Once upon a time, nearly three thousand years ago, a poet in a song which he sang of heroes described the making of a suit of armour.
The poet's name was Homer. His poem is called The Iliad. Some day possibly you will read for yourselves The Iliad in the original Greek, for Homer was a Greek. There are many good translations, both in poetry and prose. The beautiful translation known as The Iliad of Homer, done into English prose by Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf and Ernest Myers, is one of the best translations for our present purpose.
In Homer's day people believed in the existence of many gods, some more important and others of less consequence. These gods, both men and women, imagined by the Greeks, were like human beings, only more powerful and more beautiful. But they were not any better than ordinary men and women. Indeed, the gods of the Greeks were often bad-tempered, jealous, cruel, and faithless. The Greeks imagined that their gods had favourites among men and women. When a battle was raging, the gods were supposed to help one side or the other; and in The Iliad you may read how Aphrodite helped her favourite, Paris, how Poseidon was on the side of the Achaians, and Apollo aided Hector. The most powerful and important gods, of whom the greatest was Zeus, lived on Mount Olympus. But the Greeks believed that the sea, rivers, streams, springs, hillsides, and trees, were the dwelling-places of various deities or gods.
The Iliad is an epic of the Trojan War which was fought between the Greeks and the Trojans. The famous hero Achilles, who had quarrelled with King Agamemnon, would not go to fight himself, but he lent his armour to his noble friend Patroklos, who drove the Trojans from the ships, but was himself slain by Hector, son of King Priam of Troy. Achilles was then without armour, and Thetis, a goddess, said by the Greeks to be the mother of Achilles, went on his behalf to a very clever god, named Hephaistos, who was lame, but had wonderful skill in making armour. Hephaistos, if he had lived now, would likely have been a great engineer.
In the eighteenth book of The Iliad, we can read a description of Hephaistos, of some of the marvels he had made and of his meeting with Thetis.
Hephaistos "from the anvil rose limping, a huge bulk, but under him his slender legs moved nimbly. The bellows he set away from the fire, and gathered all his gear wherewith he worked into a silver chest; and with a sponge he wiped his face and hands and sturdy neck and shaggy breast, and did on his doublet, and took a stout staff and went forth limping; but there were handmaidens of gold that moved to help their lord, the semblances of living maids. In them is understanding at their hearts, in them are voice and strength, and they have skill of the immortal gods. These moved beneath their lord, and he gat him haltingly near to where Thetis was, and set him on a bright seat, and clasped her hand in his and spake and called her by her name."
It is delightful to understand while we read that the Greeks three thousand years ago were already imagining the marvels which could be accomplished by mankind. Many of these marvels actually have been achieved since then, only not exactly in the shape that the Greeks imagined.
Hephaistos made, for Thetis to give to Achilles, a shield and a corslet and a helmet and greaves. He made them strong and beautiful. On the shield he fashioned wondrous pictures of life among the Greeks, marriage feasts, dancing, law courts, a city besieged, armies fighting, herds of cattle, harvesting, feasting, a vineyard, and youths and maidens gathering grapes. If you turn to this eighteenth book of Homer's Iliad, you may spend a very happy hour reading of Hephaistos and the armour.
These songs made by Homer are one of the glories of mankind. In everything he sang, there is the special genius of the ancient Greeks, a power to create beauty, so perfect in all its proportions that it gives people when they read his songs a feeling of strength and steadiness as well as joy. Yet, it is true at the same time, that parts of The Iliad and The Odyssey show us a world which was savage and barbarous.
In The Odyssey, Homer tells of the wanderings of Odysseus, King of Ithaca, on his way back from the Trojan war to his own island on the west coast of Greece. His adventures are as wonderful as any that have ever been related in song or story. The description of his home-coming, to his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus, is one of the stories rightly called universal, for such stories belong to everyone. A charming part of The Odyssey contains the story of Odysseus in his wanderings coming to Scheria where King Alcinous reigns. Nausicaa, the King's daughter, with her maidens, had gone out in the early morning to wash the clothes of her father, mother and brethren, and after their labour, the princess and her companions were playing a game of ball when their cries of excitement woke the weary Odysseus from his slumbers. You will find this adventure of Odysseus in the sixth book of The Odyssey, of which there is a prose translation by S. H. Butcher and Andrew Lang.
There are many other stories of the early Greeks. Some of them have been re-told in three books, written for young people. In The Heroes by Charles Kingsley you may read of Perseus, the Argonauts and Theseus. Tanglewood Tales and The Wonder Book were written by Nathaniel Hawthorne for his children. One of the best of the stories in The Wonder Book is called The Miraculous Pitcher, a tale of two old people, Philemon and his wife Baucis, and of what happened to them. These stories are not exactly fairy-tales, because people believed in that far away time that the gods visited them and played pranks like boys and girls.
These three books, The Heroes, Tanglewood Tales and The Wonder Book are easy to read and interesting. Yet, after a while, although perhaps not for some years, you likely will find that you would rather turn to a translation of The Iliad or The Odyssey, so that you may read for yourself Homer's songs telling of the world long ago in its youth, and of these great heroes.
We know a little of the glorious gift of song that the early Greeks themselves enjoyed and left to coming generations of mankind. But other countries, these countries where men and women earliest taught themselves by hard work, as we say, to be civilized, have also given the world treasures of wit, wisdom and enjoyment.
One of the earliest forms used by men, when they wanted to tell of some experience they had had, was the fable. A fable is a very brief, simple story, generally a little story about animals. Very early in the history of mankind, men noticed animals, watched them, saw that the animals often acted somewhat in the same way as men did themselves, and were delighted and amused by their cunning and cleverness. It was natural that people should begin by telling stories about animals.
Here are two fables, one of an animal trying to get the better of another animal, and the second of two animals helping one another. These fables are said to have been made by Æsop.
