Folklore in History Author(s): Margaret A. Murray Source: Folklore, Vol. 66, No. 2 (Jun., 1955), pp.

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fol
VOL. LXVI

khLore
JUNE 1955 [No. 2

TRANSACTIONS OF THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY

FOLKLORE IN HISTORY (Presidential Address deliveredbeforethe Society at the Annual General Meeting on March I6th, 1955)
BY MARGARET A. MURRAY

IN studying Folklore in History, it is necessary to take History into account. And it must be rememberedthat Folklorecan become History, and History Folklore. Accordingto Geoffreyof Monmouththe history of Englandbeginswith the invasion by Brutus and his band of Trojans. Brutus started from Greece, i.e. the Eastern Mediterranean,passed through the Straits of Gibraltar,then sailed north till he came to the Loire. The invaders tried to take possession of the country, but finding the inhabitants too strong for them, they crossed the Channeland landed at Totnes in Devon, i.e. West Country. They were influenced by an oracle which Brutus had obtained from the goddess Diana that they should settle in an island inhabited by giants. Albion was at that time inhabitedonly by a few giants. It should be noted that Brutus and his followerswent westward on landing, and it is from the West Country and Wales that all our legends of giants and ogres come. Corineus,one of Brutus's companions,becomes king of Cornwall. " It was a diversion to him to encounter the giants, who were in greater number there than in all the other provinces." One detestable monster named Goamagotwas twelve cubits (18 ft.) high; he could pull up an oak with " one shake ". Single combat, in the form of a wrestling match (Cornwall was always famous for its wrestlers), took place between Corineusand Goamagot. The giant broke three of Corineus'sribs, then Corineusthrew Goamagotover his shoulder,ran with him to the edge of the cliff and cast him down on the rocks below. There are other legends about giants in the West Country; I quote here only two. In the legend of Childe Horn, a Saracen (i.e. Eastern
R 257

258

Folklore in History

Mediterranean) invasion enters the country, led by a giant, who kills Horn's father, and is himself killed by Horn. Then Havelok the Dane, when in Cornwall, kills a horrible Pictish (i.e foreign) giant who is about to marry the very unwilling Cornish princess. All the stories point to the giants being in the West Country (or Wales) only. They were invaders and foreigners, usually coming from the Eastern Mediterranean. They are quite different from the Trolls and giants of the North, who are usually supernatural beings. The West Country giants not only come from the East, but they travel along the ancient trade route which in later times was followed by the Phoenicians
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The legends suggest that some of these people settled in the West, chiefly in Cornwall. In our native folklore the western giants were of the type known as Ogres, and ogres were always cannibals. The typical appearance of these people was probably handed down orally, and has now become stereotyped. The Ogre was not only very tall but big-boned as well. He had a broad face with coarse features, high cheek-bones, lumpy nose, wide mouth with large teeth, and his beard was coarse, stright and straggly. These are all characteristics of the moujik of Southern Russia (pl. II a, b). If such a moujik is slightly

