Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844

The most touching by far of the traditions at our disposal for illustrating at once the dependence of the fairies upon man, and their anxiety concerning their souls’ welfare, is one in which the all-important hope which we have said that they sometimes solicit from the grave and authorized lips of priests, appears as floating on the lightest breath of children. Our immediate author is James Grimm, speaking in his German Mythology of the water spirit. The tradition itself is from Sweden, where this mythological   being, the solitary water fairy, bears the name of “The Neck.”

“Two lads were at play by the river side. The Neck sate and touched his harp. The children called to him—

“‘Why sittest thou here, Neck, and playest? Thou wilt not go to heaven.’ Then the Neck began bitterly weeping, flung his harp away, and sank in the deep water. When the boys came home they told their father, who was a priest, what had happened. The father said—

“‘Ye have sinned towards the Neck. Go ye back, and give him promise of salvation.’

“When they returned to the river, the Neck sate upon the shore, mourning and weeping. The children said—

“‘Weep not so, thou Neck. Our father hath said, that thy Redeemer too liveth.’

“Then the Neck took joyfully his harp, and played sweetly until long after sundown.”

“I do not know,” tenderly and profoundly suggests Dr Grimm, “that any where else in our traditions is as significantly expressed how needy of the Christian belief the Heathen are, and how mildly it should approach them.”

III. A few words shall here satisfy the claims of a widely-stretching subject. Is there one order of spirits which, as the Baron Walckenaer has assured us, lavishes on chosen human heads love unattracted, and hate unprovoked? We must look well about us ere fixing the imputation. Spirits, upon the other hand, undoubtedly there are, and those of not a few orders, fairies of one or another description being amongst them, who exert, in the choice of their human favourites, a discrimination challenging no light regard.

A host of traditions, liberally scattered over a field, of which, perhaps, Ireland is one extremity and China the other, now plainly and emphatically declare, and now, after a venturous interpretation, may be understood to point out, simplicity of will and kindness of heart as titles in the human being to the favour of the spirits. At times a brighter beam irradiates such titles, to which holiness, purity, and innocence, are seen to set their seal. We cull a few instances, warning the reader, that, although of our best, he will possibly find them a mere working upwards to the most perfect which we have it in our power to bring before him in the beautiful tale of Maud.

Amongst the searchers who seem to have been roused into activity by the German traditions of the brothers Grimm, Ludwig Bechstein takes distinguished place for the diligence with which he has collected different districts of Germany. Our inquiry shall owe him the two following

TRADITIONS OF THE GRABFELDNo. LVII. The little Cherry-Tree upon Castle Raueneck

“There prevails, concerning the ruins of the old hill-castle Raueneck, a quite similar tradition to that which holds of the like named ruined strength near Baden, in Austria. There lies yet buried here a vast treasure, over which a spirit, debarred from repose, keeps watch, anxiously awaiting deliverance. But who is he that can and shall actually lift this treasure and free the spirit? Upon the wall there grows a cherry seedling that shall one day become a tree; and the tree shall be cut down, and out of it a cradle made. He that, being a Sunday’s child, is rocked in this cradle, will grow up, but only provided that he have kept himself virginally pure and chaste, at some noontide hour set free the spirit, lift the treasure, and become immeasurably rich; so as he shall be able to rebuild Castle Raueneck and all the demolished castles in the neighbourhood round. If the plant wither, or if a storm break it, then must the spirit again wait until once more a cherry stone, brought by a bird to the top of the lofty wall, shoot and put forth leaves, and haply grow to a tree.”

No. LXII. The Hollow Stone

“In the wood near Altenstein there stands a high rock. The inhabitants   of the neighbourhood say that this rock is hollow within, and filled with treasure in great store from the olden time. At certain seasons and hours, it is given to Sunday children to find the rock doors open, or to open them with the lucky flower.”

The singular superstition of spiritual favour fixing itself upon the human child, consecrated, as it were, by the hallowed light upon which the eyes first open, will shortly return upon us in The Fairies’ Sabbath.

Lo! where, from the bountiful hand of the Brothers Grimm, fall two bright dewdrop of tradition upon the pure opening flower of childhood.

