English Fairy Tales

XX. HENNY-PENNY.
Source.—I give this as it was told me in Australia in 1860.
The fun consists in the avoidance of all pronouns, which
results in jaw-breaking sentences almost equal to the cel-
ebrated “She stood at the door of the fish-sauce shop, wel-
coming him in.”
Parallels.—Halliwell, p. 151, has the same with the title
“Chicken-Licken.” It occurs also in Chambers’s Popular
Rhymes, p. 59, with the same names of the dramatis personae,
as my version. For European parallels, see Crane, Ital. Pop.
Tales, 377, and authorities there quoted.
XXI. CHILDE ROWLAND.
Source.—Jamieson’s Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, 1814,
p. 397 seq., who gives it as told by a tailor in his youth, c.
1770. I have Anglicised the Scotticisms, eliminated an un-
necessary ox-herd and swine-herd, who lose their heads for
directing the Childe, and I have called the Erlkönig’s lair the
Dark Tower on the strength of the description and of
Shakespeare’s
reference. I have likewise suggested a reason why Burd Ellen
fell into his power, chiefly in order to introduce a definition
of “widershins.” “All the rest is the original horse,” even in-
cluding the erroneous description of the youngest son as the
Childe or heir (cf. “Childe Harold” and Childe Wynd, infra,
No. xxxiii.), unless this is some “survival” of Junior Right or
“Borough English,” the archaic custom of letting the heir-
ship pass to the youngest son. I should add that, on the
strength of the reference to Merlin, Jamieson calls Childe
Rowland’s mother, Queen Guinevere, and introduces refer-
ences to King Arthur and his Court. But as he confesses that
these are his own improvements on the tailor’s narrative I
have eliminated them.
Parallels.—The search for the Dark Tower is similar to that
of the Red Ettin, (cf. Köhler on Gonzenbach, ii. 222). The
formula “youngest best,” in which the youngest of three

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English Fairy Tales
brothers succeeds after the others have failed, is one of the
most familiar in folk-tales amusingly parodied by Mr. Lang
in his Prince Prigio. The taboo against taking food in the
underworld occurs in the myth of Proserpine, and is also
frequent in folk-tales (Child, i. 322). But the folk-tale paral-
lels to our tale fade into insignificance before its brilliant
literary relationships. There can be little doubt that Edgar,
in his mad scene in King Lear, is alluding to our tale when he
breaks into the lines:
“Childe Rowland to the Dark Tower came....” His word was
still: “Fie, foh and fum, I smell the blood of a British man.”
King Lear, act iii. sc. 4, ad fin.
[Footnote: “British” for “English.” This is one of the points
that settles the date of the play; James I. was declared King
of Great Britain, October 1604. I may add that Motherwell
in his Minstrelsy, p. xiv. note, testifies that the story was still
extant in the nursery at the time he wrote (1828).]
The latter reference is to the cry of the King of Elfland.
That some such story was current in England in Shakespeare’s
time, is proved by that curious mélange of nursery tales, Peele’s
The Old Wives’ Tale. The main plot of this is the search of
two brothers, Calypha and Thelea, for a lost sister, Delia,
who has been bespelled by a sorcerer, Sacrapant (the names
are taken from the “Orlando Furioso”). They are instructed
by an old man (like Merlin in “Childe Rowland”) how to
rescue their sister, and ultimately succeed. The play has be-
sides this the themes of the Thankful Dead, the Three Heads
of the Well (which see), the Life Index, and a transforma-
tion, so that it is not to be wondered at if some of the traits
of “Childe Rowland” are observed in it.
But a still closer parallel is afforded by Milton’s Comus. Here
again we have two brothers in search of a sister, who has got
into the power of an enchanter. But besides this, there is the
refusal of the heroine to touch the enchanted food, just as
Childe Rowland finally refuses. And ultimately the bespelled
heroine is liberated by a liquid, which is applied to her lips