The
Legend of Perseus
A STUDY OF TRADITION IN STORY
CUSTOM AND BELIEF: BY
Edwin Sidney Hartland
F.S.A.
VOL. I.
THE SUPERNATURAL BIRTH
Published by David Nutt
in the Strand, London
1894
[IMPRINT]
Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty
PREFACE
{v}
The classical myth of Perseus belongs to a group of folktales
ranking among the foremost in interest for the student of the
evolution of human thought and human institutions. It is compounded,
like other folktales, of incidents which have varied in their order
and prominence, as well as in their mode of presentment, at different
times and in different lands. What constitutes its importance is the
fact that certain of these incidents are grounded upon ideas,
universal in their range, and found fully developed in the depths of
savagery, which, rising with mankind from plane to plane of
civilisation, have at last been embodied in the faith and symbolism of
the loftiest and most spiritual of the great religions of the
world--the religion of civilised Europe. The figure of Perseus, the
god-begotten, the dragon-slayer, very early became a type of the
Saviour of the World; while the conception underlying the Life-token
(an incident not extant in classical sources) obtained its ultimate
expression in the most sacred rite of Christian worship.
In these volumes I have attempted an examination of the myth upon
scientific principles. The first three {vi} chapters of the present
volume are devoted to an account of the story, as given by the poets
and historians of antiquity, and in modern folklore. Taking, then, the
four chief incidents in order, the remaining chapters comprise an
inquiry into analogous forms of the Supernatural Birth, alike in tale
and custom, throughout the world. They will be followed by similar
inquiries into the incidents of the Life-token, the Rescue of
Andromeda, and the Quest of the Gorgon’s Head. Having thus analysed
the incidents, and determined, so far as the means at my command will
permit, their foundation in belief and custom, and the large part
played by some of the conceptions in savage life, I shall return to
the story as a whole, and, treating it as an artistic work, I shall
inquire whether it be possible to ascertain what was its primitive
form, where it originated, and how it became diffused over the Eastern
continent.
I am deeply sensible of the difficulties of the task I have
undertaken, and of the very imperfect way in which I have hitherto
performed it. Unfortunately, I cannot hope to succeed better in that
portion which has yet to be laid before the reader. All I can hope is
that I may have exhibited, however inadequately (if further exhibition
were needful), the advantage for psychological purposes of research
into the ideas and the usages of uncultured peoples and of the less
cultured classes in civilised communities.
My sincere thanks are due to many friends who have rendered me
valuable assistance from time to time; among others to Miss Marian
Roalfe Cox, who has been kind {vii} enough to supply me with abstracts
of several variants of the tale--some of them not readily accessible;
to Mr. W. H. D. Rouse, M.A., and Mr. G. L. Gomme, F.S.A., President of
the Folklore Society, to whom I am indebted for help on some important
points; to Dr. Oscar W. Clark for calling my attention to various
interesting superstitions; to the Rev. R. H. Codrington, D.D., for his
ready response to my questions; and last, but not least, to Mr. Alfred
Nutt, for his kindness in reading the proof-sheets, and for the
suggestions and help he is so well qualified to give in many
departments of folklore, particularly in all matters relating to
Celtic literature and tradition. In making this acknowledgment, of
course, I do not seek to shift from my own shoulders any portion of
responsibility for the opinions I have expressed. In some of those
opinions all the friends whose aid has been thus generously rendered
would probably agree. Perhaps none of them would accept all. Our
common possession is the single desire for truth and a perennial
interest in everything which may cast light on the past--and the
future--of humanity.
For the reader’s convenience I have compiled a list of the modern
works cited, with such bibliographical information as will admit of
the editions used being readily identified. An index will be issued in
the concluding volume; and meanwhile it is hoped the list of contents
will be found to contain a sufficient analysis of the chapters.
Barnwood Court, Gloucester,
_June_ 1894.
CONTENTS
{ix}
CHAPTER I
The Legend of Perseus as preserved in Classical Writers--Its three
trains of incident--The Danae type of the Story in Modern Folklore
The classical story of Perseus--Its localisation in Greece, in Latium
and at Joppa--References by Herodotus--The Assyrian hero,
Gilgames--References by Ælian--The three leading trains of
incident--Modern folktales--The Danae type in Italy and Greece--The
Irish saga of Balor and MacKineely--German, Swedish, and Russian
stories.
CHAPTER II
The Story in Modern Folklore--The King of the Fishes type
The Breton tale of The King of the Fishes--Four trains of incident
here developed--Variants in Lorraine, Tirol, Gascony--The Wonderful
Pike and other Scandinavian variants--Greek story--The Argyllshire
tale of the Sea Maiden--A German variant--The Enchanted Hind in the
Pentameron, and its variants in Italian folklore--Slavonic and Gipsy
tales--Sanskrit tale.
{x}
CHAPTER III
The Remaining Types of the Story
The Mermaid type--Scottish, Lithuanian, and Sicilian tales--The Gold
Children type--German, Flemish, Italian, and Breton tales--The Tower
of Babylon type--The Enchanting Bird type--Variants in the Tirol,
Normandy, and the Lowlands of Scotland--The Knife-grinder’s Sons
type--Found in the Tirol and Germany--A favourite type among Slavonic
peoples--Kabyle and Italian variants--The Enchanted Twins
type--Variant from East Africa--Abruzzian and Swabian variants--Saint
George type--Stories from Portugal and Lorraine.
