23 May, 1985 Approximately 12 pages; 4,200 words.
Among the many reasons why the dead return to the living in folktale is the motive of fulfilling an obligation.1 In this case, an obligation incurred when a wanderer ransoms a corpse lying unburied or otherwise abused, typically for having died in debt.
For the dead to lie unburied was "anciently a terrible curse inflicted on criminals, paupers, and those who offended the state."2 By discharging debts and securing burial for the hapless corpse, the hero demonstrates his unconditional goodwill, generous nature, and respect for the less fortunate, since what return can one hope for in this life for services rendered to the dead?
The phrase "grateful dead" appears to have originated in Germany, as did much other nineteenth century folklore scholarship. Perhaps it was first officially recognized by Karl Simrock, who in 1856 saw published his book "Der gute Gerhard und die dankbaren Todten."
For present purposes I have necessarily limited myself to tales and commentary composed or translated in the English language, relying to a large extent early on in my research on Gordon Hall Gerould's work "The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk Story," which offers concise analyses of more than five score versions of the motif from all over Europe, Asia Minor, and the Middle East, drawing a great deal from precisely those stories and sources cloaked by linguistic barriers. Apparently the motif we call the "grateful dead" was once both widely known and appreciated.
Synopsis of the Grateful Dead Folktale
A young man sets off on a journey. On the way he enables a corpse to be buried by paying off its debts, although this requires that he part with all his money. Resuming his travels, he is soon met by a man who offers to become his partner in return for half the proceeds. The stranger renders our hero assistance in many adventures, finally demanding the division of their gains only when the hero is wealthy and married to a beautiful princess. By his willingness to fulfill the bargain the fidelity of the young man is assured, and the stranger then reveals his identity as the grateful spirit of the dead man to whom the hero was kind, and disappears.
The difficulty with this summary story outline, as Gerould mentions in the introduction to his landmark book on the subject, is that tales faithfully adhering to such a simple format are quite rare. Instead we find mostly a variety of examples of this motif incorporated with another significant theme, usually from a large handful of types with which it shares key attributes. These have then been often re-compounded within the group, until tales of some complexity emerge.
The situation may be analagous to that encountered when referring to the postulated "Indo-European" tongue, a reconstruction that investigators in the field assert was once a living language, a missing link in the confusion of tongues following the fall of the Tower of Babel. So may its transmigration in some regard mirror that of the Grateful Dead and other folktales, leading us back like inquisitive tree-birds through diverse foliage, along manifold branches, toward a supple trunk sprung from familiar roots.
According to R.M. Dawkins, "The essence of the story is that the hero does an act of kindness or mercy, and the beneficiary in some unexpected form appears later and acts as his devoted guide and helper."3 Dawkins has neatly defined the nut from which grew the tree, and I agree that at this level the stories are united with a grove of relatives in which some animal is befriended by the hero. Dawkins also there notes that "in a separate and important set of versions the hero has shown compassion for a dead man."
The Grateful Dead in Print
The oldest recognized literary version of the Grateful Dead comes to us already strongly allied with another theme. It is the apocryphal Book of Tobit, once part of the Old Testament. One authority at least sees Persian and Egyptian influences in the story,4 and F.H. Groome asserts that "the Apocryphal book itself is plainly a corrupt version ofthe original folktale."5 The book is thought to date at least from the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian, or about the first century A.D., although other sources place it a bit earlier, between the fourth and second centuries B.C.6 Apparently unsubstantiated mention is made of its pre-existence in Chaldean as a Babylonian tale,7 suggesting translation into Hebrew, and Groome considered it "perhaps the oldest current folk-tale in the world."8
Tale Types - Overview
In "The Types of the Folktale", Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson list four types of the Grateful Dead, one with two and another with three subtypes, all broken down into formulas of motifs.9 Thompson, in his monograph "The Folktale", claimed to see three types, and the most confounded relationships of type to motif. He offers rough geographical delineations, and considering the Tobit-like tales as the true type, says only that we are dealing with a very old tale that, having come to Europe from the Near East, was then incorporated by other tales to form two additional types.10
Dawkins,11 having published several versions of the tale, and knowing of Gerould's book, yet appears to recognize only two central story types; one with the dead man, and one with thankful beasts, though indeed many examples are to be found where even these distinctions are blurred. In "Siberian and other Folk-Tales", C.F. Coxwell attributed to one Sir Richard Burton the conviction that grateful animal tales spread from Egypt to India, while Coxwell himself thinks it probable that such tales arose spontaneously around the world, and that these types, especially, were the product of "men whose intellects and powers of discrimination were very feebly developed."12 This stance illustrates the dichotomy; advocates of spontaneous generation versus dispersion, and reveals a degree of cultural bias often inherent in such discussion. For myself I can so far only suspect that the truth lies somewhere in between.
