The king, now certain of success, exclaimed:
“Stick, stock, stone,
As King of England I shall be known!”
But as he took the seven strides forward there rose before him the long mound of earth which crowns the hill, and prevented him from seeing Long Compton. The witch then cried:
“As Long Compton thou canst not see,
King of England thou shalt not be.
Rise up, stick, and stand still, stone,
For king of England thou shalt be none;
Thou and thy men hoar stones shall be,
And I myself an eldern-tree.”
Forthwith “the king and his army were turned into stones where they stood, the king on the side of the mound and his army in a circle behind him, while the witch herself became an elder-tree. But some day, they do say, the spell will be broken. The stones will turn into flesh and blood once more, and the king will start as an armed warrior at the head of his army to overcome his enemies and rule over all the land.”123.1
In the last tradition the witch’s words fell upon her own head, as well as upon her foes. Incautious or wicked words often have this effect in European folklore; and I strongly suspect they owe their origin to Christian teaching. Tales of imprecations fulfilled upon the perjurer pervade English history from the great, and probably innocent, Earl Godwin downwards. Joan Flower, not more guilty, mentioned in an earlier chapter, is another example. The case of Dorothy Mately of Ashover, related with all circumstance by the master-pen of John Bunyan, is more famous. In fact, the tales are endless; but I must limit my illustrations to two or three of such as account for stones and rocks.
On the island of Sardinia, near the village of Tresnuraghes, in the district of Oristano, are two stones, once a peasant and his ox. This unhappy man was ploughing on the vigil of Saint Mark, and neglected to doff his cap when the saint’s colossal statue was carried by in procession. Being remonstrated with by one of the confraternity, he answered that he did not worship a piece of wood. What could be expected after such profanity, but that he and his ox should be turned to stone? A similar judgment is recorded as the origin of a monolith standing near the church of Saint Constantine, on the side of a hill in the district of Sedilo, on the same island. It is the custom there to perform a ceremony called S’ardia, or the Guard, which consists in a cavalcade of about a hundred persons running at full speed thrice around the church, and then flinging themselves down the valley upon a sacred enclosure containing a cross. This enclosure they encompass in the same manner. The spectacle, considered as a religious rite, is doubtless grotesque enough; and a woman who once witnessed it was profane enough to burst out laughing. She stands there still, never to laugh again.124.1 A bridal train on the Frisian island of Sylt once met an old woman who recognised the bride as a witch, and called out to warn the party. The leader replied: “If our bride be a witch, I would that we might all sink down here and rise up again grey stones.” No sooner said than done; and the identical stones were on view up to the early years of this century.125.1 So it is related of an unwilling bride from the village of Bonese, in Altmark, that when she arrived with her cavalcade on the boundary of the district of Markau, where she was to wed the son of a rich magistrate, she sprang from her seat after an altercation with her kinsmen and exclaimed: “Rather will I be turned to stone than overstep the boundary of Markau!” and she alighted on the ground a stone. Round that stone at midnight, when the full moon sheds her rays, the many-coloured bridal ribbons gleam even yet.125.2 Sometimes the catastrophe is occasioned by the mere breach of a taboo. Such is the case in a story told by the Lapps concerning the origin of the Aniov Islands. Three giants who were shamans determined to cut a piece of land off Norway and bring it away with all its reindeer and other wealth in order to increase their own stores. They succeeded in doing so, and were conveying it round to its destination, when their mother dreamed she saw them returning. She ran out of the hut and, hearing a noise, cried: “See! my children are coming, they bring goods, oxen, reindeer; they spoke truth.” But she thus violated the rule of strict silence during the performance of magical rites, and was punished by being turned, together with the whole parish, into stone, while her sons and the reindeer they had stolen were drowned, and the land they had cut off became two islands.125.3 Another woman underwent the like transformation in the island of Coll, off the western coast of Scotland. She was gathering shellfish when the tide rose, and “finding no other means of escape made a last effort by climbing the rocks. When at the top, and almost out of danger, she said: ‘I am safe now, in spite of God and men!’ ” Her blasphemy was immediately avenged by her conversion into a stone, which now forms part of the rock whence the headland of Cailleach Point (the Old Wife’s Headland) takes its name.126.1
Often, however, the Deity himself, or some holy man endowed with a portion of divine power, by curses or prayers effects the metamorphosis. Thus, it is believed in Bombay that the moon once became enamoured of Ahalyá, the wife of the Rishi Gautama, and visited her in her husband’s absence. Unluckily the Rishi returned and found the guilty pair together. His wife was turned into stone as the effect of his curses; and the moon bears, and will bear for ever, the black mark of the blow he received from the Rishi’s well-aimed shoe.126.2 So, too, when Ino fleeing from Juno’s wrath flung herself into the sea, and was made immortal by Neptune at the prayer of Venus, her attendants, as Ovid tells us, reproaching the vengeful goddess, were metamorphosed. Juno exclaimed: “I will make you terrible monuments of my displeasure.” As she uttered the words, some of the women, attempting to follow their mistress into the water, were stiffened in the various attitudes of the moment into rocks on the shore, while others were transformed into seabirds that now stretch their wings over every wave of the Ionian sea.126.3 The kind of superstition here portrayed has of course survived into Christianity. It is partly the superhuman might of the priest as such, and partly the strength of his incantations, which nobody but he knows so well how to perform that gives effect to his words when, like the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims, and other priests before and since, he calls for his candle, his bell, and his book. It was the superhuman might of the shaman that was acknowledged by Balak in the Hebrew saga, when he sent for Balaam to come and curse Israel; “for I know that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed.” Balaam, indeed, performed his function with due solemnity and order; yet the ceremonies, however valuable in themselves, would hardly have been effectual if performed by a lesser man. This belief has constantly tended, in all religions alike, to invest the lightest word of a saint with efficacy graduated according to his sanctity. Take the following Christian examples out of many. Saint Constant, pursued by a party of heathen up a hill in the neighbourhood of Deonero, in the Italian province of Cuneo, launched his maledictions upon them with such effect that they were changed into stones, many of which are still to be seen on the spot. His potency must have been exhausted by the effort; for he had scarcely reached the top when another band of persecutors seized and put him to death. But the night fell murky and wet; and a labourer, going home after an evening’s enjoyment, beheld the saint toiling up the steep laden with stones. In the morning the Church of Villar San Costanzo stood on the place of the martyrdom, built by the saint’s own hands out of some of the very men whom he had conveniently petrified; and there it is to be seen at the present day. Strangely enough, his holiness did not avail to procure him mortar. Nor was it needful, for the stones, whether naturally or supernaturally fitted together, stand perfectly well without it. When his work was done, his body, which had been left by his murderers where it fell, disappeared. Some say that it was transported by angels into heaven; and there can be no more difficulty in crediting this than the rest of the story.128.1 In the Isle of Man Saint Patrick cursed a sea-monster, which was following to devour him, and turned it into a solid rock at the foot of Peel Hill.128.2 According to Sardinian belief a greater than Saint Constant, or even Saint Patrick, inflicted the same vengeance for a smaller crime. One day Our Lord and Saint Peter presented themselves at a threshing-floor near Mores, and prayed for alms, but were denied. Thereupon Jesus Christ uttered an imprecation; and in a moment the corn became sand, while the guilty farmer and his innocent workmen were alike transformed into stones.128.3 Judging doubtless by their own unhappy experience, the greater the personage the more trifling is the occasion to which the peasants ascribe his wrath. On the right-hand side of the road from Flatow to Lobsens, in the province of Posen, about half a German mile from the latter place, is a great stone, formerly a landed proprietor, who, being out hunting, put his horse to jump a ditch at that spot. The horse refused, perhaps for some similar reason to that which animated Balaam’s talking donkey, since we are told that the Lord flew into a passion and cried, “Become stone!” Forthwith horse and rider were turned into a stone which is alive at this day to testify to the truth of the story, though many have been the attempts to destroy it.128.4
So far the power of words. Another magical power which appears in the märchen is that of a blow. Nor is it absent from sagas told to explain the origin of rocks whose form has appealed to the imagination of uncultured peoples. The story of the discovery of Inishbofin, an island off the coast of Galway, relates that two fishermen lost in a fog landed on an unknown shore. When the fog lifted they found themselves on what is now called the north Beach of Inishbofin.