CHAPTER IV
The Incident of the Supernatural Birth in Märchen
Stories of Supernatural Birth are world-wide--Only examples analogous
to those in the variants of Perseus to be dealt with--Birth caused by
something eaten or drunk--Fish--Fruit and cereals--Drugs--Portions of
human corpses--Flowers and leaves--Water and other liquids--Birth
caused by scent--By touching flowers, herbs, and other things--Zulu
story of aid by pigeons--Conception by rays of the sun--By a wish.
CHAPTER V
The Supernatural Birth in Sagas
Stories of Supernatural Birth not only told for amusement but believed
to be true--The eating of fish a rare cause--The eating of fruit and
cereals frequently {xi} found in both hemispheres--Indian and
Mongolian stories--Heathen and Christian elements in the fiftieth rune
of the _Kalevala_--Yehl, the Thlinkit hero--Heitsi-Eibib, the
Hottentot ancestor-god--Birth of Vikramâditya--Siamese
tradition--Other Mongolian traditions--Irish legends--Impregnation by
drinking--By eating portions of human bodies--By smell--By touching
stones and other magical substances--By saliva--Conception by the
foot--Pictures of the Annunciation--Birth of Quetzalcoatl--Conception
by bathing--Saoshyant--Anti-christ--Conception by wind, rain, and
vapour--By the sun--Legend of Genghis Khan--Impregnation by a
glance--Birth from a clot of blood.
CHAPTER VI
The Supernatural Birth in Practical Superstitions
The supernatural means of conception in the stories actually believed
to be still effectual--Practices to obtain children--Vedic
ceremonies--The eating of fruit, cereals, and leaves--The
mandrake--Animal substances eaten--Salt--Drinking of water--Sacred
wells--Drinking of blood--Eating of portions of human
bodies--Bathing--Exposure to the rays of the sun--Striking of
childless women--Amulets--Phallic symbols and their use--Simulation as
a magical practice--Fertilisation by wind--Imperfect recognition by
savages of paternity.
CHAPTER VII
Death and Birth as Transformation
Birth often merely a new manifestation of a pre-existing person--The
Egyptian tale of The Two Brothers--European and other
variants--Transformation {xii} in _märchen_--The Singing Bone--The
Scottish ballad of Binnorie--Santal variants--New birth of dead man
from eating a portion of his body--Metamorphosis of dead man into a
tree in _märchen_, saga, and superstition--Origin of maize and of
manioc--Attis--Metamorphosis into animal forms--Savage doctrine of
Transformation--Buddhist popular belief--Alleged Celtic dogma of
Transmigration--Taliessin--Tuan mac Cairill--Etain--Son a new birth of
the father or other ancestor--Superstitions current in India, Africa,
the South Seas, Europe, America--The naming of
children--Transformation the creed of savages.
List of Works referred to
Endnotes
Errata
The Vignette on the title-page is from the well-known 5th century bowl
from Caere, figured by Gerhard, Berl. Winckelmann Progr. 1854.
THE LEGEND OF PERSEUS
{1}
CHAPTER I.
THE LEGEND OF PERSEUS AS PRESERVED IN CLASSICAL WRITERS. ITS THREE
TRAINS OF INCIDENT. THE DANAE TYPE OF THE STORY IN MODERN FOLKLORE.
In _The Earthly Paradise_ William Morris has made English the Doom
of King Acrisius in such lovely wise, and in the main with such close
adherence to the story as told by Ovid and other classical writers, as
to render thankless the task of repeating it at length. But in
undertaking an inquiry into the foundations and history of the legend
of Perseus, it is needful to bear in mind its salient features. I
shall therefore ask the reader’s patience for a summary of these.
Acrisius, the son of Abas and king of Argos, having been warned by an
oracle that he should die by the hands of his daughter Danae’s son,
built a tower of brass in which he imprisoned the maiden, that he
might keep her celibate and so frustrate the oracle. Jupiter, however,
visited her in a shower of gold; and she bore a son, Perseus. By the
king’s orders, mother and babe were enclosed in a chest and cast into
the sea. The chest came to land on the island of Seriphos, and was
drawn ashore by a fisherman {2} named Dictys. Polydectes, the king of
the island, took Danae under his protection, and in process of time
desired to marry her. For this purpose he found it necessary first to
get rid of her son. He accordingly set him the task of cutting off and
bringing to him the head of Medusa, the only mortal of the three
Gorgons, hoping, of course, that he would perish in the attempt. But
the youth had friends in high places. Pallas provided him with a
buckler brightly polished as a mirror, Pluto with a helmet of
invisibility, Mercury with his own winged shoes, and Vulcan with a
sword. Thus equipped, he set out on his adventure. Reaching the
dwelling of the Graiæ, he possessed himself of the single eye which
these three hideous sisters owned among them and passed from hand to
hand, and thus compelled them to direct him where he might find the
Gorgons. The chief danger of the expedition was Medusa’s power of
turning to stone with a glance all who approached her. Perseus escaped
this danger by coming upon her asleep, and by regarding her in his
shield while he swept off her head with his sword. On his way back,
with the prize deposited safely in his wallet, he visited Atlas, the
giant king of Libya; but, receiving scant hospitality, he repaid it by
trying the power of the Gorgon’s head on the king and his servants,
and so converted them into the mountain range on whose huge top the
heaven with all its stars (so the gods willed) has ever since reposed.
