All these customs are perfectly unambiguous. Whatever their agricultural significance (and I see no reason to doubt that the sense attached to them by Mannhardt and Frazer is accurate) they are unquestionably relics of human sacrifice to water. The victim may have been identified with the spirit of vegetation or with some more concrete expression of the same idea, and the ceremonies themselves may have been dramatic in character; but that is in no way inconsistent with their being also sacrificial. Moreover, we have other traces of the same kind of oblation, in the superstition so widely prevalent in this island, as well as in Germany, of the periodical victim demanded by a river or lake. On the banks of the Saal in Thuringia, especially among the fisher-folk of Jena, it is even yet believed that the Saal-nixe requires a sacrifice every year; and the lake at Salzungen boils with rage unless it obtain its yearly offering.81.3 On the island of Rügen there is a vague tradition of a lake which would rise and overwhelm the entire country, unless a maiden were offered to it every year. At Trampke in Pomerania a peasant was once ploughing near the Lake of Madüe, when he heard a voice out of the pool cry: “Now, come! Now is the time!” He looked around him puzzled, and again the voice exclaimed in more imperious tones: “Now, come! Now is the time!” Thereupon, mastered by an uncontrollable impulse, he left the plough, rushed to the mere and flung himself in. His farm-servant, who was spreading manure, ran to his assistance and drew him out of the water; but an instant later he plunged in again and was dragged by the water-maiden down to the bottom.82.1 Always before anybody is drowned in the Lahn near Giessen there is heard—the millers and bleachers engaged on the river are ready to vouch for it—between eleven and twelve o’clock in the day a loud cry: “The time is here, the hour is here; where is the man?” It is said that two lads were one evening by the Mümmling, not far from Michelstadt, when a voice called from under the bridge: “The hour is here, but not the man!” At that moment a man hurried down the hill and was about to jump into the river. The lads caught him, held him back, and spoke to him; but he answered never a word. They took him to the inn and pressed some wine upon him. His head, however, sank forward on the table; and he was dead. Among other German rivers which demand an annual human victim are the Fulda and the Neckar.82.2 The Lorelei is a nixe of the Rhine, famous for the number of her slain. Nor is she alone in her misdeeds; but the legends of sirens haunting German rivers are too numerous and too well known to require illustration. An old spring at Friedberg used every year to require an offering, and if it happened that no one fell in during the year, it cried out: “Come down, come down!” and anybody who was in the neighbourhood and heard the voice would be irresistibly drawn into the fountain.83.1 The Drome in Normandy, according to a local proverb, has every year horse or man.83.2 Peg Powler, Nanny Powler, Peg o’ Nell, and Jenny Greenteeth, are spirits that haunt various rivers and pools in the north of England; and they are not less bloodthirsty;83.3 while in Scotland, the kelpie and his congeners are familiar.
Among Europeans the superstition seems in this form to belong especially to Teutonic peoples. In other parts of the world, however, not a few examples are to be gleaned. The Indians of Guiana “firmly believe in the reality of” certain “mermaids, or ‘water māmās,’ as they are called in Dutch-creole; and where they are supposed to have their caves or nests, there great danger awaits the traveller. Some are related to be extremely beautiful and possessing long golden hair, like the Lorelei, and whoever casts his eye on them is seized with madness, jumps into the deep water, and never returns. Others are hideous, snakes being twined about them, and with their long white talons they drag boats under the surface and devour their occupants. On the Orinoco and Amazon similar creatures are supposed to exist; but these are capable of drawing their prey into their mouths at a distance of a hundred yards. In order to avoid such a calamity, the natives always blow a horn before entering a creek or lagoon in which one of these monsters may be living; if it happens to be there, it will immediately answer the horn, and thus give warning to the intruder.”84.1 The people of Guiana having come under the influence of the Dutch, may be supposed to have learned the superstition from them; but this can hardly be thought of the natives of the banks of the Orinoco and the Amazons. In like manner the belief in South Africa that rivers call their victims, who cannot resist the fascination, may be attributed to the Dutch colonists. Here again the ascription of such an origin must be very doubtful, though it is perhaps right to take note of the same intrusive Teutons. The Rev. James Macdonald, who laboured for twelve years among various Bantu tribes, says that “to the Bathlapin the crocodile is sacred, and by all it is revered, but rather under the form of fear than affection”; and he regards the superstition (which reigns even where there are no crocodiles) as “the survival of an ancient recollection of the time when the ancestors of the present Kaffirs dwelt on the margin of rivers infested by these murderous brutes, and where they often saw their women drawn underneath when going to the river to fetch water.”84.2 There may be some reason for this conjecture. It probably expresses, however, only half the truth, since if the crocodile were revered, offerings would naturally be made to it, as in fact we have seen to be the case in other parts of Africa. In Senegal the water-spirits appear in crocodile form. A legend is told of a girl to whom the spirit presented himself as a fair youth; but when she listened to his overtures he turned into a horrible cayman.85.1 The Bantu tribes are believers also in a mysterious being called an “incanti” which often inhabits rivers, and whose glance is fatal. “While we were living at Duff,” says the writer just cited, “a man was found dead one morning close by the river’s bank, not far from the mission. It was clearly a case of suicide by poisoning, but our native neighbours regarded it as a case of having seen an incanti, and no one would approach the spot for months. The pools were bewitched, haunted, bedevilled.”85.2 The Zulus tell of a bloated, squatting, bearded monster dwelling in rivers. It steals the clothing and ornaments of girls who come to bathe, and is capable of swallowing men and beasts. Happily, however, it is amenable to prayers.85.3 Another “imaginary amphibious creature, mostly abiding in the deep portions of the rivers,” is the subject of Zulu superstition. It is universally believed that “aided by some mysterious and evil influence, the nature of which no one can define or explain, bad persons may enter into a league with” it, as they can also with wolves, baboons, and jackals.86.1 On the whole it is impossible in the present state of our knowledge to lay much emphasis on the superstitions mentioned in the present paragraph, since we lack the independent evidence which we have concerning the Teutons and Slavs, of customs pointing to human sacrifices to water.
The ancient Mexicans, however, were innocent of Dutch influence. Yet, if we may believe Sahagun, they had their water-monsters as malignant as those of the Bantus. Among these monsters, and by no means the only one, was the Ahuizotl, pictorially represented as a smooth, rat-like animal with a long prehensile tail, accompanied by the sign for water. The tail was believed to be furnished at its extremity with a hand, wherewith it dragged down into the depths of the pool where it abode any person who approached the banks. A few days afterwards, the body was cast up again, and then found to be deprived of eyes, teeth, and nails. No one dared to touch it, but the priests, who, when informed of its presence, would fetch it “on a litter with great reverence and bury it in one of the oratories called Ayauhcalco—literally house in, or surrounded by, water. For it was said that the Tlalocs (or rain-gods) had sent his soul to the terrestrial paradise. They adorned the litter with mace-reeds, and it was preceded by musicians playing on flutes.” The reasons assigned for such a death were that “either the deceased had been very good, and therefore the rain-gods desired his company in the terrestrial paradise; or he had perchance certain precious stones in his possession. This would give offence to the rain-gods, who do not wish that persons should possess precious stones, and for this reason they may have killed him in anger, but nevertheless taken him to the terrestrial paradise.” His relatives found consolation, not merely in the belief that he was with the gods in paradise, but also that through him they themselves would become rich and prosperous.87.1 Here the sacred character of the corpse, its place and manner of burial, and the superstitions concerning the departed point with tolerable certainty to a religious offering; and the conclusion is altogether in harmony with what we know of the bloodthirsty Aztec rites.
