CHAPTER III.

"The moon is up; by Heaven, a lovely eve! Long streams of light o'er dancing waves expand."rnrnrnThe Norwegian explorer, Dr. Nansen, in his address to the RoyalrnGeographical Society on February 9th, 1897, stated:--rnrn"The long Arctic day was beautiful in itself, though one soon got tiredrnof it. But when that day vanished and the long Polar night began, thenrnbegan the kingdom of beauty, then they had the moon sailing through thernpeculiar silence of night and day. The light of the moon shining whenrnall was marble had a most singular effect."[B]rnrnWriters on Comparative Religions for the most part assert that moonrnworship amongst the almost utterly savage tribes in Africa and America,rnthe hunting, nomad races of to-day, is a noteworthy feature. "It is notrnthe sun that first attracted the attention of the savage."[C] "In orderrnof birth the worship of the night sky, inclusive of that of the moon,rnprecedes that of the day sky and the sun. It was observed long ago thatrnwherever sun worship existed moon worship was to be found, being arnresiduum of an earlier state of religion."[D]rnrnWhat the early primal melody of thousands of years ago may have been onerncan hardly suggest, but that the subject-matter of the song was mythicalrnthere can be very little doubt, and, like folk-lore tales, built uponrnand around nature worship; for as the capacity for creating languagerndoes not exhaust all its force at once, but still continues to form newrnmodes of speech whenever an alteration of circumstances demands them, sornit is with myths. The moon during a long Polar night reigning in arnkingdom of crystalline beauty, when all around is silence and grandeur,rnwould suggest to the dweller on the fringe of the ice fields--his deity.rnThe sun, in like manner shedding forth its genial warmth, thernagriculturist would learn to welcome, and to ascribe to its power thernincrease of his crop, and just as the limitation of reason holds thernuntutored man in bondage, so the myth, the outcome of his ignorance,rnbecomes his god.rnrnEven though social advancement has made rapid strides amongrncomparatively modern peoples and nations, not only traces ofrnmythological, but entire religious observances, reclothed in Christianrncostumes, are still kept up. Praying to an apple tree to yield anrnabundant crop was the habit of the Bohemian peasant, until Christianrnteaching influenced him for the better; yet such a hold had therntradition of his ancestors over him that the custom still survives, andrnyearly on Good Friday before sunrise he enters his garden, and there onrnhis knees says--rnrn "I pray, O green tree, that God may make thee good."rnrnThe old form ran thus--rnrn "I pray thee, O green tree, that thou yield abundantly."rnrnIn some districts the lash of the Bohemian peasant's whip is wellrnapplied to the bark of the tree, reminding one of the terse verse--rnrn "A woman, a spaniel, and walnut tree, The more you beat them the better they be."rnrnThere is also something akin, in this Bohemian's former sentiment, tornthe wish our nursery children make while eating apples. Coming to therncores they take out the pippins and throw them over the left shoulder,rnexclaiming--rnrn "Pippin, pippin, fly away; Bring me an apple another day."rnrnSurely a tree hidden within its fruit.rnrnIn the German fairy tale of Ashputtel, also known as the goldenrnslipper--a similar legend is extant amongst the Welsh people--and fromrnwhich our modern tale of Cinderella and her glass slipper came, a treernfigured as the mysterious power. After suffering many disappointmentsrnAshputtel, so the legend relates, goes to a hazel tree and complainsrnthat she has no clothes in which to go to the great feast of the king.rnrn "Shake, shake, hazel tree, Gold and silver over me,"rnrnshe exclaims, and her friends the birds weave garments for her while therntree makes her resplendent with jewels of gold and silver.rnrn"Children's sport, popular sayings, absurd customs, may be practicallyrnunimportant, but they are not philosophically insignificant, bearing asrnthey do on primitive culture."