This sweat must be the crepuscular mists, in the same way as the poet Simonides, who alone escapes, being delivered by the Dioscuri, the ceiling of whose banqueting-hall he had ruined, seems to conceal an image of the sun saved from the night.

[686] Ueber den Zusammenhang indischer Fabeln mit griechischen, eine kritische Abhandlung von A. Weber, Berlin, 1855.

[687] Here is the hymn as given by Du Cange in his Gloss. M. et I. L.:—

[688] Cfr. Reinsberg von Düringsfeld, Das festliche Jahr.

[689] Sometimes the place of the ass is taken by the mule. At Turin, for instance, it is narrated that the church dedicated to the Corpus Domini was erected several centuries ago on account of the miracle of a mule which carried some sacred goods stolen by an impious thief. Having arrived in the little square where the Church of the Corpus Domini now stands, the mule refused to go any farther; and out of a cup, which was among the sacred objects stolen, a wafer containing the body of our Saviour rose into the air. Nor would it come down again until the bishop came forth, and, holding the cup high in the air, besought the wafer to come back into it; which having been miraculously accomplished, the Church of the Corpus Domini was erected on the spot, from which starts and to which returns the solemn procession which takes place annually at Turin on the festival of Corpus Domini, and in which, about twenty years ago, the princes and great dignitaries of the state, with the professors of the university, used to take part in all the pomp of mediæval ceremony and costume.—In Persia the festival of asses is celebrated at the approach of spring; the ass personifying here the end of the winter season.

[690] The same analogy presents itself in the Sanskṛit word arbhakas, which means little and foolish.

[691] Cfr. the root gad, from which we might perhaps deduce an imaginary intermediate form, gadarbhas, besides the known gardabhas and gandharbas or gandharvas.

[692] Cfr. arvan with the roots arv, arb, arp, ṛiph, riph, riv, ṛinv.

[693] x. 10, 5.

[694] Gandharva itthâ padam asya rakshati.; Ṛigv. ix. 83, 4.

[695] Strîkâmâḥ vâi gandharvâḥ; i. 27.

[696] Professor Kuhn (Die Herabkunft, d. f. &c.) has already compared to this the Zend Gandhrawa, who, in the Lake Vôuru-Kasha, keeps guard over the tree hom (the Vedic Somas). Kuhn and Weber, moreover, have identified the Vedic gandharvas, Kṛiçânus, who wounds the ravisher of the Somas, with the Zend Kereçâni, who endeavours to destroy riches; here the gandharvas would appear to be a monstrous and demoniacal being.

[697] ... ut omittam eos, quos libidinis ac fœdæ voluptatis causa, coluisse nomen illud atque imposuisse suis, a scriptoribus notatur, qualis olim Onos ille Commodi; qualis exsecrandus Marci Verotrasinus, qualis et alterius Onobelos, quales, quos matronis in deliciis fuisse scimus. Unde illud atque alium bipedem sibi quærit asellum, ejus nempe membri causa, quod, in asino, clava, a Nicandro dicitur; Laus Asini, Lugd. Batavorum, ex officina Elzeviriana, p. 194.

[698] To this flight into Egypt upon the ass can be referred the Piedmontese custom among children in the middle of Lent—that is, near the festival of St Joseph—of attaching to their companions now a saw, now a devil's head, now an ass's head, pronouncing the words, "L'asu cariá che gnün lu sa" (the ass burdened, and no one knows it). Moreover, it seems to me that to the Christian tradition of Joseph, and of the child Jesus carried upon the ass, can be referred the well-known European fable of the old man, the boy, and the ass, of which numerous varieties may be read in the article upon the asinus vulgi in the Orient und Occident of Benfey.

[699] Professor Benfey, in his learned Einleitung to the Pańćatantram, p. 268, says that the disguise by means of the skin of an ass is found in a Latin poem of the fifteenth century.