Folklore in History

259

caricatured and given a sinister expression, he would represent the Perfect Ogre. And it must be remembered that even as late as Roman times the Scythian or Southern Russian was a cannibal. Our nursery rhymes emphasise this custom, as for instance, " Robin-a-Bobbin, the big-bellied Ben ", who ate " all the good people ". The Beanstalk Ogre had three heads, and it is interesting to note that as late as the sixteenth century the South Russians were credited with worshipping a threeheaded god (pl. III). The South Russians belonged to the Ugrian race, and it is tempting to see in Ugrian the origin of our word Ogre. I suggest that in these legends there are traces of two distinct invasions from the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean. The first was of the savage barbarous Scythians, who made a small settlement but did not spread. The second was of Brutus and the Trojans, who exterminated the previous settlers, and have left a few traces in the language as well as in tradition. There is the third invasion from the Eastern Mediterranean, the record of which is so overlaid with folklore that it is difficult to see the solid facts on which the tradition rests. This is the coming of the Christian missionaries disguised under the legend of Joseph of Arimathea and the Holy Grail. It is a historical fact that the first Christian missionaries to the British Isles came to Ireland, and the west of England and Scotland, and founded the British Church. They must have come by the ancient trade route direct by sea from the Mediterranean. Kiot is said by Wolfram von Eschenbach to have been the first to discover the story of the coming of the Grail, which was in an Arabic manuscript at Toledo, and he had to learn Arabic in order to translate it. Robert de Borron (c. 1350) gives the earliest record extant in his poem Yospeh of Aromathea. He recounts the various adventures of Joseph and his companions bringing the Grail, first to Egypt and then to Britain.' The Legend. Joseph and his friends leave Jerusalem and go to Bethany and the country of Damascus and reach Sarras. European scholars have always looked for Sarras in the neighbourhood of Damascus, and failing to find it have jumped to the conclusion that the place-names are fictitious and therefore that the whole story is fictitious. If, however, the old trade route from Jerusalem to Egypt is followed it will lead through the Gebel Damashq (country of Damascus), that strip of desert which

1 For the full discussion of the subject see my article, " Egyptian Elements in the Grail Romance ", in Ancient Egypt, 1916, pp. 1-14, 54-69. I am indebted to that great Arabic scholar, Sir Thomas Arnold, for the identification of the Arabic personal names.

260

Folklore in History

lies between Suez and the southern part of the Delta. Here on the east side of the habitable country is that spring of water which has been sacred from time immemorial, for it was there that R8, the Sun-god, washed his face daily, there that the Pharaoh had to wash as part of his installation ceremonies, and there that, according to Christian legend, the Virgin washed the clothes of the infant Christ. Crossingthe head of the Delta to the west side, there are three villages still called Sarras. Of these Sarras al-Liyaneh appearsto be the town mentioned in the legend. The King of Sarras was named Evalach, and he was at war with Tholome Cerastre, king of Babylon. All the personal names in the legend can be identified as Arabic; the place-namescan be identified as being chiefly in the Delta. The mediaeval Europeanform of the Arabic Ibn (son of) being Ave or Avi (as in Averroes and Avicena) Evalach can be Ibn al-Ukht, " Son of the Sister ", a not unlikely name as emphasising the matrilinealdescent which was probably still practised in Egypt. Tholome is clearly Ptolemy, and Babylon is the Europeanizedfrom of Bablun, the capital of Egypt in late Roman times until the conquest by the Arabs,who foundedthe modernCairo. The place-namesof the legend can be identified, especially those where battles were fought, for they survive in small and insignificant villages. I give one example out of many. The important strategic town of Valashim survives in the village of Barashim. Another point to notice is that Tholome's subjects and army are always called Egyptians. Much of the ritual of the Grail still survives in the Coptic ritual. In the legend the Grail was enclosed in a receptacle and covered with a " plateyne ". One of the newly baptized ventured to raise the plateyne and look inside, and was immediately struck with blindness. But by sincere penitence and the use of a magic ointment he recoveredhis sight. Eye-diseases, especially ophthalmia, are common in Egypt, and were always attributed to the wrath of God, and until the British introduced scientific treatment of disease, magic ointments found a ready sale. In a Coptic church no lay person may enter the sanctuary, which is reserved for the priests only. At the Eucharist the chalice is enclosed in a decoratedbox without a lid (pl. IV a, b), the cup being hidden undera mat of stiffenedcanvas coveredwith muslin,in otherwordsa " plateyne ", a necessity in a land of flies. This chalice box is a unique feature in Christianritual, found only among the Copts. There are other features of Coptic ritual which approximate to that of the Grail. One of the incidents in the war between Evalach is the single combat between the young prince Nasciens and a giant called Ferreyn, in which

