English Fairy Talesbrothers succeeds after the others have failed, is one of the
most familiar in folk-tales amusingly parodied by Mr. Lang
in his Prince Prigio. The taboo against taking food in the
underworld occurs in the myth of Proserpine, and is also
frequent in folk-tales (Child, i. 322). But the folk-tale paral-
lels to our tale fade into insignificance before its brilliant
literary relationships. There can be little doubt that Edgar,
in his mad scene in King Lear, is alluding to our tale when he
breaks into the lines:
“Childe Rowland to the Dark Tower came....” His word was
still: “Fie, foh and fum, I smell the blood of a British man.”
King Lear, act iii. sc. 4, ad fin.
[Footnote: “British” for “English.” This is one of the points
that settles the date of the play; James I. was declared King
of Great Britain, October 1604. I may add that Motherwell
in his Minstrelsy, p. xiv. note, testifies that the story was still
extant in the nursery at the time he wrote (1828).]
The latter reference is to the cry of the King of Elfland.
That some such story was current in England in Shakespeare’s
time, is proved by that curious mélange of nursery tales, Peele’s
The Old Wives’ Tale. The main plot of this is the search of
two brothers, Calypha and Thelea, for a lost sister, Delia,
who has been bespelled by a sorcerer, Sacrapant (the names
are taken from the “Orlando Furioso”). They are instructed
by an old man (like Merlin in “Childe Rowland”) how to
rescue their sister, and ultimately succeed. The play has be-
sides this the themes of the Thankful Dead, the Three Heads
of the Well (which see), the Life Index, and a transforma-
tion, so that it is not to be wondered at if some of the traits
of “Childe Rowland” are observed in it.
But a still closer parallel is afforded by Milton’s Comus. Here
again we have two brothers in search of a sister, who has got
into the power of an enchanter. But besides this, there is the
refusal of the heroine to touch the enchanted food, just as
Childe Rowland finally refuses. And ultimately the bespelled
heroine is liberated by a liquid, which is applied to her lips
and finger-tips, just as Childe Rowland’s brothers are unspelled.
Such a minute resemblance as this cannot be accidental, and
it is therefore probable that Milton used the original form of
“Childe Rowland,” or some variant of it, as heard in his youth,