Human Animals

In Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" Puck is gifted with the power of transformation. He says,

He had also the power to transform others into animals, and seeing Bottom studying the part of Pyramus, plays a trick upon him:

"An ass's nole I fixed on his head."

"Bless thee, Bottom," says Quin, seeing his companion transformed in this manner, "Bless thee! thou art translated." But Titania, herself under a spell, becomes enamoured of the vision. "So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape," she cries, and she desires to stick musk-roses in his sleek smooth head, and kiss the fair, large ears." Fortunately Oberon orders Puck to restore Bottom to his normal shape before much harm is done.

Many modern writers have used the mystic idea of animal transformation, especially as gleaned from Celtic legendary sources; for instance, in the tales by Fiona McLeod and the poems by W. B. Yeats.

In another poem the salmon caught by a young fisherman is no sooner under his roof, than it changes into a shimmering maiden—which makes one think of the Indian story of a shining man who casts his ugly skin and is so bright that no one can see him without being blinded.

A pretty little story of a shining lady who becomes a butterfly, is told by Mr. H. A. Giles in "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio."[97] Mr. Wang of Chang-shang, the District Magistrate, had a habit of commuting the fines and penalties of the Penal Code inflicted on prisoners in exchange for a corresponding number of butterflies. He rejoiced in seeing the insects flutter hither and thither like "tinsel snippings" borne on the breeze. One night he dreamt that a beautiful girl in shimmering clothes stood before him who said sadly, "Your cruel practice has brought many of my sisters to an untimely end; now you must pay the penalty for what you have done." Then she transformed herself into a butterfly and flew away.

A great feature in folk-tales and fairy stories is, of course, the talking animal. Grimm's "Tales," the "Arabian Nights," and Hans Andersen's "Märchen," have made such semi-human creatures thoroughly familiar. They appear also in the Bible and mythology. Eve and the serpent, Balaam and the ass, Achilles and his horses, Porus and the elephant, Bacchus, Phryxius and many others are notable instances. The idea of words of wisdom coming from the lips of brutes is brought to greater perfection in the fables than elsewhere, and Æsop's animals are gifted with speech, traits, and passions absolutely human.

Pilpay, Lokman, Babrius, Phædrus, and La Fontaine, most successfully of all, exploited the same theme, and a wonderful procession of animals stalks through their writings, almost every kind of zoological specimen being represented. There are rats enough to require the services of many Pied Pipers of Hamelin, lions enough to stock the equatorial forests, wolves to crowd the Steppes of Russia, bats and birds, gnats and frogs galore, and to each beast, feathered thing, or fish, a place is given in the social scale which he fills with dignity and grace, or in which he acts with wisdom and judgment, or again in which he is made to look ridiculous and becomes the laughing stock of those about him.

"If one is a wolf, one devours," wrote Walpole, referring to the fables of La Fontaine. "If one is a fox, one is cunning. If one is a monkey, one is a coxcomb."

The fox always gets the better of everyone else in the fables. He makes use of the goat to climb out of the well, and then leaves him to his fate. He is always taking the advantage of the wolf, for he has more brains, if less strength. He has no difficulty in inventing stratagems which bring the plump turkeys into his larder. He is always diplomatic, he comes smiling out of every difficulty, he is quick and energetic: his personal appearance, heightened by his bright eye and bushy tail, is in his favour. He has two qualities invaluable to the courtier, a certain dash and a certain subtlety, and above all he is bon viveur.

His worst enemy is the dog, with whom his tricks are frequently wanting in success. When out walking with the cat, and boastful of his own superior resources, he finds himself at a disadvantage the moment an attack is threatened by a pack of hounds. The cat quickly climbs a lofty tree.

In the end they are too clever for him, and he meets his death.

The story of Reynard the fox is a novel of adventure in which animals play the part of men and usually bear men's names, and who does not know and love the tale of Brer Rabbit and Brer B'ar and their relations with Uncle Remus, or the equally human animals of Alice's "Adventures."

These fictitious beings combine human and animal mental characteristics, but there is another class, the fabulous animals, of which the physical attributes are taken partly from man, partly from animal types. They are no doubt symbolic of occult truths, and much time and labour might be spent in formulating their relationship.

CHAPTER XVI

FABULOUS ANIMALS AND MONSTERS

The most important among fabulous animals which are partly human beings are the centaur, half-man and half-horse; the harpy, half-woman and half-vulture; the sphinx, which has the head of a woman, the body of a lion and the wings of an eagle, and the satyr, an old man with goat's legs and tail.

"Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimaeras—dire stories of Celaeno and the Harpies," says Charles Lamb, "may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition—but they were there before. They are transcripts, types—the archetypes are in us, and eternal. How else should the recital of that which we know in a waking sense to be false, come to affect us at all?—or

Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such objects, considered in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury?—O, least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyond body—or, without the body, they would have been the same. All the cruel, tormenting, defined devils in Dante—tearing, mangling, choking, stifling, scorching demons—are they one half so fearful to the spirit of a man, as the simple idea of a spirit unembodied following him:

That the kind of fear here treated of is purely spiritual—that it is strong in proportion as it is objectless upon earth—and that it predominates in the period of sinless infancy—are difficulties the solution of which might afford some probable insight into our ante-mundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadowland of pre-existence."[98]

Prentice Mulford firmly believed that the supposed fables in the ancient mythologies concerning beings half-men, half-beasts (such as centaurs or mermaids) had had their origin in spiritual truths. "Our race," he says, "has been so developed out of the animal or coarser forms of life. Countless ages ago all forms of life were coarser than now. As these grew finer, man attracted and absorbed the spirit of the finer."

"The history of animals such as the ancients have transmitted to us," says Eusebe Salverte,[99] "is filled with details apparently chimerical: but which are sometimes only the consequence of a defective nomenclature. The name, Onocentaur, which seems to designate a monster, uniting the form of a man and an ass, was given to a quadrumanus which runs sometimes on four paws, but at other times uses its forepaws only as hands: merely an immense monkey covered with grey hair, particularly on the lower part of the body...."

M. Geoffroy de St. Hillaire described a polydactyle horse as having hairy fingers separated by membranes: yet when ancient authors have spoken of horses, the feet of which bore some resemblance to the hands and feet of a man, they have been accused of imposture.[100]

The Centaurs were mythical creatures which inhabited Thessaly. They were said to have sprung from a union of Ixion and a Cloud, or, according to other authorities, to be the offspring of Centaurus, son of Apollo, by Stilbia, daughter of Peneus. The famous battle of the Centaurs with the Lapithæ was occasioned by a quarrel at the marriage of Hippodamia with Pirithous. The Centaurs having come to a state of intoxication, offered violence to the women present, an insult for which they received due punishment.