GERMAN TRADITIONSNO. CLIX. The Treasure at Soest

“In the time of the Thirty Years’ war, there was to be seen standing not far from the town of Soest, in Westphalia, an old ruin, of which the tradition ran that there was an iron trunk there, full of money, kept by a black dog and a bewitched maiden. The grandfathers and grandmothers Who are gone, used to tell that a strange nobleman shall one day arrive in the country, deliver the maiden, and open the chest with a fiery key. They said that divers itinerant scholars and exorcists had, within the memory of man, betaken themselves thither to dig, but been in so strange sort received and dismissed, that no one since further had list to the adventure, especially after their publishing that the treasure might be lifted of none who had once taken woman’s milk. It was not long since a little girl from their village had led her few goats to feed about the very spot; one of which straying amongst the ruins, she had followed it. Within, in the castle court, was a damsel who questioned her what she did there: and when she was informed, pointing to a little basket of cherries, further said, ‘It is good; therefore take of that thou see’st before thee, with thy goat and all, and go; and come not again, neither look behind, that a harm befall thee not.’ Upon this the frightened child caught up seven cherries, and made her way in alarm out of the ruins. The cherries turned, in her hand, to money.”

NO. CLX. The Welling Silver

“In February of the year 1605, in the reign of Henry Julius, Duke of Brunswick, at a mile’s distance from Quedlinburg, where it is called at the Dale, it happened that a poor peasant sent his daughter into the next shaw to pick up sticks for fuel. The girl took for this use a larger basket upon her head, and a smaller in her hand; and when she had filled them both and was going home, a mannikin clad all in white came towards her, and asked:—

“‘What art carrying there?’

“‘Gathered sticks,’ the girl made answer, ‘for heating and cooking.’

“‘Empty the wood out,’ said further the little manling, ‘take thy basket and follow me. I shall show thee something that is better and more profitable than thy sticks.’

“He then took her by the hand, and led her back again to a knoll, and showed her a place which might be of two ordinary tables’ breadth of a fair pure silver, being smaller and larger coins of a moderate thickness, with a image stamped like a Virgin Mary, and all round an impress of exceedingly old writing. As the silver welled up, as it were, abundantly out of the ground, the little girl was terrified and drew back, neither would she empty out the sticks from her small hand-basket. Accordingly, the little man in white himself did so, filled the basket with the money, and gave it back to the little damsel with saying, ‘That shall be better for thee than thy sticks.’ She was confounded and took it; but upon the mannikin’s requiring that she should likewise empty out her larger basket and take silver therein, she refused and said—‘That she must carry fuel home too; for there were little children at home who must have a warm room, and there must be wood ready likewise for cooking.’ This contented the manling, who said, ‘Well, then, go; take it all home,’ and thereupon disappeared.

“The girl carried the basket of silver home, and told what had happened to her. The boors now ran flocking with pickaxes and other tools, and would have their share of the treasure, but none of them was able to find the spot where the silver had welled out.

“The Prince of Brunswick had a pound of the coined silver brought him, as did moreover a burgess of Halberstadt, N. Everkan, purchase the like.”

The quick-sighted reader will not easily have missed detecting the sudden effect produced upon the two spirits by the truthful right-mindedness of the two little girls.

Correspondingly, James Grimm, from surveying collectively the Teutonic traditions of bewitched or mysteriously hidden treasure, says—

“To the lifting of the treasure is required silence and innocence. * * * Innocent children’s hands are able to lay hold upon it, as to draw the lot. * * * Who has viciously stained himself cannot approach it.”13

Two short instances more from the copious fraternal collection, and we have done. With a temper of pure childlike antiquity, they express in the persons of the dwarfs—Teutonic approximative, fairies—the sympathy of the spirits with unstained and innocent human manners; and may, if the traditions which exhibit the fairies under a cloud of sin and sorrow should have been felt by the reader as at all grating upon his old love of them, help to soothe and reconcile him by a soft gleam of illumination, here lingering as in a newly revealed Golden Age of his own.

