TRANSFORMATION IN FOLK-LORE AND FAIRY-TALE
(_continued_)
A skin-dress that could be put on or taken off to change a person into
an animal, or into a human being again, is the basic idea of
transformation in folk-tales. When the skin is burnt the animal
permanently resumes human shape, as appears from the last story in the
preceding chapter. Many legends of frog-princes, serpent-husbands,
swan-maidens, tiger-sons, and so forth, fall into this class. A quaint
and typical story of the kind is told about a mouse-maiden.
A king and queen of a certain city had a daughter who was invited to
become the bride of a prince who lived in another city. Messengers
were sent to fetch her, and when they arrived at the palace they
ordered the bride to come out of her room to eat the rice of the
wedding-feast. But the queen said to the messengers, "She is now
eating cooked rice in the house."
They then begged the princess to come out to dress in the robes sent
by the bridegroom, but the queen said, "She is already putting on
robes in her chamber." Then they said she was to come out and be taken
to the bridegroom's city, and the queen, having put a female mouse in
an incense box, asked two of the messengers to come forward and gave
the box into their hands, saying, "Take this and until seven days have
gone by do not lift the lid of the box."
With this the messengers had to be satisfied. They took the box to the
prince's city, and when they lifted the lid after seven days the
mouse jumped out of the box and hid herself among the cooking pots.
Now it was the duty of a servant girl in the prince's household to
apportion and serve cooked rice and vegetable curry to the prince, and
when he was satisfied, she covered up the cooking pots containing the
rest of the food. Then the mouse came, and having taken and eaten some
of the cooked rice and vegetables, covered up the cooking pots and
went back to hide among the pots.
The following day the same thing occurred, and the prince said to the
servant, "Does the mouse eat cooked rice? Look and tell me."
The girl went to see and when she came back she said, "She has eaten
the cooked rice and covered the cooking pots, and has gone."
Next day the prince said, "I am going to cut the rice-crop. Remain at
home and, when evening comes, put the utensils for cooking near the
hearth." So the servant obeyed him and in the evening the mouse came and
cooked. She placed the food ready and again ran and hid behind the pots.
This went on for several days, and when the whole rice-crop was
garnered in, the prince went near to the place where the mouse was
hidden and said, "Having pounded the rice and removed the husks, let
us go to your village and present it to your parents as first-fruits."
But the mouse said, "I will not go. You go!" So the prince made the
servant get the package of cooked rice ready, and he went to the
village of the queen and gave the package to her.
And the queen said, "Where is my daughter?" The prince answered, "She
refused to come."
Then the queen said, "Go back to your city, and having placed the
cooking utensils near the hearth, hide yourself and stay in the house."
After the prince returned to the city, he did as she had told him. The
mouse, having come out, took off her mouse-jacket, and, assuming the
shape of a girl, put on other clothes. While she was preparing to
cook, the prince took the mouse-jacket and burnt it.
Afterwards when the girl went to the place where the mouse-jacket had
been and looked for it, it was not there. Then she looked in the
hearth, and saw that there was one sleeve of the skin-dress among the
embers. While she was there weeping and weeping, the prince came out
of his hiding-place and said, "Your mother told me to burn the
mouse-jacket. Now you are really mine!"
So the mouse became a princess again and married the prince.[80]
The same idea is contained in the story of the king who, putting on a
jackal-skin, turns into a jackal, only resuming human form permanently
when the skin is burnt.[81] In "Indian Fairy Tales" there is a prince
who has a monkey-skin which he can put on and off at pleasure.[82] A
king's daughter in another story also has a monkey-skin and when a
prince burns it she takes fire and flies away all ablaze to her father's
palace.[83] Four fairy doves in feather-dresses appear in "Romantic
Tales from the Panjab with Indian Night's Entertainment."[84] When they
take off their feathers to bathe, a prince conceals one dress and the
fairy is unable to resume bird form. The story of the feather-vest of
the dove-maiden in "The Arabian Nights"[85] is similar in style.
