Kitabı oku: «Basque Legends; With an Essay on the Basque Language», sayfa 5

IV.—Basa-Jaun, Basa-Andre, and Lamiñak

It is somewhat difficult to get a clear view of what Basa-Jaun and Basa-Andre, the wild man and the wild woman, really are in Basque mythology. In the first tale here given Basa-Jaun appears as a kind of vampire, and his wife, the Basa-Andre, as a sorceress, but we know of no other such representation of the former. Basa-Jaun is usually described by Basque writers as a kind of satyr, or faun, a wood-sprite; and Basques; in speaking of him to us, have frequently used the French term, “Homme de Bouc,” “He-goat-man,” to describe him. In some tales he appears rather as a species of brownie, and has received the familiar sobriquet of Ancho,³⁸ from the Spanish Sancho. In this character he haunts the shepherds’ huts in the mountains, warms himself at their fires, tastes their clotted milk and cheese, converses with them, and is treated with a familiarity which, however, is never quite free from a hidden terror. His wife, the Basa-Andre, appears sometimes as a sorceress, sometimes as a kind of land-mermaid, as a beautiful lady sitting in a cave and “combing her locks with a comb of gold,” in remote mountain parts.³⁹

The Lamiñak are true fairies, and do not differ more from the general run of Keltic fairies than the Scotch, Irish, Welsh, and Cornish fairies do from each other. In fact, the legends are often identical. The Lamiñak were described to us by one who evidently believed in, and dreaded them, as little people who lived underground. Another informant stated that they were little people who came down the chimney. They long to get possession of human beings, and change and carry off infants unbaptized, but they do not seem to injure them otherwise. They bring good luck to the houses which they frequent; they are fond of cleanliness, but always speak and give their orders in words exactly the opposite of their meaning. In common with Basa-Jaun and Basa-Andre they hate church bells,⁴⁰ and though not actively hostile to Christianity, are driven away as it advances. They were formerly great builders of bridges, and even of churches,⁴¹ but were usually defrauded of their wage, which was to have been power over some human soul at the completion of the contract. Fairies’ wells and fountains are common in the Landes and neighbouring Gascon provinces, but we know of none in the Pays Basque.⁴² We failed distinctly to make out what are the “fairies’ holes (Lamiña-ziloak),” spoken of in the Heren-Suge tale (p. 36); as far as we could gather from the narrator they are simply bare places in hedges, when covered by the web of the gossamer spider. We know of no dances by moonlight on fairy rings of green herbage; but if the reader will carefully eliminate from his memory the rare fancies of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson about Puck, Oberon, and Titania, he will find little otherwise to differentiate between the Basque Lamiñak and the fairies of Sir Walter Scott, of Campbell, and of Croker’s “Irish Legends.” One peculiarity certainly is that all the Basque Lamiñak are sometimes said to be all called “Guïllen,”⁴³ which appears to be the same as the French Guillaume, and our William.

It must be a sign of a failing belief and interest that witches and fairies are so often confounded. In these few stories it is evident that the witch is often a fairy, and the fairy a witch.

Basa-Jauna, the Wild Man

Once upon a time there lived in one house the landlady and the farmer’s wife.⁴⁴ The farmer’s wife had three sons; one day they said to their mother to give each of them a ball and a penny roll, that they wished to go from country to country. The mother was sorry to part with her three much-loved sons; but all three started off.

When they were in the midst of a forest they saw that night was coming on, and the eldest brother said that he would climb up the first tree. He finds a tall tree, and climbs up to the top, to the very tip-top, and the second says to him:

“Do you see nothing?”

He says, “No, no; there’s nothing to be seen, nothing; not a feather! nothing!”

“Come down then; you are an old donkey.”

And the second climbs, and he sees nothing. The third says to him:

“You are no good at all, you others. I will climb up.”

And he climbs to the top, to the very tip-top. The others say to him:

“And do you not see anything?”

He says to them:

“Yes; I see a long column of smoke, but very, very thin, and far, very far away. Let us go towards that.”

And the three brothers set out together. At eight o’clock in the evening they come to a grand castle, and they knock at the door, and the Basa-Andre (wild woman) comes to answer. She asks:

“Who is there?”

And they reply, “It is we who are here.”

“What do you want, young children? Where are you going to at this time of night?”

“We ask and beg of you to give us shelter for to-night; we will be satisfied with a corner of the floor, poor wretches as we are.”

