Chapter XXV: Part II: i. 1.440 (5)

The Fées are small and handsome in person; they are fond of dancing in the night-time, and in their dances which are circular they form the _Cercles des Fées_, or fairy-rings. If any one approaches their dance, he is irresistibly impelled to take part in it. He is admitted with the greatest courtesy; but as the whirling movement increases, and goes faster and faster, his head becomes giddy, and he falls to the ground utterly exhausted. Sometimes the _fées_ amuse themselves by flinging him up to a great height in the air, and, if not killed by the fall, he is found next morning full of bruises. These little beings, it is also said, haunt solitary springs, where they wash their linen, which they then dry by way of preference on the Druidic stones, if at hand, and lay up in the hollows of rocks or barrows, thence named _Chambres_ or _Grottes des Fées_. But, further, it is said of them, like the _Lutins_, they select particular farms to which they resort at night, and there making use of horses, harness and utensils of all kinds, they employ themselves at various kinds of work, of which, however, no traces remain in the morning. They are fond of mounting and galloping the horses; their seat is on the neck, and they tie together locks of the mane to form stirrups. Their presence, however, always brings luck, the cattle thrive where they are, the utensils of which they have made use, if broken are mended and made as good as new. They are altogether most kind and obliging, and have been known to give cakes to those to whom they have taken a fancy.

The Fées of Normandy are, like others, guilty of child-changing. A countrywoman as she was one day carrying her child on her arm met a Fée similarly engaged, who proposed an exchange. But she would not consent, even though, she said, the Fée's babe were _nine times finer than her own_. A few days after, having left her child in the house when she went to work in the fields, it appeared to her on her return that it had been changed. She immediately consulted a neighbour, who to put the matter to the proof, broke a dozen eggs and ranged the shells before the child, who instantly began to cry out, _Oh! what a number of cream-pots! Oh! what a number of cream-pots!_ The matter was now beyond doubt, and the neighbour next advised to make it cry lustily in order to bring its real mother to it. This also succeeded; the Fée came imploring them to spare her child, and the real one should be restored.

There is another kind of Fées known in Normandy by the name of _Dames Blanches_, or White Ladies, who are of a less benevolent character. These lurk in narrow places, such as ravines, fords and bridges, where passengers cannot well avoid them, and there seek to attract their attention. The Dame Blanche sometimes requires him whom she thus meets to join her in a dance, or to hand her over a plank. If he does so she makes him many courtesies, and then vanishes. One of these ladies named La Dame d'Aprigny, used to appear in a winding narrow ravine which occupied the place of the present Rue Saint Quentin at Bayeux, where, by her involved dances, she prevented any one from passing. She meantime held out her hand, inviting him to join her, and if he did so she dismissed him after a round or two; but if he drew back, she seized him and flung him into one of the ditches which were full of briars and thorns. Another Dame Blanche took her station on a narrow wooden bridge over the Dive, in the district of Falaise, named the Pont d'Angot. She sat on it and would not allow any one to pass unless he went on his knees to her; if he refused, the Fée gave him over to the _lutins_, the cats, owls, and other beings which, under her sway, haunt the place, by whom he was cruelly tormented.

Near the village of Puys, half a league to the north-east of Dieppe, there is a high plateau, surrounded on all sides by large entrenchments, except that over the sea, where the cliffs render it inaccessible. It is named _La Cité de Limes_ or _La Camp de César_ or simply _Le Catel_ or _Castel_. Tradition tells that the Fées used to hold a fair there, at which all sorts of magic articles from their secret stores were offered for sale, and the most courteous entreaties and blandishments were employed to induce those who frequented it to become purchasers. But the moment any one did so, and stretched forth his hand to take the article he had selected, the perfidious Fées seized him and hurled him down the cliffs.

Such are the accounts of the Fées still current in Normandy. To these we may add that of Dame Abonde or Habonde, current in the middle ages. William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, who died in the year 1248, thus writes:--

"Sunt et aliæ ludificationes malignorum spiritorum quas faciunt interdum in nemoribus et locis amœnis, et frondosis arboribus, ubi apparent in similitudine _puellarum_ aut _matronarum_ ornatu muliebri et _candido_; interdum etiam _in stabulis, cum luminaribus cereis, ex quibus apparent distillationes in comis et collis equorum et comæ ipsorum diligenter tricatœ_; et audies eos, qui talia se vidisse fatentur, dicentes veram ceram esse quæ de luminaribus hujusmodi stillaverat. De illis vero substantiis quæ apparent in domibus quas _dominas nocturnas_ et _principem_ earum vocant _Dominam Abundiam_ pro eo quod domibus, quas frequentant, abundantiam bonorum temporalium præstare putantur non aliter tibi sentiendum est neque aliter quam quemadmodum de illis audivisti. Quapropter eo usque invaluit stultitia hominum et insania vetularum ut vasa vini et receptacula ciborum discooperta relinquant, et omnino nec obstruent neque claudant eis noctibus quibus ad domos suos eas credunt adventuras; ea de causa videlicet ut cibos et potus quasi paratos inveniant, et eos absque difficultate apparitionis pro beneplacito sumant."[547]

Dame Abonde is also mentioned in the same century in the celebrated Roman de la Rose as follows:--

