Strange Survivals

Who once more took his old drab coat to wipe away a tear.

“He turn’d and left the spot; O do not deem him weak;
A sly old chap this Charley was, though tears were on his cheek.
Go watch the lads in Fetterlane, where oft you’ve made them fear;
The hand, you know, that takes a bribe, can wipe away a tear.”

Here is one stanza by a composer with whom the writer of this article made acquaintance: —

“Pale was the light of the Pole-axe star,
When breakers would hide them so near.
But Love is the ocean of hunters far,
And convoys him to darkness so drear.
Then sad at the door of my love I lay,
Slumbering the six months all away.”

Horace sang something about lying exposed to the cold and rain at the door of his beloved, and vowed he would not do it again. There is certainly a distance of something beside two thousand years between Horace and the gentleman who wrote the above lines.

There is a really astonishing poem entitled “The Lights of Asheaton,” which, happily, everyone can purchase for a ha’penny. It is the composition of a recent Irish poet of the same class as Mr. John Morgan, and is a dissuasive against Protestantism. What the “Lights” of Asheaton are does not transpire. It opens thus: —

“You Muses now aid me in admonishing Paganism,
The new Lights of Asheaton, whose fate I do deplore.
From innocence and reason they are led to condemnation,
Their fate they’ve violated, the occasion of their woe.”

After some wonderful lines that we hardly like to quote, as savouring of irreverence – though that was far from the poet’s intention – he assures us: —

“Waters will decrease most amazing to behold,
No fanatic dissenter, no solvidian (sic) cripple,
Dare them to dissemble, the truths for to relinquish,
For the enthusiast will tremble at the splendors of the Pope.”

The sheet of broadside ballad that is passing away deserves a little attention before it disappears. It reveals to us the quality of song that commended itself to the uneducated. It shows us how the song proper has steadily displaced the ballad proper. It is surprising for what it contains, as well as for what it omits. Apparently in the latter part of this century the sole claim to admission is that words – no matter what they be – should be associated to a taking air. We find on the broadsheets old favourites of our youth – songs by Balfe, and Shield, and Hudson; but the Poet Laureate is unrepresented; even Dibdin finds but grudging admission. When we look at the stuff that is home-made, we find that it consists of two sorts of production – one, the ancient ballad in the last condition of wreck, cast up in fragments; and the other, of old themes worked up over and over again by men without a spark of poetic fire in their hearts. A century or two hence we shall have this rubbish collected and produced as the folk song of the English peasantry, just as we have had the black-letter ballads raked together and given to the world as the ballad poetry of the ancient English.

The broadside ballad is at its last gasp. Every publisher in the country who was wont to issue these ephemerides has discontinued doing so for thirty or forty years. In London, in place of a score of publishers of these leaves, there are but three – Mr. Fortey, of Seven Dials; Mr. Such, of the Boro’; and Mr. Taylor, of Bethnal Green. As the broadside dies, it becomes purer. There are ballads in some of the early issues of a gross and disgusting nature. These have all had the knife applied to them, and nothing issues from the press of Mr. Fortey, Mr. Such, and Mr. Taylor which is offensive to good morals. Mr. Such, happily, has all his broadsides numbered, and publishes a catalogue of them; some of the earlier sheets are, however, exhausted, and have not been reprinted.

It is but a matter of a few years and the broadside will be as extinct as the Mammoth and the Dodo, only to be found in the libraries of collectors. Already sheets that fetched a ha’penny thirty years ago are cut down the middle, and each half fetches a shilling. The garlands are worth more than their weight in gold. Let him that is wise collect whilst he may.

X.

