# Journal of American Folk-Lore/Volume 12/Issue 46/Bibliographical Notes

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES.
BOOKS.
The International Folk-Lore Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition. (Archives of the International Folk-Lore Association. Vol. i.) Chicago: Charles H. Sergei Company. 1898. Pp.512.
This volume, devoted to the papers offered at the International Folk-Lore Congress of 1893, contains an extensive mass of information from all quarters of the globe. To notice the material in detail would be quite beyond the capacity of this Journal; we shall therefore content ourselves with reference to certain articles which have appeared to us to present especial interest.
Mr. MacRitchie gives additional arguments in support of the thesis that the dwarfs of folk-lore represent primitive races of short stature. Dealing with "The Northern Trolls," he points out that early northern visitors to Greenland identified the Eskimos or Skroelings with the trolls. Such was also the case with Lapps. He considers, however, that ancient underground folk of still smaller stature gave originally the foundation for stories of mythical dwarfs.
Rev. Walter Gregor gives some account of the ceremonies used in Scotland for purposes of divination and popular medicine. When these rites were performed with water, this had to be drawn from a ford, or from below a bridge, where the dead and living were supposed to pass. The water, drawn in silence, at stated times, usually after sunset in the twilight "atween the sin (sun) and the sky," was designated "unspoken water." When a cow or other animal fell in, and the evil eye was suspected as a ​cause, this water was administered as a cure. When not drawn at the time above mentioned, it was taken "in the silence of the night," that is, about midnight. Usually one person fetched the water; if two went, they must not speak to each other or to any person they met. Not a word must be uttered, until the draught was administered to the ailing animal. Sometimes the rule was more complicated; in the case of a cure for fever, the stream sought must form the boundary between two lairds' lands, and the water must be drawn in a wooden basin of a peculiar shape. On the journey back, the operator must turn with the sun at three spots, three times at each spot. On reaching the door of the house where the patient was, the operator must wait until the disk of the sun appears above the horizon, when the water was blessed in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. In another case, three stones are lifted from the bed of the stream, held in the hands and in the mouth, and the patient lies silent all night.
Prof. K. Krohn offers an interesting account of the worship of the dead in Finland. Formerly, when a new place of abode was chosen, it was necessary to select a place for "Karsikko," that is to say, a grove of trees; when a person died, a tree was lopped, and sacrifices were then offered to the dead; when a bullock was killed, the first cooked dish was carried to the grove. In spring, the first fish must be offered; and in autumn the first corn. If money were received, a coin must, first of all, be taken to the place of sacrifice. Later on, the grove was reduced to a single tree, and finally to a mere memorial without any religious signification. The oldest form must have existed at the time when the Savolax people emigrated from Vermland to Delaware. In 1653, two Delaware-Finns, a man and a woman, were sentenced for sorcery. In the eighteenth century, these first Finns in America accepted, first the Dutch, afterwards the English language, and are now entirely blent with the rest of the population.
From a paper of V. V. Vucasovic, on funeral customs of the Southern Slavs, it would appear that the colossal monuments erected over the dead, chiefly from the twelfth to the eighteenth century, constitute imitations, as respects form, of Roman sarcophagi, but often placed on prehistoric tumuli. On the sides is sculptured especially the funeral dance, which they danced backwards; the dancers are composed of men and women, in odd numbers. Episodes of the life of the deceased are also represented. The defunct is accustomed to hold the cross in his right hand, and is surmounted by a demi-lune and star, emblems of fortune (The Bosnian coat of arms). In his left hand he has a sword, and defends himself against a monster which seeks to devour him. Modern funeral customs are described.
