Chapter XXIV: Part II: i. 1.440 (4)

A man, named Rhœcus, happening to see an oak just ready to fall to the ground, ordered his slaves to prop it. The Nymph, who had been on the point of perishing with the tree, came to him and expressed her gratitude to him for having saved her life, and at the same time desired him to ask what reward he would. Rhœcus then requested her to permit him to be her lover, and the Nymph acceded to his wishes. She at the same time charged him strictly to avoid the society of every other woman, and told him that a bee should be her messenger. One time the bee happened to come to Rhœcus as he was playing at draughts, and he made a rough reply. This so incensed the Nymph that she deprived him of sight.

Similar was the fate of the Sicilian Daphnis.[500] A Naïs loved him and forbade him to hold intercourse with any other woman under pain of loss of sight. Long he abstained, though tempted by the fairest maids of Sicily. At length a princess contrived to intoxicate him: he broke his vow, and the threatened penalty was inflicted.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.

ITALY.

Faune Nympharum fugientum amator,
Per meos fines et aprica rura
Lenis incedas, abeasque parvis
Æquus alumnis.
HORATIUS.

Unfortunately for our knowledge of the ancient Italian mythology, the ballad-poetry of Rome is irrecoverably lost. A similar fate has befallen the literature of Etruria, Umbria, and other parts of the peninsula. The powerful influence exercised by Grecian genius over the conquerors of the Grecian states utterly annihilated all that was national and domestic in literature. Not but that Latin poetry abounds in mythologic matter; but it is the mythology of Greece, not of Italy; and the reader of Virgil and Ovid will observe with surprise how little of what he meets in their works is Italian.

So much however of the population of ancient Italy, particularly of Latium, was Pelasgian, that it is natural to suppose a great similarity between the religious systems of Latium and Hellas. The Latins do not, however, appear to have believed in choirs of Nymphs. Those we read of, such as Egeria, Anna Perenna, Juturna, are all solitary, all dwellers of fountains, streams, and lakes. The Italian Diana did not, like the Grecian Artemis, speed over the mountains attended by a train of buskined nymphs. No Dryads sought to avert the fate of their kindred trees--no Nereides sported on the waves.

Dwarfish deities they had none. We are indeed told of the Lars, particularly the rural Lars, as answering to the Gothic Dwarfs; but no proofs are offered except the diminutive size of their statues. This we hold to amount to nothing. Are we to suppose the following lines of Plautus to have been delivered by an "eyas?"

Lest any marvel who I am, I shall
Briefly declare it. I am the family Lar
Of this house whence you see me coming out.
'Tis many years now that I keep and guard
This family; both father and grandsire
Of him that has it now, I aye protected.
Now his grandsire intrusted me a treasure
Of gold, that I, unknown to all, should keep it.

* * * * *

He has one daughter, who, each day with wine
Or incense, or with something, worships me.
She gives me crowns, and I in recompense
Have now made Euclio find the treasure out,
That if he will, he may more readily
Get her a match.[501]

The Lars were a portion of the Etrurian religion. The Etruscan word Lar signifies Lord, with which it has a curious but casual resemblance.[502] The Lars were regarded, like the Grecian heroes, as being the souls of men who, after death, still hovered about their former abodes, averting dangers from, and bestowing blessings on, the inhabitants. They differed from the Penates, who were, properly speaking, Gods, beings of a higher nature, personifications of natural powers, the givers of abundance and wealth.

The old Italians, it appears, believed in a being, we know not of what size, called an Incubo, that watched over treasure. "But what they say I know not," says Petronius,[503] "but I have heard how he snatched the cap of an Incubo and found a treasure."

* * * * *

Respecting the Fairy mythology of the modern Italians, what we have been able to collect is very little.

The people of Naples, we are told,[504] believe in a being very much resembling the Incubo, whom they call the Monaciello, or Little Monk. They describe him as a short, thick kind of little man, dressed in the long garments of a monk, with a broad-brimmed hat. He appears to people in the dead of the night, and beckons to them to follow him. If they have courage to do so, he leads them to some place where treasure is concealed. Several are said to have made sudden fortunes through him. In the Neapolitan story-book, named the Pentamerone, of which we shall presently give an account, we meet with a Monaciello of a very different character from this guardian of hidden treasure.

In the second tale of the first day of that work, when the prince in the night heard the noise made by the Fairy in his room, "he thought it was some chamber-boy coming to lighten his purse for him, or some Monaciello to pull the clothes off him." And in the seventh tale of the third day of the same collection, when Corvetto had hidden himself under the Ogre's[505] bed to steal his quilt, "he began to pull quite gently, when the Ogre awoke, and bid his wife not to pull the clothes that way, or she'd strip him, and he would get his death of cold." "Why, it's you that are stripping me," replied the Ogress, "and you have not left a stitch on me." "Where the devil is the quilt?" says the Ogre; and putting his hand to the ground, he happened to touch the face of Corvetto, and immediately began to shout out, "The Monaciello, the Monaciello, hola! candles! run, run!" Corvetto, meanwhile, got off with his prize through the window.[506]

It is quite clear that the Monaciello is the same kind of being as the House-spirit of the Gotho-German nations. He seems to belong peculiarly to Naples, for we have not heard of him in any other part of Italy. Now we are to recollect that this was the very place in which the Normans settled, and so he may be their Nis or Kobold;[507] or, as he is so very like the Spanish Duende, he may be that being introduced by the Aragonese, who seem to have exercised so much influence over the language and manners of the people of Naples.

