Tuesday, May 13, 2008

home	submit tales

English Fairy Tales

XXIII. Red Ettin

Source.—“The Red Etin” in Chambers's Pop. Rhymes of Scotland, p. 89. I have reduced the adventurers from three to two, and cut down the herds and their answers. I have substituted riddles from the first English collection of riddles, The Demandes Joyous of Wynkyn de Worde, for the poor ones of the original, which are besides not solved. “Ettin” is the English spelling of the word, as it is thus spelt in a passage of Beaumont and Fletcher (Knight of Burning Pestle, i. 1), which may refer to this very story, which, as we shall see, is quite as old as their time.

Parallels.—“The Red Etin” is referred to in The Complaynt of Scotland, about 1548. It has some resemblance to “Childe Rowland,” which see. The “death index,” as we may call tokens that tell the state of health of a parted partner, is a usual incident in the theme of the Two Brothers, and has been studied by the Grimms, i. 421, 453; ii. 403; by Kohler on Campbell, Occ. u. Or., ii. 119− 20; on Gonzenbach, ii. 230; on Blade, 248; by Cosquin, l.c., i. 70−2, 193; by Crane, Ital. Pop. Tales, 326; and by Jones and Kropf, Magyar Tales, 329. Riddles generally come in the form of the “riddle−bride−wager” (cf. Child, Ballads, i. 415−9; ii. 519), when the hero or heroine wins a spouse by guessing a riddle or riddles. Here it is the simpler Sphinx form of the “riddle task,” on which see Kohler in Jahrb. rom. Phil., vii. 273, and on 0Gonzenbach, 215.