Also cfr. the chapter on the Peacock.
[379] In the Festival of the Epiphany, which is also a festival of the husband and wife, the good fairy is accustomed to bring to the child, husband, and wife, a boot or a stocking full of presents. This nuptial boot occurs again in the English custom of throwing a slipper after a newly-married couple. Another meaning was also given to the slippers which are thrown away in the popular belief. Instead of being the heroine's shoes which, having been abandoned, serve to attract and guide the predestined husband, they are also considered as the old shoes which the devil leaves behind him when he flees (his tail, which betrays itself). The Germanic wild huntress Gueroryssa, another form of the Frau Holle—the phantom of winter expelled at Epiphany—is represented with a serpent's tail. Hence in the German carnival the use of the Schuh-teufel laufen, or running in the devil's slippers.
[380] Cfr. Afanassieff, v. 4, and the chapter on the Stork.
[381] Cfr. Afanassieff, ii. 25, ii. 28, iv. 47, v. 37.
[382] The mère sotte has become proverbial in France, where, in the sixteenth century, Pierre Gringore wrote a satirical comedy with the title of Le Jeu de Mère Sotte, in which the Mère Sotte is the Catholic Church.
[383] A similar story, which, on account of its indecent details, I was not able to publish in my collection of the Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, is narrated upon the hills of Signa, near Florence. It is also told, with some variations, in Piedmont.—Cfr. a Russian variety of the same story in the chapter on the Hen.
[384] Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, 22.
[385] Cfr. the chapter on the Fishes.
[386] Afanassieff, vi. 59.—But in the tale v. 11, he knows how to fight well.
[387] In England the monster smells the blood of an Englishman, as in the familiar lines in Jack the Giant-Killer—
[388] Cfr. Teza, The Three Golden Hairs of the Grandfather Know-all, a Bohemian tale (I tre Capelli d'oro del Nonno Satutto, Bologna, 1866).
[389] Afanassieff, ii. 7.
[390] v. 11.
[391] Afanassieff, v. 7, 8.
[392] iv. 46.
[393] v. 6; Erlenwein, 7.
[394] Erlenwein, 5.—In the first story of Erlenwein, the last-born, Vaniusha (Little John), takes from disputing peasants, by a stratagem, first a marvellous arrow, then a hat which makes the wearer invisible, and, finally, a mantle which flies of itself. He promises to divide them equitably, and for this service makes them pay him beforehand, each of the three times, a hundred roubles; he then throws the objects far away and says, that he who is able to find them will have them; all search, but he alone finds them. (Thus Arǵunas, in the Mahâbhâratam, hides his wonderful arms in the trunk of a tree, in which he alone can find them.)
[395] Cfr. Schiefner, Zur Russischen Heldensage, Petersburg, 1861. This is how the hero Svyatogor is described in a Russian popular epic song cited by Ralston (The Songs of the Russian people): "There comes a hero taller than the standing woods, whose head reaches to the fleeting clouds, bearing on his shoulders a crystal coffer."
[396] Afanassieff, vi. 41.
[397] v. 31, and Erlenwein, 16.
[398] v. 32.
[399] vi. 27.
[400] Çadis v nievó, i leti kuda nadobno; da po daroghie zabirái k sebié vsiákavo vstriećnavo.
[401] Na karablié niet ni adnavó pána, a vsió córnie ludi.
[402] Cfr. Afanassieff, v. 23.—Ice, in the form of an old man, comes to try the boiling bath into which the king of the sea wishes to throw the young hero; when Ice has tried the bath, the youth enters it without suffering any harm.—The trial of drinking occurs again in a grandiose form in the combat between Loki and Thor to empty the cup in the Edda of Snorri, a different form of the Hindoo legend of Agastyas, who dries up the sea.—Odin, too, as Indras and as Bhîmas, at three gulps dries up three lakes of mead.
[403] Afanassieff, v. 42.
[404] Cfr. the chapters on the Hare and the Quail.
[405] Afanassieff, vi. 28, and ii. 31.
[406] Afanassieff, vi. 20.—Cfr. i. 3, and ii. 31, where we have the same particular of the prince who strikes three times the disguised girl who serves him, as in the Tuscan story of the Wooden Top (the puppet), the third in my collection of the Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia.