A vivid presentment of what changing shape from man to horse would mean is to be found in Mr. Algernon Blackwood's "The Centaur,"[101] in which story the Irish hero, Mally, watches his own transformation into the figure of the Urwelt, with amazement.

"All white and shining lay the sunlight over his own extended form. Power was in his limbs; he rose above the ground in some new way; the usual little stream of breath became a river of rushing air he drew into stronger, more capacious lungs; likewise his bust grew strangely deepened, pushed the wind before it; and the sunshine glowed on shaggy flanks agleam with dew that powerfully drove the ground behind him while he ran.

"He ran yet only partly as a man runs; he found himself shot forwards through the air, upright, yet at the same time upon all fours ... it was his own feet now that made that trampling as of hoofs upon the turf."

In "Gulliver's Travels" the men-horses or Houyhnhnms are fine horses gifted with human intelligence, but the Yahoos are described by Swift as having a very peculiar shape. Their heads and breasts were covered with a thick hair, some frizzled and others lank, they had beards like goats and a long ridge of hair down their backs, and the foreparts of their legs and feet, but the rest of their bodies was bare, so that their skins, which were of a brown-buff colour, could be seen. They had no tails, and they sat on the ground as well as laid down, and often stood on their hind feet. They climbed high trees as nimbly as a squirrel, for they had strong extended claws before and behind, terminating in sharp points and hooked. They would often spring and bound and leap with prodigious agility.[102]

In speaking, the Houyhnhnms pronounced through the nose and throat, and their language approached nearest to High-Dutch or German, but was more graceful and significant.

Swift no doubt took his idea of the men-horses from centaurs.

The Harpies were three fabulous winged monsters, offsprings of Neptune and Terra, represented with the features of a woman, the body of a vulture, and human fingers armed with sharp claws. Heraldically the harpy appears as a vulture with the head and breasts of a woman. Neptune's daughters emitted an odious stench and polluted all they touched.

The Sphinx was another composite fabled monster, with the head and breasts of a woman, the body of a dog, the tail of a serpent, the wings of a bird, the paws of a lion, and a human voice. According to the Grecian poets the animal infested the city of Thebes, devouring the inhabitants and setting difficult riddles. It was promised, however, that on the solution of one of its enigmas the Sphinx would destroy itself. The puzzle to be solved was, "What animal walked on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?" Many people attempted to find a solution in the hope of winning Jocasta, sister of Creon, King of Thebes, in marriage, but all fell victims to their ambition until the advent of Œdipus, who answered the Sphinx, saying, Man crept on his hands and feet in infancy, at noon he walked erect, and in the evening of life required the support of a staff. On hearing the reply the Sphinx dashed her head against a rock and expired. In Egypt sphinxes with human heads were called Androsphinxes. They had no wings, which were added by the Greek artists.

Hecate, the Greek goddess, was described as having three bodies or three heads, one of a horse, the second of a dog, and the third of a lion. She was a spectral being who at night sent from the lower world all kinds of demons and phantoms to teach sorcery. She wandered about with the souls of the dead and her approach was announced by the whining and howling of dogs.

Hathor was pictured sometimes as a cow, sometimes as a woman with the head of a cow, bearing the solar disc between her horns.

Other animal goddesses of curious shapes are Egyptian, such as the cat-goddess, the bird-goddess, the hippopotamus-goddess, Smet-Smet or Rert-Rert, figures of which may be seen at the British Museum.

Strange creatures too were the Gorgons, the three sisters, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. Their hairs were entwined with serpents, they had hands of brass, scales on their body, and the tusks of a wild boar. Their frightful appearance caused those who beheld them to turn to stone. They were conquered by Perseus, who was given special weapons for the purpose by the gods. He cut off Medusa's head and gave it to Minerva; as he fled through the air to Ethiopia drops of blood fell to the ground from the severed head and turned to serpents. Pegasus, the winged horse, sprang from Medusa's blood and became the favourite of the Muses. He was given to Bellerophon and helped him to conquer the Chimaera, the celebrated monster with three heads, a lion's, goat's, and dragon's, which continually sent forth flames. The forepart of its body was that of a lion, the middle of a goat, and the hind part that of a dragon.

These are the chief mythological monsters, thus rapidly enumerated, but other creatures, half-human, half-animal, are of greater interest psychologically. For instance, the Persians believe firmly in ghouls which wander in lonely and haunted places, lure travellers from their path and devour them. They are hideous in shape and give forth blood-curdling screams. Being able to assume any animal form at will, they often appear as camels or mules, or perhaps even simulate a human being well-known to their intended victim. The charm against them is to utter the name of the Prophet in all sincerity.

The Persians also believe in divs or cat-headed men with horns and hoofs. Jinns or Afreets can turn themselves into animals at will and so no Persian likes to kill dogs or cats, lest the angry demons, whose dwelling-place they are, should haunt those responsible for evicting them.

The Satyrs were rural demi-gods, in the shape of men but with legs and feet like goats, short horns on the head and the body covered with hair. They attended on Bacchus and were given to similar excesses. They roamed through woods, dwelt in caves, and endeavoured to gain the loves of the Nymphs. They were identical with Fauns, Panes or Sylvani, the human-goat wood-spirits. They should not be confused with the Nature-Spirits described by Paracelsus, though similar in name.

In Russia wood-spirits are believed to appear partly in human shape, but also with horns, ears, and legs of goats. They are called Ljeschi and can change their shape and size, in a forest, being large like trees; in a meadow, merely the height of the grass.

The Griffin was half-lion and half-eagle, and apparently had no human characteristics.

The Mermaid is a fabulous marine creature, partly woman and partly fish. The Nereides were sea-nymphs, daughters of Nereus, the ancient sea-god and his wife Doris. They were at least fifty in number (Propertius says a hundred), and they had green hair and fishes' tails. The most celebrated of them all were Amphitrite, wife of Neptune, Thetis, mother of Achilles, Galatea, and Doto. They are identical with the Sirens.

Many charming stories have been told of Mermaids, and Mermaid-prophetesses.

According to the old Danish ballad a mermaid foretold the death of Queen Dagmar, wife of Valdemar II, surnamed the Victorious.