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Folklore in History

261

Nasciens kills his opponent. The name Ferreyn is obviously a variant of Faral6n, the Arabic form of Pharaoh. In Egyptian folklore Pharaoh is always a giant and, being a pagan, he is also a wicked enchanter, and is therefore very rightly killed by the Christian prince. It should be noticed that here again is a giant in the Eastern Mediterranean. After Evalach defeats and kills Tholome, the little body of Christians leave Egypt to carry the Gospel to Britain, bringing the Grail with them. On the way the ships are scattered by storm and Evalach, now called by his baptismal name of Mordrayns, is cast upon a Turning Island. This is a magical island which pulls itself out of the water twice a day. I take this to be a description of the Atlantic tide made by a person accustomed only to the almost tideless Eastern Mediterranean. Joseph brings not only the Grail but his staff which, when planted, becomes the miraculous thorn which flowers only at Christmas. After a short stay, Galahad, son of Joseph, returns to Egypt to become King of Sarras. The date of the story can be fixed only approximately. Egypt was christianized very early, possibly in the first century, for according to tradition it was St. Mark who was the missionary to Egypt. It is, however, more likely that an organized company of missionaries would come in the third century, when there were possibly already small groups of Christians in the country, for the British Church was established in the West at least three centuries before Augustine came from Rome. The legend of the early missions would return to Egypt with accretions, and there obviously received other accretions. Then after the Arab conquest of Egypt the characters were given Arabic names, and in that guise came to Europe. There is a corroboration of this dating from an English legend of a Christian prince from Constantinople coming as a missionary to the West Country. He is said to have planted his staff which became a tree. The exact date of his coming is given as 71 which is the year of I, the final conquest of Spain by the Moslems. There is an interesting piece of folklore in the Bible, which was certainly historical. This is the episode of the Witch of Endor. It was just before the disastrous battle of Gilboa, and Saul seems to have been thoroughly disheartened. Samuel was dead and Abiathar had gone off with the ephod to David, and though Saul tried all the other legitimate means of learning the future, " the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets ". He then had recourse to a woman who had a familiar spirit, what the modern spiritualist calls a " control ". He told the woman he wished to see Samuel. Unfortunately her method of incantation is not given, but she must have done something for she

262

Folklore in History

said, " I saw gods ascending out of the earth ", and then, " An old man cometh up covered with a mantle." It is clear that Saul saw nothing, but he at once jumped to the conclusion that it was Samuel. One must remember that he was exhausted by fatigue and want of food, and in a highly nervous state before a battle, so that the conversation between Saul and Samuel is not necessarily authentic. What to me is the interesting point is the method of incantation, which was probably the same as practised in ancient Egypt and is still done in North Africa. In Egypt the magician took a bowl of black bronze in which was engraved a figure of the god Anubis (pl. V). The bowl was filled with clear water, on which was floated some fine oil; this gives a reflecting but not glittering surface. The actual seer was a boy under puberty; he gazed into the bowl, while the magician burned incense and chanted monotonously. The boy would then see Anubis enter and spread carpets and prepare thrones for the great gods, who then came in, sat on the thrones and answered the magician's questions. In Morocco the liquid used is ink, which like the oil in a black bowl gives a good reflecting surface without glitter. The seer is again a young boy, who looks into the ink-pool and sees first servants erecting a pavilion and preparing a throne and then comes the Sultan, who sets himself on the throne and answers the magicians' questions. In the case of the Witch of Endor, she was her own seer, she saw the attendants arrive first; then came the principal personage, an old man covered with a mantle, who answered the questions. There was nothing but Saul's own excited fancy to show that this was really Samuel. In those days the result of a battle depended entirely on the spirit of the leader. Saul went into that battle completely discouraged, with a presentiment and prophecy of failure. The belief that God in person led his people in battle is very ancient it is probably connected with the idea of the divinity of the King. An early example is when Moses told the Israelites not to go up against the Amalekites " for the Lord is not among you. But they presumed to go up. But the ark of the Lord departed not out of the camp. Then the Amalekites and Canaanites came down and smote them and beat them down " (Num. xiv). The interesting point here is the fact that there was nothing in the ark but the tables of stone. These must then be regarded as Beth-el, the House of God, the object in which the Deity was indwelling. In later times an emblem of God was used, and this may be the origin of the standard. Even now one of our regiments has the Lamb and Flag as the emblem on their colours.

