As to the way and style of the Fairy operations that carry out this
drift, comparing the Two Tales, you will see, that omitting, as a
matter that is related merely, not presented, that misadventure under
the oak-tree--there is, in the chamber of Swanhilda, but a Fairy
delegation active, whilst under the Sun's hill whole Elfdom is in
presence; in that resplendent hollow, wearing their own lovely
shapes; within the German castle-walls, in apt masquerade. There they
were grave. Here, we have already said, that they are merry. There
their office was to feel and to think. Here, if there be any trust in
apparitions, they drink, and what is more critical for an Elfin
lip--they eat!
Lastly, to end the comparisons for our well-bred, well-dressed, and
right courtly cavalier, who transacted between the Fairy Queen and
the stonemason's daughter, him you shall presently see turned into a
sort of Elfin cupbearer or court butler; not without fairy grace of
person and of mind assuredly; not without a due innate sense of the
beautiful, as his perfumed name (SWEETFLOWER) at the outset warns
you; and, as the proximity of his function to her Majesty's
person--for we do not here fall in with any thing like mention of a
king--would suggest, independently of the delicately responsible part
borne by him in the action, the chief stress of which you will find
incumbent upon his capable shoulders.
Such, in respect of the subject, is, thrice courteous and intelligent
reader, the second piece of art, which we are glad to have the
opportunity of placing before you, from our clever friend Ernst
Willkomm's apparently right fertile easel. The second, answering to
the first, LIKE and UNLIKE, you perceive, as two companion pictures
should be.
But it would be worse than useless to tell you that which you have
seen and that which you will see, unless, from the juxtaposition of
the two fables, there followed--a moral. They have, as we apprehend,
a moral--_i.e._ one moral, and that a grave one, in common between
them.
Hitherto we have superficially compared THE FAIRIES' SABBATH and the
FAIRY TUTOR. We now wish to develope a profounder analogy connecting
them. We have compared them, as if ESTHETICALLY; we would now compare
them MYTHOLOGICALLY--for, in our understanding, there lies at the
very foundation of both tales A MYTHOLOGICAL ROOT--by whomsoever set,
whether by Ernst Willkomm to-day, or by the population of the
Lusatian mountains--three, six, ten centuries ago; or, in unreckoned
antiquity, by the common Ancestors of the believers, who, in still
unmeasured antiquity, brought the superstition of the Fairies out of
central Asia to remote occidental Europe.
This ROOT we are bold to think is--"A DEEPLY SEATED ATTRACTION,
ALLYING THE FAIRY MIND TO THE PURITY AND INTEGRITY OF THE MORAL WILL
IN THE MIND OF MEN." And first for the Tale which presently concerns
us:--THE FAIRY TUTOR.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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