The Grateful Dead: Chapter III. Tales With the Simple Theme and Miscellaneous Combinations

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CHAPTER III.

TALES WITH THE SIMPLE THEME AND MISCELLANEOUS COMBINATIONS.

OF the tales enumerated in the previous chapter, over one hundred in number, all but seventeen fall into well-defined categories as having The Grateful Dead combined with one or more of three given themes: The Possessed Woman, The Ransomed Woman, and The Water of Life. Of these seventeen variants, moreover, only four can be regarded as having the simple motive of The Grateful Dead; and they are in part doubtful members of the family.

The first of them is Simonides, thus related by Cicero: "Unum de Simonide: qui cum ignotum quendam proiectum mortuum vidisisset eumque humavisset haberetque in animo navem conscendere, moneri visus est ne id faceret ab eo, quem sepultura adfecerat; si navigavisset, eum naufragio esse periturum; itaque Simonidem redisse, perisse ceteros, qui tum navigavissent." The source of Cicero's story we do not know, but in all probability it was Greek. Whether it really belongs to our cycle, being so simple in form and nearly two centuries earlier in date than any other version yet unearthed, is a matter for very great doubt. It may have arisen quite independently of other similar tales in various parts of the world, and have no essential connection with our tale; but it deserves special consideration, not only from its antiquity, but also from its subsequent history in lineal descent through Valerius

1 to Chaucer. We are at least justified in looking for some influence of so well-known an anecdote upon better-authenticated members of the cycle.

The three other variants with the simple theme are all folk-tales of recent gathering. The first of them is Jewish, 2 which runs as follows: The son of a rich merchant of Jerusalem sets off after his father's death to see the world. At Stamboul he finds hanging in chains the body of a Jew, which the Sultan has commanded to be left there until his co-religionists shall have repaid the sum that the man is suspected of having stolen from his royal master. The hero pays this sum, and has the corpse buried. Later during a storm at sea he is saved by a stone on which he is brought to land, whence he is carried by an eagle back to Jerusalem. There a white-clad man appears to him, explaining that he is the ghost of the dead, and that he has already appeared as stone and eagle. The spirit further promises the hero a reward for his good deed in the present and in the future life.

The second variant is the Annamite tale. Two poor students were friends. One died and was buried by the other, whose fidelity was such that he remained three years by the tomb. He dreamed that his friend came to him and said that he should gain the title of trạng nguyen. So he built a chapel by the tomb, where the dead friend often appeared to him. When the king heard of his loyalty, he was praised and rewarded with a title. After his

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The third story is Servian VI. An uncle of Adam, who honoured God and the "Vile," 2 was so good a man that God came to him in human form one day. After a battle between the good and evil in the world, the latter would not bury the slain. The Vile told Tuegut that this would not do, so he hitched up his wagon and carried the slain to their graves. Then God came to earth, told him to put all he possessed in his wagon, and carried him on a cloud to heaven, where he was made the constellation now called Driver Tuegut's Heavenly Wagon.

Of these three tales the Annamite does not fulfil the usual condition that the dead man shall be a stranger to the one who does the good action. Together with Simonides, all of them vary widely in the reward given the hero. In Simonides he is warned against embarkation, and thus saved from shipwreck; in the Jewish he is actually rescued from a storm-tossed vessel by the ghost, which masquerades as a rock and an eagle, and afterward promises him further rewards here and hereafter; in the Annamite he is provided with earthly glory; and in Servian VI. he becomes a part of the galaxy of heaven. Only the underlying idea is the same,—that the burial of the dead is a pious act and a sacred duty, which will meet a fitting reward. 3 This belief is so widespread and ancient that it is not difficult to surmise how stories inculcating the duty might have grown up independently in many lands. At the same time, the very diversity of reward in these simple tales allies them to one or another of the compound types, which, though

1 Thus Simonides and Jewish recall the combination of The Grateful Dead with The Ransomed Woman, since they have the hero rescued from drowning by the ghost, and they suggest one point of union between the two themes. It therefore seems best to include them in our list, not only for the sake of completeness, but because they point to the reason which sometime and somewhere gave rise to a more developed form of the motive,—to the märchen as we shall study it. A consideration of these basal principles can be undertaken, however, only after the story theme in its various ramifications and modifications has been thoroughly discussed.

