"Jam dederat Salii (a saltu nomina ducunt)Armaque et ad certos verba canenda modos."—Fasti, iii. 389.[510]It is interesting in this connection to find in the translation of Lane a passage from theAǵáïb-el-Makhlooḳát(Marvels of Creation), a work of the thirteenth century: "The tortoise is a sea and land animal. As to the sea tortoise it is very enormous, so that the people of the ship imagine it to be an island. One of the merchants relates as follows regarding it: 'We found in the sea an island elevated above the water, having upon it green plants, and we went forth to it, and dug [holes for fire] to cook; whereupon the island moved, and the sailors said, "Come ye to your place, for it is a tortoise, and the heat of the fire hath hurt it, lest it carry you away." By reason of the enormity of its body,' said he [i.e., the narrator above mentioned], 'it was as though it were an island, and earth collected upon its back in the length of time, so that it became like land, and produced plants.'" Evidently here the tortoise occupies the same place as, in popular tradition, the lunar whale recorded by us in the chapter on the Fishes. Cfr. Lane,The Thousand and One Nights, London, 1841, vol. iii. chap. xx. n. 1 and 8, p. 80seq.—Grein,Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie, Göttingen, 1857, 1, 235, the Celtic legend of St Brandan and thePseudo-Callisthenes.[511]Cfr. the first story of the fourth book of thePańćatantram, where the king of the frogs invokes the help of a black serpent to avenge himself upon certain frogs who are his enemies, and, instead of this, draws down death upon all the frogs and upon his own son.[512]Vâr in maṇḍûka ićhatîndrayendo pari srava;Ṛigv.ix. 112.[513]A similar tradition was current concerning the tarantula (stellio). Ceres, being thirsty, wished to drink; the boy Stelles prevented her, and the goddess transformed him into astellio. According to Ulpianus, from thestelliowas derived thecrimen stellionatus.[514]Cfr. alsoAfanassieff, vi. 55; Masha (Mary), the wife of Ivan, at first appears as a goose, afterwards as a frog, a lizard, and a spindle.[515]In the eighth story of the first book of thePentameroneit is a lacerta cornuta (horned lizard, the moon) which watches over the destiny of the girl Renzolle (the aurora).[516]It was thus that I heard it recited, but it should, as it appears to me, be corrected both in rhyme and sense, andgragnachanged intograma, unlessgragnais a verb and stands forgrandina(hail); in Italy, there is a superstitious belief that the toads are generated of the first large drops of rain which fall into the dust at the beginning of a tempest.[517]A similar superstition is current in Germany, as I find in Rochholtz, the work quoted before, i. 147: "Auch die Hauskröte, Unke, Muhme genannt, wohnt im Hauskeller und hält durch ihren Einfluss die hier verwahrten Lebensmittel in einem gedeihlichen Zustand. Dadurch kommt Wohlstand ins Haus, und das Thier heisst daher Schatzkröte. In Verwechslung mit dem braunschwarzen Kellermolch wird sie auch Gmöhl genannt und soll eben so oft ihre Farbe verändern, als der Familie eine Veränderung bevorsteht."—The various popular superstitions concerning the salamander are well known,—viz., that it resists the power of fire, that it lives in fire, that it becomes like fire: "immo ad ignem usque elementarem orbi lunari finitimum ascendere" (according to Aldrovandi), and that, devoid of hairs itself, it causes the hairs of others to fall out by means of its saliva, whence Martial, cursing the baldness of a woman's head—"Hoc salamandra caput, aut sæva novacula nudet."Pliny therefore recommends against the poisonous venom which is ascribed to the salamander, the seeds of the hairy and stinging nettle, with broth of a tortoise (which it resembles by its yellow spots). The salamander of popular superstition seems to me to represent the moon which lights itself, which lives by its own fire, which has no rays or hairs of its own, and which makes the rays or hairs of the sun fall.[518]It was narrated to me by a peasant woman who heard it at Cavour in Piedmont:—A man who is paralytic has three daughters, Catherine, Clorinda, and Margaret; he sets out on a journey to consult a great doctor, and asks his daughters what they wish him to bring them when he returns; Margaret will be content if he bring her a flower. He arrives at his destination, a castle; everything is prepared to receive him, but the doctor is not to be found; he sets out to return home, but on the way he recollects the flower, which he had forgotten; he goes back to the garden of the castle and is about to pluck a daisy (margherita), when a toad warns him that he will die in three days if he does not give it one of his daughters to wife. The father informs his daughters of this, upon which the two eldest refuse; but the youngest, in order to save her father's life, consents. Her father is cured, and the wedding takes place; during the night the toad becomes a beautiful youth, but warns his bride never to tell any one, for if she does, he will always remain a toad, and he gives her a ring by means of which she will obtain whatever she wishes for. The sisters have an inkling of some mystery, and make her confess; the toad falls ill and disappears; she calls him with the ring, but in vain; seeing this, she throws the ring, as useless, into a pond, upon which the beautiful youth steps out, and never becomes a toad again; their happiness together thereafter is unbroken.In an unpublished Tuscan story, related to me by Uliva Selvi at Antignano near Leghorn, instead of the toad we have a magician of frightful aspect. The father of the three daughters is a sailor; he promises to fetch a shawl to the first, a hat to the second, and a rose to the third. When the voyage is over, he is about to return, but, having forgotten the rose, the ship refuses to move; he is compelled to go back to look for the rose in a garden; a magician hands the rose with a little box to the father to give it to one of his daughters, whom the magician is to marry. At midnight, the father, having returned home, relates to his third daughter all that happened. The little box is opened; it carries off the third daughter to the magician, who happens to be king of Pietraverde, and is now a handsome young man. He shows her, in the palace, three rooms, of which one is red, one white, and another black. They live together happily. Meanwhile, the eldest sister is to be married; the magician conducts his wife into the red room; she wishes to go to the wedding, and the magician consents, but warns her not to say either who he is, or aught she knows of him, if she does not wish to lose him, as to recover him again she would have to wait till she should wear out as many shoes as there are in the world. He gives her a dress which, as she goes, is heard rustling a long way off; and he tells her, if her pin should drop, to let the bride pick it up and keep it; warning her, moreover, not to drink or to eat of anything they may offer her. All this she observes to the letter. The second sister is about to be married; the magician leads his wife into the white room and repeats the same instructions, only, instead of the pin, she is to let her ring of brilliants drop. The father dies; the magician then takes his wife into the black room, the chamber of melancholy. She wishes to go to the funeral, and is permitted, after the usual warnings; the magician, moreover, gives her a ring; if it become black, she will lose him; she forgets the warning and loses him. She wanders about for seven years, and no one can give her any news of the king of Pietraverde; she then disguises herself as a man, and arrives at a city where the king's hostler takes her into his service; no sooner does she touch the carriages than they