bird and beast tales. If, as I believe, they show us what is at the back of the mind of the people, they are of invaluable service to the student of anthropology, above all to him who seeks enlightenment in the grave problems of education and civilization; and they are not without importance for the solution of political problems.

Attempts are made--well meant, no doubt--to foist that state of culture which the West calls "modern civilization," or "civilization" pure and simple, upon the reluctant people of the Near and Far East. We are forgetful of the fact that these nations have had a civilization of their own, and that something more important is included in this forcible change than the change of a dress.

As the outcome of a long-drawn battle between feudalism and modern society, as a result of political and economic evolutions, the civilization of the West, when introduced among nations that have not gone through the same experience, acts like the Juggernaut car, which crushes under its wheels the worshippers of this new god and destroys at the same time the foundations of the old order of things. Only students of folk-lore, those who try to reach the hidden depths, nay, to penetrate the inner soul of the people, are in a position to judge of the results of these civilizing attempts. They can compare the past with the present, and draw a proper balance between gain and loss. Are the people happier, more contented, more moral, and even more religious after the change, than they were before it? Surely not. And if not, why not? The answer is very simple: because in this violent change no tenderness is shown to those beliefs and practices which are dear to the people and which help to lighten the burden of life by innocent mirth and the wholesome play of fancy. Wire brooms may sweep well; but they may do it too well, and they can sweep everything away, leaving the home bare and the gardens stripped of every leaf and flower.

A few words concerning the order and grouping of these tales. They have been arranged in three main groups. The first comprises those tales which I have characterised as creation legends. In them the origin of birds, beasts and insects is explained as the result of some direct act of God, or the Saints, or the Devil. An attempt has been made to follow a certain chronological order. Those tales stand first in which God is acting at the beginning of the creation. Then, following the Biblical order, the legends connected with the persons of sacred history from Adam to the Apostles, including St. Mary and St. Anne. Mystical Christmas carols or rather epic ballads, in which similar subjects are treated, have been inserted between the legends. The second section comprises such legends as are more like fairy tales. The mythical personages are no longer those known through the Scriptures. On the contrary, there are in these tales reminiscences of ancient heathen gods and heroes, chief among them being Alexander the Great.

In the third section the animal fables are grouped together. It is the literature of the apologues without any framework or moral setting. The parallels, as far as could be found, are given briefly at the end of each legend, tale or fable. I have striven to be concise in my references to the best-known collections of tales, such as Grimm, Hahn, Cosquin, and Gonzenbach, where the student of fairy tales can easily find the whole comparative literature.

For the genuine and unadulterated popular origin of these tales I can vouch absolutely. Some I have heard in my early youth, but the majority have been culled from the works of S. Fl. Marian (Ornitologia poporana Româna, 2 vols., Cernauti 1883; and Insectele, Bucharest 1903), than whom a more painstaking trustworthy collector could not be imagined. Some have been taken from the Folk-lore reviews, Sezatoarea, ed. by A. Gorovei (i.-xii., Falticeni 1892 to 1912), and Ion Creanga, published by the Society of that name (i.-viii., Barlad 1908-1915). Anton Pann (Poveste si istoriaire, Bucharest 1836) has given us a few stories, as well as A. and A. Schott (Walachische Maehrchen, Stuttgart and Tübingen 1845). The Pilgrimage of the Soul is from S. Mangiuca, Calindariu, pe. 1882, Brasiovu 1881 and the Story of Man and his Years, No. 113, from M. Gaster, Chrestomatie Romana, vol. ii., Bucharest 1891. These tales have been collected from every country where Rumanians live, not only in the Kingdom of Rumania, but also from the Rumanians of Transylvania and Bukovina, as well as from the Kutzo-Vlachs of Macedonia.

I have added a few charms and also a few more mystical religious songs and carols, which throw light on some of the beliefs underlying the tales and legends, taken mostly from the great collection of G. Dem. Teodorescu (Poesii Popularare Romane, Bucharest 1885).

In some cases I have given also variants of the same tale.

I have endeavoured to render the stories as faithfully as the spirit of the Rumanian and English languages allows, and I fear that I have on sundry occasions forced the latter in my desire to preserve as far as possible the quaintness and the flavour of the Rumanian original.

There is one characteristic feature in the collection of animal tales and legends given here, upon which I should like to lay great stress, and that is the complete purity which pervades them all. There is no playing with moral principles. No double meaning is attached to any story: and this, to my mind, is the best proof of their popular origin. These tales are not sullied by a morbid imagination, nor contaminated by sexual problems. The people are pure at heart and in the stories their simplicity and purity appear most beautifully.

In these tales and legends we have syncretism in full swing. It is not a picture of the past which we have to piece laboriously together from half-forgotten records, from writing half obliterated by the action of time and by changes which have swept over those nations of the past, whose life and thought we are endeavouring to conjure up and to understand. In our midst, at our door, under our own eyes, this process of mixing and adjusting, of change and evolution, of differentiation, combination and assimilation is still going on. It is a wonderful picture for any one who is able to discover the forces that are at work, who can trace every strand of the webbing, every thread in the woof and warp, to its immediate and to its remoter source. We see the shuttle of human imagination, of human belief, flying busily through the loom, charged at one time with one thread, at another with a different one. Many of the ways of the human mind meet here, cross one another, and new roads are thus created by busy wayfarers. And thus paganism sustains a busy and robust life. The old Pantheon is still peopled with the old gods, or, shall we better say, the Pandaemonium in its highest and best sense is displaying itself with unexpected vigour. The heathen gods, the Christian saints, God and the devil legends, fairy tales, oriental imagery, mystical traditions and astrological lore are all inextricably blended together. The line of demarcation between man and animal has not been clearly drawn, or it has not yet been attempted. These multifarious elements have not yet been combined into one homogeneous structure. The problem arises whether other nations have also passed through a similar mental and psychical process; whether they have had a similar Pandaemonic mixture, out of which their more colourless folk-lore had been distilled in the crucible of "civilization."

Primitive people can often hear the footfall of men by putting the ear to the ground. We may, by putting an ear to the ground, hear the footfalls of the Past, and listen to the echo before it dies away into eternity.

BIRD AND BEAST STORIES