The probability that The Grateful Dead once existed in a simple, uncompounded form, which became the parent on one side of the more important combined types, is strengthened by the minor compounds in which it is found. How can the correspondences of detail seen in a considerable number of different compounds, as far as they run parallel, he otherwise explained? Surely it is more reasonable to believe in the existence of such a parent form than to suppose that an originally complicated form was hacked and hewn asunder to produce new compounds. This will become clearer, I hope, as we proceed.

In Greek, a boy was sold to a pasha, who betrothed him to his daughter. Because of the mother's objections, however, he was sent away as a shepherd, while the girl was promised to another pasha's son. The hero fed his flock under the shelter of the castle, and was summoned by the maiden, who gave him her betrothal ring in a

1 I will summarise it briefly. A princess becomes enamoured of the son of her father's gardener, and refuses to marry the son of the first minister. So the two suitors are sent out to a far country with the understanding that the one who returns first shall have the princess. On the way the gardener's son helps an old beggar-woman, whom his rival has spurned, and is told by her how to cure a sick king (by boiling him and sprinkling him with a certain powder). For this service the youth obtains a ring of bronze, which has the virtue of giving whatever its possessor desires. By means of this he gets a wonderful ship, and sails to the city where the minister's son, through extravagance, has fallen into poverty. He provides him with a wretched ship, in which to return home, on condition that he may mark him with his ring. The minister's son reaches home in his crazy vessel, and is about to marry the princess, when the hero appears on his beautiful ship of gold, exposes his rival, and weds the lady. The remainder of the story, which tells how the magical ring was lost and afterward recovered, does not concern us. It will be seen that Greek has preserved only the later part of The Grateful Dead at all clearly, though that combination with a tale of the type of the Lesbian narrative has actually taken place is evident from the part which the helper plays. He not only obtains a promise of division, but calls for its fulfilment. His first appearance is, however, quite unmotivated, while the old woman of the Lesbian story serves the purpose, according to a common formula, of showing the hero's kindness in contrast to his rival's hard heart. The point common to the two tales, which led to their combination, is without doubt this helping friend.

In Servian V. a youth on a journey pays his all to rescue a debtor from hanging. By his new-found friend

1 which occurs in only one other case, as far as I am able to discover. The reason for the combination is not far to seek. The latter part of the tale represents the reward of the rescuer by the rescued. That the benefit does not take the form of actual burial need not disturb us. The man was at least far gone towards death, and he was a debtor—a trait found in about two-thirds of the variants known to me. Moreover, the supernatural character of the comrade is indicated by the adventure into which he leads the youth. The tale has been partly rationalised, that is all.

Esthonian I. 2 shows a different combination, which is unique as far as I know. In a gorge not far from the village of Arukäla (near Wesenberg) a howling was heard every night for years. Finally a bold man went by night to the place and found the skeleton of a murdered king, which told him that it had howled thus for a hundred years because it had not been buried with holy rites. The next day the man took the bones to a priest, and, while burying them, discovered an enormous treasure.

As Schiefner said, 3 when he first printed the story, it recalls the Grimms’ Der singende Knochen, 4 which in turn is

1

Lion de Bourges runs thus: Lion, son of Duke Harpin de Bourges, was found by a knight in a lion's den and reared as his son. When he grew up, he wasted his foster-father's property in chivalry. Finally, he heard that King Henry of Sicily had promised the hand of his daughter to the knight who should win a tourney that he had established. So Lion started for the court, and on the way ransomed the body of a knight, which he found hanging in the smoke, on account of unpaid debts. At Montluisant the hero won the favour of the Princess Florentine, and, before the tourney, obtained from a White Knight the charger which he still lacked, on condition of sharing his winnings, the princess excepted. With the help of this knight Lion was victorious and obtained the princess. He was then asked by his helper to give up either the lady or the whole kingdom, and did not hesitate to do the latter. At this, the stranger explained that he was the ghost of the ransomed knight and disappeared, though he afterwards returned to assist the hero at need.