"In the year 1576," says the Chronicle of Frederick II of Denmark, "there came late in the autumn a simple old peasant from Samso to the Court then being held at Kalundborg, who related that a beautiful female had more than once come to him while working in his field by the seashore, whose figure, from the waist downwards, resembled that of a fish, and who had solemnly and strictly enjoined him to go over and announce to the king, that as God had blessed his queen so that she was pregnant of a son (afterwards Christian IV), who should be numbered among the greatest princes of the North, and, seeing that all sorts of sins were gaining ground in his kingdom, he, in honour of and in gratitude to God who had so blessed him, should wholly extirpate such sins, lest God should visit him with anger and punishment thereafter."[103]

In the Shetland Isles mermaids are said to dwell among the fishes, in the depths of the ocean, in mansions of pearl and coral. They resemble human beings, but greatly excel them in beauty. When they wish to visit the earth they put on the ham or garb of some fish, but if they lose this garment, all hopes of return are annihilated and they must stay where they are.

A mermaid was found by a fisherman called Pergrin at St. Dognael's, near Cardigan, and he took her prisoner, but she wept bitterly and said to him, "If you will let me go, Pergrin, I will call to you three times at the moment of your greatest need." Moved by her distress, he obeyed and almost forgot the incident, but some weeks later he was fishing on a hot, calm day, when he heard distinctly, the call, thrice repeated, "Pergrin, take up thy nets." This he did in great haste, and by the time he reached the harbour a terrible storm had come up, and all the other fishermen who had not been warned were drowned. This story, it is claimed, belongs to other parts of Wales also.

There is said to be a castle in Finland, on the borders of a small lake, out of which, previously to the death of the Governor, an apparition in the form of a mermaid arises and makes sweet melody.

One of the most charming descriptions of a Sea-maiden is found in Hans Andersen's well-known story of "The Little Mermaid." Her skin is as soft and delicate as a rose-leaf, her eyes are as deep a blue as the sea, but like all other mermaids, she has no feet; her body ends in a tail like that of a fish. For many years she plays happily in the enchanted palace of the Mer-king, her father, but when she reaches years of discretion she visits the earth and falls in love with a handsome prince, forsaking her home and family and giving away her beautiful voice for love of him. But she does more even than this, for she has to appeal to a witch to transform her into a maiden like the others who walk on land, and the process is a terribly painful one. The witch prepares a drink she has to take with her on her journey to the unknown country, and she is told that she must sit down on the shore and swallow the draught, and that then her tail will fall and shrink up "to the things which men call legs." When she walks or dances the pain will be as though she were walking on the sharp edge of swords or the edges of ploughshares. But she braves all these terrors and dances more gracefully than ever any earth-maiden could do, hoping that her prince will marry her and so give her the right to an immortal soul. Then the real tragedy occurs, for the prince loves her only as a beautiful child, and he marries a princess of his own kind, so that the mermaid's sacrifice seems to be thrown away. If she wishes to return to her original state she has to kill the prince, but when she holds the knife over him as he sleeps beside his beautiful bride she cannot find it in her heart to harm him, and sooner than think of her own forlorn condition, she throws the knife into the sea and gives up, as she believes, her last hope of happiness. But then her reward comes, for she is borne into the air by the daughters of that element, and the story ends with a promise of a new and a lovelier existence.

Mr. H. G. Wells, among recent writers, has used the idea of the mermaid in his quaint story "The Sea Lady."

The famous mermaid figures in the coat-of-arms of several well-known families. Sometimes she holds a mirror, sometimes a mirror and comb. A red mermaid with yellow hair on a white field appears in the arms of the family living at Glasfryn in the south of Carnarvonshire.

Other marine monsters besides mermaids are sometimes found in the sea, which, without corresponding exactly to man, yet resemble him more than any other animals. However, like the rest of the brutes, they lack mind or soul. They have, says Paracelsus, the same relations to man as the ape and are nothing but the apes of the sea.

Merovingian princes traced their origin to a sea-monster, and Druid priestesses claimed to be able to assume animal form and to rule wind and wave. Indeed, since men first sought to classify other living organisms, they have credited nature with producing strange and weird monsters, half-human, half-animal, which exist either in their own imaginations or in realms beyond the material plane of everyday cognisance.

In the third Calmuc tale, a man who possesses but one cow unites himself to her in order that she may become fruitful, and a tailed monster is born having a man's body and a bull's head. This man-bull, who is Minotaur, goes into the forest and picks up three companions, one black, one green, one white, who accompany him. He overcomes the enchantments of a dwarf witch, and when lowered into a well by his companions, he manages to escape. Presently he meets a beautiful maiden drawing water, at whose every footstep a flower springs, and following her, finds himself in heaven.

The classical Minotaurus is said to have been the offspring of Pasiphae and a bull sent from the sea to Minos, who shut the half-human monster in the Cnossian labyrinth and fed him with the bodies of the youths and maidens sent by the Athenians as a tribute. This monster was slain by Theseus.

Among modern writers, Mr. H. G. Wells has perhaps been the most daring in describing monsters. In "The Island of Dr. Moreau," Dr. Moreau explains to Pendrick his method of making humanised animals. "These creatures you have seen are animals carven and wrought into new shapes," he says. "To that—to the study of plasticity of living forms—my life has been devoted. I have studied for years, gaining knowledge as I go. I see you look horrified, yet I am telling you nothing new. It all lay in the surface of practical anatomy years ago, but no one had the temerity to touch it. It's not simply the outward form of an animal I can change. The physiology, the chemical rhythm of the creature, may also be made to undergo an enduring modification, of which vaccination and other methods of inoculation with living or dead matter are examples that will, no doubt, be familiar to you. A similar operation is the transfusion of blood, with which subject indeed I began. These are all familiar cases. Less so, and probably far more extensive, were the operations of those mediæval practitioners who made dwarfs and beggar cripples and show-monsters; some vestiges of whose art still remains in the preliminary manipulation of the young mountebank or contortionist. Victor Hugo gives an account of them in L'Homme qui Rit ... but perhaps my meaning grows plain now. You begin to see that it is a possible thing to transplant tissue from one part of an animal to another, or from one animal to another, to alter its chemical reactions and methods of growth, to modify the articulations of its limbs, and indeed to change it in its most intimate structure?..."

