La gallina cantaturaNun si vinni, nè si duna,Si la mancia la patruna.[427]Cfr.Afanassieff, i. 3, ii. 30; sometimes, instead of the hen's feet we have the dog's paws; cfr. v. 28.[428]Concerning this subject I can add an unpublished story which Signor S. M. Greco sends me from Cosenza in Calabria:—A poor girl is alone in the fields; she plucks a rampion, sees a stair, goes down, and comes to the palace of the fairies, who at sight of her are smitten with love. She asks to be allowed to go back to her mother, and obtains permission; she tells her mother that she hears a noise every night, without seeing anything, and is advised to light a candle and she will see. Next evening the girl does so, and sees a youth of great beauty with a looking-glass on his breast. The third evening she does the same, but a drop of wax falls upon the looking-glass and wakens the youth, who cries out lamentably, "Thou shalt go hence." The girl wishes to go away; the fairies give her a full clew of thread, with the advice that she must go to the top of the highest mountain and leave the clew to itself; where it goes, thither must she follow. She obeys, and arrives at a town which is in mourning on account of the absence of the prince; the queen sees the girl from the window and makes her come in. After some time she gives birth to a handsome son, and a shoemaker, who works by night, begins to sing—"Sleep, sleep, my son;If your mother knew some dayThat you are my son,In a golden cradle she would put you to sleep,And in golden swaddling-clothes.Sleep, sleep, my son."The queen then learns from the girl, that he who sings thus is the prince, who is destined to stay far from the palace until the sun rises without him perceiving it. Orders are then given to kill all the fowls in the town, and to cover all the windows with a black veil scattered over with diamonds, in order that the prince may believe it is still night and may not perceive the rising of the sun. The prince is deceived, and marries the maiden who is the fairies' favourite, and they lived happy and contented,Whilst I, if you will believe me,Found myself with a thorn in my foot.[429]Die schlaue Alte brachte bald heraus, was der Dorfhahn hinter ihrem Rücken der jungsten Tochter ins Ohr gekräht hatte; Kreutzwald u. Löwe,Ehstnische Märchen.[430]In the annals of the city of Debreczen, in the year 1564, we read as follows: "Æterna et exitialis memoria de incendio trium ordinum in anno præsenti: feria secunda proxima ante fest. nat. Mariæ gloriosæ exorta est flamma et incendium periculosum in platea Burgondia; eadem similiter ebdomade exortum est incendium altera vice, de platea Csapo de domo inquilinari Stephani literati, multas domos ... in cinerem redegit, et quod majus inter cætera est, nobilissimi quoque templi divi Andreæ et turris tecturæ combustæ sunt, ex qua turri et ejus pinnaculo, gallus etiam æreus, a multis annis insomniter dies ac noctes jejuno stomacho stans et in omnes partes advigilans, flammam ignis sufferre non valens, invitus devolare, descendere et illam suam solitam stationem deserere coactus est, qui gallus tantæ cladis commiserescens ac nimio dolore obmutescens de pinnaculo desiliendio, collo confracto in terram coincidens et suæ vitæ propriæ quoque non parcens, fidele suum servitium invitus derelinquendo, misere expiravit et vitam suam finivit sic."[431]Reinsberg von Düringsfeld observes (Das festliche Jahr), that sometimes, for jest, in North Walsham, instead of the cock an owl is put,—another funereal symbol with which we are already acquainted.[432]Not only the egg of the hen is a symbol of abundance, but even the bones of fowls served in popular tradition to represent matrimonial faith and coition. In Russia, when two (probably husband and wife) eat a fowl together, they divide the bone of the neck, the English merrythought, between them; then each of them takes and keeps a part, promising to remember this rupture. When either of the two subsequently presents something to the other, the one who receives must immediately say, "I remember;" if not, the giver says to him, "Take and remember." The forgetful one loses the game. A similar game, called the verde or green, is played in Tuscany during Lent between lovers with a little twig of the box-tree.[433]The sun is an egg at the beginning of day; he becomes, or finds, an apple-tree in the evening, in the western garden of the Hesperides.[434]The Indian wordkapotas, which means a dove, also indicates the grey colour of antimony, the colour of the commonest species of doves, and of those which are fed on St Mark's Place at Venice.[435]Çivaḥ kapota ishito no astu anâgâ devâḥ çakuno gṛiheshu; str. 2.—For the fourth strophe, cfr. the chapter which treats of the Owl.[436]ii. 9.[437]ii. 239.—Cfr. the chapter on the Eagle.[438]It appears to me that the same confusion arose betweencoluberandcolumbaas betweenchelüdros, a kind of serpent, andchelidôn, a swallow. The beautiful maiden upon a tree occurs even in theTuti-Name, i. 178,seq.[439]ii. 7, and v. 9[440]They were related to me at Antignano near Leghorn by the peasant woman Uliva Selvi:—A gentleman had twelve sons and one daughter, who had, by enchantment, been metamorphosed into an eagle, and was kept in a cage. The father takes the twelve sons to mass every day; every day he meets an old beggar-woman and gives alms to her; one day, however, he has no money with him, and therefore gives her nothing; the old woman curses him, wishing that he may never see his sons again. No sooner said than done; the twelve sons become twelve doves and fly away. The despairing father and mother begin to weep; in their despair they forget to feed the eagle. Opposite the gentleman's house the king lived, who becomes enamoured of the eagle as though of a beautiful maiden; he has her stolen and replaced by another eagle. Not far thence there lived a washerwoman who had such a beautiful daughter that she never let her go out except at night. They wash at the fountain surrounded by poplar-trees; at midnight, as they wash, they hear a noise among the poplar-trees, and the maiden is afraid. One night they listen and hear the doves speaking and telling one another the incidents of the day, where they had been and what they had been doing. They then fly into a beautiful garden; the girl follows them; they enter into a beautiful palace, and the washerwoman relates what she has seen to the gentleman, who rejoices, and promises a great reward to the washerwoman if she will show him where his sons go to sleep. Both father and mother go to see; the pigeons speak, and say, "Were our mother to see us ..."; they then fly away. The gentleman then consults an astrologer, who advises him to allure the old witch into his house by the promise of alms, to shut her up in a room, and to compel her by main force to indicate the means of turning the pigeons into youths once more, or else to kill her. The old woman gives a powder which, when scattered on the highest mountain, will make the pigeons return home. The father goes to the mountain, scatters the powder and returns home, where he finds his sons, who are inquiring after the eagle. They go to see it and do not recognise it; they complain to their mother of this. Meanwhile, the young king is always near his eagle as if making love to it; and his mother is displeased at it. The twelve brothers meet a fairy who, for some alms, tells who has their eagle, and that it will soon return home a beautiful maiden. And the eagle becomes a beautiful girl and is married by the king.There was once a king who had a handsome son, enamoured of a beautiful princess. He is carried off with two servants by the magicians and transformed into a pigeon; the servants undergo the same metamorphosis; one becomes green, one red, and the other greyish violet (pavonazzo). They take him into a beautiful palace where he must stay for seven years. Each has a large basin,—one is of gold, another of silver, and the third of bronze. When they plunge into them, they become three handsome youths. The princess, meanwhile, is dying to know where her lover is gone; she goes to have her hair combed on a terrace; the three pigeons carry away her looking-glass, then the ribbon of her hair, and then her comb. A great festival occurs in this town, to which the girls of the land go by night; on the way, one of them, near the break of day, turns aside for a few minutes; she sees a golden gate, finds a little gold key on the earth, opens the door and enters into a fine garden. At the end of the path there is a beautiful palace, into which she goes; she finds the three basins of gold, silver, and bronze, and sees the pigeons become young