[700] "Addo ex Conrado Lycosthene in libro de ostentis et prodigiis hanc iconem quam hippokentauri esse credebam, ipse vero (nescio ex quo) Apothami vocat, Apothami (inquit) in aqua morantes, qui una parte hominem, alia vero caballum sive equum referunt. Sic etiam memoriæ tradiderunt mulieres esse capite plano sine crinibus, promissas autem barbas habentes. Atqui ea descriptio plane ad Onocentauros pertinere videtur, quos Aelianus et Philes sic fere delineant. Quæ vero de Onocentauro fama accepi, hæc sunt: Eum homini ore et promissa barba similem esse, simul et collum et pectus, humanam speciem gerere; mammas distantes tamquam mulieris ex pectore pendere; humeros, brachia, digitos, humanam figuram habere; dorsum, ventrem, latera, posteriores pedes, asino persimiles et quemadmodum asinum sic cinereo colore esse; imum ventrem leviter exalbescere: duplicem usum ei manus præstare; nam celeritate ubi sit opus eæ manus præcurrunt ante posteriores pedes; ex quo fit, ut non cæterorum quadrupedum cursu superetur. Ac ubi rursus habet necesse vel cibum capere vel aliud quidpiam tollere, qui ante pedes erant manus efficiuntur, tumque non graditur, sed in sessione quiescit: Animal est gravi animi acerbitate; nam si capiatur, non ferens servitutem, libertatis desiderio ab omni cibo abhorret, et fame sibi mortem consciscit, licet pullus adhuc fuerit. Hæc de Onocentauro Pythagoram narrare testatur Crates, ex Mysio Pergamo profectus;" Aldrovandi, De Quadrupedibus, i.—In the Indian satyrs described by Pliny, in the seventh book of his Natural History, we find represented an analogous animal: "Sunt et satyri subsolanis Indorum montibus (Cartadulonum dicitur regio) pernicissimum animal, turn quadrupes, turn recte currens, humana effigie, propter velocitatem nisi senes aut ægri, aut capiuntur." Evidently this refers to some kind of monkey (probably the orang-outang); but as the myth of the monkey does not differ much from that of the ass, as we shall see, even the Hindoo gandharvas is represented as a monkey.—"In A. V. iv. 37, 11, the gandharvas, a class of gods, who are described as hairy, like dogs and monkeys, but as assuming a handsome appearance to seduce the affections of earthly females, are implored to desist from this unbecoming practice, and not to interfere with mortals, as they had wives of their own, the Apsarases;" Muir's Sanskṛit Texts, v. 309.—We have the monkey-gandharvas and the warrior-gandharvas in the Vedic hymns, the warrior-monkey in the Râmâyaṇam, and the warrior-kentauros and warrior-ass in Hellenic myths.

[701] We also read of the ass that dances, which reminds us of the gandharvas in their capacity of heavenly musicians and dancers, who teach the gods how to dance. Nor is it perhaps without reason that the author of precepts for dancers and mimics is named Kṛiçâçvas: kṛiçâçvas means, as we already know, he who possesses a lean horse, or simply the lean horse. Between the lean horse, the mule, and the ass, the distance is short; nor can we overlook the fact that in the gandharvas Kṛiçânus is recognised as he who causes to become lean, which calls us back to the monster who makes horses grow lean, to the monster of horses, the ugly horse, the horse-monster, who destroys the golden ears of the fields, making them dry up, like the monster Çushṇas, or the destroyer of riches, like the Zend Kereçâni.—In the before-quoted book, Laus Asini, the author says in jest, "Fortassis Pegasum fuisse asinum;" and in this jest a great truth is contained.

[702] Kadâ yogo vâǵino râsabhasya yena yaǵńaṁ nâsatyopayâthaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 34, 9.

[703] Viḷupatmabhir âçuhemabhir vâ devânâṁ vâ ǵûtibhiḥ çâçadânâ tad râsabho nâsatyâ sahasram âǵâ yamasya pradhane ǵigâya.

[704] Yatrâ rathasya bṛihato nidhânaṁ vimoćanaṁ vâǵino râsabhasya; Ṛigv. iii. 53, 5.

[705] Nâvâǵinaṁ vâǵinâ hâsayanti na gardabham puro açvân nayanti; Ṛigv. iii. 53, 23.

[706] Gardabharathenâçvinâ udaǵayatâmaçvinâvâçnuvâtâṁ yadaçvinâ udaǵayatâmaçvinâvâçnuvâtâṁ tasmâtsasṛitaǵavo dugdhadohaḥ sarveshâmetarhi vâhanânâmanâçishṭo retasastvasya vîryaṁ nâharatâm tasmâtsa dviretâ vâǵî; Âit. Br. iv. 2, 9.

[707] Ueber den Zusammenhang indischer Fabeln mit griechischen, Berlin, 1855.