"So for twenty years altogether—counting nine years in England—I have been going on, and there is still something in everything I do that defeats me, makes me dissatisfied, challenges me to further effort. Sometimes I rise above my level, sometimes I fall below it, but always I fall short of the things I dream. The human shape I can get now almost with ease, so that it is lithe and graceful, or thick and strong; but often there is trouble with the hands and claws—painful things that I dare not shape too freely. But it is in the subtle grafting and reshaping one must needs do to the brain that my trouble lies. The intelligence is often oddly low, with unaccountable blank ends, unexpected gaps. And least satisfactory of all is something that I cannot touch, somewhere—I cannot determine where—in the seat of the emotions. Cravings, instincts, desires that harm humanity, a strange hidden reservoir to burst suddenly and inundate the whole being of the creature with anger, hate, or fear. These creatures of mine seemed strange and uncanny to you as soon as you began to observe them, but to me, just after I make them, they seem to be indisputably human beings. It's afterwards, as I observe them, that the persuasion fades. First one animal trait, then another, creeps to the surface and stares at me.... But I will conquer yet. Each time I dip a living creature into the bath of burning pain, I say, this time I will burn out all the animal, this time I will make a rational creature of my own. After all, what is ten years? Man has been a hundred thousand in the making."[104]

"There were swine-men and swine-women," says Pendrick later, describing the beast-folk, "a mare rhinoceros creature, and several other females I did not ascertain. There were several Wolf creatures, a Bear-bull, and a Saint Bernard Dog Man. I have already described the Ape Man, and there was a particularly hateful (and evil-smelling) old woman made of Vixen and Bear, whom I hated from the beginning."[105]

"First to arrive was the Satyr, strangely unreal, for all that he cast a shadow, and tossed the dust with his hoofs: after him, from the brake, came a monstrous lout, a thing of horse and rhinoceros, chewing a straw as it came: and then appeared the Swine Woman and two Wolf Women: then the Fox-Bear-Witch, with her red eyes in her peaked red face, and then others all hurrying eagerly."[106]

In another imaginative work dealing with the twenty-ninth century A.D., the brute creation has been humanised in a way never before dreamt of.

"... a levy of 40,000 naturalists were engaged for years in forming a hundred different zoological armies. Each of these was, by an admirable system of drill, brought to such a high state of discipline that a brigade, consisting of a thousand elephants, a thousand rhinoceroses, 180,000 monkeys and 15,000 other beasts of draught and burden could be officered with perfect ease by as few as one thousand naturalists. Birds of burden and fish of burden were in like manner drafted into the ranks of the zoological army, and, being subjected to similar training, were brought to a similar degree of efficiency."[107]

Giraldus Cambrensis wrote of many curious monsters and strange things that happened in connection with them. He believed that occult powers came through them in some manner, and told the story of a Welshman called Melerius, who had an odd experience by which he acquired the powers of a seer. One Palm Sunday he met a damsel whom he had long loved and embraced her in the woods, when suddenly, instead of a beautiful girl, he found in his arms a hairy, rough, and hideous creature, the sight of which deprived him of his senses. On his return to sanity, many years later, he discovered that he had wonderful occult gifts of prophecy.

Giraldus also believed that people in Ireland, by magical arts, could turn "any substance about them into fat pigs," as they appeared to be, though the colour was always red, and could then sell them in the markets. They disappeared, however, "as soon as they crossed any water," and even if they were looked after carefully they never lasted as pigs for more than three days. He writes of a man-monster whose body was human, except the extremities, which were cloven like those of an ox. This monster had large round eyes like an ox and the only sound he could make was like an ox lowing. He was present at the Court of Maurice Fitzgerald in Wicklow, and took up his food between the fissures of his cloven forefeet. His fate was to be put secretly to death, a fate which might with advantage be shared, metaphorically speaking, by many of the hybrid creatures, or manufactured monstrosities, figments of unwholesome brains.

Augustine, in the sixteenth book of his "De Civitate Dei," chapter viii., speaks of monsters of the human race, born in the East, some having heads of dogs, others without heads, and eyes in their breasts. "I myself," he adds, "at the time I was in Italy, heard it said of some district in those parts, that there the stable women who had learnt magical arts, used to give something to travellers in their cheese which transformed them into beasts of burden, and after they had performed the tasks required of them, they were allowed to resume their natural form."

One of the most fearsome among the fabulous animals is the dragon, an enormous serpent of abnormal form which is represented in ancient legends as a huge Hydra, watching as sentinel the Garden of the Hesperides. In art the dragon is the symbol of sin, and in the Bible this monster appears as the symbol of the King of Egypt and the King of Babylon. The dragon, which is the emblem of the Chinese Empire, like the legendary serpent, can assume human shape.

The basilisk is another fabulous animal of the snake tribe, which carries a jewel in its head, and in many French legends possesses human proclivities. It is the king of all the serpents and holds itself erect. Its eyes are red and fiery, the face pointed, and upon its head it wears a crest like a crown. It has, moreover, the terrible gift of killing people by the glare of its eye and other serpents are said to fly from its presence in dread.

The cockatrice is identical with the basilisk, but is perhaps not quite so human. It is produced from a "cock's egg hatched by a frog."

Lilith is the "night-monster," and according to the Rabbinical idea, she is a spectre in the figure of a woman who, entering houses in the dead of night, seizes upon the little children of the household and bears them away to murder them. According to some accounts she is not unlike Lamia, and has the form of a serpent.

CHAPTER XVII

HUMAN SERPENTS

Since the beginning of the world the serpent has been regarded as the most mystic of reptiles. He was called "more subtil than any beast of the field," from the day on which he spoke to Eve and said that if she ate of the fruit of the Tree of Life, her eyes should be opened and she should surely not die, and he has been endowed with human powers again and again, worshipped as a god in every part of the world and depicted in ancient art as possessed of human form and attributes. In Aztec paintings the mother of the human race is always represented in conversation with a serpent who is erect. This is the serpent, "who once spoke with a human voice."

Mythology has numberless legends which tell of human or semi-human serpents. The ancient kings of Thebes and Delphi claimed kingship with the snake, and Cadmus and his wife Harmonia, quitting Thebes, went to reign over a tribe of Eel-men in Illyria and became transformed into snakes, just as now Kaffir kings are said to turn into boa-constrictors or other deadly serpents, and some other African tribes believe that their dead chiefs become crocodiles.

Cecrops, the first king of Athens, was supposed to have been half-serpent and half-man, and Cychreus, after slaying a snake which ravaged the island of Salamis, appeared in the form of his victim.

