In a Tartar poem two heroes named Ak Molot and Bulat engage in mortal combat. Ak Molot pierces his foe through and through with an arrow, grapples with him, and dashes him to the ground, but all in vain, Bulat could not die. At last when the combat has lasted three years, a friend of Ak Molot sees a golden casket hanging by a white thread from the sky, and bethinks him that perhaps this casket contains Bulat's soul. So he shot through the white thread with an arrow, and down fell the casket. He opened it, and in the casket sat ten white birds, and one of the birds was Bulat's soul. Bulat wept when he saw that his soul was found in the casket. But one after the other the birds were [pg 143] killed, and then Ak Molot easily slew his foe.391 In another Tartar poem, two brothers going to fight two other brothers take out their souls and hide them in the form of a white herb with six stalks in a deep pit. But one of their foes sees them doing so and digs up their souls, which he puts into a golden ram's horn, and then sticks the ram's horn in his quiver. The two warriors whose souls have thus been stolen know that they have no chance of victory, and accordingly make peace with their enemies.392 In another Tartar poem a terrible demon sets all the gods and heroes at defiance. At last a valiant youth fights the demon, binds him hand and foot, and slices him with his sword. But still the demon is not slain. So the youth asked him, “Tell me, where is your soul hidden? For if your soul had been hidden in your body, you must have been dead long ago.” The demon replied, “On the saddle of my horse is a bag. In the bag is a serpent with twelve heads. In the serpent is my soul. When you have killed the serpent, you have killed me also.” So the youth took the saddle-bag from the horse and killed the twelve-headed serpent, whereupon the demon expired.393 In another Tartar poem a hero called Kök Chan deposits with a maiden a golden ring, in which is half his strength. Afterwards when Kök Chan is wrestling long with a hero and cannot kill him, a woman drops into his mouth the ring which contains half his strength. Thus inspired with fresh force he slays his enemy.394

In a Mongolian story the hero Joro gets the better of his enemy the lama Tschoridong in the following way. The lama, who is an enchanter, sends out his soul in the form of a wasp to sting Joro's eyes. But Joro catches the wasp in his hand, and by alternately shutting and opening his hand [pg 144] he causes the lama alternately to lose and recover consciousness.395 In a Tartar poem two youths cut open the body of an old witch and tear out her bowels, but all to no purpose, she still lives. On being asked where her soul is, she answers that it is in the middle of her shoe-sole in the form of a seven-headed speckled snake. So one of the youths slices her shoe-sole with his sword, takes out the speckled snake, and cuts off its seven heads. Then the witch dies.396 Another Tartar poem describes how the hero Kartaga grappled with the Swan-woman. Long they wrestled. Moons waxed and waned and still they wrestled; years came and went, and still the struggle went on. But the piebald horse and the black horse knew that the Swan-woman's soul was not in her. Under the black earth flow nine seas; where the seas meet and form one, the sea comes to the surface of the earth. At the mouth of the nine seas rises a rock of copper; it rises to the surface of the ground, it rises up between heaven and earth, this rock of copper. At the foot of the copper rock is a black chest, in the black chest is a golden casket, and in the golden casket is the soul of the Swan-woman. Seven little birds are the soul of the Swan-woman; if the birds are killed the Swan-woman will die straightway. So the horses ran to the foot of the copper rock, opened the black chest, and brought back the golden casket. Then the piebald horse turned himself into a bald-headed man, opened the golden casket, and cut off the heads of the seven birds. So the Swan-woman died.397 In a Tartar story a chief called Tash Kan is asked where his soul is. He answers that there are seven great poplars, and under the poplars a golden well; seven Maralen (?) come to drink the water of the well, and the belly of one of them trails on the ground; in this Maral is a golden box, in the golden box is a silver box, in the silver box are seven quails, the head of one of the quails is golden and its tail silver; that quail is Tash Kan's soul. The hero of the story gets possession of the seven quails and wrings the necks of six of them. [pg 145] Then Tash Kan comes running and begs the hero to let his soul go free. But the hero wrings the last quail's neck, and Tash Kan drops dead.398 In another Tartar poem the hero, pursuing his sister who has driven away his cattle, is warned to desist from the pursuit because his sister has carried away his soul in a golden sword and a golden arrow, and if he pursues her she will kill him by throwing the golden sword or shooting the golden arrow at him.399

