To the ancients there were two seas,--the azure above, and that beneath. The imaginative child in its development pa.s.ses all those dreamy coasts; sees in clouds mountains of snow on the horizon, and in the sunset luminous seas laving golden isles. When as yet to the young world the shining sun was Berchta, the white fleecy clouds were her swans. When she descended to the sea, as a thousand stories related, it was to repeat the course of the sun for all tribes looking on a westward sea. No one who has read that charming little book, "The G.o.ds in Exile," [155] will wonder at the happy instinct of learning shown in Heine"s little poem, "Sonnenuntergang," [156] wherein we see shining solar Beauty compelled to become the spinning housewife, or reluctant spouse of Poseidon:--
A lovely dame whom the old ocean-G.o.d For convenience once had married; And in the day-time she wanders gaily Through the high heaven, purple-arrayed, And all in diamonds gleaming, And all beloved, and all amazing To every worldly being, And every worldly being rejoicing With warmth and splendour from her glances.
Alas! at evening, sad and unwilling, Back must she bend her slow steps To the dripping house, to the barren embrace Of grisly old age.
This of course is Heinesque, and has no relation to any legend of Bertha, but is a fair specimen of mythology in the making, and is quite in the spirit of many of the myths that have flitted around sunset on the sea. Whatever the explanation of their descent, the Shining One and her fleecy retinue were transformed. When to sea or lake came Berchta (or Perchta), it was as Bertha of the Large Foot (i.e., webbed), or of the Long Nose (beak), and her troop were Swan-maidens. Their celestial character was changed with that of their mistress. They became familiars of sorcerers and sorceresses. To "wear yellow slippers" became the designation of a witch.
How did these fleecy white cloud-phantoms become demonised? What connection is there between them and the enticing Lorelei and the dangerous Rhine-daughters watching over golden treasures, once, perhaps, metaphors of moonlight ripples? They who have listened to the wild laughter of these in Wagner"s opera, Das Rheingold, and their weird "Heiayaheia!" can hardly fail to suspect that they became a.s.sociated with the real human nymphs whom the summer sun still finds freely sporting in the bright streams of Russia, Hungary, Austria, and East Germany, naked and not ashamed. Many a warning voice against these careless Phrynes, who may have left tattered raiment on the sh.o.r.e to be transfigured in the silvery waves, must have gone forth from priests and anxious mothers. Nor would there be wanting traditions enough to impress such warnings. Few regions have been without such stories as those which the traveller Hiouen-Thsang (7th century) found in Buddhist chronicles of the Rakshasis of Ceylon. "They waylay the merchants who land in the isle, and, changing themselves to women of great beauty, come before them with fragrant flowers and music; attracting them with kind words to the town of Iron, they offer them a feast, and give themselves up to pleasure with them; then shut them in an iron prison, and eat them one after the other."
There is a strong accent of human nature in the usual plot of the Swan-maiden legend, her garments stolen while she bathes, and her willingness to pay wondrous prices for them--since they are her feathers and her swanhood, without which she must remain for ever captive of the thief. The stories are told in regions so widely sundered, and their minor details are so different, that we may at any rate be certain that they are not all traceable solely to fleecy clouds. Sometimes the garments of the demoness--and these beings are always feminine--are not feathery, as in the German stories, but seal-skins, or of nondescript red tissue. Thus, the Envoy Li Ting-yuan (1801) records a Chinese legend of a man named Ming-ling-tzu, a poor and worthy farmer without family, who, on going to draw water from a spring near his house, saw a woman bathing in it. She had hung her clothes on a pine tree, and, in punishment for her "shameless ways" and for her fouling the well, he carried off the dress. The clothing was unlike the familiar Lewchewan in style, and "of a ruddy sunset colour." The woman, having finished her bath, cried out in great anger, "What thief has been here in broad day? Bring back my clothes, quick." She then perceived Ming-ling-tzu, and threw herself on the ground before him. He began to scold her, and asked why she came and fouled his water; to which she replied that both the pine tree and the well were made by the Creator for the use of all. The farmer entered into conversation with her, and pointed out that fate evidently intended her to be his wife, as he absolutely refused to give up her clothes, while without them she could not get away. The result was that they were married. She lived with him for ten years, and bore him a son and a daughter. At the end of that time her fate was fulfilled: she ascended a tree during the absence of her husband, and having bidden his children farewell, glided off on a cloud and disappeared. [157]