A wolf seeing a goat feeding on the brow of a high precipice where he could not come at her, besought her to come down lower, for fear she should miss her footing at that dizzy height; "And moreover," said he, "the grass is far sweeter and more abundant here below." But the goat replied, "Excuse me; it is not for my dinner that you invite me, but for your own."
The second fable tells of an ant falling into a fountain of water where he was drinking because he was thirsty and of the ant being nearly drowned. A dove dropped a leaf into the water on which the ant climbed and so escaped. A man just then had almost caught the dove in a net, but the ant bit him on the heel, the man started, dropped his net and the dove flew away. The fable ends by saying that one good turn deserves another.
Fables as a rule were first told, it is believed, not by famous people or great writers, but more often by ordinary people who were not rich or learned. Perhaps they wanted to say something about the politics of the country where they lived, or about some ruler who was a tyrant. They did not wish to get into trouble, so they put what they wanted to say into a little story.
Tradition tells us that Æsop, the most famous maker of fables, was a slave, very misshapen in body, and that he stammered when he spoke. There is a collection of Æsop's and other Fables in Everyman's Library. Read some of these little stories and remember how men, who were not as free or as safe as we are to-day, made these fables which are full of laughter, good temper, and keen wit, and which are very wise. We can learn a great deal from fables, and we can enjoy them at the same time.
Fairy tales are probably almost as old as fables. We all know how delightful fairy tales can be. Who would do without Jack the Giant Killer, or Cinderella, or Silver Locks, or Blue Beard, or Puss-in-Boots? You can add many more to the list. Some fairy tales are very old, but others are modern. People sometimes say that fairy tales are not true. In a sense, perhaps, they are right; that is, we do not expect to see Jack cutting down and conquering a giant in a day. Yet the men who have perfected telegraph, telephone and radio have overcome in a real way the giant distance, and other men and women are conquering daily, little by little, the great giant disease.
The everyday world we live in is as wonderful as a fairy tale, perhaps more wonderful. Whenever we find in a fairy tale, or in any other way, a sense of the wonder of the world, and of life, this is a very great gain, because then we know that we are really seeing clearly, and understanding what we see. Most of all, perhaps, fairy tales are meant to show us how beautiful the world is.
There are many good collections of fairy tales. The long series of which Andrew Lang was editor contains an excellent selection. Grimm's Fairy Tales are among the most famous in the world. Jacob and William Grimm were two brothers, both of whom were learned professors. Early in the nineteenth century, they published a book of fairy tales which they had gathered by listening to stories told in the nurseries and by the firesides of their own country, Germany. One of the prettiest of these stories is Snow-Drop and the Seven Dwarfs.
Hans Andersen is, perhaps, the best loved of all the writers of fairy stories. He was born in Odense in Denmark in 1805, and was a very poor boy. But he made a toy theatre for his amusement, and no doubt began to make his stories at the same time. He wrote other books, but his Fairy Tales are by far his best work. Hans Andersen was a genius. His stories have such power to touch our hearts that we want to be kind and true and modest, following the example of his heroes and heroines. The world, especially the world of homes, would be a poorer place if Hans Andersen had never written The Wild Swans, The Red Shoes, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Little Match Girl, and especially The Ugly Duckling.
Many of the most wonderful tales of magic come out of the East. The people of Arabia and Egypt are gifted narrators of stories. We owe them our vast enjoyment of the stories in The Arabian Nights. These stories are very old indeed; many of them must have come in the first place from Persia and India. Egypt supplies much of what we call local colour. The stories were gathered together from different sources, probably between 1450 and 1500; England then was engaged in the long struggle know as the Wars of the Roses. It was not until 1704 that Europeans first could read The Arabian Nights. At that time a French professor, Antoine Galland, published a French translation of a book of Arabic stories. It is odd to think that children of the English-speaking world did not know of Ali Baba, or Sindbad, or Aladdin, until the time of the reign of Queen Anne. Now we all can listen to the beautiful Schehera-zade telling her thousand and one tales to her husband, the great sultan Schah-riar, so that she would not be executed before the last of the stories was finished. Schah-riar was a tyrant, and a very spoiled person. But Schehera-zade was clever and resourceful, and in the end saved herself. These strange stories of giants, genii, caliphs, and lovely princesses are among the most famous in the world.
We come now to a different kind of book, Morte d'Arthur, stories of King Arthur of Britain and his Knights of the Bound Table. These stories Scott used to read when he was a boy, and so did many another lad of genius who, when he was older, never forgot the chivalry and the glory of Malory's great book. It may seem a curious book, perhaps, to many of you when you first look at it, for it is written in an older English than the words we use; and the customs and the people may appear strange and hard to understand. Sir Thomas Malory, who collected the stories and translated most of them from French into English, is supposed to have been a Lancastrian knight who was thrown into prison in the Wars of the Roses and kept there long years. He spent that weary time copying out by hand, for then there were no printing presses, the book we know as Morte d'Arthur. Malory finished his work in 1470. Not long after his death, the manuscript was brought to Caxton, who was the first great printer in England, and Caxton printed the book in 1485.
These are stories of heroes, in some far away sense like The Iliad and The Odyssey, but they are written in a wonderful prose, not like Homer's even more wonderful poetry. There is, however, a great change in the lives of heroes between the days of Homer and the days of Malory. Let us take one of Malory's stories, and try to see what the change is.
The seventh book of Morte d'Arthur tells the story of Beaumains, who was Gareth of Orkney in disguise, and of how he won his knighthood. Like many other young men of that time, Gareth wanted to be one of King Arthur's Knights. Gareth was well-born and wealthy, but he wished to win honour and glory—what Malory calls worship—by worthy deeds, so he came in disguise to Arthur's Court.
