Blair Collection > Beside the fire

POSTSCRIPT. Iv
ings with man. Not infrequently, however, the actors in the stories are
wholly human, or human and animal. GaeHc folk-lore is rich in such stories,
owmg to the extraordinary tenacity of the fairy belief. We can hardly doubt
that the Gael, like all other races which have passed through a certain stage of
culture, had at one time an organised hierarchy of divine beings. But %ve
have to piece together the Gaelic god-saga out of bare names, mere hints, and
stories which have evidently suffered vital change. In the earliest stratum of
GaeUc mytliic narrative we find beings who at some former time had occupied
divine rank, but whose relations to man are substantially, as therein presented,
the same as those of the modem fair}' to the modem peasant. The chiefs of
the Tuatha de Danann hanker after earthly maidens ; the di\'ine damsels long
for and summon to themselves earthly heroes. Though undpng, verj' strong,
and very wise, they may be overpowered or outwitted by the mortal hero.
As if conscious of some source of weakness we cannot detect, they are
anxious, in their internecine stmggles, to secure the aid of the sons of men.
Small wonder that this belief, which we can follow for at least 1,200
years, should furnish so many elements to the folk-fancy of the Gael,
In stories of the second class the action is relegated to a remote past —
once upon a time — or to a distant undefined region, and the narrative is not
necessarily accepted as a record of actual fact. Stories of this class, whethei
in prose or verse, may again be subdivided into — humorous, optimistic,
tragic ; and ^vith regard to the third sub-division, it should be noted that the
stories comprised in it are generally told as ha%ing been tme once, though not
in the immediate tangible sense of stories in the first class.
These different narrative groups share certain characteristics, though in
varjing proportions.
Firstly, the fondness for and adherence to a comparatively small number
of set formulas. This is obviously less marked in stories of the first class,
which, as being in the mind of the folk a record of what has actually hap-
pened, partake of the diversity of actual life. And yet the most striking
similarities occur ; such an anecdote, for instance, as that which tells how a
supernatural changeling is baíBed by a brewery of egg-shells being found
from Japan to Brittany.
Secondly, on the moral side, the unquestioning acceptance of fatalism,
though not in the sense which the Moslem or the Calvinist would attach to the
word. The event is bound to be of a certain nature, provided a certain mode
of attaining it be chosen. This comes out well in the large group of stories which
tell how a supernatural being helps a mortal to perform certain tasks, as a rule,
■with some ulterior benefit to itself in view. The most disheartening careless-
ness and stupidity on the part of the man cannot alter the result ; the skill and
courage of the supernatural helper are powerless without the mortal co-opera-