* * * * *

The belief in Mermaids also prevailed in modern Italy. In the reign of Roger, king of Sicily, a young man happening to be bathing in the sea late in the evening, perceived that something was following him. Supposing it to be one of his companions, he caught it by the hair, and dragged it on shore. But finding it to be a maiden of great beauty and of most perfect form, he threw his cloak about her, and took her home, where she continued with him till they had a son. There was one thing however which greatly grieved him, which was the reflection that so beautiful a form should be dumb, for he had never heard her speak. One day he was reproached by one of his companions, who said that it was a spectre, and not a real woman, that he had at home: being both angry and terrified, he laid his hand on the hilt of his sword, and urged her with vehemence to tell him who or what she was, threatening if she did not do so, to kill the child before her eyes. The spirit only saying, that he had lost a good wife by forcing her to speak, instantly vanished, leaving her son behind. A few years after, as the boy was playing on the sea-shore with his companions, the spirit his mother dragged him into the sea, where he was drowned.[508]

* * * * *

We now come to the Fate of romance and tale.

The earliest notice that we can recollect to have seen of these potent ladies is in the Orlando Innamorato, where we meet the celebrated Fata Morgana, who would at first appear to be, as a personification of Fortune, a being of a higher order.

Ivi è una fata nomata Morgana,
Che a le genti diverse dona l'oro;
Quanto e per tutto il mondo or se ne spande
Convien che ad essa prima si dimande.
L. I. c. xxv. st. 5. ed. 1831.

But we afterwards find her in her proper station, subject, with the Fate and Witches, to the redoubtable Demogorgon.[509] When Orlando, on delivering Zilante from her, makes her swear by that awful power, the poet says:

Sopra ogni fata è quel Demogorgone
(Non so se mai l'odiste raccontare)
E giudica tra loro e fa ragione,
E quel che piace a lui può di lor fare.
La notte si cavalea ad un montone,
Travarca le montagne e passa il mare,
E _strigie_, e _fate_, e fantasime vane
Batte con serpi vive ogni dimane.

Se le ritrova la dimane al mondo,
Perchè non ponno al giorno comparire,
Tanto le batte al colpo furibondo
Che volentier vorrien poter morire.
Or le incatena giù nel mar profondo,
Or sopra il vento scalze la fa gire,
Or per il fuoco dietro a sè le mena;
A cui dà questa, a cui quell' altra pena.
L. II. c. xiii. st. 27, 28.

According to Ariosto,[510] Demogorgon has a splendid temple palace in the Himalaya mountains, whither every fifth year the Fate are all summoned to appear before him, and give an account of their actions. They travel through the air in various strange conveyances, and it is no easy matter to distinguish between their convention and a Sabbath of the Witches.

We meet with another Fata in Bojardo,[511] the beautiful Silvanella, who raised a tomb over Narcissus, and then dissolved away into a fountain.

When Brandamarte opens the magnificent tomb and kisses the hideous serpent that thrusts out its head, it gradually becomes a beautiful maiden.

Questa era Febosilla quella fata,
Che edificato avea l'alto palaccio
E'l bel giardino e quella sepoltura,
Ove un gran tempo è stata in pena dura.

Perchè una fata non può morir mai,
Sin che non giunge il giorno del giudizio,
Ma ben ne la sua forma dura assai,
Mill' anni o più, sì come io aggio indizio.
Poi (siccome di questa io vi contai
Qual fabbricato avea il bell' edifizio)
In serpe si tramuta e stavvi tanto
Che di baciarla alcun si doni il vanto.
L. II. c. xxvi. st. 14, 15

The other Fate who appear in this poem are Le Fate Nera and Bianca, the protectresses of Guidone and Aquilante; the Fata della Fonte, from whom Mandricardo obtains the arms of Hector, and finally Alcina, the sister of Morgana, who carries off Astolfo. Dragontina and Falerina, the owners of such splendid gardens, may also have been Fate, though they are not called so by the poet.

Alcina re-appears in great splendour in the Orlando Furioso, where she is given a sister named Logistilla, and both, like Morgana in the preceding poem, are in a great measure allegorical. We also obtain there a glimpse of the White and Black Fate. The Maga Manto of Dante becomes here a Fata, and we meet her in the form of a serpent; to account for which she says,

Nascemmo ad un punto che d' ogni altro male
Siamo capaci fuor che della morte.
Ma giunta è con questo essere immortale
Condizion non men del morir forte;
Ch' ogni settimo giorno ognuna è certa
Che la sua forma in biscia si converta.
C. xliii. st. 98.