[708] St Jerome, in the Life of Saint Hilarion: "Ego, inquit, Aselle, faciam ut non calcitres necte hordeo alam, sed paleis; fame te conficiam et sitis gravi onerabo pondere; per æstus indagabo et frigore, ut cibum potius quam lasciviam cogites."—St Paulinus wrote, "Sit fortis anima mortificans asinum suum."—In Italian, too, there is a low term by which we say, il mio asino, instead of il mio corpo.

[709] A. c. i. m. t.,—pœna seu mulcta, quæ reis irrogari solebat, ut colligitur ex decreto Nepesini populi ann. 1134.—Iis et maxime maritis, qui a suis vapulabant mulieribus; quod eo usque insaniæ deventum erat, ut si maritus aufugisset, proximior vicinus eam ipse pœnam luere teneretur; quem morem non omnino periisse audivi. Du Cange, whose words these are, gives several examples of a similar chastisement.—In the Tuti-Name, ii. 20, a certain man complains to a sage that he has lost his ass, and begs the wise man to find it again for him; the latter points out a man who grew old without having known love; he who does not love is a fool.—It is a remarkable fact that the ass, generally considered a very lustful animal, is sometimes despised as unadapted to make fruitful, and the reason of this is given by Aldrovandi (De Quadrupedibus, i.)—Quamvis modo libidine maxime pruriat, ob verendi tamen enormitatem, qua supra modum præditus est, ad generandum admodum segnem esse compertum est, sicuti et homines qui simili genitalis productione conspicui sunt, quod in emissione per eam longitudinem semen transmeans hebetetur et frigidius fiat. Testaturque Ælianus inter causas cur Ægyptii asinos odere, et hanc quoque accedere putari, quod eum populi prædicti omnes fœcundos animantes colant, asinus minime fœcundans nullus in honore sit.

[710] Sam, indra, gardabham mṛiṇa nuvantam pâpayâmuyâ; Ṛigv. i. 29, 5.

[711] Quoted by Weber, Ueber den Zusammenhang indischer Fabeln mit griechischen, where the braying ass would also appear to be born of the omniform monster: "Entsteht, nach Ç. xii. 7, 1, 5, nebst Ross und Maulthier, aus dem Ruhm (yaças, which, however, may perhaps here also simply mean splendour), welcher dem Ohr des getödteten Viçvarûpa Tvâshṭra entfloss, worin der Bezug auf sein lautes Geschrei wohl nicht zu verkennen ist."—We have already seen, in the Russian stories quoted in the preceding chapter, how the two horsemen who protect the hero come out of the ears of the grey horse, and how the hero himself, entering by one ear, and coming out of the other, finds a heroic horse. Here we can, perhaps, detect an allusion to the long-eared ass, in the same way as in the appellation of âçrutkarṇas, or the ear which listens, given to Indras (Ṛigv. i. 10, 9), the long-eared Indras may possibly be a form representing the long-eared Midas, or the ass with long ears.

[712] Gatiṁ khara ivâçvasya suparṇasyeva pakshiṇaḥ anâgantuṁ na çakto 'smi râǵyam tava mahîpate.

[713] Râmây. ii. 71.

[714] Râmây. iii. 38, 48.

[715] Ib. v. 12.

[716] vi. 74.

[717] Kravyâdaḥ piçâćâḥ, in the Atharvavedas, viii. 2, 12.

[718] Cfr. also the Tuti-Name of Rosen, ii. 218, for the musical ass; and the same, ii. 149, for the ass in a lion's skin.

[719] xli. 28.—Cfr. the Khorda Avesta, Spiegel's Einleitung, p. 54: "Dort ist der dreibeinige Esel der in der Mitte des Sees steht und mit seinem Geschrei die bösen Wesen vertreibt und alles Wasser, das mit unreinen Wesen und Dingen in Berührung kommt, sogleich reinigt."

[720] Readers of Dante are acquainted with the trumpet of the devil Malacoda, which is used in the same way as the fool uses his in the Mongol story.

[721] In Menander, quoted by Aulus Gellius, a husband complains of the injuries done him by his wife, using the proverb, "The ass amongst the monkeys." Monkeys are well known for their impudent lasciviousness; the ass, who represents the phallos, among this lascivious fraternity finds himself often in the condition of an impotent and weak husband.

