Popular Tales from the Norse. Anonymous

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ they are like the sleeping thoughts of many men upon one and the same thing. Suppose a hundred men to have been eye-witnesses of some event on the same day, and then to have slept and dreamt of it; we should have as many distinct representations of that event, all turning upon it and bound up with it in some way, but each preserving the personality of the sleeper, and working up the common stuff in a higher or lower degree, just as the fancy and the intellect of the sleeper was at a higher or lower level of perfection. There is, indeed, greater truth in this likeness than may at first sight appear. In the popular tale, properly so called, the national mind dreams all its history over again; in its half conscious state it takes this trait and that trait, this feature and that feature, of times and ages long past. It snatches up bits of its old beliefs, and fears, and griefs, and glory, and pieces them together with something that happened yesterday, and then holds up the distorted reflection in all its inconsequence, just as it has passed before that magic glass, as though it were genuine history, and matter for pure belief. And here it may be as well to say, that besides that old classical foe of vernacular tradition, there is another hardly less dangerous, which returns to the charge of copying, but changes what lawyers call the venue of the trial from classical to Eastern lands. According to this theory, which came up when its classical predecessor was no longer tenable, the traditions and tales of Western Europe came from the East, but they were still all copies. They were supposed to have proceeded entirely from two sources; one the Directorium Humanae Vitae of John of Capua, translated between 1262–78 from a Hebrew version, which again came from an Arabic version of the 8th century, which came from a Pehlvi version made by one Barzouyeh, at the command of Chosrou Noushirvan, King of Persia, in the 6th century, which again came from the Pantcha Tantra, a Sanscrit original of unknown antiquity. This is that famous book of Calila and Dimna, as the Persian version is called, attributed to Bidpai, and which was thus run to earth in India. The second source of Western tradition was held to be that still more famous collection of stories commonly known by the name of the 'Story of the Seven Sages,' but which, under many names—Kaiser Octavianus, Diocletianus, Dolopathos, Erastus, etc.—plays a most important part in mediaeval romance. This, too, by a similar process, has been traced to India, appearing first in Europe at the beginning of the thirteenth century in the Latin Historia Septem Sapientum Romae, by Dame Jehans, monk in the Abbey of Haute Selve. Here, too, we have a Hebrew, an Arabic, and a Persian version; which last came avowedly from a Sanscrit original, though that original has not yet been discovered. From these two sources of fable and tradition, according to the new copying theory, our Western fables and tales had come by direct translation from the East. Now it will be at once evident that this theory hangs on what may be called a single thread. Let us say, then, that all that can be found in Calila and Dimna, or the later Persian version, made A.D. 1494, of Hossein Vaez, called the Anvari Sohaïli, 'the Canopic Lights'—from which, when published in Paris by David Sahid of Ispahan, in the year 1644, La Fontaine drew the substance of many of his best fables.—Let us say, too, that all can be found in the Life of the Seven Sages, or the Book of Sendabad as it was called in Persia, after an apocryphal Indian sage—came by translation—that is to say, through the cells of Brahmins, Magians, and monks, and the labours of the learned—into the popular literature of the West. Let us give up all that, and then see where we stand. What are we to say of the many tales and fables which are to be found in neither of those famous collections, and not tales alone, but traits and features of old tradition, broken bits of fable, roots and germs of mighty growths of song and story, nay, even the very words, which exist in Western popular literature, and which modern philology has found obstinately sticking in Sanscrit, and of which fresh proofs and instances are discovered every day? What are we to say of such a remarkable resemblance as this?

      The noble King Putraka fled into the Vindhya mountains in order to live apart from his unkind kinsfolk; and as he wandered about there he met two men who wrestled and fought with one another. 'Who are you?' he asked. 'We are the sons of Mayâsara, and here lie our riches; this bowl, this staff, and these shoes; these are what we are fighting for, and whichever is stronger is to have them for his own.'