“I have my husband, the Basa-Jaun, and if he catches you he will eat you; that’s certain.”

“And if he catches us outside he will eat us all the same.”

Then she let these three brothers come in, and she hides the three in three different corners. Afterwards, at nine o’clock, the Basa-Jaun comes. He made a great noise and blustering, and then the Basa-Andre goes out, and says to him:

“There is nobody here.”

“Yes, you have somebody; bring them out, or else I will eat you myself.”

And she goes and brings out the eldest brother, trembling with fright. The Basa-Jaun says to him,

“Will you be my servant?”

He says to him, “Yes.”

And Basa-Jaun begins again to sniff about.

“You have still somebody else here?”

And she brings out the second, and he says to him:

“Will you be servant to me?”

And he said, “Yes.”

Again, he smelled the smell of some one, and at the third time she brings out the third, and he says to him:

“All three of you shall sup with me to-night, and afterwards we shall go to bed. But to-morrow we will all go hunting.”

And they go hunting the next day until eight o’clock in the evening.

Now, they had at home a little sister. She was little then, but in time she grew up. One day the landlady and the farmer’s wife had put out the new maize in the garden to dry; and when no one saw her, the little girl took some from her mistress’ heap, and put it to her own. When the mistress saw that, she began to cry out, saying to her,

“Bold hussey that you are, there is no one like you! You will come to a bad end like your brothers.”

And the young girl began to cry, and goes to find her mother, and says to her,

“Mother, had I any brothers?”⁴⁵

She says to her, “Yes, my child.”

“What were they?”

“Child, they went away a long time ago,” she said to her.

This little girl says,

“I, too, must be off to-day. Give me a distaff to spin with, and a penny cake.”

She sets off, and comes to the house of the Basa-Jaun, and she knocks at the door, and she lets her in. While his wife was telling her that it is the house of the Basa-Jaun, the elder brother comes in; but they did not recognise one another at all. And afterwards Basa-Jaun comes, and says, as he enters the house:

“You have something here for me,” says he.

“No,” says she.

“Show it.”

And immediately she shows her. Basa-Jaun says to her:

“Will you engage yourself as my servant?”

She says to him, “Yes, sir.”

Some days afterwards the brothers recognised their sister, and they embraced each other very much. And this young girl who was so well before began to grow thin. And one day one of her brothers asked her:

“What is the matter with you that you are getting thin like this?”

And she answered:

“The master every evening asks me to put my little finger through the door, and he sucks the finger through the door, and I become every day more sad and more languid.”⁴⁶

One day, when the Basa-Andre was not at home, these brothers and the sister plotted together to kill Basa-Jaun, if they could catch him in a ravine in a certain place. And they kill him.

One day the wife asks,

“Where is Basa-Jaun?”

And Basa-Andre takes out three large teeth, and brings them to the house, and tells this young girl herself, when she heats the water for her brothers’ feet in the evening, to put one tooth in the water of each.⁴⁷ And as soon as the third had finished washing the three brothers became oxen; and this young girl used to drive all three into the fields. And this young girl lived there on the birds they (the oxen) found, and nothing else.

One day, as she was passing over a bridge,⁴⁸ she sees Basa-Andre under, and says to her:

“If you do not make these three oxen men as they were before, I will put you into a red-hot oven.”

She answers her:

“No! go to such a dell, and take thence three hazel sticks,⁴⁹ and strike each of them three blows on the back.”

And she did what she told her, and they were changed into men the same as they were before; and all the brothers and the sister lived happily together in Basa-Jaun’s castle, and as they lived well they made a good end also.

Estefanella Hirigaray.

The Servant at the Fairy’s

Once upon a time there was a woman who had three daughters. One day the youngest said to her that she must go out to service. And going from town to town, she met at last a fairy who asked her:

“Where are you going to, my child?”

And she answered, “Do you know a place for a servant?”

“Yes; if you will come to my house I will take you.”

She said, “Yes.”

She gave her her morning’s work to do, and said to her:

“We are fairies. I must go from home, but your work is in the kitchen; smash the pitcher, break all the plates, pound the children, give them breakfast (by themselves), dirty their faces, and rumple their hair.”⁵⁰

While she was at breakfast with the children, a little dog comes to her and says:

“Tchau, tchau, tchow; I too, I want something.”

“Be off from here, silly little dog; I will give you a kick.”

But the dog did not go away; and at last she gave him something to eat—a little, not much.