Elsewhere (x. 52) the poet tells us that

Morir non puote alcuna fata mai
Fin che il Sol gira, o il ciel non muta stilo.

In the Amadigi of Bernardo Tasso the Fate appear for the last time in Italian poetry;[512] but in greater number, and, we may say, greater splendour than elsewhere. There are two classes of them, the beneficent and protective, and the seductive and injurious. The terms Maga and Incantatrice, as well as Fata, are applied to them all indifferently. The good Fairy-ladies are Urganda, termed _La savia_ and _La sconosciuta_,[513] the guardian of Amadigi, and the fair Oriana; Silvana or Silvanella who stands in a similar relation to Alidoro; Lucina, also named La Donna del Lago, another protectress of Alidoro and of his lady-love, the fair warrior Mirinda, sister of Amadigi; Eufrosina, the sister of Lucina; Argea, called La Reina della Fate, the protectress of Floridante, to whom, after making him undergo various trials, she gives her daughter Filidora in marriage; finally, Argea's sister Filidea. The Fate whose character resembles that of Alcina are Morganetta, Nivetta, and Carvilia, the three daughters of Morgana. Beside these then are two Fate of neutral character, Dragontina, who formed a palace, temple and gardens, in which, at the desire of her father, she enchanted a young prince and his wife; and Montana, who, to avenge the fate of her lover, slain by Alidoro, enchanted that warrior in a temple which she had raised to the memory of the fallen.[514]

Ma veggiam ch' io non stessi troppo a bada
Con queste Alcine e Morgane.

The earliest collections of European Fairy-tales in prose belong to Italy. In 1550, Straparola, a native of Caravaggio, in the Milanese, published at Venice his Notti Piacevoli, a collection of tales, jokes, and riddles, of which several, and those the best, are Fairy-tales. These were translated into French in 1560-76, and seem to have been the origin of the so well known Contes des Feés. Perrault's Puss in Boots (_Le Chat Botté_,) and the Princess Fairstar (_Belle Etoile_,) and many others of Madame D'Aulnoy's, who borrowed largely from the Notti Piacevoli, are to be found in Straparola. In 1637, eighty-seven years after the Notti Piacevoli appeared at Naples, and in the Neapolitan dialect, the Pentamerone, the best collection of Fairy-tales ever written.[515] The author, Giambattista Basile,[516] had spent his youth in Candia, and then passed several years rambling through Italy. He seems to have carefully treasured up all the tales he heard, and he wrote and published them, under the feigned name of Gian Alesio Abbatutis, in his native dialect, not long before his death.

In the Tales and Popular Fictions we gave some translations from the Notti Piacevoli, the only ones in English, and they will probably remain such, as the work is not one likely ever to be translated. In the same work we gave two from the Pentamerone, and three (the Dragon, Gagliuso, and the Goatface) in the former edition of the present work. Most certainly we were the first to render any of these curious tales into English, and we look back with a mixture of pleasure and surprise at our success in the unaided struggle with an idiom so different from the classic Italian.[517] We fancied that we had been the first to make translations from it into any language, but we afterwards learned that of the two tales in our other work, the one, Peruonto, had been translated into French (probably by the Abbé Galiani) for the Cabinet des Fées, the other, the Serpent into German, by M. Grimm.[518] Of late, this most original work has been brought within the reach of ordinary readers by two translations, the one in German by Felix Liebrecht, who has given the work complete with few omissions; the other in English by Mr. J. E. Taylor, who has made a selection of thirty tales, and these most carefully expurgated, in order that agreeably to its second title, it might form a book of amusement even for children--a most difficult task, and in which his success has been far greater than might have been anticipated. All our own translations have been incorporated in it, and we can safely refer to it those who wish to know the real character and nature of the Pentamerone.

Whatever name Basile might give his book it is quite plain that he never could have meant it merely for children. The language alone is proof enough on that head. It is, besides, full of learned allusions and of keen satire, so that it could only be understood and relished by grown persons, for whose amusement it was apparently designed; and its tales are surely not much more extravagant than some of those in Ariosto and the other romantic poets. It in fact never was a child's book like the Contes de ma Mère l' Oie. It has now become very scarce; we could not at Naples meet with a copy of it, or even with any one who had read it.

FOOTNOTES:

[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 the _tours de passe passe_ of 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 while _comme o chillo che ha visto lo Monaciello_.

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

[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 is _shiume_; Fiore, _shiure_; Piaggia, _chiaja_; Piombo, _chiummo_; Biondo, _ghiunno_. There are likewise numerous Hispanicisms. Thus _gaiola_ in Gagliuso which we all rendered _coffin_, is the Spanish _jaula_, 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 in _na bellezza a doje sole_) occurs in the plays of Calderon.

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

SPAIN.

Duendecillo, duendecillo,
Quien quiera que seas ó fueras,
El dinero que tú das
En lo que mandares vuelve.
CALDERON, _La Dama Duende_.