Flying thence over land and sea, he descried Andromeda, the daughter
of Cepheus, king of Ethiopia, and of his wife, Cassiope, bound to the
rock. He descended, and learned that she was thus exposed to a marine
monster to be devoured, in obedience to an oracle of Jupiter Ammon.
The monster had been sent by Neptune to ravage the country, in order
to revenge {3} a boast by Cassiope that she herself was equal to the
Nereids in beauty. Perseus fought and killed the instrument of divine
vengeance, and wedded Andromeda. The wedding feast, however, was
disturbed by Cepheus’ brother, Phineus, to whom Andromeda had been
betrothed, and who, though he had stood by while she was being bound
and made no effort to save her, now came with a band of followers to
claim his bride from her deliverer. He attacked Perseus and broke up
the banquet with a bloody fight, described in much detail by Ovid,
which was only ended by the hero’s producing Medusa’s head and
petrifying his foes. Perseus, with his bride, afterward sailed for
Argos, where he restored his grandfather, who had been dethroned by
Proetus, his own brother; and, passing on, he reached Seriphos just in
time to save his mother, Danae, from Polydectes. He turned the tyrant
to stone, and gave the realm to the faithful Dictys. The oracle in
reference to Acrisius was fulfilled later, at Larissa, on the occasion
of the funeral games celebrated by Teutamias, king of Thessaly, for
his father. Perseus, throwing a quoit in one of the contests,
accidentally struck his grandfather on the head and killed him.[3.1]
This is the substance of the story that engaged the genius of some of
the greatest poets of antiquity. I have followed in the main Ovid’s
narrative; but the only parts he deals with at length are the episodes
of Atlas and Andromeda. The absurdities and impossibilities of the
tale were as obvious as its beauties to the ancients themselves; and
many were the attempts to rationalise it. We need not concern
ourselves with these. For our immediate purpose {4} the interest lies
in the localisation of the different scenes and the variations we can
trace of its episodes.
Perseus, like other Greek national heroes, was the object of worship.
The chief seat of his cult seems to have been the isle of Seriphos,
where it was believed that not only Polydektes, but also most of the
inhabitants with him, were petrified by the dead Gorgon’s glances. The
later coinage of the island exhibited Medusa’s head; and the peasants,
when they find such coins now, relate that they are the coins of the
first queen of the island, who dwelt in the mediæval castle upon the
scarped hill above the port of Livadhi.[4.1] Next to Seriphos, Argos
and Mykene honoured, as was natural, the hero. He had ruled the one
and founded the other. The name of Mykene was believed to record the
place where he dropped the sheath of his sword; and a fountain, which
bore his name, marked the spot where it fell. A different derivation
of the name of Mykene is given in the lost work of Ctesias the
Ephesian on Perseus. He there attributes it to the bellowing
(μυκηθμὸς) made by Stheno and Euryale, the sisters of Medusa, in their
impotent rage against the hero, whom they pursued as blood-avengers to
this spot, and here finally abandoned the pursuit as hopeless.[4.2] At
Argos his tomb was shown; and in the forum there, beneath a barrow of
earth, it was claimed that the awful trophy of his victory over the
Gorgon lay--the trophy which, according to another version of the
legend, was for ever fixed in Athene’s shield, the most dangerous of
her {5} weapons. Elsewhere the Argives showed a subterranean building
containing a brazen bedchamber, said to have been that made by
Akrisios for his daughter--a variation from the brazen tower of the
story usually current.[5.1]
But Argos and Seriphos were not allowed to monopolise the sacred
scenes of Perseus’ life. The city of Ardea in Latium disputed with
Seriphos the honour of being the refuge of Danae ‘pregnant with
almighty gold.’ From her, according to Vergil, Turnus, who competed
with Æneas for Lavinia’s hand, derived his lineage.[5.2] Although
Andromeda’s father is described as king of Ethiopia, the general
consent of antiquity laid the scene of her rescue at Joppa. Near that
town was a fountain wherein the hero washed away the stains of the
combat, and whose water was coloured ever after by the monster’s
blood.[5.3] Upon the rocks which bounded the haven were pointed out
the marks left by the maiden’s chains; and Marcus Scaurus, when
ædile, brought from Joppa, and exhibited at Rome, the bones of the
monster. A rumour of this event seems to have reached the forger of
Sir John Maundeville’s travels, for he relates that the place was
still shown where the great giant Andromeda was fastened with chains
before the Flood, and not only the place where he was confined, but
one of his ribs measuring forty feet in length![5.4] It is evident
that he took pains to ascertain the exact truth.