Qui les cine sens ainsine deçoit
Par les fantosmes qu'il reçoit,
Dont maintes gens par lor folie
Cuident estre par nuit estries (_allés_)
_Errans_ avecques _Dame Habonde_.
Et dient que par tout le monde
Si tiers enfant de nacion (_naissance_)
Sunt de ceste condicion,
Qu'ils vont trois fois en la semaine,
Li cum destinée les maine (_mène_),
Et par tous ces ostex (_hôtels_) se boutent,
Ne eles ne barres ne redoutent.
Ains sen entrent par les fendaces (_fentes_)
Par chatieres et par crevaces.
Et se partent des cors les ames
Et vont avec les _bonnes dames_
Par leur foraius et par maisons.
Et le preuvent par tiex (_ces_) raisons:
Que les diversités veues
Ne sont pas eu lor liz (_lits_) venues,
Ains (_anzi_ It.) sunt lor ames que laborent
Et par le monde ainsinc sen corent.[548]

In these places we find that Abundia is a queen or ruler over a band of what we may call fairies, who enter houses at night, feast there, twist the horses' manes, etc. This may remind us at once of Shakespeare's Queen Mab, whom, though only acquainted with Habundia through a passage in Heywood,[549] we conjectured to have derived her name from that of this French dame.[550] Chaucer, by the way, always spells _habundance_ with an _h_, which may have become _m_ as it does _n_ in Numps from Humphrey; so Edward makes Ned, Oliver Noll, etc.

* * * * *

The Lutin or Gobelin[551] of Normandy hardly differs in any respect from the domestic spirit of Scandinavia and Germany. He is fond of children and horses; and if the proverb

Ou il y a belle fille et bon vin
Là aussi hante le lutin

lie not, of young maidens also. He caresses the children, and gives them nice things to eat, but he also whips and pinches them if naughty.[552] He takes great care of the horses, gallops them at times, and _lutines_ their manes, _i.e._, _elfs_ or plaits and twists them in an inexplicable manner. So fond, indeed, is he of this amusement, that it is related that when one time two young girls fell asleep in a stable, he _lutined_ their hair in such a way that they had to cut it all off. Sometimes the Lutin takes the form of a young villager, and struts about with great complacency. On such occasions it is necessary to call him Bon Garçon, a thing the Norman peasant never neglects to do. At other times he appears under the form of a horse ready bridled and saddled. If any peasant, weary after his day's work, is induced to mount him in order to ride home, he begins to kick and fling and rear and bound, and ends by jerking him into a marsh or a ditch full of water. When he takes this form he is called Le Cheval Bayard, probably after the famous steed of the Paladin Rinaldo.

The following tradition of "_Le Lutin, ou le Fé amoureux_," is related in the neighbourhood of Argentan:--

A Fé was fond of a pretty young _paysanne_, and used to come every evening when she was spinning at her fireside, and take his seat on a stool opposite to her, and keep gazing on her fair face. The ungrateful object of this respectful attention, however, told her husband the whole story, and in his jealous mood he resolved to have his revenge of the amorous Lutin. Accordingly, he heated the girdel (_galetière_) red-hot, and placed it on the seat which he used to occupy, and then dressing himself in his wife's clothes, he sat in her place, and began to spin as well as he could. The Fé came as usual, and instantly perceived the change. "Where," said he, "is La-belle belle of yesterday evening, who draws, draws, and keeps always twirling, while you, you turn, turn, and never twirl?" He, however, went and took his usual seat, but immediately jumped up, screaming with pain. His companions, who were at hand, inquired the cause. "I am burnt," cried he. "Who burned you?" cried they. "Myself," replied he; for this the woman had told him was her husband's name. At this they mocked at him and went away.[553]

The best way, it is said, to banish a Lutin who haunts a house, is to scatter flax-seed in the room that he most frequents. His love of neatness and regularity will not allow him to let it lie there, and he soon gets tired of picking it up, and so he goes away.

A Lutin, named the Nain Rouge, haunts the coast of Normandy. He is kind in his way to the fishermen, and often gives them valuable aid; but he punishes those who do not treat him with proper respect. Two fishermen who lived near Dieppe, were going one day to Pollet. On their way they found a little boy sitting on the road-side; they asked him what he was doing there. "I am resting myself," said he, "for I am going to Berneville" (a village within a league of Pollet.) They invited him to join company; he agreed, and amused them greatly with his tricks as they went along. At last, when they came to a pond near Berneville, the malicious urchin caught up one of them, and flung him, like a shuttlecock, up into the air over it; but, to his great disappointment, he saw him land safe and sound at the other side. "Thank your patron-Saint," cried he, with his cracked voice, "for putting it into your mind to take some holy water when you were getting up this morning. But for that you'd have got a nice dip."[554]

A parcel of children were playing on the strand at Pollet, when Le Petit Homme Rouge came by. They began to make game of him, and he instantly commenced pelting them with stones at such a rate that they found it necessary to seek refuge in a fishing-boat, where, for the space of an hour, as they crouched under the hatches, they heard the shower of stones falling so that they were sure the boat must be buried under them. At length the noise ceased, and when they ventured to peep out, not a stone was to be seen.

There is also in Normandy a kind of spirits called Lubins, which take the form of wolves, and enter the churchyards under the guidance of a chief, who is quite black. They are very timorous, and at the least noise they fly, crying "_Robert est mort! Robert est mort!_" People say of a timorous man, "_Il a peur de Lubins!_"[555]

A belief in Fées, similar to those which we have denominated Fairies of Romance, seems to have prevailed all over France during the middle ages.

The great Bertrand Duguesclin married a lady named Tiphaine, "extraite de noble lignée," says his old biographer; "laquelle avoit environ vingt-quatre ans, ne onques n'avoit été mariée et éstoit bonne et sage, et moult experte aux arts d'astronomie; aucuns disoient qu'elle éstoit _faée_ mais non éstoit, mais éstoit ainsi inspirée et de la Grace de Dieu."

