Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/41

 Rh Gold-tree is with her husband when the death-in-life trance befalls her, even as Guilliadun is with her affianced husband. She is locked into a chamber as is the Neapolitan damsel; found by her husband's wife as is Basile's heroine by her uncle's wife. But these parallels are slight indeed compared with the remarkable one afforded by the conduct of the two Celtic wives: like Guildeluec, the prince's second wife welcomes her rival; like her, she tells him of the joy that is his; like her, she offers to go away and leave them to their happiness, I confess I am more taken with the frank and unaffected naturalistic paganism of the modern Gaelic tale than with the monkishness of the 12th century lai. The ending is more original, if not more charming. Little objection indeed did the large-hearted husband meet to his offer, and the last we hear of the three is that they were "pleased and peaceful".

In his notes to Gold-tree and Silver-tree, Mr. Jacobs wrote as follows (Celtic Fairy Tales, p. 252):—"It is unlikely, I should say impossible, that this tale, with the incident of the dormant heroine, should have arisen independently in the Highlands, it is most likely an importation from abroad. Yet in it occurs a most 'primitive' incident, the bigamous household of the hero. On the 'survival' method of investigation this would probably be used as evidence for polygamy in the Highlanders. Yet if, as is probable, the story came from abroad, this trait may have come with it, and only implies polygamy in the original home of the tale." When I first read this note I demurred to the supposition of importation within a comparatively recent period, yet I could urge nothing against it. It certainly seemed more likely that the isolated Celtic version should be due to borrowing, than that it should represent the original stock, always provided the hypothesis of independent development from a common mythic germ were set aside as inadequate. It was long since I had read Marie's lays, and no thought of connecting the Celtic folk-tale with Eliduc crossed my mind. But only a few weeks later I read in the Revue des