become clean. The queen passes by and wonders at the personal appearance of the youth; she engages him to work in her kitchen, then to serve at table, and finally to be hervalet de chambre. The queen falls in love with him, and wishes to have him at any cost; in vain; she then accuses him of designing to take her life. The king, although unwillingly, has him put in prison; soon he has pity upon him and lets him free. The fictitious youth continues to wander about; he arrives at the city, and asks for news of the king of Pietraverde; they tell her that he has long been dead, and point her to a room where his bier is supported by columns of wax, or candles; he will not awake until the candles are consumed. She goes up and weeps; the king takes three hairs from his beard and recommends her to preserve them carefully. She continues her wanderings, still dressed as a man, and is engaged by other hostlers of a king as assistant. The news of her bravery reach the king, who takes her into his kitchen. The queen sees him and falls in love with him; in vain; she accuses him to the king, who puts her in prison; she is condemned to death, and the guillotine is prepared. While going to execution, she remembers the three hairs, and burns one; an army of warriors appear, sent by the king of Pietraverde; they terrify all the king's people, whom they compel to postpone the execution till next day. The next day she does the same with the same result. The third day she brings out the third hair; the cavalry appear again, commanded this time by the king of Pietraverde in person, dressed so that he shone like a brilliant, that he appeared like a sun; he releases the youth from the execution; the king of Pietraverde has the young girl dressed as a princess; she is tried in a court of justice; her innocence is established; the queen's head is cut off.[519]"Suessanus tradit, quod bufonem quempiam obviam fieri felicissimum augurium fuisse antiquitas existimavit.—Anno 1553, in villa quadam Thuringia ad Unstrum, a muliere bufo caudatus natus est, quemadmodum in libro de prodigiis et ostentis habetur. Nec mirum, quia Cœlius Aurelianus et Platearius scribunt mulieres aliquando cum fœto humano bufones et alia animalia hujus generis eniti. Sed hujus monstrosæ conceptionis causam non assignant. Tradit quidem Platearius illa præsidia, quæ ad provocandos menses commendantur, ducere; etiam bufonem fratrem Salernitanorum quemadmodum aliqui lacertum fratrem Longobardorum nominant. Quoniam mulieres Salernitanæ potissimum in principio conceptionis succum apii et porrorum potant, ut hoc animal interimant, antequam fœtus viviscat. Insuper mulier quædam ex Gesnero, recens nupta cum omnium opinione prægnans diceretur, quatuor animalia bufonibus similia peperit et optime valuit."—Aldrovandi also reads: "apud Heisterbacensem in historia miraculorum," that some monks found a living toad inside a hen in place of intestines. In the same author, a priest finds an immense toad at the bottom of a jar of wine; whilst he is wondering how such a large toad should have been able to enter by such a small orifice, the toad disappears.[520]Cfr. Targioni Tozzetti,Lezioni di Materia Medica, Florence, 1821.[521]Some extraordinary lizards of which Aldrovandi speaks are of a half sacred and half monstrous nature: "Præter illud memorabile, quod Mizaldus recitat accidisse anno Domini 1551, mense Julii in Hungaria prope pagum Zichsum juxta Theisum fluvium nimirum in multorum hominum alvo lacertas naturalibus similes ortas fuisse. Interdum contingit, ut animadvertit Schenchius, lacertam viridem in cæti magnitudinem excrescere, qualis aliquando Lutetiæ visa est. Sæpe etiam lacertæ duobus et tribus caudis refertæ nascuntur, quas vulgus ludentibus favorabiles esse nugatur."[522]In theMahâbhâratam, i. 981-1003, it is said that the serpents amphisbhænæ (duṇḍubhâs, duṇḍavas, nâgabhṛitas, the same, I think, as the mannuni of Malabar,) being good, must not be killed; an amphisbhæna relates that it had once been the wise Sahasrapâd (properly of the hundred feet; the amphisbhæna appears to be a lizard without feet, and with a tail the same size as its head, for which reason the belief arose that it had two heads; it seems to be another personification of the circular year, like the serpent), and that it became a serpent by a curse, because it had once frightened a Brâhman with a fictitious serpent made of grass; at the sight of the wise Kurus, the amphisbhæna is released from its malediction.[523]St Augustine,Hom.36, says of the devil: "Leo et draco est; Leo propter impetum, Draco propter insidias;" in Albania, the devil is calleddreikj, and in Romania,dracu.[524]A proverb of theRâmâyaṇamsays, that "only a female serpent can distinguish the feet of a male serpent" (v. 38): Ahireva hyaheḥ pâdâu viǵâniyânna saṁçayaḥ). The feet of the serpent, like those of the devil, which is the tail (or the phallos of the male) can be perceived by a female alone; women know where the devil has his tail.[525]Tom. i., "Sunt qui in aquæ inspectione umbras dæmonum evocant, et imagiones vel ludificationes ibi videre et ab iis aliqua audire se perhibent."[526]In the seventh bookDe Civitate Dei, the saint writes: "Ipse Numas ad quem nullus Dei propheta, nullus Sanctus Angelus mittebatur, Hydromantiam facere compulsus est, ut in aqua videret imagines deorum vel potius ludificationes dæmonum, a quibus audiret, quid in sacris constituere atque observare deberet quod genus divinationis idem Varro a Persis dicit allatum."[527]It also exists in Roumania, where the new solar year is celebrated by the benediction of the waters, as if to exorcise the demons that inhabit them.[528]Codex Reg., 5600 ann. circ. 800, fol. 101, in Du Cange: "Sunt aliqui rustici homines, qui credunt aliquas mulieres, quod vulgum dicitur strias, esse debeant, et ad infantes vel pecora nocere possint, vel dusiolus, vel Aquatiquus, vel geniscus esse debeat." Neptunus, vel aliquis genius, quia quis præest designari videtur.[529]The monsters which mount into heaven by magical deceits, killed by Indras, are said to creep like serpents: Mâyâbhir utsisṛipsata indra dyâm;Ṛigv.viii. 14, 14.[530]The name ofArbudas, given to the monster which Indras, the ram (meshas), crushes (forni-kramseems to me to have this meaning) under his foot while it is lying, is nothing else than a serpent; moreover, he, whose people is thesarpâsor serpents, is the king of the serpents. Toarbud-asI would refer the Latin wordsrep-ere,rept-are,reptil-is.[531]Apâd ahasto apṛitanyad indram âsya vaǵram adhi sânâu ǵaghana;Ṛigv.i. 32, 7.—Yo vyaṅsaṁ ǵahṛishâṇena manyunâ yaḥ çambaraṁ yo ahan piprum avratam; i. 101, 2.—Apâdam atram mahatâ vadhena ni duryoṇa âvṛiṇañ mṛidhravâćam; v. 32, 8.[532]Ahann ahim parvate çiçṛiyâṅam; i. 32, 2.—Ahann enam prathamaǵâm ahînâm; i. 32, 3.[533]Nîćâvayâ abhavad vṛitraputrendro asyâ ava vadhar ǵabhâra—uttarâ sûr adharaḥ putra âsîd dânuḥ çaye sahavatsâ na dhenuḥ; i. 32, 9. Properly speaking, the verse speaks here of Vṛitras, and not of Ahis; but the coverer and the constrictor being equivalent, it seems to me that there are not here two beings distinguished, in the same hymn, by two analogous appellations.[534]Dâsapatnîr ahigopâ atishṭhan niruddhâ âpaḥ paṇineva gâvaḥ; i. 32, 11.—The reader will remember the discussion concerning the proverb of shutting the stable after the oxen are stolen, in the first chapter of the first book.[535]Avâdaho diva â dasyum uććâ; i. 33, 7.[536]Guhâhitam guhyaṁ gûḷham apsu apîvṛitam mâyinaṁ kshiyantam uto apo dyâm tastabhvâṅsam ahann ahiṁ çura vîryeṇa; ii. 11, 5.[537]Âçayânam ahim vaǵreṇa maghavan vi vṛiçćaḥ; iv. 17, 7.[538]Sapta prati pravata âçayânam ahiṁ vaǵreṇa vi rîṇâ aparvan; iv. 19, 3.[539]Sasantaṁ vaǵreṇâbodhayo 'him; i. 103, 7.[540]Navantam ahiṁ saṁ piṇag ṛiǵîshin; vi. 17, 10.