He asked three petitions, and the King granted them. The first was that he might be given food and drink and lodging for a year. At the end of that time, he would ask for his other two petitions. Sir Kay, who was the steward, thought only a poor-spirited fellow would ask for meat and drink, so he gave him lodging and food with the boys in the kitchen, and called him Beaumains, fair hands, or as people sometimes say now lily fingers. Beaumains waited the year, then a damsel came asking for a knight to rescue her lady who was besieged in a castle, but she would not tell her name. King Arthur said he would not let any of his knights go unless she told the name. Then Beaumains made his other petitions. The first was that he might be commissioned to go with the damsel and rescue the lady, and the second that he might joust with the great knight, Sir Launcelot of the Lake, and win knighthood from him. King Arthur gave his consent. Beaumains jousted with Sir Launcelot and won his knighthood. But the damsel was very angry, and said she had been given only a kitchen page. Beaumains went with her in spite of her angry abuse, fought with many knights and overcame them, and finally rescued the Lady Lionesse who was the damsel's sister. The damsel's name was Linet. Thus Sir Gareth won great honour and worship.
What really is this honour—the worship of which Malory writes? Knighthood was won by being brave, and by doing mighty deeds. But the true spirit of knighthood—the very essence of it, as we say—is shown by one test; the deeds must be unselfish. The knight was a rescuer; he was a righter of other people's wrongs. When King Arthur lived, people had begun to learn that the most heroic life is the self-sacrificing life. When Linet was abusing Beaumains, and telling him that he would never accomplish the great adventure on which his hopes were set, the only answer he made to her was, "I shall assay." This means, "I shall try." It was a noble answer. There is still only one way of winning true honour by unselfish deeds. First, one must have the desire, then those who desire must also try. As Beaumains said, "I shall assay."
The story begins with a chapter called Down the Rabbit-Hole. Alice was feeling sleepy, you remember, when suddenly she saw a white rabbit with pink eyes running by close beside her. She thought nothing of that. She was not surprised even when she heard the rabbit saying to itself, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" But when the rabbit took a watch out of its waist-coat pocket, looked at it and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, ran across the field, and was just in time to see the Rabbit pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
The name of the story, as most of you know, is Alice in Wonderland. All over the English-speaking world, children, and older people as well, seem to know Alice.
When you hear someone talking about the Mad Hatter at the tea party, or a blue caterpillar smoking a hookah, or the Duchess losing her temper, or the cat vanishing but the smile remaining, and you ask what it means, you will be told, if you have not guessed already, that all these odd phrases belong to Alice in Wonderland.
Alice followed the White Rabbit down the hole, falling down a very long way without hurting herself a bit. Then she found herself in a hall where there was a three-legged table with a tiny gold key on it, and she discovered a little door that she opened with the tiny gold key, but she was too big to go through the door, although she could see that it led into the loveliest garden. Then, as you may remember, she found a bottle with "Drink me" printed on it, and when she saw that it was not marked poison, she tasted it, and since it had a very good taste, she drank it all, and after that she was only ten inches high. Then she had forgotten the key, and now she was too small to reach to the top of the table, but under the table she saw a glass box and in the box a cake with "Eat me" marked on it beautifully in currants. And so, finally, with the help of the cake, and then with the help of a fan, of which you must read for yourselves, Alice found her way into the garden; and after that she had the most curious adventures.
Perhaps no one can explain the exact reason why we enjoy Alice in Wonderland so much. The story is so precisely what we should like it to be, that we take it as it is, and hurry on through its pages in a sort of breathless happiness, wanting to know only what comes next. There is nothing puzzling or difficult in the story, no hidden meanings, nothing to make one sad or discontented, only laughter and curious, amusing incidents. It is a perfect story about the strange adventures of a little girl, and most people find delight in it. There is a sequel to the story of Alice, called Through the Looking-Glass.
Lewis Carroll is the name you will find printed on the title pages of these stories, but this is a pen name. The author's real name was Dodgson. He did not like people to know that he wrote children's books. Lewis Carroll seems to have been a quiet, shy man, a mathematician who wrote difficult books for students, but he was wonderfully fond of children and understood how to write stories that they would like.
Most of the books spoken of in this chapter ought to be read aloud. They are generally called children's stories, but without exception they are also books that are loved and keenly enjoyed by older people. You will not need to think of giving them up when you grow older. They really belong to all ages. If you take the trouble to learn how to read aloud well, perhaps you may be the first to read Alice in Wonderland to some small person, younger than you are. It is great pleasure to introduce anyone to a really delightful book.
The Golden Age and The Wind in the Willows are two stories written for boys and girls by Kenneth Grahame. The first story is about Harold, Charlotte, Edward, Selina, and the boy who tells the story. They lived with their uncles and aunts in a small town or village. The children, perhaps, were rather lonely, but they made games and adventures for themselves, and it is pleasant to read about them. They had pets like many other children, and they made games from the books they were reading, like The Arabian Nights, and the Story of Ulysses, and King Arthur and his Round Table. The Golden Age is an English story. It is one of the books that will tell you accurately and delightfully of the lives of boys and girls who live in the country in England, in the same way that Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn tell us about boys in the United States. But, of course, we know that all boys in the States do not live as Tom and Huckleberry did. Girls and boys in England live in different ways also. It depends a good deal on the part of the country the author is writing about and on the circumstances of the families to which the boys and girls belong. Miss L. M. Montgomery's stories of Prince Edward Island in the same way tell a good deal about the lives of boys and girls in Canada.
The Wind in the Willows is a wise, delightful and amusing story about animals,—a mole, a rabbit, a water rat, a badger, an otter, a toad, hedgehogs, field mice, stoats and weasels. We hear a good deal about birds too, especially swallows. Toad, Badger, Mole and Water Rat were great friends, and we are as much interested in their doings as if they were friends of ours as well.