1 the knight of that name has wasted his substance. When he hears that the King of Chornualglia (Cornwall) has promised his daughter and half of his kingdom to the knight who wins the tourney that he has called, Dianese gets his friends to fit him out and sets forth. On the way he passes through a town where the traffic is diverted from the main street because of a corpse which has long been lying on a bier before a church. He learns that it is the body of a knight, who cannot be buried till his creditors have been paid. At the cost of everything he possesses, save his horse, the hero satisfies the creditors and has the knight buried. When he has gone on two miles, he is joined by a merchant, who promises him money, horses, and weapons if he will give in return half of what he wins in the tourney. Dianese agrees, is fitted out anew, and succeeds in overcoming all corners in the contest. Thus he obtains the hand of the princess and half the kingdom. With his bride, the merchant, and his followers he starts for home; but, when they are only a day's journey from their destination, he is required by the merchant to fulfil his promise—to choose between his bride as one half, his possessions as the other. Dianese takes the lady and rides on. Soon, however, he is joined by the merchant, who praises his faithfulness, gives up the treasures, explains that he is the ghost of the debtor knight, and disappears.

In Old Swedish 2 the daughter and heiress of the King of France promises to marry whatever knight is victor in a tourney which she announces. Pippin, the Duke of Lorraine, hears of this and sets out for France. At the end of his first day's journey he finds lodging at the house of a widow, who is lamenting because her husband, once in good circumstances, has died so poor that she cannot bury him properly. Pippin takes pity

1 Willekin was moved by this story and paid seventy marks, almost all his money, to ransom the corpse and give it suitable burial. He then had to borrow from his host in order to indulge in his customary generosity. On the morning of the jousting he obtained from a stranger knight a fine horse on condition of dividing everything that he won. He succeeded in the tourney above all the other contestants, and so wedded the maiden. On the second night after the marriage the stranger entered his room and demanded a share in his marital rights. After he had offered instead to give all his possessions, the hero started from the room in tears, when the stranger called him back and explained that he was the ghost of the dead, then disappeared.

1 the last of the six variants, must now be given. Amadas finds himself financially embarrassed, and sets forth for seven years of errantry with only forty pounds in hand. This he pays to release and bury the body of a merchant who has died in debt. When thus reduced to absolute penury, Amadas meets a White Knight, who tells him that he will aid him on condition of receiving half the gains. The hero finds a rich wreck on the seacoast, and so with new apparel goes to the court, where he wins wealth in a tourney and the princess's heart at a feast. After he marries her and has a son born to him, the White Knight reappears and demands that the accepted conditions be complied with. Hesitatingly Amadas prepares to divide first his wife and afterwards his son, but he is stayed by the stranger, who explains that he is the ghost of the dead merchant. So Amadas is at last released from misfortune and lives in happiness.

In all six of these stories we have a knight, who sets out to win a tourney in which the victor's prize is to be the hand of a princess. In all of them save Old Swedish he is represented as being impoverished by previous extravagance, in Richars, Lion de Bourges, and Rittertriuwe it being expressly stated that he had wasted his fortune by over-indulgence in his passion for jousting. On his way to the place appointed for the contest the hero pays for the burial 2 of a man whose corpse is held for debt. 3 He goes on and is approached either before (Richars, Lion de Bourges, Dianese, Old Swedish, and Sir 

1 as his share. The latter responds that he wishes only his horse, explains who he is, and vanishes. In all the other variants, however, the condition is made that the hero divide whatever he shall gain. 2

With reference to Richars and Lion de Bourges, Wilhelmi's careful discussions has made it clear that, though they agree in many points as against all the other related versions, not only in respect to The Grateful Dead, but to the further course of a complicated narrative, neither one could have been taken from the other. The difference in the matter of the division between Richars and all the other variants he neglects, though it strengthens his position. Back of Richars and Lion de Bourges, earlier than the thirteenth century, there must have existed a literary work which was their common source. This hypothetical French romance may be considered as the foundation of the whole group which we are discussing.