men. Meanwhile the king's daughter falls ill of grief, and is to all appearance dying; the king resolves to have her cured at any cost. The girl who had been in the place relates to the king's daughter all that she has seen; the latter is cured and goes with the girl to the palace; they find it, enter, and see a table laid for three persons; the two girls hide themselves. The prince and the princess meet with one another; but the prince, upon seeing her, is full of despair, saying that her impatience has prolonged the enchantment for seven years more, whilst it had at the time only three more days to run. He becomes a pigeon again; she must stay for seven years upon a tower exposed to all the inclemency of the seasons. Seven years pass by; the princess has become so ugly that she looks like a beast, with long hair all over her burned skin. The enchantment comes to an end for him after seven years; he goes to look for her; she says, "How much have I suffered for you!" The prince does not recognise her, and leaves her; she is left naked in a dense forest, and goes to seek her father. Night comes on, and the princess and her servant-maid do not know where to take refuge; they climb up a tree, whence they perceive a light. They walk towards it and find a beautiful little palace; a beautiful lady, a fairy, shows herself, and asks, "Is this you, Caroline?" This was the princess's name. But the fairy can give no news of the prince, and sends her on to another fairy, her sister, with the same result; she then goes to a third fairy, walking a double distance each time. The three fairies were three queens who had been betrayed by the same young prince. The third fairy gives to the princess a magical rod; she must go to the prince and do to him what he did to her—spit in his face, to wit. She is brought in a boat before the young king's palace, and there, following the fairy's instructions, she raises, by means of the rod, a beautiful palace, a palace more beautiful than that of the king, with a beautiful fountain. The young king wishes to go and see it; he sees a beautiful princess and kisses his hand to her, but she shuts the window in his face. He then invites her to dinner, but she refuses. He sends her a magnificent diamond, which she gives to her majordomo, saying that she has many more beautiful. He then sends her a splendid dress, which can be taken in the palm of the hand; she tears it into pieces and gives it to the cook to be used for kitchen purposes. The young king becomes passionately enamoured of her, and sends to her his best watch, which she gives also to her majordomo. He falls ill of a dreadful fever and wishes to marry her; he sends his mother. The princess laughs at the prince and refuses to come, saying, "Why does he not come himself?" His mother begs again that she will come. "Let him come," she answers; and at last she consents to come if they will make from her palace to that of the king a covered way so well and thickly made that not a ray of light can enter, and which she may be able to pass through with her equipage. Half way, the covering opens, and the sunbeams enter, upon which she disappears. (Cfr. the Indian myth of Urvaçî). The king being about to die, his mother returns to the princess, who demands that they bring him to her as if dead, in a bier. The king confesses that he has betrayed four maidens, and that it is on account of the fourth that he is coming to such a miserable end. The princess laughs at him and spits twice in his face; the third time he rises again, they are reconciled and married. (The spitting of the princess, which makes the dead prince rise again, is the dew of the ambrosia, or of spring, which brings the sun to life again.)—Cfr. the stories ii. 5, iv. 8, of thePentamerone, and v. 22 ofAfanassieff.[441]It is said of the widowed turtle-dove that it will never drink again in any fountain of limpid water for fear of reviving the image of its lost companion by seeing its own in the water. The Christians pretend that the voice of the turtle-dove represents the cry, the sighing, and afterwards, for the resurrection of Christ, the joy of Mary Magdalen. Ælianos says that the turtle-dove is sacred not only to the goddess of love, and to the goddess of harvests, but also to the funereal Parcæ.[442]In the legend of St Remy it is a dove that carries to the saint the flagon of water with which he must baptize King Clodoveus.[443]"Et ille nunc superbus et superfluensPerambulabit omnium cubilia,Ut albulus columbus, aut Adoneus?Cinæde Romule, hæc videbis et feres?"The chastity and the proverbial conjugal fidelity attributed to doves is here denied. Catullus had evidently closely observed the habits of these animals, which are sometimes, on the contrary, of a shameless infidelity. I have seen a white dove, who, in the presence of his wife, intent upon hatching her eggs, violated the nuptial bed of a gray dove, at a moment when the jealous husband was eating; the wife accepted the caresses of the husband and of the lover in the same passive attitude.[444]We may also record here another Italian proverb, "To take two doves with one bean." In Italian anatomy a part of the phallos is called a bean (fava). The birds, and especially the thrushes and the doves, according to the popular belief, not only have the faculty of making other birds, but even plants fruitful. The words of Pliny,Hist. Nat.xvi. 44, have already been quoted by Prof. Kuhn: "Omnino autem satum nullo modo nascitur, nec nisi per alvum avium redditum, maxime palumbis ac turdis."[445]Çvasity apsu haṅso na sîdan kratvâ ćetishṭho viçâm usharbhut;Ṛigv.i. 65, 9.[446]Bîbhatsûnâṁ sayuǵam haṅsam âhur apâṁ divyânâṁ sakhye ćarantam; x. 124, 9.[447]Haṅsâir iva sakhibhir vâvadadbhir açmanmayâni nahanâ vyasyan bṛihaspatir abhi kanikradad gâ; x. 67, 3.[448]Sasvaç cid dhi tanvaḥ çumbhamânâ â haṅsâso nîlapṛishṭhâ apaptan; vii. 59, 7.[449]Cfr. the chapter which treats of the Bee.[450]vi. 2.[451]Adhi bṛibuḥ paṇînâṁ varshishṭhe mûrdhann asthât uruḥ kaksho na gâñgyaḥ;Ṛigv.vi. 45, 31.—Bṛibuṁ sahasradâtamaṁ sûriṁ sahasrasâtamam; vi. 45, 33.—Cfr. also the 32d strophe.[452]Ṛigv.vi. 46.[453]The goose is found in connection with robbers in the twenty-third story of the sixth book ofAfanassieff. Two servants stole a precious pearl from the king; being about to be found out, they give the pearl, by the advice of an old woman, to the grey goose in a piece of bread; the goose is then accused of having stolen the pearl. It is killed, the pearl is found, and the two robbers escape.[454]v. 55.—In the forty-ninth story of the fifth book ofAfanassieff, a riddle occurs where the betrothed wife is represented as a duck. A father sends his son to find the wife who is predestined for him, with the following enigmatical order: "Go to Moscow; there there is a lake; in the lake there is a net; if the duck has fallen into the net, take the duck; if not, withdraw the net." The son returns home with the duck—that is to say, with his betrothed wife.[455]ii. 46.[456]iv. 11.[457]iii. 75.[458]Cfr.Afanassieff, vi. 17, and a variety of the vi. 19.[459]Cfr. an interesting variety of this story in theGriechische und Albanische Märchenof Hahn.[460]Thus, in a Norwegian story, the dirty cinder-girl carries silver ducks away from the magicians.—In the eighth Esthonian story, the third brother is sent to hell for the ducks and geese with golden feathers.[461]In a Scandinavian and Italian variety of this story, instead of the goose we have the eagle and eaglets; the goose returns, in the first story of the fifth book of thePentamerone, to do the same duty as in the Russian story, but with some more vulgar and less decent incidents.[462]The image of the legs which, when they move, make flowers grow up, is very ancient; students of Hindoo literature will remember the pushpiṇyâu ćarato ǵanghe of theÂitareya Br., in the story of Çunaḥçepas.[463]The ninth of theNovelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaiais an interesting variety of this; the beautiful maiden who feeds the geese is disguised in an old woman's skin; the geese, who see her naked, cry out: "Cocò, la bella padrona ch 'i' ho," until the prince, by means of a noiseless file, makes the cook enter the room and carry the old woman's skin away while she sleeps, and then weds her.