In Egypt and in Persia, the Father of History found traditions of a
personage identified with Perseus. “According {6} to the Persian
story,” he tells us, “Perseus was an Assyrian who became a Greek; his
ancestors, therefore, according to them, were not Greeks. They do not
admit that the forefathers of Akrisios were in any way related to
Perseus, but say they were Egyptians, as the Greeks likewise testify.”
And elsewhere he represents Xerxes as telling the Greeks that Perses,
from whom he claimed descent, was the child of Perseus, the son of
Danae, and of Andromeda, the daughter of Kepheus--a statement
apparently accepted by the historian, as well as by other Greek
writers.[6.1] Both these stories probably were Assyrian in origin, and
obtained currency, first among the Persians and afterwards among the
Greeks, from political causes. In the latter story Kepheus is
presented as the son of Bel. It is unlikely that the Achæmenian kings
of Persia would have claimed descent from him, had they not been
conquerors of Babylon. The Assyrian hero equated with Perseus in the
former story we are fortunately enabled by recent discoveries to
identify. He is no other than Gilgames, whose name was at one time
transliterated as Izdubar, the hero of the epos from the library of
King Assurbanipal, preserved in an imperfect form in the British
Museum. The fragments we have of the tablets do not include the hero’s
birth. Upon this, however, the solution of the characters embodying
his name has thrown unexpected light. For Ælian the rhetorician,
writing in the third century of the Christian era, has transmitted to
us an account of the birth of Gilgamos, whom he styles King of the
Babylonians. According to this account, the Chaldeans predicted to a
monarch, whose name is variously read as Sakchoros, Senéchoros and
Enéchoros, that his daughter would have a {7} son who would deprive
his grandfather of the kingdom. Fearing this, he ordered her to be
kept in close confinement. His precautions were vain, for fate was
cleverer than the Babylonian king. His daughter bore a son whose
father was unknown. No sooner was the infant born than her guards
threw it down, for fear of the king, from the citadel wherein she was
immured. But an eagle, beholding the falling child, darted beneath it,
and, receiving it on its back, bore it gently to the ground in a
certain garden. The gardener found the boy, and adopted him for his
beauty. “If anybody think this a fable,” says the rhetorician, eager
to shuffle off all responsibility for it, “I admit I don’t believe it
myself; yet I am told that Perses the Achæmenian, from whom the noble
stock of the Persians is derived, was an eagle’s nursling.” On
examining the epos of Gilgames we recognise none of the adventures as
those of Perseus. This may be owing to its imperfect preservation, or
to its being a literary recension wherein only those parts of the
story proper to the writer’s purpose are combined. It can hardly be
that the sole resemblance is in the circumstances of the hero’s birth.
On the other hand, the career of Gilgames has many points of likeness
to that of Herakles.[7.1] He rejoices in a divine origin and in the
favour of the gods; he conquers lions and monsters; he triumphantly
accomplishes a journey to the other world. Now, a story of the rescue
of a maiden similar to that by Perseus was told of Herakles. When
Laomedon, king of Troy, had bound his daughter Hesione to a rock, to
be devoured by a sea-monster sent by Poseidon, Herakles undertook her
deliverance, and sprang full-armed into the fish’s throat, whence {8}
he hacked his way forth again after three days’ imprisonment,
hairless.[8.1] We are left to conjecture that, if we had the
traditions of Gilgames fully presented to us, we should not only have
his birth as told by Ælian, but also some other features of his story
linking it to that of Perseus--features that perhaps would at the same
time explain why the king his grandfather is called an Egyptian.
Herodotus seems to have attached more credit to the tale he found in
Egypt. He describes the temple to the hero at Chemmis in the canton of
Thebes, and mentions the games celebrated in his honour. The
Chemmites, he says, claimed Perseus as Chemmite by descent, and
related that on his way from the slaughter of the Gorgon he paid a
visit to their city, acknowledged them for his kinsfolk, and
instituted the games. They declared that he was in the habit of
appearing to them, sometimes in his temple, at other times in the open
country, and that one of the sandals he had worn was often found,
measuring two cubits in length; and it was a sign of prosperity to the
kingdom. There was also a watch-tower called by the name of Perseus
near the Canopic mouth of the Nile.[8.2]
But, with regard both to the Persian and to the Egyptian tales, it
must be borne in mind that all classical writers had a light-hearted
way of calling foreign gods and heroes by the names of their own
divinities, whenever they could get an excuse for so doing in the
resemblances they traced, or fancied, either in attributes or legends.
This practice has introduced endless confusion into their accounts,
perfunctory {9} at the best and often contemptuous, of the mythologies
of other nations. If we learn little from the historian’s references
to the Persian, or Assyrian, tradition, we know less of that of the
Egyptians; and, with all our discoveries, we have yet to find the clew
to the object of veneration at Chemmis, and the legends clustered
about him.
Coming down to a later period, Ælian makes mention of a fish caught
in the Red Sea, and called Perseus equally by the dwellers on the
shore, by the Greeks, and by the Arabs. He informs us that the latter
honoured Perseus, the son of Zeus, and declared that it was from him
this fish derived its name. He also describes a gigantic marine
cricket, something like a rock-lobster, which many persons abstained
from eating, because they deemed it sacred. The inhabitants of
Seriphos, if they caught it in their nets, would not keep it, but
returned it to the sea; if they found one dead, they would bury it,
weeping; and they held that these creatures were dear to Perseus. The
importance of these statements will appear hereafter. Another
tradition of Seriphos noticed by the same writer attributes the
silence of the frogs (which never croaked) on the island to the
prayers of Perseus, when they disturbed his sleep on his return from
the contest with Medusa.[9.1] The hero of the island would naturally
be credited with many of its peculiarities.