[722]

[723] From the myth of the ass, as a musician and judge of music, is derived the Tuscan game of the ass, which is thus described by Signor Fanfani in his Vocabolario dell' Uso Tuscano, Firenze, 1863:—"Each member of the party chooses an animal whose voice or song he must imitate. The head player represents the ass, and is the king of the other animals. When the head player, sitting in the middle, calls one of the animals who encircle him, the dog, for instance, this animal must bark; when he calls the cock, it must cry chicchiricù; when he calls the ox, he who represents it must bellow, and so on. When the ass brays, then all the animals emit their respective cries. Whoever laughs, or omits to give forth the voice or song of the animal which he represents, pays a forfeit."

[724] Ovidius, Metam. xi. 180.

[725] According to the Annals of Padova, cited by Berrardino Scardeone, in Aldrovandi. De Quadrupedibus, i.

[726] The German proverb, "Wald hat Ohren, Feld hat Gesicht," is well known. Cfr. the varieties of this proverb upon the ears of the forest, in the third vol. pp. 120 and 173, of Uhland's Schriften zur Geschichte der Dichtung und Sage, Stüttgart, 1866.

[727] The reader is acquainted with the myth of the nymph Syrinx, beloved of Pan, who was changed into a cane or reed, from which Pan made a flute. We find the leaf of the cane in connection with the ass in Hungarian tradition. A singular indentation can be observed upon the leaves of the cane, which has a great resemblance to the mark of three teeth. To explain this strange mark the Hungarian people narrate, that the ass of the Redeemer once bit the leaf of a cane, but as Christ was in a hurry, the ass was unable to eat the leaf, and so it happened that its three teeth only left the mark of the bite upon the cane. From that time forward every leaf of a cane bears record to this. The two lines which stretch down the two flanks of the ass are said in Hungary to be caused by the blood of our Redeemer. The popular belief in Ireland is that these lines remain as a memorial of Christ having once struck the ass.—Cfr. the chapter on the Peacock and that on the Eel, where we shall find the hero and the heroine again transformed into canes.

[728] The loss of heart or courage is expressed in Italian by the low term "Quí mi casca l'asino" (here my ass falls). This expression, however, may perhaps be of Hellenic origin; the equivoque between the two equisonant expressions, "ap' onou" and "apo nou" is well-known; whence to fall off the ass and to fall from one's mind became synonymous.

[729] There is an unpublished story which I heard narrated at Antignano, near Leghorn, of a mother who has a silly son named Pipetta. The latter asks his mother for a quattrino (a small coin) to buy a vetch, and afterwards a bean, because it grows higher; he sows it, and it attains a marvellous height. Climbing up the bean-stalk he comes to the gates of paradise, which are opened to him, but St Peter sends him back; he then finds the entrance to hell, which he wishes to visit. The devil shows him all the sights; the two then play at cards, and Pipetta wins a sackful of souls. The devil fears that Pipetta will empty hell, so he allows him to depart with the sack, and an ass which throws gold from its tail; he mounts up to heaven, and consigns the sack of souls to St Peter. The story ends with the usual exchange of asses at the inn where Pipetta sleeps upon his descent from the beanstalk.

[730] Biblion Istorikon, i. 116.—It is added, that when Titus remonstrated with his father on his avarice, Vespasian made him smell the gold for which the horse's dung had been sold, asking him whether it smelt bad.—In the Mongol story we saw the fool who goes out with his ass and hides it in a cavern afterwards despoiling a merchant's caravan.—Tzetzas, i. 128, records the existence in Phrygia of a village called "Ass's-ears" (ê klêsis onou ôta), inhabited by robbers, and belonging to Midas; he thinks, moreover, that Midas was surnamed the large-eared on account of this village of his.

[731] vi. 105.

[732] Kleitas onôn hekatombas, xi. 51.

[733] In Anton. Liberalis we find a long narrative from which we gather that Apollo would only suffer the ass to be sacrificed to him among the Hyperboreans.

[734] I read on this subject in the curious volume Laus Asini, printed at Leyden by Elzevir, the following notice: "Si quis graviter a scorpione ictus, id in aurem insusurret asino, ex tempore curetur."

[735]

[736] Tam ûhathur nâubhir âtmanvatîbhir antarikshaprudbhir apodakâbhiḥ; strophe 3.—Cfr. strophe 4th and 5th of the same hymn.

[737] Another reason is also assigned for the honour given to the ass in heaven: the ass and Priapos contend together as to who is superior; Priapos defeats the ass, and Dionysos takes pity upon the vanquished, and places it in heaven among the stars.