The swan-maidens or cloud-maidens, as they are sometimes called, have
a shirt made of swan's feathers which acts much in the same manner as
the wolf-skin to the wer-wolf. The swan-maiden retains human shape as
long as she is kept away from her feather tunic. The commonest form of
this legend is that of a man who passes by a lake and sees several
beautiful maidens bathing, their feather-dresses lying on the bank. He
approaches quietly and steals one of the dresses. In due course the
bathers come to the shore, don their dresses and swim off in the shape
of swans, all but one, who is left lamenting on the shore. Then the
thief appears, tells her what he has done and bids the maiden marry
him. They live happily together until one day when the husband, by
accident, leaves the wardrobe door unlocked and the swan-maiden puts
on her feather-shirt and flies off, never to return.[86]
In a similar story the maiden is wearing a gold chain round her neck
which her huntsman lover seizes, thus gaining the power over her which
makes it possible to woo and wed her. She gives birth in due course to
seven sons, each one of whom wears a gold chain about his neck and can
transform himself into a swan at will.
Lothaire, King of France, married a fairy wife, and his children were
born wearing golden collars which gave them the magical power of
assuming the form of swans.
In the legends which have a Knight of the Swan as hero, like the story
of Lohengrin, the swan plays only a secondary part.
The primitive idea at the root of all these stories is that the human
soul, in passing from one shape to another, has to wear the outer sign
or garment of the creature it desires to represent. The symbolic
difference between the wer-wolf and the swan-maiden is that the former
represents the rough, howling, and destructive night-wind, the latter
the fleecy, pure, and enthralling summer cloud.
The Valkyries, with their shirts of plumage, who hover over
Scandinavian battle-fields to minister to the souls of dying heroes
are of the same order of beings as the Hindu Asparas and the Houris of
the Mussulman. The Lorelei sirens with their fish-tails, their golden
combs and mirrors, who lure fishermen to their doom on the rocks, are
not far removed from the same family. All are partly human and allied
with more or less fanciful animal forms and characteristics. They are
frequently the precursors of evil or at least of danger to mankind,
but many of them possess a sweetness and charm which is unsurpassed
and unsurpassable.
Far more terrible than sirens and swan-maidens were the Berserkers of
Scandinavia in the ninth century who, possessed by a strange mania,
arrayed themselves in the skins of wolves or bears and went forth to
see whom they might devour.
The Mara is a more peaceable but nevertheless a more uncanny being, a
kind of female demon who comes at night to torment sleepers by
crouching on their bodies and checking respiration. Sometimes she is
to be seen in animal form, sometimes as a beautiful woman. She has
been known to torture people to death, and may perhaps have some
distant affinity to the vampire, but is far less vindictive and
self-seeking, though gifted with powers of darkness.
A pious knight, journeying one day, found a fair lady nude, and bound
to a tree, her back streaming with blood from the stripes of lashes.
Rescuing her from her unfortunate position, he took her to his palace
and made her his wife, her extraordinary loveliness winning her fame
throughout the neighbourhood.
Her husband, the knight, accompanied her to mass every Sunday, and to
his great surprise and regret she always refused to stay in the church
while the creed was said. Just beforehand she would deliberately rise
from her seat and walk out. Her husband questioned her about this
strange habit, but could get no satisfactory explanation, nor would
she consent to alter her behaviour. He used entreaties and even
threats without avail, and at last he decided to keep her in the
church by main force. Seizing upon her with both hands, he held her in
her seat, and then he noticed her frame become convulsed and her eyes
grow unnaturally large and dark. The service stopped and everyone in
the building turned to see what was happening. "In the name of God,
speak," cried the pious knight, "and tell me what or who thou art!"
and as he said these words his wife melted away and disappeared,
while, with a great cry of anguish, a monster of evil shape rose from
the spot where she had been sitting and, passing through the air,
vanished through the roof of the church.
Another legend about the Mara is that if she be wrapped up in the
bedclothes and held down tightly, a white dove flies out of the window
and the bedclothes will be found to contain nothing. This belief is
apparently isolated and unrelated to other phenomena and is probably
only a tribute to the elusive character of this she-demon.
One of the Calmuc stories concerns three sisters, who, coming across
an enchanted castle tenanted by a white bird, are each in turn offered
marriage by the owner. The third sister marries the bird, who turns
out to be a handsome cavalier, but having burned his aviary, she loses
him, and cannot regain her husband until the aviary is restored.