GERMAN TRADITIONSNo. CXLVII. The Dwarfs upon the Tree

“In the summer, the dwarfs often came trooping from the cliffs down into the valley, and joined either with help, or as lookers-on at least, the human inhabitants at their work, especially the mowers, in hay-harvest. They, then and there, seated themselves at their ease and pleasantly, upon the long and thick arm of a maple in the embowering shade. But once there came certain evil-disposed persons, who, in the night, sawed the bough through, so that it held but weakly on to the trunk; and when the unsuspecting creatures, upon the morrow, settled themselves down upon it, the bough cracked in two, the dwarfs tumbled to the ground, were heartily laughed at, fell into violent anger, and cried aloud—

‘O, how is the heaven high and long!And falsehood waxen on earth so strong!Here to-day, and for ever away!’

They kept their word, and never again made their appearance in the country.”

No. CXLVIII. The Dwarfs upon the Crag Stone

“It was the wont of the dwarflings to seat themselves upon a great crag stone, and from thence to watch the haymakers; but a few mischievous fellows kindled a fire upon the stone, made it red-hot, and swept away embers and ashes. Morning came, and with it the tiny folk, who burned themselves pitiably. They exclaimed in high anger—

‘O wicked world! O wicked world!’

cried vengeance, and vanished for evermore!”

We have shown,—1. The Anti-christian character imputed by tradition to the fairies. 2. The occasional dependence of the more powerful spirits upon the less powerful human beings; and, 3. The strong affectionate leaning in the will of the spirits towards moral human excellence. Of the ability which, in virtue of this excellence, the human creature possesses to help, Maud must, for the present, be permitted to stand for the   sole, as she is beyond all comparison our best, example.

The book of Ernst Willkomm takes a position in strong contrast to the corresponding works due to the Brothers Grimm, and other great gatherers of legendary lore. He has a personal poetic interest in the tales which they have not. He presents himself as the expositor, not only of his native superstitions, but also, zealously, of the Upper Lusatian manners. Himself cradled amongst the mountains, he has drawn with infinite pains, and by slow degrees, as he best could, from the deep interior life of the people, their jealously withheld credences, and the traditions which are sacredly associated with every nook of their craggy district.

“The tract of country,” says Willkomm in his Preface, “the true Highlands of Upper Lusatia, called by the inhabitants themselves the Upper Country, to which the tales are native, is one very narrowly circumscribed. It amounts to scarcely ten square (German) miles. I have, however, selected it for my undertaking,” he continues, “because it is intimately familiar to me; because the innermost character of the small population who inhabit it is confidentially known to me; because there is hardly a road or a path in the country which, on the darkest night, I could not find. Interesting, romantic, magnificent is the piece of earth which, at the confines of Bohemia, runs over hilly heights and lofty hill, tops on to the high mountain-chain. But still more interesting, I maintain with confidence, is the race of people.”

It may seem strange at first, that the wise and profound explorers whom we have so often had occasion to cite, the brothers Grimm, should have failed to present us with any traditions from a corner of ground around which they have so successfully laboured. We have hinted already at the sufficient reason of the blank. Willkomm tells us, that the rest of the world, which “the cabin’d cribb’d” Lusatian has himself learned to call “o’ th’ outside,” has taken no cognisance of his beautiful hill country. Lusatia has a literature of her own, and no one is acquainted with it. “She had, and partly still has, her own, similar to the Imperial cities, exceeding free and energetic municipal constitution.” But no one cares about it. Celebrated and learned historians, questioned by Willkomm on the subject, have acknowledged their ignorance in regard to the character and laws of its small people. A more cogent reason, however, lies nearer home, in the impenetrable reserve and self-insulation of the mountaineers themselves. Willkomm confesses that their coldness towards strangers is unparalleled; they have no confidence whatever in foreigners; “and let a Lusatian but suspect,” he says, “that you come a-fishing to him, and to listen out his privacies; then may you,” as we may render the Lusatian proverb, “‘Lose yourself before you find his mushroom.’” He will communicate to strangers little of his manners and customs; of his superstitious practices, his sacredly guarded traditions, absolutely nothing. “He is unpliant, self-sequestered, coarse-grained; beyond all conception easy and phlegmatic.”