—The following unpublished story, communicated to me by Signor Greco from Cosenza in Calabria, is a variation of that of thePentamerone:—Seven princes have a very beautiful sister. An emperor decides upon marrying her, but upon the condition that if he does not find her to his taste, he will decapitate her seven brothers. They set out altogether, and the mother-in-law with her daughter follow them. On the way, the sun is hot, and the elder brother cries out, "Solabella, defend me from the heat, for you must please the king." The step-mother advises her to take off her necklaces and to put them on her half-sister. The second brother next complains of the heat, and the step-mother advises her to take off her gold apparel and to put it on her half-sister. By such means the step-mother at last succeeds in making her naked; they come to the sea, and the step-mother pushes her in; she is taken by a siren, who holds her by her foot with a golden chain. The princes arrive with the ugly sister; the king weds the ugly wife and cuts off the heads of the seven brothers. When the maiden is wandering about in the sea, she asks the king's ducks for news of her brothers; the ducks answer that they have been executed. She weeps; the tears become pearls and the ducks feed upon them. This marvel comes to the ears of the king, who follows the ducks and asks the girl why she shuns the society of men; to which she answers: "Alas! how can I, who am fastened by a golden chain?" and then relates everything. Having recognised his bride, the king gives her this advice: she must ask how, after the siren's death, she would be able to free herself; and then he departs. Next day, Solabella tells the king that the siren will not die, because she lives in a little bird, enclosed in a silver cage which is shut up in a marble case, and seven iron ones, of which she has the keys, and that if the siren died, a horseman, a white horse, and a long sword would be necessary to cut the chain. The king brings her a certain water, which he advises her to give the siren to drink; she will then fall asleep, and the girl will be able to take the keys and kill the little bird. When it is killed, the white horse plunges into the sea, and the sword cuts the chain. Then the king takes his beautiful bride to his palace, and the old step-mother is burned in a shirt of pitch; the seven brothers are rubbed with an ointment which brings them to life again, each exclaiming, "Oh! what a beautiful dream I have had!"[464]The old ogress of the ninth story of the fifth book of thePentamerone, who keeps three beautiful maidens shut up in three citron-trees, and who feeds the asses which kick the swans upon the banks of the river, is a variety of the same myth.[465]Instead of geese, swans were also solemnly eaten; a popular mediæval German song in Latin offers the lamentation of the roasted swan; cfr. Uhland'sSchriften, iii. 71, 158.—In thePańćatantram, we have the swan sacrificed by the owl. In order to allure the swan, the funereal owl, who wishes to kill it, invites it into a grove of lotus-flowers, only, however, to decoy it subsequently into a dark cavern, where the swan is killed by some travelling merchants, who believe it to be an owl.[466]In theEddas, when the hero Sigurd expires, the geese bewail his death.[467]Cfr. also, with regard to this subject, the twenty-fourth Esthonian story of the princess born in the egg, of whom her brother, born in a more normal manner of the queen, becomes enamoured.[468]The parrot is sung of by Statius in connection with the same birds in the second book of theSylvæ—"Lux volucrum plagæ, regnator EoæQuam non gemmata volucri Junonia caudaVinceret, aspectu gelidi non phasidis ales."[469]A pathetic elegy in Sanskṛit distiches, of a Buddhist character, of which I do not now remember the source, presents us the çukas, or parrot, who wishes to die when the tree açokas, which has always been his refuge, is dried up.[470]Such as, for instance, the following unpublished story, communicated to me by Dr Ferraro, which is related in the Monferrato, and of which I have also heard, in my childhood, a variation at Turin:—A king, going to the wars, and fearing that another king, who is his rival, will profit by his absence to seduce his wife, places by her side one of his friends transformed into a parrot; this friend warns her to remain faithful every time that the rival king sends to tempt the queen by means of a cunning old woman. The queen pays attention to the parrot's advice, and remains faithful till the husband's return. This is, in a few words, the contents of the seventy Hindoo tales of the parrot, of which theTuti-Nameis a Persian version.—In the story which I heard at Turin, the wife is, on the contrary, unfaithful and covers the parrot's cage that it may not see; she then fries some fishes in the guest's honour; the parrot thinks that it is raining. The fish and the rain remind us of the myth of the phallical and pluvial cuckoo.[471]Cfr. the chapter on the Crow.[472]"Wie wir den Hugschapler sogar auf den Pfauen schwören sehen, legten sie die Angelsachsen auf den Schwan ab (R. A. 900), den wir wohl nach den obigen Gesange Ngördhs, S. 343 als den ihm geheiligten Vogel (ales gratissima nautis, Myth. 1074) zu fassen haben, &c." Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 347.—A Hindoo proverb considers the dove in connection with the peacock; it says, "Better a pigeon to-day than a peacock to-morrow" (Varamadya kapoto na çvo mayûraḥ). According to theOrnithologiaof Aldrovandi, the peacocks are the doves' friends, because they keep serpents and all venomous animals at a distance.[473]The Russian fable of Kriloff presents to us the ass as a judge between the nightingale (the kokilas of Western poets) and the cock in a trial of singing; in Sanskṛitçikhin, or crested, means cock and peacock; besides mayûras, peacock, we have mayûraćaṭakas, the domestic cock. Mayûras is also the name of a Hindoo poet.—In the chapter on the Cuckoo we saw the cuckoo and the nightingale as rivals in singing; the kokilas and the peacock are the equivalents of the nightingale and the cuckoo; we have also identified the cuckoo with the swallow, and seen the swallows as rivals of the swans in singing; cfr. the chapter on the Crow.[474]Hence Aldrovandi writes with reason, that the smoke of the burnt feathers of a peacock (that is, of the celestial peacock), when taken into the eyes, cures them of their redness.[475]Â mandrâir indra haribhir yâhi mayûraromabhiḥ;Ṛigv.iii. 45, 1.[476]Â tvâ rathe hiraṇyaye harî mayûraçepyâ; viii. 1, 25.—Klearchos relates in Athênaios, that a peacock in Leucas loved a maiden so much, that when she died it also immediately expired.[477]According to thePańćatantram(i. 175), in the very house of Çivas (the phallical god), the animals make war against each other; the serpent (the night) wishes to eat the mouse (which seems here to be the grey twilight); the peacock (here, perhaps, the moon), wishes to eat the serpent (cfr. the preceding notes; according to Ælianos, a certain man who wished to steal from the King of Egypt a peacock, supposed to be sacred, found an asp in its stead); the lion (the sun) wishes to eat the peacock. (The Hindoo name of mayûrâris, or enemy of the peacock, given to the chameleon, is remarkable; the animal which changes its colour is the rival of the bird which is of every colour; gods and demons are equally viçvarûpâs and kâmarûpas.)[478]Indras, as a warlike god, does not know fear, or rather, he kills fear (the hymn says, "Aher yâtâraṁ kam apaçya indra hṛidi yat te ǵaghnuso bhîr agaććhat";Ṛigv.i. 32, 14), and lets himself be terrified by a trifle, which may be either a nightly shadow (the dark man of fairy tales), or the terror caused to him by some fish (the moon) which leaps upon him in the waters which he himself has set free.—In the twenty-second of the Tuscan stories published by me, the young hero who passed through all the dangers of hell without being afraid, dies at the sight of his own shadow. (We have also referred to this when treating of the dog and the lion who meet with their death, allured by their own shadow.)—In the forty-sixth story of the fifth book ofAfanassieff, the merchant's son, who did not know fear, who feared neither darkness nor brigands nor death, is terrified and dies when he falls into the water, because the little perch entered into his bosom whilst he was sleeping in his fishing-boat.—It is also easy to pass from the idea of Indras, who inebriates himself in thesomato that of the fish, when we consider that the Hindoo wordmatsyas, the fish, properly means the inebriated, from the rootmad, to inebriate and to make cheerful.[479]Açnâpinaddham madhu pary apaçyam matsyaṁ na dîna udani kshiyantam;Ṛigv.x. 68, 8.[480]Mbh.2371-2392.[481]Mbh.i. 5078-5086.—In another variety of the same myth, the semen of the wise Bharadvâǵas comes out at the sight of a nymph; the sage receives it in a cup, out of which comes Droṇas, the armourer and archerpar excellence; i. 5103-5106.[482]v. 27.