Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/79

 Rh of punishment for mentioning the name are found in Professor Rhys's article on Welsh tales in Cymmrodorion (iv. 2). The most famous example of the tale is the disappearance of the Vedic Urvasi, after she has seen her husband naked. To see him naked was prohibited as "against the custom of women" (Brahmana of Yajur Veda. Max Müller, Selected Essays, i. 408). Now Mr. Müller explains this legend as originally a story of "the chaste Dawn hiding her face when she had seen her husband." But no attention is paid in this interpretation to the actual mention of "the custom of women." We have shewn that customs of this kind are not unusual. The Milesian women for example, had a sacred custom of never using the names of their husbands (Herodotus, i. 147). Obviously usages like these might readily produce tales which enforced the usage by the sanction of a punishment. This explanation of the common class of Household Tales referred to, seems at least as plausible as any theory about the "chaste dawn," and the like (Cox, ii. 402).

8.

This old custom (Borough English) is of the widest diffusion in the world. Compare Elton, Origins of English History, and Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 431. A Zulu example occurs (Callaway, pp. 6465, Notes), and in this example we have a natural explanation of the common incident in Folk Tales, the jealousy of the elder brothers, who betray their successful younger brother (Compare Ralston, Russian Tales, pp. 74-81). It is needless to suppose, with Mr. Ralston, that these tales "came west in Christian times" from a polygamous eastern country. The custom of Jüngsten Recht points to the probable existence of polygamy, with the natural preference for the youngest wife's son, all over Europe long before Christianity.

9..

The idea of the separable soul or strength occurs in the ancient Egyptian Story of Two Brothers, (Maspero. Contes Egyptiens) in the Samoyed tale of men who lay aside their hearts, in the legend of the golden hairs, in which was the strength of Minos, in The Giant with no Heart in his Body, in the tale of Koschkei the Deathless (Ralston), and in numberless other Household Tales. The other idea, that the soul of the dead may enter a bird or a flower, is common in Grimm's Collection. For example, of the savage beliefs on which these incidents of folk-lore are founded, it must suffice to refer to the collections of instances made by Mr. Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 430; i. 309, 438; i. 436, 475; ii. 9, 147, 153, 192, 232. See especially ii. 153, where our explanation of the "separable heart" and life is put forward to interpret the Household tale. Among the Eskimos a soul may be taken out, cleaned, and repaired, or the entrails taken out, a process called angmainek (Rink, Eskimo, p. 60).

The evidence here advanced has been limited by our space, but it is perhaps enough to indicate that most of the wild incidents, common to savage and civilised tales and myths, are based on beliefs us natural to savages, as monstrous in the eyes of civilised races.