A modern Chinese story tells how an habitual criminal used to take his soul out of his own body for the purpose of evading the righteous punishment of his crimes. This bad man lived in Khien (Kwei-cheu), and the sentences that had been passed on him formed a pile as high as a hill. The mandarins had flogged him to death with sticks and flung his mangled corpse into the river, but three days afterwards the scoundrel got his soul back again, and on the fifth day he resumed his career of villainy as if nothing had happened. The thing occurred again and again, till at last it reached the ears of the Governor of the province, who flew into a violent passion and proposed to the Governor-General to have the rascal beheaded. And beheaded he was; but in three days the wretch was alive again with no trace of decapitation about him except a slender red thread round his neck. And now, like a giant refreshed, he began a fresh series of enormities. He even went so far as to beat his own mother. This was more than she could bear, and she brought the matter before the magistrate. She produced in court a vase and said, “In this vase my refractory son has hidden his soul. Whenever he was conscious of having committed a serious crime, or a misdeed of the most heinous kind, he remained at home, took his soul out of his body, purified it, and put it in the vase. Then the authorities only punished or executed his body of flesh and blood, and not his soul. With his soul, refined by a long process, he then cured his freshly mutilated body, which thus became able in three days to recommence in the old way. Now, however, his crimes have reached a climax, for he has beaten me, an old woman, and I cannot bear it. I pray you, smash this vase, and [pg 146] scatter his soul by fanning it away with a windwheel; and if then you castigate his body anew, it is probable that bad son of mine will really die.” The mandarin took the hint. He had the rogue cudgelled to death, and when they examined the corpse they found that decay had set in within ten days.400

The Khasis of Assam tell of a certain Kyllong, king of Madur, who pursued his conquests on a remarkable principle. He needed few or no soldiers, because he himself was a very strong man and nobody could kill him permanently; they could, it is true, put him to death, but then he came to life again immediately. The king of Synteng, who was much afraid of him, once chopped him in pieces and threw the severed hands and feet far away, thinking thus to get rid of him for good and all; but it was to no purpose. The very next morning Kyllong came to life again and stalked about as brisk as ever. So the king of Synteng was very anxious to learn how his rival contrived thus to rise from the dead; and he hit on a plan for worming out the secret. He chose the fairest girl of the whole country, clad her in royal robes, put jewels of gold and silver upon her, and said, “All these will I give thee and more besides, if thou canst obtain for me King Kyllong's secret, and canst inform me how he brings himself to life again after being killed.” So he sent the girl to the slave-market in King Kyllong's country; and the king saw and loved her and took her to wife. So she caressed him and coaxed him to tell her his secret, and in a fatal hour he was beguiled into revealing it. He said, “My life depends upon these things. I must bathe every day and must wash my entrails. After that, I take my food, and there is no one on earth who can kill me unless he obtains possession of my entrails. Thus my life hangs only on my entrails.” His treacherous wife at once sent word to the king of Synteng, who caused men to lie in wait while Kyllong was bathing. As usual, Kyllong had laid his entrails on one side of the bathing-place, while he disported himself in the water, intending afterwards to wash them and replace them in his body. But before he could do so, [pg 147] one of the liers-in-wait had seized the entrails and killed him. The entrails he cut in pieces and gave to the dogs to eat. That was the end of King Kyllong. He was never able to come to life again; his country was conquered, and the members of the royal family were scattered far and wide. Seven generations have passed since then.401

