Basque Legends; With an Essay on the Basque Language. Wentworth Webster
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defeats and being constantly outwitted, recals one of the types of the Devil in mediæval story. At times he appears in gentler guise, as when he aids the young prince to his rights, and supplies Petit Yorge with the means of victory over the Heren-Suge. What the talking ring is which appears in so many of these stories we confess ourselves unable to interpret; it is found in the Keltic, but, as far as we are aware, not in the classic legends.
One peculiarity of the Basque, and especially of the Tartaro legends, is that the hero of them is so often a madman, an idiot, or a fool. If we can trust our memory, the case is the same in the Slavonic representatives of Odysseus.11 But the Basques seem to dwell upon and to repeat the idea in a peculiar way; they ring the changes on all states, from the wild madman, like the Scandinavian Berserker, through the idiot and fool, to the mere blockhead and ninny. Errua, Enuchenta, Ergela, Sosua, Tontua, are terms employed to designate the heroes who have sometimes, to our modern apprehension, little of the idiot or fool, except the name. Can it be that the power which put out the sun’s fiery eye was looked upon as a beneficent being in a burning tropic land, while, as the legend travelled northward, the act seemed more like that of madness, or of senseless stupidity?
One type of these Tartaro tales will at once recal Grimm’s “Valiant Little Tailor,” and some of the more modern versions of “Jack the Giant-Killer.” But though the incidents are identical, it is hardly possible that they can be thus borrowed. Several of our narrators were utterly ignorant of French, and learnt the tale as children from old people, who died a few years since at upwards of 80. The first translation of Grimm’s Tales into French was published in the year 1845.
The Tartaro
Once upon a time there was the son of a king who for the punishment of some fault became a monster. He could become a man again only by marrying. One day he met a young girl who refused him, because she was so frightened at him. And the Tartaro wanted to give her a ring, which she would not accept. However, he sent it her by a young man. As soon as the ring was upon her finger it began to say, “Thou there, and I here.”12 It kept always crying out this, and the Tartaro pursued her continually; and, as the young girl had such a horror of him, she cut off her finger and the ring, and threw them into a large pond, and there the Tartaro drowned himself.
Estefanella Hirigarray,
of Ahetze.
M. d’Abbadie’s Version
Our next story was communicated by M. d’Abbadie to the Société des Sciences et des Arts de Bayonne. The narrator is M. l’Abbé Heguiagaray, the Parish Priest of Esquiule in La Soule:—
In my infancy I often heard from my mother the story of the Tartaro. He was a Colossus, with only one eye in the middle of his forehead. He was a shepherd and a hunter, but a hunter of men. Every day he ate a sheep; then, after a snooze, every one who had the misfortune to fall into his hands. His dwelling was a huge barn, with thick walls, a high roof, and a very strong door, which he alone knew how to open. His mother, an old witch, lived in one corner of the garden, in a hut constructed of turf.
One day a powerful young man was caught in the snares of the Tartaro, who carried him off to his house. This young man saw the Tartaro eat a whole sheep, and he knew that he was accustomed to take a snooze, and that after that his own turn would come. In his despair he said to himself that he must do something. Directly the Tartaro began to snore he put the spit into the fire, made it red-hot, and plunged it into the giant’s one eye. Immediately he leapt up, and began to run after the man who had injured him; but it was impossible to find him.
“You shall not escape. It is all very well to hide yourself,” said he; “but I alone know the secret how to open this door.”
The Tartaro opened the door half-way, and let the sheep out between his legs. The young man takes the big bell off the ram, and puts it round his neck, and throws over his body the skin of the sheep which the giant had just eaten, and walks on all fours to the door.
The Tartaro examines him by feeling him, perceives the trick, and clutches hold of the skin; but the young man slips off the skin, dives between his legs, and runs off.
Immediately the mother of the Tartaro meets him, and says to him:
“O, you lucky young fellow! You have escaped the cruel tyrant; take this ring as a remembrance of your escape.”
He accepts, puts the ring on his finger, and immediately the ring begins to cry out, “Heben nuk! Heben nuk!” (“Thou hast me here! Thou hast me here!”)
The Tartaro pursues, and is on the point of catching him, when the young man, maddened with fright, and not being able to pull off the ring, takes out his knife, and cuts off his own finger, and throws it away, and thus escapes the pursuit of the Tartaro.
In other versions the young man goes into the forest with some pigs, meets the Tartaro there, is carried by him home, blinds him with the red-hot spit, and escapes by letting himself down through a garret window. The Tartaro pursues, guided by his ring, which at last he throws to the young man to put on, when it cries out as above, and the young man cuts off his finger, and throws it down a precipice or into a bog, where the ring still cries out, and the Tartaro following, is dashed to pieces and drowned.
Errua, the Madman
Like many others in the world, there was a man and woman who had a son. He was very wicked, and did nothing but mischief, and was of a thoroughly depraved disposition. The parents decided that they must send him away, and the lad was quite willing to set off.
He set out then, and goes far, far, far away. He comes to a city, and asks if they want a servant. They wanted one in a (certain) house. He goes there. They settle their terms at so much a month, and that the one who is not satisfied should strip the skin off the other’s back.13
The master sends his servant to the forest to get the most crooked pieces of wood that he can find. Near the forest there was a vineyard. What does the servant do but cut it all up, and carries it to the house. The master asks him where the wood is. He shows him the vine-wood cut up. The master said nothing to him, but he was not pleased.
Next day the master says to him, “Take the cows to such a field, and don’t break any hole in the fence.”
What does the lad do? He cuts all the cows into little pieces, and throws them bit by bit into the field. The master was still more angry; but he could not say anything, for fear of having his skin stripped off. So what does he do? He buys a herd of pigs, and sends his servant to the mountain with the herd.
The master knew quite well that there was a Tartaro in this mountain, but he sends him there all the same.
Our madman goes walking on, on, on. He arrives at a little hut. The Tartaro’s house was quite close to his. The pigs of the Tartaro and those of the madman used to go out together. The Tartaro said one day to him—
“Will you make a wager as to who will throw a stone farthest?”
He accepted the wager. That evening our madman was very sad. While he was at his prayers, an old woman appeared to him, and asks him—
“What is the matter with you? Why are you so sad?”
He tells her the wager that he has made with the Tartaro. The old woman says to him—
“If it is only that, it is nothing.”
And so she gives him a bird, and says to him—
“Instead of a stone, throw this bird.”
The madman was very glad at this. The next day he does as the old woman told him. The Tartaro’s stone went enormously far, but at last it fell; but the madman’s bird never came down at all.
The Tartaro was astonished that he had lost his wager, and they make another—which of the two should throw a bar of iron the farthest. The madman accepted again. He was in his little house sadly in prayer. The old woman appears again. She asks him—
“What’s the matter with
Cf. also the Gaelic, “The Story and the Lay of the Great Fool,” Campbell, Vol. III., pp. 146–154.
This talking giant’s ring appears in Campbell’s “Popular Tales of the West Highlands,” Vol. I., p. 111, in the tale called “Conall cra Bhuidhe.” He also refers (p. 153) to Grimm’s tale of the “Robber and his Sons,” where the same ring appears:—“He puts on the gold ring which the giant gave him, which forces him to cry out, ‘Here I am!’ He bites off his own finger, and so escapes.”
Cf. Campbell’s “Mac-a-Rusgaich,” Vol. II., 305:—“I am putting it into the covenant that if either one of us takes the rue, that a thong shall be taken out of his skin, from the back of his head to his heel.”