Nowhere have I yet seen clear indications or even a consensus for the origins of the Grateful Dead motif. Gerould relates that Liebrecht pointed to European, Simrock to Germanic, and others to Semitic and Oriental genesis. He himself says there is no evidence of the motif in either India or Western Asia, and rules out Persia on the basis of that area's ancient funereal practices; they did not bury their dead. He supports a Semitic origin with separate migrations infiltrating Europe on the one hand, and Asia on the other, with most of the combinations ocurring in the meeting ground of Eastern Europe.13
Major Tale Types
Returning to the Aarne-Thompson index, we may now look more closely at the major types, 505 through 508, under the section, Tales of Magic: Supernatural Helpers. AT-505, "The King is Betrayed" won't take long; based on the sketchy description, I can't be sure if I've ever seen an example of it. If for "betrayed" we read "deceived", then Gerould's Danish I might fit the bill. The four countries where Aarne and Thompson list tales as having been collected all border the Baltic Sea, and include Denmark, but it is difficult to know what was intended.
506, "The Rescued Princess", or as Gerould styles it, "The Ransomed Woman", is another matter. Gerould analyzes no fewer than nineteen simple compounds of this type, plus six others with one further major element, all from a basically Western European tradition, from the Iberian Peninsula all the way to Iceland. The stories are similar in that they usually open with the good deed done the corpse, proceed to the ransom of the woman either from slavery or from robbers, the rescue of the hero from an act of treachery, the reunion of the couple, and the revelation of the rescuer's identity as the grateful dead man. The main purpose of our motif in these combinations could be the introduction of the rescuer. In turn, the Ransomed Woman complements our motif by introducing the hero's bride-to-be earlier in the tale, often prompting additional challenges for both the hero and the helper.
Stith Thompson has noted that the princess ransomed from robbers is peculiar to Northern Europe, having a Scandinavian geographical center. He also describes the versions in which the princess is ransomed from slavery as the most popular of the two, adding that this subtype has also been known in North Africa, Indonesia, and in North America among some Indian tribes, as well as Portugese settlers in Massachusetts arriving by way of the Cape Verde Islands.14 His argument for the greater popularity of this variation seems based upon and supported by a simple count of versions collected, but it might be instructive to perform a recount periodically as new material comes to light, especially as the Robbers version does not appear to be quite as limited in distribution as he thinks. Two tales from the Jean de Calais group,15 one from the southwest of France, have the princess being ransomed from pirates, and the robbers appear in a sixteenth century Italian novel.16
I am curious to locate versions from the more uncommon quarters of the globe that Thompson cites. I have found one Grateful Dead tale from the Cape Verde Islands themselves that should prove enlightening.17 Since the hero in this tale is called Jon de Scalais it must be related to the Jean de Calais tales from nearby western France. Gerould mentions ten such stories, but unfortunately not in enough detail to draw a more exact parallel. To resolve this I must continue to seek the texts that may have been available to Gerould.
Type 507 breaks down into three subtypes in the Aarne-Thompson index. I shall approach them back-to-front, beginning with subtype C, "The Serpent Maiden" (a.k.a. Poison Maiden or Poison Damsel), the very heading under which the Book of Tobit prominently falls. Variants here are characterized by the helper's first saving the hero from the deadly fate of his predecessors on their wedding nights, by beheading one or more snakes or dragons that issue from his bride's mouth, and later purging her of the serpents' bodies by threatening her (in which case they are disgorged through her mouth), or actually chopping her in two (in which case she is quickly restored to life and health).
