Читать книгу The Mythology of Fairies - Thomas Keightley - Страница 5

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Like every other word in extensive use, whose derivation is not historically certain, the word Fairy has obtained various and opposite etymons. Meyric Casaubon, and those who like him deduce everything from a classic source, however unlikely, derive Fairy from Φηρ, a Homeric name of the Centaurs;6 or think that fée, whence Fairy, is the last syllable of nympha. Sir W. Ouseley derives it from the Hebrew פאר (peër), to adorn; Skinner, from the Anglo-Saxon aan, to fare, to go; others from Feres, companions, or think that Fairy-folk is quasi Fair-folk. Finally, it has been queried if it be not Celtic.7

But no theory is so plausible, or is supported by such names, as that which deduces the English Fairy from the Persian Peri. It is said that the Paynim foe, whom the warriors of the Cross encountered in Palestine, spoke only Arabic; the alphabet of which language, it is well known, possesses no p, and therefore organically substitutes an f in such foreign words as contain the former letter; consequently Peri became, in the mouth of an Arab, Feri, whence the crusaders and pilgrims, who carried back to Europe the marvellous tales of Asia, introduced into the West the Arabo-Persian word Fairy. It is further added, that the Morgain or Morgana, so celebrated in old romance, is Merjan Peri, equally celebrated all over the East.

All that is wanting to this so very plausible theory is something like proof, and some slight agreement with the ordinary rules of etymology. Had Feërie, or Fairy, originally signified the individual in the French and English, the only languages in which the word occurs, we might feel disposed to acquiesce in it. But they do not: and even if they did, how should we deduce from them the Italian Fata, and the Spanish Fada or Hada, (words which unquestionably stand for the same imaginary being,) unless on the principle by which Menage must have deduced Lutin from Lemur—the first letter being the same in both? As to the fair Merjan Peri (D'Herbelot calls her Merjan Banou8), we fancy a little too much importance has been attached to her. Her name, as far as we can learn, only occurs in the Cahermân Nâmeh, a Turkish romance, though perhaps translated from the Persian.

The foregoing etymologies, it is to be observed, are all the conjectures of English scholars; for the English is the only language in which the name of the individual, Fairy, has the canine letter to afford any foundation for them.

Leaving, then, these sports of fancy, we will discuss the true origin of the words used in the Romanic languages to express the being which we name Fairy of Romance. These are Faée, Fée, French; Fada, Provençal (whence Hada, Spanish); and Fata, Italian.

The root is evidently, we think, the Latin fatum. In the fourth century of our æra we find this word made plural, and even feminine, and used as the equivalent of Parcæ. On the reverse of a gold medal of the Emperor Diocletian are three female figures, with the legend Fatis victricibus; a cippus, found at Valencia in Spain, has on one of its sides Fatis Q. Fabius ex voto, and on the other, three female figures, with the attributes of the Mœræ or Parcæ.9 In this last place the gender is uncertain, but the figures would lead us to suppose it feminine. On the other hand, Ausonius10 has tres Charites, tria Fata; and Procopius11 names a building at the Roman Forum τα τρια φατα, adding ουτω γαρ ῥωμαιοι τας μοιρας νενομικασι καλειν. The Fatæ or Fata, then, being persons, and their name coinciding so exactly with the modern terms, and it being observed that the Mœræ were, at the birth of Meleager, just as the Fées were at that of Ogier le Danois, and other heroes of romance and tale, their identity has been at once asserted, and this is now, we believe, the most prevalent theory. To this it may be added, that in Gervase of Tilbury, and other writers of the thirteenth century, the Fada or Fée seems to be regarded as a being different from human kind.12

On the other hand, in a passage presently to be quoted from a celebrated old romance, we shall meet a definition of the word Fée, which expressly asserts that such a being was nothing more than a woman skilled in magic; and such, on examination, we shall find to have been all the Fées of the romances of chivalry and of the popular tales; in effect, that fée is a participle, and the words dame or femme is to be understood.

In the middle ages there was in use a Latin verb, fatare,13 derived from fatum or fata, and signifying to enchant. This verb was adopted by the Italian, Provençal14 and Spanish languages; in French it became, according to the analogy of that tongue, faer, féer. Of this verb the past participle faé, fé; hence in the romances we continually meet with les chevaliers faés, les dames faées, Oberon la faé, le cheval étoit faé, la clef était fée, and such like. We have further, we think, demonstrated15 that it was the practice of the Latin language to elide accented syllables, especially in the past participle of verbs of the first conjugation, and that this practice had been transmitted to the Italian, whence fatato-a would form fato-a, and una donna fatata might thus become una fata. Whether the same was the case in the Provençal we cannot affirm, as our knowledge of that dialect is very slight; but, judging from analogy, we would say it was, for in Spanish Hadada and Hada are synonymous. In the Neapolitan Pentamerone Fata and Maga are the same, and a Fata sends the heroine of it to a sister of hers, pure fatata.