F. F. Feilberg, in a paper called "Buried Alive," notices the custom of making, in the gable wall of farmhouses in Jutland, a low arch filled out with bricks, called the "corpse-door," it being the practice to carry out the coffin through the orifice, and wall up the opening before the return of the funeral procession, to the end, no doubt, that the dead might not be able ​to find the entrance to its old home, with the result of disturbing the survivors. The practice of burying living animals beneath the walls of a building survives to this day; the usage is a survival of foundation sacrifice. The idea seems to be that the spirit of the victim may watch the boundary, and exclude evil demons; thus in Fyn, a ghost had its walk through the gate, but a dog being interred in the entrance, the ghost was compelled to stay outside. The same usages were anciently applied to protect the boundary of the village, or the shore of the sea, from the encroaching ocean. The guardian spirit of a church is still supposed to watch the place, and prevent profanation; if the old custom of burying a living animal is dispensed with, it is supposed that the first person buried in the churchyard will be appointed as guardian. As the writer points out, the thought of a sacrifice to a mysterious power may also have been working in the minds of the persons who have buried the animals.
Dr. Stanislas Prato discusses the symbol of the vase, noting the myth of Pandora, and the manner in which, in a Brazilian legend, transformations result from the prohibited opening of a tucuman kernel containing animals of might. He sets forth the modern symbolism of the vessel, and examines the tales connected with the choice of the caskets in Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice."
N. B. Emerson abstracts the Hawaiian version of the Maui-legend; in his report Maui appears as a transformer akin to the familiar figure of American aboriginal mythology; Maui obtains the secret of fire, hitherto only known to the mud-hen, and delays the overrapid course of the Sun by breaking off the rays which stand out from his body, like spines from a sea-urchin, thus weakening the luminary. Maui, in spite of his beneficent activity, appears as a very dissolute and generally worthless personage, who is finally killed for thieving by the great gods. The activity of this transformer, therefore, altogether answers to the character of the American one, according to the view set forth by Dr. Boas in the publication forming the sixth volume of the "Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society," who regards the purposes of the agent of transformation as purely selfish.
Brief tales recorded by W. W. Gill from the atoll of Manahiki are interesting, in that they show how the general idea of the giant-queller is modified by the environment ; Tamaro kills a white shark, and finds a subaqueous paradise in the home of the fish-god.
Under the title of "An Ancient Egyptian Creation Myth," A. Wiedemann gives an account of the legend contained in the hieratic papyrus, No. 10,188 of the British Museum, found at Thebes in 1860. This papyrus, although only dated from the year 306–5 B.C., gives a narration which, in the view of Wiedemann, is of great antiquity, antedating other Egyptian legends on the subject, and belonging to a period earlier than the time of the pyramids. The myth deals with Ra, the sun-god, as creator, from the first existing together with the primordial waters. Ra is conceived as human in shape, the visible sun being his eye; he raises heaven and earth from the waters. Afterwards, from him, by a process answering to that of male generation, arise the divine pair, Shu and Tefnut, ​who are left in the chaotic waters, and from whom come, first Seb and Nut, then Osiris and his race. As Shu and Tefnut are emanations of Ra, the latter is said to have become a trinity. Ra, mutilating himself, has left his sun-eye in the waters, issues to the earth, and makes for himself a new sun; Shu and Tefnut follow him to earth, and bring to Ra his former eye. Ra weeps over it, and from the tears springs man. But Ra's eye is incensed at being superseded, and Ra is compelled to grant it the old place in his head ; now having two eyes, the double light from these luminaries burns the plants, and Ra is obliged to restore the withered vegetation; he then issues from the plants, and creates reptiles, good and bad. Thus the myth. A second version carries us on to the stage of mysticism; Ra is now described as assuming the forms of Existence, hypostatized under the name of Chepera; he is the Nine-in-One. The creation of life by self-pollution, and the divine pair, Shu and Tefnut, are alluded to in inscriptions from 3000 B.C. Wiedemann remarks that the origin of the myth is not from play on words, but from philosophical speculation. Egyptian religious thought not being fixed, the present scheme represents only one of many inconsistent speculations.