Riddles

There is a curious little work, the contents of which are said to have been collected by Hans Sachs, the Nuremberg cobbler and master-singer, in 1517. This curious book was reprinted several times in the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth century, but it is now somewhat scarce. It was issued without place of publication or publisher’s name, in small form without cover. The book pretends to have been prepared by Hans Sachs for his private use, that he might make merriment among his friends, when drinking, and they were tired of his songs. It does not contain any anecdotes; it is made up of a collection of riddles more or less good, some coarse, and some profane; but the age was not squeamish. The title under which the little work was issued was, Useful Table-talk, or Something for all; that is the Happy Thoughts, good and bad, expelling Melancholy and cheering Spirits, of Hilarius Wish-wash, Master-tiler at Kielenhausen. The book consists of just a hundred pages, of which a quarter are consumed by prefaces, introductions, etc., and about thirteen filled with postscript and index. The humours of the book are somewhat curious; for instance, in the preliminary index of subjects it gives – “IX. The reason why this book of Table-talk was so late in being published.” When we turn to the place indicated for the reason, we find a blank. There is no such reason. There is a fulsome and absurd dedication to the “Honourable and Knightly Tileburner” who lives “By the icy ocean near Moscow, in Lapland, one mile below Podolia and three miles above it.”

Although we are not told in the place indicated why the little collection was not issued immediately after the death of Hans Sachs, nor among his works, we learn the reason elsewhere, in the preface, where we are told that the jokes it contained were so good that a rivalry ensued among them as to precedence, and till this was settled, it was impossible to get the book printed. The collection contains in all one hundred and ninety-six riddles; among them is that which gives the date of the book, and that in a chronogram: “When was this book of Table-talk drawn up? Answer. In IetzIg taVsenD fIInff hVnDert sIbenzehenDen Iahr” (1517).

Here are some of the conundrums. —Question. After Adam had eaten the forbidden fruit, did he stand or sit down? —Ans. Neither; he fell.

Ques. Two shepherds were pasturing their flocks. Said one to the other: “Give me one of your sheep, then I shall have twice as many sheep as you.” – “Not so,” replied the second herdsman: “give me one of yours, and then we shall have equal flocks.” How many sheep had each? —Ans. One had seven, the other five. If the first took a sheep out of the flock of the second, he had eight, the other four; if the contrary, each had six.

Ques. What is four times six? —Ans. 6666.

Ques. What does a goose do when standing on one leg? —Ans. Holds up the other!

Ques. When did carpenters first proclaim themselves to be intolerable dawdles? —Ans. When building the Ark – they took a hundred years over it.

Ques. What sort of law is military law? —Ans. Can(n)on law.

Some of the riddles have survived in the jocular mouth to the present day; for instance, who does not know this? —Ques. What smells most in an apothecary’s shop? —Ans. The nose. There is one conundrum which surprises us. The story was wont to be told by Bishop Wilberforce that he had asked a child in Sunday School why the angels ascended and descended on Jacob’s ladder, whereupon the child replied that they did so because they were moulting, and could not fly. But this appears in Hans Sachs’ book, and is evidently a very ancient joke indeed.

In this collection also appears the riddle: “Which is heaviest, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers?” which everyone knows, but with an addition, which is an improvement. After the answer, “Each weighs a pound, and they are equal in weight,” the questioner says further: “Not so – try in water. The pound of feathers will float, and the pound of lead will sink.”

Ques. How can you carry a jug of water in your hands on a broiling summer day, in the full blaze of the sun, so that the water shall not get hotter? —Ans. Let the water be boiling when you fill the jug.

Ques. How can a farmer prevent the mice from stealing his corn? —Ans. By giving them his corn.

Ques. A certain man left a penny by his will to be divided equally among his fifty relatives, each to have as much as the other, and each to be quite contented with what he got, and not envy any of the other legatees. How did the executor comply with this testamentary disposition? —Ans. He bought a packet of fifty tin-tacks with the penny, and hammered one into the back of each of the legatees.