On one side lay the ocean, and on one
Lay a great water;
and close at hand they beheld an old woman driving a white cow down to the lake. She drove the cow right into the water, and struck her with a stick, whereupon the cow was metamorphosed into a rock. One of the fishermen got so angry at the sight that he struck the woman; and both he and she were turned into stones. The rock and stones are still to be seen. “The cow used to rise up out of the lake and walk about the island when any great event was about to happen; but it is now more than thirty years since she was last seen.” From this cow the island takes its name (Inis-bo-finne, the Island of the White Cow).129.1 In the south-west of Ireland is a cliff called Fail Mahisht, once the daughter of the king of the White Nation and wife of Finn MacCumhail, whom she won by playing at chess with him for a wager. The condition was that he was to be her husband until he had seven shovelfuls of earth put on his head. After various adventures Diarmaid fulfilled the condition, and with a blow of his fist sent the lady spinning through the air until she fell at the water’s edge, where she now stands, and from that day to this gives food to the people of Erin from the limpets and periwinkles that cluster upon her beyond any other cliff in Ireland.130.1 The heroic cycle of Ireland as now found in the mouths of the people is full of tales of petrifaction from a blow;130.2 but how far they are now believed as records of fact must be regarded as more than doubtful, whatever might have been the case at the time the legend of the Enchanted Cave, already mentioned, was written. No such uncertainty seems to rest on the Sardinian tale concerning a stone on the side of the Montesanto of Mores. It is called Saint Elisha’s Stone, and was once a man whom the saint threw from the top of the mountain and, when he saw him fast below, called out: “Dost thou stand well?” “Yes, sir,” replied the stone; and there it remains immovable.130.3
The mixed population of Missouri tell a story, probably of Indian origin, about a beautiful but mysterious witch, who seduced the young braves, and with a touch from her right hand turned their hearts into stone. The people, fearful of attacking her, waited long for vengeance from on high to repay her iniquities. She used to feed on fish that came out of the river in response to her call. One day she went down to the water and summoned the fish in vain. At last, after she had uttered in her rage and impatience words that would dismay devils, there came up a little fish like silver. She essayed to swallow it; but it swelled and stuck in her throat, and at length stiffened into stone. In her agony she clutched her throat and beat her breast with the fatal hand. So now she stands upon, and part of, the rocky bluff on the banks of the Missouri.131.1
At Jaunpur, in India, is the shrine of Kerárbír, where a great stone is the object of worship. The stone in question is part of the body of the giant-demon Kerar, slain by Rámchandra for his wickedness.131.2 Two rocks observed in descending the pass of Markundi into the valley of the Son, in Mirzapur, are worshipped and connected with the flight of two lovers from a barbarian king who ruled at the fort of Agori. One of these rocks was cloven by a blow of the fugitives’ sword; the other is the pursuer’s elephant, decapitated by the same means.131.3
Divine vengeance, without any visible or audible intervention, has often been invoked in various parts of the world to account for the existence of rocks and stones. Niobe, weeping for her children slain by Apollo, was turned to stone, as anybody, says Pausanias, may reasonably be persuaded. She stood, a rock, on Mount Sipylos in Bœotia, and in summer-time was reported to weep.131.4 Such, too, was the fate which overtook Lot’s wife. Her legend doubtless grew up to account for some prominent pile on the cliffs overlooking the Dead Sea; and perhaps the archæologists who are now striving to rehabilitate the writings of Moses will point out the crag and prove the truth of the story. Of course they will be equally ready and willing to prove a thousand other tales. Let me mention a few equally authentic.
