New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-07-16
FOLKLORE.
SOME VERY OLD FRIENDS


Lang NJ. A. 16mo. pr. 1853. Macmillan IL Co.
There are few things which appear to possess
stronger local favor than popular tales, and there
are few things in regard to which this appearance
is more misleading. The study of folklore Is
full of surprises but the first lesson learned by
the student is the danger of assuming that any
legend fable tradition or fairy-tae originated
where it is found, or belongs TO the country Whch
seems to have the best claims upon IT. Ferrault
undoubtedly brought most of the tales he told
within reach of French and English children for
the first time To him they owe Blucbeard,
Cinderella the Sleeping Beauty, PUss-in- Boots,
and perhaps, though not certainly, Patient Uri-
sclda But when we come to inquire where FER
rault obtained these stories, or how they came
into the possession of his informantS, we are upon
wide quest. The French paraphraser's merit
was that he took the tales from the lips of nurses
and old gossips, from the children to whom
the crones had related them, and put them into
the most simple and charming language Mr..
Lang. in this pleasant and interesting little vol
ume (which is dainty and beautifully prntcd),
has done al that can be done to illustrate anu
elucidate the problems involved and he has done
it with characteristic ncatnesS and clcarnesS
Perrault himself was not concerned about ori-
gins. He simply took the stories as ne louho
them and tried to make them as enec'Nc a.
possible Tn these days we not satisfied with
lore has not yet afforded foundation for any
theory 81 plausible as TO be accepted generally.
On the contrary it has engendercd rival schools
and rival eX1rayaganccs of the most lrrcc'hcli-
able character, and has simulated the my'hicu
extremists to employ Procrusteah suh-lhy'"
test which they apply to every Legend anu sVofy'
and woe 10 the story if it will not fit the bed
Mr. Lang has taken arms against these dog
matistS and with reason. Not thaJ he Is dlto-
getber free from " tendencies himself, Out thaV
he Mt least. endeavors to keep them in some
order and realizes the possibility OF iolk-lorc
origins having no connection with mythology OF
"animism- in any form. III this work he traces
PerrauIt's tales, as many readers may conclude
cuite far enough: yet he does not always follow
them as far as he might have done. In the ease
of Bluebeard he is probably right IN rejecting us
an origin the historical horrors of Giles de Kctz
The Rev Sabine Gould some years ago pub
lished an interesting essay on the MaTcchl de
Retz in which he assumed 100 hastily that the
story OF Butbcard was founded on the GRIN
history Of that brilliant debauchrd. supcrStitiOus
AMI mu.dcrous noble. But the skeleton OF Blue
beard is found far from France. 1t belongs to
class OF tales Of which numerous examples eNlsV
in Asian FOLKLORE There are several lllustril-
lions of these Observation-Disclosures stories IN the
Thousand and One Nights and in the much older
II;ndoo tales So in like manner Cinderella may
be traced to Greece on one side and to Egypt on
the other Patient GrSeda is very old, and has
variants in many lands. 1t can be followed Tor
upward of 1000 years in India, where II appeared
it will not do to say for the first timc-ih the
collection Of Buddhist legends which was created
by the simple process Of taking all the coca
stories current and making Gautama the central
figure in thcm mplanting Buddhist moral Ill
them Griseda, in the Buddhist version, Illus
trated the virtue of self-sacrifcc. There Is a
Tibetan variant which may or may not be older
than the IIndoo one. but resembles IL III the
general features closely.
The apparent uniformity with which European
follS-talcs appear at first sight to lead baci 10
India is liable to deceive the student, nevcrthe-
less Occasionally he will encounter variant
of some legend story in an entirely uneX-
pected place; as in South Africa or South Amer
lea or New-Zeaand. Then he has to proceed
with redoublcd caution lest he fall into the easy
blundcr of accepting as original some Old-World
story which has been transmitted to n savage
race by missionaries or traders, and after beng
metamorphosed by passage through the savage
mind, has come forth again brave and strange
in full local coors 1t is impossible not to suspect
that this is the explanation Of some, at least, of
the Maori Hottcntot and Zulu folk-talcs. In
their present dress they certainly appear thoroughly
localized put then how many llindoo tales have
Italian Scottish and Irish local legends, and how
completely these have been adapted to tner new
habitat In fact, nothing is more difficult than
to fix the cradle of foll-talcs There are so many
theories TO choose from. for thing. 1t may
seem improbable that the IIOttcntotS, the Iulus,
the IIindoos, the Egyptians the Greeks the AZ
tees should have Independently struck out the
same lines of fiction, myth and tale. But 1t can
not be said to he incredible. and certainly u Is
as possible as that widely separated races should
strike out identical ideas regarding religion,
cosmcal phenomena, etc.
A follower of Dcscartcs might derive some
conrenial and plausible arguments for automatlsm
from the problems opened up by the study OF
folklore. lie might hold that the simultaneous
invention of similar myths and fables by communl-
ties having no communication with each other
ONLY tended to demonstrate the inability of the
cerebral machine to transcend the fixed limits
of its operation. All human beings the Car
tesian might assert, do the same things IN the
some stages Of development. Different races seem
TO the superficial observer to be unlike one
another merely because they are IN varying
planes of progress. Given any one plane, how
ever and every race, when passing over IT, has
acted and thought in the same ways. 1t is not
necessary to be Cartcsian to employ this ar
cument indeed for il can be held without the
corollary of automatSrn. Unfortunately the
more folklore is studied, the less possible does
it appear to deducc any settled conclusions from
it. One reason doubtless is that many necessary
data are unattainable TEds it is clearly mpos-
si5le 10 ascertain whether any given legend or
story was or was not originally imported from
without TO the place where it is now found
Commerce and proselytism 90 everywhere, and
the first has always done So and every wander |
ing prov, every drifting ocean-wreck every
capture made in battle tribal or other, Is pos
sible dissemination Of folklore. All we can say
with confidence therefore is, shat the world holds
large proportion Of It's best stories in common |