Passing with these illustrations away from sacrifices to water, and from legends of water-monsters, we may note that another object with which the sagas of dragons are connected is a hill, often shown as the creature’s resting-place. He lies curled upon it, or around it, or dwells in a cave or den. Thus the Lambton Worm lay coiled thrice about the base of an oval hill on the northern bank of the Wear. I am not aware what this oval hill may be; but some of the hills mentioned in these stories are prehistoric barrows. Mr. Andrew Lang published some years ago a story from Galloway of a snake that used to lie twined round the tumulus at Dalry. “In colour it was snow-white, and the thickest part of its body was as thick as three bags of meal. This creature was a terror to all the neighbourhood, as it not only destroyed cattle and men, but had an ugly habit of going at night to the neighbouring churchyard, digging up coffins with its claws, and devouring the newly dead.” The Lord of Galloway offered a reward for its destruction. But one of his knights was swallowed up by the serpent, horse and armour and all; and another was deterred by evil omens. The adventure was then undertaken, as at Deerhurst, by a smith, who devised a suit of armour for himself covered with long sharp spikes which could be drawn in or thrust out at the wearer’s will. Scarcely was his armour completed when the smith’s young and beautiful wife died, and was buried in the churchyard. The night after the funeral the smith came upon the brute scraping the earth from the newly-made grave, and attacked it vigorously. The snake swallowed him whole; but as he slipped down its throat he suddenly shot out his spikes, rolling about violently inside. This was more than the creature had bargained for; and in a short time the smith by strenuous efforts tore his way through his enemy’s carcase. There lay the serpent quite dead, and for three days following the river Ken ran red with its blood. “Here,” says Mr. Andrew Lang, “the story should properly end; but a later and more romantic fancy has added that at the very moment of victory the second knight arrived on the spot, and, in a fury of disappointed ambition, attacked the smith, who of course was as victorious in the second fight as he had been in the first.”88.1 With all deference to Mr. Lang’s great authority, I venture to think that the second knight’s attack was part of the original story, embodying as it seems to do the germ of the Impostor incident so common in Rescue tales. Be this, however, as it may, the point whereto I desire to direct attention is that the connection of the snake with a prehistoric tumulus, and that of other dragons with hills or mounds, both in this country and on the Continent, is probably not without its significance. There, if anywhere, sacrifices would have been offered in early times; and their memory, transformed by the popular imagination into the form of a dragon with a propensity for human flesh, may have lingered for many a century after their abolition. But to raise this beyond the value of a conjecture careful inquiry and comparison of instances, for which I have no opportunity at present, would be required. I may point out, however, that the conjecture is countenanced by analogous legends of dragons haunting other sacred spots. At Aarhuus in Denmark, for instance, bodies placed overnight for the funeral solemnities in the cathedral frequently disappeared by the morning. A dragon whose lair was near the cathedral had eaten them. At length a strolling glazier devised a coffin of mirrors, pierced by one hole just large enough to thrust a sword through; and he caused himself to be laid within it in the cathedral. Around the coffin stood four tapers, which he lighted at midnight. When the prowling dragon beheld its reflection in the mirrors it drew nigh, deeming the image to be its mate. The glazier instantly thrust his sword through the hole of the coffin into his enemy’s throat; but he himself perished in the floods of blood and venom that spouted from the body of the dying monster. An ancient image in the church is said to preserve the memory of the heroic act, as at Mansfeld, Deerhurst, and elsewhere.89.1
It is hardly necessary for the completion of the argument to enumerate any stories of rescue of human sacrifices to beings confessedly worshipped as divine, or at least superhuman. Yet one or two specimens may not be without interest. They cannot be numerous, because the rescue itself implies an insult to, and almost a denial of, the divinity. Wherefore we must look for them only, or chiefly, among races who practise a tolerant religion like the Buddhist, which whithersoever its conquests extended, permitted the continuance of offerings to the overshadowed and indigenous gods. We will begin with Japan, where we have already found legends corresponding to that of Andromeda. A young warrior wandering in the northern province one evening lost his way in the mountains; and reaching at length a small secluded shrine, where there was only just room for him to lie down, he took shelter within it and soon fell fast asleep. About midnight he was awakened by a noise. Peeping through the interstices of the timber walls of his refuge, he espied a troop of cats engaged in a wild, unnatural dance by the light of the moon, and yelling in fiendish tones. As he kept perfectly still in his hiding-place and listened, he could distinguish, incessantly repeated amid their shrieks, the words: “Don’t tell Shippei Taro! Keep it secret! Don’t tell Shippei Taro!” The midnight hour passed away, and with it the mysterious cats, leaving him in peace for the rest of the night. In the morning he found a path leading to a village. As he drew near he heard a sound of weeping, and entering the nearest hut, he inquired what was the matter. He was told that the mountain-spirit required the sacrifice of a maiden every year, and the very next night was the appointed time. On further inquiry he learnt that the shrine he had just left was the scene of the offering, and that it was customary to place the victim in a cage in the immediate neighbourhood. Recalling the incidents of the past night he next inquired who Shippei Taro was, and was told that Shippei Taro was the name of the great dog belonging to the chief officer of the prince who lived not very far away. To this personage accordingly he went, and asked for the loan of the dog for the following night. After hearing his story the dog’s master consented and handed over Shippei Taro to the stranger. To arrange with the girl’s parents to keep her safely at home, and to put Shippei Taro into the cage in her stead was the next business. Having accomplished these things the youth betook himself to the shrine and awaited what would happen. At midnight when the moon had risen over the mountains the cats returned in full cry led by a gigantic black tom-cat, in whom our adventurer without difficulty recognised the dreaded mountain-spirit. The tom-cat approached the cage with hideous shrieks of delight and danced around it. At length he opened it and peered in, searching for his victim. In an instant Shippei Taro leaped upon him and held him with his teeth, while the warrior with one well-aimed blow put an end to the brute. Turning then on the other cats, hound and man speedily put them to flight and destroyed not a few. The rout was complete; and from that time no more human sacrifices have been offered to the mountain-spirit.91.1
One of the aboriginal tribes of India, now Buddhist, has preserved a somewhat similar instance of the abolition of these offerings. “The early religion of Láhaul is still known under the name of Lung pe Chhoi, that is, the religion of the valley. When it was flourishing many bloody, and even human, sacrifices seem to have been regularly offered up to certain Chá, that is, gods or evil spirits residing in or near old pencil cedar-trees, rocks, caves, etc. This cruel custom disappeared gradually after the doctrine of the Buddhists had influenced for a time the minds of the people. There is a story which I shall relate, as it seems to show that this was the case. Near the village of Kailang a large dry pencil cedar-tree was standing till last year, when we felled it for firewood: the story goes that before this tree in ancient times a child of eight years old was annually sacrificed to make the spirit who resided in it well disposed towards the inhabitants of Kailang. The children seem to have been supplied in turn by the different families of the village. It happened one year to be a widow who had to give up an only child of the required age of eight years. The day before her only one was to be taken from her, she was crying loudly, when a travelling Láma from Tibet met her, and asked the cause of her distress. Having heard her story, the Láma said: ‘Well, I will go instead of your child.’ He did so, but did not allow himself to be killed. ‘The spirit must kill me himself if he wants human flesh,’ said he: so saying, he sat down before the tree and waited for a long time, but as the demon made no attack on him he became angry, took down from the tree the signs and effigies, and threw them into the Bhága river, telling the people not to sacrifice any more human beings, which advice was followed from that time forward. The demon fled and settled on the top of the Koko Pass, where it still dwells under the name of Kailang Chá, or god of Kailang, getting now only the annual sacrifice of a sheep supplied by the shepherds.” The writer from whom I quote goes on to state that (contrary to the principles of Buddhism) sheep and goats are yearly killed near not a few villages in Láhaul, and offered up to the Chá, and he hazards the opinion these animals have taken the place of men.93.1 I am not aware what evidence there may be for this substitution beyond the foregoing tradition. At Manáli in Kúlú, also in Northern India, is a temple of some antiquity to Manú Rikhi. In front of it stands an altar of stone, supporting a pile of spruce logs, which are replaced, three at a time, every three years. An annual fair is held on the spot, at which a keprá (literally, evil form) or mask of Tundi is carried about. Tundi Bhút was a local dait or demon who conquered the deotas or gods, and demanded one of their sisters in marriage. Manú in turn vanquished him at Khoksar in Lahul and compelled him to marry instead “the daughter of a Tháwi or mason, named Túnar Sháchká, who appears in other stories as a Rakhsháin.” The temple was erected to commemorate Manú’s success; but the tale does not account for the spruce logs. To explain these it is popularly said that Tundi devoured men and that Manú, having conquered him, put the logs into his mouth and killed him.93.2 Whatever the real significance of the logs may be, it is probable that we have here a legend of the suppression of human sacrifice. Other stories of substitution have been mentioned in the course of the foregoing pages. And the legend of Abraham, which will occur to every reader, points back to a period when the fathers of the Hebrew nation, in common with the surrounding peoples, practised human sacrifices. But with substitution, as distinguished from rescue, we are hardly concerned.
Still less need we discuss the revolting subject of human sacrifice in general. The stories I have cited (and they could easily be multiplied) are intended to confirm the hypothesis that we have in the incident of the Rescue of Andromeda a reminiscence of the abolition of human sacrifices to deities in the shape of the lower animals. I have shown that in certain stages of civilisation sacrifices of the kind are practised, and that they are frequently offered to water-spirits conceived in animal form. In offerings to water, and in traditions of water-spirits, we have the product of savage animism. And it may, of course, be that the monster sent to devour Andromeda, and that which appears so often in the legend of Saint George, are to be regarded simply as the personification of water, or of specific rivers and pools, in their sinister aspect. Strictly speaking, however, personification belongs to a higher plane of thought than that which finds the spirit embodied as an actual living creature. Moreover, the dragon is by no means invariably connected with water; and in estimating the probability of this explanation we must not overlook the tales which represent it as having its abode on a hill or mound, or in a cave.
The stories analysed in the first three chapters are abundant evidence that the form assumed by the Quest of the Gorgon’s Head in modern märchen is that of a sojourn in a witch’s dwelling, resulting in death or petrifaction by enchantment, followed by rescue and the annihilation of the witch. This incident is not confined, any more than the others with which we have dealt, to tales of the Perseus cycle—that is, to tales wherein one or more of the other three principal incidents of the Perseus märchen occur. In company with the incident of the Life-token it is frequently found in stories belonging to the type of The Two Sisters who envied their Cadette.95.1 From many of such stories, however, the Life-token appears to have dropped. The Greek märchen of The Tzitzinæna is an example. There, as in the Arabian Nights, a king overhears three maidens boasting what they could do if they could only marry the royal confectioner, the royal cook, and the king himself respectively. The boast of the youngest sister is that she would bear her lord three children—Sun, Moon, and Star. The king gratifies their desires, to the annoyance of his mother, who plays the part of the envious sisters in Galland’s tale. She so arranges matters that when the children (two fair boys and a girl) are born they are thrown into the sea; and after the third abortion, as the king is led to believe, the unfortunate queen is shut up in a foul and noisome prison. The children are found by a solitary monk, and brought up until they are old enough to shift for themselves. He then gives them money and sends them into the world. They settle in the town; and there the eldest buys from a Jew a mysterious casket which contains a green, winged horse. The midwife who had been charged with the destruction of the children now discovers them still living; and in order to put an end to them, she excites in the maiden a desire to possess the golden apple watched in a certain garden by forty dragons. With his enchanted horse the eldest brother obtains for her not only the golden apple, but also, on a second journey, a golden bough on which all the birds of the world gather to sing. He is then sent for the Tzitzinæna to explain what the birds say. On arriving at the Tzitzinæna’s house the horse directs him to call it. The creature replies, “Marble”; and the youth is petrified to the knees. The calls are exchanged until he becomes marble to the girdle. He then remembers that on bidding himself and his brother and sister farewell the monk had given him some hairs from his beard, with directions to burn one of them when in need. He burns one accordingly; and the monk appears, and calls the Tzitzinæna, compelling it to bring a bottle of water of immortality and sprinkle the youth and his steed. By the power of this water they are loosed from the spell. But they have not been the Tzitzinæna’s only victims. In obedience to the monk it delivers them all, and among them the hero’s brother, who had been lost. The Tzitzinæna, thus captured, like the Talking Bird, is the means of revealing the truth to the king and restoring to him his wife and children.97.1 The story is obviously imperfect, whole episodes, like the loss of one of the brothers, being referred to but not detailed. Hence there can be little doubt that it once contained the Life-token. It is doubtless a waif from the coffee-houses of the Levant stranded on Hellenic shores. In a variant from Epirus the errands are to obtain the Flying Horse of the Plain and the Beauty of the Land. The latter had turned many men into stone; but she goes with the hero, becomes his wife, and contrives the solution of the plot, as in the typical tale.97.2
In the former of these two cases the transformation is effected by the witch’s word; in the latter we are left in doubt. A German tale from the Odenwald brings us nearer to Galland’s version in this respect. There, as in the Greek stories, a king, to his mother’s disgust, marries beneath him, with the usual catastrophe. The children are two girls and a boy. A branch of the Tree with Golden Fruits is the object of desire. The hero takes it; but on his way back he hears some one calling him, and turning to reply he is changed into a pillar of salt. This fate also befalls the elder sister on seeking the Talking Bird in the same garden where the Tree grew. The younger, fetching the Leaping Water, resists the temptation, and by sprinkling the water on the two pillars recovers her brother and sister.97.3 A Swabian tale belonging to the same cycle presents the task as the disenchantment of a castle in the forest by fetching thence a certain blackbird in a cage. This could only be done between eleven and twelve at noon. The first of the princes having entered the castle allows the precious hour to pass while he is listening to the lovely music that resounds through the ensorcelled chambers. Noon strikes, the doors close, and he is caught fast in the trap. The second prince fares no better; but their sister finds the bird and hastens out before the fatal hour, thus undoing the spell and restoring to their proper human form a lion, a bear, and a number of apes which inhabited the building.98.1