[407] iv. 44.
[408] Cfr. next chapter.
[409] Cfr. the chapter on the Spider.
[410] Afanassieff, ii. 29, and iv. 45.
[411] v. 23.
[412] v. 42.
[413] Afanassieff, v. 27.
[414] Cfr. the chapter which treats of the Eagle, the Vulture, and the Falcon.
[415] Afanassieff, vi. 52.
[416] Afanassieff, vi. 63.
[417] vi. 51.
[418] In the story, vi. 52, Ivan, by playing in a marvellous manner on a flute, is recognised by the princess whom he had delivered from the monster.
[419] Cf. next chapter.
[420] We find the blind-lame man again in an epigram by Ausonius of Bordeaux, a writer of the fourth century:—
[421] Afanassieff, v. 39.
[422] The student who wishes to extend his researches in Slavonic tradition may consult with profit, among others, the following works:—Schwenck, Mythologie der Slaven; Hanusch, Slavische Mythologie; Woycicki, Polnische Märchen; Schleicher, Littauische Märchen; Wenzig, Westslavischer Märchenschatz; Kapper, Die Gesänge der Serben; Chodzko, Contes des Paysans et des Pâtres Slaves; Teza, Itre Capelli d'oro del Nonno Satutto, a Bohemian story; Miçkiević, Canti Popolari Illirici.
[423] Les Eddas, traduites de l'ancien idiome Scandinave par Mdlle. du Puget, 2ème édition, p. 16.
[424] Kuhn und Schwartz, Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche, p. 501.
[425] Handbuch der Deutschen Mythologie, mit Einschluss der nordischen, 2te. aufl. p. 437.—We find also in Eginhardus (Vita Caroli Magni): "Quocumque eundum erat, carpento ibat, quod bubus junctis et bubulco rustico more agente, trahebatur."—The bull is a symbol of generation; the man who fears the bull is a stupid and ridiculous eunuch. We find in Du Cange, Lit. Remiss, ann. 1397, "Le suppliant, lui dist, Eudet, vous avéz un toreau qui purte les gens et ne osent aler aux champs pour luy; lequel Eudet luy respondis: as tu nom Jehannot?" Faire Johan dicitur mulier, quæ marito fidem non servat (a variety of the Mongol Sûrya Bagatur).
[426] Recorded by Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, vol. i. p. 438, when speaking of the Hellenic myth of Zeus and Eurôpâ.
[427] Cfr. Kuhn, Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks, p. 181 and following.—In Du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis, s. v. Acannizare, we read an extract of a paper of Jacob, i. Regis Arag. fol. 16: "Quicunque Acannizaverit vaccam vel bovem, si bos vel vacca fecerit damnum casu fortuito, dum Acannizatur, cujus est amittat ipsum bovem vel vaccam, nisi Acannizetur causa nuptiarum;" and in Du Cange also: "Ut in anserem ludendo baculos torquere in usu fuit, ita et in bovem."
[428] Die Deutsche Heldensage, von Wilhelm Grimm, 2te Aus., No 102, 182.
[429] Cfr. the chapter on the Goat and He-goat for more information on mythical horns.
[430] Vide p. 497.
[431] Diese Brücke wird keine andere sein, als die himmlische Bîfröst, deren er hütet, eine Vermuthung, die noch an Wahrscheinlichkeit gewinnt, wenn man den friesischen Namen der Milchstrasse Kaupat, der Kuhpfad, hinzunimmt; denn Milchstrasse und Regenbogen berühren einander sehr nahe. Dieser ist die Tagesbrücke zwischen Göttern und Menschen, jene die nächtliche.
[432] Rothe Kühe geben auch weisse Milch; Wander, Deutsches Sprichwörter Lexicon, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1870.
[433] Auch eine schwarze Kuh gibt weisse Milch; Wander, ibid.
[434] This reminds us of the familiar English riddle, "How many cows' tails would it take to reach the moon? One, if it were long enough."