In South Africa a parallel myth, in its demonological aspect, bears no trace of a cloud origin. In this case a Hottentot, travelling with a Bushwoman and her child, met a troop of wild horses. They were all hungry; and the woman, taking off a petticoat made of human skin, was instantly changed into a lioness. She struck down a horse, and lapped its blood; then, at the request of the Hottentot, who in his terror had climbed a tree, she resumed her petticoat and womanhood, and the friends, after a meal of horseflesh, resumed their journey. [158]
Among the Minussinian Tartars these demons partake of the nature of the Greek Harpies; they are bloodthirsty vampyre-demons who drink the blood of men slain in battle, darken the air in their flight, and house themselves in one great black fiend. [159] As we go East the portrait of the Swan-maiden becomes less dark, and she is not a.s.sociated with the sea or the under-world. Such is one among the Malays, related by Mr. Tylor. In the island of Celebes it is said that seven nymphs came down from the sky to bathe, and were seen by Kasimbaha, who at first thought them white doves, but in the bath perceived they were women. He stole the robe of one of them, Utahagi, and as she could not fly without it, she became his wife and bare him a son. She was called Utahagi because of a single magic white hair she had; this her husband pulled out, when immediately a storm arose, and she flew to heaven. The child was in great grief, and the husband cast about how he should follow her up into the sky.
The Swan-maiden appears somewhat in the character of a Nemesis in a Siberian myth told by Mr. Baring-Gould. A certain Samoyed who had stolen a Swan-maiden"s robe, refused to return it unless she secured for him the heart of seven demon robbers, one of whom had killed the Samoyed"s mother. The robbers were in the habit of hanging up their hearts on pegs in their tent. The Swan-maiden procured them. The Samoyed smashed six of the hearts; made the seventh robber resuscitate his mother, whose soul, kept in a purse, had only to be shaken over the old woman"s grave for that feat to be accomplished, and the Swan-maiden got back her plumage and flew away rejoicing. [160]
In Slavonic Folklore the Swan-maiden is generally of a dangerous character, and if a swan is killed they are careful not to show it to children for fear they will die. When they appear as ducks, geese, and other water-fowl, they are apt to be more mischievous than when they come as pigeons; and it is deemed perilous to kill a pigeon, as among sailors it was once held to kill an albatross. Afanasief relates a legend which shows that, even when a.s.sociated with the water-king, the Tsar Morskoi or Slavonic Neptune, the pigeon preserves its beneficent character. A king out hunting lies down to drink from a lake (as in the story related on p. 146), when Tsar Morskoi seizes him by the beard, and will not release him until he agrees to give him his infant son. The infant prince, deserted on the edge of the fatal lake, by advice of a sorceress hides in some bushes, whence he presently sees twelve pigeons arrive, which, having thrown off their feathers, disport themselves in the lake. At length a thirteenth, more beautiful than the rest, arrives, and her sorochka (shift) Ivan seizes. To recover it she agrees to be his wife, and, having told him he will find her beneath the waters, resumes her pigeon-shape and flies away. Beneath the lake he finds a beautiful realm, and though the Tsar Morskoi treats him roughly and imposes heavy tasks on him, the pigeon-maiden (Va.s.silissa) a.s.sists him, and they dwell together happily. [161]
In Norse Mythology the vesture of the uncanny maid is oftenest a seal-skin, and a vein of pathos enters the legends. Of the many legends of this kind, still believed in Sweden and Norway, one has been pleasantly versified by Miss Eliza Keary. A fisherman having found a pretty white seal-skin, took it home with him. At night there was a wailing at his door; the maid enters, becomes his wife, and bears him three children. But after seven years she finds the skin, and with it ran to the sh.o.r.e. The eldest child tells the story to the father on his return home.
Then we three, Daddy, Ran after, crying, "Take us to the sea!
Wait for us, Mammy, we are coming too!
Here"s Alice, Willie can"t keep up with you!
Mammy, stop--just for a minute or two!"
At last we came to where the hill Slopes straight down to the beach, And there we stood all breathless, still Fast clinging each to each.
We saw her sitting upon a stone, Putting the little seal-skin on.