The villain of a Catalonian variant is no less a personage than the Devil himself, to whom the heroine had been given by her father. A king found her in the Devil’s den, and stole her away, to marry her. It is the Devil who arranges the catastrophe by means of forged letters to and from her husband when she gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl. The secondary villain is a witch bribed by “the ladies of the people” to excite the maiden’s longing, first, for a tree bearing leaves of all colours, next, for water of all colours, and lastly, for a bird with plumes of all colours, which sings all songs. These are to be found in the garden of the Castle of Go-and-not-return. The maiden’s brother, by the help of the wise Solomon, who dwells in a castle on the way, succeeds in the quest of the first two; but disregarding the counsels which have been given him, he takes the wrong bird on his third journey and remains enchanted at the gate, until rescued by his sister. The bird, here also, once captured, becomes the means of retrieving the happiness of the family.98.2
The Kabyle tale of The Children and the Bat makes the villain out of the heroine’s barren fellow-wife. The children are seven sons and a daughter. They are carried by the envious woman into the forest one after another as they are born. An old woman induces the maiden to ask her brothers to get a bat; and an old man directs the brothers one after another to a certain date-palm on the sea-shore. “What wild beast comes here?” asks the bat from the top of the tree. “Go to sleep, old head,” answers the lad. The bat changes the adventurer’s gun into a bit of wood, and renders the adventurer himself “microscopic.” When she has thus lost all her brothers the maiden goes to seek the bat. She does not answer the creature, but waits until it is asleep. Then she climbs the tree, seizes the bat, and compels it to restore her brothers, promising in return to clothe it in silver and gold. The bat conducts the band of children back to their father, saves them from partaking of the poison offered to them by their stepmother, and reunites them to their parents. The stepmother is bound to a horse’s tail and dragged to death, while the bat is returned to its tree and clad in silver and gold.99.1 A version from Mirzapur comprises the Supernatural Birth. The children are three in number, two lovely boys and a girl, born of the king’s favourite wife, in consequence of eating three fruits given by a fakir. Their mother’s fellow-wives play the usual treacherous part at their birth. When, years after, the wicked queens find out that the children are still alive and dwelling in a miraculous palace, the gift of the friendly fakir, they send to persuade the maiden (it is always the woman) to ask for a nightingale that dwelt in a certain jungle, could sing a thousand notes, and could talk like a man. The fakir warns the elder brother not to answer when the bird cries out to him, else he will be turned into stone. The youth succeeds; and as in the other variants, the evil devised by the wicked queens recoils on their own heads, for it is by means of the bird that the truth is brought to light and punishment inflicted.100.1
A Lesbian tale looks like an ill-remembered variant of the Perseus group. A king, we are told, who had thirty-nine sons, longed for a daughter. A son, however, was born, and at the same time his favourite mare foaled, and the colt was allotted to the boy. When he was sixteen the brothers all set out together to seek their fortune. The youth, while his brothers slept, conquered forty dragons which had come to draw water at a spring where they were reposing. The next night he slays a seven-headed beast at another fountain, and cuts out its tongues. The following day the band of brethren separated, and the youngest pursued his way alone. A sorceress advises him how to pass a monster whom he will meet in the way, and warns him that he will reach the castle of another witch, who will offer him all sorts of fruits, of which he may partake with safety, but he must beware of drinking the wine she will present, otherwise she will petrify him. Instead, he is to give it to his dog, and he will see it instantly changed to marble. The witch, however, will have power to recall the animal to life. The youth follows her directions, and finds his brothers already turned to statues in the witch’s palace. He compels her to restore them as well as his dog, and having put her to death leads his brothers back to their father.100.2
We may reasonably suspect that the Life-token has originally been part of all these variants, as in Galland’s tale. It is needless to follow the instances where it still remains an integral portion of the narrative. Another point is worthy of notice. In most cases the object of search is a bird. So in a tale told by the Armenian immigrants of the Land beyond the Forest a king’s three sons set out to obtain a wonderful nightingale, the only thing wanting to complete the beauty of a church that he has built. The eldest son, however, settles down comfortably as the husband of a king’s daughter, and shirks the quest. The second is found by a gigantic Moor stretched at rest in a grassy glade of the forest, and asked: “What do you want here?” On his replying, “Nothing,” the Moor spits upon him and turns him to stone. The youngest son, returning successful with the nightingale, comes to the same spot, and is confronted by the Moor with the same question. He asks in turn, What are all these many stones he sees around him? The Moor answers that they were men whom his spittle had turned into stone, and threatens him with the same fate. Thereupon the nightingale began to sing, and the Moor fell down upon the ground, a heap of ashes. The stones promptly became men once more, the king’s second son among them. It is sad to relate that in the sequel, in spite of this deliverance, the second son joined his elder brother in betraying the youngest, and leaving him to perish in the depths of a fountain, while they hurried home with the prize. Fortunately the youth found his way out, vindicated his claims, married the fairy to whom the nightingale belonged, forgave his brothers, and they all lived happy ever after.101.1
In the romance of Hatim Taï the enchantment is caused by failing to kill the bird, and dissolved by its death. The renowned Kaiumarath, when hunting, found a diamond weighing three hundred miskals. To preserve it in safety he founded the bath of Bagdad, where he placed the stone in the body of a caged parrot. On the chair within the hall was laid a bow with arrows. Every visitor was allowed to shoot three arrows at the parrot, and if he hit it right through the head he would break the enchantment; otherwise he would become a marble statue. The mysterious mansion was uninhabited save by those statues; and the foregoing information was conveyed by an inscription over the door. Hatim failed twice, and became stone to his middle. Persevering, however, he put his trust in God, took aim, and shutting his eyes let fly the third arrow. It pierced the parrot’s brain, when the whole enchantment disappeared amid thunder, lightning, and whirlwinds. All the marble statues started into life, and falling at Hatim’s feet, vowed to serve him. He took the diamond, which was the object of his search, and thus accomplished the last of his seven adventures.102.1
The search is not always for a bird. The hero of a Gipsy tale from Transylvania undertakes to deliver the daughter of a good urme from a wicked urme who has carried her off. In the wicked urme’s service he has to perform a number of tasks: among them to find a ring which has been dropped into a fountain and hang it up below a round mirror in the large hall. The water in the fountain is boiling hot; but he plunges without harm, having previously bathed in the milk of the urme’s cow. The real danger was a voice that sounded in his ear as he hung up the ring: “Thou art a handsome youth, a handsome youth. Only look in the glass!” Had he complied with this flattering suggestion he would have been turned into stone. He resisted it, however, to encounter the still more flattering offer from the urme to wed him. It was necessary before doing this that he should cut her up and throw the pieces into a Medean kettle, whence she would issue the most beautiful woman on earth, and they would then live happy and contented together. But he had already seen too much of this lady to trust himself with her; so having obeyed her instructions to cut her up, he threw the pieces into the boiling fountain instead of the kettle, thus destroying her and the enchanted castle with her. The maiden whom he came to free drew from her head some hairs, and letting them fly in the wind, she sang:
“Ye who have been changed to stone,
Beast or human creature’s son,
Hither, hither, every one!”