One of the chief articles of accusation against the heroic and unfortunate Maid of Orleans, was "Que souvent alloit à une belle fontaine au pais de Lorraine, laquelle elle nommoit _bonne fontaine aux Fées_ nostre Seigneur, et en icelui lieu tous ceulx de pays quand ils avoient fiebvre ils alloient pour recouvrer garison, et la alloit souvent la dite Jehanne la Pucelle, sous un grand arbre qui la fontaine ombroit, et s'apparurent à elle St. Katerine et St. Marguerite."[556] She was also asked "Si elle sçait rien de _ceux qui vont avecq les Fées_?"[557]

Of these Fées the most celebrated is Melusina, who was married to the Count of Lusignan. Toward the end of the fourteenth century, Jean d'Arras collected the traditions relating to her, and composed what he called her "Chronicle." Stephen, a Dominican of the house of Lusignan, took up the history written by Jean D'Arras, gave it consistency, and cast such splendour about his heroine, that several noble houses were ambitious of showing a descent from her. Those of Luxembourg and Rohan even falsified their genealogies for that purpose; and the house of Sassenage, though it might claim its descent from a monarch, preferred Melusina, and to gratify them it was feigned that when she quitted Lusignan she retired to the grot of Sassenage, in Dauphiny.

The following is a slight sketch of the story of the fair Melusina.[558]

Ange par la figure, et serpent par le rest
DE LILLE.

_Legend of Melusina._

Elinas, king of Albania, to divert his grief for the death of his wife, amused himself with hunting. One day, at the chase, he went to a fountain to quench his thirst: as he approached it he heard the voice of a woman singing, and on coming to it he found there the beautiful Fay Pressina.

After some time the Fay bestowed her hand upon him, on the condition that he should never visit her at the time of her lying-in. She had three daughters at a birth: Melusina, Melior, and Palatina. Nathas, the king's son by a former wife, hastened to convey the joyful tidings to his father, who, without reflection, flew to the chamber of the queen, and entered as she was bathing her daughters. Pressina, on seeing him, cried out that he had broken his word, and she must depart; and taking up her three daughters, she disappeared.

She retired to the Lost Island;[559] so called because it was only by chance any, even those who had repeatedly visited it, could find it. Here she reared her children, taking them every morning to a high mountain, whence Albania might be seen, and telling them that but for their father's breach of promise they might have lived happily in the distant land which they beheld. When they were fifteen years of age, Melusina asked her mother particularly of what their father had been guilty. On being informed of it, she conceived the design of being revenged on him. Engaging her sisters to join in her plans, they set out for Albania: arrived there, they took the king and all his wealth, and, by a charm, inclosed him in a high mountain, called Brandelois. On telling their mother what they had done, she, to punish them for the unnatural action, condemned Melusina to become every Saturday a serpent, from the waist downwards, till she should meet a man who would marry her under the condition of never seeing her on a Saturday, and should keep his promise. She inflicted other judgements on her two sisters, less severe in proportion to their guilt. Melusina now went roaming through the world in search of the man who was to deliver her. She passed through the Black Forest, and that of Ardennes, and at last she arrived in the forest of Colombiers, in Poitou, where all the Fays of the neighbourhood came before her, telling her they had been waiting for her to reign in that place.

Raymond having accidentally killed the count, his uncle, by the glancing aside of his boar-spear, was wandering by night in the forest of Colombiers. He arrived at a fountain that rose at the foot of a high rock. This fountain was called by the people the Fountain of Thirst, or the Fountain of the Fays,[560] on account of the many marvellous things which had happened at it. At the time, when Raymond arrived at the fountain, three ladies were diverting themselves there by the light of the moon, the principal of whom was Melusina. Her beauty and her amiable manners quickly won his love: she soothed him, concealed the deed he had done, and married him, he promising on his oath never to desire to see her on a Saturday. She assured him that a breach of his oath would for ever deprive him of her whom he so much loved, and be followed by the unhappiness of both for life. Out of her great wealth, she built for him, in the neighbourhood of the Fountain of Thirst, where he first saw her, the castle of Lusignan. She also built La Rochelle, Cloitre Malliers, Mersent, and other places.

But destiny, that would have Melusina single, was incensed against her. The marriage was made unhappy by the deformity of the children born of one that was enchanted; but still Raymond's love for the beauty that ravished both heart and eyes remained unshaken. Destiny now renewed her attacks. Raymond's cousin had excited him to jealousy and to secret concealment, by malicious suggestions of the purport of the Saturday retirement of the countess. He hid himself; and then saw how the lovely form of Melusina ended below in a snake, gray and sky-blue, mixed with white. But it was not horror that seized him at the sight, it was infinite anguish at the reflection that through his breach of faith he might lose his lovely wife for ever. Yet this misfortune had not speedily come on him, were it not that his son, Geoffroi with the tooth,[561] had burned his brother Freimund, who would stay in the abbey of Malliers, with the abbot and a hundred monks. At which the afflicted father, count Raymond, when his wife Melusina was entering his closet to comfort him, broke out into these words against her, before all the courtiers who attended her:--"Out of my sight, thou pernicious snake and odious serpent! thou contaminator of my race!"

Melusina's former anxiety was now verified, and the evil that had lain so long in ambush had now fearfully sprung on him and her. At these reproaches she fainted away; and when at length she revived, full of the profoundest grief, she declared to him that she must now depart from him, and, in obedience to a decree of destiny, fleet about the earth in pain and suffering, as a spectre, until the day of doom; and that only when one of her race was to die at Lusignan would she become visible.

