THE STORY IN MODERN FOLKLORE--THE KING OF THE FISHES TYPE.
{24}
In our previous chapter we have examined the classical legend of
Perseus, and a few of the recently recorded popular traditions of
Europe most nearly akin to it, all of which I have ventured to class
together as the _Danae type_. Turn we now to another type, not less
interesting and even more widely diffused, which may be called _The
King of the Fishes type_, from the title of the Breton story I am
about to summarise.
A poor and childless fisherman once caught in his net a fish whose
scales shone like gold. He was going to put it into his basket, when,
to his surprise, the fish addressed him. “I am the King of the
Fishes,” it said; “spare me and thou shalt find many.” The fisherman
accordingly let it slip back into the water, and was rewarded with a
bountiful catch. His wife, however, rebuked him for letting the King
of the Fishes go, and insisted on his trying again to catch it; for
she desired to eat it. Accordingly, the next day he caught it again;
and this time he was not to be moved by its supplications to return it
to the water. Finding its prayers vain, the fish directed its captor
to give its head to his wife to eat, and to throw its scales into a
corner of his garden and cover them with earth, promising {25} that
his wife should give birth to three beautiful boys with stars on their
foreheads, who should be so perfectly alike that their mother herself
should not be able to distinguish between them, and that from its
scales should grow three rose-trees corresponding to the three
children. The rose-trees were to have this property--that when either
of the boys should be in danger of death, his tree should wither. The
boys were born in due course, and grew up. A rumour then reached them
that in a distant land was a seven-headed monster, to which every
month a young maiden was given to devour; and the king of that land
had promised his daughter to any one who would deliver the realm from
so terrible a scourge. The eldest son set forth on the adventure, and
arrived in time to rescue the princess herself from the fate of being
eaten by the monster. He then married her as the reward of his valour.
But this does not end the tale; for from the windows of the castle
where they dwell together, he sees another castle, covered with
diamonds and shining like the sun. On inquiring of his wife what it
is, she tells him that it is a dangerous place; many persons have
entered there, but none have been seen to return; and she prays him
for her sake to beware of going thither. This, however, only excites
his curiosity; so one day, without saying anything to the princess, he
starts as for the chase, accompanied by a large dog. Entering the
castle, he meets a wrinkled beldam, who spins as she comes towards
him. He allows her to pass a thread of wool through his dog’s collar.
The thread is instantly changed into an iron chain; and he himself is
compelled to follow her. At that moment his next brother is walking in
the garden at home; and, casting his eyes on his brother’s rose-tree,
he sees that it {26} is withering. The youth understands at once that
his elder brother is in mortal peril, and sets out to help him. He is
received by the princess, who mistakes him for her husband; and,
happening to catch sight of the castle of diamonds, he asks what it
is. The princess replies that she has already told him it is a place
whence no one who has once entered it ever comes forth. Immediately he
suspects the truth. He makes an excuse to go out, and is joined as he
sallies forth by a dog. With this animal he enters the castle, only to
meet the doom that has previously befallen his brother. The youngest
brother, following for the same reason, and attempting the same
adventure, is more fortunate; for he resists the witch’s importunities
to allow her to tie up his dog, and compels her to show him his
brothers, whom he finds turned into statues of stone. She restores
them at his bidding to life; the three then rifle her castle and
return to the princess, who is puzzled to decide which of them is her
true husband.[26.1]
The plot as developed in this story consists of four incidents,
distinguishable as--
1. The Supernatural Birth,
2. The Life-token,
3. The Dragon-slaying, and
4. The Medusa-witch.
Of these the only one we did not find in the classical legend is that
of the Life-token. It has already appeared in the German, Swedish, and
Russian stories cited in the last chapter. There, however, it assumed
an arbitrary form: the brothers stuck their knives into a tree, or
threw them into a fountain, or buried a measure of wine apiece. In
{27} the present type the Life-token is frequently a consequence of
the Supernatural Birth; it is then inseparably connected with the hero
whose well-being it indicates; it is not dependent on his will, but
is, in fact, part of himself. Born with the heroes, and as inseparable
from them as the Life-token, are usually also their horses and dogs,
and sometimes their weapons.
In the story of _The Fisherman’s Sons_, collected in Lorraine by M.
