1 Not 1940 as incorrectly stated in 1947. [Footnote to the original ‘Introductory Note’. But the lecture was actually delivered on 8 March 1939: Humphrey Carpenter, Biography, p. 191.]
2 These notes can be dated to November 1935 or later; but they were written onto the manuscript after the text of the poem had been completed.
3 These letters have been published in They Stand Together: The Letters of C. S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves (1914–1963), edited by Walter Hooper, Collins, 1979 (pp. 421, 425–8). I thank Humphrey Carpenter for his help in this matter.
4 I am speaking of developments before the growth of interest in the folk-lore of other countries. The English words, such as elf, have long been influenced by French (from which fay and Faërie, fairy are derived); but in later times, through their use in translation, both fairy and elf have acquired much of the atmosphere of German, Scandinavian, and Celtic tales, and many characteristics of the huldu-fólk, the daoine-sithe, and the tylwyth teg.
5 For the probability that the Irish Hy Breasail played a part in the naming of Brazil see Nansen, In Northern Mists, ii, 223–30.
6 Their influence was not confined to England. German Elf, Elfe appears to be derived from A Midsummer-night’s Dream, in Wieland’s translation (1764).
7 Confessio Amantis, v. 7065 ff.
8 Except in special cases such as collections of Welsh or Gaelic tales. In these the stories about the ‘Fair Family’ or the Shee-folk are sometimes distinguished as ‘fairy-tales’ from ‘folk-tales’ concerning other marvels. In this use ‘fairy-tales’ or ‘fairy-lore’ are usually short accounts of the appearances of ‘fairies’ or their intrusions upon the affairs of men. But this distinction is a product of translation.
9 This is true also, even if they are only creations of Man’s mind, ‘true’ only as reflecting in a particular way one of Man’s visions of Truth.
10 See further below, see here.
11 Beowulf, 111–12.
12 See Note A at the end (see here).
13 The Tailor of Gloucester perhaps comes nearest. Mrs Tiggywinkle would be as near, but for the hinted dream-explanation. I would also include The Wind in the Willows in beast-fable.
14 Such as, for instance: The Giant that had no Heart in Dasent’s Popular Tales from the Norse; or The Sea-Maiden in Campbell’s Popular Tales of the West Highlands (no. iv, cf. also no. i); or more remotely Die Kristallkugel in Grimm.
15 Budge, Egyptian Reading Book, p. xxi.
16 See Campbell, op. cit., vol. i.
17 Popular Tales from the Norse, p. xviii.
18 Except in particularly fortunate cases; or in a few occasional details. It is indeed easier to unravel a single thread – an incident, a name, a motive – than to trace the history of any picture defined by many threads. For with the picture in the tapestry a new element has come in: the picture is greater than, and not explained by, the sum of the component threads. Therein lies the inherent weakness of the analytic (or ‘scientific’) method: it finds out much about things that occur in stories, but little or nothing about their effect in any given story.
19 For example, by Christopher Dawson in Progress and Religion.
20 This is borne out by the more careful and sympathetic study of ‘primitive’ peoples: that is, peoples still living in an inherited paganism, who are not, as we say, civilised. The hasty survey finds only their wilder tales; a closer examination finds their cosmological myths; only patience and inner knowledge discovers their philosophy and religion: the truly worshipful, of which the ‘gods’ are not necessarily an embodiment at all, or only in a variable measure (often decided by the individual).
21 They should not be spared it – unless they are spared the whole story until their digestions are stronger.
22 See Note B at end (see here).
23 In the case of stories and other nursery lore, there is also another factor. Wealthier families employed women to look after their children, and the stories were provided by these nurses, who were sometimes in touch with rustic and traditional lore forgotten by their ‘betters’. It is long since this source dried up, at any rate in England; but it once had some importance. But again there is no proof of the special fitness of children as the recipients of this vanishing ‘folk-lore’. The nurses might just as well (or better) have been left to choose the pictures and furniture.