When we inquired after the fairy-system of Spain, we were told that there was no such thing, for that the Inquisition had long since eradicated all such ideas. Most certainly we would not willingly be regarded as partisans of the Holy Office, yet still we must express our doubt of the truth of this charge. In Señor Llorente's work, as far as we can recollect, there is no account of prosecutions for Duende-heresy; and even to the Holy Office we should give its due. Still, with all our diligence, our collection of Iberian fairy-lore is extremely scanty.

Our earliest authority for Spain, as for other countries, is the celebrated marshall of Champagne, Gervase of Tilbury, who thus relates:--

_The Daughter of Peter De Cabinam._

In the bishoprick of Gerunda (_i. e._ Gerona), and the province of Catalonia, stands a mountain which the natives call Convagum. It is very steep, and on its summit is a lake of dark water, so deep that it cannot be fathomed. The abode of the Demons is in this lake; and if a stone, or anything else, be thrown into it, there rises from it an awful tempest.

Not far from this mountain, in a village named Junchera, lived a man named Peter de Cabinam, who being one day annoyed by the crying of his little girl, wished in his anger that the Demons might fetch her away. The child instantly vanished--snatched away by invisible hands--and was seen no more. Time passed on; and it was seven years after this event, when a man belonging to the village, as he was one day rambling about the foot of the mountain, met a man weeping bitterly, and bewailing his hard fate. On inquiry, he said that he had now been seven years in the mountain under the power of the Demons, who employed him as a beast of burden. He added, that there was also a girl in the mountain, the daughter of Peter de Cabinam of Junchera, a servant like himself; but that they were tired of her, and would restore her to her father if he came to claim her. When this information came to Peter de Cabinam, he forthwith ascended the mountain, and going to the edge of the lake, he besought the Demons to give him back his child. Like a sudden gust of wind she came, tall in stature, but wasted and dirty, her eyes rolling wildly, and her speech inarticulate. The father, not knowing what to do with her, applied to the Bishop of Gerunda, who took this opportunity of edifying his people by exhibiting the girl to them, and warning them against the danger of wishing that the Demons had their children. Some time after the man also was released, and from him the people learned that at the bottom of the lake there was a large palace, with a wide gate, to which palace the Demons repaired from all parts of the world, and which no one could enter but themselves, and those they brought thither.[519]

_Origin of the House of Haro._

As Don Diego Lopez, lord of Biscay, was one day lying in wait for the wild boar, he heard the voice of a woman who was singing. On looking around, he beheld on the summit of a rock a damsel, exceedingly beautiful, and richly attired. Smitten with her charms, he proffered her his hand. In reply, she assured him that she was of high descent, but frankly accepted his proffered hand; making, however, one condition--he was never to pronounce a holy name. Tradition says that the fair bride had only one defect, which was, that one of her feet was like that of a goat. Diego Lopez, however, loved her well, and she bore him two children, a daughter, and a son named Iniguez Guerra.

Now it happened one day, as they were sitting at dinner, that the lord of Biscay threw a bone to the dogs, and a mastiff and a spaniel quarrelled about it, and the spaniel griped the mastiff by the throat, and throttled him. "Holy Mary!" exclaimed Don Diego, "who ever saw the like?" Instantly the lady caught hold of the hands of her children; Diego seized and held the boy, but the mother glided through the air with the daughter, and sought again the mountains whence she had come. Diego remained alone with his son; and some years after, when he invaded the lands of the Moors, he was made captive by them, and led to Toledo. Iniguez Guerra, who was now grown up, was greatly grieved at the captivity of his father, and the men of the land told him that his only hope was to find his mother, and obtain her aid. Iniguez made no delay; he rode alone to the well-known mountains, and when he reached them, behold! his fairy-mother stood there before him on the summit of a rock. "Come unto me," said she, "for well do I know thy errand." And she called to her Pardalo, the horse that ran without a rider in the mountains, and she put a bridle into his mouth, and bade Iniguez mount him, and told him that he must not give him either food or water, or unsaddle or unbridle him, or put shoes upon his feet, and that in one day the demon-steed would carry him to Toledo. And Iniguez obeyed the injunctions of his mother, and succeeded in liberating his father; but his mother never returned.[520]

In the large collection of Spanish ballads named El Romancero Castellano, the only one that treats of fairy-lore is the following, which tells of the enchantment of the King of Castille's daughter by seven fairies,[521] for a period of seven years. It is of the same character as the fairy-tales of France and Italy.

_La Infantine._

Á cazar va el caballero,
Á cazar como solia.--
Los perros lleva cansados,
El falcon perdido avia.

Arrimarase á un roble,
Alto es á maravilla,
En un ramo mas alto
Viera estar una Infantina.

Cabellos de su cabeza
Todo aquel roble cobrian;
"No te espantes, caballero
Ni tengas tamaña grima.

"Hija soy del buen rey
Y de la reina de Castilla;
Siete fadas me fadaron,[522]
En brazos de una ama mia,

"Que andase los siete años
Sola en esta montina.[523]
Hoy se cumplan los años
O mañana, en aquel dia.