[E] Trans-Alpine Europe was a greaterrnmystery to the nations on the littoral of the Mediterranean at the timernof Christ's appearance in Syria than any spot in Central Africa is to usrnto-day.rnrnAcross the Northern mountain chains were regions unaffected by Greek orrnRoman culture, and the only light shed on the memorials of NorthernrnEurope's early youth comes from the contributory and dimly illuminativernrays of folk-lore.rnrnrnTHE BABY'S RATTLErnrnat this juncture is worth according a passing notice, though degeneratedrninto the bauble it now is.rnrnAmong the Siberian, Brazilian, and Redskin tribes it was held as arnsacred and mysterious weapon. This sceptre of power of the modernrnnursery--the token primitive man used, and on which the Congo negrorntakes his oath--has lost its significance.rnrnThe Red Indian of North America had his Rattle man, who, as physician,rnused it as a universal prescription in the cure of all disease,rnbelieving, no doubt, that its jargon would allay pain, in like manner asrnit attracts and soothes a cross child; and this modern type of primitivernman, the Red Indian, although fast dying out, has no obscured visions ofrnthe records of childhood; they have remained since his _anno mundi_ ranrnback to zero. To him the great sources of religious and moral suasionrnwhich gave birth to mediæval and modern Europe, and so largelyrncontributed to the polity of Asia and the upraising of Africa, have beenrna dead letter, which spell his extinction. He lived up to his racialrntraditions, and is fast dying with them. His language, his arts, hisrnreligious rites are of an unfamiliar past.rnrnLeaving the Red Indian moon worshipper with his death rattle awhile andrnharking back to Europe, Norway stands out as the richest country inrnlegendary lore, for old-time superstitions have lingered among thernsimple and credulous people, living pent up on the horrid crags, whererntorrents leap from cliff to valley. Their tales of goblins and spirits,rntales of trolls, gnomes, and a legendary host of other uncannyrncreatures, point to the former nature and ancestral worship of a peoplerncut off from the advancing civilisation of their time. Luckily for thernarchæologist, superstitious beliefs and folk-lore tales have preservedrnthe graves of the Stone Age inhabitants of the country from desecration.rnAs in Norway so in the Isle of Man, and in the western districts ofrnIreland.rnrnIn Man until the fifties many of the inhabitants believed in the Spiritrnof the Mountains; indeed, even in County Donegal and the West Riding ofrnYorkshire, up to the last twenty years, fairy superstition was rife.rnBoyd Dawkins gives in his chapter, "Superstition of the Stone Age: EarlyrnMan in Britain," an account of an Isle of Man farmer who, having allowedrninvestigation to be made in the interests of science on portions of hisrnlands, becoming so awed at the thought of having sanctioned therndisturbing of the dead, that he actually offered up a heifer as a burntrnsacrifice to avert the wrath of the Manes. After lunar and solarrnworships this ancestral worship of the Isle of Man farmer ranks next inrnpoint of age, a survival of which is seen in the respect paid by countryrnpeople to the fairies, the goblins, and the elves. Equally so has thernspirit of former beliefs been handed down to us in the song of thernnurse, and in the practices of rural people.rnrnA modernised lullaby of a Polish mother bears traces in the last stanzarnof a quasi-native worship--rnrn "Shine, stars, God's sentinels on high, Proclaimers of His power and might, May all things evil from us fly; O stars, good-night, good-night!"rnrnOther instances of nature worshippers are amusing as well as beingrninstructive. The Ojebway Indians believe in the mortality of the sun,rnfor when an eclipse takes place the whole tribe, in the hope ofrnrekindling the obscured light, keep up a continual discharge ofrnfire-tipped arrows from their bows until they perceive again his majestyrnof light. Amongst the New Caledonians the wizard, if the season continuernto be wet and cloudy, ascends the highest accessible peak on arnmountain-range and fires a peculiar sacrifice, invoking his ancestors,rnand exclaiming--rnrn "Sun, this I do that you may be burning hot, And eat up all the black clouds of the sky,"rnrnreminding one of the puerile cry of the weather-bound nursery child--rnrn "Rain, rain, go away, Come again another day."rnrnWind-making among primitive people was universally adopted; even at arnlate period the cultured Greeks and Romans believed in a