At once all the stones which had been men and beasts, but had had the misfortune to look in the magical mirror, returned to their proper forms and danced around the maiden for joy. It remained to obviate the only other danger. The urme had left a son, a dragon who was to have wedded the maiden. He was luckily absent; but before he went away his mother had cut his hair and thrown the pieces among the stones. These they gathered up and burnt. The maiden then prevailed on her deliverer to come home with her and be her husband. They therefore all returned to the good urme in the speediest manner by swallowing the ashes of the dragon’s hair and wishing themselves at their destination.103.1
This of course is the ordinary bride-quest of fairy tales. The destined lady is in the power of a magician, who may be her father or merely her master. The hero, usually by her help, performs various tasks, which end in his winning her and destroying, or foiling, the magician. The transformation by the magician of his captives is not, perhaps, a very common incident in the plot. More frequently they are slain and their heads adorn in truly savage fashion the palisades of his dwelling. In a story from the neighbourhood of Bologna, they are turned into statues of salt.104.1 Elsewhere, as in a Breton tale, they are changed into trees.104.2
The incident of the Medusa-witch in the foregoing stories, while in some cases it approaches more closely to the classical saga, lacks the special development gained in the modern Perseus-märchen. Tales, however, are not wanting in European tradition where the incident in that form appears divorced from the other incidents of the complete märchen. The Portuguese tale of The Tower of Ill Luck is an example. A boy sets forth on adventures accompanied by a horse and a lion, and arrives at the Tower of Ill Luck whence no one ever returns. An old woman within tells him to put his animals in the stable, and gives him a fine hair to tie them up with by rolling it round their necks. When he has done this she challenges him to wrestle. Finding himself overpowered he calls his beasts. But the hag cries out: “Be thickened, thin hair, into a strong coil, binding your horse and lion!” Immediately the hair becomes a thick iron chain which effectually prevents the animals from rescuing their master; and he is at length killed. The same result attends the second brother’s venture. The third is too clever. He cuts up the hair into little bits and throws them into the sea. Hence, when he calls, his animals are free to help him. He compels the witch to give him a salve to anoint his brothers’ bodies and a scent for them to smell. The salve and the scent revive them; and they feel no compunction in burying the hag alive.105.1 A story obtained in the Orkney Islands gives the three animals as a hound, a hawk, and a horse. The lad finds a castle, blows the horn, and the door opens. He walks in, but meeting with no one, he sits down by the fire and eats a good supper, which is already prepared. At midnight in comes the Dräglin’ Hogney. “He sat down over against the young man and glowered at him. Then said the Dräglin’ Hogney: ‘Does yer horse kick ony?’ ‘Ou ay,’ said the young man. ‘There’s a hair to fling ower him.’ The young man flung it over his horse. ‘Does yer hound bite ony?’ ‘Ou ay,’ said the young man. ‘There’s a hair to fling ower him.’ Again, ‘Does yer hawk pick ony?’ ‘Ay, ay,’ said the young man. ‘There’s a hair to fling ower him.’ With that the Dräglin’ Hogney whiecked (whisked) frae the tae side to the tither, till he fell upon the young man and killed him.” His next brother fares no better. But the third brother throws the hairs on the fire. “What’s that crackin’?” asks the Dräglin’ Hogney each time as he hears the hair in the fire. “It’s the craps o’ the green wud come yer waysay,” replies the lad. When by the help of his animals he has slain the Dräglin’ Hogney he “ransacks the castle, finds the enchanter’s wand, disenchants his two brothers, their horses, hawks and hounds, divides the spoil, sends for their father, and, in the old wind-up of a Scotch fairy tale, they live happy, and dee happy, and never drink out of a dry cappy.”106.1 A Slavonic story in which the two elder brothers, serving at a certain castle and warned against entering the forest, successively persist in doing so, seems to belong to this type. Both youths are petrified, with their dogs, but are rescued by their youngest brother.106.2
In Buddhist literature the story takes a much more civilised shape. The Bodisat is the eldest of three brothers, sons of Brahmadatta, king of Benares. The mother of the two elder was dead; and the mother of the youngest having plotted to secure the succession for her son, the two elder, by their father’s counsel, withdrew from the city. Their brother, however, joined them, being unwilling to be left behind. In the course of their wanderings they came into the Himalayas. While resting one day the Bodisat sent the youngest down to a pool near at hand for water. “Now that pool had been delivered over to a certain water-sprite by Vessavana, who said to him: ‘With the exception of such as know what is truly godlike, all that go down into this pool are yours to devour. Over those that do not enter the waters, you have no power granted to you.’ And thenceforth the water-sprite used to ask all who went down into the water what was truly godlike, devouring every one who did not know.” He put the question to Prince Sun, the Bodisat’s younger brother, who replied: “The sun and moon.” “You don’t know,” said the monster, and pulled him down into the depths of the water. Prince Moon, the Bodisat’s elder brother, being sent after the first, makes the equally foolish answer: “The four quarters of heaven,” and is likewise imprisoned in the water-sprite’s abode. The Bodisat himself then suspecting the truth, girt with his sword and armed with his bow, tracked his brothers’ footsteps to the water and waited beside the pool. Finding that he did not enter it the demon appeared in the shape of a forester to the Bodisat and inquired why he did not bathe. But the Bodisat recognised him and charged him with seizing his brothers. The demon explained that he had done so because they did not know what was godlike. Subsequently the Bodisat declares that they only are godlike “who shrink from sin, the white-souled, tranquil votaries of Good.” The demon, pleased with this, offers to give up one of his brothers; and the Bodisat chooses the younger. When taken to task for this choice by the ogre, he justifies it on the ground that it was on this boy’s account that they had sought refuge in the forest, and that not a soul would believe him if he were to give out that the child had been devoured by a demon. The water-sprite admits his wisdom; and “in token of his pleasure and approval he brought forth the two brothers and gave them both to the” Bodisat. Then the latter undertook the demon’s conversion, which happily effected, he continued to dwell at that spot under the reformed monster’s protection, until one day he read in the stars (a primitive but accurate kind of court journal) that his father was dead. “Then taking the water-sprite with him, he returned to Benares and took possession of the kingdom, making Prince Moon his viceroy, and Prince Sun his generalissimo. For the water-sprite he made a home in a pleasant spot and took measures to ensure his being provided with the choicest garlands, flowers and food,” so that he was under no temptation to return to his evil courses. The Bodisat “himself ruled in righteousness until he passed away to fare according to his deeds.”108.1
It is abundantly clear that the European tales I have cited cannot have been derived from this highly moral Játaka, in which nobody is punished, but on the contrary things are made comfortable all round—even for the demon. The story must have been found in a more savage form, and fashioned by the early teachers—perhaps by Gautama himself—into an apologue that would have done no dishonour to a Christian apostle.