In these Poison Maiden tales we certainly encounter the most graphic representations of an element considered by Gerould to be a major point of interest attached to the Grateful Dead stories, namely that of the division of spoils. In the Ransomed Woman variants the themes of the division can serve only as a test of the hero's given word, whereas with the Poison Maiden it acquires the added aspect of demonstrating the helper's knowledge, power, and comitment to the hero's well-being, placing us on the edge of our seats in time for the helper's revelation of his identity. The role of the pact in which the agreement to divide the gains appears soon after the person of the stranger therefore takes on more importance in terms of causing the reader or listener to reflect on the story's beginning, even as it is drawing to a close. Nevertheless, quite a few of the tales have lost this key feature utterly, and some not entirely, provoking me to wonder at the processes of evolving tales.
AT-507B, "The Monster in the Bridal Chamber", will not detain us much longer than 505 did, for once again I don't think I've either found or been shown an example. Its only distinction from "C" seems to be that the the serpent somehow arrives in the bridal chamber other than by way of the lady's mouth.
Now, subtype A, "The Monster's Bride", I attend last because, and I sensed this from Gerould's work as well as my own interpretations, it may almost form another type in and of itself. True, the princess' previous suitors have all perished, but not by having been wed to a walking den of serpents. Rather they meet their ends as a result of their having been unable to fulfill tasks or answer riddles posed them by the princess, who is under the spell of an evil warlock.
One group of these tales remains more closely tied to the Serpent Maiden series, owing to the nature of the instruments and actions by which the lady is cured. Mentioned by Aarne and Thompson only under the Monster heading, but applying also to some of the Poison Maiden group, are the efficacy of beating (with rods), burning, or bathing the princess in order to rid her of demonic possession. Were it not for this one occasionally common feature, and the overall label of "possession", it would be a simple matter to create for these variant stories a niche of their own. It may still be possible, should it be shown that a confusion of cures occurred at some point where the two types met.
Along those lines it will be worthwhile for me to point out here a small batch of tales from Old Russia. They share with the Serpent/Monster group the curious forms of purification, but the lady in question is a vampire. The hero performs a nightly vigil under instructions from his helper, guarding the lady's body within a chapel.18
Another fringe group of of tales I'm investigating, also from Russia, involve an unusual adversary, and other elements both common and unheard of in other Grateful Dead stories. They seem to represent another fairly late combination, where the adoption of our motif adds to the helper's status, but I really need more examples. I've found three19 that may form some sort of continuum with respect to the appearance and role of the stranger; one actually a grateful dead man, one a grateful live man, and one simply an old man met along the way.
Once again, in the Serpent Maiden and Lady-and-the-Monster series, the motif of the grateful dead man provides admirably for the surreptitious introduction of the hero's helper. Such is not always the case. In some corrupt versions or incomplete amalgamations, the ransom or burial of the corpse is obscured, though the identity of the helper becomes apparent through his actions, shedding further light on the concepts and realities of tale transmission.
We have still one more "official" type to look at; AT-508, "The Bride Won in a Tournament". Gerould calls this "The Spendthrift Knight", from the chivalric excesses the hero seems to indulge, and groups most of them amongst his tales classified as having the simple theme of the Grateful Dead. They are seven romantic stories, dating from the thirteenth century and later, all literary treatments. Two are long poems, one of which is English. The other foreigners are Swedish, Italian, and German, but all stem from the earliest French version, the remaining ones also from that land. Their peculiarity is that in all save one the grateful dead man appears in the guise of a knight to aid the hero.
Sub-Types and Super-Alliances
The Grateful Dead has also existed as a Jack Tale. The nearest one I've found to this country is an oddly distorted and sadly foreshortened but very interesting version from Jamaica,23 which I have so far not been able to match up closely with any Old World parallel. It is of the Ransomed Woman type. If, as it seems, a fairy has been substituted for a giant, the tale resembles one Icelandic version24 in which the girl is also imprisoned hung by the hair, but there are still many notable discrepancies and the story may turn out to be a unique variant, possibly the result of a local combination of tales with the same motif, but from different sources.
I've located three other Jack Tales in the Grateful Dead tradition, two covered by Gerould,25 and one really an excerpt from a very similar scion of one of those.26 Also of supposedly Teutonic origin, they are Lady-and-the-Monster types with the giants and magical accoutrements.