Cosquin, the fish puts forth no claim to royalty. It is caught thrice
ere it is finally taken home to the fisher’s wife. The counsel it
gives to her husband is to place some of its bones under his bitch,
some under the mare, and some in the garden behind his house, and to
fill three phials with its blood. When the three boys that would be
born should grow up, the fisher was to give one of these phials to
each of them; and if any mischance happened to either, forthwith the
blood would boil. Not only does the woman give birth to three sons,
but the mare also has three colts, and the bitch three puppies. From
the bones in the garden sprang up three lances. The boys, when grown
to manhood, set out together, each with his horse, dog, lance, and
phial of blood. They separated at a crossway; and the eldest reached a
village where every one was in mourning because year by year a maiden
was delivered to a seven-headed monster, and the lot had fallen that
year on a princess. Aided by his dog, he slays the beast, and wrapping
up its seven tongues in the lady’s handkerchief (which she gives him
for the purpose) he bids her goodbye, and leaves her to find her way
back alone to her father’s castle. She meets on the way three
charcoal-burners. Hearing her story, they compel her to show them the
corpse of the beast, whose heads they take, and make {28} her swear to
tell her father it was they who had killed it. The king, overjoyed,
promises his daughter to one of them; but she obtains a delay of a
year and a day. At the end of that time her true deliverer reaches
Paris just as the marriage festivities are beginning, and sends his
dog to get him of the best from the palace. The dog brings him two
good dishes. The cooks complain to the king, who orders some of his
guard to pursue the hound. The hero kills them all but one, whom he
spares to carry back the tidings. Then he sends the dog to steal the
best cakes from the king. Other guards, following the dog, share the
fate of the first; and the king concludes to go himself. He brings the
hero back in his carriage to the feast. Over the dessert the king
calls upon every one to tell his own story--the charcoal-burners
first. They of course relate that they had delivered the princess; and
in proof they produce the monster’s seven heads. The hero asks the
king to see if the seven tongues are in the heads; but the tongues are
not to be found. The hero then brings them forth in the handkerchief,
which the princess at once recognises, and declares that it was he,
and not the charcoal-burners, who had rescued her. The three impostors
are hanged without more ado, and the fisherman’s son weds the
princess. After supper, when he is in the chamber with his bride, he
looks out of window and beholds a castle all on fire; and she tells
him, in reply to his question, that she sees it every night without
being able to explain it. As soon as she is asleep, he gets up and
goes out with his horse and dog to see what it is. The castle stands
in the middle of a fair meadow; and there he meets a wicked old fairy
who asks him to jump down from his horse and help her with a bundle of
grass, that she wishes to lift upon her back. {29} He politely
complies; but no sooner has he touched the ground than she strikes him
with a wand and changes into a tuft of grass himself, his horse and
his dog. His brothers find the blood in their phials boiling; and the
second starts to discover what has become of the eldest. His reception
by the princess as her husband, his inquiry as to the castle on fire,
and his fate correspond with those of the second brother in the Breton
tale. But the youngest, by refusing to come down from his horse and
seizing the fairy by her hair, compels her, under threat of death, to
restore his brothers to life, which she does by striking the tufts of
grass with her wand. When she has finished, the youngest hero cuts her
in pieces. On their return, the princess cannot tell which of the
three brothers is her husband. The eldest claims her; and the two
others are provided with her two sisters, of whom we thus hear for the
first time.[29.1]
In this tale we have the additional detail of the charcoal-burners who
pretend to the princess’ hand on the ground that they have slain the
monster. This has already appeared in some of the stories recounted in
the first chapter, and is the counterpart in modern folktales of
Phineus, the betrothed bridegroom who lifted no finger to avert
Andromeda’s fate, but came to claim her when the fight was safely
over. It is not usual, however, and assuredly it is unnecessary, for
the impostor to be multiplied by three. In a Tirolese tale we find a
cobbler making the same preposterous claim. Here is no mention of the
seven heads, the brothers are two only, and their two dogs, horses and
lances, as well as themselves, are derived from the King of the
Fishes. Setting out together they meet an old woman, who bestows on
each of them a bottle of {30} clear water, which will become foul when
the other meets with misfortune. The day following his marriage the
elder hero sees from the balcony a glittering castle, where dwells a
witch. He goes thither secretly; and the witch meets him, carrying her
brazier, and requests him to blow, for she is cold. He blows and is
turned into stone. The younger brother, on being mistaken for his
elder, lays his sword in the bed, as in the Hessian story; but the
elder brother’s jealousy is omitted.[30.1]
A Gascon variant was told to M. Bladé by an illiterate peasant-girl.