To examine every kind of enchantment current in märchen would be an endless task. In the classical story, as well as in a large number of modern märchen, petrification is the result of the evil spell. This is softened in the Játaka, and in some other tales, to mere imprisonment; while metamorphosis into trees or into brute forms is the result in other cases. Petrifaction, or change into stones or rocks, is a fate whereto not merely human beings are liable at the hands of supernatural powers: with the hero his horse and other animals undergo this misfortune. In a totally different cycle of stories—that of The Magical Steed—petrifaction is occasionally practised on the horse only. It is then done as a means of preservation for use when wanted. In the intervals between the hero’s tasks his enchanted pony vanishes, sometimes of its own accord, sometimes also by the hero’s appointment. “Now,” said the pony in an Irish tale cited in a previous chapter, “strike a blow with your rod of druidism upon me, and make of me a rock of stone, and whatever time at all you are in need of me, you have nothing to do but strike another blow on me, and I am up as I was before.”109.1 Everything in the world is according to savage belief subject to the mysterious energies of the wizard. In the remains of prehistoric superstition imbedded in the Irish folktales we get a truer view of Druidism than that conveyed to us by classical writers, who interpreted the religion of the Celts by their own more advanced polytheism. The Druids were in fact shamans, innocent, as I have already pointed out, of any systematic philosophy.
Lastly, we may notice one of the most interesting “properties” possessed by the Medusa-witch, namely, the hair she gives the hero to bind his dogs withal. It appears in many of the tales, though it is not always used in the same way. A Russian story, whether strictly belonging to the Perseus cycle I am not able to say, relates that “Ivan Dévich (Ivan the servant-maid’s son) meets a Baba Yaga, who plucks one of her hairs, gives it to him, and says: ‘Tie three knots and then blow.’ He does so, and both he and his horse turn into stone. The Baba Yaga places them in her mortar, pounds them to bits, and buries their remains under a stone. A little later comes Ivan Dévich’s comrade, Prince Ivan. Him also the Yaga attempts to destroy, but he feigns ignorance, and persuades her to show him how to tie knots and to blow. The result is that she becomes petrified herself. Prince Ivan puts her in her own mortar, and proceeds to pound her therein, until she tells him where the fragments of his comrade are, and what he must do to restore them to life.”109.2
In the glorious mabinogi of Kulhwch and Olwen the hair is put to its more ordinary use. Among the tasks laid upon Kulhwch as a condition precedent to his marriage with Olwen, the fair daughter of Yspaddaden Penkawr, is that of procuring a leash made from the beard of Dillus Varvawc, the son of Eurei, for Drudwyn, the cub of Greid, the son of Eri. No other leash in the world would hold the cub; and for this purpose it was to be plucked with wooden tweezers while Dillus Varvawc was yet alive, otherwise it would be brittle. The episode of the quest of this leash furnishes an explanation of a snatch of song, probably an old popular rhyme, imbedded in the tale and attributed to King Arthur.110.1 Here it is the supernatural strength of the hair which constitutes its value, as in the stories already passed in review in this and earlier chapters. So too Kerza, in a Slavonic tale, takes a hair from the long white beard of a dwarf magician and therewith binds the magician’s wicked wife, who has taken the form of a wooden pillar the better to carry out her evil ends, and binds her so effectually that she is thenceforth unable to resume her proper shape, or to use her magical powers.110.2
A different example of the power of a hair is found in the Arabian Nights, where the king’s daughter in defence of the Second Calendar draws a hair from her head, and waving it in the air mutters over it for a while, until it becomes a trenchant sword-blade, with which to cut in twain the Ifrit.110.3 The Princess Labám in a Hindu tale pulls out a hair from her head and gives it to the hero. Her father has imposed on him the task of dividing a thick tree-trunk with a waxen hatchet. “To-morrow,” she said, “when no one is near you, you must say to the tree-trunk, ‘The Princess Labám commands you to let yourself be cut in two by this hair.’ Then stretch the hair down the edge of the wax hatchet’s blade.” And we are told that “the minute the hair that was stretched down the edge of the hatchet blade touched the tree-trunk, it split into two pieces.”111.1 A similar quality is that of the hair of the Giant of the Mountain, as related on the island of Zante. By its means, on touching the mountain it opens and admits the Giant into his own kingdom.111.2
The hair, of course, in all these tales, though severed from the person of the magician, is still in invisible union with him, and is the depositary of his undivided might. Its relation to its original owner is made clear in another story from Zante where the king’s son finds two hairs from the three-headed snake he is destined to subdue. At the proper moment he binds them on his hands, and they draw him direct to the sea-shore over-against an island on which the monster has made his lair. The youth crosses the water, slays and flays the dragon, and brings its hide and horns to the Lady of Earth and Sea, thus completing his tasks and winning her as his bride: an unhappy match, for the masterful dame ends by calling the waters upon the land and drowning every human creature, while she hovers aloft in the air looking on. She then, by sowing stones, creates a new race of men, whom she rules, mistress of the whole world, from her hereditary throne.111.3
Belief of a more or less serious character in the power of the witch’s hair is one for which readers who have followed the arguments and illustrations of previous chapters will not have been wholly unprepared. If a belief not very often exhibited in sagas, it is yet, as we might anticipate, not wholly absent. The Goodwife of Laggan, a Highland witch, one day showed herself in the form of a shivering, weather-beaten cat to a hunter, who was warming himself during a storm in his hunting-hut, in the forest of Gaick in Badenoch. His hounds were stretched by his side, his only company. As the cat entered they bristled up and rose to attack her. There is no record that the hunter was astonished when the terror-stricken cat addressed him with a human voice and the rhetoric of a century ago: “Great hunter of the hills, I claim your protection. I know your hatred to my craft, and perhaps it is just. Still spare, oh spare a poor jaded wretch, who thus flies to you for protection from the cruelty and oppression of her sisterhood!” On the contrary, he pacified his dogs, and invited her to come forward to the fire and warm herself. “Nay,” she replied, if we are to believe the grandiloquent reporter of the interview, “in the first place you will please bind with this long hair those two furious hounds of yours, for I am afraid they will tear my poor hams to pieces. I pray you, therefore, my dear sir, that you would have the goodness to bind them together by the necks with this long hair.” Here the hunter smelt mischief; so, instead of binding his dogs, he threw the hair across a beam of wood which connected the couple of the bothy. Supposing the dogs bound, the cat then drew near to the fire and sat down to dry herself. In a few minutes she began to grow. “A bad death to you, you nasty beast,” exclaimed the hunter jocosely, “you are getting very large.” “Ay, ay,” answered the cat, “as my hairs imbibe the heat they naturally expand.” But she grew bigger and bigger, until in the twinkling of an eye, she transformed herself into her proper likeness of the Goodwife of Laggan, and thus addressed the man: “Hunter of the hills, your hour of reckoning is arrived. Behold me before you, the