II.

MYTHOLOGY OF THE NURSERY.

DELUSIONS OF THE NURSERY. PERNICIOUS CONSEQUENCES OF EXCITING FEAR.-TERROR THE CAUSE OF DISTURBED SLEEP, CONVULSIONS, AND DREAMS.STORIES WHICH HAVE THEIR ORIGIN IN POPULAR FICTIONS.

OUR mothers' maids, says old Reginald Scott, have so frayed us with bul-beggars, spirits, witches, urchins, elves. hags, fairies, satyrs, Pans, Fauns, sirens, Kit with the canstick, tritons, centaurs, dwarfs, giants, imps, calcars, conjurors, nymphs, changelings, incubus, Robin Goodfellows, the spoon, the mare, the man in the oak, the helwain, the fire-drake, the Puckle, Tom Thumb, hobgoblin, Tom Tumbler, Boneless, and other such things, that we are afraid of our own shadows: insomuch that some never fear the devil but in a dark night; and then a polled sheep is a perilous beast, and many times is taken for our father's soul, especially in a churchyard, where a right hardy man heretofore scant durst pass by night, but his hair would stand upright.

It was a very common practice in former times, not entirely exploded in the present enlightened age, to induce children to be good and obedient, by operating upon their fears; for in children, from their natural helplessness, fear is the strongest passion. Parents worked upon this by the terrors of discipline, and presented the rod as the argument in favour of implicit submission. But nurses, and the "good woman," as they were called, went another way to work. They were not allowed to chastise children, and therefore they operated upon the fears of the little one by other subjects of a no-less terrific kind. There was either some frightful old man, as old Poby," or decrepit old woman, "Mother Bunch," for instance, to whom the children would be given, if they did not cease their crying, and do as they were bidden.

About bed-time, in particular, when it is well known children are generally refractory, stories were told of spirits, ghosts, hobgoblins, and other terrific non-entities, by means of which, although the little ones would not go to bed without being accompanied by their nurses, they went very quietly with them. This system continued for many years in this country, and still exists to a certain extent; but it was found by experience to be inconsistent with right reason, and productive of bad consequences. It was soon discovered that to frighten was not to convince, and that a continuation of such alarms and fears had an improper and relaxing effect upon the mind of the child. Even grown persons have asserted that they have

never so far overcome the effects of this erroneous

discipline, as to be able to go much into dark rooms, or sleep without a light. Good sense at length interposed; and the whole agency of ghosts and goblins was pretty generally discharged; and in most families of the present day, servants are expressly interdicted from telling old legendary stories about spirits, spectres, witches, and fairies, in the presence

of the children.

It would prove a useful task to enumerate the various sorts of deception which it is the custom of ordinary education successively to impose upon its subjects. The practice of such means is one of those vices in teaching "the young idea how to shoot," that is most early introduced into the treatment of youth. If the nurse find a difficulty in persuading her charge to go to sleep, she will pretend to go to sleep along with it. If the parent wish his youngest son to go to bed before his brothers, he will order the elder ones up stairs, with permission to return as soon as they can do it unobserved. If the mother is

the child, upon some pretended occasion, to a distant part of the house, till she has made her escape.

It is a deception too gross (says a modern author, whose philosophical and sentimental writings have been much admired,) to be insisted on, to threaten children with pretended punishments,-that you will cut off their ears; that you will put them into the well; that you will give them to the "old man;" that there is somebody coming down the chimney to take them away.

Terror, or the dread of an evil surprising us before we are able to avert it, is of all passions the most destructive, and the most difficult to be avoided, be cause its operation is unforeseen and instantaneous. To shun, therefore, all occasions that may produce it, either in young or old, is perhaps the only remedy. Persons who are feeble, and possessed of much sensibility, are most subject to terror, and likewise most affected by it. Its effects are,-a sudden and violent contraction of almost every muscle that serves to perform the voluntary motions. It may further occasion disease of the heart, inflammation of the external parts of the body, spasms and swoons; at the same time, it may arrest salutary evacuations, particularly perspiration, and the like; to the great Palpidetriment of health, and danger of life. tation of the heart, trembling of the limbs, and in a more violent degree, convulsions and epileptic fits, or a general catalepsy, and sudden death, are the subsequent effects of terror, which quickly compels the blood to retreat from the skin to the internal

parts; hence it forcibly checks the circulation of the fluids. Terror has been known suddenly to turn the hair gray; and this inattentive and very reprehensible mode of educating children, often lays the if at all, to eradicate in after-years. It is the cause foundation of some infirmity, which it is difficult, of frightful dreams, and convulsions in children, in whom the nervous system is very easily affected, and consequently their predisposition greater to these attacks, from the considerable capacity of their brain with respect to the rest of the body, in the earlier periods of life.

