The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk StoryGerould, Gordon Hall
General
The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk Story
Gerould, Gordon Hall
Dead -- Folklore; Folk literature -- Themes, motives; Grateful dead (Tale)
Twenty-four of the stories in my list fall into this category,
viz.: Tobit, Armenian, Gypsy, Siberian, Russian I., II., III.,
and IV., Servian II., III., and IV., Bulgarian, Esthonian II.,
Finnish, Rumanian I., Irish I., II., and III., Breton I., Danish
III., Norwegian II., Simrock X., Harz I., Jack the Giant Killer,
and Old Wives' Tale. All but three of them [73] are folk-tales,
a fact that considerably simplifies the discussion.
According to the apocryphal story, Tobit buries by night the dead
who lie in the street. He is thrown into prison, and later becomes
blind and poverty-stricken. He sends his son Tobias to his brother
Gabael for the return of a loan. The youth is accompanied by the
angel Raphael in disguise, who calls himself Azarias. On the journey
Tobias catches a fish and preserves the heart, liver, and gall at the
bidding of his companion. When they arrive at their journey's end,
the angel, as go-between, asks Gabael's daughter Sara in wedlock for
Tobias, though seven men have died while consummating their marriage
with her. By burning the heart and liver of the fish at the command
of the angel, and by prayer, Tobias escapes; for the demon Asmodeus
is driven out of the maiden and bound by Raphael. With his bride and
companion Tobias goes home, where he cures Tobit's blindness by means
of the gall of the fish. After being offered half of the wealth that he
has brought the family, Raphael explains his identity and disappears.
This variant is peculiar in that the father does the good action, while
the son is chiefly rewarded. Indeed, it is the son whose life is saved
from the possessed woman whom he marries. Moreover, the grateful dead
is replaced by an angel, who indeed commends Tobit for his good deed,
but is certainly a substitute for the ghost. Obviously Tobit with
such peculiarities as these cannot be regarded as the general source
of the widespread folk-tale. At the same time we must not forget
that it has been, perhaps, the best-loved story in the Apocrypha,
[74] and that its influence on details of the narrative may be looked
for almost anywhere in Christendom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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