[435] Wenn die Kuh gestohlen ist, verwahrt man den Stall.—Wer eine Kuh verloren und den Schwanz zurück erhält, hat nicht viel, aber mehr als nichts.—Die Kuh könnte mit dem Schwanze bis an den Himmel reichen, wenn er nur lang genug wäre.—Une vache ne sceit que lui vault sa queue jusques elle l'a perdue.—Die Kuh beim Schwanz fassen.—Die schwarze Kuh hat ihn gedrückt.—Eine Kuh kann keinen Hasen erlaufen.—Die Kuh überläuft einen Hasen.—Nicht alle, die Hörner blasen, jagen Hasen.—Wenn die Kühe lachen.—Wie eine blinde Kuh eine Erbse findet.—Den sollt man in einer alten Kuhhaut herumfahren.—Soll die Kuhmagd spinnen, wird man wenig Garn gewinnen.—Man würde eher einer Kuh spinnen lehren; Wander's Lexicon of German Proverbs, ii. 1666-1695.
[436] Livius i.: "Quia si, agendo, armentum in speluncam compulisset, ipsa vestigia quærentem dominum eo deductura erant, aversos boves eximium quemque pulchritudine caudis in speluncam traxit."
[437] Facetiæ, Krakau, 1592, quoted by Benfey in his introduction to the Pańćatantram, Leipzig, Brockhaus, p. 323: "Quia testiculi mei quadraginta annos pependerunt casuro similes et nunquam ceciderant."—And in Lessing, xi. 250, we read of Lachmann-Maltzahn: "De vulpe quadam asini testiculos manducandi cupido."—In Aldrovandi, De Quadrupedibus Bisulcis, i. Bologna, 1642, we read, "Membrum tauri in aceto maceratum et illitum, splendidam, teste secto, facit faciem; Rasis ait, genitale tauri rubri aridum tritum, et aurei pondere propinatum mulieri, fastidium coitus afferre; e contrario quidam recentiores, ut in viris Venerem excitent, tauri membrum cæteris hujus facultatibus admiscent."
[438] Wenn auch der Kuhschwanz wackelt, so fällt er doch nicht ab; in Wander, Deutsches Sprichwörter Lexicon.
[439] v. 8.
[440] Referred to by Köhler in Orient und Occident.
[441] iv. 15.
[442] Whence the proverb quoted above, relating to the stable that is shut when the cow is stolen, is also quoted as follows: "Shutting the stable when the horse has been stolen."
[443] Cfr. the chapter on the Wolf, where the dwarf enters the wolf by his mouth and comes out by his tail.
[444] In a Russian story, in Afanassieff, vi. 2, when the old peasant (the old sun) falls from the sky into a marsh (the sea of night), a duck (the moon or the aurora) comes to make its nest and lay an egg upon his head; the peasant clutches hold of its tail; the duck struggles and draws the peasant out of the marsh (the sun out of the night), and the peasant with the duck and its egg flies and returns to his house (the sky whence he had fallen).—In a variation of the same story in Afanassieff (the two stories together refer to that of Aristomenes) the old man falls from heaven into the mud. A fox places seven young foxes on his head. A wolf comes to eat the young foxes; the peasant catches hold of his tail; the wolf, by one pull, draws him out; by another, leaves his tail in the peasant's hand. The tail of the wolf of night is the morning aurora.—In the story of Turn-Little-Pea, Afanassieff, iii. 2, the young hero enters into the horse after having taken off his (black) hide, and after having taken him by the tail, i.e., he becomes the luminous horse of the sun.
[445] In the Russian story of lazy and stupid Emilius, who makes his fortune, the hero is shut up in a barrel with the heroine, and thrown into the sea: the sun and the aurora, made prisoners, and shut up together, cross together the sea of night.
[446] Wenn sich eine Kuh auf die Eier legt, so erwarte keine Hühner; Wander, the work quoted before.
[447] In the Russian story of Afanassieff, v. 36, the hero-workman kills the monster-serpent by gambling with him for the price of his own skin. Thinking that he may lose, he has provided himself beforehand with seven ox hides and with iron claws. He loses seven times; each time the monster thinks he has him in his power, but the workman as often imposes upon him with an ox's hide, inducing him to believe that it is his own. At last the serpent loses, and the workman, with his iron claws, really takes off his skin, upon which the serpent dies. To take the sack or hide from the monster, to burn the skin of the monster-serpent, goat, hog, frog, &c., to burn the enchanted mantle or hood in which the hero is wrapped up, is the same as to kill the monster.