[541]Sa mâhina indro arṇo apâm prâirayad ahihâćhâ samudram aǵanayat sûryaṁ vidad gâh; ii. 19, 3.—Sṛiǵaḥ sindhûṅr ahinâ ǵagrasânân;Ṛigv.iv. 17, 1.—Ahann ahim anv apas tatarda pra vakshaṇâ abhinat parvatânâm; i. 32, 2.[542]Yad indrâhan prathamaǵâm ahînâm ân mâyinâm aminâh prota mâyâḥ—ât sûryaṁ ǵanayan dyâm ushâsaṁ tâdîtnâ çatruṁ na kilâ vivitse; i. 32, 4.[543]Ahan vṛitraṁ vṛitrataraṁ vyaṅsam indro vaǵrena mahatâ vadhena skandḥaṇsîva kuliçenâ vivṛiknâhiḥ çayata upapṛik pṛithivyâḥ; i. 32, 5.—Ud vṛiha rakshaḥ sahamûlam indra vriçća madhyam praty agraṁ çṛinîhi; iii. 30, 17.[544]Çayânam mano ruhânâ ati yanty âpaḥ; i. 32, 8.[545]Anu tvâ patnîr hṛishitaṁ vayaç ća viçve devâso amadann anu tvâ; i. 103, 7.—Asmâ id u gnâç ćid devapatnîr indrâyârkam ahihatya ûvuḥ; i. 61, 8.[546]Striyo hi dâsa âyudhâni ćakre;Ṛigv.v. 30, 9.[547]Sa vṛitrahendraḥ kṛishṇayonîḥ puraṃdaro dâsîr âirayad vi; ii. 20, 7.—Vṛitras the killer of Piprus, Indraspuraṁ-daras, properly, who wounds the full one, who cleaves the full or the swollen one, and hence who wounds, the city, and Indras the lacerator of the witches with the black wombs are equivalent; cfr. what was said concerning the thunderbolt as a phallos, in the first chapter of the first book, where the cuckoo is spoken of, and in the chapter on the Cuckoo in the second book.—In the hymn, i. 32, 9, Indras also wounds underneath the mother of the monster: Indro asyâ ava vadhar ǵabhâra.[548]Uto nu ćid ya oǵasâ çushṇasyâṇḍâni bhedati ǵeshat svarvatîr apaḥ;Ṛigv.viii. 40, 10.—In the hymn i. 54, 10, it is said that the cloud-mountain is found amongst the intestines of the coverer; one might say that the serpent binds the cloud in the form of bowels. The reader will recollect what we observed concerning the intestines, the heart, and the liver, of the sacrificed victim in the first chapter of the first book.[549]In the twentieth story of the fifth book ofAfanassieffwe find a singular variety, which is of some importance in the history of mythology and language. A princess asks the serpent, her husband, by what his death can be caused. The serpent answers that his death can be brought about by the hero Nikita Kaszemiaka, who, in fact, comes up and kills the serpent by submerging him in the sea. Nikita is called, it is said, Kaszemiaka, because his occupation was that of tearing skins. The torn skins (cfr. here also theJupiter Aegiocus) take here the place of the duck's egg broken upon the serpent, and of the eggs of the monster broken by Indras. In Italian,coccio, means a piece of a broken vase, and also, in botany, the skin of a seed;incocciarsisignifies to be angry. In Piedmont, it is said of one who annoys people, that he breaks the boxes, and, more vulgarly, that he breaks the testicles.[550]Hiraṇyakeço 'hiḥ;Ṛigv.i. 79, 1.[551]Vi çṛiñgiṇam abhinać ćhushṇam indraḥ; i. 33, 12.[552]Ahiçushmasattvâ; v. 33, 5.[553]Ahimanyavaḥ; i. 64, 9.[554]Ćakrâṇâsaḥ parîṇaham pṛithivyâ hiraṇyena maṇinâ çumbhamânâḥ; i. 33, 8.[555]vi. 1, 1.[556]The passage cited before.[557]i. 3, 22.—In Russian stories, we frequently find the incident of a serpent, or witch, who endeavours to file, or pierce through, with her tongue the iron doors which enclose the forge in which the pursued hero has taken refuge; he, from within, helped by divine blacksmiths, draws the witch's tongue in with red-hot pincers and causes her death; he then opens the gates of the forge, which represents now the red sky of evening, now the red sky of morning.[558]i. 792,et seq.—Cfr. also the second Esthonian tale, where the young hero, in the kingdom of the serpents, drinks milk in the cup of the king of the serpents himself.[559]Mbh.i. 5008,et seq.[560]i. 1283-1295.[561]v. 4, 23.[562]Cfr.Râmâyaṇam, i. 46, andMahâbhâratam, i. 1053, 1150.—In theRâmâyaṇam(vi. 26), the arrows of the monsters are said to bind like serpents; the bird Garuḍas appears and the serpents untie themselves, the fetters are loosed; Râmas and Lakshmaṇas, supposed to be dead, rise again stronger than before.[563]As we have seen thatmandarasis equivalent tomantharas, a name of the tortoise which, according to the cosmogonic legend, sustains the weight of the mountain, or enormous stick which produces the mountain, so Anantas, in another Hindoo legend (cfr.Mbh.i. 1587-1588) sustains the weight of the world.—The rod of pearls which when placed in fat enables the young prince to obtain whatever he wishes for, seems to have the same originally phallical meaning as the mandaras; it is the king of the serpents who presents it to the young prince. The fat may, in the mythical sky, be the milk of the morning dawn, or the rain of the cloud, or the snee, or the dew; as soon as the thunderbolt touches the fat of the clouds, or of the snee, or as soon as the sunbeam touches the milk of the dawn, the sun, riches, and fortune come forth.[564]Thecoitusis also called a game of serpents in theTuti-Name. Preller and Kuhn have already proved the phallical signification of the caduceus (tripetêlon) of Hermês, represented now with two wings, now with two serpents. The phallical serpent is the cause of the fall of the first man.[565]Vinatâis also the name of a disease of women; and, as far as we can judge from the passage of theMahâbhâratam(iii. 14,480), which refers to it, it is the malignant genius who destroys the fœtus in the womb of the pregnant mother. He is defined asçakunigrâhî, properly the seizer of the bird. Kaçyapas, the universal phallos, the Praǵâpatis, certainly unites himself to Vinatâ in the form of a phallos-bird, as to Kadrû in that of a phallos-serpent.[566]vi. 37-38, 46.[567]Cfr. for this subject the first and second chapters of the first book.[568]i. 949, 974.[569]i. 1671, 1980,et seq.[570]iv. 16.[571]Râmây.vii. 104, 105.[572]Cfr. concerning this subject in particular, the first chapter of the first book, the chapter on the Wolf and that on the Frog.[573]iii. 8.[574]Cfr. the discussion concerning the gandharvâs in the chapter on the Ass.[575]Râmây.vi. 82.—This nymph becomes grâhî, because she had once struck a holy Brâhman with her chariot. The same reason is assigned for the malediction which falls upon King Nahushas, who became an enormous serpent; this serpent squeezed the hero Bhîmas in its mortal coils; his brother, Yudhishṭhiras, runs up, and answers in a highly satisfactory manner to the abstruse philosophical questions addressed to him by the serpent, which then releases Bhîmas, casts off its skin, and ascends in the form of Nahushas to heaven;Mbh.iii. 12, 356,et seq.[576]Râmây.iii. 8.[577]iii. 2609,et seq.[578]Triçîrshâ iva nâgapotâs; 12, 744.[579]Cfr. Papi,Lettere sulle Indie Orientali, Lucca, 1829; it is thecobra de capelloof the Portuguese.[580]Cfr. SimrockDeutsche Mythologie, pp. 478, 513, 514, and RochholtzDeutscher Glaube und Brauch, i. 146.[581]Cfr. again the legend of Adam and Eve, of the tree and the serpent, and the original sin. In the mediæval comedyLa Sibila del Oriente, Adam when dying says to his son, "Mira en cima de mi sepulcro, que un arbol nace." In Russian stories the young hero will be fortunate, now because he watched at his father's tomb, now because he defended the paternal cypress from the demon who wished to carry it off. In the legend of the wood of the cross, according to a sermon of Hermann von Fristlar (cfr. Mussafia,Sulla Leggenda del legno della Croce), the tree upon the wood of which, made into a cross, Christ died, is said to have been a cypress. The same mediæval legend describes the terrestrial paradise whence Adam was expelled, and where Seth repairs to obtain for Adam the oil of pity. The tree rises up to heaven, and its root goes down to hell, where Seth sees the soul of his brother Abel. On the summit there is a child, the Son of God, the promised oil. The angel gives to Seth three grains which he is to put into Adam's mouth; three sprouts spring up which remain an arm's-length in height till the time of Moses, who converts them into miraculous rods, and replants them before his death; David finds them again, and performs miracles with them. The three sprouts become one plant which grows proudly into a tree. Solomon wishes to build the temple with this wood; the workmen cannot make use of it; he then has it carried into the temple; a sybil tries to sit upon it, and her clothes take fire; she cries out, "Jesus, God and my Lord," and prophesies that the Son of God will be hanged upon that wood. She is condemned to death, and the wood thrown into a fish-pond, which acquires thaumaturgic virtue; the wood comes out and they wish to make a bridge of it; the Queen of the East, Saba, refuses to pass over it, having a presentiment that Jesus will die upon that wood. Abia has the wood buried, and a fish-pond appears over it.