Books have many curious and strange characteristics. Some books, as we have learned, live for thousands of years. Homer's songs and the books of the Bible were kept at first, not in print, but in various other ways. But, now-a-days, hundreds of books are printed every year which in a little while are forgotten and no one reads them again. It is deeply interesting to ponder over what makes a book live. We think we can recognize sometimes which of the new books will continue to be read, and which, although they may be pleasant enough to read once, are not likely to be known for more than a few years. The truth is that no one can foretell accurately how long a book will last, or which books will last longest. For instance, it is not likely that when Lewis Carrol wrote Alice in Wonderland he had any idea that the story would make him famous when his other books were forgotten. Only one thing can test this lasting quality in a book; that one thing is time. So you can think of time, if you like, as a great umpire deciding which books will keep on living, and which will be forgotten.
There are four little books that have been written in the last few years which may last a long while, although, of course, no one can be sure about this until time decides. These four little books are When We were Very Young, Winnie the Pooh, Now We Are Six, and The House at Pooh Corner, two books in poetry and two in prose, by A. A. Milne. They tell about Christopher Robin and his toys. These are very delightful books to read aloud to little people. But they belong also to people of all ages.
An American writer, called Washington Irving, who was born as long ago as 1783, in New York, once wrote a story called Rip Van Winkle, which is not exactly a fairy story, or a story of magic; and yet it has a great deal of magic in it. The tale is about a man who was what is called a ne'er-do-well. He liked to hunt and shoot, but not to work. One day, he went off into the mountains with his dog Wolf. He heard sounds like thunder, and he met an odd, square-built old fellow who asked him by signs to help him carry a keg up the mountain. Then they came on a group of men, all dressed in a by-gone fashion, who were playing bowls. None of these men spoke to Rip Van Winkle, who helped himself several times from the keg, and by and by fell asleep. When he awoke, he found his way back to the mountain village where his home was, and discovered that he had been asleep twenty years. Rip Van Winkle is one of the very few tales of magic which has been written of any part of the North American continent. Most of the stories of this character of which we have been speaking belong to older countries.
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling was first published as a book in 1894. Some of the stories had appeared in the magazine St. Nicholas before that date. The Second Jungle Book was published in 1895. Kipling was born in Bombay, India, in 1865. It gives one a wonderful, very delightful thrill to take up a book by a new writer, whose name one has never heard before, and after reading a little while, to find oneself convinced that this unknown author has unmistakable genius. Some day you will likely have the pleasure of discovering for yourselves a writer of, perhaps, the first rank. The grand-fathers and grand-mothers or perhaps the fathers and mothers of boys and girls to-day experienced this thrill when they read for the first time one of Kipling's short stories of India.
Rudyard Kipling had been writing nearly ten years, and was a well-known author, before he published The Jungle Books, which are his first books for young people. Like some other books for boys and girls, older people are fascinated by them also. Kipling's father, John Lockwood Kipling, was an Englishman in the Indian Civil Service. His mother was the daughter of a Wesleyan minister, whose sons and daughters all have showed distinguished ability. Kipling lived in India when he was a child. While he was still a small boy, he was sent home to school in England. But from his child's recollections of India have come pictures of Indian life, and an understanding and interpretation of the people of that widely-spreading, mysterious country with its swarming population, its plains, mountains, and deep jungles where lions, tigers and many other animals live, which are unparalleled elsewhere in English literature.
Carried safely and swiftly by the magic of Kipling's stories, we may all visit the Indian jungle, hear Shere Khan, the tiger, roar, stand with the Lone Wolf on the Council Rock, learn to know Bagheera, the Black Panther, Baloo, the bear, Hathi, the elephant and many more of the jungle people, as well as Father Wolf, Mother Wolf, and the Pack. The Man cub, the boy Mowgli, is the pattern and epitome of what every boy likes to be, brave, resourceful, loyal, quick to see and hold advantage, staunch in friendship, fond of play, longing to do great deeds, and now and then showing that he is capable. The stories of Mowgli are collected in The Jungle Book. In The Second Jungle Book are such stories as Rikki-tikki-tavi, the Mongoose; the White Seal; Toomai of the Elephants; and Her Majesty's Servants, which is a tale of the animals of a military camp. None of us to-day can imagine how any writer could possibly create finer stories of animals than Kipling has written in The Jungle Books.
It is not easy to try to tell how charming and wise are the Just So Stories, told in Kipling's book for little people known by that name. Much of the tenderness that fathers and mothers feel for the very youngest, and that you feel for your small brothers and sisters, if you have brothers and sisters younger than you are, shines in these stories. Here, too, you will find laughter, very sweet and merry, and much wise understanding, not only of animals and children, but of the great world and its history. Some of the more noted of the tales in Just So Stories are: How the Camel Got His Hump; How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin; The Elephant's Child; The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo; The Beginning of the Armadillos; and The Cat that Walked by Himself. There are six more stories that perhaps are as wonderful as those which have been named. Just So Stories was published in 1902.
Kipling has written as well two books of stories which reveal to young people in a remarkable way the course and glory of English history. These books could have been written only for one reason, to help and delight Kipling's own children. The books are called Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies. Una and Dan are the names of the children who have the adventures told of in these books, and who see far, far back into the past of England. With Pict, Roman, Dane, Saxon, Norman, soldiers, peasants, Jews, priests, Crusaders, squires, dames, knights, down to the time of the great sea captains and Sir Francis Drake, this famous writer unfolds the pageant of English history in an incomparable way for boys and girls belonging to the twentieth century. Puck of Pook's Hill appeared first in 1906; and Rewards and Fairies in 1909.
