by Michael Behrend
Mrs Balfour’s time in the Lincolnshire Carrs was only from 1887 to 1889 (research by Maureen James), and the 1891 census shows her living at Belmont, Northumberland. Her Northumberland folktale Me A’an Sel (My Own Self) was published by Joseph Jacobs in 1894. She told Jacobs that she had heard it from a Mrs W. of North Sunderland. But Jeremy Harte (Explore Fairy Traditions, 2004, p. 19) disbelieves this and says that the story “can be found pretty much word for word in a source printed fifty years before, except that Balfour has added a few literary touches.”
The references for these two versions are:
M. C. Balfour, in Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, London, 1894, pp. 16–19. (Balfour submitted the tale in dialect, which Jacobs turned into standard English except for a few words.)
G. B. Richardson, in M. A. Richardson, The Local Historian’s Table Book … of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland and Durham, vol. 8 (= Legendary Division, vol. 3), London, 1846, pp. 48–49.
In the introduction to his book, Jacobs praised Balfour as a folktale collector (p. xi): “Among these [new tales], the tales reported by Mrs. Balfour, with a thorough knowledge of the peasants’ mind and mode of speech, are a veritable acquisition. I only regret that I have had to tone down so much of dialect in her versions. She has added to my indebtedness to her by sending me several tales which are entirely new and inedited.”
Jacobs annotated the tale in question as follows (pp. 221–222):
Source.—Told to Mrs. Balfour by Mrs. W., a native of North Sunderland, who had seen the cottage and heard the tale from persons who had known the widow and her boy, and had got the story direct from them. The title was “Me A’an Sel”, which I have altered to “My Own Self”.
Parallels.—Notwithstanding Mrs. Balfour’s informant, the same tale is widely spread in the North Country. Hugh Miller relates it, in his Scenes from my Childhood, as “Ainsel”; it is given in Mr. Hartland’s English Folk and Fairy Tales; Mr. F. B. Jevons has heard it in the neighbourhood of Durham; while a further version appeared in Monthly Chronicle of North Country Folk-Lore. Further parallels abroad are enumerated by Mr. Clouston in his Book of Noodles, pp. 194–5, and by the late Prof. Köhler in Orient and Occident, ii, 331. The expedient by which Ulysses outwits Polyphemus in the Odyssey by calling himself ουτις is clearly of the same order.
Remarks.—The parallel with the Odyssey suggests the possibility that this is the ultimate source of the legend, as other parts of the epic have been adapted to local requirements in Great Britain, as in the “Blinded Giant” (No. lxi.), or “Conall Yellowclaw” (Celtic Fairy Tales, No. v). The fact of Continental parallels disposes of the possibility of its being a merely local legend. The fairies might appear to be in a somewhat novel guise here as something to be afraid of. But this is the usual attitude of the folk towards the “Good People”, as indeed their euphemistic name really implies.
Hartland’s version, which Jacobs refers to, was copied word for word (with acknowledgement) from Richardson; it does not appear that Jacobs noticed any suspicious resemblance between it and Balfour’s version.
The versions of Richardson and Balfour are shown in parallel below. Jeremy Harte’s comment that they agree “pretty much word for word” seems an overstatement. Balfour tells the story in her own words (originally in dialect) and includes material not in Richardson. On the other hand, the resemblances between the two versions are so close as to suggest that, even if Balfour heard some tale of the kind from “Mrs. W”, she had Richardson’s version in front of her when writing it up.
