Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/48

40 be attributed to a heedless and unlegal-minded minstrel. Be the origin of this feature what it may, it certainly adds to the archaic air which the lai, as a whole, wears.

Turning to the German folk-tale, we note that according to Grimm (iii, 87) the form of the heroine's name is Low-German, and is retained even in High-German versions. This would indicate, if anything, a spread from north to south. The tale opens with the red-white-black incident, which, as I have abundantly shown (MacInnes, pp. 431 and 435), is met with in Irish sagas earlier than elsewhere in modern Europe, and has from the 11th century downwards been a prominent commonplace of Celtic story-telling. If it is denied, as some deny, that such an incident may originate independently in different lands, and if it is denied, as many deny, that it is impossible for such an incident to be a portion of the proethnic Aryan story-stock, then I maintain that those who thus deny are bound to look for the origin of the incident there where it occurs earliest and most frequently. And that is in the Gaelic-speaking districts of these islands. Again, it should be noted that in several of Grimm's variants the rhyme of the jealous queen runs thus:

I do not lay much stress upon this, as from the fourth century onwards, England, thanks to its geographical position and to a natural bit of popular etymology, represented the Otherworld to the continental German races. In one case (Musäus' version) the rhyme-word is "Braband". Lay as little weight upon these indications as one likes—and in my opinion they do not carry much weight—still they serve to localise the German versions in the Low-German-speaking lands, the connection of which with these islands was always close.

In comparing the German and Gaelic tales there is one incident which cannot, I think, but strike every unprejudiced