"Por Dios te ruego, caballero
Llevesme en tu compañia,
Si quisieres por muger,
Si no sea por amiga."

"Espereis me vos, señora,
Esta mañana, aquel dia;
Iré yo tomar consejo
De una madre que tenia."

La niña le respondiera,
Y estas palabras, decia:
"O mal haya el caballero
Que sola deja la niña!"

El se va á tomar consejo,
Y ella queda en la montina.
Aconsejóle su madre
Que la tomase por amiga.

Quando volvió el caballero
No la hallara en la montina.
Vió la que la llevaban,
Com muy grande caballeria.

El caballero, que lo ha visto,
En el suelo se caia.
Desque en si hubo tornado
Estas palabras decia:

"Caballero que tal pierde
Muy grandes penas merecia.
Yo mismo seré el alcalde,
Yo me seré la justicia,
Que me cortan pies y manos,
Y me arrastran por la villa."[524]

_Pepito el Corcovado._

Pepito el Corcovado,[525] a gay lively little hunchback, used to gain his living by his voice and his guitar; for he was a general favourite, and was in constant request at weddings and other festivities. He was going home one night from one of these festive occasions, being under engagement for another in the morning, and, as it was in the celebrated Sierra Morena, he contrived to lose his way. After trying in vain to find it, he wrapped his cloak about him, and lay down for the night at the foot of a cork-tree. He had hardly, however, gone to sleep, when he was awakened by the sound of a number of little voices singing to an old air with which he was well acquainted,

Lunes y Martes y Miercoles tres

over and over again. Deeming this to be imperfect, he struck in, adding,

Jueves y Viernes y Sabado seis.

The little folk were quite delighted, and for hours the mountain rang with

Lunes y Martes y Miercoles tres,
Jueves y Viernes y Sabado seis.

Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday three,
Thursday and Friday and Saturday, six.

They finally crowded round Pepito, and bade him ask what he would for having completed their song so beautifully. After a little consideration, he begged to have his hump removed. So said so done, he was in an instant one of the straightest men in all Spain. On his return home, every one was amazed at the transformation. The story soon got wind, and another hunchback, named Cirillo, but unlike Pepito, as crooked in temper as in person, having learned from him where the scene of his adventure lay, resolved to proceed thither and try his luck. He accordingly reached the spot, sat under the cork-tree, and saw and heard all that Pepito had heard and seen. He resolved also to add to the song, and he struck in with "Y Domingo siete" (_and Sunday seven_); but whether it was the breach of rhythm, or the mention of the Lord's Day that gave offence, he was instantly assailed with a shower of blows or pinches, and to make his calamity the greater, Pepito's hump was added to his own.[526]

* * * * *

We thus may see that there are beings in Spain also answering to the various classes of Fairies. But none of these have obtained the same degree of reputation as the House-spirit, whose Spanish name is Duende or Trasgo. In Torquemada's Spanish Mandeville, as the old English version of it is named, there is a section devoted to the Duende, in which some of his feats, such as pelting people with stones, clay, and such like, are noticed, and in the last century the learned Father Feijoo wrote an essay on Duendes,[527] _i.e._ on House-spirits; for he says little of the proper Spanish Duende, and his examples are Hödiken and the Kobolds, of which he had read in Agricola and other writers. On the whole, perhaps, the best account of the Duende will be found in Calderon's spritely comedy, named La Dama Duende.

In this piece, when Cosme, who pretends that he had seen the Duende when he put out his candle, is asked by his master what he was like, he replies:

Era un fraile
Tamañito, y tenia puesto
Un cucurucho tamaño;
Que por estas señas creo
Que era duende capuchino.

This _cucurucho_ was a long conical hat without a brim worn by the clergy in general, and not by the Capuchins alone. A little before, Cosme, when seeking to avert the appearance of the Duende, recites the following lines, which have the appearance of being formed from some popular charm against the House-spirit:

Señora dama duende,
Duelase de mi;
Que soy niño y solo,
Y nunca en tal me ví.

In De Solis' very amusing comedy of Un Bobo hace Ciento, Doña Ana makes the following extremely pretty application of the popular idea of the Duende:

Yo soy, don Luis, una dama
Que no conozco este duende
Del amor, si no es por fama.

In another of his plays (_El Amor al Uso_), a lady says:

Amor es duende importuno
Que al mundo asombrando trae;
Todos dicen que le ay,
Y no le ha visto ninguno.

The lines from Calderon prefixed to this section of our work, show that money given by the Duende was as unsubstantial as fairy-money in general. This is confirmed by Don Quixote, who tells his rather covetous squire, that "los tesoros de los caballeros andantes son, como los de los Duendes, aparentes y falsos."

The Spaniards seem also to agree with the people of other countries in regarding the Fairies as being fallen angels. One of their most celebrated poets thus expresses himself:

Disputase por hombres entendidos
Si fué de _los caidos_ este duende.