O Mammy! Mammy!
She never said goodbye, Daddy, She didn"t kiss us three; She just put the little seal-skin on And slipt into the sea!
Some of the legends of this character are nearly as realistic as Mr. Swinburne"s "Morality" of David and Bathsheba. To imagine the scarcity of wives in regions to which the primitive Aryan race migrated, we have only to remember the ben trovato story of Californians holding a ball in honour of a bonnet, in the days before women had followed them in migration. To steal Bathsheba"s clothes, and so capture her, might at one period have been sufficiently common in Europe to require all the terrors contained in the armoury of tradition concerning the demonesses that might so be taken in, and might so tempt men to take them in. In the end they might disappear, carrying off treasures in the most prosaic fashion, or perhaps they might bring to one"s doors a small Trojan war. It is probable that the sentiment of modesty, so far as it is represented in the shame of nudity, was the result of prudential agencies. Though the dread of nudity has become in some regions a superst.i.tion in the female mind strong enough to have its martyrs--as was seen at the sinking of the Northfleet and the burning hotel in St. Louis--it is one that has been fostered by men in distrust of their own animalism. In barbarous regions, where civilisation introduces clothes, the women are generally the last to adopt them; and though Mr. Herbert Spencer attributes this to female conservatism, it appears more probable that it is because the men are the first to lose their innocence and the women last to receive anything expensive. It is noticeable how generally the Swan-maidens are said in the myths to be captured by violence or stratagem. At the same time the most unconscious temptress might be the means of breaking up homes and misleading workmen, and thus become invested with all the wild legends told of the illusory phenomena of nature in popular mythology.
It is marvellous to observe how all the insinuations of the bane were followed by equal dexterities in the antedote. The fair tempters might disguise their intent in an appeal to the wayfarer"s humanity; and, behold, there were a thousand well-attested narratives ready for the lips of wife and mother showing the demoness appealing for succour to be fatalest of all!
There is a stone on the Muggelsberger, in Altmark, which is said to cover a treasure; this stone is sometimes called "Devil"s Altar,"
and sometimes it is said a fire is seen there which disappears when approached. It lies on the verge of Teufelsee,--a lake dark and small, and believed to be fathomless. Where the stone lies a castle once stood which sank into the ground with its fair princess. But from the underground castle there is a subterranean avenue to a neighbouring hill, and from this hill of an evening sometimes comes an old woman, bent over her staff. Next day there will be seen a most beautiful lady combing her long golden hair. To all who pa.s.s she makes her entreaties that they will set her free, her pathetic appeals being backed by offer of a jewelled casket which she holds. The only means of liberating her is, she announces, that some one shall bear her on his shoulders three times round Teufelsee church without looking back. The experiment has several times been made. One villager at his first round saw a large hay-waggon drawn past him by four mice, and following it with his eyes received blows on the ears. Another saw a waggon drawn by four coal-black fire-breathing horses coming straight against him, started back, and all disappeared with the cry "Lost again for ever!" A third tried and almost got through. He was found senseless, and on recovering related that when he took the princess on his shoulders she was light as a feather, but she grew heavier and heavier as he bore her round. Snakes, toads, and all horrible animals with fiery eyes surrounded him; dwarfs hurled blocks of wood and stones at him; yet he did not look back, and had nearly completed the third round, when he saw his village burst into flames; then he looked behind--a blow felled him--and he seems to have only lived long enough to tell this story. The youth of Kopernick are warned to steel their hearts against any fair maid combing her hair near Teufelsee. But the folklore of the same neighbourhood admits that it is by no means so dangerous for dames to listen to appeals of this kind. In the Gohlitzsee, for example, a midwife was induced to plunge in response to a call for aid; having aided a little Merwoman in travail, she was given an ap.r.o.nful of dust, which appeared odd until on sh.o.r.e it proved to be many thalers.