Her words at parting were these:

"But one thing will I say unto thee before I part, that thou, and those who for more than a hundred years shall succeed thee, shall know that whenever I am seen to hover over the fair castle of Lusignan, then will it be certain that in that very year the castle will get a new lord; and though people may not perceive me in the air, yet they will see me by the Fountain of Thirst; and thus shall it be so long as the castle stands in honour and flourishing--especially on the Friday before the lord of the castle shall die." Immediately, with wailing and loud lamentation, she left the castle of Lusignan,[562] and has ever since existed as a spectre of the night. Raymond died as a hermit on Monserrat.

The president de Boissieu says,[563] that she chose for her retreat one of the mountains of Sassenage, near Grenoble, on account of certain vats that are there, and to which she communicated a virtue which makes them, at this day, one of the seven wonders of Dauphiné. They are two in number, of great beauty, and so admirably cut in the rock, that it is easy to see they are not the work of unaided nature. The virtue which Melusina communicated to them was, that of announcing, by the water they contain, the abundance or scantiness of the crops. When there is to be an abundant harvest, it rises over the edges, and overflows; in middling years, the vats are but half full; and when the crops are to fail, they are quite dry. One of these vats is consecrated to corn, the other to wine.

The popular belief was strong in France that she used to appear on what was called the tower of Melusina as often as any of the lords of the race of Lusignan was to die; and that when the family was extinct, and the castle had fallen to the crown, she was seen whenever a king of France was to depart this life. Mézeray informs us that he was assured of the truth of the appearance of Melusina on this tower previous to the death of a Lusignan, or a king of France, by people of reputation, and who were not by any means credulous. She appeared in a mourning dress, and continued for a long time to utter the most heart-piercing lamentation.

The following passage occurs in Brantôme's Eloge of the Duke of Montpensier, who in 1574 destroyed Lusignan, and several other retreats of the Huguenots:

"I heard, more than forty years ago, an old veteran say, that when the Emperor Charles V. came to France, they brought him by Lusignan for the sake of the recreation of hunting the deer, which were there in great abundance in fine old parks of France; that he was never tired admiring and praising the beauty, the size, and the chef d'œuvre of that house, built, which is more, by such a lady, of whom he made them tell him several fabulous tales, which are there quite common, even to the good old women who washed their linen at the fountain, whom Queen Catherine of Medicis, mother to the king, would also question and listen to. Some told her that they used sometimes to see her come to the fountain to bathe in it, in the form of a most beautiful woman, and in the dress of a widow. Others said that they used to see her, but very rarely, and that on Saturday evening, (for in that state she did not let herself be seen,) bathing, half her body being that of a very beautiful lady, the other half ending in a snake: others, that she used to appear a-top of the great tower in a very beautiful form, and as a snake. Some said, that when any great disaster was to come on the kingdom, or a change of reign, or a death, or misfortune among her relatives, who were the greatest people of France, and were kings, that three days before she was heard to cry, with a cry most shrill and terrible, three times.

"This is held to be perfectly true. Several persons of that place, who have heard it, are positive of it, and hand it from father to son; and say that, even when the siege came on, many soldiers and men of honour who were there affirmed it. But it was when the order was given to throw down and destroy her castles that she uttered her loudest cries and wails. This is perfectly true, according to the saying of people of honour. Since then she has not been heard. Some old wives, however, say she has appeared to them, but very rarely."

Jean d'Arras declares that Serville, who defended the castle of Lusignan for the English against the Duke of Berri, swore to that prince, upon his faith and honour, "that, three days before the surrender of the fortress, there entered into his chamber, though the doors were shut, a large serpent, enamelled with white and blue, which came and struck its tail several times against the feet of the bed where he was lying with his wife, who was not at all frightened at it, though he was very much so; and that when he seized his sword, the serpent changed all at once into a woman, and said to him, _How, Serville, you who have been at so many sieges and battles, are you afraid! Know that I am the mistress of this castle, which I have built, and that you must surrender it very soon._ When she had ended these words she resumed her serpent-shape, and glided away so swiftly that he could not perceive her." The author adds, that the prince told him that other credible people had sworn to him that they too had seen her at the same time in other places in the neighbourhood, and in the same form.

* * * * *

The old castle of Pirou, on the coast of the Cotentin, in Lower Normandy, likewise owes its origin to the Fées.[564] These were the daughters of a great lord of the country, who was a celebrated magician. They built the castle long before the time of the invasions of the Northmen, and dwelt there in peace and unity. But when these pirates began to make their descents on the coast, the Fées, fearing their violence, changed themselves into wild geese, and thus set them at defiance. They did not, however, altogether abandon their castle; for the elders of the place assert that every year, on the first of March, a flock of wild geese returns to take possession of the nests they had hollowed out for themselves in its walls. It was also said that when a male child was born to the illustrious house of Pirou, the males of these geese, displaying their finest grey plumage, strutted about on the pavement in the courts of the castle; while, if it was a girl, the females, in plumage whiter than snow, took precedence then over the males. If the new-born maiden was to be a nun, it was remarked that one of them did not join with the rest, but kept alone in a corner, eating little, and deeply sighing.