In the well-known story of "The Brahman Girl who marries a Tiger," the
tiger assumes human shape and makes a beautiful girl fall in love with
him. Soon after their marriage he threatens her, saying, "Be quiet or
I shall show you my original shape."[87] When she urges him to do so
he changes and behold, "four legs, a striped skin, a long tail, and a
tiger's face come on him suddenly, and, horror of horrors, a tiger,
and not a man stands before her!"
She has to obey all his orders and finally gives birth to a son, who
also turns out "to be only a tiger."
She gets her brothers to help her, murders her child and runs off
home. In the end the tiger is killed by her relatives, and the Brahman
girl, in memory of him, raises a pillar over the well and plants a
fragrant shrub on the top of it.[88]
The Chinese have a curious idea about "making animals,"[89] and a
story is told about a man who arrived at an inn in Yang-Chow leading
five donkeys. He asks the landlord whether he may put the animals in
the stable, and while he goes off for a short time, he leaves
instructions that they are not to be given water to drink. They become
so restless, however, that the landlord takes the responsibility of
setting them loose, and they make a rush to a neighbouring pond. But
no sooner has water touched their lips than they roll on the ground
and change into women. The landlord, frightened at what has occurred,
hides them in his house and presently the man returns leading five
sheep. But now the landlord's suspicions are aroused and, persuading
his guest to take wine indoors, he goes out and waters the sheep. They
turn into young men and their temporary owner is put under arrest and
executed for a sorcerer.
In a Basque story, seven brothers forbid their sister to go near a
certain house. She disobeys them and a witch in the house gives her
certain herbs, telling her to put them in her brothers' foot-bath. She
does so and the brothers are changed into cows. The ideas contained in
these examples are similar in character to those contained in Grimm's
"Household Tales." The following is more like the Japanese wer-fox
episodes:--
A certain prince royal of India has a lovely mistress who bewitches
him, and who falls asleep one day in a bed of chrysanthemums where her
lover shoots and wounds a fox in the forehead. The girl is found to be
bleeding from a wound in her temple and is thus exposed. She is an
evil animal.
In many stories women give birth to animals.
A widow who lives near a palace and makes a livelihood by pounding
rice, bears a frog which becomes a good-looking prince, but he ends as
a frog.
In the story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri) a queen bears a
tortoise prince who has the power of leaving his shell, and assuming
human form. One day his mother is present at the transformation and
smashes the shell, after which her son has to remain a man. Another
queen gives birth to a tortoise which is reared by her, and goes in
search of divine flowers, which he obtains by the aid of a nymph.
A raja has two wives and the first has six sons, the second only one,
who is a mongoose. His name is Lelsing, and he speaks like a man, but
grows no bigger than an ordinary mongoose. In this story the six
brothers do everything they can to ill-treat the mongoose boy, but all
their tricks turn to his advantage, and in the end he grows rich while
they grow poor, and finally they all get drowned, while he goes home
rejoicing at his revenge upon them for their unkindness.[90]
The Bards at Jaisalmer claimed one of the raja's sons for a ruler, so
he gave them one of his seven ranis, who was expecting to become a
mother, and they took her to Nahan and near the Sarmor tank she gave
birth first to a lion and four monsters, and then to a son. After the
monsters were exorcised they took the child to Medni and he became the
first raja of Nahan (Sarmor).[91]
Another raja's child was born with the ears of an ox. Only the raja's
barber knew, but he blurted it out to the dom and the dom went to the
raja's palace and sang
"The son of the raja
Has the ears of an ox."
Then the raja was very angry, and only forgave the dom when he said he
had not been told about the misfortune, but that a drum had sung the
words to him.[92]
"The Two Brothers" is a typical and classical story in which one
brother assumes the form of a great bull with all the sacred marks. In
another story of German origin, the hero, who has been hacked to
pieces and stuffed in a bag, is restored to life by a master sorcerer,
who endows him with the power of assuming whatever shape he pleases.
He turns into a fine horse, and the king's daughter, believing she is
being deceived, has the animal decapitated.
A similar Russian tale is about a horse which has a golden mane and,
when it is killed, a bull with golden hair arises from the blood spilt.
