Europa's Fairy Book

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Joseph Jacobs. Europa's Fairy Book

PREFACE

THE CINDER-MAID

ALL CHANGE

THE KING OF THE FISHES

SCISSORS

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

REYNARD AND BRUIN

THE DANCING WATER, THE SINGING APPLE, AND THE SPEAKING BIRD

THE LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS

THE THREE SOLDIERS

A DOZEN AT A BLOW

THE EARL OF CATTENBOROUGH

THE SWAN MAIDENS

ANDROCLES AND THE LION

DAY-DREAMING

KEEP COOL

THE MASTER THIEF

THE UNSEEN BRIDEGROOM

THE MASTER-MAID

A VISITOR FROM PARADISE

INSIDE AGAIN

JOHN THE TRUE

JOHNNIE AND GRIZZLE

THE CLEVER LASS

THUMBKIN

SNOWWHITE

INTRODUCTION TO NOTES

I. CINDER-MAID

II. ALL CHANGE

III. KING OF THE FISHES

IV. SCISSORS

V. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

VI. REYNARD AND BRUIN

VII. DANCING WATER

VIII. LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS

IX. THE THREE SOLDIERS

X. DOZEN AT ONE BLOW

XI. EARL OF CATTENBOROUGH

XII. THE SWAN MAIDENS

XIII. ANDROCLES AND THE LION

XIV. DAY DREAMING

XV. KEEP COOL

XVI. THE MASTER THIEF

XVII. THE UNSEEN BRIDEGROOM

XVIII. THE MASTER-MAID

XIX. A VISITOR FROM PARADISE

XX. INSIDE AGAIN

XXI. JOHN THE TRUE

XXII. JOHNNIE AND GRIZZLE

XXIII. CLEVER LASS

XXIV. THUMBKIN

XXV. SNOWWHITE

LIST OF INCIDENTS

Отрывок из книги

Ever since—almost exactly a hundred years ago—the Grimms produced their Fairy Tale Book, folk-lorists have been engaged in making similar collections for all the other countries of Europe, outside Germany, till there is scarcely a nook or a corner in the whole continent that has not been ransacked for these products of the popular fancy. The Grimms themselves and most of their followers have pointed out the similarity or, one might even say, the identity of plot and incident of many of these tales throughout the European Folk-Lore field. Von Hahn, when collecting the Greek and Albanian Fairy Tales in 1864, brought together these common "formulæ" of the European Folk-Tale. These were supplemented by Mr. S. Baring-Gould in 1868, and I myself in 1892 contributed an even fuller list to the Hand Book of Folk-Lore. Most, if not all of these formulæ, have been found in all the countries of Europe where folk-tales have been collected. In 1893 Miss M. Roalfe Cox brought together, in a volume of the Folk-Lore Society, no less than 345 variants of "Cinderella" and kindred stories showing how widespread this particular formula was throughout Europe and how substantially identical the various incidents as reproduced in each particular country.

It has occurred to me that it would be of great interest and, for folk-lore purposes, of no little importance, to bring together these common Folk-Tales of Europe, retold in such a way as to bring out the original form from which all the variants were derived. I am, of course, aware of the difficulty and hazardous nature of such a proceeding; yet it is fundamentally the same as that by which scholars are accustomed to restore the Ur-text from the variants of different families of MSS. and still more similar to the process by which Higher Critics attempt to restore the original narratives of Holy Writ. Every one who has had to tell fairy tales to children will appreciate the conservative tendencies of the child mind; every time you vary an incident the children will cry out, "That was not the way you told us before." The Folk-Tale collections can therefore be assumed to retain the original readings with as much fidelity as most MSS. That there was such an original rendering eminating from a single folk artist no serious student of Miss Cox's volume can well doubt. When one finds practically the same "tags" of verse in such different dialects as Danish and Romaic, German and Italian, one cannot imagine that these sprang up independently in Denmark, Greece, Germany, and Florence. The same phenomenon is shown in another field of Folk-Lore where, as the late Mr. Newell showed, the same rhymes are used to brighten up the same children's games in Barcelona and in Boston; one cannot imagine them springing up independently in both places. So, too, when the same incidents of a fairy tale follow in the same artistic concatenation in Scotland, and in Sicily, in Brittany, and in Albania, one cannot but assume that the original form of the story was hit upon by one definite literary artist among the folk. What I have attempted to do in this book is to restore the original form, which by a sort of international selection has spread throughout all the European folks.

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You can imagine how excited the sisters were when they came home and told Cinder-Maid all about it, how that the beautiful lady had come in a golden coach in a dress like the sea, with golden shoes, and how all had disappeared at midnight except the golden shoe. "Ah, wouldn't you have liked to have been there?" said they.

Now when the Prince found out that he could not keep his lady-love nor trace where she had gone he spoke to his father and showed him the golden shoe, and told him that he would never marry any one but the maiden who could wear that shoe. So the King, his father, ordered the herald to take round the golden shoe upon a velvet cushion and to go to every four corners where two streets met and sound the trumpet and call out: "O yes, O yes, O yes, be it known unto you all that whatsoever lady of noble birth can fit this shoe upon her foot shall become the bride of his Highness the Prince and our future Queen. God save the King."

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