Since Old Swedish agrees with most of the other variants with regard to the division, and furthermore

1 after more important compounds have been

1 as Luzel, to whom the tale was recounted by a Breton peasant, indeed briefly noted. 2 The Breton tale runs as follows: A rich lord and lady had no children. While the lady was praying to St. Peter in a chapel that was being repaired, she fell a victim to a young painter, and had by him a son, who was named after St. Peter. When the boy was twelve years of age, he carried St. Peter across a stream one day, while his shepherd companion

1 Danish I. relates how a youth pays three marks, which is his all, to bury the body of a dead man, for whose interment the priest has demanded payment in advance. He is then joined by another youth, who is the ghost of the dead, and goes to a certain city. There, by giving himself out as a prince at the advice of his companion, who provides him with proper trappings, he wins the hand of a princess. In Danish II. an old soldier pays his last three marks to

1 are, I think, sufficiently clear, especially in the first of the two variants, since the point of that familiar tale is certainly that the hero marries a woman of high estate by making himself out as of equal rank, substantiating his statements by a succession of clever ruses. That the grateful dead enables him to fulfil the required conditions is an introduction that could easily replace the ordinary one, especially since a helper of some sort is necessary to the story. Just what the relation of these two variants is to other Puss in Boots stories does not here concern us. From the side of The Grateful Dead, however, it is possible to see how the combination—found only in two folk-tales from a single country, it will be observed—may have arisen. The benefits bestowed on the hero show an essential likeness to those found in a widespread compound type to be studied in a later chapter, 2 where the thankful dead helps his friend to obtain a wife by the performance of some feat. Since the combination now in consideration seems to be confined to the region about Denmark, while mediaeval and modern examples of the other are found in many lands, it may be regarded as a mere variation on the better-known compound type, produced by the similarity of the two endings. Yet

1 He is rescued by Rochfort, who pays the debts and gives him his daughter in marriage. The intrigues of love and vengeance that follow do not concern us. In Rowe's play, which was based on Massinger's, this part has been curtailed to a few slight references. Altamont gives himself as ransom for his father's body to the greedy creditors, who will not allow burial to take place. He is rewarded by the care and bounty of Sciolto, who becomes a second father to him.

Stephens was certainly right in connecting 2 the story in The Fair Penitent with The Grateful Dead, though it is only a fragment and lacks some of the most essential features of the complete theme. The ghost, indeed, does not appear at all, but the part played by Rochfort may be regarded as a greatly sophisticated reminiscence of that trait, especially since he not only rescues the hero, but provides him with a wife. The echo of the theme is too vague for us to distinguish the form in which it was found by Massinger, though I think that we should not go far wrong in supposing that he had in mind some narrative, either popular or literary, nearly approaching the compound type treated in chapter vi. below. As one of the comparatively few traces that the motive has left in England this double dramatic use is not without interest. 3

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Footnotes

27:1 Miss Petersen's conclusion, Sources of the Nonne Prestes Tale, p. 109, note, is not altogether convincing, since the vogue of Valerius Maximus was so great that other authors than Holkot are likely to have quoted Cicero's stories from him. The book may yet be found in which the one follows the other "right in the nexte chapitre."

27:2 Given by Hippe, pp. 143 f. Wherever Hippe's summaries are adequate and careful, I shall refer the reader to his monograph for comparison.

28:1 This story has nothing in common with the mediaeval tale of the compact between two friends that the first to die shall appear to the other. See the writer's North-English Homily Collection, 1902, pp. 27-31.

28:2 Apparently beneficent spirits, whose nature is half fairy and half angel. See Servian V. below.

28:3 See chapter viii. and Sepp, pp. 678-680 for illustrations of the belief.

29:1 One can conceive of separate generation of a very simple story under similar conditions, but not, I think, that a series of events showing combination of themes or detailed correspondence would so arise.

31:1 Carnoy and Nicolaides, Traditions populaires de l’Asie Mineure, 1889, pp. 57-74.

32:1 See Baring-Gould's Curious Myths, 2nd ed. 1869, pp. 561 ff. for a popular account. The philosophical basis of the tale is discussed by Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, 1879, pp. 54 ff. (from Germania, xiii. 161 ff.), and by Hartland, Science of Fairy Tales, 1891, pp. 255-332, 337-347.

32:2 See Hippe, p. 148.

32:3 Or. und Occ. ii. 176.

32:4 Kinder- and Hausmärchen, no. 28. See notes (ed. 1856), iii. 55, 56; also Köhler, Kleinere Schriften, 1. 49, 54.