So numerous are the stories of this description, dealing with
transformation, that it is practically impossible to divide them into
their various types, although many attempts to classify them have been
made by authoritative writers on folk-lore; nor is it possible to give
them due occult significance. They are interesting chiefly on account
of the details which may be gathered from them concerning methods and
reasons of transformation.
The Indian Rakshasa (Bengalese Raqhosh) are beings of a malevolent
nature which haunt cemeteries, harass the devout, animate dead bodies,
and afflict mankind in various ways. They can assume any form they
please, animal or other. Females appear as beautiful women for the
purpose of luring men to their doom. When in their natural state they
have upstanding hair, yellow as the flames which they vomit forth from
mouths which are provided with huge tusks. They have large, black,
hairy bodies. The Nagas, on the other hand, are semi-divine
snake-beings with good impulses.
In "Bengali Household Tales," by William McCulloch,[93] a Raqhosh
performs a transformation in the following manner: He removes a stone
from an underground passage and descending brings forth a monkey. He
then plucks a few leaves from a tree, draws water from a well close
by, throws the leaves into it and pours it over the body of the
monkey. The monkey is immediately transformed into a beautiful young
woman with whom the Raqhosh descends by the underground passage.
Towards dawn the two come up again. This time the Raqhosh plucks some
leaves from another tree and throws them into some water from another
well, and then pours it over the young woman. Instantaneously she is
changed into a monkey again.
This is not the most usual way for such transformations and
retransformations to occur in Indian folk-tales; sometimes they are
achieved by magic rods. In Grimm's "Household Tale," "Donkey
Cabbages," one kind of cabbage transforms a man into an ass and the
other reverses the process.
Magicians, however, have other methods. Mercurius, the most skilful of
sorcerers, was supposed to have discovered the secret of "fascinating"
men's eyes in such a way as to make people invisible to their sight, or
perhaps to give them the appearance of an animal. This may be compared
to modern hypnotism and has an important bearing on the subject.
Pomponius Mela attributes to the Druidical priestesses of Sena the
knowledge of transforming themselves into animals at will.
Proteus, according to Homer's account, becomes a dragon, a lion, or a
boar. Eustathius, the commentator, adds, "not really changing but only
appearing to do so." Proteus was an adroit worker of miracles, and was
well acquainted with the secrets of Egyptian philosophy. He assumed
animal shape in order to escape the necessity of foretelling the
future when asked to do so but, whenever he saw his endeavours were of
no avail, he resumed his natural appearance.
Towards the end of the sixteenth century Joseph Acosta, who resided in
Peru, asserts that sorcerers existed there at that time who were
capable of assuming any form they pleased. He tells of a ruler of a
city in Mexico who was sent for by the predecessor of Montezuma and
who transformed himself successively before the eyes of men who tried
to seize his person, into a tiger, an eagle, and a serpent. At length
he gave in, and being taken before the emperor was condemned to death.
The same kind of power was ascribed, in 1702, by the Bishop of Chiapa
(a province of Guatemala) to the Naguals, the national priests who
endeavoured to win back the children brought up as Christians by the
Government, to the religion of their ancestors. After various
ceremonies, the child he was teaching was told to advance and embrace
the Nagual. At that moment he assumed a hideous animal form, and as a
lion, tiger, or other wild beast, threw the young convert to
Christianity into a state of abject terror by appearing chained to
him.[94] There, no doubt, hypnotism became a weapon of religious
fanaticism.
At the appearance of the monster Ravanas, the gods, becoming alarmed,
transform themselves into animals: Indras changes into a peacock,
Yamas into a crow, Kuveras into a chameleon, and Varunas into a swan
in order to escape the ire of the enemy.
These transformations, says de Gubernatis,[95] instead of being
capricious, were necessary and natural to the several gods, for the
animal is the shadow that follows the hero and is so closely
identified with him that it may often be said to be the hero himself.
Nash, in "Christ's Tears over Jerusalem," 1613, has the following
remarkable passage. "They talk of an ox that tolled the bell at
Woolwich, and how from an ox he transformed himself into an old man,
and from an old man to an infant and into a young man again."
