Page:Beside the Fire - Douglas Hyde.djvu/60

lvi. In what I have termed the tragic stories, this fatalism puts on a moral form, and gives rise to the conception of Nemesis.

Thirdly, on the mental side, animism is prevalent, i.e., the acceptance of a life common to, not alone man and animals, but all manifestations of force. In so far as a distinction is made between the life of man and that of nature at large, it is in favour of the latter, to which more potent energy is ascribed.

Just as stories of the first class are less characterised by adherence to formula, so stories of the humorous group are less characterised by fatalism and animism. This is inevitable, as such stories are, as a rule, concerned solely with the relations of man to his fellows.

The most fascinating and perplexing problems are those connected with the groups I have termed optimistic and tragic. To the former belong the almost entirety of such nursery tales as are not humorous in character.

"They were married and lived happily ever afterwards;" such is the almost invariable end formula. The hero wins the princess, and the villain is punished.

This feature the nursery tale shares with the god-saga; Zeus confounds the Titans, Apollo slays the Python, Lug overcomes Balor, Indra vanquishes Vritra. There are two apparent exceptions to this rule. The Teutonic god myth is tragic; the Anses are ever under the shadow of the final conflict. This has been explained by the influence of Christian ideas; but although this influence must be unreservedly admitted in certain details of the passing of the gods, yet the fact that the Iranian god-saga is likewise undecided, instead of having a frankly optimistic ending, makes me doubt whether the drawn battle between the powers of good and ill be not a genuine and necessary part of the Teutonic mythology. As is well known, Rydberg has established some striking points of contact between the mythic ideas of Scandinavia and those of Iran.

In striking contradiction to this moral, optimistic tendency are the great heroic sagas. One and all well-nigh are profoundly tragic. The doom of Troy the great, the passing of Arthur, the slaughter of the Nibelungs, the death of Sohrab at his father's hands, Roncevalles, Gabhra, the fratricidal conflict of Cuchullain and Ferdiad, the woes of the house of Atreus; such are but a few examples of the prevailing tone of the hero-tales. Achilles and Siegfried and Cuchullain are slain in the flower of their youth and prowess. Of them, at least, the saying is true, that whom the gods love die young. Why is it not equally true of the prince hero of the fairy tale? Is it that the hero-tale associated in the minds of hearers and reciters with men who had actually lived and fought, brought down to earth, so to say, out of the mysterious wonderland in which god and fairy and old time kings have their being, becomes