[448] See the chapter on the Wolf.
[449] For the German one, cfr. Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 199.
[450] Afanassieff, ii. 17.
[451] Acarnides insutus pelle juvenci; Ovidius, In Ibin.
[452] Köhler, Ueber T. F. Campbell's Sammlung gälischer Märchen, in Orient und Occident.—Cfr. the 30th of the Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia.
[453] Köhler, the work quoted above.
[454] To this myth of the cow which goes over the moon, the observation of a lunar eclipse might have contributed materially, in which the cow earth (in Sanskṛit, go means earth as well as cow) really passes over the moon or hare. Or else, the cloud and the night, as a black cow, very frequently goes over the hare or moon.
[455] In the Russian superstition, when a hare passes between the wheels of the vehicle which carries a newly-married couple, it bodes misfortune; nor is this without reason: the hare is the moon; the moon is the protectress of marriages; if she throws obstacles in the way, the marriage cannot be happy; consequently, marriages in India were celebrated at full moon.
[456] Die Kuh, die viel brüllt, gibt nicht die meiste Milch.
[457] Phalânâm phalam açnoti tadâ dattvâ; Mahâbhâratam, iii. 13, 423.
[458] In the German legend of King Volmar, in Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 451, we find the peas in the ashes. In the seventh of the Contes Merveilleux of Porchat, we have the pot in which the cabbages are boiled, from which come forth money and partridges. In the sixth of the same Contes Merveilleux, the young curioso sees a nest upon an elm-tree, and wishes to climb up; the ascent never comes to an end; the tree takes him up near to heaven. On the summit of the elm-tree there is a nest, from which comes forth a beautiful fair-haired maiden (the moon).
[459] i. 53.
[460] In the story, vi. 58, of Afanassieff, the honest workman, when he wishes to fix his eyes upon the princess who never laughs, falls into a marsh; the fish, the beetle, and the mouse, in gratitude, clean him again; then the princess laughs for the first time, and marries the honest workman. In the 25th of the Novelline di Santo Stefano, an analogous detail is found, but this is not enough to make the princess laugh; it is the eagles which draw after themselves everything they touch that accomplish the miracle of making the queen's daughter laugh. In the third story of the Pentameron, the princess laughs upon seeing Pervonto carried by the faggot of wood, instead of carrying it. The Russian stories of the ducks which save the hero, in Afanassieff, vi. 17-19, and the faithless wife and her lover bound together, are variations of the eagles of the Tuscan story.
[461] Ṛigvedas, v. 46, 8; v. 43, 6; i. 61, 8.
[462] In the Nibelungen, Krîmhilt, who has never saluted any one, (diu nie gruozte reeken), salutes for the first time the young Sîfrit, the victorious and predestined hero, and, whilst she is saluting him, turns the colour of flame (do erzunde sich sîn varwe).
[463] In a mediæval paper in Du Cange, s. v. Abocellus, we read: "De quodam cæco vaccarum custode," who, "quod colores et staturam vaccarum singularium specialiter discerneret," was believed to be demoniacal; hence the sacrament of confirmation was given him to deliver him from this diabolical faculty, and the paper narrates that he was immediately deprived of it. The blind hero who sees, who distinguishes his cows from each other, is the sun in the cloud. No sooner does he receive confirmation (which is a second baptism), than he ceases to see his cows, for the simple reason that the clouds are dissolved in rain, or that himself has recovered his vision.
[464] Cfr. the papers relative to Merlin by Liebrecht and Benfey in Orient und Occident.
[465] Fasti, iii. 339.
[466] Cfr. the chapter on the Fishes; where the custom of eating fish on Friday is also explained.
[467] In the first of the stories of Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, the cow-maid says to her cow, "Cow, my cow, spin with your mouth and wind with your horns; I will make you a faggot of green boughs."
[468] The maiden spins for her step-mother; the fairy gives luminous robes to the maiden; the maiden weaves dresses for her husband; these are all details which confound themselves in one. In the Nibelungen, the virgins prepared dresses of gold and pearls for the young hero Sîfrit.