The Egyptians were the first to broach the opinion that the soul of
man is immortal and that, when the body dies, it enters into the form
of an animal which is born at the moment, thence passing on from one
animal to another, until it has circled through the forms of all the
creatures which tenant the earth, the water, and the air, after which
it enters again into a human frame and is born anew. The whole period
of transmigration is (they say) three thousand years.[96]
According to Egyptian beliefs only the souls of wicked men suffered
the disgrace of entering the body of an animal when, "weighed in the
balance" before the tribunal of Osiris, they were pronounced unworthy
to enter the abode of the blessed. The soul was then sent back to the
body of a pig.
The doctrine of metempsychosis was borrowed from Egypt by Pythagoras
and classical allusions are so numerous that it is impossible to
mention more than a few instances.
Empedocles believed he had passed through many forms, a bird and a
fish among others. Lucian's story was of a Pythagorian cock which had
been a man, a woman, a fish, a horse, and a frog, and of all states he
thought that man was the most deplorably wretched of the animals.
After anointing himself with enchanted salve from Thessaly, Lucian was
transformed into an ass and worked for seven years under a "gardiner,
a tyle man, a corier, and suchlike." At the end of the period he was
restored to human shape by nibbling rose leaves.
Dionysius was believed to assume the form of a goat or of a bull, and
Cronius was said to take the form of a horse. Epona was a
horse-goddess, and Callisto in an Arcadian myth was changed into a
bear. Citeus, son of Lycaon, laments the transformation of his
daughter into a bear. Iphigenia at the moment of sacrifice was changed
into a fawn. Osiris was mangled by a boar, or Typhon in the form of a
boar;--just as in the tale of Diarmuid and Grainne, the former's
foster brother was transformed into a boar.
The sorceress Thessala was able to call up strange animal ghosts:
"Here in all nature's products unfortunate;
Foam of mad dogs, which waters fear and hate;
Guts of the lynx; Hyæna's knot unbred;
The marrow of a hart with serpents fed
Were not wanting; no, nor the sea lamprey
Which stops the ships; nor yet the dragon's eye."
LUCAN.
In Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" Puck is gifted with the
power of transformation. He says,
"Sometimes a horse I'll be, sometimes a hound,
A hog, a headless bear, sometimes a fire,
And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,
Like horse, hound, dog, bear, fire, at every turn."
He had also the power to transform others into animals, and seeing
Bottom studying the part of Pyramus, plays a trick upon him:
"An ass's nole I fixed on his head."
"Bless thee, Bottom," says Quin, seeing his companion transformed in
this manner, "Bless thee! thou art translated." But Titania, herself
under a spell, becomes enamoured of the vision. "So is mine eye
enthralled to thy shape," she cries, and she desires to stick
musk-roses in his sleek smooth head, and kiss the fair, large ears."
Fortunately Oberon orders Puck to restore Bottom to his normal shape
before much harm is done.
Many modern writers have used the mystic idea of animal transformation,
especially as gleaned from Celtic legendary sources; for instance, in
the tales by Fiona McLeod and the poems by W. B. Yeats.
"Do you not hear me calling white deer with no horns!
I have been changed to a hound with one red ear;"
* * * * *
"A man with a hazel wand came without sound,
And changed me suddenly, while I was looking another way;
And now my calling is but the calling of a hound."
In another poem the salmon caught by a young fisherman is no sooner
under his roof, than it changes into a shimmering maiden--which makes
one think of the Indian story of a shining man who casts his ugly
skin and is so bright that no one can see him without being blinded.
A pretty little story of a shining lady who becomes a butterfly, is
told by Mr. H. A. Giles in "Strange Stories from a Chinese
Studio."[97] Mr. Wang of Chang-shang, the District Magistrate, had a
habit of commuting the fines and penalties of the Penal Code inflicted
on prisoners in exchange for a corresponding number of butterflies. He
rejoiced in seeing the insects flutter hither and thither like "tinsel
snippings" borne on the breeze. One night he dreamt that a beautiful
girl in shimmering clothes stood before him who said sadly, "Your
cruel practice has brought many of my sisters to an untimely end; now
you must pay the penalty for what you have done." Then she transformed
herself into a butterfly and flew away.