I pass over instances like those of the Stone-woman near the village of Moras in the department of Isère, France, manifestly a mere transplantation of the Biblical tradition.132.1 There are cases, however, in which the crime of looking back in disobedience to an express taboo has been punished by petrifaction, and where the connection with Lot’s wife is by no means so easily proved. Once upon a time the Hindu saint, Sri Dharamnathji, was doing penance in the jungle near Pattan. His disciple Gharibnáthji used to beg alms in the city, but as the people were not charitable he was obliged to maintain himself by carrying bundles of firewood and selling them in the town. From the proceeds he purchased flour, which a shepherd’s wife baked for him, adding a loaf from herself. The sage, “observing the bald patch on his disciple’s head caused by the loads he carried, cursed the city to be swallowed up. He had previously warned the shepherd’s wife to leave the place and not look back. The city was swallowed up; and the woman, disobeying the saint’s command, was turned into a stone.”132.2
Here the destruction of the city was caused by niggardliness towards a personage of supernatural power. Another Indian saga shows us this crime punished by petrifaction. Near the village of Dudhi, in South Mirzapur, are two stones, once a bride and bridegroom who were thus transformed by an angry bhút, or malevolent spirit. His proper offerings had been forgotten, and he wrought his vengeance in this way.132.3 Sometimes the fault is breach of tribal custom or social convention. When a rajah’s daughter made a rash vow only to wed him who could count the palm-trees within view of her father’s palace, and a low-born wizard fulfilled the condition, the earth herself interfered and, rather than allow so shameful a marriage to be accomplished, she turned the princess into a stone, which now lies within the ruined fort of Rájá Sahay, protected from human touch by a number of enormous snakes.133.1 Among the Gonds of Central India, the bride goes in procession to the bridegroom, instead of his coming to her, as is usual among the Hindus. It is intended in this way to prevent the repetition of the catastrophe which overtook a luckless pair who were about to be married in the ordinary way. The youth, borne on his uncle’s shoulders in the procession, came within sight of his bride, and unable to restrain his impatience he leaped to the ground and looked with all his might to the place where he expected to see her. She felt no less eager, and their eyes met. In a moment not only the young couple but also the bridegroom’s uncle were turned into sandstone spires yet visible on the road in descending into the valley of the Narbada over the Vindhyan range from Bhopál.133.2 The same cause may perhaps be understood in an Enganese tale accounting for a block of coral and a rock bearing some resemblance to human form off the coast of the island, near the anchorages of Baraháu and Kai-Kokoh. The one represents a husband who was deserting his wife because he found she had a disgusting malady, and the other the deserted wife.133.3 It is more obvious in the case of two stones in the tanks near the temples at Arang, in the Ráepur district of India, and at Deobáluda. The erection of the pinnacle of a temple is the act of completion; and it seems that it is necessary to be performed naked. These two temples were built simultaneously. When they were ready to receive their pinnacles the mason and his sister agreed to put them on at the same auspicious moment. Stripping themselves according to custom, they climbed to the top. As they reached it, each could see the other, and each through shame jumped down into the tank beneath and was changed into stone. Both stones are visible in seasons of drought, when the water in the tanks is low.134.1
Petrifaction in the traditions of Christian Europe, when directly inflicted by divine intervention, is usually the punishment of a serious infraction of the divine law, often amounting to lèse-majesté. Various stone circles in Cornwall, such as the Hurlers, the Nine Maids and the Merry Maidens, were once human beings transformed for Sabbath-breaking by hurling or dancing.134.2 Stories of this kind are commonplace all over Europe. We will be satisfied with the following samples taken from Germany and Bohemia. The legend of the two stone Jews at Ottorowo on the crossroad to Krzeszkowice, in the province of Posen, relates that these culprits suffered metamorphosis for profaning a crucifix.134.3 In the neighbourhood of the town of Gabel in Bohemia stand three blocks of stone surmounted by crosses. They were girls who went to work in the fields on Easter Sunday. They carried their disregard of holy things so far as to mock when the sanctus bell sounded at the completion of the sacred rite; and each time it rang they threw up to heaven the sickles they were using to cut the grass. The third time the sickles fell not down again, and the girls were turned into stone. Near Commotau, in the same country, lie seven great stones, once girls who led an evil life, and were therefore transformed.135.1 In Styria the same penalty fell on a maiden who would spin on Sundays. A violent storm destroyed the hut wherein she dwelt and transported her to the top of a neighbouring rock, where she stands for ever, a warning against blasphemy and greed.135.2 On some pasture lands not far from Jevenstedt stands a stone circle with two larger stones in the midst. These were a bridal party who danced on Sunday during divine service.135.3 Bridal parties in the West as in the East seem specially obnoxious to the displeasure of the higher powers. In Altmark, near Dahrendorf, not far from the Hanoverian border, is a large piece of granite surrounded by smaller stones, formerly a bride, named Lene, from the state of Hanover, who with her attendants was changed, no one knows why, into stone. We have already met with several other instances. A circle of stones near Wirchow, in Neumark, was a party of persons who added to their scorn of Whitsunday the shameless eccentricity of dancing naked, and are now called the Adam’s Dance. It has ever been held by the folk a grave misdemeanour to treat with wanton disrespect the necessaries of life; and singular judgments have, both in this country and elsewhere in Europe, fallen on such as have dealt improperly with bread and other common kinds of food. Seven boys were thus turned into stone, and are still to be seen near the little town of Morin in Neumark.135.4 Let us hope that the children of the district are duly impressed by their awful doom.
Similar to the fate of the Styrian maiden was that of a pair of lovers in Sardinia, who in consequence of the opposition of their families to their union entered, the one a monastery, and the other a nunnery. But love triumphs over even the vows of celibacy. The young monk escaped from his convent, carried off his sweetheart and lived with her in the wilds. The infraction of their vows could not, however, be passed over. God raised one day an impetuous wind, which transported the lovers to the top of Monte Ruju, where they rest changed into stone.136.1
On the western continent are to be found many legends accounting for rocks of peculiar form as human victims of supernatural caprice. The Zuñi tradition mentioned in a previous chapter is but one example of many. Mrs. Stevenson, who reports this tale, also records the tradition of an allied people, the Sia, concerning two brothers of ancient days, the culture-heroes of their tribe, renowned for giant-slaying and other feats. On two occasions they went disguised as poor, dirty, beggar-boys to villages of the Oraibi and the Katsuna where feasts were being held. They were refused food save by one family at each place; and the people were in consequence turned into stone.136.2 More frequently, perhaps, in aboriginal folklore the metamorphosis is suffered by a fugitive. In such cases it seems a little doubtful whether the pursuers are thus foiled or satiated of their revenge. The story of the Peruvian goddess, Cavillaca, will be remembered in this connection.137.1 “There is a Winnebago tradition that a woman carrying her child was running from her enemies, so she jumped down a steep place and was turned into a rock. And now when they [the Winnebagoes] pass that place they make offerings to her.”137.2 A similar saga of the Nasqually Indians of British Columbia is told to account for an isolated rock on the coast.137.3 Many other instances are to be found.
