The ballad of Alison Gross1 ought also to be mentioned in this connection. Though the theme of this ballad does not recall, so definitely as that of Willie's Ladye, similar stories current in different countries, yet the germ of it is contained in the fancy, which we meet under different forms in all literatures, of supernatural beings seeking and winning the love of mortals. Here, indeed, it is not the more common story of a male of higher race coming down to one of the daughters of men; but the legend is one which would not startle a Greek familiar with the mythical amours of Aphrodite. The ballad is a monologue, the speaker of which is wooed by one who, in the outline of her features and in her manner of action, resembles one of the Valkyrs of the old mythology more than the vulgar witch of later times. "O Alison Gross, that lives in yon tower, The ugliest witch in the North Countrie, "She straiked my head, and she kembed my hair, Sae mony braw things as I would you gie.' 1 Obtained by Jamieson from the recitation of Mrs. Brown of Falkland. (See his "Popular Ballads and Songs," vol. ii. p. 187.) Willie's Laaye was taken by Scott from Mrs. Brown's MS. To the excellent memory of this lady we owe apparently the preservation of much popular poetry. (See Jamieson's Advertisement prefixed to his collection.) It would be unfair, however, to Mr. Chambers not to acknowledge that there is a certain mystery about Mrs. Brown's memory and MS., which is not easily explained. (See Chambers' "Popular Rhymes of Scotland," Note prefixed to edit. 1870.) But, whether it was owing to an eery shudder at her uncanny nature, or to her want of personal attractions, the fair speeches and caresses of Alison Gross failed to produce any impression, even though strengthened by successive offers of "mony braw things." Still the language in which her solicitations were repelled, was certainly unwise when addressed to one whose malice it was so undesirable to provoke. “Awa, awa, ye ugly witch, Haud far awa, and lat me be; For a' the gifts that ye could gie." Stimulated by these words to the exercise of her supernatural powers, 'She's turned her richt and round about, And thrice she blew on a grass-green horn; And she sware by the moon and the stars aboon, That she'd gar me rue the day I was born. "Then out she has ta'en a silver wand, And she's turned her three times round and round; She's muttered sic words, that my strength it failed, And I fell down senseless on the ground. "She's turned me into an ugly worm,1 And gar'd me toddle about the tree." It chanced, however, that the night was near, on which all the supernatural beings of the old heathendom were believed to ride forth for festive celebrations,2 and which 1 Worm is here used, in its old general sense, for a reptile. 2 "The night it is good Hallowe'en, When fairy folk will ride." The Young Tamlane. 13 the Church has therefore constituted into the Feast of All the Saints. On this auspicious night the Queen of the "Seely Court" fortunately lighted down not far from the tree where the victim of the witch's revenge had been doomed to toddle. "She took me up in her milkwhite hand, ^ And she straiked me three times o'er her knee; She changed me again to my ain proper shape, And I nae mair maun toddle about the tree." It is thus seen that in both of these ballads, while the witchcraft on which they are founded has not yet contracted its later vulgar characteristics, the horror of the story is mitigated, and thus rendered more poetical, in consequence of the witch's spell being broken by one of those more beneficent creatures of the fancy, who will be described presently as occupying a more pleasing niche in the Pantheon of the Teutons. In no other Scottish ballads that I remember does witchcraft obtrude itself into notice as guiding the course of the story; and the subject may, therefore, be dismissed with 1 Seely is identical with the Old English sely, modern silly, which originally, like the German selig, expressed the idea of blessed or happy. It seems that, of all the designations by which the fairies were known, that of the seely wichts was the one preferred by themselves. "Gin ye ca' me imp or elf, I rede ye look weel to yourself; I'll work ye muckle tarrie; Gin guid neibour ye ca' me, Then guid neibour I will be; I'll be your freend baith day and nicht." (See Chambers' "Popular Rhymes of Scotland,” p. 324.) the remark, that if, in seeking to find out what influence the ballads and songs of Scotland have exerted, we shall be aided by knowing what they have not done, it may be worth while to observe that they cannot be charged with directly fostering the degrading belief in the vulgar witchcraft of later times. Witchcraft, as we have seen, retained its place among the beliefs of Christendom from its unfortunately finding a point of attachment in a dogma of the Church, with which it was made to harmonize. We now come to a prettier and pleasanter world of imaginary beings, which has retained its hold on the Christian mind mainly from there being no doctrine of Christianity with which it came into manifest conflict. The Elves, Fairies, Brownies, Mermaids, Kelpies, and that whole class of variously designated creations, could all live in the Christian mind outside the world of peculiarly Christian thought; and they have continued to hold their ground in popular belief for a much longer time and in a less altered form than any other fiction of ancient mythologies. For the deities of a more civilized heathendom suffered the same fate as the fetich of the savage: the heathen, unable to think, like the Hebrew Paul,1 of an idol as nothing, was content, after his conversion, to admit the existence of his old gods, but degraded them from the Pantheon to the Pandemonium. Thus Thor and his fellows of the Northern Asgard were sent packing to the same dismal limbo, to which the Fathers of the Church, with Milton2 after them, had banished the gods of Olympus and the East. In like manner the 1 See I Cor. viii. 4. 2 "Paradise Lost," Book I. beings of the elfin world could not be ousted from the thought of the Teuton by the new religion; but though the anathemas of ecclesiastical authority would have consigned them heartily to the doom of their superiors, the only change in their position consisted in their being clothed with some less pleasing attributes than they seem to have originally possessed. The primitive elf, as the apparent connection of the name with the root of albus1 seems to imply, is essentially a being of light; and though the Edda, elder as well as younger,2 distinguishes from the elves of light another species as elves of darkness, yet these seem to be named rather from their dwelling underground than from any malevolence of disposition. The beings of the elfin world, therefore, continued, even in Christian times, to be regarded as, if not positively benevolent, often extremely useful, and generally harmless; while the harm at times attributed to them arose either from the freakishness of a nature without moral characteristics, or from the connection into which the Church sought to bring them with the ecclesiastical world of devils. The fairy of the nursery tale, in any "dignus vindice nodus," is often called in to counteract the harmful doings of the witch; and in the two ballads cited above, the witch's charm is detected and broken,-in the one, by the good genius Billy Blind; in the other, by the Queen of the Fairies herself. It would seem, therefore, that the earth of Teutonic 1 See Grimm's "Deutsches Wörterbuch," under the word Alb. 2 See, in the former, the fifth song of the gods, Hrafnagaldr Odhins, and, in the latter, Gylfaginning, 17. Compare Simrock's "Deutsche Mythologie," § 124. |