[469] Holda, or Frau Holle, is burnt every year in Thuringia on the day of Epiphany, on which day (or, perhaps, better still, on the Berchtennacht, the preceding night, or Berta's night) the good fairy expels the wicked one. In England, too, the witch is burned on the day of Epiphany.—Cfr. Reinsberg von Düringsfeld, Das festliche Jahr, p. 19.
[470] In the Pentameron of Basil, i. 9, we read: "Passaie lo tiempo che Berta filava; mo hanno apierto l'huocchie li gattille."
[471] Afanassieff, vi. 2.
[472] Cfr. Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 409, and the ninth of the Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, in which the luminous maiden disguised as an old woman is uncovered by the geese, when she puts down the dress of an old woman.
[473] Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 410.
[474] Wuotan also saves him whom he protects upon a mantle;—this is the flying carpet or mantle, hood, or hat, which renders the wearer invisible, and for which the three brothers disputed, which is also represented as a tablecloth that lays itself. Thus the poor man who goes to sell his cow's hide finds the pot of abundance and riches. The dispute for the tablecloth is the same as the dispute for riches, for the beautiful princess who is afterwards divided, or else carried off by a third or fourth person who takes the lion's share. We must not forget the fable of the animals who wish to divide the stag among themselves, of which the lion takes all, because he is named lion. In the Nibelungen, Schilbung and Nibelung dispute with each other for the division of a treasure; they beg Sîfrit to divide it; Sîfrit solves the question by killing them both and taking to himself the treasure, and the hood that makes its wearer invisible (Tarnkappe).
[475] The romance of Berta continues in the Reali di Francia in harmony with the popular stories of an analogous character; the false wife really causes King Pepin to marry her, and sends Berta into the forest to be killed; the hired murderers pity her, and grant her her life. Berta, whilst in the forest bound to a tree (like the Vedic cow), is found by a hunter; out of gratitude she works (she, no doubt, spins and weaves), in order that the hunter may sell her work at Paris for a high price. Meanwhile her father and mother dream that she is beset by bears and wolves who threaten to devour her, that thereupon, throwing herself into the water, a fisherman saves her (in the dream, the water has taken the place of the forest, and the fisherman that of the hunter). King Pepin goes into the forest, finds her, recognises and marries her, whilst Elizabeth is burnt alive. The change of wives also occurs in a graceful form (with a variation of the episode of the beauty thrown into the fountain) in the twelfth of the Contes Merveilleux of Porchat, Paris, 1863.
[476] Histoire de la Vie de Charlemagne et de Roland, par Jean Turpin, traduction de Alex. de Saint-Albin, Paris, 1865, preceded by the Chanson de Roland, poème de Théroulde.—Cfr. the Histoire Poétique de Charlemagne, par Gaston Paris.
[477] Uhland's Schriften zur Geschichte der Dichtung und Sage, iii. 77.
[478] "Seigneur, bénissez ce lit et ceux qui s'y trouvent; bénissez ces chers enfants, comme vous avez béni Tobie et Sara; daignez les bénir ainsi, Seigneur, afin qu'en votre nom ils vivent et vieillissent et multiplient, par le Christ notre Seigneur.—Ainsi soit-il." Villemarqué, Barzaz Breiz, Chants Populaires de la Bretagne, sixième édition, Paris, 1867, p. 423.
[479] Uhland, the work quoted above, p. 81.—In the French romance of Renard, on occasion of the apparent death of the fox, the gospel is read, on the contrary, by the horse. In the German customs the bull also appears as a funeral animal, and is fastened to the hearse. If, while he is drawing the hearse, he turns his head back, it is considered a sinister omen. According to a popular belief, the bulls and other stalled animals speak to each other on Christmas night. A tradition narrates, that a peasant wished on that night to hide himself and hear what the bulls were saying; he heard them say that they would soon have to draw him to the grave, and died of terror. This is the usual indiscretion and its punishment.—Cfr. Rochholz, Deutscher Glaube und Brauch, Berlin, 1867, i. 164, and Menzel, Die Vorchristliche Unsterblichkeits-Lehre, Leipzig, 1870.—We have the speaking oxen again in Phædrus's fable of the stag who takes refuge in the stable, ii. 8, where the master is called "ille qui oculos centum habet."