[738] Laus Asini, Ludg. Batavorum, ex officina Elzeviriana.

[739] "Conferre aliquid et candori in mulierum cute existimatur. Poppaea certe Domitii Neronis conjux quingentas secum per omnia trahens fætas balnearum etiam solio totum corpus illo lacte macerabat, extendi quoque cutem credens;" Aldrov. To which custom Juvenal alludes in his 6th satire:

[740] "Finitis laudibus, surgit quidam archipresbyter, retro se ascendit asinum preparatum a curia; quidam cubicularius tenet in capite asini bacilem cum xx. solidis denariorum," &c.; in Du Cange, the work quoted before, s. v. cornomannia.—We also find in Du Cange that a soldier was called in the middle ages "caput asini, pro magnitudine capitis et congerie capillorum."

[741] In the Pentamerone, iii. 8, the night is called "l'aseno de l'ombre."

[742] In the Pentamerone, ii. I, we have a variation of the other Æsopian fable of the lion who is afraid of the ass. The old witch, in order to deliver herself from the lion which Petrosinella has caused to rise, flays an ass and dresses herself in its skin; the lion, believing it to be really an ass, runs off.—In the thirteenth of the Sicilian stories collected by Signora Laura Gonzenbach, and published at Leipzig by Brockhaus, the ass and the lion dispute the spoil; the young hero divides it, giving to the ass the hay that the lion has in its mouth, and to the lion the bones in the ass's mouth. But probably the lion here represents the dog, according to the Greek proverb, "Küni didôs achüra, onôi ta ostea," to express a thing done the wrong way.

[743] In the Pentamerone again, in the island of the ogres, an old ogress feeds a number of asses, who afterwards jump on to the bank of a river and kick the swans; here the ass is demoniacal, as it is in the Râmâyaṇam; the swans, as we shall see, are a form of the luminous Açvinâu.—In obscene literature, the mentula as a gardener, and the vulva as a garden, are two frequent images; cfr., among others, the Italian poem, La Menta.

[744] Cfr. the first of the Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, in which we also find the third brother, believed to be stupid, who makes his ass throw gold from its tail; the foolish Pimpi, who kills his ass whilst cutting wood; the son of the poor man, who amuses himself by sending the ass before him tied to a string, and then making it return; the peasant who drags up the ass which had fallen into the marsh, and who then marries the daughter of the king of Russia (the wintry, the gloomy, the nocturnal one), who never laughed and whom he causes to laugh; and the ass who dies after eating a poisoned loaf.

[745] Contes et Proverbes Populaires recueillis en Armagnac, par J. F. Bladé, Paris, Franck.

[746] Cuentos y Poesias Populares Andaluces, collecionados por Fernan Caballero, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1866.

[747] The Petropolitan Dictionary sees in the he-goat aǵas, the movable one (agilis). To illustrate the same analogies in the case of the Greek myth, it will be useful to repeat the words of Professor Bréal: "Le verbe grec aïssô, qui signifie s'élancer, a fait d'une part le substantif aix, chèvre (à cause de la nature bondissante de l'animal), et de l'autre les mots kataïx, kataigis, tempête (as it seems to me, that which shakes, which causes to move or tremble, inasmuch as I maintain that aǵas does not mean the movable, or him that rushes, so much as him that pushes, that butts, or causes to move). De là une nouvelle série d'images et de fables où la chèvre joue le rôle principal. L'égide, avant d'être un bouclier fait en peau de chèvre, était le ciel au moment de l'orage; Jupiter aigiochos était le dieu qui envoie la tempête; plus tard, on traduisit le dieu qui porte l'égide. Homère semble se souvenir de la première signification, quand il nous montre, au seul mouvement du bouclier le tonnerre qui éclate, l'Ida qui se couvre de nuages et les hommes frappés de terreur." Mr Ralston compares very well the Russian ablakagragonniki (cloud-compellers) to the Zeus nephelêgeretes. In the Ṛigv. i. 10, 8, it is said similarly to Indras: ǵeshaḥ svarvatîr apaḥ saṁ gâ asmabhyaṁ dhûnuhi.

[748] Let Finnish philologists observe whether it is not possible to refer to this their Aija, an equivalent of Ukko, their Indras, called hattarojen hallitsia, the master of the cloud-lambs.—Cfr. Castren's Kleinere Schriften, St Petersburg, 1862, p. 230.