“And now,” says he, “I will tell you what the mistress has told you to do. She told you to sweep the kitchen, to fill the pitcher, and to wash all the plates, and that if it is all well done she will give you the choice of a sack of charcoal or of a bag of gold; of a beautiful star on your forehead, or of a donkey’s tail hanging from it. You must answer, ‘A sack of charcoal and a donkey’s tail.’”

The mistress comes. The new servant had done all the work, and she was very well satisfied with her. So she said to her:

“Choose which you would like, a sack of charcoal or a bag of gold?”

“A sack of charcoal is the same to me.”

“A star for your forehead, or a donkey’s tail?”

“A donkey’s tail would be the same to me.”

Then she gives her a bag of gold, and a beautiful star on her forehead.⁵¹ Then the servant goes home. She was so pretty with this star, and this bag of gold on her shoulders, the whole family was astonished at her. The eldest daughter says to her mother:

“Mother, I will go and be a servant too.”

And she says to her, “No, my child, you shall not do so.”

But as she would not leave her in peace (she assented), and she goes off like her sister. She comes into the city of the fairies, and meets the same fairy as her sister did. She says to her:

“Where are you going, my girl?”

“To be a servant.”

“Come to us.”

And she takes her as servant. She tells her like the first one:

“You will dig up the kitchen, break the plates, smash the pitcher, give the children their breakfasts by themselves, and dirty their faces.”

There was some of the breakfast left over, and the little dog comes in, and he went:

“Tchow! tchow! tchow! I too, I should like something.”

And he follows her everywhere, and she gives him nothing; and at last she drove him off with kicks. The mistress comes home, and she finds the kitchen all dug up, the pitcher and all the plates broken. And she asks the servant:

“What do you ask for wages? A bag of gold or a sack of charcoal? a star on your forehead, or a donkey’s tail there?”

She chose the bag of gold and a star on her forehead; but she gave her a sack of charcoal, and a donkey’s tail for her forehead. She goes away crying, and tells her mother that she comes back very sorry. And the second daughter also asks permission to go.

“No! no!” (says the mother), and she stops at home.

Estefanella Hirigaray.

The Fairy in the House

There was once upon a time a gentleman and lady. And the lady was spinning one evening. There came to her a fairy, and they could not get rid of her; and they gave her every evening some ham to eat, and at last they got very tired of their fairy.

One day the lady said to her husband:

“I cannot bear this fairy; I wish I could drive her away.”

And the husband plots to dress himself up in his wife’s clothes just as if it was she, and he does so. The wife goes to bed, and the husband remains in the kitchen alone, and the fairy comes as usual. And the husband was spinning. The fairy says to him:

“Good-day, madam.”

“The same to you too; sit down.”

“Before you made chirin, chirin, but now you make firgilun, fargalun.”⁵²

The man replies, “Yes, now I am tired.”

As his wife used to give her ham to eat, the man offers her some also.

“Will you take your supper now?”

“Yes, if you please,” replies the fairy.

He puts the frying-pan on the fire with a bit of ham. While that was cooking, and when it was red, red-hot, he throws it right into the fairy’s face. The poor fairy begins to cry out, and then come thirty of her friends.

“Who has done any harm to you?”

“I, to myself; I have hurt myself.”⁵³

“If you have done it yourself, cure it yourself.”

And all the fairies go off, and since then there came no more fairies to that house. This gentleman and lady were formerly so well off, but since the fairy comes no longer the house little by little goes to ruin, and their life was spent in wretchedness. If they had lived well they would have died well too.

Estefanella Hirigaray.

The Pretty but Idle Girl. ⁵⁴

Once upon a time there was a mother who had a very beautiful daughter. The mother was always bustling about, but the daughter would not do anything. So she gave her such a good beating that she sat down on a flat stone to cry. One day the young owner of the castle went by. He asks:

“What makes such a pretty girl cry like that?”

The woman answers him:

“As she is too pretty she will not work.”

The young man asks if she knows how to sew.

She answers, “Yes; if she liked she could make seven shirts a day.”

This young gentleman is much smitten with her. He goes home, and brings a piece of linen, and says to her:

“Here are seven shirts, and if you finish them by such a time we will marry together.”

She sat thinking without doing anything, and with tears in her eyes. Then comes to her an old woman, who was a witch, and says to her:

“What is it makes you so sad?”

She answers, “Such a gentleman has brought me seven shirts to sew, but I cannot do them. I am sitting here thinking.”

This old woman says to her:

“You know how to sew?”