Some Spanish etymologists say that Duende is a contraction of _Dueño de casa_; others, that it comes from the Arabic _Dûar_, (dwelling) the term used for the Arab camps on the north-coast of Africa. To us it appears more probable that the Visigoths brought their ancient popular creed with them to Spain[528] also, and that as Duerg became Drac in Provence, it was converted into Duende in Spain.[529] It is further not quite impossible that Duerg may be also the original of Trasgo, a word for which we believe no etymon has been proposed.

FOOTNOTES:

[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. See _France_.

[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] _Fada_ is 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. Thus _quedo_, _junto_, _harto_, _marchito_, _vacio_, _enjuto_, _violento_, &c., come from _quedar_, _juntar_, _hartar_, &c. As the Spanish, following the Latin, also frequently uses the past as a present participle, as _un hombre atrevido_, "a daring man;" and the same appears to take place in Italian, as _un huomo accorto_, _saputo_, _avveduto_, _dispietato_; and even in French, as _un homme réfléchi_, _désespéré_; may we not say that _fada_, _fata_, _fée_, is enchant_ing_ rather than enchant_ed_?

[523] _Montina_ is 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 siete_ is, we are told, a common phrase when any thing is said or done _mal 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 of _r_ and _n_ is not without examples. Thus we have αργυρον and _argentum_; _water_, English; _vand_, Danish; _vatn_, Swedish. _Cristofero_ is _Cristofano_ in Tuscan; _homine_, _nomine_, _sanguine_, are _hombre_, _nombre_, _sangre_, Spanish. In _Duerg_ when _r_ became _n_, euphony changed _g_ to _d_, or _vice versâ_. The changes words undergo when the derivation is certain, are often curious. _Alguacil_, Spanish, is _El-wezeer_ Arab, as _Azucena_ Spanish, _Cecem_ Portuguese (white-lily) is _Sûsan_ Arab; _Guancia_ (cheek) Italian, is _Wange_ German; Ναυπακτος has become _Lépanto_. It might not be safe to assert that the Persian _gurk_ and our _wolf_ are the same, and yet the letters in them taken in order are all commutable. Our _God be with you_ has shrunk to _Goodbye_, and the Spanish _Vuestra merced_ to _Usted_, 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. Thus _ninny_ is from _niño_; _booby_ from _bobo_; _pucker_ from _puchero_; _launch_ (a boat) from _lancha_; and perhaps _monkey_ (if not from _mannikin_) from _mono_, _monico_. We pronounce our _colonel_ like the Spanish _coronel_.

FRANCE.

Pourquoi faut-il s'émerveiller
Que la raison la mieux sensée,
Lasse souvent de veiller,
Par des contes d'ogre et de fée
Ingenieusement bercée,
Prenne plaisir à sommeiller?
PERRAULT.

The Fairy mythology of France may be divided, as respects its locality, into two parts, that of Northern and that of Southern France, the Langue d'Oil and the Langue d'Oc. We will commence with the latter, as adjacent to Spain. Of its mythology, Gervase of Tilbury, who resided in the kingdom of Arles, has left us some interesting particulars, and other authorities enable us to trace it down to the present day. Speaking of the inhabitants of Arles, Gervase thus expresses himself:

"They also commonly assert, that the Dracs assume the human form, and come early into the public market-place without any one being thereby disturbed. These, they say, have their abode in the caverns of rivers, and occasionally, floating along the stream in the form of gold rings or cups, entice women or boys who are bathing on the banks of the river; for, while they endeavour to grasp what they see, they are suddenly seized and dragged down to the bottom: and this, they say, happens to none more than to suckling women, who are taken by the Dracs to rear their unlucky offspring; and sometimes, after they have spent seven years there, they return to our hemisphere. These women say that they lived with the Dracs and their wives in ample palaces, in the caverns and banks of rivers. We have ourselves seen one of these women, who was taken away while washing clothes on the banks of the Rhone. A wooden bowl floated along by her, and, in endeavouring to catch it, having got out into the deep water, she was carried down by a Drac, and made nurse to his son below the water. She returned uninjured, and was hardly recognised by her husband and friends after seven years' absence.

"After her return she related very wonderful things, such as that the Dracs lived on people they had carried off, and turned themselves into human forms; and she said that one day, when the Drac gave her an eel-pasty to eat, she happened to put her fingers, that were greasy with the fat, to one of her eyes and one side of her face, and she immediately became endowed with most clear and distinct vision under the water. When the third year of her time was expired, and she had returned to her family, she very early one morning met the Drac in the market-place of Beaucaire. She knew him at once, and saluting him, inquired about the health of her mistress and the child. To this the Drac replied, 'Harkye,' said he, 'with which eye do you see me?' She pointed to the eye she had touched with the fat: the Drac immediately thrust his finger into it, and he was no longer visible to any one."[530]

* * * * *

Respecting the Dracs, Gervase farther adds:

"There is also on the banks of the Rhone, under a guardhouse, at the North-gate of the city of Arles, a great pool of the river.... In these deep places, they say that the Dracs are often seen of bright nights, in the shape of men. A few years ago there was, for three successive days, openly heard the following words in the place outside the gate of the city, which I have mentioned, while the figure as it were of a man ran along the bank: 'The hour is passed, and the man does not come.' On the third day, about the ninth hour, while that figure of a man raised his voice higher than usual, a young man ran simply to the bank, plunged in, and was swallowed up; and the voice was heard no more."