—Now, this is what an author, unsuspected of heresy, writes concerning the symbol of the serpent (Martigny,Dictionnaire des Antiquités Chrétiennes): "Les ophites, suivant en cela les nicolaites et les premiers gnostiques, rendirent au serpent lui-même un culte direct d'adoration, et les manichéens le mirent aussi à la place de Jésus Christ (S. Augustin.De Hœres.cap. xvii. et xlvi.) Et nous devons regarder comme extrêmement probable que les talismans et les amulettes avec la figure du serpent qui sont arrivés jusqu' à nous, proviennent des hérétiques de la race de Basilide, et non pas des païens, comme on le suppose communément." To the continuers of the admirable studies of Strauss and Renan will be reserved the office of seeking the sense hidden in this myth, made poetical by the evangelical morals. When we shall be able to bring into Semitic studies the same liberty of scientific criticism which is conceded to Âryan studies, we shall have a Semitic mythology; for the present, faith, a natural sense of repugnance to abandon the beloved superstitions of our credulous childhood, and more than all, a less honourable sentiment of terror for the opinion of the world, have restrained men of study from examining Jewish history and tradition with entire impartiality and severity of judgment. We do not wish to appear Voltairians, and we prefer to shut our eyes not to see, and our ears not to hear what history, studied critically and positively, presents to us less agreeable to our pride as men, and to our vanity as Christians.[582]Cfr.Yaçna, ix. 25-27; cfr. also Prof. Spiegel's introduction to theKhorda Avesta, pp. 59, 60.[583]Cfr. the chapter concerning the Fishes and that on the Tortoise.[584]Cfr. Prof. Spiegel's introduction to theKhorda-Avesta, p. 60.[585]xxxviii. 36.[586]A variety of the Hindoo legend of the hawk (Indras), of the dove (Agnis), and of King Çivis, who, to save the dove from the hawk, his guest, gives some of his own flesh to the hawk to eat. Here the serpent is identified with the hawk or eagle; in the Mongol story, however, the dragon is grateful to the man who delivered him from the bird Garuḍas; the king of the dragons keeps guard over the white pearls, arrives upon a white horse, dressed in white (probably the snow of winter, or the moon); the king of the dragons rewards the hero by giving him a red bitch, some fat, and a string of pearls.—In the sixth story of thePańćatantram, we have the serpent and the crow, one at the foot of a tree, the other on the summit; the serpent eats the crow's eggs, and the crow avenges itself by stealing a golden necklace from the queen and throwing it into the snake's hole; the men go to seek the necklace, find the serpent and kill it.[587]We have seen in the chapter on the Ant how the ants make serpents come out of their holes; in Bavaria, according to Baron Reinsberg von Düringsfeld, the work quoted before, p. 259, an asp (natter) taken in August must be shut well up in a vase in order that it may die of heat and of hunger; then it is placed upon an ants' nest, that the ants may eat all its flesh; of what remains, a sort of paternoster is made, which is supposed to be very useful against all kinds of eruptions upon the head.[588]Cfr. the interminable riches of the uhlan-serpent in the story vi. 11, ofAfanassieff.[589]Here we have a serpent which expels and ruins another. In a similar manner, before the times of San Carlo Borromeo, a bronze serpent, which had been carried from Constantinople by the Archbishop Arnolfo in the year 1001, was revered in the basilica of St Ambrose at Milan; some said that it was the serpent of Æsculapius, others that of Moses, others that it was an image of Christ; for us it is enough to remark here that it was a mythical serpent, before which Milanese mothers brought their children when they suffered from worms, in order to relieve them, as we learn from the depositions of the visit of San Carlo to this basilica: "Est quædam superstitio de ibi mulierum pro infantibus morbo verminum laborantibus." San Carlo put down this superstition.[590]These marvels are always three, as the apples are three, the beautiful girls three, the enchanted palaces in the kingdom of the serpents which they inhabit three (cfr.Afanassieff, i. 5). The heads of the dragon are in this story and generally three, but sometimes also five, six (cfr.Afanassieff, v. 28), seven (cfr.Pentamerone, i. 7, andAfanassieff, ii. 27; the serpent of the seven heads emits foul exhalations), nine (iii. 2, v. 24), or twelve (cfr.Afanassieff, ii. 30).—In the twenty-first story of the second book ofAfanassieff, first the serpent with three heads appears, then that with six, then that with nine heads which throw out water and threaten to inundate the kingdom. Ivan Tzarević exterminates them. In the twenty-second story of the same book the serpent of the Black Sea, with wings of fire, flies into the Tzar's garden and carries off the three daughters; the first is obtained and shut up by the five-headed serpent, the second by the seven-headed one, and the third by the serpent with twelve heads; the young hero Frolka Sidien kills the three serpents and liberates the three daughters.[591]Cfr. also, for the legend of the blind woman, the first chapter of the first book.[592]When the mythical serpent refers to the year, the hours correspond to the months, and the months during which the mythical serpent sleeps seem to be those of summer, in contradiction to what is observed in nature.[593]In the fifth story of the second book of thePentamerone, a serpent has itself adopted, as their son, by a man and woman who have no children, and then asks for the king's daughter to wife; the king, who thinks to turn the serpent into ridicule, answers that he will consent when the serpent has made all the fruit-trees of the royal garden become golden, the soil of the same garden turn into precious stones, and his whole palace into a pile of gold. The serpent sows kernels of fruits and egg-shells in the garden; from the first, the required trees spring up; from the second, the pavement of precious stones; he then anoints the palace with a certain herb, and it turns to gold. The serpent comes to take his wife in a golden chariot, drawn by four golden elephants, lays aside his serpent's disguise, and becomes a handsome youth.[594]Cfr. Mone,Anzeig.iii. 88.[595]Cfr. on this subject the stories recorded in the first and second chapters of the first book.[596]Origines, xiv. 4.[597]Cfr. the same,Afanassieff, vi. 10, where the cunning workman, in reward for having vanquished the little devil in whistling, and for having made it believe that he could throw a stick upon the clouds, obtains the money which can remain in a hat which never fills.
"Jam dederat Salii (a saltu nomina ducunt)Armaque et ad certos verba canenda modos."—Fasti, iii. 389.
"Jam dederat Salii (a saltu nomina ducunt)Armaque et ad certos verba canenda modos."—Fasti, iii. 389.