[483]Râmây.ii. 92.[484]Cfr. Böhtlingk,Indische Sprüche, i. 59.[485]Revad uvâha saćano ratho vâṁ vṛishabhaç ça çiṅçumâraç ća yuktâ.[486]Our readers will not be astonished at seeing the dolphin, the whale, and the sea-urchin classed here with fishes. We are not treating of natural history according to the classifications of science, but of the gross classifications made by impressionable popular imaginations. Thus, amongst the animals of the water we shall find the serpent described, although it be amphibious, because popular belief makes the dragon watch over the waters.[487]The pike becomes in spring of an azure or bluish or greenish-blue colour; hence the name ofgolubbi—però(that is, of the azure or bluish fins; in German, the bluish colour is calledecht-grau—that is, grey of pike; in the nineteenth of the Russian stories ofErlenwein, golden fins are ascribed to the pike), which is also given to it in Russia.Golub, or brown, violet and azure, is a name given in Russia to the dove; so in Italy we say, that the dove ispavonazzo(properly the colour of the peacock, which is generally blue and green). But in Sanskṛit, amongst the names of the peacock there is that ofharis, a word which represents both the moon and the sun. By the same analogy, the bluish or greenish pike may represent the moon. But another analogy, caused by a similar conception, is found again in the wordçyâmas, which means black, azure, and also silvery; whence it serves to represent theconvolvolus argenteus(we must remember that the Latin name of the pike islucius; the Greek,lükios—that is, the luminous one). The pike takes the colour of the water in which it lives, and the waters are dark, black, azure, greenish, silvery; as being azure, or greenish, or silvery, the pike represents the moon; as being dark, the tenebrific night, the cloud, the wintry season.—In the thirty-second story of the fourth book ofAfanassieff, the little perch relates that the pike was once luminous (that is, in spring), and that it became black after the conflagration which took place in the Lake of Rastoff from the day of St Peter (June 29) to the day of St Elias (July 20), or in the beginning of summer. As we learn in thePseudo-Callisthenes, near the black stone, which makes black whoever touches it, there are fishes which are cooked in cold water, and not at the fire, I recollect here also that theHecht-könig, or king of pikes, is described as yellow and black-spotted.[488]Afanassieff, v. 22.[489]Afanassieff, i. 2.—Cfr. the eleventh of theNovelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia; a monstrous fish devours the princess; the fish is said to be a shark (pesce cane); and v. 8 of thePentamerone.[490]Cfr.Afanassieff, ii. 24.[491]Cfr.Afanassieff, v. 55, vi. 32.—It is the same fish which, saved by the girl who is persecuted by her step-mother, comes to her assistance, separates the wheat from the barley for her (like the Madonna, the purifying moon-fairy, the nightly cleanser of the sky), and gives splendid robes to her, in vi. 29.—In the story v. 54, instead of the pike as a fœcundator we find the bream, which is also called "of the golden fins" (szlatopioravo), of which the colours are the same as those of the pike.[492]In the nineteenth Russian story ofErlenwein, and in a variety of the same in the last book of Afanassieff's stories.—In an unpublished story of the Monferrato, communicated to me by Dr Ferraro, a fisherman catches a large fish which says to him, "Let me go, and you will always be fortunate." The wife of the fisherman opposes this, roasts and eats the fish, from whose bones are born to the fisherman three sons, three horses, and three dogs. Evidently the story has been corrupted.[493]Cfr. Salvianus,Aquatilium Animalium Historiæ, Romæ, 1554.[494]At Berlin, children sing on the first of April—"April! April! April!Man kann den Narren schicken wohin man will."[495]Another custom concerning herrings is described by Baron von Reinsberg, relating to Ash-Wednesday, when people return from church in Limburg: "Begiebt man sich zuerst nach Hause, um nach gewohnter Weise den Häring abzubeissen. Sobald man nämlich aus der Kirche kommt, wird ein Häring, nun muss jeder mit geschlossenen Beinen, die Arme fest an den Leib gedrückt, in die Höhe springen und dabei suchen, ein Stück abzubeissen." And Karl Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 561, writes: "In der Mark muss man zu Neujahr Hirse oder Häringe essen, im Wittenbergischen Heringssalat, so hat man das ganze Jahr über Geld."[496]Cfr. Salvianus,ut supra. The habit certain fishes have of ejecting froth from the mouth may have suggested a phallical image.[497]Bei Hans Sachs, Nürnberger, Ausgabe von 1560, ii. 14, 96, Eine Frau und Magd essen den für den Herrn bestimmten Aal; eine Elster schwatzt es aus; ran sich zu rächen, rupfen die Weiber ihr den Kopf kahl. Daher man sprichwörtlich von einem kahlen Mönche sagt: der hat gewiss vom Aale ausgeschwatzt; Menzel,Die Vorchristliche Unsterblichkeits-Lehre.[498]In the same: "So erzählt Gilbert bei Leibnitz Script. rer. Brunsw. i. 987. Ein Frauenzimmer, welches Aal gegessen, habe plötzlich Alles sehen können was unter Wasser war."[499]It is well known that the wordikshvâkushas been referred to the wordikshus, the sugar-cane. In the fortieth canto of the first book of theRâmâyaṇam, one of the two wives of Sagaras gives birth to a son who continues his race; the other wife gives birth to an ikshvâkus (gourd or cane) containing 60,000 sons.[500]Cfr, Du Cange,s. v., and Salvianus, the work quoted before.[501]In the thirteenth story of the first book ofAfanassieff(of which the Bohemian story ofGrandfather Vsievedasis a well-known variety), the whale complains that all the footmen and horsemen pass over it and consume it to the bones. It begs the hero Basilius to ask the serpent how long it has still to undergo this fate; the serpent answers, when it has vomited forth the ten vessels of the rich Mark.—In the eighth story of the fourth book of thePentamerone, the whale teaches Cianna the way to find the mother of time, requiring her, in recompense, to be informed of the way in which the whale may be able to swim freely to and fro in the sea without encountering rocks and sandbanks. Cianna brings back for answer, that it must make friends with the sea-mouse (lo sorece marino, perhaps the same as the sea-urchin), which will serve as its guide.—In the eighth story of the fifth book of thePentamerone, the little girl is received in the sea by a large enchanted fish, in whose belly she finds beautiful companions, gardens, and a beautiful palace furnished with everything. The fish carries the girl to the shore.[502]If I am not mistaken, the German wordsNarr, fool, andnass, wet, are in connection with each other by the same analogy which gives us the Sanskṛitmattas, drunk, and the Latinmadidus, damp, from the rootmad.[503]A superstitious belief quoted by Pliny concerning the cramp-fish merits being recorded here: "Mirum quod de Torpedine invenio, si capta cum Luna in Libra fuerit, triduoque asservetur sub dio, faciles partus facere postea quoties inferatur."[504]s. v. citula, Du Cange writes concerning the fish faber or Zeus: "Idem forte piscis, quem Galli doream vocant ab aureo laterum colore, nostri et Hispani Galli Baionenses jau, id est gallum, a dorsi pinnis surrectis veluti gallorum gallinaceorum cristis." The fish Zeus lives in solitude; hence it appears to me to be the same sacred fish, called anthias, of which Aristotle, in the ninth book of theHistory of Animals, says that it lives where no other animal is found.[505]We know that lynx's eyes, or lynx-like eyes, mean very sharp-sighted ones; ancient physicians recommended against the stone or the disease of the gravel, now the lyncurium, the stone which was supposed to be made of the urine of the lynxes, given by India to Bacchus, according to Ovid's expression, and now crab's eyes. The moon destroys with its light the stone-sky, the sky of night; hence crab's eyes are recommended against the disease of the stone. When the moon is not in the sky of night, the stone is there.[506]Cfr. the Sanskṛit roots,kar,kur,gur,gûr.[507]i. 1353-1456.[508]Savitâ vâi prasavânâmiço.—Âit. Br.The story of Cunaḥçepas; he appears evidently as a form of Praǵâpatis.[509]The Koribantes remind us of the Salii of the Latins, to whom Numa gives the arms and the words, to be sung leaping. According to Ovid's distich—
La gallina cantaturaNun si vinni, nè si duna,Si la mancia la patruna.
La gallina cantaturaNun si vinni, nè si duna,Si la mancia la patruna.
[427]Cfr.Afanassieff, i. 3, ii. 30; sometimes, instead of the hen's feet we have the dog's paws; cfr. v. 28.