Folklore in History

263

Joan of Arc's banner was of white cloth fringed with silk. In the centre was the King of Heaven with a figure of the world and an angel on each side. She valued her banner forty times more than her sword. Yet her swordwas magical, having been miraculouslyfound in the church of St. Catherineof Fierbois. When the Deity was not present in person or in emblem, there were often supernaturalhelpers in battle. At the second battle of Barnet, when Edward IV won the decisive victory over Henry VI, and Warwick the King-makerwas killed, a mist came up, which was of the utmost value to Edward's army. This was popularly regardedas being due to the magic of Friar Bungay, who was a supporter of the Yorkists. In 1651, the night before the decisive battle of Worcester, Colonel Lindsay claims that he accompaniedCromwellinto a wood at midnight, and there they encountereda big black man, with whom Cromwellwent a little apart. They conversed together, but Lindsay could not hear all they said except that Cromwellwas trying to persuade the black man to give him fourteen, while the black man insisted on seven. Finally Cromwellhad to consent, though unwillingly to seven. The next day Cromwellwon the battle of Worcester, and that day seven years after he died in the midst of a tremendous thunder-storm. The account was published after the Restoration, and is clearly a piece of Royalist propaganda, but the interesting point is that it was expected to be believed seriously. Supernatural helpers have been known in modern times. The great national hero of Serbia is a mediaeval prince, MarkoKralyevitch (King's son) who will appear riding on his Sharatz (piebald horse) to help his country in her time of need. In the Balkan War of 1912 Serbia fought Turkey for the possession of Macedonia. On one occasion a force of Serbians were orderedto attack the strong fortress of Prilep held by the Turks. An eye-witness gives an account of this battle. " Our infantry was ordered to make a forced march on the eve of that battle. They were to wait at the foot of the mount of Prilep, on which stood the Castle of Marko, for the effect of the artillery. They were especially cautioned against storming the fort until they received the order from the Commander-in-Chief. During the early morning the infantry kept quiet, but at the first cannon-shots we noticed an effervescenceamong our troops, and soon after we heard them shouting frantically and saw them running like wolves straight to the Castle of Marko Kralyevitch I could hear the voice of our Captain Agatonovitch commanding them

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Folklore in History

to stop and await the General's order. When the immediate commanders saw that discipline proved futile, they essayed in vain to appeal to their reason. In a little while our artillery ceased firing, lest they should kill their own comrades, who were now crossing bayonets with the Turkish infantry. A few minutes later we saw the Serbian national colours floating on the donjon of Marko Kralyevitch's castle. A parade was ordered. I praised my heroes for their brave conduct, but reproached them bitterly for their disobedience. At my last admonishing words, I heard from thousands of soldiers, 'Kralyevitch Marko commanded us all the time " FORWARD ". Did you not see him on his Sharatz?' " (Woislav M. Petrovitch, Hero Tales and Legends of the Serbians, translated by C. Miyatovitch, p. 64, note). Those of us who have an intimate recollection of the 1914-18 war cannot forget the Retreat from Mons and the story, believed by thousands of our own people, of the angels who protected our men. Less known though equally credited were the White Cavalry of Bethune who, though seen only by the Germans, caused them to retreat hastily.
PORTENTS AND OMENS

The belief in portents and omens seems to be inherent in the human race, and at one time was certainly held as a matter of religious faith Herodotus (vi. 27) makes this definite statement, " The deity is wont to give some previous warning when any great calamities are about to befall any city or nation." This is the Pagan view ; Henry of Huntingdon has the same opinion but expresses it in Christian phraseology. " The great Creator-himself invisible-graciously condescends to instruct our ignorant minds concerning what is about to happen by visible appearances, and sometimes in very deed gives us a sign from heaven." (Acts of Stephen, p. 348.) These signs from heaven were usually comets or the aurora. All the classical historians and our own old chroniclers are full of instances of these terrible portents. Henry of Huntingdon records that in 729 " two portentous comets appeared near the sun, one preceding its rising, the other following its setting, presaging, as it were, dreadful calamities to both east and west. The comets turned their blazing tails towards the north. They remained visible for nearly a fortnight. At which time the Saracens spread destruction far and wide in France and Spain; but not long afterwards they met in the same country the fate their impiety deserved ". In io66, according to Matthew of Westminster (p. 564), "a large