[510]It is interesting in this connection to find in the translation of Lane a passage from theAǵáïb-el-Makhlooḳát(Marvels of Creation), a work of the thirteenth century: "The tortoise is a sea and land animal. As to the sea tortoise it is very enormous, so that the people of the ship imagine it to be an island. One of the merchants relates as follows regarding it: 'We found in the sea an island elevated above the water, having upon it green plants, and we went forth to it, and dug [holes for fire] to cook; whereupon the island moved, and the sailors said, "Come ye to your place, for it is a tortoise, and the heat of the fire hath hurt it, lest it carry you away." By reason of the enormity of its body,' said he [i.e., the narrator above mentioned], 'it was as though it were an island, and earth collected upon its back in the length of time, so that it became like land, and produced plants.'" Evidently here the tortoise occupies the same place as, in popular tradition, the lunar whale recorded by us in the chapter on the Fishes. Cfr. Lane,The Thousand and One Nights, London, 1841, vol. iii. chap. xx. n. 1 and 8, p. 80seq.—Grein,Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie, Göttingen, 1857, 1, 235, the Celtic legend of St Brandan and thePseudo-Callisthenes.
[511]Cfr. the first story of the fourth book of thePańćatantram, where the king of the frogs invokes the help of a black serpent to avenge himself upon certain frogs who are his enemies, and, instead of this, draws down death upon all the frogs and upon his own son.
[512]Vâr in maṇḍûka ićhatîndrayendo pari srava;Ṛigv.ix. 112.
[513]A similar tradition was current concerning the tarantula (stellio). Ceres, being thirsty, wished to drink; the boy Stelles prevented her, and the goddess transformed him into astellio. According to Ulpianus, from thestelliowas derived thecrimen stellionatus.
[514]Cfr. alsoAfanassieff, vi. 55; Masha (Mary), the wife of Ivan, at first appears as a goose, afterwards as a frog, a lizard, and a spindle.
[515]In the eighth story of the first book of thePentameroneit is a lacerta cornuta (horned lizard, the moon) which watches over the destiny of the girl Renzolle (the aurora).
[516]It was thus that I heard it recited, but it should, as it appears to me, be corrected both in rhyme and sense, andgragnachanged intograma, unlessgragnais a verb and stands forgrandina(hail); in Italy, there is a superstitious belief that the toads are generated of the first large drops of rain which fall into the dust at the beginning of a tempest.
[517]A similar superstition is current in Germany, as I find in Rochholtz, the work quoted before, i. 147: "Auch die Hauskröte, Unke, Muhme genannt, wohnt im Hauskeller und hält durch ihren Einfluss die hier verwahrten Lebensmittel in einem gedeihlichen Zustand. Dadurch kommt Wohlstand ins Haus, und das Thier heisst daher Schatzkröte. In Verwechslung mit dem braunschwarzen Kellermolch wird sie auch Gmöhl genannt und soll eben so oft ihre Farbe verändern, als der Familie eine Veränderung bevorsteht."—The various popular superstitions concerning the salamander are well known,—viz., that it resists the power of fire, that it lives in fire, that it becomes like fire: "immo ad ignem usque elementarem orbi lunari finitimum ascendere" (according to Aldrovandi), and that, devoid of hairs itself, it causes the hairs of others to fall out by means of its saliva, whence Martial, cursing the baldness of a woman's head—
"Hoc salamandra caput, aut sæva novacula nudet."
"Hoc salamandra caput, aut sæva novacula nudet."
Pliny therefore recommends against the poisonous venom which is ascribed to the salamander, the seeds of the hairy and stinging nettle, with broth of a tortoise (which it resembles by its yellow spots). The salamander of popular superstition seems to me to represent the moon which lights itself, which lives by its own fire, which has no rays or hairs of its own, and which makes the rays or hairs of the sun fall.
[518]It was narrated to me by a peasant woman who heard it at Cavour in Piedmont:—
A man who is paralytic has three daughters, Catherine, Clorinda, and Margaret; he sets out on a journey to consult a great doctor, and asks his daughters what they wish him to bring them when he returns; Margaret will be content if he bring her a flower. He arrives at his destination, a castle; everything is prepared to receive him, but the doctor is not to be found; he sets out to return home, but on the way he recollects the flower, which he had forgotten; he goes back to the garden of the castle and is about to pluck a daisy (margherita), when a toad warns him that he will die in three days if he does not give it one of his daughters to wife. The father informs his daughters of this, upon which the two eldest refuse; but the youngest, in order to save her father's life, consents. Her father is cured, and the wedding takes place; during the night the toad becomes a beautiful youth, but warns his bride never to tell any one, for if she does, he will always remain a toad, and he gives her a ring by means of which she will obtain whatever she wishes for. The sisters have an inkling of some mystery, and make her confess; the toad falls ill and disappears; she calls him with the ring, but in vain; seeing this, she throws the ring, as useless, into a pond, upon which the beautiful youth steps out, and never becomes a toad again; their happiness together thereafter is unbroken.
In an unpublished Tuscan story, related to me by Uliva Selvi at Antignano near Leghorn, instead of the toad we have a magician of frightful aspect. The father of the three daughters is a sailor; he promises to fetch a shawl to the first, a hat to the second, and a rose to the third. When the voyage is over, he is about to return, but, having forgotten the rose, the ship refuses to move; he is compelled to go back to look for the rose in a garden; a magician hands the rose with a little box to the father to give it to one of his daughters, whom the magician is to marry. At midnight, the father, having returned home, relates to his third daughter all that happened. The little box is opened; it carries off the third daughter to the magician, who happens to be king of Pietraverde, and is now a handsome young man. He shows her, in the palace, three rooms, of which one is red, one white, and another black. They live together happily. Meanwhile, the eldest sister is to be married; the magician conducts his wife into the red room; she wishes to go to the wedding, and the magician consents, but warns her not to say either who he is, or aught she knows of him, if she does not wish to lose him, as to recover him again she would have to wait till she should wear out as many shoes as there are in the world. He gives her a dress which, as she goes, is heard rustling a long way off; and he tells her, if her pin should drop, to let the bride pick it up and keep it; warning her, moreover, not to drink or to eat of anything they may offer her. All this she observes to the letter. The second sister is about to be married; the magician leads his wife into the white room and repeats the same instructions, only, instead of the pin, she is to let her ring of brilliants drop. The father dies; the magician then takes his wife into the black room, the chamber of melancholy. She wishes to go to the funeral, and is permitted, after the usual warnings; the magician, moreover, gives her a ring; if it become black, she will lose him; she forgets the warning and loses him. She wanders about for seven years, and no one can give her any news of the king of Pietraverde; she then disguises herself as a man, and arrives at a city where the king's hostler takes her into his service; no sooner does she touch the carriages than they become clean. The queen passes by and wonders at the personal appearance of the youth; she engages him to work in her kitchen, then to serve at table, and finally to be hervalet de chambre. The queen falls in love with him, and wishes to have him at any cost; in vain; she then accuses him of designing to take her life. The king, although unwillingly, has him put in prison; soon he has pity upon him and lets him free. The fictitious youth continues to wander about; he arrives at the city, and asks for news of the king of Pietraverde; they tell her that he has long been dead, and point her to a room where his bier is supported by columns of wax, or candles; he will not awake until the candles are consumed. She goes up and weeps; the king takes three hairs from his beard and recommends her to preserve them carefully. She continues her wanderings, still dressed as a man, and is engaged by other hostlers of a king as assistant. The news of her bravery reach the king, who takes her into his kitchen. The queen sees him and falls in love with him; in vain; she accuses him to the king, who puts her in prison; she is condemned to death, and the guillotine is prepared. While going to execution, she remembers the three hairs, and burns one; an army of warriors appear, sent by the king of Pietraverde; they terrify all the king's people, whom they compel to postpone the execution till next day. The next day she does the same with the same result. The third day she brings out the third hair; the cavalry appear again, commanded this time by the king of Pietraverde in person, dressed so that he shone like a brilliant, that he appeared like a sun; he releases the youth from the execution; the king of Pietraverde has the young girl dressed as a princess; she is tried in a court of justice; her innocence is established; the queen's head is cut off.