24 See Note C at end (see here).
25 By Lang and his helpers. It is not true of the majority of the contents in their original (or oldest surviving) forms.
26 Far more often they have asked me: ‘Was he good? Was he wicked?’ That is, they were more concerned to get the Right side and the Wrong side clear. For that is a question equally important in History and in Faërie.
27 Preface to the Violet Fairy Book.
28 See Note D at end (see here).
29 This is, naturally, often enough what children mean when they ask: ‘Is it true?’ They mean: ‘I like this, but is it contemporary? Am I safe in my bed?’ The answer: ‘There is certainly no dragon in England today’, is all that they want to hear.
30 Preface to the Lilac Fairy Book.
31 That is: which commands or induces Secondary Belief.
32 This is not true of all dreams. In some Fantasy seems to take a part. But this is exceptional. Fantasy is a rational not an irrational activity.
33 See Note E at end (see here).
34 See Note F at end (see here).
35 Christopher Dawson, Progress and Religion, 58, 59. Later he adds: ‘The full Victorian panoply of top-hat and frock-coat undoubtedly expressed something essential in the nineteenth-century culture, and hence it has with that culture spread all over the world, as no fashion of clothing has ever done before. It is possible that our descendants will recognise in it a kind of grim Assyrian beauty, fit emblem of the ruthless and great age that created it; but however that may be, it misses the direct and inevitable beauty that all clothing should have, because like its parent culture it was out of touch with the life of nature and of human nature as well.’
36 See Note G at end (see here).
37 Or group of similar stories.
38 The Queen who sought drink from a certain Well and the Lorgann (Campbell, xxiii); Der Froschkönig; The Maid and the Frog.
39 See Note H at end (see here).
40 This is characteristic of Lang’s wavering balance. On the surface the story is a follower of the ‘courtly’ French conte with a satiric twist, and of Thackeray’s Rose and the Ring in particular – a kind which being superficial, even frivolous, by nature, does not produce or aim at producing anything so profound; but underneath lies the deeper spirit of the romantic Lang.
41 Of the kind which Lang called ‘traditional’, and really preferred.
42 The Black Bull of Norroway.
43 For all details may not be ‘true’: it is seldom that the ‘inspiration’ is so strong and lasting that it leavens all the lump, and does not leave much that is mere uninspired ‘invention’.
44 The Art is here in the story itself rather than in the telling; for the Author of the story was not the evangelists.
45 According to one estimate 6 foot 9 inches tall. This estimate was based on the length and size of his bones when examined, in his tomb at Ely, in AD 1769.
46 That Olaf Tryggvason was actually present at Maldon is now thought to be doubtful. But his name was known to Englishmen. He had been in Britain before, and was certainly here again in 994.
47 According to the views of E. D. Laborde, now generally accepted. The causeway or ‘hard’ between Northey and the mainland is still there.
48 It was indeed plainly intended as a recitation for two persons, two shapes in ‘dim shadow’, with the help of a few gleams of light and appropriate noises and a chant at the end. It has, of course, never been performed.
49 Cf. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 2127–31.
50 To fela means in Old English idiom that no ground at all should have been conceded. And ofermod does not mean ‘overboldness’, not even if we give full value to the ofer, remembering how strongly the taste and wisdom of the English (whatever their actions) rejected ‘excess’. Wita scàl gepyldig ... ne næfre gielpes to georn, ær he geare cunne.) But mod, though it may contain or imply courage, does not mean ‘boldness’ any more than Middle English corage. It means ‘spirit’, or when unqualified ‘high spirit’, of which the most usual manifestation is pride. But in ofer-mod it is qualified, with disapproval: ofermod is in fact always a word of condemnation. In verse the noun occurs only twice, once applied to Beorhtnoth, and once to Lucifer.
51 It is probably the first work to apply the word ‘letters’ to this metre, which has in fact never regarded them.