[749] Mesham puruhûtam; Ṛigv. i. 51, 1.—Tad indro arthaṁ ćetati yûthena vṛishṇir eǵati; Ṛigv. i. 10, 2.

[750] Tvaṁ gotram añigirobhyo 'vṛiṇor; Ṛigv. i. 51, 3.

[751] Tvaṁ mâyâbhir apa mâyino 'dhamaḥ—tvam pipror nṛimaṇaḥ prâruǵaḥ puraḥ; Ṛigv. i. 51, 5.

[752] Mahantaṁ ćid arbudaṁ ni kramîḥ padâ; Ṛigv. i. 51, 6.—Arbudas is also in Sanskṛit the proper name of a mountain and of a hell; the cloud-mountain and the hell in the cloudy and nocturnal sky have already been noticed in this volume.

[753] Çaphâv iva ǵarbhurâṇâ tarobhiḥ; Ṛigv. ii. 39, 3.

[754] Siṅhyaṁ ćit petvenâ ǵaghâna; Ṛigv. vii. 18, 17.—In Firdusi we find, in the adventures of Isfendiar, two horned wolves that catch lions; these seem to be demoniacal forms of the ram of Indras which kills the lion.

[755] xxx. 9.—Here the horns are the sun's rays or the thunderbolts, which come again in the Italian superstition on the iettatura; the horns of the goat, it is said, and the red coral horns excel the devil and his magic.

[756] iv. 21.

[757] iii. 18.—In the story, i. 20, we are told that the lamb fled away into the forest with the he-goat, because its master took the skin off one of its sides (that is, the wool). The lambs appear in the morning and in the evening with luminous wool; they are sheared during the night.

[758] Afanassieff, ii. 4; iv. 17.

[759] The walnut-tree is also found in relation with the goat in a fable of Afanassieff, ii. 1, that of the accused who exculpate themselves by inculpating others. The cock and the hen gather nuts together; the cock throws one which strikes the hen on the ear; the hen weeps; a boiard asks the reason; the hen accuses the cock, the cock accuses the walnut-tree, the walnut-tree accuses the goat, the goat accuses the shepherd, the shepherd accuses the housewife, the housewife accuses the hog, the hog accuses the wolf, the wolf accuses God, but beyond God it is impossible to go.—In another jest in verse, intended to exercise the memory and loosen the tongue, and given by Afanassieff, iv. 16, we find the goat in connection with hazel-nuts. The he-goat begins to complain that the she-goat does not come back with the hazel-nuts (níet kaszi s ariehami); the song goes on to say, that the he-goat will send the wolf to find the she-goat, the bear after the wolf, the men after the bear, the oak-tree after the men, the axe after the oak-tree, the grindstone after the axe, the fire after the grindstone, the water after the fire, and the hurricane after the water; then the hurricane sends the water, the water the fire, the fire burns the grindstone, the stone grinds the axe, the axe cuts down the oak-tree, the oak-tree made into a stick (as we have already seen in Chapters I. and II.) beats the men, the men shoot against the bear, the bear fights with the wolves, the wolves hunt the she-goat, and here the she-goat comes back with the hazel-nuts (vot kasza s ariehami).

[760]

[761] Afanassieff, vi. 17.

[762] In the story, ii. 32 of Afanassieff, a similar voice has the same effect as that of the ass; it terrifies all the other animals. However, here, a goat that has been shorn is alone spoken of,—that is, the goat which has lost its hair or luminous wool, the thundering goat-cloud.—In the twenty-fifth story of the first book of the Narodnija iusznoruskija Skazki (Popular Stories of South Russia), edited by Rudcenko, Kiev, 1869, the goat terrifies by its voice the first fox and then the wolf, until she herself is terrified by the voice of the cock. (The morning sun, personified in the cock, destroys the she-goat of night.)

[763] Afanassieff, iii. 15.—She sends them to the pasturage; a young blacksmith, who is in her power, adopts the follow mode of deliverance: He puts his pelisse on outside-in, feigns himself a sheep, and passes out with the other sheep, escaping thus from the witch: the young sun comes out at morn like a shepherd-hero among the sheep. Thus Odysseus delivers himself from the grotto of Polyphemos with his companions, by hiding himself among the flock which comes out of it.

[764] Cfr. the eleventh of the Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, where we have the lamb instead of the kid.