Even

those little stories of the nursery with which the Of a different character from the preceding are rising generation in their infant years are amused. Since our boyish days, however, the literature of the nursery has sustained a mighty alteration. nurse herself has become strongly fastidious in her taste, and the books which please her are far different from those over which she used to pore when, with lisp the first letters of the alphabet. Scarcely any spectacles on nose," she taught our infant lips to people at fairs and markets, have been able to main. of the chap-books which were sold to the countrytain their ancient popularity; and we have almost

witnessed the extinction of this branch of our national literature.

in popular fictions transmitted to us from the earliest Those old stories, however, which have their origin times have a very different tendency to that of the trashy modern novels, by which they have, in some respects, been superseded. On this subject a distin guished authority observes that Physiologists investigate the laws of animated life in animalculæ swimming in the rain-drop; the botanist ascends from mosses and lichens to the oak and palm; the man of letters should not disdain the chap-book, or the nursery story. Humble as these efforts of the human intellect may appear, they show its secret workings, its mode and progress, and human nature must be studied in all its productions;

and, in the words of Sir Walter Scott, on this subject. A work of great interest might be compiled upon the

rigin of popular fiction and the transmission of similar ales from age to age and from country to country. The mythology of one period would then appear to pass into the romance of the next century, and that into the nursery

tale of subsequent ages.

By this means would fiction resolve itself into its primitive elements, as by the slow and unceasing action of the rain and wind the solid granite is crumbled into sand. The creations embodied by the vivid imagination of man in the childhood of his race, incorporate themselves in his barbarous mythology; sanctity is given to his day-dreams by the altar of the idol; and they acquire a deceitful force from the genius of the bard. Blended with the mortal hero, the aspect of the god gleams through the vizor of the helmet, or adds a dignity to the regal crown; while poetry borrows its ornaments from the lessons of the priest. The ancient god of strength of the Teutons, throned in his starry chariot, the Northern Wain, invested the emperor of the Franks and the paladins who surrounded him with superhuman might; and the same constellation darting down its rays upon the head of the long-lost Arthur, has given to the monarch of the Britons the veneration which once belonged to the son of "Uthry Bendragon," "Thunder, the supreme leader," and "Eygyr, the generating power." But time rolls on: the power of these rude mysteries dies away; the flocks are led to graze within the rocky circle of the giants; even the bones of the warriors moulder into dust; the lay is no longer heard; and the fable, reduced again to its orignal simplicity and nudity, becomes the fitting source of pastime to the untutored peasant and the listening child. Hence we may yet trace no small proportion of mystic and romantic lore in the tales which gladden the cottage fire-side, or, century after century, soothe the infant to its slumbers; and when the nurserymaid looks for her sweetheart in the bottom of the tea-cup, she is little aware that she is pretending to exercise the very same art to which the Egyptians pretended thousands of years ago.

We must not now, however, allow ourselves to wander from the realms of popular fiction to the land of popular superstition, till we arrive at its proper place, although there is so much difficulty in ascertaining their exact boundaries, that forgiveness might readily be obtained for the digression. The elves which dance on the wold must be considered as subject to the same laws as the fairies who bless the young prince's christening-cup; and the giant who fills up the portal of the castle, or who wields his club upon the roof of the tower, does not differ essentially from the tall black man who carries away the naughty boy, and terrifies the little ruddy-cheeked maiden on the maternal bosom. These man-eaters were generally the great captains of the times. "Beware of the Melendo!" was the threat of the Moorish mother to her babe. The Moors were driven from Andalusia before fear and hatred had distorted the Castilian knight into a monster; but Attila the Hun, the mighty monarch of the book of heroes, degenerated into a blood-thirsty ogre amongst the

inhabitants of Gaul who had smarted under his exterminating sword.

The Welsh have their Mabonogem, or "juvenile amusements," of undoubted authenticity and antiquity. Some of them are extant in manuscript, others live only in the traditions of the common people *.

A translation of the former was prepared for the press by Mr. William Owen, to whom Cymric literature is so greatly indebted, but the manuscript was unfortunately lost before publication. These tales possess extraordinary singularity and interest, and a complete collection of them in the original language is still a desideratum in

The popular fiction of the Celts is lively in its poetical imagery. Amongst the nations where the blood of the Teutons yet predominates, popular fiction is equally poetical in its cast. Not so in the happier climes of the south of Europe, where the Italian gives a zest to his popular narratives by buffoonery or ribaldry. or ribaldry. A considerable portion of the fairy tales contained in the Italian Entertainment for the Little Ones, together with those from the Nights of Signor Straparola, exhibit the inhabitants of Peristan as their chief characters, though not always retaining their eastern grace and beauty.

Of the traditionary tales of Spain little can be said, except that we know that all the beasts used to speak in the days of Maucastana who flourished in the reign of King Bamba, when the slashed petticoat of black velvet which the curate borrowed of the innkeeper's wife was yet a new one. The good dog Scipio who spoke in times nearer to our own, has noticed the stories of the "Horse without a Head," and the "Rod of Virtue" with which the old women were wont to entertain themselves when sitting by the fire-side in the long nights of Winter." In order that the horse without a head may travel to posterity, it may be right to add, that this marvellous monster haunts the Moorish ramparts of the Alhambra, in company with another non-descript beast, yclept the Belludo, on account of his woolly hide: both have a local habitation and a name in the guardroom by the side of the principal portal of the palace, from whence they occasionally sally forth and terrify the sentries.

TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY.

THE most important addition to nursery-literature has been effected in Germany, by the diligence of John and William Grimm, two antiquarian brethren of the highest reputation. Under the title of "Children's Tales," they published a collection of German popular stories, singular in its kind, both for extent and variety, and from which we have acquired much information. In this collection may be recognised a host of English, French, and Italian stories of the same genus and species, and extant in printed books; but the greater part of the German popular or nursery stories are stated by the editors to be traditionary, some local, others more widely known. All those, they assert, that are gathered from oral tradition, with the exception of "Puss in Boots," are pure German, and not borrowed from the stranger. In their annotations, Messrs. Grimm have taken considerable pains, and often with great success, to show the relationship between these Children's Tales, and the venerable Sagas of the north, which, in good sooth, were only intended for children of a larger growth,

The real worth of these tales (continues the editors), is, indeed, to be highly estimated, as they give a new and more complete elucidation of our ancient German heroic fictions than could be obtained from any other source. Thomrosa, who is set a-sleeping in consequence of the wounds inflicted by her spindle, is Brynhilda cast into slumber by the sleep-thorn of Odin. The manner in which Loke hangs to the giant eagle is better understood after a perusal of the story of the Golden Goose, to which the lads and lasses who touch, adhere inseparably. In the stories of the Wicked Goldsmith, the Speaking Bird, and the Eating of the Bird's Heart, we recognise the fable of Sigund. In these popular stories is concealed the pure and primitive British literature. The Cymry, however, seem to have little feeling for the productions of their ancestors; and the praiseworthy and patriotic exertions of individuals may cause the Welsh nation at large to blush. When a foreigner asks the names of the nobility and gentry of the principality who published the Myvyrian Archæology at their own expense, the answer is, It was none of them, but Owen Jones, the Thames-street Furrier.

mythology of the Teutons, which has been considered as lost for ever; and we are convinced that if such researches are continued in the different districts of Germany, the traditions of this nature which are now neglected, will change into treasuries of incredible worth, and assist in affording a new basis for the study of the origin of our ancient poetical fictions.

The lamented Leyden, who took a somewhat similar view of popular narrative, was rather inclined to connect its history with ancient romance, as he overlooked the mythological basis of the system.

In the repetition of an unskilful reciter, the metrical romance or fable seems often to have degenerated into a popular story; and it is a curious fact, that the subjects of some of the popular stories which I have heard repeated in Scotland, do not differ essentially from those of some of the ancient Norman fables, presented to the public in an elegant form by Le Grand. Thus, when I first perused the fables of the Poor Scholar, the Three Thieves, and the Sexton of Cluni, I was surprised to recognise the popular stories which I had often heard repeated in infancy, and which I had often repeated myself, when the song or the tale repeated by turns, amused the tedious evenings of Winter. From this circumstance, I am inclined to think that many of the Scottish popular stories may have been common to the Norman French. Whether these tales be derived immediately from the French, during their long and intimate intercourse with the Scottish nation, or whether both nations borrowed them from the Celtic, may admit of some doubt.

CARTLAND CRAIGS AND BRIDGE. THE annexed engraving illustrates one of the most useful, as well as one of the most elegant works of art which adorns Scotland. The bridge connecting Cartland Craigs is a bold and splendid structure, thrown across a chasm of tremendous depth, whose rugged bottom is washed by an inconsiderable river, called the Mouse, stealing murmuringly along to swell the waters of the bounteous Clyde, only a mile

distant. This bridge, which was designed by the late Thomas Telford, was commenced in 1822, and finished in little more than a year.

It consists of two piers, of the height of 130 feet, forming three arches, with a perfectly level road on the top, spanning a defile of at least 150 feet in width, on the high road from Lanark to England. It is so easy of access, that were it not for the bold and enchanting scenery which surprises and rivets the attention on crossing it, the structure would scarcely be regarded; but here, nature girt with those enrapturing beauties which characterize the scenery of the stormy river whose waterfalls and varied charms have ever been so loudly extolled, presents a lingering remembrance of her neighbouring wildness, in the exhibition of a fearful chasm, the apparent effect of some natural convulsion, whose sides, "precipitously steep," are garnitured with flowers, shrubs, and trees, growing in the wildest luxuriance, and huge projecting rocks, which momentarily threaten to disturb the silence of the scene below. A hazardous path will nevertheless conduct the adventurous traveller to scenes replete with ever-varying beauty, and heightened even by romance; for, apart from the gratifying view which is afforded of the structure which rears its tapering columns above his head, he can enter and explore a cave where the ever-renowned Wallace was once compelled to take shelter, when defeated in an affray at Lanark, in which his wife was killed, and wherein it is said he nurtured the plan, which he subsequently matured, of raising a force to attack a body of English soldiers, then garrisoned in Lanark Castle, under the governance of an English knight, named Haselrigg. The utmost success attended this enterprise, and, perhaps, was the first motive to his openly avowing himself the champion of Scotland. I. S. K.

Magazine.

JANUARY, 1837.

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