THE SCIENCE OF FAIRY-TALES.* THE reader who is so far

behind the encroaching scientific spirit of the age as to feel an involuntary shudder on seeing the title of this book, will be reassured by Mr. Hartland's definition of the fairy-tales he is about to dissect. It occurs on the third page :—" These we may define to be : Tradi- tionary narratives not in their present form relating to beings held to be divine, nor to cosmological or national events, but in which the supernatural plays an essential part. It will be seen that literary tales, such as those of Hans Andersen and Lord Brabourne, based though they often are upon tradition, are excluded from Fairy-Tales as thus defined." Identifying ourselves with the unprogressive reader, we have a strong hope that our old favourites may be classed as mere literary tales which "may have purposes of amusement to serve, but beyond that are of comparatively little use," and that we may be left to enjoy them in ignorant and unscientific content. We therefore enter upon the study of Mr. Hart- land's book on a most interesting subject, with a freer mind and a lighter heart.

The writer throughout adheres with praiseworthy precision to the lines which he hes laid down for himself in the preface,

• Tho Scionco of Fairy-Totes. By Edwin Sidney Hartland, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. London : Walter Soott. Mil.

—that of showing "the application of the principles and methods which guide investigations into popular traditions to a few of the most remarkable stories embodying the fairy superstitions of the Celtic and Teutonic peoples." In dealing with a subject possessing so many side-openings into wide fields of interesting speculation and research as traditional folk-lore, it has been doubtless necessary, in a work of the size of the present volume, to keep strictly to a well-defined area. We venture, however, to think that this might have been done with less irksomeness to the reader, who in the end resents being so often and openly warned off forbidden ground, and hemmed in by so many well-defined restrictions. Mr. Hartland's style of writing is often difficult to follow except in direct narration, when it becomes clear and forcible. His words and expressions also are at times unwieldy. Seeing, too, that he addresses himself in part to "readers who are not epecialists," a little more care in rendering clear the premisses and principles with which he sets out, and which are given at length in the first two chapters, would have made a right understanding of them less of an effort. The chapters in question are perfectly and easily intelligible after reading the subsequent chapters ; but in. the order in which they stand, are discouraging, from a want of easier perception of their drift.

Having stripped the old fairy traditions belonging to the Celtic and Teutonic peoples of the various accretions which age and different forms and stages of civilisation have left upon them—or, rather, having indicated the necessity and method of so doing—and without stopping to consider the comparative study of the like national outer growths and the separate interest of such investigations, Mr. Hartland care- fully reduces a certain number of the most prevalent tradi- tionary tales to what seem to him their primitive elements, and finds these to be the same. In so doing, he brings in similar ideas embodied in tales from, quite alien sources. In this he congratulates himself upon far surpassing Liebrecht in his narrower field of observation. But he rejects as wanting in support the theory of a common centre of origin as an ex- planation of such coincidences, tracing them rather to the similarity of ideas and instincts inherent in all races in their savage state, to which period he has pushed back his traditions for their origin :—

"In general, however, it may be safely said of Fairy-Tales (with which we are more immediately concerned) that the argument in favour of their propagation from a single centre lacks support. The incidents of which they are composed are based upon ideas not peculiar to any one people, ideas familiar to savages every- where, and only slowly modified and transformed as savagery gives way to barbarism, and barbarism to modern civilisation and scientific knowledge of the material phenomena of the universe. The ideas referred to are expressed by races in the lower culture both in belief and in custom. And many of the tales which now amuse our children appear to have grown out of myths believed in the most matter-of fact way by our remote forefathers ; while others enshrine relies of long-forgotten customs and modes of tribal organisation."

The chapter on "Savage Ideas" contains an interesting account of notions and conceptions which are rife in primitive states of civilisation. These the reader must keep well in his mind in proceeding through the following chapters, which deal with the various forms of the tales themselves. These are most amusing reading, and form by far the larger part of the book. Of course there is much repetition; but the various accounts are often so entertaining that it is difficult to keep to the central points of importance which the narrator reminds us of so seriously from time to time. In speaking of the traditionary belief in changelings, the gravity of the discussion as to whether, in order to exorcise a changeling, you must lead it into a betrayal of its age, or merely excite its risibility by causing it to witness some abnormal proceeding, such as brewing beer in an egg-shell—a frequent form of "the egg- shell theory," in point of fact—is striking : it can, we think, only be read with a perfectly grave countenance by one whom Mr. Hartland would characterise as a specialist. We would quote some examples of the "egg-shell theory," were they not so bound up together as to lose their importance by separate narration. The expression of astonishment which betrayed the elderly Scandinavian baby is perhaps as curious as any :—

