English Fairy Tales

and finger-tips, just as Childe Rowland’s brothers are unspelled.
Such a minute resemblance as this cannot be accidental, and
it is therefore probable that Milton used the original form of
“Childe Rowland,” or some variant of it, as heard in his youth,

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and adapted it to the purposes of the masque at Ludlow Castle,
and of his allegory. Certainly no other folk-tale in the world
can claim so distinguished an offspring.
Remarks.—Distinguished as “Childe Rowland” will be hence-
forth as the origin of Comus, if my affiliation be accepted, it
has even more remarkable points of interest, both in form
and matter, for the folklorist, unless I am much mistaken. I
will therefore touch upon these points, reserving a more
detailed examination for another occasion.
First, as to the form of the narrative. This begins with
verse, then turns to prose, and throughout drops again at
intervals into poetry in a friendly way like Mr. Wegg. Now
this is a form of writing not unknown in other branches of
literature, the cante-fable, of which “Aucassin et Nicolette” is
the most distinguished example. Nor is the cante-fable con-
fined to France. Many of the heroic verses of the Arabs con-
tained in the Hamâsa would be unintelligible without ac-
companying narrative, which is nowadays preserved in the
commentary. The verses imbedded in the Arabian Nights
give them something of the character of a cante-fable, and
the same may be said of the Indian and Persian story-books,
though the verse is usually of a sententious and moral kind,
as in the gâthas of the Buddhist Jatakas. Even as remote as
Zanzibar, Mr. Lang notes, the folk-tales are told as cante-
fables. There are even traces in the Old Testament of such
screeds of verse amid the prose narrative, as in the story of
Lamech or that of Balaam. All this suggests that this is a very
early and common form of narrative.
Among folk-tales there are still many traces of the cante-
fable. Thus, in Grimm’s collection, verses occur in Nos. 1, 5,
11, 12, 13, 15, 19, 21, 24, 28, 30, 36, 38a, b, 39a, 40, 45,
46, 47, out of the first fifty tales, 36 per cent. Of Chambers’
twenty-one folk-tales, in the Popular Rhymes of Scotland only
five are without interspersed verses. Of the forty-three tales
contained in this volume, three (ix., xxix., xxxiii.) are de-
rived from ballads and do not therefore count in the present
connection. Of the remaining forty, i., iii., vii., xvi., xix.,
xxi., xxiii., xxv., xxxi., xxxv., xxxviii., xli. (made up from
verses), xliii., contain rhymed lines, while xiv., xxii., xxvi.,
and xxxvii., contain “survivals” of rhymes (“let me come in—
chinny chin-chin”; “once again ... come to Spain;” “it is not

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so—should be so”; “and his lady, him behind”); and x. and
xxxii. are rhythmical if not rhyming. As most of the remain-
der are drolls, which have probably a different origin, there
seems to be great probability that originally all folk-tales of a
serious character were interspersed with rhyme, and took
therefore the form of the cante-fable. It is indeed unlikely
that the ballad itself began as continuous verse, and the cante-
fable is probably the protoplasm out of which both ballad
and folk-tale have been differentiated, the ballad by omit-
ting the narrative prose, the folk-tale by expanding it. In
“Childe Rowland” we have the nearest example to such pro-
toplasm, and it is not difficult to see how it could have been
shortened into a ballad or reduced to a prose folk-tale pure
and simple.
The subject-matter of “Childe Rowland” has also claims
on our attention especially with regard to recent views on
the true nature and origin of elves, trolls, and fairies. I refer
to the recently published work of Mr. D. MacRitchie, “The
Testimony of Tradition” (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner &
Co.)—i.e., of tradition about the fairies and the rest. Briefly
put, Mr. MacRitchie’s view is that the elves, trolls, and fair-
ies represented in popular tradition are really the mound-
dwellers, whose remains have been discovered in some abun-
dance in the form of green hillocks, which have been artifi-
cially raised over a long and low passage leading to a central
chamber open to the sky. Mr. MacRitchie shows that in sev-
eral instances traditions about trolls or “good people” have
attached themselves to mounds, which have afterwards on
investigation turned out to be evidently the former residence
of men of smaller build than the mortals of to-day. He goes
on further to identify these with the Picts—fairies are called
“Pechs” in Scotland—and other early races, but with these
ethnological equations we need not much concern ourselves.
It is otherwise with the mound-traditions and their relation,
if not to fairy tales in general, to tales about fairies, trolls,
elves, etc. These are very few in number, and generally bear
the character of anecdotes. The fairies, etc., steal a child,
they help a wanderer to a drink and then disappear into a
green hill, they help cottagers with their work at night but
disappear if their presence is noticed; human midwives are
asked to help fairy mothers, fairy maidens marry ordinary
men or girls marry and live with fairy husbands. All such

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things may have happened and bear no such à priori marks
of impossibility as speaking animals, flying through the air,
and similar incidents of the folk-tale pure and simple. If, as
archaeologists tell us, there was once a race of men in North-
ern Europe, very short and hairy, that dwelt in underground
chambers artificially concealed by green hillocks, it does not
seem unlikely that odd survivors of the race should have
lived on after they had been conquered and nearly extermi-
nated by Aryan invaders and should occasionally have per-
formed something like the pranks told of fairies and trolls.
Certainly the description of the Dark Tower of the King
of Elfland in “Childe Rowland,” has a remarkable resem-
blance to the dwellings of the “good folk,” which recent ex-
cavations have revealed. By the kindness of Mr. MacRitchie,
I am enabled to give the reader illustrations of one of the
most interesting of these, the Maes-How of Orkney. This is
a green mound some 100 feet in length and 35 in breadth at
its broadest part. Tradition had long located a goblin in its
centre, but it was not till 1861 that it was discovered to be
pierced by a long passage 53 feet in length, and only two feet
four inches high, for half of its length. This led into a central
chamber 15 feet square and open to the sky.
Now it is remarkable how accurately all this corresponds
to the Dark Tower of “Childe Rowland,” allowing for a little
idealisation on the part of the narrator. We have the long
dark passage leading into the well-lit central chamber, and
all enclosed in a green hill or mound. It is of course curious
to contrast Mr. Batten’s frontispiece with the central cham-
ber of the How, but the essential features are the same. Even
such a minute touch as the terraces on the hill have their
bearing, I believe, on Mr. MacRitchie’s “realistic” views of
Faerie. For in quite another connection Mr. G. L. Gomme,
in his recent “Village Community” (W. Scott), pp. 75-98,
has given reasons and examples for believing that terrace
cultivation along the sides of hills was a practice of the non-
Aryan and pre-Aryan inhabitants of these isles. [Footnote:
To these may be added Iona (cf. Duke of Argyll, Iona, p.
109).] Here then from a quarter quite unexpected by Mr.
MacRitchie, we have evidence of the association of the King
of Elfland with a non-Aryan mode of cultivation of the soil.
By Mr. Gomme’s kindness I am enabled to give an illustra-
tion of this.

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