The following traditions are attached to the castles of Argouges and Rânes, in Normandy:--[565]

One of the lords of Argouges, when out hunting one day, met a bevy of twenty ladies of rare beauty, all mounted on palfreys white as the driven snow. One of them appeared to be their queen, and the lord of Argouges became all at once so deeply enamoured of her, that he offered on the spot to marry her. This lady was _fée_; she had for a long time past secretly protected the Sire d'Argouges, and even caused him to come off victorious in a combat with a terrible giant. As she loved the object of her care, she willingly accepted his troth, but under the express condition that he should never pronounce in her presence the name of Death. So light a condition caused no difficulty; the marriage took place under the happiest auspices, and lovely children crowned their union. The fatal word was never heard, and their happiness seemed without alloy. It came to pass, however, one day at length, that the wedded pair were preparing to give their presence at a tournament. The lady was long at her toilet, and her husband waited for her with impatience. At length she made her appearance. "Fair dame," said he, when he saw her, "you would be a good person to send to fetch Death; for you take long enough to perform what you are about."[566] Hardly had he pronounced the fatal word when, uttering a piercing cry, as if actually struck by death, the Fée lady disappeared, leaving the mark of her hand on the gate. She comes every night clad in a white robe, and wanders round and round the castle, uttering deep and continuous groans, amid which may be heard, in funereal notes, _Death! Death!_[567]

The same legend, as we have said, adheres to the castle of Rânes, where, however, it was on the top of a tower that the Fée vanished, leaving, like Melusina, the mark of her foot on the battlements, where it is still to be seen.

In explication of the former legend, M. Pluque observes, that at the siege of Bayeux by Henry I., in 1106, Robert d'Argouges vanquished in single combat a German of huge stature; and that the crest of the house of Argouges is Faith, under the form of a woman naked to the waist, seated in a bark, with the motto, or war-cry, _A la Fé!_ (i. e. _à la foi!_) which the people pronounce _A la Fée!_

* * * * *

So far the genuine French Fées. On the revival of learning they appear to have fallen into neglect, till the memory of them was awakened by the appearance of the translation of the Italian tales of Straparola, many of which seem to have become current among the people; and in the end of the seventeenth century, the Contes des Fées of Perrault, Madame d'Aulnoy, and their imitators and successors, gave them vogue throughout Europe. These tales are too well known to our readers to require us to make any observations on them.

FOOTNOTES:

[530] _Otia Imperialia_, p. 987: see above p. 302 _et alib_.

[531] Like the Irish _Play the Puck_, above, p. 371.

[532] _Otia Imper._ p. 981: see above, p. 394. It does not appear that the abode of these porpoise-knights was beneath the water.

[533] _Otia Imper._ p. 897. See above p. 407. Orthone, the House-spirit, who, according to Froissart, attended the Lord of Corasse, in Gascony, resembled Hinzelmann in many points.

[534] Ibid.

[535] _Hujusmodi larvarum._ He classes the Fadas with Sylvans and Pans.

[536] P. 989. Speaking of the wonderful horse of Giraldus de Cabreriis; Gervase says, _Si Fadus erat, i. e._ says Leibnitz, incantatus, ut _Fadæ, Fatæ, Fées_.

[537] Cambry, Monumens Celtiques, p. 342. The author says, that Esterelle, as well as all the Fairies, was the moon. This we very much doubt. He derives her name from the Breton _Escler_, Brightness, Lauza, from _Lac'h_ (Irish _Cloch_), a flat stone.

[538] Monuments religieux des Volces Tectosages, _ap._ Mlle. Bosquet, Normandie, etc., p. 92: see above, pp. 161, 342.

[539] See Leroux de Lincy, _ap._ Mlle. Bosquet, p. 93, who adds "In Lower Normandy, in the arrondissement of Bayeux, they never neglect laying a table for the protecting genius of the babe about to be born;" see our note on Virg. Buc. iv. 63. In a collection of decrees of Councils made by Burchard of Worms, who died in 1024, we read as follows: "Fecisti, ut quaedam mulieres in quibusdam temporibus anni facere solent, ut in domo tua _mensam praepares_ et tuos cibos et potum cum _tribus cultellis_ supra mensam poneres, ut si venissent _tres illae sorores_ quas antiqua posteritas et antiqua stultitia Parcas nominavit, ibi reficirentur ... ut credens illas quas tu dieis esse sorores tibi posse aut hic aut in futuro prodesse?" GRIMM. _Deut. Mythol. Anhang_, p. xxxviii., where we are also told that these Parcæ could give a man at his birth the power of becoming a Werwolf. All this, however, does not prove that they were the origin of the _Fées_: see above, p. 6.

[540] This may remind us of the Neck or Kelpie above, p. 162. It seems confirmatory of our theory respecting the Visigoths, p. 466.

[541] Greg. Tur. De Glor. Confess. ch. xxxi., _ap._ Grimm. p. 466.

[542] Pilgrimage to Auvergne, ii. p. 294, _seq._

[543] Cambry, Monuments Celtiques, p. 232.

[544] It is evidently a _cromleach_. What is said of the nature of the stones is also true of Stonehenge.

[545] Lettres de Madame S. à sa Fille. Périgueux, 1830: by M. Jouannet of Bordeaux.

[546] See Mlle. Bosquet, La Normandie Romanesque et Merveilleuse, and the works there quoted by this learned and ingenious lady. What follows is so extremely like what we have seen above of the Korrigan of the adjacent Brittany, that we hope she has been careful not to transfer any of their traits to her Fées.

[547] Opera i. 1036; Paris, 1674, _ap._ Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 263.

[548] _Ap._ Grimm, _ut sup._ Douce (Ill. of Shak. i. 382) was, we believe, the first who directed attention to Abundia. He quotes from an old _fabliau_:

Ceste richesse nus abonde,
Nos l'avons de par Dame Abonde.

[549]

One kind of these the Italians Fatæ name;
Fée the French; we Sybils; and the same
Other White Nymphs; and those that have them seen,
Night Ladies some, of which Habundia queen.
_Hierarchie_, viii. p. 507.

[550] Mr. Thoms prefers a derivation from the Cymric, _Mab_, boy, child.