The general result is that legends identical in substance with that of
Perseus were widely known in ancient times. From Persia to Italy, from
cultured Greece to the barbarous shores of the Red Sea, a tale was
told, a hero was celebrated, identified by Greek and Roman writers
with {10} the son of Danae. The tale, however, was not told without
variations, of which the underground chamber in the Argive territory
and the escape of Danae to Ardea are specimens; while the hero’s
mysterious connection with a fish, or marine crustacean, points to
another.
The legend consists of three leading trains of incident, namely:--
1. The Birth, including the prophecy, the precautions taken by
Akrisios, the supernatural conception, the exposure of mother and
babe, and the fulfilment of the prophecy by the death of Akrisios.
2. The Quest of the Gorgon’s Head, including the jealousy of
Polydektes, the divine gift of weapons, the visit to the Graiæ, the
slaughter of Medusa, and the vengeance on Polydektes.
3. The Rescue of Andromeda, including the fight with the monster and
the quelling of Phineus, the pretender to the maiden’s hand.
Singly, these trains of incident appear in many traditions, sometimes
in one form, sometimes in another. We shall consider them first in
combination, with the object of tracing the legend in its wanderings
and modifications. Afterwards, leaving out of account the surrounding
details, we shall examine the central incidents, so as, if possible,
to arrive at the ideas which underlie them. In other words, we shall
first treat the story as a whole, and then analyse it into its
component parts. A tale, however, in its passage through the world is
susceptible of almost infinite modifications. It will be obviously
impossible in the analysis to deal with more than a few of these; and
I shall confine my attention to the above three leading trains of
incident and one other, which appears in many modern versions, and
{11} which we shall find to be not the least important and interesting
of the four.
Considering the story as a story-whole, we may begin by reminding
ourselves that the forms in which we receive it from Ovid and Lucian
are literary forms of a pre-existing oral version. This version was
probably the most widely accredited, though, as we have seen reason to
think, not the only version current in classical times. And in
transferring our inquiries from literature to tradition, we shall be
met by variations much wider than those manifested in ancient
writings. On the other hand, we shall not be left without
approximations to the form with which we are familiar there.
Of these approximations, perhaps the closest was told a few years ago
to Signor Giovanni Siciliano by an absolutely illiterate peasant woman
of Pratovecchio in the Val d’Arno. It runs thus:--A childless king,
praying for offspring, hears a voice asking him to choose between a
son who will die and a daughter who will run away. By the advice of
his subjects he chooses the latter; and a daughter is accordingly
born. Some miles from his city the king has a palace in the midst of a
fair garden. Thither he brings the child, with nurse and maid of
honour, to keep her in safety; and he and his wife visit the little
one but rarely. No sooner, however, had she arrived at the age of
sixteen than the son of King Jonah, passing by, saw her and bribed her
nurse to let him have access to her. The young people fell in love
with one another, and were secretly married. In due time the bride
gave birth to a son; and her father, learning this, refused to see her
again. When the boy was fifteen years of age he went to find his
grandfather, who would not so much as speak to him. He endured this
silence for three {12} or four months, and then demanded the reason
for it, offering the king, if he would tell him, to go and cut off the
Witch’s head for him. The king replied that this was just what he
wanted him to do. Now, the witch in question was so terrible that all
who looked at her became statues; and the king hoped that the youth
would perish in the adventure. But on the way he met an old man who
gave him a flying steed, and directed him to a palace wherein dwelt
two women who had only one eye between them, from whom he was to
obtain a mirror. And the old man warned him always to regard the witch
in the mirror, and never to look at her otherwise, lest he should
become a statue. The flying steed carried the adventurer safely over a
mountain inhabited by all sorts of wild and ravenous beasts; and he
arrived in due course at the palace of the one-eyed women. There, by
possessing himself of the eye while one of them was handing it to the
other, he extorted the mirror which enabled him to accomplish the
object of his journey. After cutting off the witch’s head, he returned
home another way; and coming to a seaport town he found a chapel by
the sea-side, and a lovely maiden within it, clad in mourning garb and
weeping. She bids him depart, lest he also be eaten by the
seven-headed dragon whereto she has been offered, and whose coming she
is then awaiting. He refuses to leave her. Instead of doing so, he
attacks the dragon on its rising from the sea, turns it to stone, and
cuts out its seven tongues, which he ties up in a handkerchief and
puts in his pocket. But, having delivered the lady, he ungallantly
refuses to see her home, saying that he wishes to see a little more of
the world. Before leaving her, however, he makes an appointment to
return in six months. This inscrutable conduct gives opportunity to a
cobbler, who {13} meets her alone, to threaten her with death unless
she will tell her father that he is the slayer of the dragon. Deprived
of her champion, she is compelled to submit to the terms; but when her
father offers her in marriage to her supposed deliverer, she pleads
for a delay of six months. Then the king sent placards through all his
cities, announcing his daughter’s deliverance by a cobbler and her
approaching marriage to him. Her real deliverer _hears_ the placards,
and returns to the capital just as the six months are expiring. He
attends an audience, and inquires of the king how many heads the beast
had, and whether the cobbler has any proof of his victory. The cobbler
is summoned, and asked where are the dragon’s seven tongues? The
damsel settles the question, however, by declaring that the youth it
was who slew the dragon and cut out his tongues, and that the rascal
of a shoemaker had taken her by force and compelled her to say that it
was he. The shoemaker is promptly burned in the great square, and the
hero married. He returns with his bride to his grandfather, to whom he
shows the witch’s head, with the inevitable result, and then fetches
his father from the garden where he had himself been born.[13.1]
That there should be so striking a resemblance between this story and
that of the classical writers is not surprising to any one who
realises the tenacity of popular traditions. It is not, indeed,
necessary to suppose that it has been handed down from pagan times in
Tuscany: it may only date, as a popular tale, from the revived
paganism of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. If so, however, it
would stand alone among Italian traditions, not one of which has been
traced to the great movement known as the Revival of Learning, and a
large number of which were already current {14} while that movement
was in progress. The assumption, therefore, that the Tuscan tale is a
relic of two thousand years or more does not seem unwarranted.
