787 28 4MB
English Pages 40 Seiten 17 cm [52] Year 1900
UC-NRLF
27 3DT
Studies in
)opular Mythology Romance sr Folklore ll each
6d. "0.
6* The
"+-*/
Fairy
Mytho-
of Shakespeare. red
Nutt, Author
of "
By
The
end of the Holy Grail."
1
iblished
by David Nutt, London 1900
The present study is a reprint with slight addiomissions, and modifications, of my 1897 ,
tions,
Presidential Address to the Folklore Society, entitled " The Fair a Mythology of English Literature ; its
and Nature" I have retained the address The thesis which I hare essayed to demonstrate
Oriijin
form.
is based upon studies set forth at considerable lenyth in Vol. II. of my work entitled " The Voyaye of Bran.'' Discussing therein the Celtic doctrine of
rebirth,
I was compelled
to form
a theory of primitive
conceptions of life and sacrifice, compelled also to determine the real nature of the fairies believed in to
this
day by
the
Irish peasantry,
and of
their
ancestors in early Irish mythology, the Tuatl.a de
In postulating an agricultural
Danann.
basis
for
the present belief, as well as for the ancient mythology, I found myself in accord with the chief'recent stddents
of myth and rite in this country and on the Continent. For a full exposition and, discussion of the facts upon whicli I rely, as well as of the prinnples which hare
I must refer to "The Voyage of Bran " The Biblwgrapfrisqi ^gpendix is designed to aid the stqdqtt wlio\wfaftf& to '-further work at the
yuided. me,
t
mhjetf Jyy,
Ijimseil/.
'.::'':,';'.'';:'.,;
:
ALFRED NUTT.
Sprhicf 1900.
A
List of the Series will be found on the back of the Cover.
f
5
a
THE FAIRY MYTHOLOGY OF SHAKESPEARE FEW
things are more marvellous in the marvellous
English poetic literature of the last three centuries than the persistence of the fairy note throughout the whole of its evolution. As we pass on
from Shakespeare and his immediate followers to Herrick and Milton, through the last ballad writers to Thomson and Gray, and then note in Percy and Chatterton the beginnings of the romantic revival which culminated in Keats and
was continued by Tennyson, the Rosand Mr. Swinburne, until in our own days
Coleridge, settis, it
has received a fresh accession of
life
alike
from Ireland and from Gaelic Scotland, we are never for long without hearing the horns of Elfland faintly winding, never for long are we denied access to " Charmed magic casements opening on the foam Of perilous seas
in faery lands forlorn."
We
could not blot out from English poetry visions of the fairyland without a sense
A
344528
its
of
2
THE "FAIRY MYTHOLOGY
.
No other literature save that irreparable loss. vie with ours in its pictures can alone of Greece of the land of phantasy and glamour, or has brought
from that mysterious
back
realm
of
unfading beauty treasures of more exquisite and enduring charm.
but is no phenomenon without a cause immense complexity of historical record it not always easy to detect the true cause, and trace its growth and working until the result
There
;
in the is
to
delight
Why
us.
does the fairy note ring so that literature of modern
perfectly throughout
England which has the best of
its
half -century
:
exist,
nor
objection discover them.
roots in
me
and which derives
blood from the wonderful
1580-1630?
let
do
its
life's
here
we wrong
Reasons, causes must forestall
genius, Rather, I hope,
a
possible to
by seeking
may
individual
genius, however pre-eminent, acquire fresh claims to our love and gratitude when we note that it is no arbitrary and isolated phenomenon, but stands in necessary relation to the totality of causes and circumstances which have shaped the national character.
And, should we
find these causes
and
potent for influence, may we not look forward with better confidence to the
circumstances
still
future of our poetic literature ? Early in the half -century of which I have just
spoken, some time between 1590 and 1595, appeared
.
OF SHAKESPEAEE the
3
Midsummer Night's Dream, the crown and
glory of English delineation of the fairy world. Scarce any one of Shakespeare's plays has had a literary influence so immediate, so widespread,
As pictured by Shakespeare, so enduring. the fairy realm became, almost at once, a convention of literature in which numberless poets and
sought inspiration and material.
