Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/370

342 in 1346 in Germany, too early a date for Balbín's theory. Later evidence came that Berta was not at Neuhaus, and so not the White Lady nor the founder of the feast. This was due to the study of the letters of Bertha.

J. Salaba in his work tried to show the probable origin, development, analysis and historical basis of the tale of the White Lady of the Vítkovec family. His analysis may be accepted in the main. Salaba explains the sad part of the story by carrying the German story into Bohemia after 1600, but there are evidences throwing the Bohemian popular tradition back into the sixteenth century, and this destroys his theory. But it is certain that new foreign elements associated themselves with the Bohemian tradition: this took place not later than the sixteenth century, from South Germany, perhaps direct from Bayreuth. The Rosenbergs had it first, then the Hradec family. In the seventeenth century White Ladies multiplied as a piece of Jesuit machinery.

The Vitkovec White Lady is a non-unitary composite of various elements: history, popular tradition, reflection on history and German tradition filtering down from the nobles to the people. Various mythological explanations vitiated by uncritical treatment of Bohemian history are cited from Grimm (a German goddess, the Bright one, hence white), J. E. Födisch, A. Kuhn, W. Schwartz, Max Müller, L. Laistner. The last abandoned the explanation given in his "Nebelsagen," and took a different view later.

Grimm had hinted that Berchta might be parallel to Befana. J. W. Mannhardt definitely stated that she was a personification of the Epiphany. Still a goddess might more easily than a day in the calendar start such an idea. A. N. Veselovsky has studied Mannhardt's view and called into consideration the story of the "Reine Pédauque," Sybille, the girl with the goose feet. Another view regards this Reine Pedauque as Bertha, the mother of Charlemagne. Among other points she is said to be connected with the care of children, because the Epiphany was originally set apart for celebrating the children slain by Herod {i.e. as Innocents' Day). The later combinations may be admitted as resting on Balbín's error, borrowed from Grimm. The Epiphany explanation was driven out by E. H. Meyer, Mannhardt's own pupil. Various others are given, but need not be quoted here. Th. Stettner has