[480] Elle en mangea seze muiz, deux bussars et six tupins; Rabelais, Gargantua, i. 4.
[481] Cfr. Porchat, Contes Merveilleux, Paris, 1863.
[482] In Porchat, Superlatif, while he is a dwarf, is shut up in a clothes-press; he is a male form of the wooden girl, of the wise puppet, of the sun hidden in the trunk of a tree, in the tree of night, in the nocturnal (or cloudy, or wintry) night, full of mysteries, which the little solar hero surprises from his hiding-place. The hero in hell, or who, educated by the devil, learns every kind of evil, is a variation of this multiform idea. The dwarf of Porchat, who comes out of the clothes-press, is in perfect accord with the popular belief which makes the man be born in the wood, on the stump of a tree, of which the Christmas-tree is a lively reminiscence.
[483] According to Eustatius, "Iô gar hê selênê katà tên tôn Argetôn dialekton."
[484] Cfr. Pott, Studien zur griechischen Mythologie, Leipzig, Teubner, 1859; and Cox, the work quoted before.
[485] Dionysiakôn, i. 45, and following; iii. 306, and following.
[486] Metamorphoseôn, iv. 754.
[487] In England, as I have already noticed, the bull or ox is sacred to St Luke; in Russia, to the saints Froh and Laver. In Sicily, the protector of oxen is San Cataldo, who was bishop of Taranto. (For the notices relating to Sicilian beliefs concerning animals, I am indebted to my good friend Giuseppe Pitrè.) In Tuscany, and in other parts of Italy, oxen and horses are recommended to the care of St Antony, the great protector of domestic animals. In the rural parts of Tuscany, it was the custom, on the 17th of February, to lead oxen and horses to the church-door, that they might be blessed. Now, to save trouble, only a basket of hay is carried to be blessed; which done, it is taken to the animals that they may eat it and be preserved from evil. On Palm Sunday, to drive away every evil, juniper is put into the stables in Tuscany.
[488] Taúrous pammélanai, in the Odyssey; the commentator explains that the bulls are black because they resemble the colour of water.
[489] Kelainefès-nefelêgeréta Zeús; Odyssey, xiii. 147 and 153.
[491] In Diodoros, Hammon loves the virgin Amalthea, who has a horn resembling that of an ox. The goat and the cow in the lunar and cloudy myth are the same; and on this account we find them both in connection with the apple-tree, a vegetable form, and with the cornucopia, since both are seers, and spies, and guides. The golden doe is a variation of the same lunar myth.
[492] Argonantikôn, iii. 410, 1277.
[493] Nonnos, Dionysiakôn, xi. 113 and following.
[494] Orestês, 1380.
[495] Ergazoménous Bóas.—In the twelfth book of his History of Animals, Ælianos writes: "Among the Phrygians, if any one kills a working ox, he atones for it with his life." And Varro, De Re Rusticâ: "Bos socius hominum in rustico opere et Cereris minister. Ab hoc antiqui ita manus abstineri voluerunt ut capite sanxerint si quis occidisset."
[496] Scriptores Historiæ Augustæ, Lampridius, in the life of Heliogabalus.
[497] vii. 3.
[498] Fasti, iii. 800.
[499] Cfr. the chapter on the Hare.
[500] Plutarch, in the Life of Marcellus, Arrianos and Appianos among the Greeks, Livy, Cicero (De Divinatione), Pliny the elder, Julius Capitolinus, Julius Obsequens among the Latins.
[501] Éba kai táuros an hülan, xiv. 43. In Theokritos, the proverb is used to intimate that he is gone to other and perfidious loves; he, too, is a traitor.
[502] Rerum gestarum, xxii.—Cfr. the episode of the ox which lets itself fall into the marsh or swamp, in the various versions of the first book of the Pańćatantram.—The astrologers placed the brain under the protection of the moon, and the heart under that of the sun; Celoria, La Luna, Milano, 1871.
[503] Kadmeiôn Basilêas egeinato; Phoinissai, 835.
[504] Boiotia.
[505] Metam., iii. 10.—Cfr. Nonnos, Dionys., iv. 290, and following.
[506] Or, on the path of the sun in the sky.
