Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

where the elephant took the shape of a Rácshasa, and that where he was killed, are holy; and a pilgrimage performed to them, with the performance of certain holy rites, will ever secure the pilgrims from the dread of giants and evil spirits."

I consider, then, the Gand'harva story to be a genuine Hindoo production; and the resemblance is so strong between it and the Neapolitan tale, and extends to such a number of circumstances-even the gardener's wife being a character in both-that I am almost inclined to assert that, one time or other, it made its way to Europe.

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

"valiant Cornishman,

Who slew the giant Cormoran,”

the redoubtable Jack the Giant-killer, as he was justly named from his achievements. I need therefore only call to memory the adventure of this doughty champion with the crafty two-headed Welsh giant, who thought to rob him of life and fame by deceit and guile.

It was night when the Giant-killer arrived at the habitation of this monster, who, affecting great courtesy, welcomed him, and gave him a good bed to lie on. Unable to sleep from fatigue, our hero lay awake; and he heard his host walking backwards and forwards in the next room, and saying to himself,

"Though here you lodge with me this night,
You shall not see the morning light,

My club shall dash your brains out quite."

He got up, searched about the room, and finding

[ocr errors]

a large billet of wood, put it in his place in the bed, and hid himself in a corner. In the middle of the night the giant came in, struck the billet several blows with his club, and then retired, thinking he had dispatched his guest.

Great was his surprise next morning when Jack came forth and thanked him for his hospitality. "How did you sleep? Did you hear or see anything in the night?" he stammered out. "Oh! nothing," said Jack quite carelessly; "a rat, I believe, gave me three or four slaps with his tail, and disturbed me a little, but I soon went to sleep again."

It is needless to tell how Jack again outwitted this Cambrian giant, and made him rip open his own belly. My purpose is to show that the artifice related above is not peculiar to our own Giantkiller, but has been put in practice by the legendary heroes of other countries also. The first witness whom I shall call up and examine is the Brave Tailorling1 (Das tapfere Schneiderlein) of our neighbours the Germans, who, it will appear, had recourse to it in his dealings with giants.

1 Grimm, Kinder- und Haus-Märchen, i. 104. The English diminutives ling and kin answer to the lein and chen of the Germans. Instances of the former, which is the more common, are duckling, gosling (gooseling), troutling, youngling, &c. See a good article on the subject in the Cambridge Philological Museum, i. p. 679.

« AnteriorContinuar »