In countries where the popular imagination, instead of being scientific, is trained to be religiously retrospective, it relapses at the slightest touch into the infantine speculations of the human race. Not long ago, standing at a shop-window in Ostend where a "j.a.panese Siren" was on view, the clever imposture interested me less than the comments of the pa.s.sing and pausing observers. The most frequent wonders seriously expressed were, whether she sang, or combed her hair, or was under a doom, or had a soul to be saved. Every question related to Circe, Ulysses and the Sirens, and other conceptions of antiquity. The j.a.panese artists rightly concluded they could float their Siren in any intellectual waters where Jonah in his whale could pa.s.s, or a fish appear with its penny. Nay, even in their primitive form the Sirens find their kith and kin still haunting all the coasts of northern Europe. A type of the Irish and Scottish Siren may be found in the very complete legend of one seen by John Reid, shipmaster of Cromarty. With long flowing yellow hair she sat half on a rock, half in water, nude and beautiful, half woman half fish, and John managed to catch and hold her tight till she had promised to fulfil three wishes; then, released, she sprang into the sea. The wishes were all fulfilled, and to one of them (though John would never reveal it) the good-luck of the Reids was for a century after ascribed. [162]
The scene of this legend is the "Dropping Cave," and significantly near the Lover"s Leap. One of John"s wishes included the success of his courtship. These Caves run parallel with that of Venusberg, where the minstrel Tannhauser is tempted by Venus and her nymphs. Heine finishes off his description of this Frau Venus by saying he fancied he met her one day in the Place Breda. "What do you take this lady to be?" asked he of Balzac, who was with him. "She is a mistress,"
replied Balzac. "A d.u.c.h.ess rather," returned Heine. But the friends found on further explanation that they were both quite right. Venus"
doves, soiled for a time, were spiritualised at last and made white, while the snowy swan grew darker. An old German word for swan, elbiz, originally denoting its whiteness (albus), furthered its connection with all "elfish" beings--elf being from the same word, meaning white; but, as in Goethe"s "Erl Konig," often disguising a dark character. The Swan and the Pigeon meet (with some modifications) as symbols of the Good and Evil powers in the legend of Lohengrin. The witch transforms the boy into a Swan, which, however, draws to save his sister, falsely accused of his murder, the Knight of the Sangreal, who, when the mystery of his holy name is inquired into by his too curious bride, is borne away by white doves. These legends all bear in them, however faintly, the accent of the early conflict of religion with the wild pa.s.sions of mankind. Their religious bearings bring us to inquiries which must be considered at a later phase of our work. But apart from purely moral considerations, it is evident that there must have been practical dangers surrounding the early social chaos amid which the first immigrants in Europe found themselves.
Although the legend of Lady G.o.diva includes elements of another origin, it is probable that in the fate of Peeping Tom there is a distant reflection of the punishment sometimes said to overtake those who gazed too curiously upon the Swan-maiden without her feathers. The devotion of the nude lady of Coventry would not be out of keeping with one cla.s.s of these mermaiden myths. There is a superst.i.tion, now particularly strong in Iceland, that all fairies are children of Eve, whom she hid away on an occasion when the Lord came to visit her, because they were not washed and presentable. So he condemned them to be for ever invisible. This superst.i.tion seems to be related to an old debate whether these praeternatural beings are the children of Adam and Eve or not. A Scotch story bears against that conclusion. A beautiful nymph, with a slight robe of green, came from the sea and approached a fisherman while he was reading his Bible. She asked him if it contained any promise of mercy for her. He replied that it contained an offer of salvation to "all the children of Adam;" whereupon with a loud shriek she dashed into the sea again. Euphemism would co-operate with natural compa.s.sion in saying a good word for "the good little people," whether hiding in earth or sea. In Altmark, "Will-o"-wisps"
are believed to be the souls of unbaptized children--sometimes of lunatics--unable to rest in their graves; they are called "Light-men,"
and it is said that though they may sometimes mislead they often guide rightly, especially if a small coin be thrown them,--this being also an African plan of breaking a sorcerer"s spell. Christianity long after its advent in Germany had to contend seriously with customs and beliefs found in some lakeside villages where the fishermen regarded themselves as in friendly relations with the praeternatural guardians of the waters, and unto this day speak of their presiding sea-maiden as a Holy Fraulein. They hear her bells chiming up from the depths in holy seasons to mingle with those whose sounds are wafted from church towers; and it seems to have required many fables, told by prints of fishermen found sitting lifeless on their boats while listening to them, to gradually transfer reverence to the new christian fairy.