[507] In an unpublished Piedmontese story, which is very widely spread, the girl carried off by robbers escapes from their hands, and hides in the trunk of a tree.
[508] De Quadrupedibus Bisulcis, i.
[509] De Vocabulis, i., quoted by Aldrovandi.
[510] Fasti, iv. 721.
[511] Cfr. Ott. Targioni Tozzetti, Lezioni di Materia Medica, Firenze, 1821.
[512] In an Æsopian fable taken from Syntipa, which corresponds to the first of Lokman, two bulls combine against the lion, and resist him; the lion excites them against each other, and tears them to pieces. In the sixth fable of Aphtonios, the bulls are three; in the eighteenth of Avianus, they are four. The lion already knew the motto of kings: "Divide et impera."
[513] Durandus, Rational. i. 3, quoted by Du Cange.
[514] Ovidius, Metam., ii. 706.
[515] Per tria partitos qui dabat ora sonos; Ecl. iv.
[516] Fasti, i. 550.
[517] Philê, Stichoi peri zôôn idiotêtos, lix.
[518] In Italian, attonito (or, properly speaking, struck by thunder) is the same as "who is much surprised").
[519] Dionys. xix 58.
[520] Cfr. Martigny, Dictionnaire des Antiquités Chrétiennes, s. v. veau.
[521] In Phædrus, as we have already observed, the ox and the ass are yoked together.
[522] Ippolitos, Ôs fonê Diòs, 1200-1229.
[523] Cfr. the chapter relating to the Ass.
[524] Ovidius, Fasti, v. 615.
[525] Ib. v. 620.
[526] The word atyas has the same meaning.
[527] Yunǵantv asya kâmyâ harî vipakshasâ rathe çonâ dhṛishṇû ṇṛivâhasâ; Ṛigv. i. 6, 2.
[528] Vaćoyuǵâu; Ṛigv. i. 7, 2.
[529] Yukshvâ hi keçinâ harî vṛishaṇâ kakshyaprâ; Ṛigv. i. 10, 3.
[530] Sûraćakshasaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 16, 1.
[531] Indrâya vaćoyuǵâ tatakshur manasâ harî; Ṛigv. i. 20, 2.
[532] Saudhanvanâ açvâd açvam atakshata; Ṛigv. i. 161, 7.
[533] Vi ǵanâń ćhyâvaḥ çitipâdo akhyan rathaṁ hiraṇyaprâugaṁ vahantaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 33, 5.
[534] Indro vañkû vañkutarâdhi tishṭhati; Ṛigv. i. 5, 11.
[535] Yukshvâ madaćyutâ harî; Ṛigv. i. 81, 3.
[536] Vâm açvinâ manaso ǵaviyân rathaḥ svaçvah; Ṛigv. i. 117, 2.
[537] Â tvâ yaćhantu harito na sûryam ahâ viçveva sûryam; Ṛigv. i. 130, 2.
[538] Harî sûryasya ketû; Ṛigv. ii. 11, 6.
[539] Ghṛitaçćutaṁ svâram asvârshṭâm; Ṛigv. ii. 11, 7.
[540] Pra ye dvitâ diva ṛińǵanty âtâḥ susammṛishṭâso vṛishabhasya mûraḥ; Ṛigv. iii. 43, 6.
[541] Indra haribhir yâhi mayûraromabhiḥ; Ṛigv. iii. 45. 1.
[542] Shoḷhâ yuktâh pańća-pańćâ vahanti; Ṛigv. iii. 55, 18.
[543] Patatribhir açramâir avyatibhir daṅsanâbhiḥ; Ṛigv. vii. 69, 7. The Açvinâu also are called dravatpânî (swift-hoofed); Ṛigv. i. 3, 1.
[544] Açvatarî—rathenâgnir âǵimadhâvattâsâṁ prâǵamâno yonimakûlayattásmâttâ na viǵâyaṅte. Gobhiraruṇâirushâ âǵimadhâvattasmâdushasyagatâyâmaruṇamivaeva prabhâtyushasorûpamaçvarathenendra âǵimadhâvattasmâtsa uććâirghosha upabdimânkshatrasya rûpamâindro hi sa gadarbharathenâçvinâ udaǵayatâmaçvinâvâçnuvâtâm; Ait. Br. iv. 2, 9.