The word Drac is apparently derived from Draco; but we are inclined to see its origin in the Northern _Duerg_. We must recollect that the Visigoths long occupied Provence and Languedoc. It is, we apprehend, still in use. _Fa le Drac_, in Provençal, signifies _Faire le diable_.[531] Goudelin, a Provençal poet of the seventeenth century, begins his Castel en l'Ayre with these lines:

Belomen qu' yeu _faré le Drac_
Se jamay trobi dins un sac
Cinc ô siés milante pistolos
Espessos como de redolos.

The following curious narrative also occurs in Gervase's work, and might seem to belong to Provence:--

"Seamen tell that one time as a ship was sailing in the Mediterranean sea, which sea we call ours, she was surrounded by an immense number of porpoises (_delphinos_), and that when an active young man, one of the crew, had wounded one of them with a weapon, and all the rest of them had rapidly sought the bottom, a sudden and awful tempest enveloped the ship. While the sailors were in doubt of their lives, lo! one in the form of a knight came borne on a steed on the sea, and demanded that, for the salvation of all the rest, the person who had wounded the porpoise should be delivered up to him. The sailors were in an agony between their own danger and their aversion to expose their comrade to death, which seemed to them to be most cruel, and they thought it infamous to consult their own safety at the expense of the life of another. At last the man himself, deeming it better that all should be saved at the cost of one, as they were guiltless, than that such a number of people should run the risk of destruction on account of his folly, and lest by defending him they should become guilty, devoted himself to the death he merited, and voluntarily mounted the horse behind the rider, who went over the firm water, taking his road along it as if it had been the solid land. In a short time he reached a distant region, where he found lying in a magnificent bed the knight whom he had wounded the day before as a porpoise. He was directed by his guide to pull out the weapon which was sticking in the wound, and when he had done so, _the guilty right hand gave aid to the wound_. This being done, the sailor was speedily brought back to the ship, and restored to his companions. Hence it is, that from that time forth sailors have ceased to hunt the porpoises."[532]

Gervase also describes the Kobold, or House-spirit, the Esprit Follet, or Goblin of the North of France.

"There are," says he, "other demons, commonly called Follets, who inhabit the houses of simple country people, and can be kept away neither by water nor exorcisms; and as they are not seen, they pelt people as they are going in at the door with stones, sticks, and domestic utensils. Their words are heard like those of men, but their form does not appear. I remember to have met several wonderful stories of them in the Vita Abbreviata, et Miraculis beatissimi Antonii."[533]

Elsewhere[534] he speaks of the beings which he says are called Lamiæ, who, he relates, are used to enter houses suddenly, ransack the jars and tubs, pots and pitchers, take the children out of the cradles, light lamps or candles, and sometimes oppress those who are sleeping.

Either Gervase mistook, or the Fadas of the south of France were regarded as beings different from mankind. The former is, perhaps, the more likely supposition. He thus speaks of them: "This, indeed, we know to be proved every day by men who are beyond all exception; that we have heard of some who were lovers of phantoms of this kind,[535] which they call Fadas; and when they married other women, they died before consummating the marriage. We have seen most of them live in great temporal felicity, who when they withdrew themselves from the embraces of these Fadas, or discovered the secret, lost not only their temporal prosperity, but even the comfort of wretched life."[536]

"In the legend of St. Armentaire, composed about 1300, by Raymond, a gentleman of Provence, we read of the Fée Esterelle, and of the sacrifices to her, who used to give barren women beverages to drink, to make them fruitful; and of a stone called _La Lauza de la Fada;_ that is the Fairy-stone on which they used to sacrifice to her."[537]

Even at the present day the belief in the Fadas seems to linger in Provence and the adjoining districts.

"On the night of the 31st of December," says Du Mege,[538] the "Fées (_Hadas_) enter the dwellings of their worshipers. They bear good-luck in their right, ill-luck in their left-hand. Care has been taken to prepare for them in a clean retired room, such a repast as is suited to them. The doors and windows are left open; a white cloth is laid on a table with a loaf, a knife, a vessel full of water or wine, and a cup. A lighted candle or wax taper is set in the centre of the table. It is the general belief that those who present them with the best food may expect all kinds of prosperity for their property and their family; while those who acquit themselves grudgingly of their duty toward the Fées, or who neglect to make preparations worthy of these divinities, may expect the greatest misfortunes."

From the following passage of the Roman de Guillaume au Court-Nez it would appear that three was the number of the Hadas.