"The astonishment of a Scandinavian imp expressed itself oven more graphically, for when he saw an egg-shell boiling on the fire, having one end of a measuring-rod set in it, he crept out of the cradle on his hands, leaving his feet still inside, and stretched himself out longer and longer until he reached right

across the floor and up the chimney, when he exclaimed : 'Well! seven times have I soon the wood fall in LessiS Forest, but never till now have I seen so big a ladle in so small a pot !' "

Leaving the changelings, we come to stories illustrating successively, "Robberies from Fairyland" and "Lapse of Time

in Fairyland," at the end of a chapter on the last of which we find Mr. Hartland betrayed into narrating a tale not absolutely to the point, which we give as a specimen of the happiness of his style in simple story-telling

"Here, perhaps, is a fitting place to mention the Happy Islands of Everlasting Life as known to Japanese tradition, though the story can hardly be said to belong to the type we have just dis- cussed,—perhaps not strictly to any of the foregoing typos. A Japanese hero, the wise Vasobiove, it was who succeeded in reaching the Happy Islands, and in returning to bring sure tidings of them. For, like St. Brendan's Isle in western lore, these islands may be visible for a moment and afar off to the sea- farer, but a mortal foot has hardly ever trodden them. Vasobiove, however, in his boat alone, set sail from Nagasaki, and, in spite of wind and waves, landed on the green shore of Horaisan. Two hundred years he sojourned there ; yet wist he not how long the period was, there where everything remained the same, where there was neither birth nor death, where none heeded the flight of time. With dance and music, in intercourse with wise men and lovely women, his days passed away. But at length he grew weary of this sweet round of existence : he longed for death—an impossible wish in a land where death was unknown. No poison, no deadly weapons were to be found. To tumble down a chasm, or to fling oneself on sharp rocks was no more than a fall upon a soft cushion. If he would drown himself in the sea, the water refused its office, and bore him like a cork. Weary to death, the poor Vasobiove could find no help. In this need a thought struck him he caught and tamed a giant stork and taught him to carry him. On the back of this bird he returned over sea and land to his beloved Japan, bringing the news of the realm of Horaisan. His story took hold of the hearts of his fellow-countrymen; and that the story-tellers might never forget it, it has been emblazoned by the painters in a thousand ways. Nor can the stranger go anywhere in Japan without seeing the old, old man depicted on his stork, and being reminded of his voyage to the Happy Islands."

Lastly, we have the myth of "'he Swan-Maidens" examined, both in its stage of Saga and in that of lifiirchen or nursery- tale, the beauty of which equals any story "ever evolved from

the mind of man," Mr. Hartland says. We cannot enter into the various ideas contained in it which are analysed ; it suffices to say that hero also the writer has no difficulty in tracing them to the region of independent savage ideas, from which he suggests they are descended to us in various forms in many parts of the world. We are then brought to our concluding chapter, and take up again the theory of fairies proper with which we started. To understand fully the author's concep- tion of the fairies of Celtic and Teutonic tradition, as spirits in no way different in nature and origin from the deities, ancestors, witches, and ghosts believed in in_other parts of the world, as opposed to or in amplification of Liebreeht's theory of their only being spirits of the dead returned to earth for a time, it will be necessary to call to mind the ample definition of " spirits " given in the earlier chapter on " Savage Ideas." Without doing so, perhaps, the distinction between Mr. Hartland's and Liebrecht's theories might not seem marked enough to warrant such a protest as is set up against the latter in the concluding chapter. A theory based upon a narrower foundation still, and advanced by Mr. MeRitchie, is dealt with more summarily.

Mr. Hartland's book will win the sympathy of all earnest students, both by the knowledge it displays and by a thorough love and appreciation of his subject, which is evident

throughout. We have pointed out that, in places, it lacks clearness and the power of sustaining the reader's interest. In the closing chapter, where the writer is no longer weighed down by the responsible task of piloting his readers safely and intelligibly over his chosen strip of ground, and can afford to glance for a moment over the land of speculation lying beyond and around, he rises to a far higher level of literary ability. Perhaps, however, he may repeat to us his own words, and say : "The Science of Fairy-Tales is concerned with tradition, and not with literature."