Moreover, it is confirmed by an Albanian _märchen_, obtained from the
recital of a woman at Ljabovo in the district of Riça. It had been
foretold, we learn, to a certain king that he should be put to death
by his grandson, yet unborn. Wherefore he flung into the sea and
drowned every boy born of his two daughters. The third boy, however,
escaped with his life, and was cast by a wave on the shore, where he
was found by two herdsmen and taken home to their wives to bring up.
When he was in his twelfth year, beautiful and strong, a Lubia, or
ogress, dried up all the waters; and it was prophesied that she would
never let them flow again until she had eaten the king’s daughter. The
maiden is accordingly bound in a certain spot, to await the Lubia; but
the hero of the story, accidentally finding her, learns the fate in
store for her, and bids her fear not, but call him when the Lubia
comes. Meanwhile he hides behind a rock, and covers himself with a
cap, so that he is no longer visible. He slays the Lubia with his
club; and at the same moment the waters begin again to flow. The king
offers his daughter in marriage to the victor; and the hero proves his
right to the reward by the possession of the Lubia’s head. During the
wedding games he throws his club and by mischance kills the king, thus
fulfilling the prophecy, and himself becomes king in his stead.[14.1]
Imperfections and confusion--especially the confusion between the king
who is the hero’s grandfather and him who is the father of the maiden
exposed to the ogress--are {15} to be noted in this version. They are
probably due to the reporter, or perhaps, as Von Hahn (to whom the
story was supplied) suggests, to defects in the telling. But it is
clear withal that here, in another of the classic lands, the tale of
Perseus has been preserved in its main features by oral transmission
to this day. Whether it be due to the truncated character of this
version that the hero’s birth is not actually ascribed to a
supernatural cause, it is difficult to say. In this omission it agrees
with the Tuscan variant; but in both, the circumstances, though
different from one another, are similar to those of Perseus. As we
shall shortly meet with types of the story in which the cause and
circumstances of the birth are broadly distinguishable from those of
the two foregoing tales, we may classify the latter as belonging to
the _Danae type_.
The Albanian tale, it will be observed, omits the Quest of the
Gorgon’s Head. A modern Irish saga, on the other hand, omits the
rescue of Andromeda; and not only so, but modifies the supernatural
birth, and identifies the hero’s grandfather with the Gorgon. Tory
Island was the stronghold of a warrior, Balor by name, to whom a Druid
had prophesied that he should be slain by his own grandson. Balor had
two eyes, but not in the usual place. One of them was in the middle of
his forehead, and the other in the back of his skull. The latter was
venomous, and had the property of striking dead or petrifying all on
whom its glances fell, wherefore it was usually kept covered. He had
also an only daughter, Ethnea, whom, in consequence of the prediction,
he kept secluded in an impregnable tower on the summit of Tor-more, an
inaccessible rock at the eastern end of the island; and he placed with
her in the tower a company of twelve matrons, with strict orders to
keep {16} all men, and all knowledge of men, away from her. On the
mainland, opposite the island, dwelt three brothers, Gavida, a famous
smith, MacSamhthiann, and MacKineely. Balor, by a trick, robbed
MacKineely of a wonderful cow whereon he set a high value; and
MacKineely was determined on revenge. His Leanan-sidhe, or familiar
spirit, called Biroge of the Mountain, dressed him in woman’s
clothing, and wafted him on the wings of the storm across the Sound to
the top of Tor-more, and there, knocking at the door of the tower,
demanded admittance for a noble lady whom she had rescued from a
tyrant. The matrons, fearing to disoblige the Banshee, admitted both
to the tower. No sooner had MacKineely thus gained access to Ethnea
than the Banshee, by her supernatural power, laid the twelve matrons
asleep. When they awoke, the intruders were no longer there, and
Ethnea had lost her maidenhood. In course of time she brought forth
three sons, whom her father, on discovering, sent rolled up in a
sheet, to be cast into a certain whirlpool. But on the way the pin
fell out of the sheet, and one of the boys dropped into the harbour,
where he was received by the Banshee and wafted safely across the
Sound to his father, who sent him to be fostered by his brother
Gavida. Balor, meanwhile, had learned from his Druid that MacKineely
was the father of Ethnea’s children, and now set forth to punish him.