Coustume avoient les gens, par véritez,
Et _en Provence_ et en autres regnez.
Tables métoient et siéges ordenez,
Et sur la table iij blans pains bulétez,
Iij poz de vins et iij hénez de lès
Et par eneoste iert li enfès posez.[539]

Some years ago a lady, named Marie Aycard, published a volume named "Ballades et Chants populaires de la Provence," two of which seem to be founded on popular legends. She names the one La Fée aux Cheveux Verts, and in it relates the story of a young mariner of Marseilles who was in the habit of rowing out to sea by himself in the evening. On one of these occasions he felt himself drawn down by an invisible power, and on reaching the bottom found himself at the gate of a splendid palace, where he was received by a most beautiful fairy, only her hair was green. She at once told him her love, to which he responded as she wished, and after detaining him some time she dismissed him, giving him two fishes, that he might account for his absence by saying that he had been fishing. The same invisible power brought him back to his boat, and he reached home at sunrise. The size and form of his fishes, such as had never been seen, excited general wonder; but he feared the fairy too much to reveal his secret. An invincible attraction still drew him to the submarine palace, but at last he saw a maiden whose charms, in his eyes, eclipsed those of the fairy. He now fled the sea-shore, but every time he approached his mistress he received an invisible blow, and he continually was haunted by threatening voices. At length he felt an irresistible desire to go out again to sea. When there he was drawn down as before to the palace, but the fairy now was changed, and saying, "You have betrayed me--you shall die," she caused him to be devoured by the sea-monsters. But other accounts say that she kept him with her till age had furrowed his brow with wrinkles, and then sent him back to poverty on earth.

The other legend named Le Lutin tells how seven little boys, regardless of the warnings of their old grandmother, would go out at night on various affairs. As they went along a pretty little black horse came up to them, and they all were induced to mount on his back. When they met any of their playmates they invited them also to mount, and the back of the little horse, stretched so that at last he had on him not less than thirty little boys. He then made with all speed for the sea, and plunging into it with them they were all drowned.[540]

Passing to Auvergne we find Gregory of Tours in the sixth century thus relating an event which happened in his youth. A man was going one morning to the forest, and he took the precaution to have his breakfast, which he was taking with him, blessed before he set out. Coming to the river, before it was yet day, he drove his bullock-cart into the ferry-boat (_in ponte qui super navem est_), and when he was about half-way over he heard a voice saying, "Down with him! down with him! be quick!" (_Merge, merge, ne moreris!_) to which another replied, "I should have done it without your telling me if something holy did not prevent me; for I would have you to know that he is fortified with the priest's blessing, so that I cannot hurt him."[541]

Miss Costello[542] heard in Auvergne a story of a changeling, which the mother, by the direction of the Curé, took to the market-place, where she whipped it well, till its mother, La Fée du Grand Cascade, brought her back her own child. She also relates at great length a legend which she styles La Blonde de la Roche, in which a young lady, instructed by her nurse, learns to change her form, and thus become a companion of the Fées, who are beings of tiny dimensions. Afterwards, when she is married, they take away her children, but she manages to recover them.

"La Tioul de las Fadas is within five and a half leagues of St. Flour, at Pirols, a village of Haute Auvergne. It is composed of six large rude stones, covered by a seventh, larger and more massive than the rest; it is twelve feet long, and eight and a half wide. The tradition relates that a Fée who was fond of keeping her sheep on the spot occupied by this monument, resolved to shelter herself from the wind and rain. For this purpose she went far, very far, (_bien loin, bien loin_) in search of such masses of granite, as six yoke of oxen could not move, and she gave them the form of a little house. She carried, it is said, the largest and heaviest of them on the top of her spindle, and so little was she incommoded by the weight of it, that she continued to spin all the way."[543]

The following legend is traditional in Périgord:--

Embosomed in the forest of the canton of La Double, near the road leading from Périgueux to Ribérac, is a monument named Roque Brun. It consists of four enormous rocks placed two and two, so as to form an alley ten feet long and six wide. A fifth rock, higher and thicker than the others, closes this space on the west. The whole is covered by a huge mass of rock, at least twelve feet by seven, and from three to four feet thick. There can be no doubt of its being the work of man, and it is remarkable that the stone composing it is different from that of the soil on which it stands.[544] The tradition of the canton, however, is, that many thousand years ago there was a Fée who was the sovereign of the whole country, and having lost her husband in a battle fought in this very place she resolved to bury him on the spot. She therefore called six of her pages, and ordered them to fetch, each one of these stones, and to place them in the order which they still maintain. They instantly obeyed, and they carried and arranged the huge masses as easily as if they had been only rose-leaves. When the tomb was completed, the Fairy ascended it, and turning to the east, she thrice cursed, in a voice of thunder, whoever should henceforth dare even to touch this monument of her royal spouse. Many an instance is still recorded by the peasantry of those who dared and were punished.[545]

* * * * *

The Fairy-lore of the North of France, at least of Normandy, is, as was to be expected, similar to that of the other portions of the Gotho-German race. We meet it in the _fées_ or fairies, and the _lutins_ or _gobelins_, which answer to the Kobolds, Nisses, and such like of those nations.[546]