Reinventing Fairytales and Childe Roland

I had the chance to finish The Personnel of Fairyland and the story of Childe Roland and also found answers to my three questions from last week about furze, howdies, and Tom Tit Tot. 

Who is Tom Tit Tot?

Tom Tit Tot is basically the Rumpelstiltskin tale under a different name. However, I found in the ‘dictionary of fairies’ at the end of The Personnel of Fairyland that he is “described as a black thing with a long tail, and sometimes as an impet.” (An imp–sometimes a small demon, either playful or malicious, causing all sorts of trouble.) “Tom-Tit, a Tut or Tut-gut is a Lincolnshire name for a hobgoblin.” (Hobgoblins are small, ugly, mischievous creatures. They cause a lot of trouble around the house or shops, unless they are a good type, like a brownie, or the type that helps brewers.)

What is a Howdie?

A howdie is a midwife or wise woman, possibly a witch or a woman with magical powers and/or knowledge of herbs. This makes sense. In several of the brownie stories in Personnel, a household servant is dispatched to fetch the midwife for a difficult birth. Somehow, the servant is waylaid or he is just too lazy and ignorant to do the job. The household brownie–a friendly fairy–saves the day by retrieving the midwife quick as lightning. He usually comes back home to exact some form of punishment on the lazy servant.

Why do Farmers Cut Furze?

There are a number of reasons for farmers to cut furze, which is also known as gorse. It’s common in Western Europe (and Asia, but none of these stories are set there). It’s a thorny weed that grows rapidly and can quickly take over farmland/pastureland. It’s fire-prone, so it’s also a fire hazard, but, cut, it can be used for fuel. Apparently, it also has many medicinal properties: diuretic, anti-inflammatory, laxative, expectorant and astringent to reduce bleeding and tighten tissues.  (This makes me realize that not only do I know nothing about fairytales; I know nothing about the salutary uses of plants.)

A Bit More on Banshees

The dictionary of fairies at the end of Personnel gave a little more information on Banshees. I mentioned in the last post that they particularly interest me for a book that covers 2020-2022 because it felt like death was all around and the wailing was unceasing. While earlier I had read that Irish banshees dress in white, the description here is that they have “long streaming hair and a grey cloak over a green dress. [Their] eyes are fiery red from continual weeping.” And the Scottish banshee known as The Little Washer of Sorrows “is no beauty, for she has only one nostril, a large, starting-out front tooth, and web feet.” 

Brownies and Dobies

In checking on various fairies, I learned that a dobie is a sort of brownie, but of a clownish and foolish nature, someone much easier to outwit than the average brownie. For that reason, anyone who managed to have an ordinary brownie around the house wouldn’t want a dobie around. Since the only time I’d heard of ‘dobie’ before was Dobby in Harry Potter, I wonder if that’s where JK Rowling got the idea for her house-elf. Authors of fan websites believe so. Let’s recall–Dobby is freed from servitude when Harry gives him a sock. And brownies are freed by gifts of clothing. It’s fun to lean on folklore while changing it up a bit, and Rowling did so. 

Childe Roland

This thinking of twists on old tales brings me back to another story I mentioned last week: Childe Roland’s tale, which I found a little dull. A footnote in Personnel states that the tale is from Jacob’s English Fairy Tales. Joseph Jacobs compiled and edited English folktales and David Nutt published the volume in 1890. It included several tales that most westerners recognize such as “The Three Little Pigs” and “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” 

This “Childe Roland” was published decades after Browning wrote his poem, but the story was well known. However, Browning’s poem is far more engaging; it’s more mysterious, ominous and all together frightening. The fairy tale is told in a very straightforward way as all the tales in Personnel are. 

Childe Roland and his brothers are playing football when Roland accidentally kicks the ball over the church to the other side. His sister goes to retrieve it, but she runs ‘widdershins’–against the sun. Apparently, this is a big mistake because, when your shadow falls behind you, the King of Elfland can catch you. She disappears. After some time passes, her brothers, one after the other, seek counsel from Merlin, and then head out to find her. Merlin’s instructions are to cut off the head of any creature that speaks to them in Elfland and not eat or drink anything there.

Somehow, neither of the older brothers return, and finally it is Childe Roland’s turn to go, which his mother, the Queen, finally allows. She gives him his father’s great sword. (Inquiring minds want to know: why didn’t she give it to the first brother?) In Elfland, Roland meets a wizened man with eyes that shine like a cat’s. He’s watching over some ponies with fiery red eyes. When Roland asks for directions to the Dark Tower, he advises Roland to find the King of Elfland’s cowherd. When Roland cuts off his head, he picks it up, tucks it under his arm, and continues his work. 

The cowherd suggests that Roland ask the henwife about the Dark Tower. Roland cuts off his head and moves on. Like the horseherd, the cowherd picks up his own head and then disappears. The henwife points out the Dark Tower and has her head cut off for the trouble. 

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came?

When Roland arrives at the Dark Tower, he is greeted by a woman who appears to be his sister. She speaks to him, so he cuts her head off, too. Then his real sister runs to him. He almost makes the mistake of eating and drinking, but remembers Merlin’s words in the nick of time (a little suspense there). The Elf King comes out sounding like the giant in Jack’s tale:

Fee! Fi! Fo! Fum!

I smell the blood of a Christian Man.

Be he dead, be he living, with this brand

I’ll dash his brains from his brain pan!

They parry up and down the great hall until Roland gets the Elf King on the ground, his foot to the King’s throat. He threatens to kill the King unless he brings Roland’s two brothers back to life and sets his sister free. This is done to great rejoicing.

As you might imagine, the sister never went widdershins again. 

Really–Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

While this telling has a bit of suspense and a happy ending, Browning’s dramatic monologue has vivid images of death and a desolate wasteland, a tone that sets the reader on edge, and an open ending that doesn’t bode well for Childe Roland. Browning does exactly what any modern storyteller would hope to do in a retelling: he makes it better.

If you haven’t read Browning’s poem, treat yourself! Published in 1855, it’s long out of copyright and can be found easily online, including here. 

Here’s a small sample of the atmosphere (stanzas 20 and 21):

XX.

So petty yet so spiteful! All along,

 Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;

 Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit

Of route despair, a suicidal throng:

The river which had done them all the wrong,

 Whate’er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.

XXI.

Which, while I forded,—-good saints, how I feared

 To set my foot upon a dead man’s cheek,

 Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek

For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!

—-It may have been a water-rat I speared,

 But, ugh! it sounded like a baby’s shriek.

Stephen King fans will know that Browning’s poem was an influence on his Dark Tower series.

In a 1989 interview with Castle Rock News, King said:

“Browning never says what that tower is, but it’s based on an even older tradition about Childe Roland that’s lost in antiquity. Nobody knows who wrote it, and nobody knows what the Dark Tower is. So I started off wondering: What is this tower? What does it mean? And I decided that everybody keeps a Dark Tower in their heart that they want to find.”

And the beat goes on.