With a band of followers he landed at Ballyconnell, seized MacKineely,
and, laying his head on a large white stone, cut it off with one blow
of his sword. The blood gushed forth and penetrated the stone to its
very centre, thus forming the red veins which are still shown to the
traveller; for the stone was raised in 1794, on a pillar sixteen feet
high, and gives its name, Clogh-an-Neely, to a district comprising two
parishes. Balor {17} now thought himself secure, for he believed his
three grandsons were all drowned. But the heir of MacKineely grew up
unknown to him at Gavida’s forge, and became an accomplished smith.
One day Balor came to the forge to get some spears made. Gavida was
absent, and his foster-son did the work. In the course of the day
Balor happened to mention with pride his conquest of MacKineely. It
was an evil moment for him; for the young smith, who had been nursing
his revenge, watched his opportunity, and, taking a glowing rod from
the furnace, thrust it through the basilisk eye and out through the
other side of Balor’s head, thus slaying his grandfather and
fulfilling the Druid’s prediction.[17.1]
For another story of the Danae type we must go as far as Germany; and
we must piece it out as well as we can from Grimm’s notes to the tale
of _The Two Brothers_, of which it is given as a variant. It is
related in Hesse that a king’s daughter was pursued by mice, until, in
order to save her, he was driven to building a tower, like the
Mouse-tower of the Rhine, in the midst of the river. There she dwelt
with one maid. One day a jet of water springs in through the window,
and fills a tub which they set for it. Both princess and maid drink of
it, and afterwards bear each a son, one of whom is called Water-Peter
and the other Water-Paul. Both children are put into a chest and
floated down the stream. They are rescued by a fisherman, and taught
hunting. Going out together, they spare successively three animals, a
bear, a lion, and a wolf: in return, each of them is gifted with one
of the creature’s young. They part from one another, sticking their
knives into a tree at the {18} parting-place, as a token of life or
death of the owner. Water-Peter comes to a town hung with mourning for
the king’s daughter, who is to be offered up to a seven-headed dragon
the next day. With the help of his beasts he slays the dragon; and
then, having cut out its tongues, he lies down and falls asleep, he
and his animals, from weariness. The king’s marshal, who has been set
to watch, comes and finds the dragon dead and its slayer sleeping. He
kills the hero, and compels the maiden to admit that he and no other
had delivered her. Now the king has promised her in marriage to any
one who would save her from the dragon; but she succeeds in postponing
the marriage for a year and a day. When the faithful beasts awake,
they find their master dead; but happily they are able to bring him to
life again by means of a magical herb. After wandering about the world
he returns to the town in the nick of time, and by producing the
dragon’s tongues he proves that he himself is the victor, and the
marshal an impostor. His own wedding to the king’s daughter and the
marshal’s death follow; and on the king’s demise Water-Peter receives
the kingdom. One day, going out hunting, he loses his attendants, and
at night rests with his beasts beside a fire. An old cat sitting on a
tree asks if she may warm herself at the fire? When he says Yes, she
gives him three of her hairs, and prays him to lay one on each of his
beasts, else she will be afraid of them. As soon as he has done this,
the animals die. Enraged, he is about to kill her, when she says there
is a spring close by of the Water of Death, and another of the Water
of Life: if he will take some of the latter and pour it over them,
they will come to life again. This is accordingly done. Meanwhile,
Water-Paul comes to his brother’s palace, and is received by the queen
{19} as her husband. At night, however, he lays a naked sword in the
bed between himself and her. When Water-Peter returns and finds
Water-Paul in his place, he kills him from jealousy; but on learning
the facts he restores him with the Water of Life.[19.1]
The divergence between this story and that of Perseus is considerable.