[428]Concerning this subject I can add an unpublished story which Signor S. M. Greco sends me from Cosenza in Calabria:—A poor girl is alone in the fields; she plucks a rampion, sees a stair, goes down, and comes to the palace of the fairies, who at sight of her are smitten with love. She asks to be allowed to go back to her mother, and obtains permission; she tells her mother that she hears a noise every night, without seeing anything, and is advised to light a candle and she will see. Next evening the girl does so, and sees a youth of great beauty with a looking-glass on his breast. The third evening she does the same, but a drop of wax falls upon the looking-glass and wakens the youth, who cries out lamentably, "Thou shalt go hence." The girl wishes to go away; the fairies give her a full clew of thread, with the advice that she must go to the top of the highest mountain and leave the clew to itself; where it goes, thither must she follow. She obeys, and arrives at a town which is in mourning on account of the absence of the prince; the queen sees the girl from the window and makes her come in. After some time she gives birth to a handsome son, and a shoemaker, who works by night, begins to sing—
"Sleep, sleep, my son;If your mother knew some dayThat you are my son,In a golden cradle she would put you to sleep,And in golden swaddling-clothes.Sleep, sleep, my son."
"Sleep, sleep, my son;If your mother knew some dayThat you are my son,In a golden cradle she would put you to sleep,And in golden swaddling-clothes.Sleep, sleep, my son."
The queen then learns from the girl, that he who sings thus is the prince, who is destined to stay far from the palace until the sun rises without him perceiving it. Orders are then given to kill all the fowls in the town, and to cover all the windows with a black veil scattered over with diamonds, in order that the prince may believe it is still night and may not perceive the rising of the sun. The prince is deceived, and marries the maiden who is the fairies' favourite, and they lived happy and contented,
Whilst I, if you will believe me,Found myself with a thorn in my foot.
Whilst I, if you will believe me,Found myself with a thorn in my foot.
[429]Die schlaue Alte brachte bald heraus, was der Dorfhahn hinter ihrem Rücken der jungsten Tochter ins Ohr gekräht hatte; Kreutzwald u. Löwe,Ehstnische Märchen.
[430]In the annals of the city of Debreczen, in the year 1564, we read as follows: "Æterna et exitialis memoria de incendio trium ordinum in anno præsenti: feria secunda proxima ante fest. nat. Mariæ gloriosæ exorta est flamma et incendium periculosum in platea Burgondia; eadem similiter ebdomade exortum est incendium altera vice, de platea Csapo de domo inquilinari Stephani literati, multas domos ... in cinerem redegit, et quod majus inter cætera est, nobilissimi quoque templi divi Andreæ et turris tecturæ combustæ sunt, ex qua turri et ejus pinnaculo, gallus etiam æreus, a multis annis insomniter dies ac noctes jejuno stomacho stans et in omnes partes advigilans, flammam ignis sufferre non valens, invitus devolare, descendere et illam suam solitam stationem deserere coactus est, qui gallus tantæ cladis commiserescens ac nimio dolore obmutescens de pinnaculo desiliendio, collo confracto in terram coincidens et suæ vitæ propriæ quoque non parcens, fidele suum servitium invitus derelinquendo, misere expiravit et vitam suam finivit sic."
[431]Reinsberg von Düringsfeld observes (Das festliche Jahr), that sometimes, for jest, in North Walsham, instead of the cock an owl is put,—another funereal symbol with which we are already acquainted.
[432]Not only the egg of the hen is a symbol of abundance, but even the bones of fowls served in popular tradition to represent matrimonial faith and coition. In Russia, when two (probably husband and wife) eat a fowl together, they divide the bone of the neck, the English merrythought, between them; then each of them takes and keeps a part, promising to remember this rupture. When either of the two subsequently presents something to the other, the one who receives must immediately say, "I remember;" if not, the giver says to him, "Take and remember." The forgetful one loses the game. A similar game, called the verde or green, is played in Tuscany during Lent between lovers with a little twig of the box-tree.
[433]The sun is an egg at the beginning of day; he becomes, or finds, an apple-tree in the evening, in the western garden of the Hesperides.
[434]The Indian wordkapotas, which means a dove, also indicates the grey colour of antimony, the colour of the commonest species of doves, and of those which are fed on St Mark's Place at Venice.
[435]Çivaḥ kapota ishito no astu anâgâ devâḥ çakuno gṛiheshu; str. 2.—For the fourth strophe, cfr. the chapter which treats of the Owl.
[436]ii. 9.
[437]ii. 239.—Cfr. the chapter on the Eagle.
[438]It appears to me that the same confusion arose betweencoluberandcolumbaas betweenchelüdros, a kind of serpent, andchelidôn, a swallow. The beautiful maiden upon a tree occurs even in theTuti-Name, i. 178,seq.
[439]ii. 7, and v. 9
[440]They were related to me at Antignano near Leghorn by the peasant woman Uliva Selvi:—
A gentleman had twelve sons and one daughter, who had, by enchantment, been metamorphosed into an eagle, and was kept in a cage. The father takes the twelve sons to mass every day; every day he meets an old beggar-woman and gives alms to her; one day, however, he has no money with him, and therefore gives her nothing; the old woman curses him, wishing that he may never see his sons again. No sooner said than done; the twelve sons become twelve doves and fly away. The despairing father and mother begin to weep; in their despair they forget to feed the eagle. Opposite the gentleman's house the king lived, who becomes enamoured of the eagle as though of a beautiful maiden; he has her stolen and replaced by another eagle. Not far thence there lived a washerwoman who had such a beautiful daughter that she never let her go out except at night. They wash at the fountain surrounded by poplar-trees; at midnight, as they wash, they hear a noise among the poplar-trees, and the maiden is afraid. One night they listen and hear the doves speaking and telling one another the incidents of the day, where they had been and what they had been doing. They then fly into a beautiful garden; the girl follows them; they enter into a beautiful palace, and the washerwoman relates what she has seen to the gentleman, who rejoices, and promises a great reward to the washerwoman if she will show him where his sons go to sleep. Both father and mother go to see; the pigeons speak, and say, "Were our mother to see us ..."; they then fly away. The gentleman then consults an astrologer, who advises him to allure the old witch into his house by the promise of alms, to shut her up in a room, and to compel her by main force to indicate the means of turning the pigeons into youths once more, or else to kill her. The old woman gives a powder which, when scattered on the highest mountain, will make the pigeons return home. The father goes to the mountain, scatters the powder and returns home, where he finds his sons, who are inquiring after the eagle. They go to see it and do not recognise it; they complain to their mother of this. Meanwhile, the young king is always near his eagle as if making love to it; and his mother is displeased at it. The twelve brothers meet a fairy who, for some alms, tells who has their eagle, and that it will soon return home a beautiful maiden. And the eagle becomes a beautiful girl and is married by the king.