“I know how to thread the needle; (that is all).”

This woman says to her:

“I will make your shirts for you when you want them, if you remember my name in a year and a day.” And she adds, “If you do not remember I shall do with you whatever I like. Marie Kirikitoun—nobody can remember my name.”

And she agreed. She makes her the seven shirts for the appointed time. When the young man came the shirts were made, and he takes the young girl with joy and they are both married.

But this young girl grew continually sadder and sadder; though her husband made great feasts for her she never laughed. One day they had a frightfully grand festival. There came to the door an old woman, and she asks the servant:

“What is the reason that you have such grand feastings?”

She answers, “Our lady never laughs at all, and her husband has these grand feasts to make her gay.”

The old woman replied:

“If she saw what I have heard this day she would laugh most certainly.”

The servant said to her, “Stay here; I will tell her so at once.”

They call the old woman in, and she told them that she had seen an old woman leaping and bounding from one ditch to another, and saying all the time:

“Houpa, houpa, Marie Kirikitoun; nobody will remember my name.”

When this young lady heard that, she was merry at once, and writes down this name at once. She recompensed highly the old woman, and she was very happy; and when the other old woman came she knew her name.⁵⁵

Estefanella Hirigaray.

The Devil’s Age

There was a gentleman and lady who were very poor. This man used to sit sadly at a cross-roads. There came to him a gentleman, who asked: “Why are you so sad?”

“Because I have not wherewith to live.”

He said to him, “I will give you as much money as you like, if at such a time you tell the age of the devil.”

Our man goes off happy. He leads a merry life with his wife, for they wanted for nothing. They lived at a great rate. But time went on, and the time was approaching. This man recollected that he had not busied himself at all about the devil’s age. He became pensive. His wife asked him what was the matter with him then? why is he not happy? that they wanted for nothing; why is he so sad? He tells her how it is that he got rich, and what compact he had made with a gentleman. His wife said to him:

“If you have nothing but that, it is nothing at all. Get into a barrel of honey, and when you come out of it get into another barrel of feathers, and dressed like that go to the cross-roads and wait for the devil there. You will put yourself on all fours, and walk backwards and forwards, and go between his legs, and walk all round him.”

The man does as his wife had told him. The devil comes, and draws back (when he sees him); and our man goes up quite close to the devil. The devil being frightened said to him:

“I am so many years old, and I have never seen any animal like that, and such a frightful one.”⁵⁶

Our man had heard enough. He went off home at full speed, and told his wife that they would want for nothing, that he had done as she had told him, just as if she had been a witch, and that he was no longer afraid of the devil. They lived rich and happily, and if they lived well, they died well too.

Franchun Beltzarri.

The Fairy-Queen Godmother. ⁵⁷

There were, like many others in the world, a man and a woman over-burthened with children, and very poor. The woman no more knew what to do. She said that she would go and beg. She goes off, far, far, far away, and she arrives at the city of the fairies. After she had told them how many children she had, all give her a great many alms—she was laden with them.

The queen of the fairies gives her besides twenty pounds in gold, and says to her:

“If you will give me your child when you are confined—you shall bring it up in your law—I will give you a great deal of money, if you will do that.”

She told her that the godmother was already decided upon, but that she would speak about it to her husband. The queen told her to go home, and to return with the answer in a week.

She gets home as she best can, very much fatigued by her burthen. Her husband was astonished that she could have carried so much. She tells him what had happened with the queen of the fairies. He says to her:

“Certainly, we will make her godmother.”

And she returns at the end of a week to tell the queen that she accepts her. She tells her not to send and tell her when she is confined, that she will know it herself, and that she will come all right. At the end of a week she is confined of a daughter. The queen arrives, as she had said, with a mule laden with gold. When they came back from the christening, the godmother and the child fly away; and the parents console themselves with their other children, thinking that she will be happier in the house of the queen of the fairies.

The queen takes her to a corner of a mountain. It is there where her house was. She had already another god-daughter; this was a little dog, whose name was Rose,⁵⁸ and she named this last god-daughter Pretty-Rose. She gave her, too, a glint of diamonds in the middle of her forehead.⁵⁹ She was very pretty. She grew up in the corner of the mountain, amusing herself with this dog. She said to her one day:

“Has the queen no other houses? I am tired of being always here.”

The dog said to her: “Yes, she has a very fine one by the side of the king’s highway, and I will speak to my godmamma about it.”

