Rumanian Bird and Beast Stories Rendered into English. Anonymous

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СКАЧАТЬ element stands out prominently. They have assumed their actual form no doubt probably under the powerful sway of some religious influence. The peculiar shade of religious teaching which has moulded the actual form of these legendary stories, and which is of decisive importance in our investigation, will be discussed more fully later on, after we have been able to dispose of other solutions offered by the explanation of the origin of these tales. It will then be possible to approach the question of the fairy tales from the coign of vantage gained.

      Within this class of tales there are some in which the legendary character is not so pronounced, where the tale is intended to explain certain peculiarities of animals. These seem to be of so primitive a character that the closest parallels can only be found among primitive nations. Here a new problem sets in—the problem of origins. For curiously enough a striking similarity cannot be denied to the Rumanian, Indian, African and possibly American tales. But the similarity is only in the aim. The other nations ask precisely the same questions about the animals with which they are familiar, and they endeavour to give an answer to their query. The parallelism is in the question. Are we, then, to treat these tales in the same manner as the “fairy tales” and account for that similarity in the same manner as that of fairy tales gathered from distant regions? Or, in other words, have we here another set of tales which have been carried chiefly by word of mouth from one country to another? Are these stories also new witnesses to the process of “migration”? And are we, then, to assume that this theory of migration should be applied to these animal tales, as it has been to the fairy tale? Or, are we to assume that the unity of the human soul works on parallel lines in divers countries among divers nations not otherwise connected with one another? If not, how is this similarity to be explained? True, the parallelism between Rumanian and Indian tales is not so close as it is between the “fairy tales.” For the animals are often not the same. They are everywhere local beasts. This change in the animals chosen may be due to different circumstances and local assimilation. It is quite natural that for a tiger and jackal, a wolf and a fox might have been substituted when the animal tale reached Europe, for the tale had to be localised in order to preserve its interest in a new atmosphere. One need not go very far to find the same change taking place even in written literature. The jackals in the frame story of the Panchatantra become “foxes” in Kalila Wa Dimna in the European versions. Or, to take another example, in the famous parable of the “man in the pit” in the Barlaam Josaphat legend the furious elephant becomes a camel, however incongruous the substitution may appear. If such changes could take place in the written literature in which the incidents are fixed, how much more easily could it take place when a story is carried only by word of mouth? Then the substitution of a familiar animal for one unknown would be quite natural. The people want to know the reason for the peculiarities of those animals that they know. They are not likely to care much for unknown fauna. Unless those other animals are of a purely mythical and fantastical character, and as such appeal to the universal imagination, there is no room in the popular mythology for animals of foreign countries.

      If, then, we admit that these animal fables have been brought to Europe in the same manner as the fairy tales, by means of oral transmission, then they have preserved their original character and their primitive form less modified than has happened in the case of the fairy tale, for reasons which would have to be explained. The only other suggestion is that these legends and animal tales are of a local origin, the product of the poetical imagination of the Rumanian peasant, and as such quite independent of any other source. If this is not acceptable we must admit a continuous stream of popular tradition, setting in at a time not yet determined and spreading from East to West or from South to North, the direction of the stream having been determined by the presumable centre of origin in Asia, before or contemporary with the spread of the real fairy tales.

      But, it might be argued, as has been also done in the case of the fairy tales, that these stories are the product of individual efforts of local myth-makers and popular poets, that they are purely indigenous in origin. One cannot deny that the people could invent such stories. Some one must have invented them, and why could they not have been invented by the Rumanian peasant independently of the Indian story teller?

      The cosmogonic setting invalidates this suggestion. Such a setting presupposes a definite set of ideas about the beginnings of things which are neither spontaneous nor indigenous. All that can be said is that, once the impulse had been given, the imagination of the people followed the lead and worked in its own way on the given lines. This is the general trend of real popular lore. Each nation mints in its own fashion the gold brought from elsewhere, and places its own imprint upon it.

      This view I find myself unable to accept. It could be entertained only and solely if no parallels whatsoever could be found anywhere to some at least of the more important and characteristic creation tales, fairy tales and fables.

      The question then remains, Where do these tales come from? Are they indeed the expression of the primitive mind, and if so, have we to recognise these specific Rumanian beast tales as so many indigenous products of the primitive Rumanian mind?

      Tylor, in his Primitive Culture (i. 3 ed. 410 ff.), discusses at some length the beast tales found among primitive peoples, tales that as yet are not the excuse for a moral and have not been reduced to the background of an allegory. He takes his examples from the North Indians of America, from the Kamtchadals of Kamtchatka and from the inhabitants of Guinea. These stories are thus, as it were, the primitive expression of the myth-making imagination of peoples in which the animal stands in as close a relation as any human being. Be this as it may, the conclusions drawn by Tylor rest on this evidence gathered only from so-called dark ages. He is not aware of any such tales among the nations of Europe, who certainly cannot be classed among the primitive peoples. And on the other hand he is fully alive to the fact that a number of such beast tales have been worked up in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in the famous epic of Reynard the Fox.

      The question arises, Whence came some of the incidents believed to be more ancient? They lead us straight to the supposition that such animal tales in a primitive form must have existed among the peoples of Europe, even as far west as Flanders and France. They were afterwards woven into one consecutive narrative, conceived in a spirit of satire on existing social and clerical conditions. A “moral” has thus been introduced into a set of more ancient tales. But of this anon. In view of these Rumanian tales we can no longer be content to leave the question of the compilation of Reynard where Tylor has left it. The new materials now at our disposal allow us to follow it much further and to arrive at conclusions differing from those of Tylor. From the moment that we find in Europe similar beast tales to those found among primitive peoples in other parts of the world, we are confronted by a new problem. We may recognise the same spiritual agency at work: we may see the same action of the mind, asking everywhere for an explanation of the phenomena from beast and bird, from sky and sea. Thus far the minds of all the nations run on parallel lines. The differentiation begins with the answer, and here, then, the problem sets in. How many nations give the same answer, and in so doing form, as it were, a group by themselves? How old is this or that answer or the tale that contains it? And what is the form in which it is given? Is it a fable or has it a religious colouring? In endeavouring to reply to these queries we find ourselves face to face with the problems of indigenous character, primitive origin, independent evolution and question of survival. We are thus brought face to face with yet another theory—the theory of survivals—the most important of all, which sways the trend of the study of modern folk-lore. I must deal with it here at some greater length. I mean, of course, the theory that sees in every manifestation of the popular spirit, in every story, in every ballad or song, a survival from hoary antiquity, a remnant of prehistoric times, to which the people have clung with a marvellous tenacity, although they have entirely forgotten its meaning. Out of an unconscious antiquarian weakness they are supposed to have preserved every fossil even if and when it had become burdensome to them. But it must not be forgotten that the people retain only those practices and beliefs by means of which they hope to obtain health, wealth and power, and they will take care not to jeopardise such benefits by any neglect. So long as these results are expected, the people will cling tenaciously to the beliefs which promise them the greater gifts. СКАЧАТЬ