There is another very curious old German collection of riddles called Æsopus Epulans; but that contains anecdotes as well and a great deal of very interesting matter. This is a much larger volume, and is the commonplace book of a party of priests who used to meet at each other’s houses to smoke, and drink, argue, and joke. One of the members took down the particulars of conversation at each meeting, and published it. A most curious and amusing volume it is. Some of the conundrums the old parsons asked each other were the same as those in Hans Sachs’ collection; they had become traditional. We may safely say that none were better, and some were, if possible, more pointless. They have all much the same character: they resemble faintly the popular conundrum of the type so widely spread, and so much affected still by nurses and by the labouring class, and which so often begins with “London Bridge is broken down,” or, “As I went over London Bridge.” These are very ancient. We have analogous riddles among those which Oriental tradition puts into the mouth of the Queen of Sheba when she “proved Solomon with hard questions.” Mr. Kemble published for the Ælfric Society a collection of questions and answers that exist in Anglo-Saxon as a conversation between Solomon and Saturn, and numerous versions existed in the Middle Ages of the dialogue between Solomon and – as the answerer was often called – Markulf. But these questions only partially correspond with our idea of riddles.

A more remarkable collection is that in the Icelandic Herverar Saga, where the King Heidrek boasts of his power to solve all riddles. Then Odin visits him in disguise as a blind man, and propounds to the king some hard questions. Of these there are sixty-four. We will give a few specimens. Ques. What was that drink I drank yesterday, which was neither spring water, nor wine, nor mead, nor ale? —Ans. The dew of heaven. Ques. What dead lungs did I see blowing to war? —Ans. A blacksmith’s bellows whilst a sword was being forged. Ques. What did I see outside a great man’s door, head downwards, feet heavenwards? —Ans. An onion.

These riddles are all in verse, and the replies also in verse. The end was that Odin asked Heidrek what he, Odin, whispered into the ear of Baldur before he was burned on his funeral pyre. Thereupon Heidrek drew his sword and cut at his questioner, shouting: “None can answer that but yourself!” Odin had just time to transform himself into an eagle; but the sword shore off his tail, and eagles ever after have had short tails.

The Sphinx will recur to the recollection of the reader, who tore to pieces those who could not answer its riddles. At last Creon, King of Thebes, offered his sister, Jocasta, to anyone who could solve the enigmas propounded by the Sphinx. Œdipus ventured, and when asked by the monster, “What animal is four-footed in the morning, two-footed at noon, and three-footed in the evening?” answered: “Man, who as a babe crawls, and as an old man leans on a crutch.” The Sphinx was so distressed at hearing its riddle solved, that it precipitated itself from a precipice and was dashed to pieces.

The Persian hero, Sal, who was brought up by the gigantic bird Simorg, appears before Mentuscher, Schah of Iran. The latter, forewarned that Sal will be a danger to him, endeavours to get rid of him. However, he first tests him with hard questions. If he answers these, he is to be allowed to live. The first question is: “There stand twelve cypresses in a ring, and each bears thirty boughs.” Sal replies, “These are the twelve months, each of which has thirty days.” Another question is – “There were two horses, one black, the other clear as crystal.” “They are Day and Night,” replied Sal.

In English and Scottish Ballads a whole class has reference to the importance of riddle answering.

A girl is engaged to a young man who dies. He returns from the grave and insists on her fulfilling her engagement to him and following him to the land of the dead. She consents on one condition, that he will answer her riddles, or else she pleads to be spared, and the dead lover agrees on condition that she shall answer some riddles he sets. Such is a ballad which was formerly enacted in the farmhouses in Cornwall. The girl sits on her bed and sighs for her dead lover. He reappears and insists on her following him. Then she sets him tasks, and he sets her tasks.

Those he sets her are: —

“Thou must buy me, my lady, a cambrick shirt
Whilst every grove rings with a merry antine (antienne = anthem),
And stitch it without any needle work,
O, and thou shalt be a true love of mine.

“And thou must wash it in yonder well
Where never a drop of water fell.

“And thou must hang it upon a white thorn
That never has blossomed since Adam was born.”

Those she sets him are: —

“Thou must buy for me an acre of land
Between the salt ocean and the yellow sand.