From Plato to Pullman—the circle of invisibility and parallel worlds: Fortunatus, Mercury, and the Wishing-Hat, Part II

Folklore, Dec, 2006 by Michael Haldane

Abstract

In this sequel to the article in the August edition of Folklore on the early German prose text Fortunatus, the history of the Wishing-Hat is continued up to the present with selective examples. Two major themes--the moral implications of invisibility, and the nature of movement through time and space--are examined in detail with reference to such texts as the Nibelungenlied, the tales of the Brothers Grimm, Plato's ... Ring of Gyges fable, Keats's Lamia, Wells's Invisible Man, and Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy.

Introduction

In a previous article, the history and implications of the Wishing-Hat in Fortunatus (1509, Augsburg), and its relation to the Petasus of Mercury, were discussed, as these were portrayed in texts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This paper continues the journey of the Hat--a magical object that can instantly transport the wearer anywhere he or she pleases--into the twenty-first century, paying particular attention to the themes of the morality of invisible motion, the irrevocable power of a wish, and the boundaries of imagination.

Although Fortunatus reached the knowledge of an English audience in the sixteenth century, it was in the seventeenth century that this text was absorbed into the English literary tradition, through Thomas Dekker's dramatic adaptation Old Fortunatus (1600), a translation by T. C. (1610/12-15) that incorporates elements of Dekker's play, and an anonymous adaptation of T. C.'s version that, again, reveals the continuing influence of Dekker (1682; perhaps composed some thirty years earlier). In 1700 a chapbook appeared, based on the 1682 adaptation; from this point onwards, the two magical objects, the inexhaustible Purse of Fortune and the transporting Wishing-Hat, become common in the titles of English versions of Fortunatus (Anonymous 1700; 1715). Previously they had not found mention on the title-page, despite having been a fixture in the titles of German editions since 1531. However, this was the only significant contribution to the development of the Wishing-Hat motif in Fortunatus in English until the nineteenth century, for the legend stagnated, and additions to existing versions served only to diminish the quality of the work. There were no new translations or adaptations, and the work survived in three threads: the T. C. translation, which appeared, with slight changes of orthography, until at least 1816; the 1682 adaptation, which saw various reprints and was burdened with unwelcome accretions (Anonymous 1715; see Haldane 2006); and the most widespread means of transmission, the Fortunatus chapbook. Consequently, the bulk of this paper will be devoted to selected references and parallels to Fortunatus rather than to various editions of the work itself.

After a relatively quiet eighteenth century, Fortunatus returned to prominence in Germany with the rising interest in folktales as an expression of native genius. This attention can be seen in the highly influential work of Johann Joseph von Gorres entitled Die teutschen Volksbucher (1807) and the translation of Dekker's Old Fortunatus by Friedrich Wilhelm Schmidt (1819); and the tales of the Brothers Grimm. Ludwig Tieck (1816), Adalbert Chamisso (1806; 1814), and Ludwig Uhland (1815/16; Uhland 1893) were all attracted by the legend of Fortunatus. Gorres waxes lyrical over the tale, and he is perceptive enough to note the presence of Mercury: "Das schwere Gold [...] hat die Poesie hier beflugelt, indem sie dem Metallkonig den leicht beschwingten, hebenden Federhut aufsetzt, und nun fliegt der neue Hermes leicht schwebend uber Lander und Volker hin" ("Here poetry has given wings to the weight of gold, by crowning the Metal-King with the lightly-winged, elevating feather-hat; and now the new Hermes hovers in gentle flight, passing over countries and peoples") (Gorres 1925, 71-3, quoted in Roloff 1981, 291). It is the collection of folktales by the Brothers Grimm, however, that is of greatest pertinence to this essay. There are many suggestive parallels: in "Der Trommler" ("The Drummer") (Rolleke 1980, no. 193, vol. 2, 397-408), two giants find it as difficult to take turns of possessing the wishing-saddle as Counts Lymosy and Theodorus do to share the keeping of the Purse of Fortune in Fortunatus; in "The King of the Golden Mountain," the problem of dividing an inheritance, a motif from the Nibelungenlied, resurfaces. This suspicion of loss through division explains the adoption of what we would consider to be the unjust system of primogeniture; in Fortunatus, there is an ineluctable conflict between the unity of the two magical items and the diversity of the two sons. The older son, Ampedo, is an urban hermit; it is the younger son, Andolosia, who is his father's favourite, and closest to Fortunatus in ambition of mind. Of the numerous parallel themes, two can be traced from the Nibelungenlied to Keats's Lamia: abduction and rapine.

The Freedom of the Mist

It is necessary to begin with some comments on Das Nibelungenlied, the German national epic that was written down around 1200 and brought to critical attention in Germany in 1810 (Grosse 2002, 970 and 980). Following the etymology of the word, a Nibelung is someone surrounded by mist; and the cloak that confers invisibility, the Tarnkappe, is also called a Nebelkappe ("mist-cloak") in Middle High German. The term Kappe implies not a cap, as one may at first think, but a cloak, often with a hood, that was worn when travelling (Grosse 2002, 751 and 752). This offers a parallel to the Wishing-Hat in Fortunatus, which resembled the hats worn by wandering monks (Roloff 1981, 112). An object that accompanies a journey thus comes, with the passage of time, to represent, then to symbolise, and later to enable, travel. The Tarnkappe gives the wearer the strength of twelve men and the freedom to act without detection, for it was such "daz dar inne worhte ein ieslicher man/swaz er selbe wolde, daz in doch niemen sach" ("that inside it any man could do whatever he wanted without being seen") (Grosse 2002, 108; 6. Aventiure st.338, 11.2-3). In the Nibelungenlied invisibility is used by Siegfried to overcome Queen Bruinhild, so that Gunther may take her to wife; and, to signal his victory, he unties her girdle, thus depriving her of her supernatural strength and, by symbolic implication, of her virginity (Grosse 2002, 208; 10. Aventiure st.680).