There was once a king who had a handsome son, enamoured of a beautiful princess. He is carried off with two servants by the magicians and transformed into a pigeon; the servants undergo the same metamorphosis; one becomes green, one red, and the other greyish violet (pavonazzo). They take him into a beautiful palace where he must stay for seven years. Each has a large basin,—one is of gold, another of silver, and the third of bronze. When they plunge into them, they become three handsome youths. The princess, meanwhile, is dying to know where her lover is gone; she goes to have her hair combed on a terrace; the three pigeons carry away her looking-glass, then the ribbon of her hair, and then her comb. A great festival occurs in this town, to which the girls of the land go by night; on the way, one of them, near the break of day, turns aside for a few minutes; she sees a golden gate, finds a little gold key on the earth, opens the door and enters into a fine garden. At the end of the path there is a beautiful palace, into which she goes; she finds the three basins of gold, silver, and bronze, and sees the pigeons become young men. Meanwhile the king's daughter falls ill of grief, and is to all appearance dying; the king resolves to have her cured at any cost. The girl who had been in the place relates to the king's daughter all that she has seen; the latter is cured and goes with the girl to the palace; they find it, enter, and see a table laid for three persons; the two girls hide themselves. The prince and the princess meet with one another; but the prince, upon seeing her, is full of despair, saying that her impatience has prolonged the enchantment for seven years more, whilst it had at the time only three more days to run. He becomes a pigeon again; she must stay for seven years upon a tower exposed to all the inclemency of the seasons. Seven years pass by; the princess has become so ugly that she looks like a beast, with long hair all over her burned skin. The enchantment comes to an end for him after seven years; he goes to look for her; she says, "How much have I suffered for you!" The prince does not recognise her, and leaves her; she is left naked in a dense forest, and goes to seek her father. Night comes on, and the princess and her servant-maid do not know where to take refuge; they climb up a tree, whence they perceive a light. They walk towards it and find a beautiful little palace; a beautiful lady, a fairy, shows herself, and asks, "Is this you, Caroline?" This was the princess's name. But the fairy can give no news of the prince, and sends her on to another fairy, her sister, with the same result; she then goes to a third fairy, walking a double distance each time. The three fairies were three queens who had been betrayed by the same young prince. The third fairy gives to the princess a magical rod; she must go to the prince and do to him what he did to her—spit in his face, to wit. She is brought in a boat before the young king's palace, and there, following the fairy's instructions, she raises, by means of the rod, a beautiful palace, a palace more beautiful than that of the king, with a beautiful fountain. The young king wishes to go and see it; he sees a beautiful princess and kisses his hand to her, but she shuts the window in his face. He then invites her to dinner, but she refuses. He sends her a magnificent diamond, which she gives to her majordomo, saying that she has many more beautiful. He then sends her a splendid dress, which can be taken in the palm of the hand; she tears it into pieces and gives it to the cook to be used for kitchen purposes. The young king becomes passionately enamoured of her, and sends to her his best watch, which she gives also to her majordomo. He falls ill of a dreadful fever and wishes to marry her; he sends his mother. The princess laughs at the prince and refuses to come, saying, "Why does he not come himself?" His mother begs again that she will come. "Let him come," she answers; and at last she consents to come if they will make from her palace to that of the king a covered way so well and thickly made that not a ray of light can enter, and which she may be able to pass through with her equipage. Half way, the covering opens, and the sunbeams enter, upon which she disappears. (Cfr. the Indian myth of Urvaçî). The king being about to die, his mother returns to the princess, who demands that they bring him to her as if dead, in a bier. The king confesses that he has betrayed four maidens, and that it is on account of the fourth that he is coming to such a miserable end. The princess laughs at him and spits twice in his face; the third time he rises again, they are reconciled and married. (The spitting of the princess, which makes the dead prince rise again, is the dew of the ambrosia, or of spring, which brings the sun to life again.)—Cfr. the stories ii. 5, iv. 8, of thePentamerone, and v. 22 ofAfanassieff.
[441]It is said of the widowed turtle-dove that it will never drink again in any fountain of limpid water for fear of reviving the image of its lost companion by seeing its own in the water. The Christians pretend that the voice of the turtle-dove represents the cry, the sighing, and afterwards, for the resurrection of Christ, the joy of Mary Magdalen. Ælianos says that the turtle-dove is sacred not only to the goddess of love, and to the goddess of harvests, but also to the funereal Parcæ.
[442]In the legend of St Remy it is a dove that carries to the saint the flagon of water with which he must baptize King Clodoveus.
[443]
"Et ille nunc superbus et superfluensPerambulabit omnium cubilia,Ut albulus columbus, aut Adoneus?Cinæde Romule, hæc videbis et feres?"
"Et ille nunc superbus et superfluensPerambulabit omnium cubilia,Ut albulus columbus, aut Adoneus?Cinæde Romule, hæc videbis et feres?"
The chastity and the proverbial conjugal fidelity attributed to doves is here denied. Catullus had evidently closely observed the habits of these animals, which are sometimes, on the contrary, of a shameless infidelity. I have seen a white dove, who, in the presence of his wife, intent upon hatching her eggs, violated the nuptial bed of a gray dove, at a moment when the jealous husband was eating; the wife accepted the caresses of the husband and of the lover in the same passive attitude.
[444]We may also record here another Italian proverb, "To take two doves with one bean." In Italian anatomy a part of the phallos is called a bean (fava). The birds, and especially the thrushes and the doves, according to the popular belief, not only have the faculty of making other birds, but even plants fruitful. The words of Pliny,Hist. Nat.xvi. 44, have already been quoted by Prof. Kuhn: "Omnino autem satum nullo modo nascitur, nec nisi per alvum avium redditum, maxime palumbis ac turdis."
[445]Çvasity apsu haṅso na sîdan kratvâ ćetishṭho viçâm usharbhut;Ṛigv.i. 65, 9.
[446]Bîbhatsûnâṁ sayuǵam haṅsam âhur apâṁ divyânâṁ sakhye ćarantam; x. 124, 9.
[447]Haṅsâir iva sakhibhir vâvadadbhir açmanmayâni nahanâ vyasyan bṛihaspatir abhi kanikradad gâ; x. 67, 3.
[448]Sasvaç cid dhi tanvaḥ çumbhamânâ â haṅsâso nîlapṛishṭhâ apaptan; vii. 59, 7.
[449]Cfr. the chapter which treats of the Bee.
[450]vi. 2.
[451]Adhi bṛibuḥ paṇînâṁ varshishṭhe mûrdhann asthât uruḥ kaksho na gâñgyaḥ;Ṛigv.vi. 45, 31.—Bṛibuṁ sahasradâtamaṁ sûriṁ sahasrasâtamam; vi. 45, 33.—Cfr. also the 32d strophe.
[452]Ṛigv.vi. 46.
[453]The goose is found in connection with robbers in the twenty-third story of the sixth book ofAfanassieff. Two servants stole a precious pearl from the king; being about to be found out, they give the pearl, by the advice of an old woman, to the grey goose in a piece of bread; the goose is then accused of having stolen the pearl. It is killed, the pearl is found, and the two robbers escape.
[454]v. 55.—In the forty-ninth story of the fifth book ofAfanassieff, a riddle occurs where the betrothed wife is represented as a duck. A father sends his son to find the wife who is predestined for him, with the following enigmatical order: "Go to Moscow; there there is a lake; in the lake there is a net; if the duck has fallen into the net, take the duck; if not, withdraw the net." The son returns home with the duck—that is to say, with his betrothed wife.
[455]ii. 46.
[456]iv. 11.
[457]iii. 75.
[458]Cfr.Afanassieff, vi. 17, and a variety of the vi. 19.
[459]Cfr. an interesting variety of this story in theGriechische und Albanische Märchenof Hahn.
[460]Thus, in a Norwegian story, the dirty cinder-girl carries silver ducks away from the magicians.—In the eighth Esthonian story, the third brother is sent to hell for the ducks and geese with golden feathers.
[461]In a Scandinavian and Italian variety of this story, instead of the goose we have the eagle and eaglets; the goose returns, in the first story of the fifth book of thePentamerone, to do the same duty as in the Russian story, but with some more vulgar and less decent incidents.
[462]The image of the legs which, when they move, make flowers grow up, is very ancient; students of Hindoo literature will remember the pushpiṇyâu ćarato ǵanghe of theÂitareya Br., in the story of Çunaḥçepas.