Not many years ago Maurice Maeterlinck, a Belgian poet, wrote for every one, old and young, a fairy play called The Blue Bird. You may sometimes see the play acted in a theatre, or you may read the scenes and acts of the play in a book. First of all, in the book, come the names of all the characters, and then a description of the costumes in which they are dressed. Tyltyl and Mytyl, a brother and sister, for the sake of a neighbour's child, go away from home into strange, marvellous places, looking for the blue bird, Happiness. Tyltyl wears scarlet knickerbockers, pale-blue jacket, white stockings, tan shoes, which is the way Hop o' My Thumb is dressed. Mytyl is dressed like Little Red Riding-hood. The Blue Bird is a fairy story, a wonderful story, and true, as we say, spiritually. The brother and sister, when they are at home, live in a wood-cutter's cottage. On their travels, they visit the Land of Memory, the Palace of Night, a great forest, the Palace of Happiness, a graveyard, and the Kingdom of the Future. Tylo, the dog, and Tylette, the cat, are two of the most important characters; and in the play, you will meet people called Bread, Sugar, Fire, Water, Milk, and many more familiar to you in everyday life, but not in the same shape. The Blue Bird is a wonderful fairy play. When you read it, you will discover whether or not Tyltyl and Mytyl find the bluebird, Happiness.
Everyone is likely to have heard of Peter Pan, the boy who would not grow up. You may have seen the play, Peter Pan, acted on a stage, or you may have read the story in a book. Barrie, who wrote the play, was born in a village in Scotland, called Kirriemuir, in the year 1860. He is a novelist as well as a playwright. His full name is James Matthew Barrie, and because his novels and plays are so pleasing, and whimsical, very many people have a special feeling of love and kindness for Barrie.
Peter Pan is a delightful play; and the story Peter Pan is almost as enjoyable. The three Darling children, Wendy, John and Michael, are taught by Peter Pan how to fly, and they fly away with him to the Never-Never Land. Here are the lost boys, Slightly, Tootles, Nibs and Curly, and the crocodile, Captain Hook and his pirates, mermaids, redskins, and Tinker Bell, the fairy who is devoted to Peter Pan. In the end, the Darling children return to their father and mother. Peter Pan chooses to stay in the Never-Never Land; but once a year, at the time of spring cleaning, Wendy goes back to keep house for him for a little while.
So we learn that fairy stories, very wonderful fairy stories, are still being written to-day as they were long years ago when the world was younger. Beauty, fantasy, and magic belong to us all. The love of these things calls us, as it were, with a very sweet voice, and when we hear that call—often from a book—we recognize it as the spirit of the fairy story. Sometimes the spirit of a fairy tale is caught perfectly and beautifully in a poem. You will find such a poem in the collection known as The Oxford Book of English Verse. The name of the poem is "Kilmeny", and the name of the man who wrote it is James Hogg, or, as he is often called, The Ettrick Shepherd. He was a friend of Sir Walter Scott. "Kilmeny" has the same magic that Barrie's plays show so remarkably.
Late, late in gloamin' when all was still,
When the fringe was red on the westlin hill,
The wood was sere, the moon i' the wane,
The reek o' the cot hung over the plain,
Like a little wee cloud in the world its lane;
When the ingle low'd wi' an eiry leme,
Late, late in the gloamin' Kilmeny came hame!
You may not know what some of these words mean. Gloaming is twilight; westlin is western; reek is smoke; its lane means all by itself; ingle is the open fire-place; low'd is flamed; eiry leme is eery gleam.
A ballad is a simple tale told in simple verse. These tales in verse may be very old, or they may have been composed only a few years ago. But, generally speaking, the old ballads are best. The world seems to have lost the art of telling stories in verse as simply and naturally as people could many hundreds of years ago.
The old ballads are like old fairy tales; no one knows when they were first told or sung. It seems likely that they were made, not by great people or distinguished scholars, but by simple, ordinary people, to be sung or told to other simple, ordinary people. You will remember that fables in the same way were likely told first by one neighbour to another. Ballads and fairy tales and fables, long before books or newspapers were printed, were ways in which everyday people handed down from fathers and mothers to sons and daughters, chronicles and history, learning and good advice, wise sayings, and notable happenings.
After a long time, very many years, people who enjoyed these ballads, as soon as they knew how to write, began to write them down. Apparently, no one thought much about the songs for a while. Then scholars who were fond of ancient songs looked for and treasured the old ballads. One of the first and most famous collectors of ballads was Bishop Percy who published his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry in 1765. Sir Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border was published in 1802. Bishop Percy reproduced, as part of his collection, an old manuscript of ballads which he had rescued from being used by a maid to light a fire.
Ballads belong to many countries, and oddly enough, the same stories are sometimes sung in different words in many of these countries. In English poetry, a number of the finest ballads come from the borders between England and Scotland before these two countries were joined. "Chevy Chase" and "The Battle of Otterbourne" were sung of raids and wars between the English and the Scots. Other countries famous for their ballads are Greece, France, Provence, Portugal, Denmark and Italy.
The ballads called "Chevy Chase" and "The Battle of Otterbourne" perhaps have become confused one with the other. Part of "Chevy Chase" seems to have found its way into "The Battle of Otterbourne". There are many different versions of these ballads. The versions written by English balladists tell how the English defeated the Scots; on the other hand, the Scots versions say that the Scots were victors.
Here is part of "The Battle of Otterbourne", taken from Scott's Minstrelsy.
It fell upon the Lammas tide,
When the muir-men win their hay,
The doughty Douglas bound him to ride
Into England, to drive a prey.
And he marched up to Newcastle,
And rode it round about;
"O wha's the lord of this castle,
Or wha's the lady o't?"
But up spoke proud Lord Percy then,
And O but he spake hie!
"I am the Lord of this castle,
My wife's the lady gay."
Lord Percy and the Douglas agreed to fight with their men at Otterbourne in three days. Percy wounded the Douglas to his death and the Douglas sent for his nephew Sir Hugh Montgomery.
"My wound is deep; I fain would sleep;
Take thou the vanguard of the three,
And hide me by the braken bush,
That grows on yonder lily lea.
"O bury me by the braken bush,
Beneath the blooming brier,
Let never living mortal ken
That a kindly Scot lies here."
Later in the battle, Sir Hugh Montgomery and Lord Percy fought, and Sir Hugh was the victor. He said to Lord Percy to yield, who answered to whom must he yield!