When Minerva contended with Neptune for the city of Athens, she created the olive which became sacred to her, and she planted it on the Acropolis and placed it in the charge of the serpent-god, Erechthonios, who is represented as half-serpent, half-man, the lower extremities being serpentine.

The story of Alexander's birth, as told by Plutarch, is one of the most curious of the man-serpent traditions. Olympias, his mother, kept tame snakes in the house and one of them was said to have been found in her bed, and was thought to be the real father of Alexander the Great. Lucian adopts this view of Alexander's parentage.

The worship of serpent-gods is found amongst many nations. The Chinese god Foki, for instance, is said to have had the form of a man, terminating in the tail of a snake. The same belief in serpent-gods exists among the primitive Turanian tribes. The Accadians made the serpent one of the principal attributes, and one of the forms of Hea, and we find a very important allusion to a mythological serpent in the words from an Accadian dithyrambus uttered by a god, perhaps by Hea:—

The story of Crishna is very similar to that of Hercules in Grecian mythology, the serpent forming a prominent feature in both. Crishna conquers a dragon, into which the Assoor Aghe had transformed himself to swallow him up. He defeats also Kalli Naga (the black or evil spirit with a thousand heads) who, placing himself in the bed of the river Jumna, poisoned the stream, so that all the companions of Crishna and his cattle, who tasted of it, perished. He overcame Kalli Naga, without arms, and in the form of a child. The serpent twisted himself about the body of Crishna, but the god tore off his heads, one after the other, and trampled them under his feet. Before he had completely destroyed Kalli Naga, the wife and children of the monster (serpents also) came and besought him to release their relative. Crishna took pity on them, and releasing Kalli Naga, said to him, "Begone quickly into the abyss: this place is not proper for thee since I have engaged with thee, thy name shall remain through all the period of time and devatars and men shall henceforth remember thee without dismay." So the serpent with his wife and children went into the abyss, and the water which had been affected by his poison became pure and wholesome.[109]

Crishna also destroyed the serpent-king of Egypt and his army of snakes.

Lamia was an evil spirit having the semblance of a serpent, with the head, or at least the mouth, of a beautiful woman, whose whole figure the demon assumed for the purpose of securing the love of some man whom, it was supposed, she desired to tear to pieces and devour. Lycius is said to have fallen in love with one of these spirits, but was delivered by his master, Apollonius, who, "by some probable conjectures," found her out to be a serpent, a lamia.[110]

Keats made use of this idea in his poem, "Lamia." Later the word was used to mean a witch or enchantress. Melusina was another beautiful serpent-woman who disappeared from her husband's presence every Saturday, and turned into a human fish or serpent.

A modern version of the legend of Melusina is found in Wales. To assume the shape of a snake, witches prepared special charms, and sometimes a ban was placed upon enemies by which they turned into snakes for a time.

A young farmer in Anglesea went to South Wales and there he met a handsome girl whose eyes were "sometimes blue, sometimes grey, and sometimes like emeralds," but they always sparkled and glittered. He fell in love with her at first sight, and she agreed to become his wife if he would allow her to disappear twice a year for a fortnight without questioning her as to where she went. To this arrangement the young husband agreed.

For some years he did not trouble himself about his wife's absence, but his mother began nagging at him, saying that he ought to find out where she went and what she did. Taking his mother's advice, he disguised himself and followed his wife to a lonely part of a forest not far from their home. Hiding himself behind a huge rock, he noticed from this point of vantage that his wife took off her girdle and threw it down in the deep grass near a dark pool. Then she vanished, and the next moment he saw a large and handsome snake glide through the grass, just where she had been standing. He chased the reptile, but the snake disappeared into a hole near the pool. The husband went home and waited patiently for his wife's return, and when she came, he requested her to tell him where she had been. This she refused to do, and when he asked her what she did with her girdle, she blushed painfully.

The next time when she was intending to go away, he seized and hid the girdle, and thus deferred her departure. She was taken ill, and he, hoping to rid her of a baneful charm, threw the girdle in the fire. Then his wife writhed in agony, and when the girdle was burnt up she died. The neighbours called her the Snake-Woman of the South on account of this strange story of her doings.[111]

A shoemaker in the Vale of Taff married a widow for her money and, as love seemed lacking on both sides, it was not long before serious quarrels occurred between the couple. Although it was said that hard blows were struck on both sides, the neighbours remarked that it was strange the shoemaker's wife appeared amongst them without a trace of a bruise on her person. At night loud cries and deep groans arose from the shoemaker's dwelling, and a certain gentleman of an inquisitive turn of mind decided to discover what took place and hid himself in a loft over the kitchen, to spy on the couple. Whatever he may have learnt during the proceedings, he said nothing, and a report was spread that he had been "paid to hold his tongue and not divulge the family secret." At last, however, his discretion failed him, and anger against the shoemaker, with whom he fell into a dispute, made him reveal what he knew. He said that as soon as angry words passed between husband and wife, the latter "assumed from the shoulders upwards, the shape of a snake, and deliberately and maliciously sucked her partner's blood and pierced him with her venomous fangs."

No marks were found on the husband's body, but he grew ever thinner and weaker, and after ailing for many months he died. The doctor who tended him in his last illness declared that he had died from the poisonous sting of a serpent. After this verdict the spy was given the credit of his story, which, however, had a gruesome sequel. He and the doctor were found lying helpless in the churchyard one morning. When roused from what seemed a fatal slumber, they said they had been invited by the shoemaker's widow to drink with her in memory of her late dear second husband. Then she sprang upon them in the shape of a snake and stung them severely. They had only strength enough left to crawl to the churchyard, where they would probably have died from torpor had not the neighbours roused them. The widow was never seen again, but a snake constantly appeared in the neighbourhood and could not be killed by any means, so that it earned the name of "the old snake-woman."[112]

Oliver Wendell Holmes, who was interested in the subject of prenatal influences, depicted the heroine of his well-known novel, "Elsie Venner," as a girl who had received the taint of a serpent before birth, from a snakebite suffered by her mother.

Elsie's friend, Helen Darley, knew the secret of the fascination which looked out of the cold, glittering eyes. She knew the significance of the strange repulsion which she felt in her own intimate consciousness underlying the inexplicable attraction which drew her towards the young girl in spite of her repugnance.

When Elsie was taken ill her doctor said that she had lived a double being, as it were, the consequence of the blight which fell upon her in the dim period before consciousness.

