Introduction
The following article is a treasure box for Arthur Machen readers. Writing on mysterious topics in his classic vigor and style, our guide anticipated his future column, “Queer Things,” for The Observer (see What Do We Know?). Below, Machen treated his readers to comments on the sacrosanct nature of childhood wonder with dashes of references from Dickens. However, most interesting for the Machen student is the opening topic. It bears a striking resemblance to Machen’s own experience of a folklorist reading fact into his masterful work of fiction, “The White People.” There are games that are more than games.
Odd Volumes:
Folk-Lore, Water Babies and Mermaids
by
Arthur Machen
December 5, 1910
The other day an author of my acquaintance showed me a long letter which he had just received from the Malay States. It described with some minuteness a curious game played by the native children.
The game is called “hantu musang,” which means “the spirit of the civet cat,” and it is played as follows, according to my friend’s correspondent:—
A boy is reduced to something like the hypnotic state by being wrapped in a cloth and swung backwards and forwards by his companions, who sing a monotonous chant the while. When his feet have become cold, or he is no longer sensitive to tickling, the process is complete. The others rush off imitating the cries of fowls, and the subject starts up in pursuit: for the musang-spirit has entered into him, and he is for the time an animal of that species; in fact, if he is not restored to the normal state within about an hour he is transformed even visibly. The musang feeds on fowls when it can get them; hence the “possessed” boy’s excitement on hearing the cries of the other; hence, too, he will tear and bite them if he catches them, and is said to kill and devour actual fowls if he comes across any. He greedily consumes the fruits which the musang also loves, and performs marvellous feats of tree-climbing (the musang lives a good deal in trees), which remind one of the performances of somnambulists.
So far, good; the game is certainly an odd one, and no doubt offers some interesting points for the consideration of anthropologists.
But the letter goes on to say that the investigator had supposed “hantu musang” to be peculiar to Malaya—till a few months ago, when he came across a volume of my friend’s stories. He quotes the passage which interested him:
Nurse taught me to play an old game called “Troy Town,” in which one had to dance and wind in and out on a pattern in the grass, and then when one had danced and turned long enough the other person asks you questions, and you can’t help answering whether you want to or not, and whatever you are told to do you feel you have to do it. Nurse said there used to be a lot of games like that that some people knew of, and there was one by which people could be turned into anything you like—e. g., a snake.
And the folklorist is convinced that “Troy Town” is a mere variant of “hantu musang,” and he writes to ask for further details.
It never struck him that “Troy Town” might be an invention of my friend the novelist.
But the latter wrote a hurried letter to Perak, imploring the student not the send the story of “Troy Town” to his learned journals—as he had “made it all up” out of his own head!
The present time is the season of “Christmas books,” of fairy tales and wonder stories for boys and girls.
Among these books there will, doubtless, be many tales of mermen and mermaids.
Thoughtless parents may tell the inquiring though infantine reader that “in reality there are no such things as mermaids.”
To do this is to forget Charles Kingsley’s caution. He pointed out that though many—perhaps most—people can say, quite truthfully, “I have not seen a water baby,” that is quite a different thing from saying that you have seen a water baby ‘not-existing.’
It is only the latter remarkable phenomenon that would justify one in making the statement that there is no such thing as a water baby—or a mermaid.
Still, all this is theory, and the English mind has never been truly philosophical. We are all apt to say, “let’s have facts.” Well, here are the facts.
Mr. T. J. Westropp, writing a “Survey of County Clare” in Folk-Lore, is full of facts on the subject.
An O’Brien of Killone “saw a lovely girl in the lake” and caught her in the year 1839. He was disappointed to find that she had a fish’s tail: but, very properly, he gave orders that she was to be well treated. A “local fool” threw scalding water on the mermaid to make her “say something.”
She did say something, but it was a prophecy of ruin for the O’Briens.
But this is ancient history.
The last reported appearance of a mermaid is so recent as the end of April 1910. Several people, including Martin Griffin, my informant, saw what they are firmly convinced was a merwoman in a cove a little to the north of Spanish Point, near Miltown, Malbay. She was white-skinned, and had well-shaped white hands. The party tried to make friends with her, giving her bread, which she ate. Then a Quilty fisherman got frightened, said she was “something bad,” and threw a pebble at her, on which she plunged into the sea and disappeared.
It seems to me that there is no more to be said on the subject of the existence of mermaids!
There are one or two remarkable passages in Octave Mirbeau’s preface to “Marie-Claire,” the story by the poor needlewoman which has recently made such a sensation in Paris.
“I feel quite sure,” says M. Mirabeau, “that a great book was within it a power that nothing can destroy. Though it come from a far way, though it may be bound fast and enchained by the obscure miseries of a poor man’s cottage; still, sooner or later, it stands revealed. Of course, the great book is hated and insulted; all merit is denied to it.
“It doesn’t matter in the least—because the great book is stronger than any hatred. It is stronger than the whole world.”
It is an eloquent passage, but is it altogether in correspondence with the facts?
I do not think it would be difficult to find instances, many instances—in which the great book has been at once received with the acclamation that it deserves.
On the other hand, there are the great mistakes as to literary reputation; a fact which is illustrated by the appearance of “Douglas Jerrold and ‘Punch,’” by Walter Jerrold.
I am afraid that to-day Douglas Jerrold is deep in the pit of oblivion. Now and then a witty and bitter saying of his is quoted. There is the story of the minor poet who said to Jerrold: “No; I only wish I has,” was Jerrold’s reply.
One or two of these things survive; we have a few indistinct notions as to “Mrs. Caudle,” chiefly based on recollections of the conversation of our fathers and our aunts; otherwise the name stands for nothing.
And yet an English officer, annoyed with something that Jerrold had written in Punch, could speak of him as follows:
One whose wit is, to this moment, as brilliant as ever, after having ransacked all things and used them up; he who is the chief choice spirit of the day, the magician who enchants every class, etc., etc.
Alas! poor Jerrold.
By the way, Mr. FitzGerald has added himself to the long list of those who discuss whether a certain shop in Lincoln’s Inn Fields was or was not the Old Curiosity Shop of the romances.
I wonder how it is that people who are interested in the matter do not take the trouble to refer to the book.
They would find that the Curiosity Shop was pulled down, and that a new street passed over the site of it.
At first Kit used to point with his stick and tell his children that he thought the old house has stood on such a spot; but afterwards, he became confused and could not even indicate the vaguest whereabouts for the shop.
The Weekly Machen
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