A great feature in folk-tales and fairy stories is, of course, the
talking animal. Grimm's "Tales," the "Arabian Nights," and Hans
Andersen's "Märchen," have made such semi-human creatures thoroughly
familiar. They appear also in the Bible and mythology. Eve and the
serpent, Balaam and the ass, Achilles and his horses, Porus and the
elephant, Bacchus, Phryxius and many others are notable instances. The
idea of words of wisdom coming from the lips of brutes is brought to
greater perfection in the fables than elsewhere, and Æsop's animals
are gifted with speech, traits, and passions absolutely human.
Pilpay, Lokman, Babrius, Phædrus, and La Fontaine, most successfully of
all, exploited the same theme, and a wonderful procession of animals
stalks through their writings, almost every kind of zoological specimen
being represented. There are rats enough to require the services of many
Pied Pipers of Hamelin, lions enough to stock the equatorial forests,
wolves to crowd the Steppes of Russia, bats and birds, gnats and frogs
galore, and to each beast, feathered thing, or fish, a place is given
in the social scale which he fills with dignity and grace, or in which
he acts with wisdom and judgment, or again in which he is made to look
ridiculous and becomes the laughing stock of those about him.
"If one is a wolf, one devours," wrote Walpole, referring to the
fables of La Fontaine. "If one is a fox, one is cunning. If one is a
monkey, one is a coxcomb."
The fox always gets the better of everyone else in the fables. He makes
use of the goat to climb out of the well, and then leaves him to his
fate. He is always taking the advantage of the wolf, for he has more
brains, if less strength. He has no difficulty in inventing stratagems
which bring the plump turkeys into his larder. He is always diplomatic,
he comes smiling out of every difficulty, he is quick and energetic: his
personal appearance, heightened by his bright eye and bushy tail, is in
his favour. He has two qualities invaluable to the courtier, a certain
dash and a certain subtlety, and above all he is _bon viveur_.
"Grand Croqueur de poulets, grands preneur de lapins."
His worst enemy is the dog, with whom his tricks are frequently
wanting in success. When out walking with the cat, and boastful of his
own superior resources, he finds himself at a disadvantage the moment
an attack is threatened by a pack of hounds. The cat quickly climbs a
lofty tree.
"The fox his hundred ruses tried,
And yet no safety found:
A hundred times he falsified
The nose of every hound.
Was here, and there, and everywhere,
Above and underground."
In the end they are too clever for him, and he meets his death.
The story of Reynard the fox is a novel of adventure in which animals
play the part of men and usually bear men's names, and who does not know
and love the tale of Brer Rabbit and Brer B'ar and their relations with
Uncle Remus, or the equally human animals of Alice's "Adventures."
These fictitious beings combine human and animal mental
characteristics, but there is another class, the fabulous animals, of
which the physical attributes are taken partly from man, partly from
animal types. They are no doubt symbolic of occult truths, and much
time and labour might be spent in formulating their relationship.
FOOTNOTES:
[80] Adapted from "Village Folk-tales of Ceylon," by H. Parker, 1910,
Vol. I, pp. 308-10.
[81] Frere, M., "Old Deccan Days," 1889, pp. 83-193.
[82] Stokes, M. S. H., 1880, p. 41.
[83] "Folk Tales of Hindustan," p. 54 ff.
[84] Swynnerton, C., 1908, p. 464.
[85] Lady Burton's edition, 1887, Vol. III, p. 417.
[86] Variants of this basic legend are included in the chapter on
"Bird-Women," where they properly belong.
[87] There is a Tamil proverb: "Be quiet or I shall show you my
original shape."
[88] "Indian Folk Tales," 1908, p. 90.
[89] Giles, H. A., "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio," 1909, p.
417.
[90] Bompas, "Folklore of the Santal Pagarnas," 1909, p. 201 ff.
[91] "Punjab Notes and Queries," May, 1885, p. 134.
[92] _Ibid._, p. 171.
[93] 1912, p. 237.
[94] Salverte, E., "The Philosophy of Magic," 1846, Vol. I, p. 289.
[95] "Zoological Mythology," 1872, Vol. I, p. xviii.
[96] Herodotus, Book II, Chap. 123.
[97] p. 430.