"Elsie Venner" is an American story, but India, where the snake is even more familiar, is the home of many human-serpent stories, and legends of serpent descent.

Near Jait in the Mathura district is a tank with the broken statue of a hooded serpent on it. Once upon a time a Raja married a princess from a distant country and, after a short stay there, decided to take his wife home, but she refused to go until he had declared his lineage. The Raja told her she would regret her curiosity, but she persisted. Finally he took her to the river and there warned her again. She would not take heed and he entreated her not to be alarmed at whatever she saw, adding that if she did she would lose him. Saying this, he began slowly to descend into the water, all the time trying to dissuade her from her purpose, till it became too late and the water rose to his neck. Then, after a last attempt to induce her to give up her curiosity, he dived and reappeared in the form of a Naga (serpent). Raising his hood over the water he said, "This is my lineage! I am a Nagbansi."

His wife could not suppress an exclamation of grief, on which the Naga was turned into stone, where he lies to this day.[113]

A member of the family of Buddha fell in love with the daughter of a serpent-king. He was married to her and presently became the sovereign of the country. His wife had obtained possession of a human body, but a nine-headed snake occasionally appeared at the back of her neck. While she slept one night her husband chopped the serpent in two at a single blow, and this caused her to become blind.

Another curious legend is told of a Buddha priest who had become a serpent because he had killed the tree Elapatra, and he then resided in a beautiful lake near Taxila. In the days of Hiuen-Tsiang, when the people of the country wanted fine weather or rain they went to the spring accompanied by a priest, and, "snapping their fingers, invoked the serpent," and immediately obtained their wishes.

The snake tribe is common enough in the Punjaub. Snake families go through many ceremonies, saying that in olden days the serpent was a great king. If they find a dead snake they put clothes on it and give it a regular funeral. The snake changes its form every hundred years, when it becomes either a man or a bull. Snake-charmers have the power of recognising these transformed snakes, and follow them stealthily until they return to their holes and then ask them where treasure is hidden. This they will do on consideration of a drop of blood from the little finger of a first-born son.[114]

Among fairy tales the favourite story is that of a human being who dons a snake-skin, and when it is burnt he resumes human form. The snake-bridegroom is an exceedingly popular version of this idea.[115]

There was once a poor woman, who had never borne a child and she prayed to God that she might be blessed with one, even though she were to bring forth a snake. And God heard her prayer, and in due course she gave birth to a snake. Directly the reptile saw the light of day it slipped down from her lap into the grass and disappeared. Now the poor woman mourned constantly for the snake, because after God had heard and granted her prayer, it grieved her that the being whom she had conceived should have vanished without leaving a trace as to its whereabouts. Twenty years passed, and then the snake returned and said to its mother, "I am the serpent to which you gave birth, and which fled from you into the grass, and I have come back, mother, so that you may demand the king's daughter for me in marriage."

At first the mother rejoiced at the sight of her son, but soon she grew mournful because she did not know how she dare to demand the hand of the king's daughter for a serpent, especially as she was very poor. But the serpent said, "Go along, mother, and do what I ask; even if the king won't give his daughter, he can't cut your head off for the mere asking. But whatever he says to you do not look back until you get home again."

The mother allowed herself to be persuaded and went to the king. At first the servants would not let her into the palace, but she went on asking until they admitted her. When she entered the king's presence she said to him, "Most gracious Majesty, there is your sword and here is my head. Strike if you must, but let me tell you first that for a long time I was childless and then I prayed to God to bless me, even though I were to bring forth a serpent, and He blessed me and I brought forth a serpent. As soon as it saw the light it vanished into the grass and after twenty years it has returned to me and has sent me here to ask for the hand of your daughter in marriage."

The king burst into laughter and said, "I will give my daughter to your son if he builds me a bridge of pearls and precious stones from my palace to his house."

Then the mother turned to go home, and never looked back, and when she left the palace a bridge of pearls and diamonds arose all the way behind her till she reached her own house. When the mother told the serpent what the king had said, the serpent remarked to her, "Go again and see whether the king will give me his daughter, but whatever he answers don't look round as you come back."

This time the king told the mother that if her son could give his daughter a better palace than his own, he should have her for a wife. The mother went back without looking behind her, and found that her house had changed into a palace, and everything in it was three times as good as in the king's palace. All the furniture was made of pure gold.

Then the serpent asked his mother to go back to the palace and fetch the king's daughter, and this time the king told the princess she must marry the serpent. There was a splendid wedding, and in due course the young wife found she was to become a mother. Then her friends grew inquisitive, saying, "If you are living with a serpent how can you hope to have a child?" At first she would not answer, but when her mother-in-law insisted on putting the same question, she replied, "Mother, your son is not really a serpent, but a young man, so handsome that there is none other like him. Every evening he strips off his snake-skin and in the morning he enters it again."

When the serpent's mother heard this she rejoiced greatly, and longed to see her son after he had stripped off his snake-skin.

Presently the two conspirators arranged that when the young man had gone to bed, they should burn the discarded skin, and while his mother put it in the oven, his wife was to pour cold water on her husband lest he should be destroyed by the heat. No sooner had he laid himself down to sleep, than they carried out their plan, but the smell of the burning skin made him cry out, "What have you done? May God punish you. Where can I go in the condition I now am?" But the women comforted him and said it was better for him to live among ordinary mortals than in the snake form, and before long the king resigned his throne in his favour, and all turned out happily.

A very similar story is told of a queen who also gives birth to a serpent.[116] She is allowed to nurse and fondle her offspring in the usual fashion, but for twenty-two years it does not speak and its first utterance is to demand from its parents a wife.

When the parents remark that no nice girl would care to marry a serpent, he tells them not to look in too high a class for a mate.

In this case the father does the wooing, but the mother evokes the truth about her son. When she learns about the snake-skin, she makes the young wife help to burn it, and tragedy results. The husband curses his wife, saying that she will not see him again until she has worn through iron shoes, and that she shall not give birth to her child until he embraces her once more by putting his right arm round her. Then he vanishes for three years, and all that time she is unable to bear her child, so she decides to seek her husband. She travels through the world and comes to the house of the Sun's mother, and when the Sun comes indoors she inquires whether he has seen her husband. But the Sun can do nothing for her but to send her to the Moon. The same disappointment awaits her there, and the Moon sends her to the Winds. After many striking adventures she finds her husband, makes him undo his curse, and gives birth to a son who has golden locks and golden hands.