[463]The ninth of theNovelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaiais an interesting variety of this; the beautiful maiden who feeds the geese is disguised in an old woman's skin; the geese, who see her naked, cry out: "Cocò, la bella padrona ch 'i' ho," until the prince, by means of a noiseless file, makes the cook enter the room and carry the old woman's skin away while she sleeps, and then weds her.—The following unpublished story, communicated to me by Signor Greco from Cosenza in Calabria, is a variation of that of thePentamerone:—
Seven princes have a very beautiful sister. An emperor decides upon marrying her, but upon the condition that if he does not find her to his taste, he will decapitate her seven brothers. They set out altogether, and the mother-in-law with her daughter follow them. On the way, the sun is hot, and the elder brother cries out, "Solabella, defend me from the heat, for you must please the king." The step-mother advises her to take off her necklaces and to put them on her half-sister. The second brother next complains of the heat, and the step-mother advises her to take off her gold apparel and to put it on her half-sister. By such means the step-mother at last succeeds in making her naked; they come to the sea, and the step-mother pushes her in; she is taken by a siren, who holds her by her foot with a golden chain. The princes arrive with the ugly sister; the king weds the ugly wife and cuts off the heads of the seven brothers. When the maiden is wandering about in the sea, she asks the king's ducks for news of her brothers; the ducks answer that they have been executed. She weeps; the tears become pearls and the ducks feed upon them. This marvel comes to the ears of the king, who follows the ducks and asks the girl why she shuns the society of men; to which she answers: "Alas! how can I, who am fastened by a golden chain?" and then relates everything. Having recognised his bride, the king gives her this advice: she must ask how, after the siren's death, she would be able to free herself; and then he departs. Next day, Solabella tells the king that the siren will not die, because she lives in a little bird, enclosed in a silver cage which is shut up in a marble case, and seven iron ones, of which she has the keys, and that if the siren died, a horseman, a white horse, and a long sword would be necessary to cut the chain. The king brings her a certain water, which he advises her to give the siren to drink; she will then fall asleep, and the girl will be able to take the keys and kill the little bird. When it is killed, the white horse plunges into the sea, and the sword cuts the chain. Then the king takes his beautiful bride to his palace, and the old step-mother is burned in a shirt of pitch; the seven brothers are rubbed with an ointment which brings them to life again, each exclaiming, "Oh! what a beautiful dream I have had!"
[464]The old ogress of the ninth story of the fifth book of thePentamerone, who keeps three beautiful maidens shut up in three citron-trees, and who feeds the asses which kick the swans upon the banks of the river, is a variety of the same myth.
[465]Instead of geese, swans were also solemnly eaten; a popular mediæval German song in Latin offers the lamentation of the roasted swan; cfr. Uhland'sSchriften, iii. 71, 158.—In thePańćatantram, we have the swan sacrificed by the owl. In order to allure the swan, the funereal owl, who wishes to kill it, invites it into a grove of lotus-flowers, only, however, to decoy it subsequently into a dark cavern, where the swan is killed by some travelling merchants, who believe it to be an owl.
[466]In theEddas, when the hero Sigurd expires, the geese bewail his death.
[467]Cfr. also, with regard to this subject, the twenty-fourth Esthonian story of the princess born in the egg, of whom her brother, born in a more normal manner of the queen, becomes enamoured.
[468]The parrot is sung of by Statius in connection with the same birds in the second book of theSylvæ—
"Lux volucrum plagæ, regnator EoæQuam non gemmata volucri Junonia caudaVinceret, aspectu gelidi non phasidis ales."
"Lux volucrum plagæ, regnator EoæQuam non gemmata volucri Junonia caudaVinceret, aspectu gelidi non phasidis ales."
[469]A pathetic elegy in Sanskṛit distiches, of a Buddhist character, of which I do not now remember the source, presents us the çukas, or parrot, who wishes to die when the tree açokas, which has always been his refuge, is dried up.
[470]Such as, for instance, the following unpublished story, communicated to me by Dr Ferraro, which is related in the Monferrato, and of which I have also heard, in my childhood, a variation at Turin:—A king, going to the wars, and fearing that another king, who is his rival, will profit by his absence to seduce his wife, places by her side one of his friends transformed into a parrot; this friend warns her to remain faithful every time that the rival king sends to tempt the queen by means of a cunning old woman. The queen pays attention to the parrot's advice, and remains faithful till the husband's return. This is, in a few words, the contents of the seventy Hindoo tales of the parrot, of which theTuti-Nameis a Persian version.—In the story which I heard at Turin, the wife is, on the contrary, unfaithful and covers the parrot's cage that it may not see; she then fries some fishes in the guest's honour; the parrot thinks that it is raining. The fish and the rain remind us of the myth of the phallical and pluvial cuckoo.
[471]Cfr. the chapter on the Crow.
[472]"Wie wir den Hugschapler sogar auf den Pfauen schwören sehen, legten sie die Angelsachsen auf den Schwan ab (R. A. 900), den wir wohl nach den obigen Gesange Ngördhs, S. 343 als den ihm geheiligten Vogel (ales gratissima nautis, Myth. 1074) zu fassen haben, &c." Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 347.—A Hindoo proverb considers the dove in connection with the peacock; it says, "Better a pigeon to-day than a peacock to-morrow" (Varamadya kapoto na çvo mayûraḥ). According to theOrnithologiaof Aldrovandi, the peacocks are the doves' friends, because they keep serpents and all venomous animals at a distance.
[473]The Russian fable of Kriloff presents to us the ass as a judge between the nightingale (the kokilas of Western poets) and the cock in a trial of singing; in Sanskṛitçikhin, or crested, means cock and peacock; besides mayûras, peacock, we have mayûraćaṭakas, the domestic cock. Mayûras is also the name of a Hindoo poet.—In the chapter on the Cuckoo we saw the cuckoo and the nightingale as rivals in singing; the kokilas and the peacock are the equivalents of the nightingale and the cuckoo; we have also identified the cuckoo with the swallow, and seen the swallows as rivals of the swans in singing; cfr. the chapter on the Crow.
[474]Hence Aldrovandi writes with reason, that the smoke of the burnt feathers of a peacock (that is, of the celestial peacock), when taken into the eyes, cures them of their redness.
[475]Â mandrâir indra haribhir yâhi mayûraromabhiḥ;Ṛigv.iii. 45, 1.
[476]Â tvâ rathe hiraṇyaye harî mayûraçepyâ; viii. 1, 25.—Klearchos relates in Athênaios, that a peacock in Leucas loved a maiden so much, that when she died it also immediately expired.
[477]According to thePańćatantram(i. 175), in the very house of Çivas (the phallical god), the animals make war against each other; the serpent (the night) wishes to eat the mouse (which seems here to be the grey twilight); the peacock (here, perhaps, the moon), wishes to eat the serpent (cfr. the preceding notes; according to Ælianos, a certain man who wished to steal from the King of Egypt a peacock, supposed to be sacred, found an asp in its stead); the lion (the sun) wishes to eat the peacock. (The Hindoo name of mayûrâris, or enemy of the peacock, given to the chameleon, is remarkable; the animal which changes its colour is the rival of the bird which is of every colour; gods and demons are equally viçvarûpâs and kâmarûpas.)
[478]Indras, as a warlike god, does not know fear, or rather, he kills fear (the hymn says, "Aher yâtâraṁ kam apaçya indra hṛidi yat te ǵaghnuso bhîr agaććhat";Ṛigv.i. 32, 14), and lets himself be terrified by a trifle, which may be either a nightly shadow (the dark man of fairy tales), or the terror caused to him by some fish (the moon) which leaps upon him in the waters which he himself has set free.—In the twenty-second of the Tuscan stories published by me, the young hero who passed through all the dangers of hell without being afraid, dies at the sight of his own shadow. (We have also referred to this when treating of the dog and the lion who meet with their death, allured by their own shadow.)—In the forty-sixth story of the fifth book ofAfanassieff, the merchant's son, who did not know fear, who feared neither darkness nor brigands nor death, is terrified and dies when he falls into the water, because the little perch entered into his bosom whilst he was sleeping in his fishing-boat.—It is also easy to pass from the idea of Indras, who inebriates himself in thesomato that of the fish, when we consider that the Hindoo wordmatsyas, the fish, properly means the inebriated, from the rootmad, to inebriate and to make cheerful.
[479]Açnâpinaddham madhu pary apaçyam matsyaṁ na dîna udani kshiyantam;Ṛigv.x. 68, 8.
[480]Mbh.2371-2392.
[481]Mbh.i. 5078-5086.—In another variety of the same myth, the semen of the wise Bharadvâǵas comes out at the sight of a nymph; the sage receives it in a cup, out of which comes Droṇas, the armourer and archerpar excellence; i. 5103-5106.
[482]v. 27.
[483]Râmây.ii. 92.
[484]Cfr. Böhtlingk,Indische Sprüche, i. 59.
[485]Revad uvâha saćano ratho vâṁ vṛishabhaç ça çiṅçumâraç ća yuktâ.