One tale alone I have found that was collected within the United States of America, yet I cannot say if it has been Americanized. It's an extraordinary yarn from French Louisiana,27 and there's no telling how it got there; the tale practically defies analysis. The burial is quite clear. When the grateful dead man appears it is to supply the hero with three gifts; a bottomless purse, a horn that calls anyone, and a belt that transports him anywhere. The only elements of the tale that may ring a bell are the hero's gullible brothers, and the greedy girl, perhaps vaguely linking the tale to middle European versions with treacherous brothers and sometimes wicked women.28
Other motifs not yet mentioned, but occasionally entwined with the Grateful Dead include the "Water of Life" quest and the "Two Friends" (or Two Brothers) loyalty. Both are covered by Gerould. The Two Brothers theme looks to have come from Egypt, where it was preserved on tablets in the 19th Dynasty,29 around 1300 B.C., to give an idea of the antiquity and endurance of some tale types.
One motif not singled out by any of my sources, yet found in conjunction with Dead Tales from Ireland, Sicily, and elsewhere in Europe30 (including Russia, in the form of beasts31), is that of "The Skillful Companions", where in addition to the dead man we meet other, more specialized helpers.
The Grateful Dead in Song
Being a musical sort, I hold out hope that the Grateful Dead might still surface in lyrical form as well. However, at least one avenue appears to be closed. "The motif of the grateful dead does not occur in the British traditional ballads."20 The same author goes on, "but it forms one thread of the plot in the verse narrative The Factor's Garland", referring to a version collected in Texas, which I found.21
In notes accompanying the text, mention is made of Gerould's ample treatment of the narrative, confirming its "long and extensive popularity"22 as evidenced by its frequent circulation in chapbooks and broadsides in 1700's Great Britain and Ireland. Also mentioned is an instance of its having been collected in North Carolina around the turn of the century.
Inspiration
One of the most fascinating dynamic aspects of the Grateful Dead motif is that the dramatic role of the dead man typically has so much more impact than that of the hero. Yet although the protagonist's role is somehow unequally shared, it is the hero to whom we must relate, reinforcing our focus on the grateful spirit as seen through the eyes of the storyteller, by virtue of the uncanny bond often created between the characters.
Perspiration
It is insufficient to academically compare tales strictly on the basis of plot components, without strong consideration of social and political settings contemporary to the tales. Doing real justice to tracing the world-lines of folktales necessitates, amongst other things, an intimate knowledge of the history of any territories under scrutiny. Otherwise spectacular vantage points affords only tantalisingly incomplete glimpses. In particular the mobility of its populations should be well understood, along with their perhaps seemingly idiosyncratic sensibilities, especially as regards establishing the relative chronologies of compound types.
Envisioning a more comprehensive, holistic approach to the scholarship of folklore, enlisting the collaborative efforts of historians, linguists and translators, epigraphists, anthropologists, psychologists and so forth, allied with the unique contributions poets and musicians and coupled with the inexhaustible talents of computer freaks, offers staggering possibilities to folklorists analyzing and classifying data; the great wealth that already slumbers in libraries and collections, and the continuing influx from collectors around the globe. So also would a thorough examination of folklore benefit those other fields. The category of researcher can never be made too inclusive; the catch may always prove more nourishing. Folklore is our intangible link to prehistory; a shared heritage complementing the treasures unearthed by archaelogists, ultimately informing the synthesis of cultural evolution.
Footnotes 1 Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature; E341, The grateful dead. Vol. II, pp. 433-4
2 Gertrude Jobes, Dictionary of Mythology, Folklore, and Symbols; "unburied dead."
3 R.M. Dawkins, Modern Greek Folktales, p. 207
4 "Grateful Dead", Funk and Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, And Legend.
