The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought: Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-DayChamberlain, Alexander Francis
Science
The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought: Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day
Chamberlain, Alexander Francis
Child rearing; Children -- Folklore; Folklore and children
Among the Danish legends of kindred type we find the tales of: The boy
who ran off with the horn out of which an elf-maiden offered him a
drink, and would not return it until she had promised to bestow upon him
the strength of twelve men, with which, unluckily, went also the
appetite of twelve men (258. 144).
_Celtic_.
Among the Welsh tales of the child as hero and adventurer are: The visit
of Elidorus (afterwards a priest), when twelve years old, to the
underground country, where he stole a golden ball, which, however, the
pigmies soon recovered; the youths who were drawn into the fairies' ring
and kept dancing for a year and a day until reduced to a mere skeleton;
the little farmer's son, who was away among the fairies for two years,
though he thought he had been absent but a day; corresponding is the
Breton tale of the girl who acts as godmother to a fairy child, and
remains away for ten long years, though for only two days in her own
mind (258. 135, 136, 168, 170).
Very interesting is the Breton legend of the youth who undertook to take
a letter to God,--_Monsieur le Bon Dieu_,--in Paradise. When he
reaches Paradise, he gives the letter to St. Peter, who proceeds to
deliver it. While he is away, the youth, noticing the spectacles on the
table, tries them on, and is astonished at the wonders he sees, and
still more at the information given him by St. Peter on his return, that
he has been gazing through them five hundred years. Another hundred
years he passes in looking at the seat kept for him in Paradise, and
then receives the answer to the letter, which he is to take to the
parish priest. After distributing in alms the hundred crowns he is paid
for his services, he dies and goes to Paradise to occupy the seat he has
seen. As Mr. Hartland remarks, "the variants of this traditional
Pilgrim's Progress are known from Brittany to Transylvania, and from
Iceland to Sicily" (258. 192).
_Basque_.
A remarkable child-hero tale is the Basque legend of the orphans, Izar
(seven years old) and Lañoa (nine years old), and their adventures with
Satan and the witches,--how Izar cured the Princess and killed the great
toad which was the cause of her complaint, and how Lañoa defied Satan to
his face, meeting death by his action, but gaining heaven (505. 19-41).
_American Indian Child-Heroes_.
In a legend of the Tlingit Indians concerning the visit of Ky'itlac', a
man who had killed himself, to the upper country ruled by Tahit, whither
go such as die a violent death, we read that--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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