[486]Our readers will not be astonished at seeing the dolphin, the whale, and the sea-urchin classed here with fishes. We are not treating of natural history according to the classifications of science, but of the gross classifications made by impressionable popular imaginations. Thus, amongst the animals of the water we shall find the serpent described, although it be amphibious, because popular belief makes the dragon watch over the waters.
[487]The pike becomes in spring of an azure or bluish or greenish-blue colour; hence the name ofgolubbi—però(that is, of the azure or bluish fins; in German, the bluish colour is calledecht-grau—that is, grey of pike; in the nineteenth of the Russian stories ofErlenwein, golden fins are ascribed to the pike), which is also given to it in Russia.Golub, or brown, violet and azure, is a name given in Russia to the dove; so in Italy we say, that the dove ispavonazzo(properly the colour of the peacock, which is generally blue and green). But in Sanskṛit, amongst the names of the peacock there is that ofharis, a word which represents both the moon and the sun. By the same analogy, the bluish or greenish pike may represent the moon. But another analogy, caused by a similar conception, is found again in the wordçyâmas, which means black, azure, and also silvery; whence it serves to represent theconvolvolus argenteus(we must remember that the Latin name of the pike islucius; the Greek,lükios—that is, the luminous one). The pike takes the colour of the water in which it lives, and the waters are dark, black, azure, greenish, silvery; as being azure, or greenish, or silvery, the pike represents the moon; as being dark, the tenebrific night, the cloud, the wintry season.—In the thirty-second story of the fourth book ofAfanassieff, the little perch relates that the pike was once luminous (that is, in spring), and that it became black after the conflagration which took place in the Lake of Rastoff from the day of St Peter (June 29) to the day of St Elias (July 20), or in the beginning of summer. As we learn in thePseudo-Callisthenes, near the black stone, which makes black whoever touches it, there are fishes which are cooked in cold water, and not at the fire, I recollect here also that theHecht-könig, or king of pikes, is described as yellow and black-spotted.
[488]Afanassieff, v. 22.
[489]Afanassieff, i. 2.—Cfr. the eleventh of theNovelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia; a monstrous fish devours the princess; the fish is said to be a shark (pesce cane); and v. 8 of thePentamerone.
[490]Cfr.Afanassieff, ii. 24.
[491]Cfr.Afanassieff, v. 55, vi. 32.—It is the same fish which, saved by the girl who is persecuted by her step-mother, comes to her assistance, separates the wheat from the barley for her (like the Madonna, the purifying moon-fairy, the nightly cleanser of the sky), and gives splendid robes to her, in vi. 29.—In the story v. 54, instead of the pike as a fœcundator we find the bream, which is also called "of the golden fins" (szlatopioravo), of which the colours are the same as those of the pike.
[492]In the nineteenth Russian story ofErlenwein, and in a variety of the same in the last book of Afanassieff's stories.—In an unpublished story of the Monferrato, communicated to me by Dr Ferraro, a fisherman catches a large fish which says to him, "Let me go, and you will always be fortunate." The wife of the fisherman opposes this, roasts and eats the fish, from whose bones are born to the fisherman three sons, three horses, and three dogs. Evidently the story has been corrupted.
[493]Cfr. Salvianus,Aquatilium Animalium Historiæ, Romæ, 1554.
[494]At Berlin, children sing on the first of April—
"April! April! April!Man kann den Narren schicken wohin man will."
"April! April! April!Man kann den Narren schicken wohin man will."
[495]Another custom concerning herrings is described by Baron von Reinsberg, relating to Ash-Wednesday, when people return from church in Limburg: "Begiebt man sich zuerst nach Hause, um nach gewohnter Weise den Häring abzubeissen. Sobald man nämlich aus der Kirche kommt, wird ein Häring, nun muss jeder mit geschlossenen Beinen, die Arme fest an den Leib gedrückt, in die Höhe springen und dabei suchen, ein Stück abzubeissen." And Karl Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 561, writes: "In der Mark muss man zu Neujahr Hirse oder Häringe essen, im Wittenbergischen Heringssalat, so hat man das ganze Jahr über Geld."
[496]Cfr. Salvianus,ut supra. The habit certain fishes have of ejecting froth from the mouth may have suggested a phallical image.
[497]Bei Hans Sachs, Nürnberger, Ausgabe von 1560, ii. 14, 96, Eine Frau und Magd essen den für den Herrn bestimmten Aal; eine Elster schwatzt es aus; ran sich zu rächen, rupfen die Weiber ihr den Kopf kahl. Daher man sprichwörtlich von einem kahlen Mönche sagt: der hat gewiss vom Aale ausgeschwatzt; Menzel,Die Vorchristliche Unsterblichkeits-Lehre.
[498]In the same: "So erzählt Gilbert bei Leibnitz Script. rer. Brunsw. i. 987. Ein Frauenzimmer, welches Aal gegessen, habe plötzlich Alles sehen können was unter Wasser war."
[499]It is well known that the wordikshvâkushas been referred to the wordikshus, the sugar-cane. In the fortieth canto of the first book of theRâmâyaṇam, one of the two wives of Sagaras gives birth to a son who continues his race; the other wife gives birth to an ikshvâkus (gourd or cane) containing 60,000 sons.
[500]Cfr, Du Cange,s. v., and Salvianus, the work quoted before.
[501]In the thirteenth story of the first book ofAfanassieff(of which the Bohemian story ofGrandfather Vsievedasis a well-known variety), the whale complains that all the footmen and horsemen pass over it and consume it to the bones. It begs the hero Basilius to ask the serpent how long it has still to undergo this fate; the serpent answers, when it has vomited forth the ten vessels of the rich Mark.—In the eighth story of the fourth book of thePentamerone, the whale teaches Cianna the way to find the mother of time, requiring her, in recompense, to be informed of the way in which the whale may be able to swim freely to and fro in the sea without encountering rocks and sandbanks. Cianna brings back for answer, that it must make friends with the sea-mouse (lo sorece marino, perhaps the same as the sea-urchin), which will serve as its guide.—In the eighth story of the fifth book of thePentamerone, the little girl is received in the sea by a large enchanted fish, in whose belly she finds beautiful companions, gardens, and a beautiful palace furnished with everything. The fish carries the girl to the shore.
[502]If I am not mistaken, the German wordsNarr, fool, andnass, wet, are in connection with each other by the same analogy which gives us the Sanskṛitmattas, drunk, and the Latinmadidus, damp, from the rootmad.
[503]A superstitious belief quoted by Pliny concerning the cramp-fish merits being recorded here: "Mirum quod de Torpedine invenio, si capta cum Luna in Libra fuerit, triduoque asservetur sub dio, faciles partus facere postea quoties inferatur."
[504]s. v. citula, Du Cange writes concerning the fish faber or Zeus: "Idem forte piscis, quem Galli doream vocant ab aureo laterum colore, nostri et Hispani Galli Baionenses jau, id est gallum, a dorsi pinnis surrectis veluti gallorum gallinaceorum cristis." The fish Zeus lives in solitude; hence it appears to me to be the same sacred fish, called anthias, of which Aristotle, in the ninth book of theHistory of Animals, says that it lives where no other animal is found.
[505]We know that lynx's eyes, or lynx-like eyes, mean very sharp-sighted ones; ancient physicians recommended against the stone or the disease of the gravel, now the lyncurium, the stone which was supposed to be made of the urine of the lynxes, given by India to Bacchus, according to Ovid's expression, and now crab's eyes. The moon destroys with its light the stone-sky, the sky of night; hence crab's eyes are recommended against the disease of the stone. When the moon is not in the sky of night, the stone is there.
[506]Cfr. the Sanskṛit roots,kar,kur,gur,gûr.
[507]i. 1353-1456.
[508]Savitâ vâi prasavânâmiço.—Âit. Br.The story of Cunaḥçepas; he appears evidently as a form of Praǵâpatis.
[509]The Koribantes remind us of the Salii of the Latins, to whom Numa gives the arms and the words, to be sung leaping. According to Ovid's distich—