"Thou shalt not yield to lord or loun,
Nor yet shalt thou yield to me;
But yield thee to the braken bush,
That grows upon yon lily lea!"
"I will not yield to a braken bush,
Nor yet will I yield to a brier;
But I would yield to Earl Douglas,
Or Sir Hugh Montgomery, if he were here."
As soon as he knew it was Montgomery,
He struck his sword's point in the ground;
The Montgomery was a courteous knight,
And quickly took him by the hand.
This deed was done at Otterbourne
About the breaking of the day;
Earl Douglas was buried at the braken bush,
And the Percy led captive away.
Little is known from history of the story told in "Sir Patrick Spens". It was first published by Bishop Percy in his Reliques. Princess Margaret of Scotland was married to Prince Eric of Norway in 1281. The ballad of "Sir Patrick Spens" may possibly have some reference to this historical event, but no one can say so with certainty. We learn from the ballad that Sir Patrick Spens was a splendid seaman, and that the Scots king gave him a commission to sail to Norway and bring home the king's daughter. But it was late in the year. The waters would be stormy; and Sir Patrick knew that he and his men would be in peril of their lives. They sailed to Norway, which is called Noroway in the ballad, and had been there a week only when the lords of Noroway began to complain that the Scots were costly guests. Sir Patrick answered that they had brought white money and good red gold, more than enough to pay for all they cost, but that he would sail immediately. His sailors told him that they had seen signs of a storm.
"I saw the new moon late yestreen,
Wi' the auld moon in her arm;
And if we gang to sea, master,
I fear we'll come to harm."
They hadna mailed a league, a league,
A league but barely three,
When the lift grew dark, and the wind blew loud,
And gurly grew the sea.
The ankers brak, and the topmasts lap,
It was sic a deadly storm,
And the waves came o'er the broken ship,
Till a' her sides were torn.
Sir Patrick must have been steering the ship himself, for he asked for a volunteer to take the helm while he went up to the tall topmast, to see if he could spy land. A sailor took the helm, but Sir Patrick had only gone a step when a bolt flew out of the good ship and the salt water came in. They tried to stop the leak but failed, and Sir Patrick and his men were lost.
O lang, lang may the ladies sit,
Wi' their fans into their hand,
Before they see Sir Patrick Spens
Come sailing to the strand.
And lang, lang may the maidens sit,
Wi' their goud kames in their hair,
A' waiting for their ain dear loves,
For them they'll see nae mair.
Half owre, half owre to Aberdour,
'Tis fifty fathoms deep
And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens
Wi' the Scots lords at his feet.
"Sir Patrick Spens" is a wonderful old ballad. Most of the words, old as they are, you will understand. In the second verse quoted, lift means sky; a gurly sea is a stormy sea. Goud kames in the verse before the last means gold combs.
Mr. John Buchan a few years ago made a collection of Scottish poetry called The Northern Muse. In it, you may read a number of famous ballads. There are also many delightful old songs which tell of the lives of ordinary folk, or people, in their everyday work. Turn specially to number sixty-six, which is the famous, beautiful old song of a woman, a good wife, who is getting ready for the homecoming of her husband; it is called "There's nae Luck about the House". Number sixty-eight is a song of fishing people. These are not exactly ballads, but they are written, as we say, almost in the same mood as a ballad. An amusing song about a clever small boy is number one hundred and eighty; it is a ballad, and is called "The False Knight Upon the Road". In days long ago people believed in witches and wizards.
The false knight is supposed to be a wizard. If the small boy had not been quick enough to give him an answer to every question, the wizard, people thought then, might carry him away. Now listen to the small boy.
"O whare are ye gaun?"
Quo' the fause knicht upon the road:
"I'm gaun to the scule,"
Quo' the wee boy, and still he stude.
"What is that upon your back?"
Quo' the fause knicht upon the road:
"Atweel it is my bukes,"
Quo' the wee boy, and still he stude.
And so on to the end of the story. Scule, of course, is school, and bukes are books. Stude is stood.
In times of war, as you know, people sometimes have to go into hiding. Long ago, a nobleman, Earl Douglas, who lived during the reign of King James V of Scotland, had offended the King, or rather some words he was falsely reported to have uttered had been told the King, and he was in danger of imprisonment. Earl Douglas took refuge in the Highlands of Scotland with his kinsman, Sir Roderick Dhu, the head or chief of the clan Alpine, who was unwilling to acknowledge that he owed allegiance to anyone. Ellen Douglas, a very beautiful young woman, shared her father's exile. As it happened, King James went on a hunting expedition as a knight, not a king, in the same part of his kingdom. There he met Ellen, who had never seen the King and did not know who he was. The King called himself James Fitz-James. Roderick Dhu, who is in love with Ellen, plans a rising of his clan. Fitz-James is brave. He is in peril, but he wishes to extricate himself without calling on his soldiers. The story is told by Sir Walter Scott in a poem called The Lady of the Lake. You will find this romance in verse easy to read and very interesting.
The scene is laid in the West Highlands of Perthshire. Much of what happens takes place in the neighbourhood of a beautiful lake, Loch Katrine. Scott, you will remember, is a master in the description of romantic scenery. After a short introduction, the story begins with an account of stag-hunting. James Fitz-James and a few of his men are the hunters.
The stag at eve had drunk his fill,
Where danced the moon on Monan's rill,
And deep his midnight lair had made
In lone Glenartney's hazel shade;
But, when the sun his beacon red
Had kindled on Benvoirlich's head,
The deep-mouthed bloodhound's heavy bay
Resounded up the rocky way,
And faint, from farther distance borne,
Were heard the clanging hoof and horn.
The tale is made to unroll itself like a picture before our eyes. The scenes are wonderfully picturesque, and the story is exciting. What happens to Ellen, Roderick Dhu, young Malcolm Graeme who also is in love with Ellen and whom she loves, and to Fitz-James, you must discover for yourself by reading The Lady of the Lake.