Among savages, however, it hardly seems necessary for their fore-elders to render themselves obnoxious to superior beings as a cause of this transformation. The natives of North Australia have tales of persons, some good and others bad, who were turned on death into stones or trees.137.4 A Chinese legend, descending doubtless from a more barbarous period, explains the existence of three rocks in the Yang-tsze river and the Poyang lake, through which it runs. A boat containing a man, his wife and their two children was capsized on the river during a storm. The man and woman perished at once; but the lads were assisted by a compassionate frog, which took them on its back and made for their home on the banks of the lake. The younger boy, grieving at his parents’ death, threw himself off and was drowned, reappearing shortly after in the form of a bold limestone rock, now known as the Little Orphan, situate in the middle of the river about twenty miles below the egress of the lake. The surviving orphan held on until the frog had entered the lake, when he fell broken-hearted into the water and became the large rock, surmounted in later ages by a Buddhist monastery and pagoda, and called the Great Orphan. The frog, in the bitterness of grief at his unsuccessful efforts, also yielded up his life, and in due course emerged from the waves as the Frog Rock.138.1 In Japan the peasants discern high up on the weatherworn cliffs of Matsura, “the figure of a lady in long trailing court-dress with face and figure eagerly bent over the western waves.” It is Satyohimé, the wife of Saté-hiko, petrified while gazing to catch the last glimpse of the sails that bore her husband away to Corea, as one of the Mikado’s body-guard, sent to assist the Japanese allies at Hiaksai, in the year 536 A.D. Her sad fate has rendered her name the symbol in Japanese literature of devoted love.138.2
I have left to the last the Gorgonian power of petrifying with a look. The fatal head was regarded, we know, as the most powerful of Athene’s weapons. As a single illustration we may take a curious case mentioned by Pausanias. Describing the temple of Athene near Coronea, in Bœotia, where the Panbœotian festival was held, he says that a priestess named Iodamia coming into the temple once at night was confronted by the goddess herself armed with Medusa’s head, and was turned into stone. An altar called by the unfortunate priestess’ name seems to have stood in the temple when Pausanias wrote; and a woman daily put fire thereon, saying in the language of the country that Iodamia was living and demanded fire.139.1 The memory of Medusa yet lingers, as we have seen, in Seriphos, where her head on the coinage of the island seems to have preserved it. If we may trust mediæval writers like Walter Map, Gervase of Tilbury and Roger of Hoveden, a more definite recollection, though still confused and distorted, formerly remained in the Levant. Gervase tells us that between Rhodes and Cyprus are the Syrtes, commonly called the Gulf of Satalia, where the Gorgon’s head was said to have been thrown into the sea. They are opposite the town of Satalia, claimed by the Sultan of Iconium. The Gorgon was held to have been a prostitute whose beauty drove men out of their wits, until Perseus threw her head into the deep. This of course was a piece of euhemerism on the part of the Marshal of Arles or his informants, whoever they may have been. He goes on, however, to say that the natives report that a soldier fell in love with a certain queen, and not being able to obtain her during her life, he secretly violated her sepulchre. From his posthumous embraces the corpse bore a monstrous head, which, the soldier was warned by a voice in the air at the moment of his crime, would by its mere look destroy all things that it beheld. Accordingly at the proper time he opened the tomb and found the head, carefully averting himself from its gaze. Whenever he exhibited it to his foes they and their cities were destroyed. Afterwards he found another love; and one day, while sailing the sea he was sleeping peacefully in her lap, when she took the opportunity to steal the key and open the casket wherein the head was kept. Her curiosity proved her bane. Her lover awoke and, plunged in grief at the catastrophe, he took out the fatal head, stuck it up and perished with his ship from its glance. Every seven years, it was believed, the head rose to the surface of the sea and imperilled the safety of all who navigated those waters.140.1 Map’s account is that the hero was a cordwainer of exceeding great skill, who flourished at Constantinople in the time of Gerbert, that is to say, about a hundred and fifty years before his own time. Falling in love with a noble maiden whose naked foot he had been called upon to clothe in the course of business, he sold everything and took service in the army, in order to rise in the world and become worthy of her. She, however, died in his absence. The violation of her tomb follows. The Gorgonian head is expressly declared to have stiffened the wretches upon whom its gaze was brought to bear. The soldier at length weds the daughter and heiress of the Emperor. She gives him no peace until he tells her the contents of his casket; and having learnt the secret she tries the effect of the head upon her husband as he wakes from sleep. Having thus fordone him by her wiles, she orders his body and the instrument of his enormities to be cast together into the Grecian Sea. A terrific storm arose when her command was fulfilled; and on its subsiding a vast and destructive whirlpool remained ever thereafter, called Satalia, or more commonly, the Gulf of Satalia, from the maiden’s name.140.2
More nearly akin to the classical myth is a Danish tradition that in former days a troll who dwelt in the Issefiord was accustomed to stop every passing vessel and take a man by way of toll. At last it became known that the troll’s power would endure until the head of Pope Lucius, who had suffered decapitation in Rome ages before, should be shown him. Some monks were accordingly despatched to Rome for the head. “When the ship returned and was about to run into the fiord the troll made his appearance; but as soon as they held forth the head and the troll got a sight of it, he with a horrid howl transformed himself into a rock.” Representations in Roeskilde Cathedral commemorate the event.141.1 One of the commonest of Scandinavian sagas is that which attributes the power of transforming trolls and giants to the sun. The earliest mention of it is in the Helgi poems, which are only known to us in a single manuscript, the Codex Regius at Copenhagen, but which probably date from the tenth century. In one of these poems, Rimegerd, the giantess, whose father Helgi has slain, appears by night and calls on the hero to recompense her for her father’s slaughter. Helgi and Atli his warder detain her in a war of words until the sun rises, when Atli exclaims: “Look eastward now, Rimegerd! Helgi hath stricken thee with the wand of Death.… It is day, Rimegerd! Atli has lured thee to deadly delay. It will be a laughter-moving harbour-mark, methinks, that thou wilt make now thou art turned to stone!” The same catastrophe is implied in the Alvíssmal, also found only in the Codex Regius, but at least as old as the Helgi poems. Allwise the dwarf has come to fetch Freya, whom he has entrapped the Anses into a promise to give him as wife. He comes by night; and one of the Anses detains him with questions calculated to bring out his extensive cosmological knowledge, until the day breaks and the hall is full of sunshine. We are then to understand, from the triumphant expressions of his interlocutor, that the power of the sun effects his petrifaction.142.1 In a Norwegian ballad of Hermod the Young the hero rescues a beautiful maiden from a giantess, riding off with her on Christmas Day. The giantess pursues all night, and is on the point of catching the fugitives, when the sun arises and she is changed to a stone.142.2 Two tall isolated cliffs lift themselves out of the sound between Eysturoy and Streymoy, two of the Færoe Islands. They were a giant and his wife who had been sent from Iceland to drag the Færoe Islands nearer to that island. It was at night. The giant stood in the sea while the giantess took the other end of the rope, and after an ineffectual attempt made it fast to the top of one of the hills. She saw the glimmering of