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the story does not take long to change its character.
As here described, the creation and subsequent modification of folk-
stories were an unconscious process. An account of a true event turns
bit by bit into a folk-story, and it is not easy to determine when the
transformation actually occurs. Thus anyone and everyone is part-
author of the story, and all who tell it contribute to its eventual shape.
It is then the work of ordinary people, a folk-story in the fullest sense
of the term.
Yet this is far from being the only way in which a folk-story grows.
It may be regarded as certain that many a story is the work of one man
or at best of a limited number, so that even though a story has been
told by many and its details affected by frequent re-telling, its basic
structure will have been created by one person, or sometimes perhaps
in just a few  stages . It is, for instance, obvious that most exempla or
other stories of ethical or religious import have a literary origin, and
were composed at one go. When a story says that an ogress was turned
into a particular crag, even though the rock has no discernible features,
then this is an explanation, whether put forward in fun or seriously,
SURVEY 65
which stems from one man s imagination. Simple stories about spe-
cific localities may be interesting when one is close to the spot, but
their interest may fade at a distance from it. On the other hand, a short
anecdote may become longer and more detailed and so acquire new
motifs and further appeal.
Although folk-belief is the primary source of many folk-stories, it
should nevertheless be observed that the wishes of story-tellers and
audiences are of great importance. Many folk-stories may be justly
called wish-fulfilment fantasies, and in large part draw more on
people s desires or dreams than on actual experience, whether of this
world or the next. The most obvious examples are stories of success-
ful hunting and fishing or superlative prowess, which are often pure
fiction of the most blatant kind, but the same spirit animates many
stories of how men overcome or trick evil beings who are otherwise
too powerful for humanity, in the way that Sæmundur the Wise and
other master-magicians beat the Devil at his own game, for instance
(see JÁ I 485 502). I shall return to this theme in more detail later on.
A good story-teller cannot keep quiet when he has a spirited tall story
on the tip of his tongue, one he knows will send cold shivers down the
spines of his audience. Goethe s  die Lust zum Fabulieren is a very
strong factor in the human make-up. To tell a story is a primitive human
urge, especially when the story is entertaining, and grips the audience,
so that they are fascinated or frightened, intent or on edge. While this
is in progress, there is total suspension of disbelief.
There can be no disguising the fact that deliberate fiction is created
not only when a story is invented from beginning to end, but also
when old stories are retold. I named just now one important reason for
change: forgetfulness because if a story-teller knew that he had for-
gotten something, he tried as best he could to make up for it. Many
other factors, however, come into play, too. An old story may have
contained some motifs that were at odds with new manners and modes
of thought, and so coarse or brutal incidents were excised or bowd-
lerised. There is no doubt that as the wonder-tales became more and
more the preserve of the nursery they lost many characteristics which
were not thought proper for children s ears. Thus in the story of Phaedra
the queen tries to seduce her stepson, and though this motif exists in
some of the earliest Icelandic stepmother stories, I do not think it occurs
in a single wonder-tale of the nineteenth century. Nor is it uncommon
66 THE FOLK-STORIES OF ICELAND
for the main trend of a story to be altered, and in the process for it to
become necessary to change a great many of its elements a neces-
sity which occurs most often when a story moves from one country to
another or from one genre to another.
It is common for individual motifs or incidents to be added to other
stories, especially at the beginning or end, and it is by no means rare
to find wonder-tales joined together. Thus the story of Mja: veig Mána-
dóttir sometimes deals only with Mja: veig, her stepmother and step-
sister, and ends when the prince finds the right owner of the golden
shoe, but sometimes it is augmented by the story of the troll-wife in the
boat of stone to explain how Mja: veig fell into the hands of the trolls.
This can be clearly seen from the variants among the recorded narra-
tives (Verz. no. 510; cf. no. 403). Nor is there any doubt that many of the
ancient wonder-tales were composed by accretion in a similar way,
while others are the result of a story-teller taking some old story and in-
venting a new one on the basis of its principal motifs. Though their ma-
terial may be old, wonder-tales commonly develop in stages or leaps.
The individual s part in the making and alteration of folk-stories
has become more obvious in late years. One approach, for instance,
has been to compare all the stories recorded from certain good story-
tellers, and from this it has become clear that each narrator has his
own leanings and peculiarities. One lays stress on telling a story as
nearly as possible in the way he heard it, another treats his originals
freely, sets more store by lively narration, even perhaps acts the dia-
logues. Taste, ways of thought and the accidents of a story-teller s life
can lead him to leave some things out or to amplify the detail or to add
fresh matter. With such a narrator everything is lively and capable of
variation, subject to his temperament and artistic ability.1
The story-teller is tied to his audience in every way as much as a
poet to his readers, or even more, in that he stands face to face with
them, and they either dampen his enthusiasm or excite it. He sees the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]