PLATE III

THREE-HEADED

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265

comet of a blood-red colour with long hair appeared at the beginning of this year ". This is the comet which is depicted in the Bayeux tapestry The aurora, when seen far south, would certainly be regarded as a sign of terror. Henry of Huntingdon (Acts of Stephen, p. 347) gives an eye-witness account of a fine display which he saw before the disastrous rebellion in Northumberland (1138). " So stupendous was this calamity that not only makind trembled at it, but the heavens betokened it as something awful. Shortly before it began, a large quarter of the heavens was seen to emit fiery sparks like a furnace, and balls of fire of wonderful brightness, like sparks of live coal, short through the air. I myself witnessed the northern hemisphere in a flame, and saw with my own eyes luminous flakes floating densely in the blazing air. This visible appearance of a flaming sky portended either a great effusion of blood or denoted the burning of towns and villages." Two modern occurrences of the aurora would certainly have been taken as portents of war in ancient times. (I) Early in 1939 there was displays of the aurora seen as far south as London. (2) On three successive nights just before the Pearl Harbour disaster, the aurora was seen in the United States as far south as Cleveland, Ohio.
PERSONAL OMENS

The best known of these omens is of William the Conqueror, who fell as he landed, and rose with his hands covered with mud, when a soldier pointed out, " Behold, the land is in your hand " (Matt. West, p. 559). Henry of Huntingdon records several omens which preceded some of the exciting incidents in King Stephen's career. The most interesting occurred on Candlemas Day, 1140. " While mass was being celebrated at dawn of day, and the king, as is the order and office of the festival, was holding a candle of wax in his hand, it was suddenly extinguished, the candle as it is said being broken short; but retaining it in his hand, it was stuck together again and re-lighted, a token that for his sins he should be deprived of his crown, but on his repentance, through God's mercy, he should be wonderfully and gloriously recover it. For, inasmuch as he still held the candle in his hand, although broken, that was a sign that he should not resign the crown nor lose the name of king." There was a terrible omen at the coronation of Henry VI, for the crown fell from his head. A great number of omens, all pointing to his fate, are recorded after

266

Folklore in History

the death of Charles I. The most significant was that when going to his coronation he had to pass a bust of himself, and as he passed the blood of a wounded falcon fell on the neck of the bust. A certain amount of folklore is gathering round Queen Victoria. Her luck in fine weather was phenomenal. It was said that whenever she appeared officially in public it was always fine; that even if it was a wet day, the rain would always hold off while she was " on view ". Many people believed, and stated their belief openly, that the fine weather and the peace and prosperity of her reign, showed that she received special favour from the Almighty. There were several omens at the beginning of the reign of Edward VIII which were noticed at the time, merely as current news in the daily papers but were regarded with misgiving by many people. To give only one instance: On the occasion of his driving in state to open his first Parliament, great preparations were made. Traffic was diverted along the route, and hundreds of police were on duty to control the expected crowds. But that day the rain came down in sheets : I have seldom seen such heavy rain lasting almost all day. The king was obliged to go in a closed motor, and there were few people who ventured to stand in that downpour. To anyone who remembered the " royal weather " of Queen Victoria and Edward VII, and believed that to have been granted as a special favour of God, the omen was certainly unpropitious. Though the Coronation Day of Queen Elizabeth II was rainy, many people expressed satisfaction that a gleam of sunshine greeted Her Majesty as she stepped out of the door of Westminster Abbey. In this paper by its very title I have had to take most of my information from books, for we are too near to events which will become history to realise what folklore underlies them. But folklore is a living thing, it is always with us, and therefore may have effect on even the greatest events of history.