[551] There is no satisfactory derivation of _Lutin_, for we cannot regard as such Grimm's _à luctu_. _Gobelin_, _Goblin_, or _Goubelin_, is evidently the same as _Kobold_. _Follet_ (from _fol_, _fou_) and _Farfadet_, are other names. Both _Gobelin_ and _Lutin_ were in use in the 11th century. Orderic Vitalis, speaking of the demon whom St. Taurin drove out of the temple of Diana, says, _Hunc vulgus Gobelinum appellat_, and Wace (Roman de Rou, _v_ 9715) says of the familiar of bishop Mauger who excommunicated the Conqueror

_Ne sei s'esteit lutin ou non._

[552] Mothers also threaten their children with him. _Le gobelin vous mangera, le gobelin vous emportera._ PÈRE L'ABBÉ, _Etymologie_, i. p. 262.

[553] In another French tale a man to deceive a Fée, put on his wife's clothes and was minding the child, but she said as she came in, "Non, tu ne point la belle d'hier au soir, tu ne files, ni ne vogues, ni ton fuseau ne t'enveloppes," and to punish him she turned some apples that were roasting on the hearth into peas. SCHREIBER _ap._ GRIMM, p. 385.

[554] See above, p. 471.

[555] Lubin may be only another form of Lutin, and connected with the English Lob. Its likeness to _loup_ may have given occasion to the fiction of their taking the lupine form.

[556] Chartier.

[557] See above, p. 475.

[558] Histoire de Mélusine, tirée des Chroniques de Poitou. Paris, 1698. Dobenek, des Deutschen Mittelalter und Volksglauben.

[559] _i. e._ Cephalonia, see above, p. 41.

[560] It is at this day (1698) corruptly called La Font de Sée; and every year in the month of May a fair is held in the neighbouring mead, where the pastry-cooks sell figures of women, _bien coiffées_, called Merlusines.--_French Author's Note_.

[561] A boar's tusk projected from his mouth. According to Brantôme, a figure of him, cut in stone, stood at the portal of the Mélusine tower, which was destroyed in 1574.

[562] At her departure she left the mark of her foot on the stone of one of the windows, where it remained till the castle was destroyed.

[563] In his poem of Melusina, dedicated to Christina of Sweden.

[564] Mlle Bosquet, _ut sup._ p. 100.

[565] Mlle. Bosquet, _ut sup._ p. 98. The castle of Argouges is near Bayeux, that of Rânes is in the arrondissement of Argentan.

[566] This proverbial expression is to be met with in various languages: see Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 802.

[567] See above, p. 458.

EASTERN EUROPE.

Up the hill I went, and gazed round.
Hoping golden maids to see;
Trooping lovely maidens came, who
Round the hill danced merrily.

All the sweetest ditties singing,
Sweetest ditties that might be;
Bearing fragrant apple-blossoms,
These fair maidens came to me.
LETTISH SONG.

Europe is inhabited on the east and north-east, from the Frozen Ocean to the Adriatic, by two extensive races named the Finns and the Slaves. The former dwell round the northern edge of Scandinavia by the Icy Ocean, and on the east and south-east of the Baltic. The Majjars, or the dominant portion of the people of Hungary, are also of Finnish origin. The Slaves who are akin to the Gotho-German race are also widely spread. This stem numbers among its branches the Russians, Poles, Bohemians, Servians, and the nations dwelling north-east of the Adriatic. Our knowledge of the popular mythology of both races is very limited.

FINNS.

Bee! thou little mundane bird!
Fly away to where I bid thee;
O'er the moon, beneath the sun,
Behind the lofty heaven's stars,
Close by the Wain's axle--fly
To the great Creator's court.
FINNISH RUNE.

Of the mythology of the Finnish race, the first possibly that appeared in Europe, and one of the most widely spread in the world, our knowledge, as we have just stated, is very slight. It appears, however, either to have influenced that of the Gothic race, or to have been affected by it.

The Finlanders, Laplanders, and other nations of this race, who are neighbours of the Scandinavians and Germans, believe, like them, in Dwarfs and Kobolds. The former they describe as having a magnificent region under the ground, to which mortals are sometimes admitted and are there sumptuously entertained, getting plenty of tobacco and brandy, and other things esteemed by them delicious.

It is an article of faith with the Finns that there dwell under the altar in every church little misshapen beings which they call _Kirkonwaki_, _i. e._, Church-folk. When the wives of these little people have a difficult labour they are relieved if a Christian woman visits them and lays her hand upon them. Such service is always rewarded by a gift of gold and silver.[568]

The Kobold of Finland is called Para (from the Swedish Bjära); he steals the milk from other people's cows, carries and coagulates it in his stomach, and then disgorges it into the churn of his mistress. There is a species of mushroom, which if it be fried with tar, salt and sulphur, and then beaten with a rod, the woman who owns the Kobold will quickly appear, and entreat to spare him.

The Alp, or nightmare, is called Painajainen, _i. e._, Presser. It resembles a white maid, and its brightness illumines the whole room. It causes people to scream out wofully; it also hurts young children, and makes them squint. The remedy against it is _steel_ or a broom placed under the pillow. The House-spirit named Tonttu (the Swedish Tomtegubbe) is also common in Finland.[569] The Esthonians believe that the Neck has fish's teeth.