A. Haas offers interesting notices concerning Pomeranian beliefs respecting death and burial. Among the superstitions noted is that of telling the bees on the death of the owner of a farm. O. Knoop supplies a collection of tales and beliefs concerning Pomeranian house spirits. M. Dragomannov discourses on the "Taming of the Shrew," in the folk-lore of the Akraine. The volume contains an account of the persons chiefly connected with the Congress, and the address of Lieut. F. S. Bassett.
W. W. Newell.
The Making of Religion. By Andrew Lang. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. 1898. Pp. 380.
A review of Mr. Lang's work would come late, were it not that the book has been the subject of discussion in recent numbers of "Folk-Lore." The author considers the modern science of the History of Religion to teach, that Man derived the conception of Spirit from reflection on phenomena of sleep, dreams, death, shadow, and experiences of trance and hallucination. Ghosts, thus obtained, became the first objects of belief and worship, and were gradually magnified into gods, of which, in the end, one became supreme; on the other hand, from belief in the survival of the soul grew the notion of immortality. This system he proposes to study from fresh points of view. In the first place, he treats what he calls the X phenomena among savages, clairvoyance, crystalomancy, second-sight, demoniacal possession, and so on, giving examples to show the prevalence of similar experiences; he considers that their apparently supernatural character may have much to do with the theory of a separable soul, and apparently inclines toward a belief in the verity at least of the occurrences. The statements concerning the savage phenomena are not especially full, the account not undertaking to exhibit a complete view of the department. The second part of the treatise undertakes to supply a substitute for the ​animistic doctrine; this is, that the idea of God as, to use the writer's words, "a primal eternal being, author of all things, the father and friend of man, the invisible, omniscient guardian of morality, belongs to the lowest savages, who reverence this supreme deity without idol-worship or sacrifice, as immutable, impeccable, all-seeing, benevolent, and lovable. To establish a doctrine so widely different from received opinion, one would expect to find an elaborate examination of savage morality in its higher aspect; but the scope of inquiry is limited, the most important part of the examination being concerned with Australians as examples of the lowest intelligence, and with their mysteries.
The views of Mr. Lang are traversed by Mr. E. S. Hartland in "Folk-Lore" (December, 1898). With his usual clearness and common sense, Mr. Hartland points out that the true character of Australian divine personages widely differs from the quality required by the theory. Thus Daramulun, patron of the Murring tribes, lived on earth, died, and now dwells with ghosts in the sky. He had a wife who was an emu, and he himself seems to have had progeny, and to be indeed a tribal ancestor. He presides over a cruel initiation rite, involving cannibalistic features, the youths being at times bitten to death. The idea that religious belief is quite a different thing from myth, Mr. Hartland maintains, is not to be allowed ; myths are essentially sacred, although shifting beliefs. Of creation, in the Hebrew sense, savage cosmogony is ignorant ; the so-called creators find the actual universe already in existence. As to moral character, the chief Australian spirits are little better than apotheoses of the wizard. Mr. Lang regards the five precepts laid on neophytes of the Kurnai as being in essence parallel with Hebrew commandments; but Mr. Hartland considers them as quite other in scope. The injunction to obey elders is intended to strengthen the power of the old men; that to live in peace with friends is a remnant of Gentile custom; to share with those who are friendly is equally a survival of tribal communism; not to interfere with married women is an injunction appropriate to a society which has recently emerged from group marriage; to refrain from forbidden food is a rule avowedly dependent on superstition. In general, in order to comprehend Australian life, it is necessary to put aside Christian and civilized conceptions.