I
need only
mention Drayton, Ben. Jonson, Herrick, RanApart from any dolph, and Milton himself. question of its relation to popular belief, of any grounding in popular fancy, Shakespeare's vision stood by
itself,
presentment
of
and was accepted as the ideal fairydom which, for two centuries
to the average at least, has signified of culture the world depicted in the
Englishman
Midsummer
To this day, works are being proNight's Dream. duced deriving form and circumstance and inspiration (such as
Now
it
is)
wholly from Shakespeare.
we compare
these literary presentations Faery, based upon Shakespeare, with living folklore, where the latter has retained the fairy if
of
belief
trait
we
with any distinctness,
plete disagreement
;
seems common,
a character as to
and it
yield
if,
is
find almost
here and
either of
com-
there, a
so general
no assured warrant
of
kinship, or there is reason to suspect contamination of the popular form by the literary ideal
derived from and built up out of Shakespeare.
THE FAIRY MYTHOLOGY
4
Yet
if
we turn back
to the originator of literary
Midsummer
fairyland, to the poet of the
Dream, we can
Niyht's
the picture the fairy creed as it has appealed, appeals, to the faith arid fancy of genedetect
in
his
all
essentials of
and
still
rations
more countless than ever acknowledged
the sway of any of the great world-religions, we can recover from it the elements of a conception of
life
and nature older than the most ancient
recorded utterance of earth's most ancient races.
Whence, then, did Shakespeare draw his account the fairy world ? As modern commentators have pointed out, from at least two sources the folkbelief of his day and the romance literature of
t)f
:
This or that trait the previous four centuries. has been referred to one or the other source the ;
differences
between these two have been dwelt
upon, and there, as a rule, the discussion ha\ What I shall essay to -been allowed to rest. that in reality sixteenth-century folkfairy romance have their
prove
is
belief
and mediaeval
ultimate beliefs
one and the
in
origin
and
rites
;
them are
due
causes, the
working
same
set
of
that the differences between
to
and psychological which we can trace that
historical of
;
their reunion, after
ages of separation, in the of the late sixteenth century, is due England to the continued working of those same causes ;
and
that, as a result of this reunion,
which took
OF SHAKESPEARE
5
place in England because in England alone it could take place, English poetry became free of
Fairy dom, and has thus been enabled to preserve modern world a source of joy and beauty
for the
which must otherwise have perished. I observed just
presentation of
now
that the
Faery (which
modern is
literary
almost wholly
dependent upon Shakespeare) differed essentially from the popular one still living in various districts of
ciously
Europe, nowhere, perhaps, more tenathan in some of the Celtic-speaking
I may here note, accordportions of these isles. in this respect the best, and to the latest, ing editor of the Midsummer Night's Dream, Mr.
^"Chambers, what are the Shakespearian lows
fairies.
characteristics
He
ranges them
of
the
as fol-
:
They form a community under a king and queen. exceedingly small. (I) They are swiftness, with move extreme (d) (c) They are elemental airy spirits their brawls They incense the wind and moon, and cause tem-
(a)
;
they take a share in the life of live on fruit deck the cowslips with dewdrops war with noxious insects pests
;
nature
;
;
;
and
reptiles; overcast the sky with fog, &c.
They dance in orbs upon the green. (/) They sing hymns and carols to the moon. They are invisible and ap(
owing to the perfection of his embodiment, a mere literary convention, and lias gradually lost life
and savour.
Instead of the simpering puppets
stock properties of a machine-made children's literature to which the fairies have been degraded, I
have endeavoured to show them as they really
appeared to the
men and women who
believed
them, beings of ancient and awful aspect, elemental powers, mighty, capricious, cruel, and in
I believe that benignant, as is Nature herself. the fairy creed, this ancient source of inspiration, of symbolic interpretation of
man's relation
not yet dried up, and that English literature, with its mixed strain of Teutonic and Celtic blood, with its share in the mythologies of
to nature,
is
both these races, and in especial with its claim to the sole body of mythology and romance, the Celtic,
which
grew up wholly
classic culture, is destined to
unaffected
drink deeply of
by it
in
the future as in the past, and to find in it the material for new creations of undying beauty.
