Had I this dungeon heap'd with gold, I freely would it give, All for a little loaf of bread, That I might eat and live. 'Though it were mouldy, black, or brown, Or trodden in the mire, It would be pleasing to my taste, He many friends and daughters had, Yet none durst come to succour him, The youngest to her sisters went, 'Alas!' his wealthy daughters said, good That he should die as we.' His youngest daughter's heart did ache, 'Shall we our father dear forsake Although he spurn'd me from his door, my blood Unto the palace then she hies, With wringing hands and bitter cries, Is judg'd unto a pining death,* 'Which I confess he has deserved- It chanced so I match'd myself 'And seeing now the time is come That when he dies, I may not then The monarch granted her request, Thus by her milk he was preserv'd * Pining death, a death by starvation. And much admiring at the same, Did love her as his life; And blest the day that she was made This ballad is framed upon the story of Anthony Molina, but it bears strong traces of having been moulded in the household laboratory. The three daughters and the old man, the two eldest married well, the youngest mated to a poor man, and therefore rejected by the father, the father falling into want, and the proud daughters refusing help, whilst the youngest, whose love he had despised, proving alone true, is the root of popular tales throughout the Aryan race. We have the Keltic tale preserved by Geoffrey of Monmouth, in the history of King Lear and his daughters; the German version is to be found in Von der Hagen, 'Gesammtabenteuer,' ii. 59 and 63; and the ancient Sanscrit tale is in the Pantschatantra, iii. 10, part of which runs as follows: In a certain town lived a king called Bali, who had two marriageable daughters. These came day by day at sunrise to their father and greeted him. The eldest said, 'Mayest thou be ever victorious, O great king, through whose favour all men rejoice!' but the younger only said, 'Mayest thou, O king, enjoy what is ordained to thee!' The king, exasperated at this, exclaimed, 'Hey, my minister! Give this woman, who speaks thus rudely, to wife to the first stranger at the door, that she may enjoy what is ordained to her.' She was then given to a miserable beggar who turned out to be a king's son, and who in the end was able to do him a great favour. 16. THE MASTER AND HIS PUPIL. There was once a very learned man in the north-country who knew all the languages under the sun, and who was acquainted with all the mysteries of creation. He had one big book bound in black calf and clasped with iron, and with iron corners, and chained to a table which was made fast to the floor; and when he read out of this book, he unlocked it with an iron key, and none but he read from it, for it contained all the secrets of the spiritual world. It told how many angels there were in heaven, and how they marched in their ranks, and sang in their quires, and what were their several functions, and what was the name of each great angel of might. And it told of the devils of hell, how many of them there were, and what were their several powers, and their labours, and their names, and how they might be summoned, and how tasks might be imposed on them, and how they might be chained to be as slaves to man. Now the master had a pupil who was but a foolish lad, and he acted as servant to the great master, but never was he suffered to look into the black book, hardly to enter the private room. One day the master was out, and then the lad, impelled by curiosity, hurried to the chamber where his master kept his wondrous apparatus for changing copper into gold, and lead into silver, and where was his mirror in which he could see all that was passing in the world, and where was the shell which when held to the ear whispered all the words that were being spoken by anyone the master desired to know about. The lad tried in vain with the crucibles to turn copper and lead into gold and silver-he looked long and vainly into the mirror; smoke and clouds fleeted over it, but he saw nothing plain, and the shell to his ear produced only indistinct mutterings, like the breaking of distant seas on an unknown shore. 'I can do nothing,' he said; as I know not the right words to utter, and they are locked up in yon book.' He looked round, and, see! the book was unfastened; the master had forgotten to lock it before he went out. The boy rushed to it, and unclosed the volume. It was written with red and black ink, and much therein he could not understand; but he put his finger on a line, and spelled it through. At once the room was darkened, and the house trembled; a clap of thunder rolled through the passage of the old mansion, and there stood before the terrified youth a horrible form, breathing fire, and with eyes like burning lamps. It was the Evil One, Beelzebub, whom he had called up to serve him. 'Set me a task!' said a voice, like the roaring of an iron furnace. The boy only trembled, and his hair stood up. 'Set me a task, or I shall strangle thee!' But the lad could not speak. Then the evil spirit stepped towards him, and putting forth his hands touched his throat. fingers burned his flesh. 'Set me a task.' The Water yon flower,' cried the boy in despair, pointing to a geranium which stood in a pot on the floor. Instantly the spirit left the room, but in another instant he returned with a barrel on his back, and poured its contents over the flower; and again and again he went and came, and poured more and more water, till the floor of the room was ankle-deep. 'Enough, enough!' gasped the lad; but the Evil One heeded him not; the lad knew not the words by which to dismiss him, and still he fetched water. It rose to the boy's knees, and still more water was poured. It mounted to his waist, and Beelzebub ceased not bringing barrels full. It rose to his armpits, and he scrambled to the table-top. And now the water stood up to the window and washed against the glass, and swirled around his feet on the table. It still rose; it reached his breast. In vain he cried; the evil spirit would not be dismissed, and to this day he would have been pouring water, and would have drowned all Yorkshire, had not the master remembered on his journey that he had not locked his book, and had therefore returned, and at the moment when the water was bubbling about the pupil's chin, spoken the words which cast Beelzebub back into his fiery home. This a popular tale all over Europe, and has been turned into a ballad by Göthe. It is to be found in various parts of Germany, under a form much resembling that given above. It is connected in all probability with the story of the quern which ground salt in the Norse tales, and ground and ground till it sank the ship, and is grinding still at the bottom of the sea, all because those who had stolen the mill did not know how to stop it. The Norse quern is found spoken of in Snorro's Edda, but I hardly think it to belong properly to Scandinavian mythology, but rather to be an importation from that of the Finns ; for the salt and mealproducing quern is a great feature in the Suomi poems, and the Kalewala relates the story of its being stolen from Pohjola by the heroes of Kalewa. LONDON PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. NEW-STREET SQUARE |