To these criticisms Mr. Lang, in the following number of "Folk-Lore," responded in a moderate tone, affirming that his intention had been only to affirm, that the concept of an immortal and holy deity had been among the religious conceptions of early man, who associated with this belief ideas quite contradictory. He maintained that the notions of divine power, goodness, and generosity might easily occur, even to savages. In the use of the term Our Father to denote the chief deity, love is implied. In primitive religion appear what we call rational factors; the fancy connected with the presentation, degrading the purity of the conceptions, resulted in myth, abounding in elements which to us are irrational. The probability of European influence in producing the higher Australian notions he minimizes, pointing out correspondences in the accounts of Mr. ​Manning, based on his experience of 1845, and of Mrs. Langloh Parker at the present time. As to the origin of morality, the only difference between Mr. Lang and his critic is, that he sees natural affection as well as the interest of the strongest as a formative cause of the morality. The question is, whether man first conceived of an immoral medicine-man, and later on purified the conception, or whether he first imagined a good, kind Maker, and then degraded the idea. He asks for a case in which we know that a dirty old medicine-man was elevated into a "kind supreme being, guardian of tribal morality."
In a rejoinder, Mr. Hartland pointed out that Mr. Lang's qualified defence is a variation from the unconditional statements of his book; one of his chief complaints against Mr. Lang's method is, that he has dwelt on one set of beliefs, turning away from another set as mere myths. As to the accounts of Mr. Manning and of Mrs. Langloh Parker, the coincidences are just sufficient to furnish further ground for inquiry. Mr. Hartland does not deny the existence of kinship affection in Australian morality; but the main purpose of the mysteries is to promote discipline, and to preserve the social organization.
In reviewing this controversy, the grand lesson to be drawn is that differences of interpretation of savage intelligence arise from the imperfection of record. Give us a complete and unadorned account of Australian mysteries, such as perhaps can still be procured by supplying investigators who will undergo initiation, with all the indecencies, savageries, and cruelties, with the sacred legends and songs as well as the rites in detail; then we shall see just what degree of analogy to the higher faiths these present. It is all a question of money; the students could be procured. But unluckily this generation still finds it easier to speculate on imperfect accounts, than to make even a small outlay for the purpose of learning the unadorned truth. As to recent observations, the imperfection of the methods still employed has been the subject of observation in this Journal; pieced-out notes go a very little way toward elucidation.
In the work here under examination, it was the opinion of Mr. Lang, that animism, so far from offering an explanation of the phenomena of religion, comes in later on, as a force calculated to deform and degrade the purity of the original intuitions. A basis for this position will be found in the "Introduction to the History of Religion," by F. B. Jevons, who holds that inchoate monotheism is the earlier stage, which is back of the ritual of polytheistic gods (p. 391). This proposition is a deduction from the totem theory, in which it is assumed that a single tribe has properly only a single divine object of worship. To the mind of the writer of this notice, such doctrine is an unfounded assumption.
W. W. Newell.
The High History of the Holy Grail. (The Temple Classics.) Translated from the French by Sebastian Evans. London: J. M. Dent & Co. 1898. 2 vols. pp. 305, 298.
These little volumes, very charming in appearance, present an English ​translation of an old French prose romance, edited by C. Potvin in 1866. This story Mr. Evans has turned into very agreeable English, of somewhat archaic phraseology ; for the manner in which the translator has executed his undertaking, only praise can be offered.
As to the contents of the French tale, less unqualified approval can be pronounced. The narrative belongs to the most extravagant type of the abundantly marvellous fictions concerning the history of the Holy Grail. In a series of articles contained in this Journal, it has been shown that the oldest work connected with this cycle, the celebrated poem of Crestien of Troyes, knows nothing of the Grail as a vessel of the sacrament, but only of a mysterious dish which plays quite an accidental part in the action. By subsequent misunderstanding, according to the view taken in the papers mentioned, was developed the variety of later fictions, answering to modern religious novels, in which the Holy Grail played so prominent a part. In these stories the incidents of the French poet continued to furnish suggestions, which were so altered and elaborated as to result in completely opposite situations. In the end, the achievement of the Grail was assigned to a chaste knight, a type of Christ according to the mediæval conception, named Galahad. The present romance is closely connected with the tale relating to the latter; the hero is represented as celibate and religious, but is still named Perceval. The corruption of this appellation into Pellesvaus has furnished a convenient distinctive title for the romance. (For abstract, see vol. x. pp. 309–311.) The tale has interest for the scholar, as throwing light on the evolution of the romances dealing with Galahad; how much literary value attaches to it may be questioned. Entirely without sequence or psychologic worth, it consists of a string of wild and impossible adventures; in the presence of more reasonable contemporary stories having some relation to human life, it may be thought that the composition is to be allowed only archaeologic merit.