Ariosto says of Medea—

E perchè per virtù d' erbe e d'incanti

Delle Fate una ed immortal fatta era.

I Cinque Canti, ii. 106.

The same poet, however, elsewhere says—

Queste che or Fate e dagli antichi foro

Già dette Ninfe e Dee con più bel nome.—Ibid. i. 9.

and,

Nascemmo ad un punto che d'ogni altro male

Siamo capaci fuorchè della morte.—Orl. Fur. xliii. 48.

which last, however, is not decisive. Bojardo also calls the water-nymphs Fate; and our old translators of the Classics named them fairies. From all this can only, we apprehend, be collected, that the ideas of the Italian poets, and others, were somewhat vague on the subject.

From the verb faer, féer, to enchant, illude, the French made a substantive faerie, féerie,16 illusion, enchantment, the meaning of which was afterwards extended, particularly after it had been adopted into the English language.

We find the word Faerie, in fact, to be employed in four different senses, which we will now arrange and exemplify.

1. Illusion, enchantment.

Plusieurs parlent de Guenart,

Du Loup, de l'Asne, de Renart,

De faeries et de songes, De phantosmes et de mensonges. Gul. Giar. ap. Ducange.

Where we must observe, as Sir Walter Scott seems not to have been aware of it, that the four last substantives bear the same relation to each other as those in the two first verses do.

Me bifel a ferly

Of faërie, me thought. Vision of Piers Plowman, v. 11.

Maius that sit with so benigne a chere,

Hire to behold it seemed faërie. Chaucer, Marchante's Tale.

It (the horse of brass) was of faërie, as the peple semed, Diversè folk diversëly han demed.—Squier's Tale.

The Emperor said on high,

Certes it is a faërie, Or elles a vanité.—Emare.

With phantasme and faërie, Thus she bleredè his eye.—Libeaus Disconus.

The God of her has made an end,

And fro this worldès faërie Hath taken her into companie.—Gower, Constance.

Mr. Ritson professes not to understand the meaning of faerie in this last passage. Mr. Ritson should, as Sir Hugh Evans says, have 'prayed his pible petter;' where, among other things that might have been of service to him, he would have learned that 'man walketh in a vain shew,' that 'all is vanity,' and that 'the fashion of this world passeth away;' and then he would have found no difficulty in comprehending the pious language of 'moral Gower,' in his allusion to the transitory and deceptive vanities of the world.

2. From the sense of illusion simply, the transition was easy to that of the land of illusions, the abode of the Faés, who produced them; and Faerie next came to signify the country of the Fays. Analogy also was here aiding; for as a Nonnerie was a place inhabited by Nonnes, a Jewerie a place inhabited by Jews, so a Faerie was naturally a place inhabited by Fays. Its termination, too, corresponded with a usual one in the names of countries: Tartarie, for instance, and 'the regne of Feminie.'

Here beside an elfish knight

Hath taken my lord in fight,

And hath him led with him away

Into the Faërie, sir, parmafay.—Sir Guy.

La puissance qu'il avoit sur toutes faeries du monde. Huon de Bordeaux.

En effect, s'il me falloit retourner en faerie, je ne sçauroye ou prendre mon chemin.—Ogier le Dannoys.

That Gawain with his oldè curtesie,

Though he were come agen out of faërie. Squier's Tale.

He (Arthur) is a king y-crowned in Faërie, With sceptre and pall, and with his regalty Shallè resort, as lord and sovereigne, Out of Faerie, and reignè in Bretaine, And repair again the ouldè Roundè Table. Lydgate, Fall of Princes, bk. viii. c. 24.

3. From the country the appellation passed to the inhabitants in their collective capacity, and the Faerie now signified the people of Fairy-land.17

Of the fourth kind of Spritis called the Phairie.

K. James, Demonologie, 1. 3.

Full often time he, Pluto, and his quene

Proserpina, and alle hir faërie, Disporten hem, and maken melodie About that well.—Marchante's Tale.

The feasts that underground the Faërie did him make, And there how he enjoyed the Lady of the Lake. Drayton, Poly-Olb., Song IV.

4. Lastly, the word came to signify the individual denizen of Fairy-land, and was equally applied to the full-sized fairy knights and ladies of romance, and to the pygmy elves that haunt the woods and dells. At what precise period it got this its last, and subsequently most usual sense, we are unable to say positively; but it was probably posterior to Chaucer, in whom it never occurs, and certainly anterior to Spenser, to whom, however, it seems chiefly indebted for its future general currency.18 It was employed during the sixteenth century19 for the Fays of romance, and also, especially by translators, for the Elves, as corresponding to the Latin Nympha.

They believed that king Arthur was not dead, but carried awaie by the Fairies into some pleasant place, where he should remaine for a time, and then returne again and reign in as great authority as ever.

Hollingshed, bk. v. c. 14. Printed 1577.

Semicaper Pan

Nunc tenet, at quodam tenuerunt tempore nymphæ.

Ovid, Met. xiv. 520.

