Madam How and Lady Why; Or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for ChildrenKingsley, Charles
History
Madam How and Lady Why; Or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children
Kingsley, Charles
Geology -- Juvenile literature; Natural history -- Juvenile literature
But stories of them, and of how they dwelt in caves, and had strange
customs, and used poisoned weapons, and how the elf-bolts (as their flint
arrow-heads are still called) belonged to them, lingered on, and were
told round the fire on winter nights and added to, and played with half
in fun, till a hundred legends sprang up about them, which used once to
be believed by grown-up folk, but which now only amuse children. And
because some of these savages were very short, as the Lapps and Esquimaux
are now, the story grew of their being so small that they could make
themselves invisible; and because others of them were (but probably only
a few) very tall and terrible, the story grew that there were giants in
that old world, like that famous Gogmagog, whom Brutus and his Britons
met (so old fables tell), when they landed first at Plymouth, and fought
him, and threw him over the cliff. Ogres, too--of whom you read in fairy
tales--I am afraid that there were such people once, even here in Europe;
strong and terrible savages, who ate human beings. Of course, the
legends and tales about them became ridiculous and exaggerated as they
passed from mouth to mouth over the Christmas fire, in the days when no
one could read or write. But that the tales began by being true any one
may well believe who knows how many cannibal savages there are in the
world even now. I think that, if ever there was an ogre in the world, he
must have been very like a certain person who lived, or was buried, in a
cave in the Neanderthal, between Elberfeld and Dusseldorf, on the Lower
Rhine. The skull and bones which were found there (and which are very
famous now among scientific men) belonged to a personage whom I should
have been very sorry to meet, and still more to let you meet, in the wild
forest; to a savage of enormous strength of limb (and I suppose of jaw)
likewise
"like an ape,
With forehead villainous low,"
who could have eaten you if he would; and (I fear) also would have eaten
you if he could. Such savages may have lingered (I believe, from the old
ballads and romances, that they did linger) for a long time in lonely
forests and mountain caves, till they were all killed out by warriors who
wore mail-armour and carried steel sword, and battle-axe, and lance.
But had these people any religion?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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