Not merely is the hero duplicated; the gift of weapons is transformed
into the acquisition of faithful attendant animals, and the incident
of the Gorgon’s Head, postponed to the slaughter of the dragon,
becomes a night adventure with a supernatural cat in the forest. The
differences, in fact, are such as to preclude the notion of any lineal
connection between them. A large proportion of the modern stories
agree with that of _Water-Peter and Water-Paul_ where it diverges most
widely from the classical legend; and those which do not so agree
differ in one way or other still further. Some of them we shall have
to consider hereafter. There are, however, two other stories of the
same type mentioned by Grimm, both apparently from Hesse. In the one,
a king, having resolved that his daughter shall not marry, builds a
house for her in the forest in the greatest solitude, where she has to
dwell without ever seeing a stranger. But near the house rose a
wonderful spring, whereof the maiden drank and bore two boys exactly
alike, who received the names of John Waterspring and Casper
Waterspring. John fights the dragon, and is brought to life again by
the sap of an oak which the ants have been fetching for their dead,
trampled down during the conflict. In other respects the tale contains
nothing new. The second story omits the supernatural birth of the
twins. It begins with a golden box, wherein two {20} fair boys are
enclosed, falling from heaven into a fisherman’s net. The dragon is
killed by a poisoned seed thrown by the hero into its throat. The
princess’ intended bridegroom tries to poison her deliverer; but his
faithful beasts discover the treachery. He is afterwards turned into
stone by a witch; but his brother forces the witch to tell him by what
means to bring him back to life. A wicked snake, the cause of the
whole enchantment, is lying under a stone: it must be hewn in pieces,
roasted at the fire, and the petrified brother smeared with its
fat.[20.1]
There are resemblances here in some of the details to the story of
Perseus. The petrifying witch in the latter of the two tales reminds
us more nearly of Medusa than does the mysterious cat; while in the
former the Supernatural Birth approaches the Argive tradition, though
no motive is assigned for the king’s resolution not to permit his
daughter’s marriage. The fatal prophecy, which is the centre of the
whole plot in the classical tale, is, in fact, commonly omitted in
modern folktales of this type. We do not find it in either of the
German stories; and even in the Tuscan its force is greatly weakened.
It is absent also from the Swedish _märchen_ of _Silverwhite and
Littlewarder_. In that story a widower-king, going to the wars, places
his only daughter alone with a single waiting-woman in a tower to
guard her honour. An old woman, suborned by youths who are angry at
being denied access to the princess, gives her two enchanted apples.
The princess and her maid, eating them, bear a son each. After seven
years, when the king is expected to return, they let the boys down
from the tower, that they may seek their fortunes. They meet a man who
gives them each a sword and three dogs. At a {21} crossway they part.
Silverwhite throws into the fountain that rises there his knife, given
him by his mother, the princess, and charges his foster-brother, if
the water become red and thick, to avenge him, for then he will be
dead. Then, going on his way, by the help of his dogs he saves a
king’s three daughters on successive days from three sea-trolls.
Having killed the trolls, he cuts out their eyeballs, and goes away. A
courtier claims to be the victor, and is to be married to the youngest
of the three maidens; but on the wedding-day Silverwhite appears,
produces the trolls’ eyeballs, and the king’s daughters recognise the
rings they have bound in his hair previous to the fights. He takes the
place of the bridegroom, who is punished. One night the brother of the
trolls calls to Silverwhite, and challenges him to combat, that he may
avenge them. The troll has three dogs, but they are driven away by the
hero’s dogs; and the troll takes to flight also. Climbing a tree, he
desires to parley, but the dogs bark furiously. In order to quiet
them, he gives three hairs from his head to Silverwhite, with a
request to lay them on the dogs. They lie silent and motionless; and
the troll, descending from the tree, renews the contest and kills
their master. Littlewarder, however, conquers the troll, and extorts
from him two bottles. The water in one of these bottles restores the
dead to life, that in the other holds fast whoever comes to a place
where it has been spread. With the latter he binds the troll
immovably; with the former he brings his foster-brother back to life.
The incident of Water-Peter’s jealousy follows. Silverwhite’s wife has
a sister conveniently ready and willing to marry Littlewarder; and so
all ends happily.[21.1]
Only one other variant need be mentioned here. A story {22} obtained
in Little Russia relates that a maiden coming home from the field was
seized with thirst. She saw in the road two footprints filled with
water, and, drinking, felt herself immediately pregnant; for they were
divine footprints. She bears two sons, who grow with wonderful
rapidity, and at the age of seven go out into the world. In a forest
they meet, one after another, several troops of animals--hares, foxes,
wolves, bears, lions--who dissuade the precocious twins from shooting
them, by bestowing on each of them one of themselves. The brothers
part. The elder rescues a princess from a dragon, and suffers death at
the hands of a Gipsy who has watched the combat; but he is brought to
life again by his beasts with the Water of Life and Healing, and weds
the princess. He observes that a fire burns all night long in a
certain house. On inquiry he is told that an old snake dwells there.
Accordingly he rides thither with his beasts, and fastens his horse in
the courtyard to a stake furnished with golden and silver rings. He
enters, and meets an old woman in an iron mortar, propelled with an
iron pestle--the inconvenient but usual vehicle of the Baba Yaga
(witch, or ogress) in Russian folktales. She pretends to be afraid of
his animals, and bids him flourish over them two rods which lie upon
the oven. As he does it they are changed to stone, together with
himself and his steed. Before they parted, the two brothers had buried
beneath a certain tree, the one red, the other white, wine; when the
white should become red, or the red white, it would be a token of the
death of him whose wine had changed colour. The younger brother now,
coming to the tree, finds that his elder brother is dead, and, going
to seek him, reaches his wife, and is mistaken for her husband. With
the object of getting some clew to his brother’s death, {23} he
remains with her three nights, putting the sword between them every
night. He then goes to the witch, for whom he is too wary. Seized by
his animals, she gives him the Water of Life, which restores his
brother. On the way home the elder brother strikes off his deliverer’s
head from jealousy; but when, at his return, his wife upbraids him
concerning the sword, he recognises his wrong, and hastens the next
morning to set his brother’s head on his shoulders again, and sprinkle
it with the Water of Life.[23.1]