dawn and hastened down; but too late. Before she and her husband could wade back to Iceland with their charge the sun came up out of the sea and they were instantly turned to stone, to stand there for ever looking northward but unable to move from the spot.142.3 These are sufficient as samples of the Scandinavian belief in the transforming influence exercised by the gaze of the sun upon the evil powers of darkness. The incident has passed into a Lapp märchen from Tanen, where a king’s son, by the help of a friendly fox, has stolen a maiden called Evening-glow, the sun’s sister, from some giants who held her captive. The fox leads the pursuing giants astray until the dawn, when he exclaims: “See, there comes the sun’s sister!” They raise their eyes to the morning glow, and are forthwith changed into stone pillars.142.4 The incident here probably owes its origin to the adjacent Norsemen; the Quiché saga of the three tribal gods, Tohil, Avilix, and Hacavitz is, however, quite independent. Originally, we learn, there was neither sun, moon, nor star. When for the first time the sun rose, it petrified these and other ferocious deities, but without taking away from them the power of changing their forms and resuming mobility when they pleased.143.1 According to the story of the inhabitants of Hispaniola, men came out of two caves. A giant, Machakael, was set to guard these caves and prevent mankind from looking upon the light of the sun. One night he wandered from his post, and could not return before sunrise. The sun rose out of the sea and looked with anger upon the giant, who was forthwith turned into a rock called Kauta.143.2
The power of petrification is, however, usually regarded as equivalent to that of striking dead with a glance. This is expressed, as we have already seen,143.3 in the case of Balor of Tory Island. A long list of stories wherein a glance is credited with this terrible might could be culled from every nation, beginning with that of Isis punishing at Byblos an unlucky boy who disturbed her in her grief.143.4 In some cases, as in a variant of the tale of Balor, the baleful eye not only slays but reduces its victim to ashes.143.5 The elephant head of the Hindu god, Ganesa, is a substitute for his original head burned to cinders by the gaze of Sani. Nor is the murderous property confined to supernatural beings. Witches, who of course partake of more than ordinary human qualities, are credited with it. Men of special holiness have sometimes the fatal gift, like Rabbi Juda in rabbinical tradition, who thus killed four-and-twenty of his scholars in a single day;144.1 or a Samoan high-priest of the heavenly gods, whose very look was poison; “if he looked at a cocoa-nut tree it died, and if he glanced at a bread-fruit tree it also withered away.”144.2 Various writers, classic and mediæval, have told us of the women of a certain Scythian tribe, of the Sardinians, or of a remote island in the ocean, whose glance is death.144.3 To such writers we owe the fable of the Catoblepas, or Downlooker, an animal “so wicked and so venomous that no man may behold it right in the face, but he die anon without remedy.” Some of the soldiers of Marius in his expedition against Jugurtha, not knowing the creature and attacking it incautiously, were slain by the eye of this terrible beast.144.4 In various parts of Asia and Africa serpents also have naturally been reputed to possess the same horrible gift; while countries like Spain have not yet parted with the belief in the basilisk.144.5 Among American tribes the superstition and the stories of the deadly glance are found in similar terms to those of the Old World. I have already mentioned the Quiché gods petrified by the sun. The Cegihas have a tale of a mysterious being called Two Faces that slew every one who looked at it.145.1 The Ts’ets’āut of British Columbia account for the prohibition to a man to look at his adult sister by a legend of one of their fore-elders who married his sister. Their brothers were ashamed, tied them together by way of punishment, and deserted them. But the man broke the ropes; and having killed a ram, an ewe and a kid of the mountain-goats, he clad himself, his wife and their child in the skins, and they assumed the shape of goats. “He had acquired the power of killing everything by a glance of his eyes. One day his tribe came up the river for the purpose of hunting, and he killed them. Then he travelled all over the world, leaving signs of his presence everywhere, such as remarkable rocks.”145.2 Iroquois traditions tell of an Onondaga chief, named Tododäho, whose head was covered with tangled serpents, and whose angry look sufficed to strike the beholders dead. He submitted, however, to be tamed, and to have the serpents combed out of his locks.145.3 But the saga which presents the closest parallel to the incident of the Slaughter of the Gorgon comes to us from Brazil, and comes with every mark of indigenous growth. Some of the Brazilian tribes tell of a bird which kills with a look. The story goes that a hunter succeeded in slaying one, and cut off its head, without the dreadful eye being turned upon him. Like Perseus, he killed his game thenceforward by turning the eye upon it. “His wife, not dreaming of its destructive power, however, once turned it toward her husband and killed him, and then accidentally turned it toward herself and died.”146.1
The truth is that we are here in presence of the worldwide belief in the Evil Eye: one more demonstration of the inseparable connection between tale, superstition, and custom. The awful weapon of the mythical Brazilian bird was Medusa’s power, the same as is to-day the terror of the Italian peasant, and is not yet regarded with indifference even in lands, like our own, which boast of being in the van of civilisation. From all parts of the world we read of the superstition that certain persons wield, intentionally or unintentionally—as often the latter as the former—the power of blasting others by their look. This power was dreaded in Palestine from time immemorial. The maxim, “Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an Evil Eye” is found among the Hebrew proverbs; and Jesus Christ alludes to the superstition, though only to warn the Pharisees against “an Evil Eye” as a moral quality proceeding out of the heart.146.2 The superstition has left its traces in language. To the ancient Roman “Envy, eldest born of Hell,” was really Invidia, the Evil Eye; and the English rustic still speaks of being “overlooked.” Wizards and witches are thus gifted, of course: the Evil Eye is amongst their mightiest weapons. But it is by no means theirs alone. Innocent women, according to many nations, are periodically cursed with it. In fact, anybody may have an Evil Eye, even without knowing it; the most sacred personages are not exempt. The Samoan high priest and the Rabbi Juda are examples from the opposite ends of the earth. Pius the Ninth, infallible head of the church as he was, vicar of Christ and what not, was afflicted with the Evil Eye. There was nothing so fatal as his blessing; and the flock he tended cowered and quailed before their shepherd’s sight.147.1
So much has been written of late on the Evil Eye that it is enough to mention in these general terms a superstition at once much less complex and much more fully known to anthropological students than some of those investigated in other chapters of these volumes. Its origin is doubtless to be sought in the evil passions of which the human countenance is so admirable and so terrible an exponent, striking inevitably with horror and awe even beholders who are not the object of the resentment or the jealousy expressed—much more, fascinating and paralysing with fear the unhappy victims, as a bird is said to be fascinated by a snake.147.2
My task draws towards its close. We have now examined the four leading trains of incident as developed in modern folktales belonging to the Perseus cycle. We have found the Supernatural Birth, the Life-token, and the Medusa-witch founded on superstitions common to all mankind and arising in the depths of savagery. The Rescue of Andromeda, on the other hand, appears to be restricted to nations which have attained a certain grade of civilisation, and to spring out of the suppression of human sacrifices to divinities in bestial form.
We have now to return to the story as an artistic whole, and to inquire where and when it originated.
