Four and Twenty Fairy Tales

29

Literally "mad dog fashion." One of the many extravagant whims of the day.

30

Requin, chien de mer, Landais. In Cotgrave, requien, who describes it as "a certaine ravenous, rough-skinned, and wide-mouthed fish, which is good meat." It is generally, however, the name given to the white-shark, and said by some writers to be derived from the word Requiem– a far-fetched allusion to the vast number of victims to its voracity.

31

The sea-lamprey, a small fish that, by adhering to the keels of ships, was supposed to have the power of stopping them, or at least of retarding their progress.

32

Hair-powder was at this period of various colours. Brown hair-powder was called "Maréchal," and grey powder was extremely fashionable in England as late as 1763.

33

The corn-flower and the poppy.

34

Dauphin in the original.

35

In the Lady's Dictionary, 1694, we find a palatine "is that which used to be called a sable tippet; but that name is changed to one that is supposed to be finer, because newer, and à la mode de France."

36

The Marmot of the Alps (Aretomys– literally "Bear-rat"), a large mountain-rat, more than a foot long, with a body shaped something like a bear.

37

See Appendix.

38

Camion signifies in French what we call a minikin-pin.

39

Melusine is the heroine of a story as old as the fourteenth century, and on which some portion of "La Princesse Camion" appears to have been founded (Vide Appendix). Brantôme says she haunts the castle of Lusignan, where she announces by loud shrieks any disaster that is to befal the French monarchy. This legend gave rise to the expression of "Cris de Melusine."

40

Lit d'ange– a bed with curtains suspended over it by a ring or pole.

41

See note, page 360.

42

The "Académie Française," for which Cardinal Richelieu obtained letters patent, January, 1635. The number of members was fixed at forty, and they were called "les immortels."

43

This opera, founded on the well-known episode in Tasso's Gerusaleme Liberata, and produced at Paris in 1686, is considered the chef-d'œuvre of Quinault.

44

The necklace must also have preserved the Queen from the tigers, or (according to the Author, page 420) one with so wicked an object for her visit must have fallen their prey.

45

The crowing of a cock was supposed by the ancients to terrify the lion exceedingly. This idea is alluded to in Mademoiselle D'Aulnoy's story – "The Pigeon and the Dove."

46

Gris-de-lin, Englished into Gridelin, was an exceedingly fashionable colour, both in France and England, at this period. It is variously described, but appears to have been a reddish grey – "gris tirant sur le rouge" – not unlike lilac.

47

"Ce qui nous indique que ce receuil contenait les contes vulgairement connus sous ce titre." – B. W.

48

Oie being derived from the Low Latin word Auca (Du Cange in voce).

49

The Italians have the same proverb – "Nel tempo ove Bertha filava."

50

In the coffin of Jeanne de Bourgogne, the first wife of Philip de Valois, were found the Queen's ring of silver, her distaff and spindle. The tomb of Jeanne de Bourbon, Queen of Charles V. of France, also contained part of her crown, her golden ring, and her distaff of gilt wood (vide Lenoir, Notes Historiques sur les Exhumations faites en 1793 dans l'Abbaye de St. Denis).

51

See a learned and interesting paper on the Distaff and Spindle, by J. Y. Akerman, Esq., Sec. F.S.A., Archæologia, vol. xxxvii.

52

There was another edition, in French and English, published at the Hague three years afterwards: —Contes de ma Mère l'Oye, en Français et en Anglais. Par Perrault, avec des figures gravées par Fokke. La Haye: Neaulme, 1745. 12mo. It was a rare book in 1784, when it was sold, at the sale of the library of the Duc de la Vallière, for twenty-three livres nineteen sous.

53

Mr. Dunlop, who alludes to this story, speaks of the murder of his wives. The author of L'Art de Vérifier des Dates, gives him but one wife, Catharine de Thouars, daughter and heiress of Mille de Thouars, Seigneur de Chabanais et Confolent, whom he married December 31st, 1420, and who survived him, and was re-married to Jean de Vendôme, Vidame d'Amiens. She therefore lived with him for twenty years, and bore him one daughter, Marie de Laval, Dame de Raiz, who married twice, and died the 1st of November, 1458. Père Anselme says he was contracted in 1416 to Jeanne Paynel, daughter and co-heiress of Fouques, Seigneur de Hambye; but that she died previous to the celebration of the marriage.

54

In the marginal note I have mentioned Jack and the Bean-stalk. This is an error. There are no seven league boots in that story. It is Jack the Giant Killer only who is the fortunate proprietor of the "shoes of swiftness," which either suggested, or were suggested by, the boots aforesaid.

55

"Of the ten stories in the Mother Goose's Fairy Tales of Perrault, seven are to be found in the Pentamerone," says Mr. Keightley, in his Tales and Fictions, p. 184. I have already shown that there were only eight stories in the Contes de ma Mère l'Oye, and in the Pentamerone I find but two that have any similitude to the tales of Perrault – viz., Gagliuso and La Gatta Cenerentola, both differing widely in many points from the ancient Breton traditions.

56

Her Histoires Sublimes et Allegoriques has been attributed by the Abbé Langlet du Fresnoy to the Countess d'Aulnoy.

57

Idyllen &c., von J. R. Wyss, translated by Mr. Keightley (Fairy Mythology.)

58

Keightley's Fairy Mythology, 12mo, 1850, p. 474. There was also a piece, called La Foire des Fées, written by Le Sage, and acted at the Foire St. Germain.

59

So called from being supposed to be narrated on board a ship bound to St. Domingo. 4 vols. 12mo. Paris, 1740-41. They were republished under the title of Le Temps et la Patience, in 1768.

60

Barbin was the publisher of the Mille et une Nuits.

61

At a spring called the Fountain of Thirst, or the Fountain of the Fays, "corruptly called 'La Font des Sees'" (says a writer in 1698), and every year, in the month of May, a fair is held in the neighbouring mead, when the pastrycooks sell figures of women 'bien coiffées,' called 'Merlusines.'

62

In the Cabinet des Fées, 1785, it is printed "de Huber," quite a different name; but the edition of the works of Perrault, 1826, by M. Collin de Plancy, is more carefully printed, and there it is distinctly de Lubert.