The translator has added an epilogue, in which he comments on the date of record, which he sets as between 1214 and 1225. This is likely; but when Mr. Evans proceeds to qualify the romance as the "first and most authentic" version of the legend, he makes a claim which will scarce receive the indorsement of any scholar familiar with the cycle. On the contrary, the romance bears on every page the characteristics of the thirteenth century, in sharp distinction from the simpler and more poetic style of the twelfth. A well-known mention of the chronicler Helinandus refers to a history of the Holy Graal; Mr. Evans well shows that the chronicler did not write in 1204, but as late as 1227, at which time, according to Vincent of Beauvais, Guarin, who is said to have been intimate with Helinandus, became bishop of Senlis. But Mr. Evans is in error in supposing that the notice of the chronicle of necessity refers to the romance now in question. On the contrary, as Mr. Nutt has indicated, the reference seems to be to quite another work, the so-called Grand St. Graal.
The name of the author of this romance is not mentioned. The false prologue to Crestien's Perceval speaks of a certain Master Blihis as an authority on the story of the Grail; this notice leads Mr. Evans to assume ​the possible authorship of this (presumedly mythical) Blihis, and the suggestion is accepted by the printer, who informs us on the inside of the cover, in a pretty design figuring a tombstone, that the aforesaid Master Blihis floruit circa 1200–1250. Suppose this to be the case, it is plain the production could not present the original type of the history, and antedate a poem composed at least a generation earlier.
The reader, however, may be left to decide on the literary merits of the French romance; to Mr. Evans is due thanks for having put a curious novel, so to speak, of the thirteenth century within the reach of the English-speaking public.
W. W. Newell.
Bird Gods. By Charles de Kay. With an accompaniment of decorations by George Wharton Edwards. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co. (n. d.) Pp. xix, 249.
Mr. de Kay very justly remarks that in the study of man's groping toward religious belief, the influence of birds and beasts has been (until lately) neglected, whereas in the daily life of savages these were and are objects as important as the phenomena of light and air. He therefore undertakes to call attention to remains in the early lore of Europe of a very extensive connection of birds with gods, pointing to a worship of the bird as representative of the deity. He follows in mythology, epic poetry, and legends the traces of certain birds, selecting the dove, woodpecker, cuckoo, peacock, owl, swan, and eagle, and undertakes to show how their peculiarities and habits, observed with keenness, have laid the foundation for elements of various religions and mythologies, and supplied the skeleton of plots on which have been built numerous myths and tragedies. He points out that modern historical science supposes rather mixture of conquering races with their predecessors than eradication, and thinks that old beliefs reveal the influence of non-Aryan peoples. When the origin of a divinity or of one aspect of a divinity, depended on original bird nature, in the natural course of things the animal became humanized, and in the end the bird remained only as a symbol of which the meaning was forgotten. Recognition of the honor once assigned to birds, he suggests, may have some tendency to shame modern descendants of the worshippers into taking some pains to prevent the extinction of bird life.