5 F.H. Groome, Gypsy Folk-Tales, p. 3
6 Dov Noy, Folktales of Israel, p. 126, N.M. Penzer, Poison Damsels
7 F.H. Groome, Gypsy Folk-Tales, pp. 3-4
8 F.H. Groome, Gypsy Folk-Tales, p. 4
9 Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson, Types of the Folktale, pp. 79-81
10 Stith Thompson, The Folktale, pp. 50-3
11 R.M. Dawkins, Modern Greek Folktales, pp. 207-9
12 C.F. Coxwell, Siberian and other Folk-Tales, p. 260
13 G.H. Gerould, The Grateful Dead, chapter 8, Conclusion
14 Stith Thompson, The Folktale, pp. 50-3
15 Gerould, "Jean de Calais" II and X
16 Gerould, "Straparola I"
17 E.C. Parsons, Folk-Lore from the Cape Verde Islands, "The Grateful Spirit"
18 Gerould, "Esthonian II", "Russian" V and VI
19 Coxwell, "Koschei, The Deathless Skeleton Man"; and J. Curtin, Myths and Folk-Tales, "Koschei Without-Death"
20 L.C. Wimberley, Folklore in the English and Scottish Ballads; see index "grateful dead"
21 Texas Folklore Society Vol. 6, Texas and Southwestern Lore, "The Turkish Factor"
22 see 21 23 M.W. Beckwith, Jamaica Anansi Stories, "Jack and the Grateful Dead"
24 Gerould, "Icelandic I"
25 Gerould, "Irish III", "Jack the Giant Killer"
26 J.O. Halliwell-Phillips, Popular Rhymes, "Jack and the Giants"
27 C.L. Saucier, Folk-Tales from French Louisiana, "The Man and his Three Sons"
28 Gerould, "Simrock IX", "Breton VI"
29 G. Maspero, Popular Stories of Ancient Egypt
30 Gerould, "Irish II", "The King of Ireland's Son", "Harz II", "Sicilian"
31 Coxwell, "Koschei"
Bibliography
TT - Aarne, Antti and Stith Thompson. The Types of the Folk-Tale. New York: Burt Franklin, 1971
TMI - Baughman, Ernest W. Type and Motif-Index of the Folktales of 'England and North America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966. (Folklore Series #20).
JAM - Beckwith, Martha Warren. Jamaica Anansi Stories. New York: American Folflore Society, 1924
EFT - Bødker, Hole, and D'Aronco. European Folk Tales. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1963
BFT - Briggs, Katherine M. A Dictionary of British Folktales. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970. Volume I, Part A
GFT - Bruford, Alan. Gaelic Folk-Tales and Mediaeval Romances. Dublin: Folklore of Ireland Society, 1969
TAT - Campbell, Charles Grimshaw. Tales from the Arab Tribes. MacMillan, 1950. New York: Arno Press, 1980
SIB - Coxwell, C. Fillingham. Siberian and other Folk-Tales. London: C.W. Daniel Co. 1925. New York: AMS Press, 1983
IPT - Crane, Thomas Frederick. Italian Popular Tales. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1885
MFT - Curtin, Jeremiah. Myths and Folktales of the Russians, Western Slavs, and Magyars. Boston: 1890. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1971
MGF - Dawkins, R.M. Modern Greek Folktales. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953. #36, The Boy and his Guardian, or, Kindness Rewarded.
F & S - Dégh, Linda. Folktales and Society Ð Storytelling in a Hungarian Community. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969 (Type 507A, pp. 141, 304, 311).
FH - Dégh, Linda. Folktales of Hungary. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965
GD - Gerould, Gordon Hall. The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk Story. London: 1907 or '08. Wiesbaden: Kraus Reprint Limited, 1967
FW - "Grateful Dead." Funk and Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend. New York, 1949
GFT - Groome, Francis Hindes. Gypsy Folk Tales. London: Herbert Jenkins, 1899 Hatboro, Pennsylvania: Folklore Association, 1963
GJ - Jobes, Gertrude. Ditionary of Mythology, Folklore, and Symbols. New York: Scarecrow Press, 1962. ("Unburied dead").
PR - Halliwell-Phillips, James Orchard. Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales. London: John Russell Smith, 1849Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1968
LF - Kennedy, Patrick. Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts. 1866. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1969
FAN - Lüthi, Max. The European Folktale: Form and Nature. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1982
AE - Maspero, Gaston. Popular Stories of Ancient Egypt. New Hyde Park, New York: University Books, 1967
FI - Noy, Dov. Folktales of Israel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963 (The Box with Bones, #50, pp. 126-8).
CV - Parsons, Elsie Crew. Folk-Lore from the Cape Verde Islands. New York: American Folk-Lore Society, 1923. Part I
PD - Penzer, N.M. Poison Damsels and other essays in Folklore and Anthropology. London: Charles T. Sawyer Limited, 1952
AS - Robe, Stanley L. Amapa Storytellers. Stanford: University of California Press, 1972
FRLA - Saucier, Corinne L. Folk-Tales from French Louisiana. New York: Exposition Press, 1962. (#10, The Man and his Three Sons).