In seeking the origin of the story as a whole it is well to begin with a caution, to which I have alluded in a note to an earlier chapter, namely, that it is dangerous in these matters to assert that a story or a custom is not found outside a given area. Anthropological research is so modern that much material is certain to have already perished unrecorded, and much that still exists as yet is unrecorded, either because it has been overlooked, or because scientific observers have not yet reached it. All assertions or assumptions, therefore, of a negative character must be taken with the limitations imposed by this condition of things. They can only be provisional, for they may, any of them, be upset by further research. Moreover, the mass of anthropological data is already so great, and is growing with such rapidity, that nothing is easier than for a single inquirer, how diligent soever he may be, to overlook facts duly recorded which may be in conflict with his conclusions. To assert, for example, and to base any portion of an argument upon the assertion, that tales of the group under consideration are not found in Hindustan in anything like the shape wherein we find them in Europe, would be to run the risk of having to revise the argument in the face of new discoveries, or of old records which have not been brought to the writer’s knowledge.
Thus much premised, let us turn to the facts so far as we know them. The geographical boundaries within which the story, as a whole, may be found, are the geographical and ethnical boundaries of that stage of culture which forms the seed-plot of the incident of most restricted range. We can only look for it among nations who have approached and passed the level of barbarism where human sacrifices are offered to brutes; for it is only among such that the Rescue of Andromeda can have been conceived. This excludes races like the Australians, who seem never to have practised sacrifices of the kind referred to, even if their country were infested with beasts or reptiles addicted to such food. It does not exclude peoples like the ancient Quiché, who assuredly offered human sacrifices, and whose legend, partly cited in the last chapter, looks back to a time when such offerings were made to wild animals. Among the ferocious gods petrified by the sun when it rose upon the primeval darkness, we are told, were those “connected with the lion, the tiger, the viper, and other fierce and dangerous animals. Perhaps we should not be alive at this moment,” continues the chronicler, “because of the voracity of these fierce animals, had not the sun caused this petrifaction.” But this did not end the mischief; for these gods could recover life and mobility when they pleased. And the four Quiché patriarchs were impelled, apparently by a supernatural vision, to wet their altars with the blood of human victims. Wherefore they watched in their mountain stronghold for lonely travellers belonging to the neighbouring tribes, and, having seized and overpowered them, slew them for a sacrifice; and wherever the blood of a victim was found, there also were always found the tracks of many tigers. This was the craft—so the tale says—of the priests; but at last the tribes that suffered thus found out that the loss of their friends was due not to attacks of wild animals but to the desire of the Quiché patriarchs to provide offerings for their gods; and they made war upon the aggressors. They were beaten by the aid of a miraculous horde of wasps and hornets; but their lives were spared and they became tributaries to the Quiché for ever.150.1 The legend records, in traditional form, the change from the worship of living creatures to that of gods of stone. But it does not record the abandonment of human sacrifices, for that never took place; and being told from the point of view of the conquerors it contains no rescue-incident. What the subject-nations may have had to say upon the matter we do not know. Inasmuch, however, as they probably continued to furnish the victims from time to time, we may assume that no rescue-incident was included in their folklore. At all events the incident has not been recorded among any people on the Western Continent, save in circumstances pointing to importation since the days of Columbus.151.1
In the eastern world it is found from Ireland to Japan, from Scandinavia to Quilimane. If we set aside the story from Quilimane151.2 as sporadic, and introduced by the Portuguese, the southern limit of the extension of the Perseus group may perhaps be fixed on the shores of the Red Sea, where, Ælian tells us, in ancient times Perseus, the son of Zeus, was honoured, and where we may be allowed to indulge the hope that our archæological explorers will sooner or later recover some trace of the tale. Eastward, a variant embodying the incidents of the Life-token, the Rescue of Andromeda, and the Medusa-witch, has been found in Cambodia; and the Rescue of Andromeda has been found alone in Japan. The area, therefore, within which the place of origin is to be sought may roughly be said to include the whole of Europe and Asia, and the parts of Africa which lie to the north and east of the Great Desert.
Comparing the classical version of the legend, as it has come down to us in the writings chiefly of Ovid and Lucian, with what may be regarded as the typical shape of the modern märchen, we are struck by a number of differences, among which we may reckon the difference in the mode of the supernatural conception; the absence from the ancient tale of the Life-token and of the impostor who pretends to have slain the dragon; the displacement of the incident of the Medusa-witch and its elevation in the classical story to a more prominent position than it usually occupies elsewhere; the substitution in modern tales of the Helpful Beasts for the divine gift of weapons; and lastly the enthralling power of Fate, supplying the artistic motive for the romance of Perseus, but absent from most of the folktales gathered in later times. Some of these differences of detail, however, are more apparent than real. In Phineus, who, according to Ovid, invades the wedding banquet, we have an analogue of the impostor. Too cowardly to fight the monster and save his betrothed, he comes forward with a posse of friends to take her by force from the victor, and is only vanquished when Perseus exhibits the Gorgon’s head. It is tempting to suggest that in the prototype of the story Perseus attacked and slew the monster on his outward journey, that he passed on to the slaughter of Medusa before celebrating his union with Andromeda, and that meanwhile Phineus laid claim to the victory and its guerdon, and was confounded on the hero’s return, either by production of the Gorgon’s head, as in Ovid’s text, or by proof in the shape of the dragon’s head or tongue, as in the more modern tales. This conjecture might be supported by the fact that Perseus is represented by Ovid152.1 as using only his sword in the combat with the monster, as well as by the consideration that it supplies a motive for the inexplicable desertion by the victor of the lady whom he has saved from the dragon’s maw, which occurs in so large a number of variants. The order in question does occur, though rarely, in modern stories;153.1 but, as we shall see hereafter, there is a decisive reason against supposing it ever to have formed part of the classical legend.