34:1 See Hippe, p. 155. This analysis includes only the second of two well-defined parts. The first section is related to the English Sir Degarre (ed. from Auchinleck MS. for the Abbotsford Club, 1849; from Percy Folio, Hales and Furnivall, Percy Folio MS., 1868, iii. 16-48; early prints by Wynkyn de Worde, Copland, and John King; see G. Ellis, Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances, 1811, iii. 458 ff., J. Ashton, Romances of Chivalry, 1887, pp. 103 ff., Paul's Grundriss, ii. i. 643). This connection was pointed out by Foerster, p. xxiii. The same material was used also in a Dutch chapbook, Jan wt den vergiere, of which a copy printed at Amsterdam is preserved at Göttingen. See the article "Niederländische Volksbücher," by Karl Meyer, in Sammlung bibliothekswissenschaftlicher Arbeiten, ed. Dziatzko, viii. 17-22, 1895. I am indebted for this last reference to the kindness of Dr. G. L. Hamilton.

35:1 See Hippe, pp. 152 f.

35:2 See Hippe, pp. 158 f.

36:1 This trait recalls the first of Chaucer's two stories in the Nun's Priest's Tale, Cant. Tales, B. 4174-4252, where the comrade is found buried with dung on a cart.

37:1 For a fuller analysis see Hippe, pp. 160-164.

37:2 In Richars, Lion de Bourges, Dianese, and Sir Amadas he pays his all, even to his equipment for war, the most logical and, on the whole, probably the earlier form of the story.

37:3 In all except Old Swedish and Sir Amadas the man was a knight; in these he was a merchant, the husband of the woman at whose house the hero lodges.

38:1 "V le femme u l’auoir ares," v. 5316.

38:2 Though in Lion de Bourges he excepts the lady specifically. 'See Über Lion de Bourges, particularly pp. 46-54.

39:1 See chapter vii.

40:1 The Trentall of St. Gregory. The Old French text has been edited by P. Meyer, Romania, xv. 281-283. The English versions, of which the first seems to be taken from this, are found in the following MSS.: (A) Vernon MS. fol. 230, ed. Horstmann, Engl. Stud. viii. 275.277, and The Minor Poems of the Vernon MS. i., E.E.T.S. 98, 1892, pp. 260-268; Vernon MS. fol. 303, variants given in Horstmann's ed. for E.E.T.S.; MS. Cotton Caligula A II., ed. Furnivall, Political, Religious, and Love Poems, E.E.T.S. 15, 1866, pp. 83-92, reprinted by Horstmann, E.E.T.S. pp. 260-268; MS. Lambeth 306, variants given by Furnivall; a critical text with variants of the four was made by A. Kaufmann, Trentalle Sancti Gregorii, Erlanger Beiträge, iii. 29-44, 1889. (B) MS. 19, 3, 1, Advocates’ Libr., Edinburgh, ed. Turnbull, The Visions of Tundale, 1843, pp. 77 ff., and Bülbring, Anglia, xiii. 301-308; MS. Kk. I, 6, Camb. Univ. Libr., ed. Kaufmann, pp. 44-49. Kaufmann in his introduction discusses the relations of the versions. See further Varnhagen, Anglia, xiii. 505 f. Another legend of Gregory in popular fiction is treated by Bruce in his edition of De Ortu Waluuanii, Publications Mod. Lang. Ass. xiii. 372-377. The story in the Gesta Romanorum to which Luzel, i. 83, note, refers is this rather than our tale.

40:2 i. 83 and 90, notes.

41:1 Or. und Occ. iii. 99 f.

42:1 See Das Märchen vom gestiefelten Kater, Leipzig, 1843; Benfey, Pantschatantra, i. 222; Grimm, Kinder- and Hausmärchen, iii. 288; Liebrecht, Dunlop's Geschichte der Prosadichtungen, 1851, p. 286; Polívka, Arch. f. slav. Phil. xix. 248; etc.

42:2 Chapter vi.

43:1 An unnecessarily nauseating reason is given by one of them (Act i. sc. i.), but this seems to be of Massinger's invention.

43:2 P.8.

43:3 It is interesting also to note that a Viennese dramatist of our own day has adapted Massinger's drama, retaining a vague reminiscence of the thankful dead. The curious may see Der Graf von Charolais by Richard Beer-Hofmann, 1905.