      So when Putraka had heard that, he asked them with a laugh: 'Why, what's the good of owning these things?' Then they answered 'Whoever puts on these shoes gets the power to fly; whatever is pointed at with this staff rises up at once; and whatever food one wishes for in this bowl, it comes at once.' So when Putraka had heard that he said 'Why fight about it? Let this be the prize; whoever beats the other in a race, let him have them all'.

      'So be it', said the two fools, and set off running, but Putraka put on the shoes at once, and flew away with the staff and bowl up into the clouds'.

      Well, this is a story neither in the Pantcha Tantra nor the Hitopadesa, the Sanscrit originals of Calila and Dimna. It is not in the Directorium Humanae Vitae, and has not passed west by that way. Nor is it in the Book of Sendabad, and thence come west in the History of the Seven Sages. Both these paths are stopped. It comes from the Katha Sarit Sagara, the 'Sea of Streams of Story' of Somadeva Bhatta of Cashmere, who, in the middle of the twelfth century of our era, worked up the tales found in an earlier collection, called the Vrihat Katha, 'the lengthened story', in order to amuse his mistress, the Queen of Cashmere. Somadeva's collection has only been recently known and translated. But west the story certainly came long before, and in the extreme north-west we still find it in these Norse Tales in 'The Three Princesses of Whiteland', No. xxvi.

      'Well!' said the man, 'as this is so, I'll give you a bit of advice. Hereabouts, on a moor, stand three brothers, and there they have stood these hundred years, fighting about a hat, a cloak, and a pair of boots. If any one has these three things, he can make himself invisible, and wish himself anywhere he pleases. You can tell them you wish to try the things, and after that, you'll pass judgment between them, whose they shall be'.

      Yes! the king thanked the man, and went and did as he told him.

      'What's all this?' he said to the brothers. 'Why do you stand here fighting for ever and a day? Just let me try these things, and I'll give judgment whose they shall be.'

      They were very willing to do this; but as soon as he had got the hat; cloak, and boots, he said: 'When we meet next time I'll tell you my judgment'; and with these words he wished himself away.

      Nor in the Norse tales alone. Other collections shew how thoroughly at home this story was in the East. In the Relations of Ssidi Kur, a Tartar tale, a Chan's son first gets possession of a cloak which two children stand and fight for, which has the gift of making the wearer invisible, and afterwards of a pair of boots, with which one can wish one's self to whatever place one chooses. Again, in a Wallachian tale, we read of three devils who fight for their inheritance—a club which turns everything to stone, a hat which makes the wearer invisible, and a cloak by help of which one can wish one's self whithersoever one pleases. Again, in a Mongolian tale, the Chan's son comes upon a group of children who fight for a hood which makes the wearer invisible; he is to be judge between them, makes them run a race for it, but meanwhile puts it on and vanishes from their sight. A little further on he meets another group, who are quarrelling for a pair of boots, the wearer of which can wish himself whithersoever he pleases, and gains possession of them in the same way.

      Nor in one Norse tale alone, but in many, we find traces of these three wonderful things, or of things like them. They are very like the cloth, the ram, and the stick, which the lad got from the North Wind instead of his meal. Very like, too, the cloth, the scissors, and the tap, which will be found in No. xxxvi, 'The Best Wish'. If we drop the number three, we find the Boots again in 'Soria Moria Castle', No. lvi. [Moe, Introd., xxxii-iii] Leaving the Norse Tales, we see at once that they are the seven-leagued boots of Jack the Giant Killer. In the Nibelungen Lied, when Siegfried finds Schilbung and Niblung, the wierd heirs of the famous 'Hoard', striving for the possession of that heap of red gold and gleaming stones; when they beg him to share it for them, promising him, as his meed, Balmung, best of swords; when he shares it, when they are discontent, and when in the struggle which ensues he gets possession of the 'Tarnhut', the 'cloak of darkness', which gave its wearer the СКАЧАТЬ