The versions preserved by the author of the Metamorphoses and in a more fragmentary way by Lucian are substantially similar. That other versions were current in antiquity we know from many sources. I have already in the opening chapter given several instances of inconsistent statements pointing unmistakably to this conclusion. The most important of them for this inquiry are derived from Ælian. Writing in the third century after Christ, he tells us of a fish found in the Red Sea and called after Perseus, who was honoured by the Arabs dwelling on the shore. If the modern märchen did not refer to a fish as the source of life of the twin-heroes this would be puzzling, since no reference is made in the classical saga to a fish. But in face of the facts it seems to show, not merely that the literary form of the saga is only one of two or more current in antiquity, but that one at least of the popular and unrecorded variants included a version of the Supernatural Birth which was allied to that in the Breton tale of The King of the Fishes. The same writer in a later passage associates a marine crustacean with Perseus. Many persons abstained from eating it, because they deemed it sacred. This I understand to be an assertion of a practice not confined to the island of Seriphos; whose inhabitants, Ælian goes on to say, if they found it dead would bury it, if they caught it alive would not keep it in their nets, but returned it to the sea. They would even weep over dead specimens, for they held these creatures to be dear to Perseus, the son of Zeus.154.1 The custom of solemnly burying, and mourning for, dead animals is very widespread, and is connected with totemism.154.2 We are probably right in believing that in the first instance the crustacean referred to was the totem of some of the inhabitants of Seriphos, that the national hero was either identified with it or held to be its offspring, and that in process of time this hero was either accepted and glorified as Perseus, the son of Zeus, by the more polished Greeks of the mainland, or from the similarity of his birth and exploits became merged in the hero of Argos and Mykene. Doubtless in the ruder ages tales common in their origin but independent in their development were told both at Seriphos and on the mainland. As intercourse increased, the tales of Argos and Mykene would become known to the people of Seriphos, and vice versâ, their similarity would be recognised and their heroes identified. If the Seriphiote saga connected its hero with the rock-lobster, which was regarded as a totem, as the triplet boys are connected in the Breton märchen with the King of the Fishes, all the conditions would be fulfilled to account for the Seriphiote practices. We seem here, therefore, to have a third version of the story. The two versions which did not reach literary immortality both brought the hero into close relations with a marine animal. We can hardly doubt that in both cases those relations were such as described in so many of the modern variants.
The next question to consider is that of the relation between the ancient and modern variants of the story. If it were confined to that between the ancient variants and the variants current to-day in Italy and Greece, it would be comparatively simple. The problem is, in fact, much larger; for we have to take into account variants found all over the area, already described, within which the place of origin is to be sought. We cannot conclude, I need hardly say, that the first-recorded version of a tale is the parent of all the rest, or of any of them. Our scepticism must go much further. It often happens that the first-recorded version is one current in a higher grade of civilisation, and therefore more refined and artistic, than a version subsequently gathered from oral tradition. Emphatically is this the case with classical stories and Buddhist parables, as writers on folklore have often observed. But what has not been equally insisted on is, that the reason why these classic stories and Buddhist parables have found their way into literature is because they are the more refined and artistic versions. It is quite certain that if Ovid had had to choose between the picturesque narrative of the shower of gold, with the parentage of the highest god of Olympus, on the one hand, and a totemistic tale about a fish or a rock-lobster on the other hand, he could not have hesitated to which of these sources he should, for literary purposes, assign the begetting of Perseus. So, to take an instance outside the range of the present study, if the compilers of the Jātaka could have chosen between the Tar-baby of Negro story-tellers and the Demon with the matted hair, they would have preserved in their collection the story in the form which actually appears.156.1 Probably neither alternative was actually offered, the causes which would have operated in the mind of the poet or the parable-writer having already wrought, less consciously indeed, but not less effectively, in the popular mind, so as to render, by a process, analogous with that of natural selection, which we may call traditional selection, the version that has reached us predominant over all others. For æsthetic and ethical development speedily outstripped that of abstract thought and criticism. Savages often attain a high degree of taste and skill in the production and ornamentation of their utensils and weapons. The beauty of mediæval architecture has rarely been approached and never been surpassed, though the generations which built the great cathedrals of Europe were under bondage to one of the most cruel and extravagant systems of superstition that the wit of man has elaborated. At the same time in many directions, and at all events theoretically, they had attained a comparatively advanced moral elevation. The arts of poetry and story-telling come to maturity later than the material arts, because they are dependent upon the critical sense; but even they are quite compatible with very gross credulity. No people has displayed a finer critical sense than the ancient Greeks; yet no people has told more absurd stories about its divinities or practised sillier customs; and that, even in the age which produced their most finished sculptures and their most exquisite poems. The unbelief of the philosophers was confined to a small class; and the populace that applauded the verses and appreciated the art of Euripides pinned its faith to omens, found presages in the flight of birds, and gave implicit credence to the magical effect of incantations, to say nothing of the ridiculous and impossible tales about the gods which were part of its religious faith, and as such were literally and devoutly accepted. Yet even among these a process of selection was going forward, tending to eliminate the ruder and coarser, preserving and refining, not necessarily the more credible, but the more artistic. From the more cultured cities of Greece a literary and æsthetic influence was diffused throughout all Greek-speaking communities. To this aggressive influence local beliefs and local customs gradually yielded. They were either identified and amalgamated with the beliefs and customs to which it gave a continually wider and wider currency, gaining in the process a less barbarous exterior; or, if too stubborn for identification and amalgamation, they were thrust aside bit by bit and left to rustics and to slaves. The same process, repeated in the modern world, has caused the powers and distinguishing marks of the ancient superseded deities to be attributed to the Madonna and the saints, and many of the heathen shrines and superstitions to be baptized into the Christian Church. The rest have been relegated to the peasantry, and driven into more and more remote districts by the continual pressure, direct and indirect, of the triumphant religion and the increasing civilisation. So it has been everywhere, not only in Europe, but wherever in the whole world a higher has been carried, either by arms, commerce or persuasion, across the frontiers of a lower culture. We may conclude, therefore, that the story of Danae made its way throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, to the disadvantage of the stories told in various places of the birth of a hero similar in the rest of his life to Perseus, because of its own æsthetic qualities, and because it was accepted by the most intellectual peoples of Greece. These two causes, it will be seen, are at bottom one. For it was precisely the intellectual characteristics of the polished peninsular Greeks which had given the tale its artistic form, and thus fitted it for prevailing over its competitors. Traditional selection, first in the inhabitants of Argos and the neighbourhood, and afterwards in all those with whom they and their allies and fellow-countrymen came into contact, determined its shape and secured its victory.
But though Ovid may have been ignorant of other versions of the story, it is manifest that others existed. And here it is material to observe that the incident of the Rescue of Andromeda stands in the poet’s account on a very different footing from that of the remaining incidents. Though it is now (perhaps by virtue of the Christian symbolism read into it from early days of Christianity) the incident which first springs into the mind on mention of the name of Perseus, in the Metamorphoses it is a mere episode, not organically connected with the hero’s story. The encounter with Andromeda is represented as fortuitous. It is not led up to by the previous narrative. It affects the after-incidents in no way. The dragon is not even petrified by the Gorgon’s head. On the other hand, the fatal prophecy is the foundation of all the rest of the saga, from which nothing could be omitted (save, it may be, the visit to Atlas) without impairing the natural, the inevitable, development of the legend as an artistic whole. We must infer that the Rescue is an intrusive episode, and that, as in many modern variants, the tale comprised at first only the other two trains of incident, already characterised as the Birth and the Quest of the Gorgon’s Head. The remaining versions current in antiquity, or some of them, probably omitted Andromeda with all her picturesque possibilities; and it may be permitted to conjecture that the story we regard as classical may have been formed by the imperfect fusion of a legend consisting of the Birth and the Quest of the Gorgon’s Head, with one recognised for some reason as kindred, and consisting only of the Birth and the Rescue of Andromeda. The Albanian märchen, related in our opening chapter, may represent the latter by direct transmission, while the sagas involved in Ælian’s allusions—perchance also as known to Herodotus—may have been guiltless of the fight with the Dragon.