In another story of serpent-marriage a woman stands in doubt because she cannot cross a river. A serpent comes out of the river and says, "What will you give me if I carry you across?" The woman, having no other possessions, promises to give her coming child; if it is a girl as a wife, if a boy as a "name friend." In after years she has to fulfil her promise and, taking her daughter to the bank of the river, she sees the snake draw her beneath the water. In the course of time the girl bears her husband four snake sons.[117]

An Ainu girl gave birth to a snake as the result of the sun's rays shining on her while she slept, and the snake turned into a child.

The Dyaks and Silakans will not kill the cobra because in remote ages a female ancestor brought forth twins, a boy and a cobra. The cobra went to the forest, but told the mother to warn her children that if they were ever bitten by cobras they must stay in the same place for a whole day and that then the venom would take no effect. The boy then met his cobra brother in the jungle one day and cut off his tail, so that now all cobras have a blunted tail.

In folk-tales the serpent frequently mates with a woman. A curious Basuto story concerns a girl called Senkepeng, who was deserted by her friends and taken home by an old woman, who said she would make a nice wife for her son. Her son turned out to be a serpent, whom no one had ever seen outside his hut, but he had married all the girls of the tribe in succession with fatal results to them, because he ate all the food. Every morning the girl was awakened by a blow of the serpent's tail and was then ordered to go and prepare his food. At last she grew tired of this treatment and resolved to run away. Her serpent-husband pursued her, but she sang a charm or incantation and this delayed his progress and gave her a chance of continuing her flight. Whenever the serpent came up to her she repeated her song.

At last she reached her father's village and told her story, and people were ready to defend her against her pursuer. As soon as the serpent came in sight Senkepeng sang her charm, and the people attacked the serpent and slew it. Presently the serpent's mother arrived and burnt the mutilated corpse, wrapping the ashes in a skin which she threw into a pond. Walking three times round the pond, without speaking a word, she caused her son to come to life again, and he came out of the pond as a human being, and Senkepeng welcomed him as her husband. In another variant the serpent's ashes are put in a vase of clay, which is given to Senkepeng. Afterwards she uncovers the vase and a man steps out from it.[118]

The first Dindje Indian had two wives, one of whom would have nothing to say to him. She used to disappear during the day, and he followed her to find out her secret. He saw her go into a marsh where she met a serpent. When she returned to the hut she had several children, but hid them from her husband under a cover. The man discovered the hiding-place, and there found horrible little men-serpents, which he killed. Thereupon the woman left him and he never saw her again.

In a Bengal story a mighty serpent, after slaughtering a whole family except one beautiful daughter, carries her off to his watery tank, from which she is rescued by a prince. In Russia it is believed that mortal maidens are carried off by serpents.

The Indians are very superstitious. Otto Stoll, author of "Suggestion und Hypnotismus,"[119] showed a friendly Cakchiquel Indian one of his hairs under the microscope. The Indian asked to have it back that he might preserve it, saying that if it were lost, it would turn into a snake, and he would then have to suffer great trouble through snakes all his life. When Dr. Stoll appeared to be sceptical, he told him that he had often seen the long hairs which native women combed out and let fall into the river, become transformed into serpents as they fell. This is a widespread belief, and in an early Mexican dictionary by Molina, in 1571, the word "tzoncoatl" is translated, "the snake which is formed out of horse's hair which fell into the water."

The white snake especially may sometimes be a lovely transformed maiden, as appears from the story of a cowboy who makes a friend of a white snake which comes to play with him and twines about his legs. One evening in midsummer he beholds a fair maiden, who says she is the daughter of an Eastern king and has been forced to spend her life through enchantment in the form of a white snake, with permission to resume human shape on midsummer night every quarter of a century. The cowboy is the first human being who has not shrunk from her when she appears in reptile form. She tells him that she will come again, and will wind herself three times round his body and give him three kisses. If he should shrink from her then she will have to remain a snake for ever. When she appears, the youth stands firm while the reptile caresses him and, lo and behold, there is a crash and a flash and he finds himself in a magnificent palace, with a beautiful girl beside him who becomes his wife.

The Russians have a story of some girls bathing, when a snake comes out of the water and sits upon the clothes of the prettiest one, saying he will not move till she promises to marry him. She agrees, and that very night an army of snakes seize her and carry her beneath the water, where they become men and women. She stays for some years with her husband, and is then allowed to go home and visit her mother. The latter, discovering the husband's name, goes to the water and calls upon him. When he comes to the surface she chops off his head with an axe. Probably the snake-bride has been told by her husband not to mention his name for fear of his death, the name being taboo.

In a Zuni legend the daughter of a chief bathes in a pool sacred to Kolowissa, the serpent of the sea. Kolowissa in anger appears to the maiden in the form of a child, whom she takes to her home. There the child changes into an enormous serpent, who induces her to go away with him, and when she does so he transforms himself again into a handsome youth.

Incredulous that such happiness can befall her, she expresses her doubts to the young man, but he then shows her his shrivelled snake-skin as proof that he is the god of the waters and that he loves her well enough to make her his wife.[120]

A beautiful girl in New Guinea was beloved by a chief of a strange tribe, and he was so fearful of entering her father's territory that he asked a sorcerer for a charm which would enable him to change into a snake the moment he crossed the boundary of his own country. In this form he entered the girl's hut, and on seeing the reptile she began to scream. Her father, however, was more astute and saw the serpent was really a man, so he bade his daughter to go to him, as he must be a great chief to be thus able to transform himself. She obeyed his command, and as the serpent went slowly, her father advised her to burn his tail with a hot banana leaf to make him hurry. This she also did, but at the boundary the snake vanished and presently a handsome young man came up to her and told her he was the serpent, showing certain burns on his feet and legs in proof of the statement.[121]

In France the serpent with a jewel in its head is called vouivre, which is the same as our basilisk or dragon. The vouivre is a reptile from a yard to two yards long, having only one eye in its head, which shines like a jewel and is called the carbuncle. This jewel is regarded as of inestimable value, and those who can obtain one of these treasures become enormously rich. Many of the legends deal with the robbery of this jewel from the serpent, a crime which is frequently punishable by death or madness.

The French have several variants of the story of St. George and the Dragon. At the castle of Vaugrenans, for instance, there lived a lovely lady whose beauty had led her far astray from the path of virtue. She was changed into a basilisk and terrorised the country by her misdeeds. Her son George was a handsome knight, whose natural piety led him to live a life of good deeds. George decided that he must set his country free from the depredations of the monster reptile, which never ceased to prey upon the neighbourhood and he did battle with it as once the archangel, St. Michael, had combated the dragon. George killed the serpent and his horse trampled what remained of it beneath its hoofs.