[519]"Suessanus tradit, quod bufonem quempiam obviam fieri felicissimum augurium fuisse antiquitas existimavit.—Anno 1553, in villa quadam Thuringia ad Unstrum, a muliere bufo caudatus natus est, quemadmodum in libro de prodigiis et ostentis habetur. Nec mirum, quia Cœlius Aurelianus et Platearius scribunt mulieres aliquando cum fœto humano bufones et alia animalia hujus generis eniti. Sed hujus monstrosæ conceptionis causam non assignant. Tradit quidem Platearius illa præsidia, quæ ad provocandos menses commendantur, ducere; etiam bufonem fratrem Salernitanorum quemadmodum aliqui lacertum fratrem Longobardorum nominant. Quoniam mulieres Salernitanæ potissimum in principio conceptionis succum apii et porrorum potant, ut hoc animal interimant, antequam fœtus viviscat. Insuper mulier quædam ex Gesnero, recens nupta cum omnium opinione prægnans diceretur, quatuor animalia bufonibus similia peperit et optime valuit."—Aldrovandi also reads: "apud Heisterbacensem in historia miraculorum," that some monks found a living toad inside a hen in place of intestines. In the same author, a priest finds an immense toad at the bottom of a jar of wine; whilst he is wondering how such a large toad should have been able to enter by such a small orifice, the toad disappears.
[520]Cfr. Targioni Tozzetti,Lezioni di Materia Medica, Florence, 1821.
[521]Some extraordinary lizards of which Aldrovandi speaks are of a half sacred and half monstrous nature: "Præter illud memorabile, quod Mizaldus recitat accidisse anno Domini 1551, mense Julii in Hungaria prope pagum Zichsum juxta Theisum fluvium nimirum in multorum hominum alvo lacertas naturalibus similes ortas fuisse. Interdum contingit, ut animadvertit Schenchius, lacertam viridem in cæti magnitudinem excrescere, qualis aliquando Lutetiæ visa est. Sæpe etiam lacertæ duobus et tribus caudis refertæ nascuntur, quas vulgus ludentibus favorabiles esse nugatur."
[522]In theMahâbhâratam, i. 981-1003, it is said that the serpents amphisbhænæ (duṇḍubhâs, duṇḍavas, nâgabhṛitas, the same, I think, as the mannuni of Malabar,) being good, must not be killed; an amphisbhæna relates that it had once been the wise Sahasrapâd (properly of the hundred feet; the amphisbhæna appears to be a lizard without feet, and with a tail the same size as its head, for which reason the belief arose that it had two heads; it seems to be another personification of the circular year, like the serpent), and that it became a serpent by a curse, because it had once frightened a Brâhman with a fictitious serpent made of grass; at the sight of the wise Kurus, the amphisbhæna is released from its malediction.
[523]St Augustine,Hom.36, says of the devil: "Leo et draco est; Leo propter impetum, Draco propter insidias;" in Albania, the devil is calleddreikj, and in Romania,dracu.
[524]A proverb of theRâmâyaṇamsays, that "only a female serpent can distinguish the feet of a male serpent" (v. 38): Ahireva hyaheḥ pâdâu viǵâniyânna saṁçayaḥ). The feet of the serpent, like those of the devil, which is the tail (or the phallos of the male) can be perceived by a female alone; women know where the devil has his tail.
[525]Tom. i., "Sunt qui in aquæ inspectione umbras dæmonum evocant, et imagiones vel ludificationes ibi videre et ab iis aliqua audire se perhibent."
[526]In the seventh bookDe Civitate Dei, the saint writes: "Ipse Numas ad quem nullus Dei propheta, nullus Sanctus Angelus mittebatur, Hydromantiam facere compulsus est, ut in aqua videret imagines deorum vel potius ludificationes dæmonum, a quibus audiret, quid in sacris constituere atque observare deberet quod genus divinationis idem Varro a Persis dicit allatum."
[527]It also exists in Roumania, where the new solar year is celebrated by the benediction of the waters, as if to exorcise the demons that inhabit them.
[528]Codex Reg., 5600 ann. circ. 800, fol. 101, in Du Cange: "Sunt aliqui rustici homines, qui credunt aliquas mulieres, quod vulgum dicitur strias, esse debeant, et ad infantes vel pecora nocere possint, vel dusiolus, vel Aquatiquus, vel geniscus esse debeat." Neptunus, vel aliquis genius, quia quis præest designari videtur.
[529]The monsters which mount into heaven by magical deceits, killed by Indras, are said to creep like serpents: Mâyâbhir utsisṛipsata indra dyâm;Ṛigv.viii. 14, 14.
[530]The name ofArbudas, given to the monster which Indras, the ram (meshas), crushes (forni-kramseems to me to have this meaning) under his foot while it is lying, is nothing else than a serpent; moreover, he, whose people is thesarpâsor serpents, is the king of the serpents. Toarbud-asI would refer the Latin wordsrep-ere,rept-are,reptil-is.
[531]Apâd ahasto apṛitanyad indram âsya vaǵram adhi sânâu ǵaghana;Ṛigv.i. 32, 7.—Yo vyaṅsaṁ ǵahṛishâṇena manyunâ yaḥ çambaraṁ yo ahan piprum avratam; i. 101, 2.—Apâdam atram mahatâ vadhena ni duryoṇa âvṛiṇañ mṛidhravâćam; v. 32, 8.
[532]Ahann ahim parvate çiçṛiyâṅam; i. 32, 2.—Ahann enam prathamaǵâm ahînâm; i. 32, 3.
[533]Nîćâvayâ abhavad vṛitraputrendro asyâ ava vadhar ǵabhâra—uttarâ sûr adharaḥ putra âsîd dânuḥ çaye sahavatsâ na dhenuḥ; i. 32, 9. Properly speaking, the verse speaks here of Vṛitras, and not of Ahis; but the coverer and the constrictor being equivalent, it seems to me that there are not here two beings distinguished, in the same hymn, by two analogous appellations.
[534]Dâsapatnîr ahigopâ atishṭhan niruddhâ âpaḥ paṇineva gâvaḥ; i. 32, 11.—The reader will remember the discussion concerning the proverb of shutting the stable after the oxen are stolen, in the first chapter of the first book.
[535]Avâdaho diva â dasyum uććâ; i. 33, 7.
[536]Guhâhitam guhyaṁ gûḷham apsu apîvṛitam mâyinaṁ kshiyantam uto apo dyâm tastabhvâṅsam ahann ahiṁ çura vîryeṇa; ii. 11, 5.
[537]Âçayânam ahim vaǵreṇa maghavan vi vṛiçćaḥ; iv. 17, 7.
[538]Sapta prati pravata âçayânam ahiṁ vaǵreṇa vi rîṇâ aparvan; iv. 19, 3.
[539]Sasantaṁ vaǵreṇâbodhayo 'him; i. 103, 7.
[540]Navantam ahiṁ saṁ piṇag ṛiǵîshin; vi. 17, 10.
[541]Sa mâhina indro arṇo apâm prâirayad ahihâćhâ samudram aǵanayat sûryaṁ vidad gâh; ii. 19, 3.—Sṛiǵaḥ sindhûṅr ahinâ ǵagrasânân;Ṛigv.iv. 17, 1.—Ahann ahim anv apas tatarda pra vakshaṇâ abhinat parvatânâm; i. 32, 2.