/
38
MYTHOLOGY OF SHAKESPEARE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX
THERE
are only two good accounts of the fairy belief, studied as a whole and with a view to determining its (1) The essay prefixed to origin, nature, and growth Irische Elfenmarchen, a translation by the Brothers Grimm of Crofton Croker's Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, published at Berlin in 1826. Croker translated this essay into English and affixed it to the :
; 1
second edition of his Legends (1827-28), where it occupies pages 1-154 of vol. iii. (2) Les Fe"esdu Moyen Age, recherche* sur leur origine, leur histoire et leurs attribute, by Alfred Maury, Paris, 1843 reprinted, Paris, 1896, in the volume entitled Croyances et Legendes du Moyen Age (12 francs). The Grimms' essay is, like all their work, absolutely good as far as it goes, and only needs amplification in the light of the fuller knowledge derived from the researches of the last seventy-five years. Halliwell's Illustrations of ;
Shakespeare's Fairy Mythology (London, 1845 ; reprinted with additions by Hazlitt, 1875) is a useful .collection of materials. The best edition of the Midsummer Night's Dream, as far as the objects of this study are concerned, is that by Mr. E. K. Chambers, 1897. An immense amount of out-of-the-way material is gathered together in Shakespeare's Puck and his Folklore illustrated from the superstitions of all nations, but more especially from the
and rites of Northern Europe and the Wends, 3 vols., 1852, by Mr. Bell but the writer's perverse fantasticality and his utter lack of true critical spirit make his work dangerous for any but a trained scholar. Mr. Hartland's The Science of Fairy Talcs; an Inquiry into Fairy Mythology, 1891 (3s. 6d.), is a most valuable study of several fundamental themes of fairy romance as exemplified in traditional literature. Dyer's Folklore of Shakespeare, 1884 (14s.), must also be mentioned, but
earliest religion
;
cannot be recommended.
REGINALD SCOT'S "DISCOVERY OF WITCHCRAFT" (page
10),
originally published 1584, is accessible in reprint, 1886 (2, 5s.).
The quotation from Nash Illustrations.
is
Nicholson's
taken from Halliwell's
'
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX SHAKESPEARE AND LEGEND
(page
?>9
11).
Shakespeare's three greatest tragedies Harnlet, Lear, Macbeth are all founded upon heroic-legendary themes, and in each case the vital element in the legend is disentangled and emphasised with unerring skill. Indeed, wherever he handles legendary romance, he obtains the maximum of artistic effect without, as the artist so frequently does, offering violence to the spirit of the legend.
GERVASE OF TILBURY AND GERALD THE
WELSHMAN
(page
11).
Compare Mr. Hartland's
Science of Fairy Tales (ch. vi.), ''Robberies from Fairyland." Gervase's Otia Imperialia, wealth a mine of to the student of medieval folklore, is accessible in Liebrecht's admirable edition, 1856 (about 12s. 6d.).
FAIRYDOM AND THE ARTHURIAN ROMANCE Compare Nos.
1
(page 12). of the present series of Popular
and 4
Studies.
GAELIC FAIRY LORE (page
No
15).
good general survey of the subject exists, This was save the Grimms' essay already mentioned. substantially based upon the information brought together by Crof ton Croker in the work quoted above ; by really
Mrs. Grant, Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland, 2 vols., 1811 and by Sir Walter Scott in his Demonology and Witchcraft, 1831, and Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 4 vols., 1802^03. Since then, a considerable amount of Irish material has been brought together by Carleton (Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, 1830-32), by Lady Wilde (Ancient Legends, Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland, 1887 (6s.)), bv P. Kennedy, Legendary Fictions o/ the Irish Celts, 1866, reprinted 1891 (3s. 6d.), and Fireside Stories of Ireland, 1871, chiefly with a view to illustrating the tales and legends collected by them. Mr. Curtin's Tales of the Fairies and of the Ghost World, 1893 (3s. 6d.), is more directly illustrative of the fainbelief as such, and is most valuable. Mr. Yeats' article ;
40 in
MYTHOLOGY OF SHAKESPEARE
the Nineteenth Century (Jan. lS$8,Prisoncrs. of
the Gods) (Sept. 1899, Ireland Bewitched} deserve the closest attention, though it may be thought that he sometimes reads into the information he has collected a poetic significance it does not really possess. Mr. Leland Duncan's article in Folklore (June 1896, Fairy Beliefs from County Lcitrim] is of great value, and the Transactions generally of the Folklore Society are full of
and the Contemporary Review
material.