A Malay poem relates how once upon a time in the city of Indrapoora there was a certain merchant who was rich and prosperous, but he had no children. One day as he walked with his wife by the river they found a baby girl, fair as an angel. So they adopted the child and called her Bidasari. The merchant caused a golden fish to be made, and into this fish he transferred the soul of his adopted daughter. Then he put the golden fish in a golden box full of water, and hid it in a pond in the midst of his garden. In time the girl grew to be a lovely woman. Now the King of Indrapoora had a fair young queen, who lived in fear that the king might take to himself a second wife. So, hearing of the charms of Bidasari, the queen resolved to put her out of the way. She lured the girl to the palace and tortured her cruelly; but Bidasari could not die, because her soul was not in her. At last she could stand the torture no longer and said to the queen, “If you wish me to die, you must bring the box which is in the pond in my father's garden.” So the box was brought and opened, and there was the golden fish in the water. The girl said, “My soul is in that fish. In the morning you must take the fish out of the water, and in the evening you must put it back into the water. Do not let the fish lie about, but bind it round your neck. If you do this, I shall soon die.” So the queen took the fish out of the box and fastened it round her neck; and no sooner had she done so, than Bidasari fell into a swoon. But in the evening, when the fish was put back into the water, Bidasari came to herself again. Seeing that she thus had the girl in her power, the queen sent her home to her adopted parents. To save her from further persecution her parents resolved to remove their daughter from the city. So in a lonely and desolate spot they built a house and brought Bidasari thither. There she dwelt alone, undergoing [pg 148] vicissitudes that corresponded with the vicissitudes of the golden fish in which was her soul. All day long, while the fish was out of the water, she remained unconscious; but in the evening, when the fish was put into the water, she revived. One day the king was out hunting, and coming to the house where Bidasari lay unconscious, was smitten with her beauty. He tried to waken her, but in vain. Next day, towards evening, he repeated his visit, but still found her unconscious. However, when darkness fell, she came to herself and told the king the secret of her life. So the king returned to the palace, took the fish from the queen, and put it in water. Immediately Bidasari revived, and the king took her to wife.402

Another story of an external soul comes from Nias, an island to the west of Sumatra. Once on a time a chief was captured by his enemies, who tried to put him to death but failed. Water would not drown him nor fire burn him nor steel pierce him. At last his wife revealed the secret. On his head he had a hair as hard as a copper wire; and with this wire his life was bound up. So the hair was plucked out, and with it his spirit fled.403

A Hausa story from Northern Nigeria closely resembles some of the European tales which we have noticed; for it contains not only the incident of the external soul, but also the incident of the helpful animals, by whose assistance the hero is able to slay the Soulless King and obtain possession of the kingdom. The story runs thus. A certain man and his wife had four daughters born to them in succession, but [pg 149] every one of the baby girls mysteriously disappeared on the day when she was to be weaned; so the parents fell under the suspicion of having devoured them. Last of all there was born to them a son, who to avoid accidents was left to wean himself. One day, as he grew up, the son received a magic lotion from an old woman, who told him to rub his eyes with it. He did so, and immediately he saw a large house and entering it he found his eldest sister married to a bull. She bade him welcome and so did her husband the bull; and when he went away, the bull very kindly presented him with a lock of his hair as a keepsake. In like manner the lad discovered his other three sisters, who were living in wedlock with a ram, a dog, and a hawk respectively. All of them welcomed him and from the ram, the dog, and the hawk he received tokens of regard in the shape of hair or feathers. Then he returned home and told his parents of his adventure and how he had found his sisters alive and married. Next day he went to a far city, where he made love to the Queen and persuaded her to plot with him against the life of the King her husband. So she coaxed the King to shew his affection for her by “taking his own life, and joining it to hers.” The unsuspecting husband, as usual, fell into the trap set for him by his treacherous wife. He confided to her the secret of his life. “My life,” said he, “is behind the city, behind the city in a thicket. In this thicket there is a lake; in the lake is a rock; in the rock is a gazelle; in the gazelle is a dove; and in the dove is a small box.” The Queen divulged the secret to her lover, who kindled a fire behind the city and threw into it the hair and feathers which he had received from the friendly animals, his brothers-in-law. Immediately the animals themselves appeared and readily gave their help in the enterprise. The bull drank up the lake; the ram broke up the rock; the dog caught the gazelle; the hawk captured the dove. So the youth extracted the precious box from the dove and repaired to the palace, where he found the King already dead. His Majesty had been ailing from the moment when the young man left the city, and he grew steadily worse with every fresh success of the adventurer who was to supplant him. So the hero became King and married the false Queen; and his sisters' [pg 150] husbands were changed from animals into men and received subordinate posts in the government. The hero's parents, too, came to live in the city over which he reigned.404

