The Science of Fairy Tales / An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology

These considerations by no means exhaust the case; but I have said enough in support of conclusions anticipated by Grimm's clear-sighted genius and confirmed by every fresh discovery. Let me, therefore, recapitulate the results of the investigations contained in this and the two preceding chapters. We have rapidly examined several types of fairy tales in which the hero, detained in Fairyland, is unconscious of the flight of time. These tales are characteristic of a high rather than a low stage of civilization. Connected with them we have found the story of King Arthur, the Sleeping Hero, ?rex quondam, rex que futurus,? the expected deliverer, sometimes believed to be hidden beneath the hills, at other times in a far-off land, or from time to time traversing the world with his band of attendants as the Wild Hunt. This is a tradition of a heathen god put down by Christianity, but not destroyed in the hearts and memories of the people?a tradition independent of political influences, but to which oppression is apt to give special and enduring vitality. The corresponding tradition concerning a heathen goddess is discovered in the Enchanted Princess of a thousand sagas, whose peculiar home, if they have one, is in Teutonic and Slavonic countries.

[166] Howells, p. 120; ?Count Lucanor,? p. 77.

[167] Knowles, p. 17.

[168] Im Thurn, pp. 352, 354. Cf. Brett, p. 375. So Leland, p. 3: ?The Indian m'téoulin, or magician, distinctly taught that every created thing, animate or inanimate, had its indwelling spirit. Whatever had an idea had a soul.?

[169] Cf. Grimm, ?Teut. Myth.? p. 962, quoting Harry, ?Nieders. Sagen?; Jahn, p. 228, quoting Temme. Many of the sanctuaries of the Celts were upon mounds, which were either barrows of the dead, or were expressly made for temples; and the god was called in Irish Cenn Cruaich, in Welsh Penn Cruc (now Pen Crûg), both meaning the Head or Chief of the Mound (Rhys, ?Hibbert Lectures,? p. 201). Many mounds in England, now crowned by churches, have been conjectured to be old Celtic temples. See an able paper by Mr. T. W. Shore on ?Characteristic Survivals of the Celts in Hampshire,? Journ. Anthrop. Inst., vol. xx. p. 9. Mont St. Michel, near Carnac, in Brittany, is a chambered barrow surmounted by a little chapel. From the relics found in the tomb, as well as the size of the barrow itself, some person, or persons, of importance must have been buried there. The mound may well have been a haunted, a sacred spot ever since the ashes of the dead and their costly weapons and ornaments were committed to its keeping far back in the Neolithic age. Instances might easily be multiplied.

[170] Müller, p. 203; Map, Dist. iv. c. 13.

[171] Gerv. Tilb., Dec. ii. c. 12; ?Book of Days,? vol. i. p. 154; Augustine, ?De Civ. Dei,? l. ii. c. 25.

[172] Jahn, p. 182, quoting Arndt.

[173] Knoop, p. 10; Bartsch, vol. i. p. 273.

[174] Bartsch, vol. i. p. 271; ?Early Trav.,? p. 138.