But before leaving the poem, let us quote part of the stanza which tells how in answer to Fitz-James's wish, Roderick Dhu gives the signal which calls his men from hiding in the glen where he and Fitz-James are to take leave of each other.
"Have then thy wish!"—he whistled shrill,
And he was answered from the hill;
Wild as the scream of the curlew,
From crag to crag the signal flew.
Instant, through copse and heath, arose
Bonnets, and spears, and bended bows;
On right, on left, above, below,
Sprung up at once the lurking foe;
From shingles gray their lances start,
The bracken-bush sends forth the dart,
The rushes and the willow-wand
Are bristling into axe and brand,
And every tuft of broom gives life
To plaided warrior armed for strife.
That whistle garrisoned the glen
At once with full five hundred men.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Watching their leader's beck and will,
All silent there they stood and still;
. . . . . . . . . . .
The mountaineer cast glance of pride
Along Benledi's living side,
Then fixed his eye and sable brow
Full on Fitz-James—"How say'st thou now?
These are Clan-Alpine's warriors true;
And, Saxon,—I am Roderick Dhu!"
Marmion is one of the most romantic and moving of Scott's narratives. Lord Marmion is a fictitious character. Scott wished to tell the story of Flodden Field, a battle fought between the English and the Scotch in 1513 in which the English were victorious. It was a most disastrous battle for the Scots, who lost their King and the flower of their nobility. Lord Marmion, who was an Englishman, and many among the English, were also slain. The poem opens with a vivid description of life in England and Scotland in the Middle Ages. We visit a feudal castle in England, Norham Castle, where Sir Hugh Heron welcomes Lord Marmion. A Palmer returning from the Holy Land has also come to Norham Castle.
His sable cowl o'erhung his face;
In his black mantle was he clad,
With Peter's keys, in cloth of red,
On his broad shoulders wrought,
The scallop shell, his cap did deck;
The crucifix around his neck
Was from Loretto brought;
His sandals were with travel tore;
Staff, budget, bottle, scrip, he wore;
The faded palm branch in his hand
Showed pilgrim from the Holy Land.
We visit as well, by the magic of Scott's verses, a convent, a monastery and an inn, and learn many things of the way in which people lived in the Middle Ages. It is in Marmion that we find one of Sir Walter Scott's famous songs, "Lochinvar", which is introduced in the fifth canto. But the most memorable part of Marmion is the description of the battle of Flodden with which the poem concludes. The sixth canto tells the story of the battle. Turn to the thirty-fourth stanza of that canto, and you may read how the Scots tried to save their king. These lines are judged to be among the noblest that Sir Walter Scott ever wrote. Other tales in verse by Scott are The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Rokeby, and The Lord of the Isles.
Four stories by other writers of verse, which you will like, and in which you will find humour or heroic valour, are told somewhat in the fashion of ballads or lays; we listen to them with special enjoyment when they are spoken by a skilled reciter.
The first of these is "The Diverting History of John Gilpin", showing how he went farther than he intended, and came safe home again. It was written by the English poet Cowper who, although he was often sad himself, in this story has left as wholesome and carefree humour as anyone may wish to discover in a story. John Gilpin was a London citizen of long ago. His wife said that, although they had been married twenty years, they had never had a holiday. She proposed that they should take her sister, and her sister's child, and their own three children, and drive to an inn at Edmonton not far away. But, since the carriage would be crowded, John Gilpin was to come on horseback. John was delayed, first by one thing, then another, but finally got started. Then his horse wanted to trot, and John was not a good rider. Besides that, he had two stone bottles of wine, one tied to each side of his leathern belt. The horse ran away with John. He lost his wig. The stone bottles were broken. The horse raced past the inn at Edmonton where his wife and children were waiting, and galloped on to its owner's house at Ware which was ten miles further. The friend who had lent Gilpin the horse asked what it was all about. John, who was a plucky, good-humoured fellow, and loved a joke, answered him.
I came because your horse would come,
And, if I well forebode,
My hat and wig will soon be here,
They are upon the road.
His friend started him back to Edmonton, but even yet John had adventures. There was to be no family dinner at Edmonton that day. Yet John Gilpin at last got safe home as you may read in Cowper's story.
"Edinburgh After Flodden", by a writer called Aytoun, is the story of how the people of Edinburgh first heard the news of the great defeat. Most people, certainly most boys and girls, must thrill as they read the opening stanza.
News of battle!—news of battle!
Hark! 'tis ringing down the street:
And the archways and the pavement
Bear the clang of hurrying feet.
News of battle! who hath brought it?
News of triumph? Who should bring
Tidings from our noble army,
Greetings from our gallant King?
These lines are part only of the first stanza. They are taken from the book known as Aytoun's Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers.
Lord Macaulay, who was a distinguished historian, wrote a famous History of England. He wrote also a number of lays, or stories in verse. Some of the best-known are about the deeds of the Romans, that remarkable people who gave the world much that is great in law and government. You likely will have heard of the story of Horatius, who, with two others, held the bridge over the Tiber, and saved Rome when Lars Porsena came with an army to take the city. It is a famous story. Read it, in Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. The last poem in this same book of lays is called "The Armada". It also tells a thrilling tale. What a pity it would be if any mischievous sprite were to take away and hide the books in which are the stories written of in this chapter!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, which is in the state of Maine, in the year 1807. His father and mother both belonged to families that had been settled in the States for a number of generations. He was of a scholarly disposition, and studied and travelled to fit himself for writing and teaching. He became Smith Professor of Modern Languages at Harvard when he was twenty-seven years old. From that time, he was closely associated with the town of Cambridge, near Boston, in Massachusetts. Harvard University is situated in Cambridge. You may still visit the house where Longfellow lived. In a pleasant small park near the house, there is a statue of the poet. He was fond of children, and loved to have them near him.