George was very sad, however, in spite of his victory, and he asked St. Michael, who had witnessed the struggle, what was the punishment for one who had slain his own mother.

"He ought to be burnt," replied St. Michael, "and his ashes strewn to the winds."

So George had to suffer the penalty of being burnt and his ashes were scattered to the winds. So far the story bears a marked resemblance to the family story of the Lambton worm, but the French tale has a curious sequel. The ashes fell in one heap instead of scattering to the wind, and a young girl who was passing gathered them up. Near by she found an apple of Paradise, which she ate. In due course she gave birth to a son, and when the infant was baptised, it cried in a loud tone of voice, "I am called George and I have been born on this earth for the second time." Later he was made a saint.

The Roman genius, which accompanies every man through life as his protector, frequently took the shape of a serpent.

In many lands, by eating a snake, wisdom is acquired, or the language of animals mastered, and generally a particular snake is mentioned by name. Thus with Arabs and Swahilis it is the king of snakes: among Swedish, Danish, Celtic or Slavonic peoples it is a white snake or the fabulous basilisk with a crown on its head, which resembles the jewel-headed serpent of Eastern lore.

In the country of Râma there stood a brick stupa or tower, about a hundred feet high, in the time of Hiuen-Tsiang. The stupa constantly emitted rays of glory, and by the side of it was a Naga tank. The Naga frequently changed his appearance into that of a man, and, as such, encircled the tower in the practice of religion, that is, he turned religiously with his right hand towards the tower.[122]

In New Guinea it is believed that a witch is possessed by spirits which can be expelled in the form of snakes. Among the Ainus, madness is explained as possession by snakes. The Zulus believe that an ancestor who wishes to approach a kraal takes serpent shape. In Madagascar different species of snakes are the abode for different classes, one for common people, one for chiefs, and one for women, and in certain parts of Europe it is solemnly believed that people may assume serpent-form during sleep.

The fact that the serpent-stories of the nature here collected, are so numerous seems to point to a definite occult connection between the highest living organism, man, who is represented by a vertical line, and the reptile, the serpent, represented by the horizontal line, the two together forming the right angle.

CHAPTER XVIII

CAT AND COCK PHANTOMS

The cat, as appears from many legends, easily holds the place amongst mystic animals that the serpent has among reptiles, partly no doubt because of its close relationship with sorcerers and witches.

Among the strange animal-gods and goddesses of Egypt none is more famous than the goddess Sekhet and Bast of Bubastis, who sometimes has the head of a lion, sometimes of a cat. The early inhabitants of the valley of the Nile were better acquainted with the lion than with the cat, which was first introduced from Nubia in the eleventh dynasty. In the time of the old Empire there was no cat-headed deity chiefly because there were no cats. When once introduced, the cat became a sacred animal and Sekhet's lion-head was superseded by a milder feline form. The Egyptians also believed that Diana, wishing to escape from giants, chose to hide herself in the form of a cat.

Cats, like foxes, are credited in Japan with the power of assuming human shape in order to bewitch mankind. The two-tailed vampire cat destroys a beautiful maiden and, taking her form, preys on a handsome prince.

A man who kills a cat is liable to be possessed by a cat, and he prevents this if he eats part of the animal. This homeopathic cure is called cat-punishment. At Aix in Provence, on the day of Corpus Christi, the largest tom-cat is dressed in swaddling clothes and publicly exhibited in a magnificent shrine.[123]

There is a well-known story of a traveller who saw a procession of cats in a ruined abbey lowering a small coffin with a crown on it into a grave. Filled with fear, he rushed from the spot and later told his vision to a friend. The friend's cat lay curled up quietly before the fire, but, hearing the story, it sprang up and crying out, "Now I am king of the cats!" disappeared in a flash up the chimney.

An inhabitant of Toulon told Bérenger-Feraud,[124] in 1875, that one of his friends had a wizard cat. Every evening the cat used to listen to their conversation, and if the subject interested him, he expressed his own opinion, usually saying the last word on the topic. If his mistress had any plans on hand, she consulted the cat, giving her reasons for taking one course or another. After having weighed the pros and cons carefully, the cat used to advise her by saying "yes" or "no" as to whether her plans could be carried out or not.

The cat used to speak whenever he wanted food, asking either for fish or meat to be purchased, and he talked very indignantly if the required dainty was not forthcoming.

From time to time this uncanny animal disappeared for many days at a stretch; and the members of the household were convinced that he had taken human form in his absence. He always used to speak before leaving and after returning.

When he lay on the point of death he prayed that his body might be decently buried, and his mistress gave him a solemn promise to this effect and laid the corpse in a box which she interred behind the cemetery wall. She dare not bury it in the grave prepared for human beings, but the coffin was laid alongside a Christian tomb, and at the funeral the cat's soul was recommended to the care of his Creator.

Wizard cats have been known to do serious harm to those against whom they have a grudge, and it is well to be sure, if you value your life, whether you are dealing with a real animal or a "familiar" when you feel angry.

A young man in Radnorshire had the reputation of being very cruel to cats. On the day he was to be married he saw a cat cross his path, and he threw a stone at it. From that moment he weakened in health and had to go away frequently to recuperate. The neighbours said that during these absences he was changed into a cat and ran wild in the woods and, after his death, tradition declared that he wandered through the district at night in the shape of a cat and struck terror in the hearts of naughty children.

General Sir Thomas Edward Gordon tells the following story of a modern instance in which a man was said to be transformed into a cat after death.[125]

"For twenty-five years an oral addition to the written standing orders of the native guard at Government House near Poona had been communicated regularly from one guard to another on relief, to the effect that any cat passing out of the front door after dark was to be regarded as His Excellency the Governor, and to be saluted accordingly. The meaning of this was that Sir Robert Grant, Governor of Bombay, had died there in 1838, and on the evening of the day of his death a cat was seen to leave the house by the front door and walk up and down a particular path, as had been the Governor's habit to do after sunset. A Hindu sentry had observed this, and he mentioned it to the others of his faith, who made it a subject of superstitious conjecture, the result being that one of the priestly class explained the mystery of the dogma of the transmigration of the soul from one body to another, and interpreted the circumstance to mean that the spirit of the deceased Governor had entered into one of the house pets.