A West African story from Southern Nigeria relates how a king kept his soul in a little brown bird, which perched on a tall tree beside the gate of the palace. The king's life was so bound up with that of the bird that whoever should kill the bird would simultaneously kill the king and succeed to the kingdom. The secret was betrayed by the queen to her lover, who shot the bird with an arrow and thereby slew the king and ascended the vacant throne.405 A tale told by the Ba-Ronga of South Africa sets forth how the lives of a whole family were contained in one cat. When a girl of the family, named Titishan, married a husband, she begged her parents to let her take the precious cat with her to her new home. But they refused, saying, “You know that our life is attached to it”; and they offered to give her an antelope or even an elephant instead of it. But nothing would satisfy her but the cat. So at last she carried it off with her and shut it up in a place where nobody saw it; even her husband knew nothing about it. One day, when she went to work in the fields, the cat escaped from its place of concealment, entered the hut, put on the warlike trappings of the husband, and danced and sang. Some children, attracted by the noise, discovered the cat at its antics, and when they expressed their astonishment, the animal only capered the more and insulted them besides. So they went to the owner and said, “There is somebody dancing in your house, and he insulted us.” “Hold your tongues,” said he, “I'll soon put a stop to your lies.” So he went and hid behind the door and peeped in, and there sure enough was the cat prancing about and singing. He fired at it, and the animal dropped down dead. At the same moment his wife fell to the ground in the field where she was at work; said she, “I have been killed at home.” But she had strength enough left to ask her husband to go with her to her parents' village, taking with him the [pg 151] dead cat wrapt up in a mat. All her relatives assembled, and bitterly they reproached her for having insisted on taking the animal with her to her husband's village. As soon as the mat was unrolled and they saw the dead cat, they all fell down lifeless one after the other. So the Clan of the Cat was destroyed; and the bereaved husband closed the gate of the village with a branch, and returned home, and told his friends how in killing the cat he had killed the whole clan, because their lives depended on the life of the cat. In another Ronga story the lives of a whole clan are attached to a buffalo, which a girl of the clan in like manner insists on taking with her.406

Ideas of the same sort meet us in stories told by the North American Indians. Thus in one Indian tale the hero pounds his enemy to pieces, but cannot kill him because his heart is not in his body. At last the champion learns that his foe's heart is in the sky, at the western side of the noonday sun; so he reaches up, seizes the heart, and crushes it, and straightway his enemy expires. In another Indian myth there figures a personage Winter whose song brings frost and snow, but his heart is hidden away at a distance. However, his foe finds the heart and burns it, and so the Snow-maker perishes.407 A Pawnee story relates how a wounded warrior was carried off by bears, who healed him of his hurts. When the Indian was about to return to his village, the old he-bear said to him, “I shall look after you. I shall give you a part of myself. If I am killed, you shall be killed. If I grow old, you shall be old.” And the bear gave him a cap of bearskin, and at parting he put his arms round the Indian and hugged him, and put his mouth against the man's mouth and held the man's hands in his paws. The Indian who told the tale conjectured that when the man died, the old bear died also.408 The Navajoes tell of a certain mythical being called “the Maiden that becomes a [pg 152] Bear,” who learned the art of turning herself into a bear from the prairie wolf. She was a great warrior and quite invulnerable; for when she went to war she took out her vital organs and hid them, so that no one could kill her; and when the battle was over she put the organs back in their places again.409 The Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia tell of an ogress, who could not be killed because her life was in a hemlock branch. A brave boy met her in the woods, smashed her head with a stone, scattered her brains, broke her bones, and threw them into the water. Then, thinking he had disposed of the ogress, he went into her house. There he saw a woman rooted to the floor, who warned him, saying, “Now do not stay long. I know that you have tried to kill the ogress. It is the fourth time that somebody has tried to kill her. She never dies; she has nearly come to life. There in that covered hemlock branch is her life. Go there, and as soon as you see her enter, shoot her life. Then she will be dead.” Hardly had she finished speaking when sure enough in came the ogress, singing as she walked:—

Such was her song. But the boy shot at her life, and she fell dead to the floor.410