Every genuine people, however, is rough-handed; and Willkomm proceeds, after an ingenuous description of their defects, to vindicate the natural heart of his brother highlanders. “Let him amongst the gentle,” he proudly exclaims, “who desire to hear for once something novel, something right vigorous, sit down beside me. He need not fear that morals and decency will be cast out of doors. No, no! The people are thoroughly moral and chaste at heart, if they are somewhat coarse in expression;—ay, and tender withal. Their imagination glides as delighted along fragrant threads of gold, as it eagerly descends amongst the powers of darkness, amidst the dance of will-o’-the-wisps and horrible ghost-reels. They are, at once, a blunt, good-hearted, aboriginal stamp of men, with all the advantages and deficiencies appurtenant.”

The Lusatian traditions, brought to light in Germany by Ernst Willkomm, and now first made known to Englishmen in these pages, were collected by our author, as we have already observed, with difficulty and labour. A native only of the mountain district   could obtain from the lips of the people their sacred and well-preserved lore, and even he not easily. The tales were narrated from time to time in the spinning-room, or in the so-called “Hell” of the boor or weaver, without any determinate connexion. The listener gathered mere fragments, and these not fully, when, thrown off his guard, he ventured to interrupt the speaker. Each narrator conceives his tale differently, and one individual is apt to garnish the experience of many, or what he has heard from others, with a little spice of his own invention. Further, the details of ten or twelve occurrences are associated with one single spot; all of which appear externally different, and yet internally are connected closely, “so that when comprehended in one whole picture, and not till then, they form what, in a strict and literary sense, we are accustomed to call a Tradition or Tale. I, at least,” adds Ernst Willkomm, “in such an upgathering of these disjointed tones of tradition, could only accomplish something that satisfied me by searching out the profound hidden meaning of the people’s poesy: and I have at last gone no further than attempting to compose these detached fragments of tradition, Lusatianwise and popularwise, from the people’s own telling, into a whole. Upon this scheme only could alike the poetical worth of the tales, and the portraiture of the race, be rescued and rightly secured.”

That the traditions have been rescued and maintained in their purity and truth; coloured, no doubt, in the telling, and that unavoidably, under the pencil of their educated renderer—we have every reason to believe from internal evidences. Maintaining their own originality, they correspond in the main to the traditions which come to us from almost every known country on the globe, concurring to attest the intimate and necessary relation of the human soul with what would seem to be the remnants of an ancient and universal mythology. They bear upon their front the minute impress of reality, not to be mistaken, and beyond the mere invention of the poet. They are a valuable addition to the common stock. The style of Willkomm is clear, and to the point; almost always, as he says, in characterizing the speech of his own Upper Lusatians, “hitting the nail upon the head.” It breathes of his own mountain air, and possesses a charm, a vigour, and freshness, which we fear that we shall endeavour in vain to transfer to the following version:—

THE FAIRIES’ SABBATH

“Children born of a Sunday, and bastards, inherit the gift, denied to other human beings, of beholding spirits, of talking with them, and, if opportunity befriend, of right intimately communing with them. This was a truth experienced by pretty Maud, the stone-mason’s only daughter, who, a hundred years ago or so, led, at the foot of the mountain-ridge yonder, a quiet home-loving life. Maud was born, of all days in the year, upon Easter Sunday, which is said to be a truly lucky day for a mortal not otherwise heavily burdened with earthly blessings. In this last respect, Maud had no reasonable cause of complaint; for her father, by the labour of his hands, painfully earned just as much as went to a frugal housekeeping, and the mother kept the little family in order; so that things looked always neat and clean enough in the abode of the stone-mason.

“All Sunday’s children are very wise, and, if they are maidens, always uncommonly beautiful. Maud was, as a child, admired by every body; nay, it once went so far, as that a rich and beautiful, but very sickly-looking, lady of quality, who was travelling over the mountain in a fine carriage, tried hard to coax the poor mother out of her pretty Maud with a large sum of gold. When the maiden had fairly stepped out of child’s shoes, and was obliged to seek employment away from home, there was a mighty ado. It was for all the world as if a fairy was going through the place, when Maud, early in the morning, strolled along the banks of the murmuring stream on her road to a wealthy weaver’s. The young fellows saluted the fair one as they greeted no other.   No one ventured, however, to accost her with unseemly speeches—a kind of thing, by the way, that young men at all times are very prone to. Maud was treated by every one like a saint. Maidens even, her equals in years, prized her highly; and in no way envied her the general admiration. This might be founded in the behaviour itself of Maud. More forward to oblige, to do good offices, more sweetly behaved, was no one. And then she had such a grace with it all, so innocent an eye, that when you looked into it, heaven itself seemed to shine out upon you. In short, whoever spoke with Maud, or might walk a few steps with her, that man was for the whole day another and a happier creature, and whatever he undertook prospered with him.