mythical windrngod.rnrnIt was the custom of the wind clan of the Omahas to flap their overallsrnto start a breeze, while a sorcerer of New Britain desirous of appeasingrnthe wind god throws burnt lime into the air, and towards the point ofrnthe compass he wishes to make a prosperous journey, chanting meanwhile arnsong. Finnish wizards made a pretence of selling wind to land-boundrnsailors. A Norwegian witch once boasted of sinking a vessel by opening arnwind-bag she possessed. Homer speaks of Ulysses receiving the winds as arnpresent from Æolus, the King of Winds, in a leather bag.rnrnIn the highlands of Ethiopia no storm-driven wind ever sweeps downrnwithout being stabbed at by a native to wound the evil spirit riding onrnthe blast. In some parts of Austria a heavy gale is propitiated by thernact and speech of a peasant who, as the demon wings his flight in thernraging storm, opens the window and casts a handful of meal or chaff tornthe enraged sprite as a peace offering, at the same time shouting--rnrn "There, that's for you; stop, stop!"rnrnA pretty romance is known in Bulgarian folk-lore. The wife of a peasantrnwho had been mysteriously enticed away by the fairies was appealed to byrnher husband's mother to return.rnrn "Who is to feed the babe, and rock its cradle?"rnrnsang the grandmother, and the wind wafted back the reply--rnrn "If it cry for food, I will feed it with copious dews; If it wish to sleep, I will rock its cradle with a gentle breeze."rnrnHow devoid of all sentiment our Englished version of the same talernreads.rnrn "Hush-a-bye, baby, on a tree top, When the wind blows the cradle will rock, When the bough breaks the cradle will fall, Down comes the baby and cradle and all."rnrnNo wonder this purposeless lullaby is satirised in the orthodox librettornof Punch's Opera or the Dominion of Fancy, for Punch, having sung it,rnthrows the child out of the window.rnrnThe poetic instinct of the German mother is rich in expression, herrnvoice soothing and magnetic as she sways her babe to and fro to thernmelody of--rnrn "Sleep, baby, sleep! Thy father tends the sheep, Thy mother shakes the branches small, Whence happy dreams in showers fall. Sleep, baby, sleep!rnrn "Sleep, baby, sleep! The sky is full of sheep, The stars the lambs of heaven are, For whom the shepherd moon doth care. Sleep, baby, sleep!"[F]rnrnThe lullaby of the Black Guitar, told by the Grimm brothers in theirrnGerman fairy tales, gives us the same thought.rnrn "Thou art sleeping, my son, and at ease, Lulled by the whisperings of the trees."rnrnAnother German nurse song of a playful yet commanding tone translates--rnrn "Baby, go to sleep! Mother has two little sheep, One is black and one is white; If you do not sleep to-night, First the black and then the whitern Shall give your little toe a bite."rnrnA North Holland version has degenerated into the flabby Dutch of--rnrn "Sleep, baby, sleep! Outside there stands a sheeprn With four white feet, That drinks its milk so sweet. Sleep, baby, sleep!"rnrnThe old English cradle rhyme, evidently written to comfort fathers morernthan babies, is given by way of contrast, and, as is usual with our ownrncountrymen, the versification is thoroughly British, slurred over andrnslovenly--rnrn "Hush thee, my babby, Lie still with thy daddy, Thy mammy has gone to the millrn To grind thee some wheatrn To make thee some meat, Oh, my dear babby, do lie still!"rnrnThe Danish lullaby ofrnrn "Sweetly sleep, my little child, Lie quiet and still. The bird nests in the wood, The flower rests in the meadow grass; Sweetly sleep, my little child."rnrnThis last recalls the esteem our Teuton ancestors had for their scalds,rnor polishers of language, when poetry and music were linked together byrnthe voice and harp of minstrelsy, and when the divine right to fill thernoffice of bard meant the divine faculty to invent a few heroic stanzasrnto meet a dramatic occasion.rnrnOne more well-known British lullaby--rnrn "Bye, baby bunting, Daddy's gone a-huntingrn To get a little _hare skin_rn To wrap the baby bunting in."rnrnThe more modern version gives "_rabbit skin_."rnrnrnFOOTNOTES:rnrn[B] _Times'_ report, February 10th, 1897.rnrn[C] F. SPIEGEL.rnrn[D] WELCKER, _Griechische Götterlehre_, i. 551.rnrn[E] TYLOR.rnrn[F] Wagner introduced the music to which it is sung in his _Siegfried_rnidyll.