The Song of Hiawatha was written specially for the delight of young people. It is a story in verse, telling of a leader among North American Indians, one of themselves, who was to rescue and help his people, aiding them to clear their fishing grounds, to find food, and to live more comfortably and peaceably than in the past.
Hiawatha and his people in Longfellow's story are supposed to live on the south shore of Lake Superior, the largest of the Great Lakes. The scene of the story is between the Pictured Rocks and the Grand Sable.
The poem begins by telling of a sweet singer among the Indians. The singer first sings of the Master of Life; this is a translation of the name which to the Indians means God, Gitche Manito, the Great Spirit. After that, he sings of the four winds, North-wind, South-wind, East-wind, West-wind. Then we come to Hiawatha's childhood. He lived with his grandmother, old Nokomis. His mother was Wenonah, but she died when Hiawatha was born.
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.
Here Hiawatha was brought up. He saw the fire-flies, and heard the owls, and he learned to know the name and language of all birds and beasts. When he was old enough, Iagoo, who was a friend of Nokomis, made him a bow and arrows, and told him to bring home a roebuck so that they all might have food. After this, Hiawatha meets his father, Mudjekeewis, the West-wind, who had gone away and left his mother. Indian stories, like Greek stories, tell of the immortals coming down to earth. Hiawatha had a great struggle or contest with Mudjekeewis, who had deserted Wenonah, and Hiawatha, now a young man, was such a mighty warrior that Mudjekeewis could scarcely withstand him. At last he said to Hiawatha,
"Hold, my son, my Hiawatha!
'Tis impossible to kill me,
For you cannot kill the immortal.
I have put you to this trial,
But to know and prove your courage;
Now receive the prize of valour!
"Go back to your home and people,
Live among them, toil among them,
Cleanse the earth from all that harms it,
Clear the fishing-grounds and rivers,
Slay all monsters and magicians,
All the giants, the Wendigoes,
All the serpents, the Kenabeeks,
As I slew the Mishe-Mokwa,
Slew the Great Bear of the mountains."
On his way home, Hiawatha was buying arrow-heads from the arrow-maker, and there he met and fell in love with Minnehaha. Later in the story, you will read of Hiawatha's wooing and of the wedding-feast. But before his wedding, Hiawatha completes his first great service for his people. He discovers the secret of a food, Indian corn or maize, a new gift to the Indian nations which was to be their food for ever.
One of the most attractive of the Hiawatha stories tells how he built his canoe.
"Give me of your bark, O Birch-Tree!
Of your yellow bark, O Birch-Tree!
Growing by the rushing river,
Tall and stately in the valley!
I a light canoe will build me,
Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing,
That shall float upon the river,
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
Like a yellow water-lily!"
After this, we read in the story of how Hiawatha slew Pearl-Feather, the greatest of magicians, of many other deeds of Hiawatha, and of his joys and sorrows. Finally, the white man comes. Then Hiawatha is ready for his departure; and his people greatly lament his going.
Thus departed Hiawatha,
Hiawatha the Beloved,
In the glory of the sunset,
In the purple mists of evening,
To the regions of the home-wind,
Of the Northwest wind Keewaydin,
To the Islands of the Blessed,
To the kingdom of Ponemah
To the land of the Hereafter!
Hiawatha, and other stories in verse, travel round the world in books, and boys and girls read them in every country. But old ballads, the simple songs sung among the peoples of different countries, so old that no one knows how old they are, which we read about in Chapter seventeen, have their own ways of travelling. Some of these ballads crossed the sea when the first settlers came, and in parts of the North American continent to-day, the old words and the old airs are sung by descendants of the people who first brought them across the ocean. Two of the places where these ballads are still sung are in North Carolina, and in Nova Scotia where sailors and lumberjacks sing many shanties or songs.
The most beautiful old songs, however, on this continent are the French chansons of Quebec which were brought over from France when the French first came to Canada. Now French settlement in Canada ceased early in the eighteenth century, so these songs must at least be as old as the seventeenth century. They are probably considerably more than three hundred years old. Various collections of the chansons have been published. Many of them are happy and romantic songs. One of the most beautiful is a Christmas song.
Here is the story of the song told very briefly. Then you will find the song printed in its own French words. If you do not know French well, still you should try to make out the meaning of the words. No translation can give the meaning, or the perfume, as we sometimes say, of the beautiful old song exactly.
The singer meets a shepherd-maid and asks where she has been. She answers that when she was out walking she had come by the stable, and had seen a miracle. What did you see? asks the singer. She had seen a baby lying cradled on the straw. Was he beautiful! As beautiful as the sun. Had she seen nothing more? Mary, his mother, who nursed her child, and Joseph, his father, trembling with the cold. Nothing more? The ox and the ass were near the stall, warming with their breath the place where the baby lay. Nothing more? Three little angels coming down from heaven singing the praises of the Father Eternal.
D'ou viens-tu, bergère,
D'ou viens-tu?
'Je viens de l'étable
De m'y promener;
J' ai vu un miracle
Ce soir arrivé.
Qu' as-tu vu, bergère,
Qu' as-tu vu?
'J'ai vu dans la crèche
Un petit enfant
Sur la paille frâiche
Mis bien tendrement.'
Est-il beau, bergère,
Est-il beau?
This beau que la lune,
Aussi le soleil;
Jamais dans le monde
On vit son pareil.'
Rien de plus, bergère,
Rien de plus?
'Saint' Marie, sa mere,
Qui lui fait boir' du lait,
Saint Joseph, son père,
Qui tremble de froid.'
Rien de plus, bergère,
Rien de plus?
'Ya le bœuf et l'âne
Qui sont par devant,
Avec leur haleine
Réchauffant l'enfant.'
Rien de plus, bergère,
Rien de plus?
'Ya trois petits anges
Descendus du ciel
Chantant les louanges
Du Père éternal.'