avowed champion of my devoted sisterhood, of whom Macgillichallum of Razay and you were always the most relentless of enemies. But Razay is no more. His last breath is fled. He lies a lifeless corpse on the bottom of the main; and now, Hunter of the hills, it is your turn.” With these words the witch made a terrific spring at the hunter; and the dogs in their turn leaped up at her. A tremendous conflict ensued. “Fasten, hair, fasten,” she cried repeatedly, thinking the dogs were bound by it. The hair, obediently coiling round the beam, fastened so effectually that at last it snapt the timber in twain. Finding herself overmatched, she tried to flee. But the hounds had fixed themselves in her breasts; nor did they loose their hold as she trailed them after her, until she had all-to broken every tooth in their heads. Then changing herself into a raven she flew away over the mountains, while the bleeding dogs crept back to their master’s feet to die. When the hunter returned to his home, the Goodwife of Laggan was found sick unto death. I spare my readers the edifying scene wherein she most properly acknowledged her crimes in the presence of the hunter and all her neighbours, before breathing her last. It is written by Mr. Stewart in the purest Johnsonese he could command, together with the further narrative of the apparition which announced that the Evil One had finally seized her soul before it had time to reach the protection of the sacred precincts of the churchyard of Dalarossie.114.1
The Eskimo have a tradition pertinent to our present point. Off the southernmost part of Greenland was an island to which many of the inhabitants of the mainland objected, because it cut them off from the open sea. Two of them accordingly went in their kayaks and, fastening a hair from the head of a little child to the far side of the island, pulled away to the north, chanting a magic lay. Another old man, however, desired to retain the island; and he from the main shore held it by a thong of sealskin. The contest lasted for a while; but at length the hair and the magical song prevailed. The island was floated off and planted in front of Ilulissat, where it is now known as Disco Island.114.2 Similarly, the people of the Lewis aver that their island once formed part of France. The Wickings having conquered a province of that country determined to carry it to Norway. They, therefore, made a cable of four strands, one of heather, one of hemp, another of wool, and another of woman’s hair, and fixed it to the cliffs. For a time their enterprise promised success. But a large piece, now called Ireland, broke off and sank. A storm came on; and one portion after another broke away to form the Hebrides. By-and-bye their cable itself snapped, and they were forced to leave the Lewis and adjacent islands in the situation they at present occupy. On the western side of the Butt of Lewis is a fine natural arch, called the Suil an Rodh, “the eye of the butt.” This was the hole drilled through the cliff in days of yore by the Wickings to hold their cable; and it is the best proof of the truth of the tradition.115.1
Allied to the enchanted hair of these tales is the fetter that binds Fenri the wolf. It is spun from the sound of a cat’s footsteps, a woman’s beard, the roots of a stone, a bear’s sinews, a fish’s breath, and a bird’s spittle; and it is as soft and smooth as a silken string.115.2 So likewise when Finn MacCumhail hunted in high Keshcorran, Conaran, son of Imidel, a chief of the Tuatha De Danann, bade his three daughters, that were full of sorcery, take vengeance upon the hero. Accordingly the beldams went and sat in the entrance of a cave. “Upon three crooked and wry sticks of holly they hung as many heathenish bewitched hasps of yarn, which they began to reel off lefthandwise in front of the cave.” The attention of Finn and his companion, Conan Mael MacMorna, was attracted; they approached to view the women, and passed through the hasps; “whereupon a deadly tremor occupied them, and presently they lost their strength, so that by those valiant hags they were fast bound indissolubly. Another pair of the Fianna came, and with them the sons of Nemhuann: through the yarn they passed to where Finn and Conan were; they too lost their power, and by the same hags were lashed down in rigid bonds. These warriors then they carried away into the cave.” Oscar and MacLugach, and in short “the children of Smól and the Fianna all” were drawn to the spot, and when they saw the yarns their pith and valour departed: “there was not in any one man of them all so much as a newly delivered woman’s strength.” Both gentle and simple, they were bound, “so that as helplessly pinioned and tightly tethered culprit-prisoners the hags transported them into black, mysterious holes, into dark, perplexing labyrinths.” When the witches could find no further straggler of the Fianna, they were about to hew their prisoners to pieces. The great-souled Goll MacMorna, however, was yet at large. He attacked and destroyed two of the hags; the third he spared in consideration of her setting the prisoners free. But when another sister appeared to avenge those who were slain, he fought her also, and drove his sword through her heart.116.1
The story of the Enchanted Cave of Keshcorran is perhaps dangerously near the border line of sagas and märchen. But it is difficult to say that the Irish had entirely abandoned their belief in the real truth of the adventures attributed to the Fianna. Nations, especially nations involved in a struggle for national existence, do not easily part with a literal interpretation of traditions which are their birthright. The Iroquois likewise held to the actual existence of the supernatural personages of the following tale; but how far they credited the adventures of the human beings may admit of a difference of opinion. Ten brothers whose parents were dead resided with their uncle. One by one the elder ones, going out to hunt, failed to return, until at last only the youngest was left. He and his uncle found in the woods and befriended a strange man, who turned out to be a brother of the Great Head, a creature consisting simply of a head, made terrific with huge eyes and long hair. The Great Head had his home upon a rock over which his hair streamed in shaggy fierceness; and when the hurricane swept across the land it was his voice that was heard howling through it. One day the Great Head came to the lodge. Aided by his brother, the uncle and nephew succeeded in conciliating him, and induced him to take the youth to the witch who had fordone his elders, and revenge their deaths. They heard the witch crooning her magical song. When she uttered the word Schis-t-ki-añ, the objects of her spells turned to dry bones. The Great Head said to the youth: “I will ask the question, ‘How long have you been here?’ and the hair will fall from my head and you must replace it, and it will grow fast; and then I will bite her flesh and pull it from her, and as it comes off you must take it from my mouth and throw it off, saying, ‘Be a fox, a bird, or anything else,’ and it will then run off never to return.” The young man obeyed these instructions; and the witch was soon brought to sue for mercy. But the Great Head replied: “You had no mercy; see the dry bones; you must die.” In this way they slew her; her flesh was turned into beasts and birds and fish; her bones they burnt to ashes. Then they sought for the bones of her victims, and placed together in rows the bones of the nine elder brothers. The Great Head flew over them on a tempest, and called out of the wind to the nine brothers to awake. They heard his voice, and arose to life, shouting for joy at seeing each other and their youngest brother again.117.1