We cannot pursue the conjecture into the region of probabilities, because of the obvious confusion of the Albanian tale, and of the imperfect state of our knowledge with regard to local legends not taken up into Greek and Roman literature, and with regard to Egyptian and Babylonian cults. The Tuscan tale from Pratovecchio159.1 seems, however, to have descended in right line from the familiar version of Ovid and Lucian—not, that is to say, from their writings, but from the oral sources whence they drew—though on its way to us it has not passed wholly uncontaminated by other streams. But can we venture to assert the same either of the Irish, German, Swedish, and Russian tales which I have assigned to the Danae type; or of the various modern Italian and Greek stories wherein the hero’s birth is ascribed to entirely different causes? Of the latter, some are perhaps derived from local variants current in antiquity. Yet even to assume this will carry us but a little way towards the solution of the problem of origin of a märchen told as far afield as Ireland and Cambodia.
The legend in classical literature is the product of a comparatively high stage of civilisation. In proof of this, it is only necessary to refer to the divine gift of weapons. The helmet, the shield of metal, brightly polished as a mirror, the sword, are not the weapons of the unsophisticated savage. They are replaced in a large number of modern variants by the gift of Helpful Animals. Now, everywhere in the lowest planes of culture we find stories of birds, beasts, reptiles, and even insects, talking and acting in human fashion, sometimes hostile, more usually perhaps helpful to man. It would seem as though man, at variance with his fellow-man, and therefore having unintermittent reason to suspect him, beset, too, by the awful supernatural powers of his imagination, turned for sympathy, perforce, and consolation to his fellow-creatures of a different shape, whom he credited with ability to aid him in his need. No line was drawn between nature and that which was beyond or above nature. But while he imagined in his own form the powers whose enmity he dreaded, he sought, of necessity, his allies among those of other forms. He observed their characteristics; he experienced their usefulness in supplying his wants; he felt himself akin to them; out of them he framed totems, and ultimately gods. The modern incident, therefore, of the Helpful Animals cannot be derived from the classical gift of weapons; for not only is it utterly different in character, but it comes up from a deeper depth of barbarism. Thus it constitutes a strong presumption that the stories wherein it occurs, however they may have been modified in the course of ages, are not to be traced back to the classic literary saga. Still less can we venture to assert that they are derived from the local variants of antiquity. They would be likely to owe their origin rather to a tale already common property, than to one merely local. And of the local variants we only know that Perseus was connected in one of them with a fish; whereas the corresponding heroes of modern variants are frequently so connected, while they are never connected with a crustacean, but often with other artificial means of generation, not noticed in any of the hints that have reached us from ancient times.
To elucidate the matter, I have compiled and placed in an Appendix tables of the variants accessible to me. I do not, of course, pretend that they are complete. Statistics of the kind never are; and they must not be taken for more than they are worth. Still, I have no reason to think that they would be seriously modified by the addition of other variants. If we glance at Table A we shall see that out of 110 examples (comprising stories properly belonging to the cycle, and also stories wherein the Rescue of Andromeda is the only incident belonging to the Legend of Perseus) forty-four represent the Helpful Beasts as congenital with the heroes, while four others represent some of the Beasts as congenital, the rest of them being obtained in another way. By congenital I mean born of the same material which causes the birth of the heroes, as in the case of the fish, where one part given to the woman originates the children, and another given to a mare or a bitch originates the foals or the puppies. This, the most savage conceit of the manner in which the Helpful Beasts were obtained, is thus found in more than forty-one per cent. of the stories. They are told throughout the whole of Europe, from Donegal to Georgia, from Sweden to Greece. One of them, indeed, has been carried, as we may assume, from Portugal to Quilimane, where the origin of the Helpful Beasts is reproduced by the natives in the most intensely savage form of all; for the woman gives birth not only to the heroes but to their dogs, and even their spears and their guns. In ten cases in the table the Beasts are given by their parent animals, while in ten others (or eleven, if we add, as we probably may, the Servian case162.1) they attach themselves to the heroes out of gratitude.162.2 The total percentage of stories in which the Beasts attach themselves, or are given by the parent animals out of gratitude, to the heroes is thus nearly twenty. In sixteen cases, less than fifteen per cent., they are obtained by exchange of some other animals, or of arms or corn. In nine cases, or little more than eight per cent., they are acquired from conquered foes; while in only eight cases, a still smaller percentage, they are obtained in the classical way from a mysterious personage. If we add the two classes of exchange and gift by a mysterious personage together, we obtain twenty-four cases, or a little under twenty-two per cent., of which three alone properly belong to the Perseus group: that is, contain more than one of the four chief trains of incident which compose it. One of these three is the Tuscan story I have already indicated as probably a direct descendant of the classical tale. The rest of the twenty-four come from different parts of European Russia, Transylvania, Bohemia, Germany, Italy, the Celtiberian Peninsula, Brittany, and Achill Island, two variants having been carried to North America, possibly by the French.
If we turn to Table B, relating to the Gift of Weapons, we find results not very different. Out of a total number of seventy-two stories, twenty-two (or thirty per cent.) represent the Weapons as congenital. These are all from Central Europe, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Sicily, Spain and Portugal, including the story from Quilimane; and they all belong to the Perseus group. Then we have twelve, or, if we add the Lithuanian tale in which the Weapons are taken from an uninhabited house, thirteen variants, or eighteen per cent., in which the Weapons are obtained from conquered foes. None of these thirteen stories contain any other of the four chief trains of incident than the Rescue of Andromeda. They are more widely spread than the former, ranging from the west of Ireland to Lithuania and the Levant. There are next seven instances (just under ten per cent.) in which the Weapon is forged to order or bought by the hero. Of these, three come from Scotland, one from Brittany, one is Basque, one is found in the island of Syra, and one in Georgia. Lastly, we have ten cases in which the Weapons are given by a mysterious person without any consideration, two in which they are given to redeem stolen eyes, five in which they are given out of gratitude, two in payment for services rendered or in exchange, and one in which they are given by a fish: in all, twenty cases, or not quite twenty-eight per cent.