And the dog then told her how Pretty-Rose was bored, and (asked her) if she would not change her house. She said to her, “Yes,” and off they go. While they were there one day Pretty-Rose was on the balcony, and a king’s son passes, and he was astonished at the beauty of Pretty-Rose; and the king begged and prayed her to look at him again, and (asked her) if she would not go with him. She told him, “No, that she must tell it to her godmamma.” Then the dog said, aside:

“No, without me she shall not go anywhere.”

This king says to her: “But I will take you, too, willingly; but how shall I get you?”

Rose says to him: “As I give every evening to my godmother always a glass of good liqueur to make her sleep well, as if by mistake, instead of half a glass, I will give her the glass full, and as she will not be able to rise any more to shut the door as usual, I, I will go and take the key to shut it. I will pretend to, and will give her back the key, leaving the door open, and you will open it when you come. She will not hear anything; she will be in a deep sleep.”

The king’s son said that he would come at midnight, in his flying chariot.

When night came, Rose gave her godmother the good drink in a glass, brim, brim-full. The godmother said:

“What! what! child!”

“You will sleep all the better, godmamma.”

“You are right,” and she drinks it all.

But she could not any more get up to shut the door, she had become so sleepy.

Rose said to her: “Godmamma! I will shut the door to-day; stop where you are.”

She gave her the key, and Rose turns and turns it back again and again in the keyhole as if she had locked it; and leaving it unlocked she gave the key to her godmother, and she puts it in her pocket. She goes to bed; but Rose and Pretty-Rose did not go to bed at all. At midnight the son of the king arrives with his flying chariot. Rose and Pretty-Rose get into it, and go to this young man’s house. The next day Rose says to Pretty-Rose:

“You are not so pretty as you were yesterday;” and looking at her closely, “I find you very ugly to-day.”

Pretty-Rose said to her: “My godmamma must have taken away my diamond glint.”

And she said to Rose, “You must go to my godmamma, and ask her to give me back the glint that I had before.”

Rose did not want to go there—she was afraid; but Pretty-Rose prayed her so much, that she took off the silver dress and set out.⁶⁰ When she came to the mountain, she began to call out:

“Godmamma! godmamma! Give Pretty-Rose her beautiful glint as before. I shall be angry with you for always (if you do not), and you will see what will happen to you.”

The godmother said to her:

“Come here, come in, I will give you breakfast.”

She said, “I am afraid you will beat me.”

“No! no! come quickly, then.”

“You will give Pretty-Rose her glint?”

“Yes, yes, she has it already.”

She then goes in. The queen washes her feet and wipes them, and puts her upon the velvet cushion, and gives her some chocolate; and says to her, that she knows where Pretty-Rose is, and that she will be married, and to tell her from her not to trouble herself about her toilet, nor about anything that is necessary for the wedding and feast, that she would come on the morning of the day.

Rose goes off then. While she is going through the city where Pretty-Rose is, she hears two ladies, who were saying to two gentlemen, “What kind of wife is it that our brother is going to take? Not like us, because he keeps her shut up so close. Let us go and see her.”

The little dog said to them, “Not a bit like you, you horrible blubber-lips, as you are. You shall see her—yes.”

When the young kings heard that, they were ready to run their swords through the poor little dog. When she gets to Pretty-Rose’s house she hides herself, and tells her all that has happened. Pretty-Rose gives her some good liqueur to drink, and she comes to herself. The king makes a proclamation that whoever shall (merely) spit where the little dog shall have placed her feet shall be killed, and to mind and pay attention to it.

When the marriage day had arrived, came the queen. She brought for the wedding-day a robe of diamonds; for the next day, of gold; and for the third day, of silver. Judge how beautiful she was with her glint of diamonds, and her dress of diamonds, too. They could not look at her. Her godmother told her to have her sisters-in-law there, and not to be afraid of them; that they could not come near her in beauty. When she went out (of her room) on the wedding-day, her sisters-in-law could not look at her, she dazzled them so much. They said to each other:

“The little dog was right when she said she was beautiful, this lady.”

And for three days Pretty-Rose walked about,⁶¹ and every one was astounded at her beauty. When the feast was over, the godmother went home. Rose would not leave Pretty-Rose. The godmother told Pretty-Rose that she was born of poor parents, and that she had once helped them, but that what she had given them must be already exhausted. Pretty-Rose gave them enough for all to live grandly. She herself had four children, two boys and two girls; and if they had lived well, they had died well.

Laurentine

Learnt it from her mother.