Blair Collection > Beside the fire

Ivi POSTSCRIPT.
tion. In what I have termed the tragic stories, this fatalism puts on a moral
form, and gives rise to the conception of Nemesis.
Thirdly, on the mental side, animism is prevalent, i.e., the acceptance of a
life common to, not alone man and animals, but all manifestations of force.
In so far as a distinction is made between the life of man and that of
nature at large, it is in favour of the latter, to which more potent energy is
ascribed.
Just as stories of the first class are less characterised by adherence to for-
mula, so stories of the humorous group are less characteristed by fatalism and
animism. This is inevitable, as such stories are, as a rule, concerned solely
with the relations of man to his fellows.
The most fascinating and perplexing problems are those connected with
the groups I have termed optimistic and tragic. To the former belong the
almost entirety of such nursery tales as are not humorous in character.
" They were married and lived happily ever afterwards ;" such is the almost
invariable end formula. The hero Avins the princess, and the villain is
punished.
This feature the nursery tale shares with the god-saga ; Zeus confounds
the Titans, Apollo slays the Python, Lug overcomes Balor, Indra vanquishes
Vritra. There are two apparent exceptions to this rule. The Teutonic god
myth is tragic ; the Anses are ever under the shadow of the final conflict.
This has been explained by the influence of Christian ideas ; but although this
influence must be unreservedly admitted in certain details of the passing of
the gods, yet the fact that the Iranian god-saga is likewise undecided, instead
of havinCT a frankly optimistic ending, makes me doubt whether the drawn
battle between the powers of good and ill be not a genuine and necessary part
of the Teutonic mythology. As is well knov.-n, Rydberg has established
some strildng points of contact between the mythic ideas of Scandinavia
and those of Iran.
In striking contradiction to this moral, optimistic tendency are the great
heroic sagas. One and all well-nigh are profoundly tragic. The doom of Troy
the great, the passing of Arthur, the slaughter of the Nibelungs, the death of
Sohrab at his father's hands, Roncevalles, Gabhra, the fratricidal conflict of
Cuchullain and Ferdiad, the woes of the house of Atreus ; such are but a few
examples of the prevailing tone of the hero-tales. Achilles and Siegfried and
Cuchullain are slain in the flower of their youth and prowess. Of them, at
least, the saying is true, that whom the gods love die young. Why is it not
equally true of the prince hero of the fairy tale .? Is it that the hero tale asso-
ciated in the minds of hearers and reciters with men who had actually lived
and fought, brought down to earth, so to say, out of the mysterious wonder-
land in which god and fairy and old time kings have their being, becomes