But their very familiarity and colloquialism make them remarkably effective with English-speaking little ones. The rhythmical phrases stick in their memories; they can remember the exact phraseology of the English tales much better, I find, than that of the Grimms’ tales, or even of the Celtic stories. They certainly have the quality of coming home to English children. Perhaps this may be partly due to the fact that a larger proportion of the tales are of native manufacture. If the researches contained in my Notes are to be trusted only i.-ix., xi., xvii., xxii., xxv., xxvi., xxvii., xliv., l., liv., lv., lviii., lxi., lxii., lxv., lxvii., lxxviii., lxxxiv., lxxxvii. were imported; nearly all the remaining sixty are home produce, and have their roots in the hearts of the English people which naturally respond to them.
In the following Notes, I have continued my practice of giving (1) Source where I obtained the various tales. (2) Parallels, so far as possible, in full for the British Isles, with bibliographical references when they can be found; for occurrences abroad I generally refer to the list of incidents contained in my paper read before the International Folk-Lore Congress of 1891 and republished in the Transactions, 1892, pp. 87-98. (3) Remarks where the tale seems to need them. I have mainly been on the search for signs of diffusion rather than of “survivals” of antiquarian interest, though I trust it will be found I have not neglected these.
XLIV. THE PIED PIPER
Source.—Abraham Elder, Tales and Legends of the Isle of Wight (London, 1839), pp. 157-164. Mr. Nutt, who has abridged and partly rewritten the story from a copy of Elder’s book in his possession, has introduced a couple of touches from Browning.
Parallels.—The well-known story of the Pied Piper of Hameln (Hamelin), immortalised by Browning, will at once recur to every reader’s mind. Before Browning, it had been told in English in books as well known as Verstegan’s Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, 1605; Howell’s Familiar Letters (see my edition, p. 357, n.); and Wanley’s Wonders of the Little World. Browning is said to have taken it from the last source (Furnivall, Browning Bibliography, 158), though there are touches which seem to me to come from Howell (see my note ad loc.), while it is not impossible he may have come across Elder’s book, which was illustrated by Cruikshank. The Grimms give the legend in their Deutsche Sagen (ed. 1816, 330-33), and in its native land it has given rise to an elaborate poem à la Scheffel by Julius Wolff, which has in its turn been the occasion of an opera by Victor Nessler. Mrs. Gutch, in an interesting study of the myth in Folk-Lore iii., pp. 227-52, quotes a poem, The Sea Piece, published by Dr. Kirkpatrick in 1750, as showing that a similar legend was told of the Cave Hill, Belfast.
Remarks.—Mr. Baring-Gould, in his Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, has explained the Pied Piper as a wind myth. Mrs. Gutch is inclined to think there may be a substratum of fact at the root of the legend, basing her conclusions on a pamphlet of Dr. Meinardus, Der historische Kern, which I have not seen. She does not, however, give any well-authenticated historical event at Hameln in the thirteenth century which could have plausibly given rise to the legend, nor can I find any in the Urkundenbuch of Hameln (Luneberg, 1883). The chief question of interest attaching to the English form of the legend as given in 1839 by Elder, is whether it is independent of the German myth. It does not occur in any of the local histories of the Isle of Wight which I have been able to consult of a date previous to Elder’s book—e.g., J. Hassel, Tour of the Isle of Wight, 1790. Mr. Shore, in his History of Hampshire, 1891, p. 185, refers to the legend, but evidently bases his reference on Elder, and so with all the modern references I have seen. Now Elder himself quotes Verstegan in his comments on the legend, pp. 168-9 and note, and it is impossible to avoid conjecturing that he adapted Verstegan to the locality. Newtown, when Hassel visited it in 1790, had only six or seven houses (l.c., i., 137-8), though it had the privilege of returning two members to Parliament; it had been a populous town by the name of Franchville before the French invasion of the island of temp. Ric. II. It is just possible that there may have been a local legend to account for the depopulation by an exodus of the children. But the expression “pied piper” which Elder used clearly came from Verstegan, and until evidence is shown to the contrary the whole of the legend was adapted from him. It is not without significance that Elder was writing in the days of the Ingoldsby Legends, and had possibly no more foundation for the localisation of his stories than Barham.
There still remains the curious parallel from Belfast to which Mrs. Gutch has drawn attention. Magic pipers are not unknown to English folk-lore, as in the Percy ballad of The Frere and the Boy, or in the nursery rhyme of Tom the Piper’s son in its more extended form. But beguiling into a mountain is not known elsewhere except at Hameln, which was made widely known in England by Verstegan’s and Howell’s accounts, so that the Belfast variant is also probably to be traced to the Rattenfänger. Here again, as in the case of Beddgellert (Celtic Fairy Tales, No. xxi.), the Blinded Giant and the Pedlar of Swaffham (infra, Nos. lxi., lxiii.), we have an imported legend adapted to local conditions.
XLV. HEREAFTERTHIS
Source.—Sent me anonymously soon after the appearance of English Fairy Tales. From a gloss in the MS. “vitty” = Devonian for “decent,” I conclude the tale is current in Devon. I should be obliged if the sender would communicate with me.