[542]Yad indrâhan prathamaǵâm ahînâm ân mâyinâm aminâh prota mâyâḥ—ât sûryaṁ ǵanayan dyâm ushâsaṁ tâdîtnâ çatruṁ na kilâ vivitse; i. 32, 4.
[543]Ahan vṛitraṁ vṛitrataraṁ vyaṅsam indro vaǵrena mahatâ vadhena skandḥaṇsîva kuliçenâ vivṛiknâhiḥ çayata upapṛik pṛithivyâḥ; i. 32, 5.—Ud vṛiha rakshaḥ sahamûlam indra vriçća madhyam praty agraṁ çṛinîhi; iii. 30, 17.
[544]Çayânam mano ruhânâ ati yanty âpaḥ; i. 32, 8.
[545]Anu tvâ patnîr hṛishitaṁ vayaç ća viçve devâso amadann anu tvâ; i. 103, 7.—Asmâ id u gnâç ćid devapatnîr indrâyârkam ahihatya ûvuḥ; i. 61, 8.
[546]Striyo hi dâsa âyudhâni ćakre;Ṛigv.v. 30, 9.
[547]Sa vṛitrahendraḥ kṛishṇayonîḥ puraṃdaro dâsîr âirayad vi; ii. 20, 7.—Vṛitras the killer of Piprus, Indraspuraṁ-daras, properly, who wounds the full one, who cleaves the full or the swollen one, and hence who wounds, the city, and Indras the lacerator of the witches with the black wombs are equivalent; cfr. what was said concerning the thunderbolt as a phallos, in the first chapter of the first book, where the cuckoo is spoken of, and in the chapter on the Cuckoo in the second book.—In the hymn, i. 32, 9, Indras also wounds underneath the mother of the monster: Indro asyâ ava vadhar ǵabhâra.
[548]Uto nu ćid ya oǵasâ çushṇasyâṇḍâni bhedati ǵeshat svarvatîr apaḥ;Ṛigv.viii. 40, 10.—In the hymn i. 54, 10, it is said that the cloud-mountain is found amongst the intestines of the coverer; one might say that the serpent binds the cloud in the form of bowels. The reader will recollect what we observed concerning the intestines, the heart, and the liver, of the sacrificed victim in the first chapter of the first book.
[549]In the twentieth story of the fifth book ofAfanassieffwe find a singular variety, which is of some importance in the history of mythology and language. A princess asks the serpent, her husband, by what his death can be caused. The serpent answers that his death can be brought about by the hero Nikita Kaszemiaka, who, in fact, comes up and kills the serpent by submerging him in the sea. Nikita is called, it is said, Kaszemiaka, because his occupation was that of tearing skins. The torn skins (cfr. here also theJupiter Aegiocus) take here the place of the duck's egg broken upon the serpent, and of the eggs of the monster broken by Indras. In Italian,coccio, means a piece of a broken vase, and also, in botany, the skin of a seed;incocciarsisignifies to be angry. In Piedmont, it is said of one who annoys people, that he breaks the boxes, and, more vulgarly, that he breaks the testicles.
[550]Hiraṇyakeço 'hiḥ;Ṛigv.i. 79, 1.
[551]Vi çṛiñgiṇam abhinać ćhushṇam indraḥ; i. 33, 12.
[552]Ahiçushmasattvâ; v. 33, 5.
[553]Ahimanyavaḥ; i. 64, 9.
[554]Ćakrâṇâsaḥ parîṇaham pṛithivyâ hiraṇyena maṇinâ çumbhamânâḥ; i. 33, 8.
[555]vi. 1, 1.
[556]The passage cited before.
[557]i. 3, 22.—In Russian stories, we frequently find the incident of a serpent, or witch, who endeavours to file, or pierce through, with her tongue the iron doors which enclose the forge in which the pursued hero has taken refuge; he, from within, helped by divine blacksmiths, draws the witch's tongue in with red-hot pincers and causes her death; he then opens the gates of the forge, which represents now the red sky of evening, now the red sky of morning.
[558]i. 792,et seq.—Cfr. also the second Esthonian tale, where the young hero, in the kingdom of the serpents, drinks milk in the cup of the king of the serpents himself.
[559]Mbh.i. 5008,et seq.
[560]i. 1283-1295.
[561]v. 4, 23.
[562]Cfr.Râmâyaṇam, i. 46, andMahâbhâratam, i. 1053, 1150.—In theRâmâyaṇam(vi. 26), the arrows of the monsters are said to bind like serpents; the bird Garuḍas appears and the serpents untie themselves, the fetters are loosed; Râmas and Lakshmaṇas, supposed to be dead, rise again stronger than before.
[563]As we have seen thatmandarasis equivalent tomantharas, a name of the tortoise which, according to the cosmogonic legend, sustains the weight of the mountain, or enormous stick which produces the mountain, so Anantas, in another Hindoo legend (cfr.Mbh.i. 1587-1588) sustains the weight of the world.—The rod of pearls which when placed in fat enables the young prince to obtain whatever he wishes for, seems to have the same originally phallical meaning as the mandaras; it is the king of the serpents who presents it to the young prince. The fat may, in the mythical sky, be the milk of the morning dawn, or the rain of the cloud, or the snee, or the dew; as soon as the thunderbolt touches the fat of the clouds, or of the snee, or as soon as the sunbeam touches the milk of the dawn, the sun, riches, and fortune come forth.
[564]Thecoitusis also called a game of serpents in theTuti-Name. Preller and Kuhn have already proved the phallical signification of the caduceus (tripetêlon) of Hermês, represented now with two wings, now with two serpents. The phallical serpent is the cause of the fall of the first man.
[565]Vinatâis also the name of a disease of women; and, as far as we can judge from the passage of theMahâbhâratam(iii. 14,480), which refers to it, it is the malignant genius who destroys the fœtus in the womb of the pregnant mother. He is defined asçakunigrâhî, properly the seizer of the bird. Kaçyapas, the universal phallos, the Praǵâpatis, certainly unites himself to Vinatâ in the form of a phallos-bird, as to Kadrû in that of a phallos-serpent.
[566]vi. 37-38, 46.
[567]Cfr. for this subject the first and second chapters of the first book.
[568]i. 949, 974.
[569]i. 1671, 1980,et seq.
[570]iv. 16.
[571]Râmây.vii. 104, 105.
[572]Cfr. concerning this subject in particular, the first chapter of the first book, the chapter on the Wolf and that on the Frog.
[573]iii. 8.
[574]Cfr. the discussion concerning the gandharvâs in the chapter on the Ass.
[575]Râmây.vi. 82.—This nymph becomes grâhî, because she had once struck a holy Brâhman with her chariot. The same reason is assigned for the malediction which falls upon King Nahushas, who became an enormous serpent; this serpent squeezed the hero Bhîmas in its mortal coils; his brother, Yudhishṭhiras, runs up, and answers in a highly satisfactory manner to the abstruse philosophical questions addressed to him by the serpent, which then releases Bhîmas, casts off its skin, and ascends in the form of Nahushas to heaven;Mbh.iii. 12, 356,et seq.
[576]Râmây.iii. 8.
[577]iii. 2609,et seq.
[578]Triçîrshâ iva nâgapotâs; 12, 744.
[579]Cfr. Papi,Lettere sulle Indie Orientali, Lucca, 1829; it is thecobra de capelloof the Portuguese.
[580]Cfr. SimrockDeutsche Mythologie, pp. 478, 513, 514, and RochholtzDeutscher Glaube und Brauch, i. 146.