[545] Tvâshtrî tu savitur bhâryâ vadavârupadhâriṇî asûyata mahâbhâgâ sâ 'ntarîkshe 'çvinâvubhâu; Mbh. i. 2599.
[546] Il. x. 352.
[547] In the Monferrato, according to the information kindly given me, concerning the beliefs relative to animals current in this country, by Dr Giuseppe Ferraro, the young collector of the popular songs and stories of the Monferrato, it is believed that the horse's teeth hung upon the necks of infants at the breast cause them to cut their teeth, and that the two incisors of the horse, when worn, are a spell to charm away every evil.
[548] Mbh. i. 1093-1237.
[549] Cfr. the first of the Tuscan stories of Santo Stefano di Calcinaia.—In the preceding chapter, we have seen how the apples of a certain apple-tree cause horns to grow on whoever eats them. In an unpublished Italian story, instead of the apple-tree, we have the fig-tree, and instead of horns, the tail. It is narrated by an old man of Osimo, in the Marches:—Three poor brothers, having but little inclination for work, go in search of fortune round the world. Overtaken in the country by night, they fall asleep in the open air. A fairy, under the aspect of a hideous old woman, comes up and wakens them, offering herself as their wife. The three brothers excuse themselves, and declare that they wish for nothing except a little money with which to make merry. The fairy answers, "Tell me what you wish for, and you shall have it." The first asks for a purse, which shall always be full of money; the second for a whistle, by blowing into which a whole army of brave combatants would be summoned to his side; the third a mantle, which would make its wearer invisible. The fairy satisfies them, and then disappears in flames, like the devil. The eldest brother, Stephen, goes with his purse into Portugal, where he plays and loses, but still remains rich. This comes to the queen-dowager's ears, who wishes to see the stranger, hoping to possess herself of his secret; she feigns to love him, and the wedding-day is fixed; but before it comes she has already gained his confidence, and taking the purse from him, she orders him to be flogged. Stephen returns to his brothers, relates his grievance, and proposing to revenge himself upon the queen, induces them to lend him the whistle, which calls armies into existence. The queen softens towards him, protesting that she expected to the last that he would have appeared on the day appointed for the wedding, and that he had been flogged without her knowledge. Stephen gives way, and the whistle passes out of his hands into those of the queen. He is flogged again, but twice as severely as before. Again he has recourse to his brothers; he implores, supplicates, and promises to get everything back by the miraculous mantle; but having obtained it, he allows himself to be deceived once more by the queen. Deprived of everything, he wanders about in despair, reduced to beggary. In the middle of January, he sees a tree covered with beautiful figs; desirous of them, he eats with avidity; but for every fig that he swallows, a span of tail as thick as a boa grows on to him. He goes on his way, still more desperate, till he finds more figs, of a smaller size; he eats them, and the tail disappears. Contented with this discovery, he fills a basket with the first figs, and disguised as a countryman, comes to the palace of the Queen of Portugal. Every one marvels on seeing such fine figs in January. The queen buys the basket, and every one eats; but tails immediately grow on their backs. Stephen then dresses himself as a doctor, and with the little figs, cures many persons. The queen has him called; he obliges her to confess to him first, and in the confession makes her say where the three marvellous gifts of the fairy are kept. Having recovered them, he leaves the queen with ten spans of tail, and returns rich and happy to his brothers. In this story there must be some parts wanting; it is probable that the fairy warned the brothers not to discover their secret to any one. The last enterprise, moreover, is more likely to have been undertaken by the third brother, who always assumes in fairy tales the part of the cunning one, than by the first-born, who in this story represents the part of the fool.—Polydorus speaks of the horse's tail as a chastisement for an insult to Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury, in the thirteenth book of his Hist. Angl.:—"Irridentes Archiepiscopum, caudam equi cui insidebat, amputarunt. At postea nutu Dei ita accidit, ut omnes ex eo hominum genere qui id facinus fecissent, nati sunt instar brutorum caudati."
[550] Hiraṇyakarṇam maṇigrîvam arṇas; Ṛigv. i. 122, 14.
[551] Ilíou Halôsis, 65-72.
[552] In the before-quoted collection of Radloff, Täktäbäi Märgän.