The method of conception of the author may be illustrated by examples. Aphrodite is drawn by doves, because in the spring that bird shines in his finest feather, and is especially ardent in love-making. Herodotus relates the account of the prophetesses at Dodona, that the oracle was established at the command of a black dove, which settled in an oak-tree; the grove at Dodona may have been presumed to have been a shrine of the Pelasgians, sacred to divinities ruder than Zeus and his daughter. In the Greek dove-name oinás is to be found the source of the name Æneas, who is to be regarded as the dove god humanized. The capture of Venus by Vulcan in a golden net is the survival of a bird-characteristic. The prophetic quality of the woodpecker is explained by his habit of drumming on a dead ​limb; this was supposed to be indicative of rain, and so the creature was made a thunder-bird. Thus Picus the woodpecker became an Italiot deity. His custom of excavating a cavity caused him to be supposed cognizant of hidden treasures. With Picus Mr. de Kay correlates the Esthonian Pikker; in the temple-huts of these tribes, heathen until the twelfth century, we should have found wooden images of such a bird god. In the Kalevala we have a "hero with the scarlet headgear," Nyyrikki, who blazes a path for the hunter; this personage is the woodpecker. With augurs ravens and crows were greater favorites, by reason of their distinct voices.
The cuckoo is sacred to spring, because of his mysterious cry. The cuckoo lays its egg in the nest of another bird, and is said also to remove the eggs of the foster-mother after its own child has been hatched. He was therefore regarded as a criminal. Mr. de Kay thinks that numerous folk-tales and myths are to be traced to this reputation; he ventures to suggest that the story of Siegfried is the echo of a cuckoo myth. The myths that deal with marriage within prohibited degrees, and those treating of the devouring by a father of his own children may be explained in similar manner. The Irish hero Cuchulainn was originally a cuckoo god; he bears harness at seven years of age, because a young cuckoo is fledged in seven weeks; his feat of driving off fifty boy-princes is a survival of the cuckoo's exploits in ridding the nest of foster-brothers; his distortion in battle is the ruffling up of the feathers of the bird. The early bird-god literature among Akkads offers parallels. The writer suggests to anthropologists that the habit of couvade may have owed its origin to observation of the habits of birds and childlike imitation. The owl rids fields of mice; it is assigned to Pallas Athene, because it can see in the dark; the attribution shows that originally the goddess must have been nocturnal. Before wisdom was associated with the deity, Pallas may have been evolved from an owl into a psychopompos or soul-guide.
The eagle is famous in myth, not merely on account of his power and swiftness, but because of the great age and ability of rejuvenescence assigned to him.
Myths belonging to the category dealt with by the writer bear every evidence of belonging to a much ruder age; parallels with Finnish mythology, for example, seem to demand the early existence in Greece of a people akin in mental traits to Finnish tribes, which lent important elements to Greek mythology.
Such is an outline of the views of Mr. de Kay, who has written a brief but suggestive book on a very difficult subject. Even the complications of philology seem simple in comparison with the tangle of mythology. Whenever inference enters into the discussion, when it is necessary to go beyond the definite statements of the source, the difficulty of passing from conjecture to demonstration is almost insuperable. The key offered by comparative etymology based on mere assonance is almost always merely delusive. Only the broadest generalizations will usually be found capable of proof. The extent to which, in ancient art, the ascription of animal tokens to dei​ties is to be explained as a relic of ancient beast worship, and the degree to which it is to be allowed purely symbolic, is full of uncertainty. Of symbolism we have examples in the animal figures still associated with the evangelists, and especially in the representation of Christ as a lamb bearing the cross. The requirements of ancient art in a degree explain such animal presentation. Equally involved are the principles of ethnological theory. That the Aryan races had a different way of looking at the universe, or in respect to their forms of divinities were more advanced than their non-Aryan neighbors, or that simple and rude beliefs and usages imply the presence of lower racial elements, are propositions at least not established. The very literary character of the material ought also to be considered; such is especially the case in regard to the late and highly sophisticated Welsh mediæval folk-lore. When, therefore, the attempt is made to trace a particular human story to an animal origin, there are countless probabilities of error. But these remarks are offered merely by way of pointing out the caution to be observed, and by no means with intent to cast doubt on the general correctness of the author's theme, that animal mythology antedates the humanized versions of ancient literature.
W. W. Newell.