An Esthonian legend relates that one time a girl was stopt by a pretty boy that had on him a handsome peasant's belt and forced to scratch his head a little. She did so, and while she was so engaged she was, without her knowledge, fastened to him by his belt, but the rubbing of her hand set him to sleep. Meanwhile a woman passed by, who came up and asked the girl what she was doing there. She told her the whole matter, and as she was speaking she freed herself from the belt. The boy, however, slept sounder than ever and his mouth was wide open. The woman who had come nearer cried at once, Ha! that's a _Näkki_ (Neck,) see his _fish's teeth_! The Neck instantly vanished.[570]

The following Esthonian legend, though the Devil is the subject, strongly resembles some of those of France and Great Britain:--

A man who had charge of the granary of a farm-house was sitting one day moulding buttons in lead. The Devil came by, saluted him, and said, "What are you doing there?" "I am moulding eyes." "Eyes! could you make me new ones?" "To be sure I could; but I have none by me at present." "Will you then do it another time?" "That will I." "When shall I come again?" "Whenever you please." Next day the Devil came to get his new eyes. "Will you have them large or small?" said the man. "Very large." The man then put a large quantity of lead down to melt, and said, "I cannot make them for you, unless you first let me tie you fast." He then made him lie on his back on a bench and tied him down with good strong thick ropes. When the Devil was thus fast bound he asked the man what his name was. "My name is Myself (_Issi_)," replied he. "That's a good name, I know none better." The lead was now melted; the Devil opened his eyes as wide as he could, expecting to get the new ones. "Now, I'm going to pour it out," said the man, and he poured the melting lead into the eyes of the Devil, who jumped up with the bench on his back, and ran away. As he passed by some people who were ploughing, they asked him "Who did that to you?" "Myself did it (_Issi teggi_)," replied the Devil. The people laughed and said, "If you did it yourself, keep it yourself." The Devil died of his new eyes, and since then no one has seen the Devil any more.[571]

The Hungarians or Madyars (Magyars) as they call themselves, are, as we have seen, a portion of the Finnish race. Two collections of their popular tales have been published of late years. The editor of one of them which we have read,[572] assures us that he took them from the lips of an old Hungarian soldier, who knew no language but his own. We therefore cannot but regard the tales as genuine, though the mode and tone in which they are narrated by the editor are not always the best. They contain no traits of popular mythology,--a circumstance not a little remarkable, rather resembling the French and Italian Fairy tales. Several of them, however, are very pleasing. We regret that we have not seen the other collection, which is apparently of greater value.[573]

FOOTNOTES:

[568] Mnemosyne, Abo 1821, _ap._ Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 426.

[569] Rühs, Finland und seine Bewohner.

[570] Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 459.

[571] Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 979. This is the fourth place where we have met this story. Could they have all come from the Odyssey, the hero of which tells the Cyclops, whom he blinds, that his name is Nobody?

[572] Gaal, Märchen der Magyaren. Wien, 1822.

[573] Mailath, Magyarische Sagen Mährchen, etc., 2 vols, 8vo. Stutg. 1837.

SLAVES.

Whatsoe'er at eve had raised the workmen,
Did the Vila raze ere dawn of morning.
BOWRING, _Servian Popular Poetry_.

A demon, in the attire of a mourning widow, used, in the Eastern Russia, to go through the fields at noon in harvest-time, and break the legs and arms of the workmen, who failed, when they saw her, to fall on their faces. There was a remedy, however, against this. Trees, long venerated, grew in the adjacent wood, the bark of which being laid on the wound, removed the pain and healed it.[574]

The Vends believe in a similar being; but a Vend knows that when he converses with her for an hour together about flax and the preparation of it, if he always contradicts her, or says the paternoster backwards without stopping, he is secure.[575]

The Russians also believe in a species of water and wood-maids, called Rusalki. They are of a beautiful form, with long green hair; they swing and balance themselves on the branches of trees--bathe in lakes and rivers--play on the surface of the water--and wring their locks on the green meads at the water's-edge. It is chiefly at Whitsuntide that they appear, and the people then singing and dancing, weave garlands for them, which they cast into the stream.[576]

* * * * *

The following is the Polish form of a legend which we have already met with in several places:[577]

There came to a nobleman an unknown man, who called himself Iskrzycki (_spark_ or _firestone_), and offered to engage in his service. The contract was drawn up and signed, when the master perceived that Iskrzycki had horse's hoofs, and he accordingly wanted to break off the agreement; but the servant stood on his right, and declared that he would enter on his duties, even against his master's will. From this time forwards he took up his abode invisibly in the stove, and performed all the tasks set him. People gradually grew accustomed to him, but at last the lady prevailed on her lord to remove, and he hired another estate. His people left the castle, and they had already gone the greater part of the way, when on a bad part of the road the carriage was near turning over, and the lady gave a loud cry of terror. Immediately a voice answered from behind the carriage--"Never fear! Iskrzycki is with you!" The lord and his lady now saw that there was no way of getting rid of him, so they went back to the old house, and lived there on good terms with their servant till the term of the engagement had arrived.

The Servian ballads, that have lately appeared,[578] have made us acquainted with an interesting species of beings called Vilas. These are represented as mountain-nymphs, young and beautiful, clad in white, with long flying hair. Their voice is said to resemble that of the woodpecker. They shoot, according to popular belief, deadly arrows at men, and sometimes carry off children, whom their mothers in their anger have consigned to them or the devil: yet the general character of the Vilas is to injure none but those who intrude upon their _kolos_, or roundels.

The Vilas sometimes appear gaily dancing their kolos beneath the branches of the Vishnia or Vistula cherry; sometimes a Vila is introduced comforting the sorrows of an enamoured deer; at other times collecting storms in the heavens;[579] now foretelling to a hero his impending death;[580] now ruthlessly casting down each night the walls of a rising fortress, till a young and lovely female is immured within them.[581] She usually rides a seven-year old hart, with a bridle made of snakes.