The halfe-goate Pan that howre

Possessed it, but heretofore it was the Faries' bower. Golding, 1567.

Hæc nemora indigenæ fauni nymphæque tenebant,

Gensque virum truncis et duro robore nata.

Virgil, Æneis, viii. 314.

With nymphis and faunis apoun every side,

Qwhilk Farefolkis or than Elfis clepen we. Gawin Dowglas.

The woods (quoth he) sometime both fauns and nymphs, and gods of ground,

And Fairy-queens did keep, and under them a nation rough. Phaer, 1562.

Inter Hamadryadas celeberrima Nonacrinas

Naïas una fuit.—Ovid, Met. l. i. 690.

Of all the nymphes of Nonacris and Fairie ferre and neere, In beautie and in personage this ladie had no peere. Golding.

Pan ibi dum teneris jactat sua carmina nymphis.

Ov. Ib. xi. 153.

There Pan among the Fairie-elves, that daunced round togither. Golding.

Solaque Naïadum celeri non nota Dianæ.—Ov. Ib. iv. 304.

Of all the water-fayries, she alonely was unknowne To swift Diana.—Golding.

Nymphis latura coronas.—Ov. Ib. ix. 337.

Was to the fairies of the lake fresh garlands for to bear. Golding.

Thus we have endeavoured to trace out the origin, and mark the progress of the word Fairy, through its varying significations, and trust that the subject will now appear placed in a clear and intelligible light.

After the appearance of the Faerie Queene, all distinctions were confounded, the name and attributes of the real Fays or Fairies of romance were completely transferred to the little beings who, according to the popular belief, made 'the green sour ringlets whereof the ewe not bites.' The change thus operated by the poets established itself firmly among the people; a strong proof, if this idea be correct, of the power of the poetry of a nation in altering the phraseology of even the lowest classes20 of its society.

Shakspeare must be regarded as a principal agent in this revolution; yet even he uses Fairy once in the proper sense of Fay; a sense it seems to have nearly lost, till it was again brought into use by the translators of the French Contes des Fées in the last century.

To this great Fairy I'll commend thy acts.

Antony and Cleopatra, act iv. sc. 8.

And Milton speaks

Of Faery damsels met in forests wide

By knights of Logres or of Lyones,

Lancelot, or Pelleas, or Pellinore.

Yet he elsewhere mentions the

Faery elves,

Whose midnight revels by a forest side

Or fountain some belated peasant sees.

Finally, Randolph, in his Amyntas, employs it, for perhaps the last time, in its second sense, Fairy-land:

I do think

There will be of Jocastus' brood in Fairy.

Act i. sc. 3.

We must not here omit to mention that the Germans, along with the French romances, early adopted the name of the Fées. They called them Feen and Feinen.21 In the Tristram of Gottfried von Strazburg we are told that Duke Gylan had a syren-like little dog,

Dez wart dem Herzoge gesandt	'Twas sent unto the duke, pardé,
Uz Avalun, der Feinen land,	From Avalun, the Fays' countrie,
Von einer Gottinne.—V. 1673.	By a gentle goddess.

In the old German romance of Isotte and Blanscheflur, the hunter who sees Isotte asleep says, I doubt

Dez sie menschlich sei,	If she human be,
Sie ist schöner denn eine Feine,	She is fairer than a Fay.
Von Fleische noch von Beine	Of flesh or bone, I say,
Kunte nit gewerden	Never could have birth
So schönes auf der erden.	A thing so fair on earth.

Our subject naturally divides itself into two principal branches, corresponding to the different classes of beings to which the name Fairy has been applied. The first, beings of the human race, but endowed with powers beyond those usually allotted to men, whom we shall term Fays, or Fairies of romance. The second, those little beings of the popular creeds, whose descent we propose to trace from the cunning and ingenious Duergar or dwarfs of northern mythology, and whom we shall denominate Elves or popular Fairies.

It cannot be expected that our classifications should vie in accuracy and determinateness with those of natural science. The human imagination, of which these beings are the offspring, works not, at least that we can discover, like nature, by fixed and invariable laws; and it would be hard indeed to exact from the Fairy historian the rigid distinction of classes and orders which we expect from the botanist or chemist. The various species so run into and are confounded with one another; the actions and attributes of one kind are so frequently ascribed to another, that scarcely have we begun to erect our system, when we find the foundation crumbling under our feet. Indeed it could not well be otherwise, when we recollect that all these beings once formed parts of ancient and exploded systems of religion, and that it is chiefly in the traditions of the peasantry that their memorial has been preserved.

We will now proceed to consider the Fairies of romance; and as they are indebted, though not for their name, yet perhaps for some of their attributes, to the Peries of Persia, we will commence with that country. We will thence pursue our course through Arabia, till we arrive at the middle-age romance of Europe, and the gorgeous realms of Fairy-land; and thence, casting a glance at the Faerie Queene, advance to the mountains and forests of the North, there to trace the origin of the light-hearted, night-tripping elves.