In Scotland, Campbell of Islay's Popular Tales of the West Highlands, 4 vols., 1860-62* reprinted 1893, are of course indispensable. Vols. i.-v. of Waifs and Strays of. Celtic Tradition, especially vols. i. and v. } contain much fairy lore. The oldest and perhaps most valuable account of the Scotch Gaelic fairy world, the Rev. Robert Kirk's Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies, written in 1696, has been printed by Mr. Lang, with an admirable Introduction, 1893 (7s. 6d.). Martin's Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, written 1695, reprinted 1884, may likewise be consulted.
THE TUATHA DE DAN ANN
(pages 16-73).
development, with citation and discussion of authorities, of the argument set forth in these four pages, ran (ch. xvii.). cf. my Voyage of
For a
full
THE AGRICULTURAL BASE OF FAIRY LORE (pages 25-29).
These pages are practically a summary of Chaps, xvi. xviii. of the Voyage of Bran, to which I refer for a full presentment of the theories here urged.
ROBIN GOODFELLOW,
&c. (page 31).
Reprinted in Halliwell-Hazlitt's Illustrations of Shakespeare's Fairy Mythology.
Printed by BALLANTYNE,
Edinburgh
&
HANSON &>
London
Co.
David Nutt
Published by
LONG ACRE
57-59
THE VOYAGE OF BRAN, SON OF FEBAL, TO THE LAND OF THE LIVING. An Now first Edited, with Saga. and Glossary, by KUNO Notes, Translation, MEYER. With Essays upon the Irish Vision Irish
old
of
the
Happy
Doctrine 2
vols.
of
Other-world,
by
Rebirth,
crown 8vo.
and the
Celtic
ALFRED
1895-97.
NUTT. Printed at
the Constable Press, on laid paper, in antique type, red and black title-page, bound in half
buckram, uncut. I.
THE HAPPY OTHERWORLD. 331.
IT.
Pp. xvii.-
10s. 6d. net.
THE CELTIC
DOCTRINE OF
Pp. xii.-352.
REBIRTH.
10s. 6d. net.
SOME PRESS NOTICES. "Quivro d'une grande valcur scientifique et d'une lecture aroable." Monsieur H. D'ARBOIS DE JUBAINyiLLE in the Rcrae Celtique. "Edition, tradition et commentaire philologique sont d'une critique irreprochable. M. Nutt est bien informe ses materiaiix sont pris aux meilleures sources son exposition est nette et precise son livre est une .
.
.
:
:
;
oeuvre d'liistoire generate a la fois des croyances et des litteratures." Monsieur H. GAIBOZ in Mehisi " Tres .-avante etude qtii sera lue avec grand profit par tons ceux qui s'occupent de litterature (.-om.
.
.
paree ou d'histoire religieuse.'' in Rn
Monsieur GASTON PARIS
"3y Romance
:
and Folklore The following numbers have appeared or are in the press, April 1900 :
NO.
CELTIC
I
AND MEDIEVAL ROMANCE.
By
ALFRED NUTT* No. 2
FOLKLORE WHAT :
THE GOOD OF
IT?
WHAT
IS IT AND By E, S. HAUTLAND.
IS
No. 3
OSSIAN AND THE OSSIANIC LITERATURE CONNECTED WITH HIS NAME. By ALFRED Nun. No. 4
KING ARTHUR AND HIS KNIGHTS.
A
SURVEY OF ARTHURIAN ROMANCE. By JESSIE L.WKSTON,
No. 5
THE POPULAR POETRY OF THE FINNS. By CHARLES
J.
BILLSON, M.A.
No. 6
THE FAIRY MYTHOLOGY OF SHAKKSPEARE.
By ALFRED NUTT.
Later numbers will be devoted to
CUCHULINN, THE IRISH ACHILLES: THK TROUBADOURS AND THEIR TIMES. THE LEGEND OF THE SWAN MAID. WAGNlv, AND NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY. THE SI< NTFICANCE OF. FAIRY TALES, ETC. .
:
Bach number, neatly printed 6d. net.
in attractive cove*-,
14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED
LOAN
DEPT.
is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.
This book
r