[581]Cfr. again the legend of Adam and Eve, of the tree and the serpent, and the original sin. In the mediæval comedyLa Sibila del Oriente, Adam when dying says to his son, "Mira en cima de mi sepulcro, que un arbol nace." In Russian stories the young hero will be fortunate, now because he watched at his father's tomb, now because he defended the paternal cypress from the demon who wished to carry it off. In the legend of the wood of the cross, according to a sermon of Hermann von Fristlar (cfr. Mussafia,Sulla Leggenda del legno della Croce), the tree upon the wood of which, made into a cross, Christ died, is said to have been a cypress. The same mediæval legend describes the terrestrial paradise whence Adam was expelled, and where Seth repairs to obtain for Adam the oil of pity. The tree rises up to heaven, and its root goes down to hell, where Seth sees the soul of his brother Abel. On the summit there is a child, the Son of God, the promised oil. The angel gives to Seth three grains which he is to put into Adam's mouth; three sprouts spring up which remain an arm's-length in height till the time of Moses, who converts them into miraculous rods, and replants them before his death; David finds them again, and performs miracles with them. The three sprouts become one plant which grows proudly into a tree. Solomon wishes to build the temple with this wood; the workmen cannot make use of it; he then has it carried into the temple; a sybil tries to sit upon it, and her clothes take fire; she cries out, "Jesus, God and my Lord," and prophesies that the Son of God will be hanged upon that wood. She is condemned to death, and the wood thrown into a fish-pond, which acquires thaumaturgic virtue; the wood comes out and they wish to make a bridge of it; the Queen of the East, Saba, refuses to pass over it, having a presentiment that Jesus will die upon that wood. Abia has the wood buried, and a fish-pond appears over it.—Now, this is what an author, unsuspected of heresy, writes concerning the symbol of the serpent (Martigny,Dictionnaire des Antiquités Chrétiennes): "Les ophites, suivant en cela les nicolaites et les premiers gnostiques, rendirent au serpent lui-même un culte direct d'adoration, et les manichéens le mirent aussi à la place de Jésus Christ (S. Augustin.De Hœres.cap. xvii. et xlvi.) Et nous devons regarder comme extrêmement probable que les talismans et les amulettes avec la figure du serpent qui sont arrivés jusqu' à nous, proviennent des hérétiques de la race de Basilide, et non pas des païens, comme on le suppose communément." To the continuers of the admirable studies of Strauss and Renan will be reserved the office of seeking the sense hidden in this myth, made poetical by the evangelical morals. When we shall be able to bring into Semitic studies the same liberty of scientific criticism which is conceded to Âryan studies, we shall have a Semitic mythology; for the present, faith, a natural sense of repugnance to abandon the beloved superstitions of our credulous childhood, and more than all, a less honourable sentiment of terror for the opinion of the world, have restrained men of study from examining Jewish history and tradition with entire impartiality and severity of judgment. We do not wish to appear Voltairians, and we prefer to shut our eyes not to see, and our ears not to hear what history, studied critically and positively, presents to us less agreeable to our pride as men, and to our vanity as Christians.
[582]Cfr.Yaçna, ix. 25-27; cfr. also Prof. Spiegel's introduction to theKhorda Avesta, pp. 59, 60.
[583]Cfr. the chapter concerning the Fishes and that on the Tortoise.
[584]Cfr. Prof. Spiegel's introduction to theKhorda-Avesta, p. 60.
[585]xxxviii. 36.
[586]A variety of the Hindoo legend of the hawk (Indras), of the dove (Agnis), and of King Çivis, who, to save the dove from the hawk, his guest, gives some of his own flesh to the hawk to eat. Here the serpent is identified with the hawk or eagle; in the Mongol story, however, the dragon is grateful to the man who delivered him from the bird Garuḍas; the king of the dragons keeps guard over the white pearls, arrives upon a white horse, dressed in white (probably the snow of winter, or the moon); the king of the dragons rewards the hero by giving him a red bitch, some fat, and a string of pearls.—In the sixth story of thePańćatantram, we have the serpent and the crow, one at the foot of a tree, the other on the summit; the serpent eats the crow's eggs, and the crow avenges itself by stealing a golden necklace from the queen and throwing it into the snake's hole; the men go to seek the necklace, find the serpent and kill it.
[587]We have seen in the chapter on the Ant how the ants make serpents come out of their holes; in Bavaria, according to Baron Reinsberg von Düringsfeld, the work quoted before, p. 259, an asp (natter) taken in August must be shut well up in a vase in order that it may die of heat and of hunger; then it is placed upon an ants' nest, that the ants may eat all its flesh; of what remains, a sort of paternoster is made, which is supposed to be very useful against all kinds of eruptions upon the head.
[588]Cfr. the interminable riches of the uhlan-serpent in the story vi. 11, ofAfanassieff.
[589]Here we have a serpent which expels and ruins another. In a similar manner, before the times of San Carlo Borromeo, a bronze serpent, which had been carried from Constantinople by the Archbishop Arnolfo in the year 1001, was revered in the basilica of St Ambrose at Milan; some said that it was the serpent of Æsculapius, others that of Moses, others that it was an image of Christ; for us it is enough to remark here that it was a mythical serpent, before which Milanese mothers brought their children when they suffered from worms, in order to relieve them, as we learn from the depositions of the visit of San Carlo to this basilica: "Est quædam superstitio de ibi mulierum pro infantibus morbo verminum laborantibus." San Carlo put down this superstition.
[590]These marvels are always three, as the apples are three, the beautiful girls three, the enchanted palaces in the kingdom of the serpents which they inhabit three (cfr.Afanassieff, i. 5). The heads of the dragon are in this story and generally three, but sometimes also five, six (cfr.Afanassieff, v. 28), seven (cfr.Pentamerone, i. 7, andAfanassieff, ii. 27; the serpent of the seven heads emits foul exhalations), nine (iii. 2, v. 24), or twelve (cfr.Afanassieff, ii. 30).—In the twenty-first story of the second book ofAfanassieff, first the serpent with three heads appears, then that with six, then that with nine heads which throw out water and threaten to inundate the kingdom. Ivan Tzarević exterminates them. In the twenty-second story of the same book the serpent of the Black Sea, with wings of fire, flies into the Tzar's garden and carries off the three daughters; the first is obtained and shut up by the five-headed serpent, the second by the seven-headed one, and the third by the serpent with twelve heads; the young hero Frolka Sidien kills the three serpents and liberates the three daughters.
[591]Cfr. also, for the legend of the blind woman, the first chapter of the first book.
[592]When the mythical serpent refers to the year, the hours correspond to the months, and the months during which the mythical serpent sleeps seem to be those of summer, in contradiction to what is observed in nature.
[593]In the fifth story of the second book of thePentamerone, a serpent has itself adopted, as their son, by a man and woman who have no children, and then asks for the king's daughter to wife; the king, who thinks to turn the serpent into ridicule, answers that he will consent when the serpent has made all the fruit-trees of the royal garden become golden, the soil of the same garden turn into precious stones, and his whole palace into a pile of gold. The serpent sows kernels of fruits and egg-shells in the garden; from the first, the required trees spring up; from the second, the pavement of precious stones; he then anoints the palace with a certain herb, and it turns to gold. The serpent comes to take his wife in a golden chariot, drawn by four golden elephants, lays aside his serpent's disguise, and becomes a handsome youth.
[594]Cfr. Mone,Anzeig.iii. 88.
[595]Cfr. on this subject the stories recorded in the first and second chapters of the first book.
[596]Origines, xiv. 4.
[597]Cfr. the same,Afanassieff, vi. 10, where the cunning workman, in reward for having vanquished the little devil in whistling, and for having made it believe that he could throw a stick upon the clouds, obtains the money which can remain in a hat which never fills.