“It would have been strange indeed had such a maiden lacked suitors, or not very early found a sympathizing heart. Now, as for the suitors, there was no dearth of them, Heaven knows! for there were youngsters of the queerest fashion. Many without manners, though right well to look at; others wealthy, but without heart or soul; and others again ready to burst with rage, if any one but touched his hat to the beautiful Matilda. To all such, the innocent child had not a word to say; for she knew well enough, that scant blessing waits on marriages of such a make. There was but one young fellow who could be said to please her thoroughly, and he was neither rich nor singularly handsome. She had become acquainted with him at the weaver’s, where he, like herself, went daily to work. Albert was industrious, well-behaved, and spoke so sensibly and right-heartedly, that Maud ever listened to him with delight. Truth to tell, he simply put her own feelings into words. A very little time passed, before she engaged herself secretly to Albert; and all would have gone on happily and well with them, had the two lovers but possessed just money enough to scrape a few matters together, and to set up housekeeping. But both were poor—poor as church mice; and, just for that reason, the father of Maud did not look very favourably upon the settled love-affair of his daughter. He would have been better satisfied if the silly thing, as he called her, had given her hand to one of the rich suitors, who would have given their ears to please her. Since, however, once for all, the mischief was done, he, like a good man, determined to cause his only child no heartache, and let matters get on as they might. One condition only he insisted upon—which was, that Maud should for the future work under her father’s roof; Albert, meanwhile, having leave every evening to pay his visits there. In this arrangement the two lovers cordially acquiesced; for, young as they were, they could well afford a little waiting. Meantime, it must be their endeavour, by incessant labour and careful economy, to save up as much as they needed for setting themselves up in their humble dwelling. So they lived on from day to day in quiet content. And so, no doubt, many days, and many, would have glided by, had not a singular occurrence disturbed the profound tranquillity. This was the way of it:—

“Maud’s father, the stone-mason, found it too much for him, with his heavy work and all, when, at noon, he had the long journey to make between the stone quarry and his own home. Besides, the fine stone-dust had brought on an inflammation of the eyes, so that he was obliged to avoid the glare of the sun: no easy thing for him to do, since his road homeward lay over a green high hill, upon which the sun beat scorchingly: wherefore, also, the people have given it the name of the Sun’s hill. It was made, in consequence, Maud’s duty to take daily her father’s homely dinner to the stone quarry—a road which, although toilsome, was by no means disagreeable to her; inasmuch as Albert often found means to get leave of absence, and then always escorted her a part of the way.

“Over the Sun’s hill nobody went willingly alone, either by day or by night; for the tale ran, that to many persons wondrous things had happened. Some had even caught, they said, their death-sickness there. True it is, any more definite report was not easily obtained. Only so much had Maud heard from her mother, that the Good People were said, a very, very long time ago, to have vanished   into the green hill; just when, in all the places around, so many churches had sprung up, and the sound of bells rang over mountain and wood. These reports notwithstanding, Maud, unconscious of evil, took her daily walk over the Sun’s hill, where indeed no one ever encountered her; so that the splendid landscape looked often desolate and awful in the hot midday’s glow.14 For this reason it was always a great relief to her, when, from the top of the steep hill, she saw Albert ascending towards her. She then felt herself more secure, and went with better spirits forward. It was near Whitsuntide—the father sickly and more peevish than ever, and work bringing in no supply; for provisions had risen fearfully in price in consequence of the previous unusually hard winter. Now, as often as Maud brought the dinner to her father, he complained bitterly, and reproached her harshly for her folly; so that the poor child was almost heartbroken, pined, and led a melancholy life.