It may be they heard some such melody as that which has found its finest expression in Mr. Matthew Arnold"s "Forsaken Merman:"--
Children dear, was it yesterday (Call yet once) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me, On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, And the youngest sate on her knee.
She comb"d its bright hair, and she tended it well, When down swung the sound of the far-off bell.
She sigh"d, she look"d up through the clear green sea; She said: "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray In the little grey church on the sh.o.r.e to-day.
"Twill be Easter-time in the world--ah me!
And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee."
I said, "Go up, dear heart, through the waves, Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves."
She smil"d, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?
Perhaps we should find the antecedents of this Merman"s lost Margaret, whom he called back in vain, in the Danish ballad of "The Merman and the Marstig"s Daughter," who, in Goethe"s version, sought the winsome May in church, thither riding as a gay knight on
horse of the water clear, The saddle and bridle of sea-sand were.
They went from the church with the bridal train, They danced in glee, and they danced full fain; They danced them down to the salt-sea strand, And they left them standing there, hand in hand.
"Now wait thee, love, with my steed so free, And the bonniest bark I"ll bring for thee."
And when they pa.s.sed to the white, white sand, The ships came sailing on to the land;
But when they were out in the midst of the sound, Down went they all in the deep profound!
Long, long on the sh.o.r.e, when the winds were high, They heard from the waters the maiden"s cry.
I rede ye, damsels, as best I can-- Tread not the dance with the Water-Man!
According to other legends, however, the realm under-sea was not a place for weeping. Child-eyes beheld all that the Erl-king promised, in Goethe"s ballad--
Wilt thou go, bonny boy? wilt thou go with me?
My daughters shall wait on thee daintily; My daughters around thee in dance shall sweep, And rock thee and kiss thee, and sing thee to sleep!
Or perhaps child-eyes, lingering in the burning glow of manhood"s pa.s.sion, might see in the peaceful sea some picture of lost love like that so sweetly described in Heine"s "Sea Phantom:"--
But I still leaned o"er the side of the vessel, Gazing with sad-dreaming glances Down at the water, clear as a mirror, Looking yet deeper and deeper,-- Till far in the sea"s abysses, At first like dim wavering vapours, Then slowly--slowly--deeper in colour, Domes of churches and towers seemed rising, And then, as clear as day, a city grand....
Infinite longing, wondrous sorrow, Steal through my heart,-- My heart as yet scarce healed; It seems as though its wounds, forgotten, By loving lips again were kissed, And once again were bleeding Drops of burning crimson, Which long and slowly trickle down Upon an ancient house below there In the deep, deep sea-town, On an ancient, high-roofed, curious house, Where, lone and melancholy, Below by the window a maiden sits, Her head on her arm reclined,-- Like a poor and uncared-for child; And I know thee, thou poor and long-sorrowing child!
... I meanwhile, my spirit all grief, Over the whole broad world have sought thee, And ever have sought thee, Thou dearly beloved, Thou long, long lost one, Thou finally found one,-- At last I have found thee, and now am gazing Upon thy sweet face, With earnest, faithful glances, Still sweetly smiling; And never will I again on earth leave thee.
I am coming adown to thee, And with longing, wide-reaching embraces, Love, I leap down to thy heart!
The temptations of fishermen to secure objects seen at the bottom of transparent lakes, sometimes appearing like boxes or lumps of gold, and even more reflections of objects in the upper world or air, must have been sources of danger; there are many tales of their being so beguiled to destruction. These things were believed treasures of the little folk who live under water, and would not part with them except on payment. In Blumenthal lake, "tis said, there is an iron-bound yellow coffer which fishermen often have tried to raise, but their cords are cut as it nears the surface. At the bottom of the same lake valuable clothing is seen, and a woman who once tried to secure it was so nearly drowned that it is thought safer to leave it. The legends of sunken towns (as in Lake Paarsteinchen and Lough Neagh), and bells (whose chimes may be heard on certain sacred days), are probably variants of this cla.s.s of delusions. They are often said to have been sunk by some final vindictive stroke of a magician or witch resolved to destroy the city no longer trusting them. Landslides, engulfing seaside homes, might originate legends like that of King Gradlon"s daughter Dahut, whom the Breton peasant sees in rough weather on rocks around Poul-Dahut, where she unlocked the sluice-gates on the city Is in obedience to her fiend-lover.