The following are specimens of these Servian ballads:

_Vilas_

Cherry! dearest Cherry!
Higher lift thy branches,
Under which the Vilas
Dance their magic roundels.
Them before Radisha
Dew from flowers, lashes,
Leadeth on two Vilas,
To the third he sayeth--
"Be thou mine, O Vila!
Thou shalt, with my mother,
In the cool shade seat thee;
Soft silk deftly spinning
From the golden distaff."[582]

_Deer and Vila._

A young deer track'd his way through the lone forest
One lonely day--another came in sadness--
And the third dawn'd, and brought him sighs and sorrow;
Then he address'd him to the forest Vila:
"Young deer," she said, "thou wild one of the forest!
Now tell me what great sorrow has oppress'd thee;
Why wanderest thou thus in the forest lonely:
Lonely one day--another day in sadness--
And the third day with sighs and anguish groaning?"
And thus the young deer to the Vila answered:
"O thou sweet sister! Vila of the forest!
Me has indeed a heavy grief befallen;
For I once had a fawn, mine own beloved,
And one sad day she sought the running water;
She enter'd it, but came not back to bless me.
Then, tell me, has she lost her way and wander'd?
Was she pursued and captured by the huntsman?
Or has she left me?--has she wholly left me--
Loving some other deer--and I forgotten?
Oh, if she has but lost her way, and wanders,
Teach her to find it--bring her back to love me!
Oh, if she has been captured by the huntsman,
Then may a fate as sad as mine await him!
But if she has forsaken me--if, faithless,
She loves another deer, and I forgotten--
Then may the huntsman speedily o'ertake her."[583]

We have already observed how almost all nations compare female beauty to that of the beings of their legendary creed. With the Servians the object of comparison is the lovely Vila. "She is fairer than the mountain-Vila," is the highest praise of woman's beauty. In the ballad of The Sister of the Kapitan Leka, it is said of the heroine Rossandra, that in no country, either Turkey, or the land of the Kauran, or Jowrs, was her fellow to be found. No white Bula (Mohammedan), no Vlachin (Greek), no slender Latiness (Roman Catholic), could compare with her,

And who on the hills hath seen the Vila--
E'en the Vila, brother, must to her yield.

The swiftness of the Vila also affords a subject of comparison: a fleet horse is said to be "Vilaish," or "swift as a Vila."

* * * * *

The Morlacchi of Dalmatia, as Sir Gardner Wilkinson informs us,[584] believe also in the Vila. They describe her as a handsome female, who accompanies the man who is her favourite everywhere he goes, and causes all his undertakings to prosper. One thus favoured is termed Vilénik. Another of their objects of belief is the Maçieh, who appears in the form of a boy, with a cap on his head, and is always laughing. Any one to whom he appears gets the power of commanding him. If ordered to bring money, he usually steals it from one of the neighbours, and if taxed with his dishonesty, he goes to the sea and comes back dripping and with money.

FOOTNOTES:

[574] Delrio, Lib. ii. Sect. 2. Boxhorn Resp. Moscov. Pars I.

[575] Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 447.

[576] Mone, vol. i. p. 144. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 460.

[577] Grimm, _ut sup._ p. 480.

[578] Published by Wuk and translated by Talvi and others into German, by Bowring into English.

[579] Bowring, p. 175. _Sabejam oblake_, Cloud-gatherer, is an epithet of the Vila, answering to the Νεφεληγερετης of the Grecian Zeus.

[580] Death of Kralwich Marko. Bowring, p. 97.

[581] The building of Skadra. Ibid. p. 64.

[582] We have made this translation from a German version in the Wiener Jahrbücher, vol. xxx. which is evidently more faithful than Bowring's.

[583] Bowring, This version differs considerably from the German one of Talvi. We feel quite convinced that the English translator has mistaken the sense.

[584] Dalmatia and Montenegro, etc.

AFRICANS, JEWS, Etc.

Lead from the hills the voice of riot comes,
Where Yumboes shout and beat their Jaloff drums.
T. K.

This division of our work is somewhat miscellaneous, not being restricted to any particular race, or to any determinate part of the earth's surface. It contains merely such matters as appeared to us to be worthy of note, but which we could not include in any of the preceding sections.

AFRICANS.

When evening's shades o'er Goree's isle extend,
The nimble Yumboes from the Paps descend,
Slily approach the natives' huts, and steal,
With secret hand, the pounded coos-coos meal.
T. K.

The Jaloff inhabitants of the mainland of Africa, opposite the isle of Goree, believe in a species of beings who have a striking and surprising correspondence with the Gothic Fairies. They call them Yumboes, and describe them as being about two feet high, of a white colour, as every thing preternatural is in Africa. It is remarkable that, acting on the same principle as the Greeks, who called their Furies Eumenides, and the Scots and Irish, who style the Fairies Good Neighbours, or Good People, the Africans call the Yumboes, Bakhna Rakhna, or Good People. The dress of the Yumboes exactly corresponds with that of the natives, and they imitate their actions in every particular. They attach themselves to particular families; and whenever any of their members die, the Yumboes are heard to lament them, and to dance upon their graves. The Moors believe the Yumboes to be the souls of their deceased friends.

The chief abode of the Yumboes is a subterraneous dwelling on the Paps, the hills about three miles distant from the coast. Here they dwell in great magnificence, and many wonderful stories are told of those persons, particularly Europeans, who have been received and entertained in the subterraneous residence of the Yumboes: of how they were placed at richly furnished tables; how nothing but hands and feet were to be seen, which laid and removed the various dishes; of the numerous stories the underground abode consisted of; the modes of passing from one to the other without stairs, etc., etc.