The instrument of enchantment in this Iroquoian tradition is not the magical fetter, but the magical word; whereof we seem to find a reminiscence (perhaps of the fetter also) in the sequel of Thorkill’s second voyage as recounted in the veracious pages of Saxo. Gorm Haraldson, king of Denmark, having grown old, was tormented with the question that still troubles mankind of the immortality and fate of the soul. Wherefore he sent Thorkill, who had in former days led him and three hundred of his warriors through mysterious regions, for certain information to Utgard-Loki, his god. On the hero’s return it was prophesied to Gorm that he would suddenly die if he learnt the tidings Thorkill had brought. Men were accordingly hired by the king’s command to put the adventurer to death. But he foiled the design and reproached his master for the ingratitude he displayed. The king, then, overcome by curiosity, bade Thorkill relate in order what had happened to him. Thorkill had such unfavourable revelations to make of Utgard-Loki that Gorm Haraldson could not endure to hear them. “His very life could not brook such words, and he yielded it up in the midst of Thorkill’s narrative. Thus,” piously adds the chronicler, “whilst he was so zealous in the worship of a false god, he came to find where the true prison of sorrows really was. Moreover, the reek of the hair, which Thorkill plucked from the locks of the giant,” and brought back with him, “to testify to the greatness of his own deeds, was exhaled upon the bystanders, so that many perished of it.”118.1
The truth is that in the lower stages of culture supernatural power is ascribed, not merely to special words, but to any curses. Illustrations of this attitude of mind are needless; for in the horror with which even the least superstitious of us listen when we are by some accident compelled to hear an outburst of imprecation, we may trace more than mere revulsion from the spirit of vulgar hatred and anger dictating it: our revulsion bears at least a tinge of fear and ghastly anticipation of doom upon him who dares to call down evil, if not upon the object of his wrath. Properly performed, however, by the priest on the first day of Lent, and uttered in merely general terms “gathered out of the seven-and-twentieth chapter of Deuteronomy and other places of Scripture,” we devoutly repeat Amen to every clause, and make believe that we desire to escape “the dreadful judgment hanging over our heads and always ready to fall upon us,” by thus transferring the weight of condemnation to sinners worse than ourselves. Originally special virtue was doubtless attached, as it still is by savages, to the proper sequence of words and the suitable accompaniment of rites. In a Chaldean conjuration the effect is thus described:
“The malicious imprecation acts on man like a wicked demon,
the voice which curses has power over him;
the voice which curses has power over him;
the malicious imprecation is the spell [which produces] the disease of his head.
The malicious imprecation slaughters this man like a lamb;…
the voice which curses covers him and loads him like a veil.”119.1
Nor is it altogether improbable that certain of the Psalms which are such a stumblingblock to Christians may have been held, when correctly chanted, to have a direct influence over the objects of the psalmist’s holy ire? When a native of Borneo has planted fruit-trees, and they are bearing, he places some round stones in cleft sticks near the trees, and then proceeds to curse anybody who may venture to steal the fruit, calling on the stones to witness the anathema. The curse is to this effect: “May whoever steals my fruit suffer from stones in the stomach as large as these stones, and, if necessary, become a figure of stone!” And woe betide the man who in defiance of this curse dares to pluck the fruit!120.1
But neither the form of the malediction nor the accurate performance of a ceremony is an invariable requirement. A few illustrations of the petrifying potency of curses, oftentimes the more awful because uttered in mere carelessness or wantonness, may be given from peoples on different levels of civilisation. An Altaic tale relates that Sartaktai was building a stone bridge over the Katunya; and in order to complete it by the following day it was necessary that his son should preserve continence. The young man, however, disregarded his father’s taboo, and frustrated the work. Wherefore the old man cursed his daughter-in-law, so that she stands, a white rock on one side of the river, and cursed and spat upon his son, so that he remained on the other side, the mountain called to-day Täldäkpän.120.2 A local legend concerning the fort of Jangada, in India, attributes its erection to Râjâ Kesari, who built it of lac, or sealing-wax, in order that missiles discharged against it should be held by its natural tenacity. The secret was betrayed to a besieging army by an old woman; and the walls began to melt under the power of the fire and bellows she advised the soldiers to use. The râjâ, as he died in the trench with sword in hand, cursed the traitress to be turned into stone. The curse was immediately fulfilled, as witness the satti pillar outside the fort, regarded as her image to this day.121.1 At a certain farmhouse in Iceland it befell that several years successively the inmates who were left to take care of the house while their fellows went to church on Christmas Eve were found the next morning either stark mad or dead. Naturally nobody cared to stay in the place; but at last a young girl was found brave enough to do so. During the night something came to the window, and began to praise her hands. She was ready at once with a spirited retort. Her eyes and her feet were then made the subject of eulogy by the mysterious visitor, who got from the maiden each time a proper answer. By-and-bye the creature mentioned the dawn standing ready to appear. “Stand thou, too, and become stone, and hurt no one!” exclaimed the girl. And when the people returned from church in the morning they were astounded to see a big stone standing before the window; and there it remains ever since.121.2 There is a hill on the boundary of the manor of Bagdad near Wirsitz, in the province of Posen, surmounted by a great stone of a reddish colour, somewhat in the form of a gravestone. This was formerly a girl who went out with her mother to gather wild strawberries in the pine-wood which then covered the height. The mother wandered off in another direction, and lost her daughter. Not being able to find her, she angrily shouted: “As you are not coming, turn to stone!” Her prayer was instantly answered, as in a similar case at Strelno, in the same province, where a lazy slut going with her pitcher to the spring, and being unconscionably long on the errand, was cursed by a fellow-servant, under whose orders she was, and transformed into stone. The block is shown at the village of Mlyny, near the town; and at a distance it is said to bear some resemblance to a girl with a pitcher. Nor is this the only tale of the kind current in Posen. A great stone, whose top was not unlike a roof, lay several years ago on the boundary between Czempin and Piechanin, and was held to be the roof of a castle, enchanted by a wizard who had begged a night’s lodging there in vain. His curses buried the castle in the earth, and turned its inhabitants and dependants into a number of smaller stones which lay around the large one.122.1 Near Gbel, in Bohemia, is a stone called The Enchanted Huntsman. A luckless hunter, we learn, pursued and shot at a roe, which thereupon changed into an old hag, and cried out: “How dare you shoot at me? I am the witch Nera! But you with your pack shall be turned into stone and guarded for ever with invisible flames!” Since that hour none dares to go near the stone at midnight, lest he be consumed by the flames.122.2 A witch is likewise the agent of evil in the Rollright legends. The King-stone at Rollright was once a king indeed, who was bent on the conquest of all England. He had got as far as the hill on which Rollright stands when the witch appeared. From the crest of the hill the village of Long Compton is visible in the combe below. The king was approaching the top when the witch addressed him: “Seven long strides shalt thou take, and—
If Long Compton thou canst see,
King of England thou shalt be.”