| Richardson (1846) | Balfour (1894) |
|---|---|
| My Own Self | |
| A widow and her son, a little boy, lived together in a cottage in or near the village of Rothley, Northumberland. | In a tiny house in the North Countrie, far away from any town or village, there lived not long ago, a poor widow all alone with her little son, a six year-old boy. |
| The house-door opened straight on to the hill-side, and all round about were moorlands and huge stones, and swampy hollows; never a house nor a sign of life wherever you might look, for their nearest neighbours were the “ferlies” in the glen below, and the “will-o’-the-wisps” in the long grass along the path-side. | |
| And many a tale she could tell of the “good folk” calling to each other in the oak-trees, and the twinkling lights hopping on to the very window-sill, on dark nights; but in spite of the loneliness, she lived on from year to year in the little house, perhaps because she was never asked to pay any rent for it. | |
| But she did not care to sit up late, when the fire burnt low, and no one knew what might be about; so, when they had their supper she would make up a good fire and go off to bed, so that if anything terrible did happen, she could always hide her head under the bed-clothes. | |
| This, however, was far too early to please her little son; so when she called him to bed, he would go on playing beside the fire, as if he did not hear her. | |
| He had always been bad to do with since the day he was born, and his mother did not often care to cross him; indeed, the more she tried to make him obey her, the less heed he paid to anything she said, so it usually ended by his taking his own way. | |
| One winter evening, the child refused to go to bed with his mother, as he wished to sit up for a while longer, “for,” said he “I am not sleepy.” | But one night, just at the fore-end of winter, the widow could not make up her mind to go off to bed, and leave him playing by the fireside; for the wind was tugging at the door, and rattling the window-panes, and well she knew that on such a night, fairies and suchlike were bound to be out and about, and bent on mischief. So she tried to coax the boy into going at once to bed: |
| “The safest bed to bide in, such a night as this!” she said: but no, he wouldn’t. | |
| Then she threatened to “give him the stick”, but it was no use. | |
| The mother, finding remonstrance in vain, at last told him that if he sat up by himself, the faries would most certainly come and take him away. | The more she begged and scolded, the more he shook his head; and when at last she lost patience and cried that the fairies would surely come and fetch him away, |
| The boy laughed as his mother went to bed, | he only laughed and said he wished they would, for he would like one to play with. |
| At that his mother burst into tears, and went off to bed in despair, certain that after such words something dreadful would happen; | |
| leaving him sitting by the fire: | while her naughty little son sat on his stool by the fire, not at all put out by her crying. |
| he had not been there long, watching the fire and enjoying its cheerful warmth, till a beautiful little figure, about the size of a child’s doll, descended the chimney, and alighted on the hearth! | But he had not long been sitting there alone, when he heard a fluttering sound near him in the chimney, and presently down by his side dropped the tiniest wee girl you could think of; she was not a span high, and had hair like spun silver, eyes as green as grass, and cheeks red as June roses. |
| The little fellow was somewhat startled at first, but its prepossessing smile as it paced to and fro before him, soon overcame his fears, and he enquired familiarly “What do they ca’ thou?” | The little boy looked at her with surprise. “Oh!” said he; “what do they call ye?” |
| “Ainsel” answered the little thing haughtily, at the same time retorting the question, “And what do they ca’ thou?” | “My own self,” she said in a shrill but sweet little voice, and she looked at him too. “And what do they call ye?” |
| “My ainsel” answered the boy; and they commenced playing together like two children newly acquainted. | “Just my own self, too!” he answered cautiously; and with that they began to play together. |
| Their gambols continued quite innocently | She certainly showed him some fine games. She made animals out of the ashes that looked and moved like life; and trees with green leaves waving over tiny houses, with men and women an inch high in them, who, when she breathed on them, fell to walking and talking quite properly. |
| until the fire began to grow dim; the boy then took up the poker to stir it, | But the fire was getting low, and the light dim, and presently the little boy stirred the coals with a stick, to make them blaze; |
| when a hot cinder accidentally fell upon the foot of his playmate, | when out jumped a red-hot cinder, and where should it fall, but on the fairy-child’s tiny foot. |
| her tiny voice was instantly raised to a most terrific roar, | Thereupon she set up such a squeal that the boy dropped the stick, and clapped his hands to his ears; but it grew to so shrill a screech, that it was like all the wind in the world, whistling through one tiny keyhole. |
| and the boy had scarcely time to crouch into the bed behind his mother, | There was a sound in the chimney again, but this time the little boy did not wait to see what it was, but bolted off to bed, where he hid under the blankets and listened in fear and trembling to what went on. |
| before the voice of the old fairy mother was heard shouting | A voice came from the chimney speaking sharply: |
| “Who’s there, and what’s wrong?” it said. | |
| “It’s my own self,” sobbed the fairy child; “and my foot’s burnt sore. O-o-h!” | |
| “Who’s done it? Who’s done it?” “Oh! it was my ainsel!” answered the daughter. | “Who did it?” said the voice angrily; this time it sounded nearer, and the boy, peeping from under the clothes, could see a white face looking out from the chimney-opening. |
| “Just my own self too!” said the fairy-child again. | |
| “Why then,” said the mother, as she kicked her up the chimney, “What’s all the noise for, there’s nyen to blame.” | “Then if ye did it your own self,” cried the elf-mother shrilly, “what’s the use o’ making all this fash about it?”—and with that she stretched out a long thin arm, and caught the creature by its ear, and, shaking it roughly, pulled it after her, out of sight up the chimney. |
| The little boy lay awake a long time, listening, in case the fairy-mother should come back after all; and next evening after supper, his mother was surprised to find that he was willing to go to bed whenever she liked. | |
| “He’s taking a turn for the better at last!” she said to herself; but he was thinking just then that, when next a fairy came to play with him, he might not get off quite so easily as he had done this time. |