[765] A very interesting variation of this is contained in another unpublished story which I heard from a certain Marianna Nesti of Fucecchio in Tuscany.

There was once a queen that had a son, who, at the age of seven years, was enchanted, so that he lay constantly in bed like one deprived of life. Only at midnight he went out of the house, returning at one o'clock, covered with blood, and throwing himself as if dead into the bed. A woman had to remain regularly on the watch for the purpose of opening the door for him at midnight and at one o'clock; but no girl had, from very fright, been able to continue in the service more than one night. Near the city lived an old woman with three daughters; the two eldest tried to discharge the prescribed duty, but were overcome with fear; the youngest, more courageous, remained. The first night, at twelve o'clock, the dead man lifts up one arm; she runs to him and lifts the other; he tries to raise himself; she helps him to get out of bed. At one o'clock he returns covered with blood, and the girl asks him who has reduced him to this condition, but he answers nothing, and throws himself on the bed as if a corpse. The second night she follows him, and sees him enter a subterranean cavern; he comes to the foot of a flight of stairs, puts down his mantle and remains as naked as when he was born, a handsome youth of eighteen years of age. At the summit of the stairs two great witches cry, "Here he is! come, pretty one!" He ascends and is beaten by the witches for an hour till blood flows, he crying out the while for mercy. At one o'clock he is allowed to go, comes back to the foot of the stairs, takes his mantle and returns home dead. The third night his attendant again follows him, and when he puts down his mantle at the foot of the stairs and goes up, she takes the mantle and presses it tightly; the witches scream. The young man comes to the summit; but when they try to beat him they cannot lift the stick. Perceiving this, the girl presses and bites the mantle; when she does so, the witches feel themselves bitten; then the girl runs to the palace, orders a great fire to be lighted, and throws the mantle into it; upon its being burnt, the two witches expire, their enchantment is destroyed, and the prince marries his deliverer.

[766] In the eighth story of the first book of the Pentamerone, the ungrateful young woman, Renzolla, is condemned by her own protecting fairy to have the face of a horned goat until she shows her repentance.

[767] v. 25.

[768] iii. 16.

[769] i. 50; vii. 38.

[770] Çatam meshân vṛikye ćakshadânam ṛiǵrâçvam tam pitândhaṁ ćakâra tasma akshî nâsatyâ vićaksha âdhattam dasrâ bhishaǵâv anarvan; Ṛigv. i. 116, 16.—Cfr. 117, 18.

[771] Esha ćhâgaḥ puro açvena vâǵinâ; Ṛigv. i. 162, 3.

[772] Cfr. Afanassieff, v. 7, where the rogue passes the she-goat off as his sister, and lets her be killed, in order to oblige the murderer, by threats of exposure, to give him a large sum of money in compensation; and v. 52, where the head of a goat is cut off to conceal the murder of a sacristan, committed by the foolish third brother.—Cfr. Erlenwein, 17.

[773] The she-goat is also sacrificed, in the eighth of the Sicilian stories collected by Laura Gonzenbach, to test the virtue of a truthful peasant. The wife of a minister who is jealous of the peasant Verità (Truth), who has the custody of a goat, a lamb, a ram, and a wether belonging to the king, persuades him to believe that her life is forfeit, and can be ransomed only by the sacrifice of the wether. The peasant, overcome partly by love and partly by compassion, gives way and consents to the sacrifice. The minister hopes that the peasant will conceal his fault, but is disappointed in his expectation, inasmuch as, on the contrary, he ingenuously confesses everything; and he becomes, in consequence, yet dearer to the king.

[774] The devil also presents himself to do his evil deeds in the Bélier de Rochefort, in Bonnafoux, Légendes et Croyances Superstitieuses Conservées dans le Départment de la Creuse, Gueret, 1867, p. 17.—In a legend of Baden, too, recorded by Simrock (work quoted before, p. 260; cfr., in the same work, p. 501), the devil appears with the feet of a he-goat.

[775] vii. 50, 1.—In the Classical Dictionary of Natural History of Audouin, Bourdon, &c., first Italian translation, Venice, Tasso, 1831, we read: "Goat, species of ophidian reptiles, indigenous in Congo, and also in Bengal; as yet unclassified by zoologists, and which, it is said, throw from afar a kind of saliva causing blindness."

[776] Cfr. the lacerta cornuta of the Pentamerone.

[777] vi. 42.

[778] iv. 7.

[779]