Here the speaking fish directs its head to be given to the bitch, its
tail to the mare; and the fisherman’s wife is to eat the rest. Two
puppies, two colts and two boys are the result. The twins set out
together, with their horses and dogs. They part at a cross-road where
a great stone cross is erected; and the life-token given by the elder
to his brother is to strike the cross on his return with his sword: if
blood flow out, it is a sign of misfortune. No impostor appears to
claim the rescued maiden; but the hero cuts out the seven tongues and
wraps them in his own handkerchief. After his marriage he walks with
his wife--who is no princess, only the fairest girl of the town--in
the fields, and sees a little house, which he thinks he should like to
buy as a hunting-box. She bids him beware, for it has a bad
reputation. This whets his curiosity, and he goes to make inquiries.
Having knocked at the door, he is answered from within and told that
he cannot break the door in, as he threatens to do, but the way to
enter is to pull out a hair from his head and pass it through the hole
for the cat. The earth swallows him as soon as he complies. The
younger {31} brother is wiser. He passes a horse-hair through the
hole, and his horse is swallowed up. Then the door opens; and he
enters with his dog, slays the wicked persons within, makes his way to
the cellar, and delivers thence his brother and his brother’s horse.
So much alike are the brothers that the lady, who has already mistaken
the younger for her husband, cannot decide between the two when they
both present themselves together, until the elder brother pulls out of
his pocket the beast’s seven tongues, which he seems meanwhile to have
carried about in his handkerchief as an agreeable souvenir.[31.1]
The foregoing story doubtless once contained the episode of the
impostor. So many are the variants wherein the episode is found, and
usually associated with the seven tongues, that it is hardly likely
the Gascon tale could have originally preserved the tongues merely for
the purpose for which they are now kept. Occasionally indeed the
impostor is detected without their aid. In the Swedish tale of _The
Wonderful Pike_, told in East Gothland, the impostor is the princess’
coachman; and she recognises her true deliverer by the ring she has
fastened in his locks.[31.2] A curious Norwegian tale goes further. In
it the impostor is detected in spite of his thoughtfulness in
collecting the tongues. A poor woman, already rich in children, bears
a son who, immediately after his birth, insists on going out to seek
his fortune. He has hardly left the house when another son is born,
who, quite as hastily, starts in search of his brother and overtakes
him. They choose names--the younger, Lillekort (Littleshort), the
elder, King Lavring--and then part, King Lavring telling his brother
if ever he fall into {32} extreme peril (but only then) to call him by
name, and he will come and help him. This is the equivalent of the
Life-token. Lillekort meets a one-eyed, humpbacked old woman; he
steals her eye, and only restores it in exchange for a magical sword.
Erelong the adventure is twice repeated; and he gets a magical ship
and the secret art of brewing a hundred lasts of malt at once. Thus
armed, he takes service as a scullion in the palace; and on successive
Thursday evenings he fights a five-, a ten-, and a fifteen-headed
troll, to whom the princess has been promised, and slays them all.
Lillekort and the trolls defy one another in a style leaving nothing
to be desired. “Fire!” screamed the fifteen-headed troll. “Fire
likewise!” shouted Lillekort. “Canst thou fight?” cried the troll. “If
I cannot, I can learn,” retorted the undaunted hero. “I’ll learn
thee!” cried the troll, and struck out with his iron bar so that the
earth flew fifteen ells high in the air. “Fuh!” exclaimed Lillekort,
“that was good! But now thou shalt see a stroke from me!” And
therewithal he grasped his sword and dealt such a blow at the troll
that all fifteen heads danced over the sand. After each combat
Lillekort laid his head on the princess’ lap and slept, and she drew
over him on the first occasion a gold, on the second a silver, and on
the third a brazen dress. Meanwhile the Knight Röd (or The Red, a
title for the impostor which reappears in the Danish variant), who had
previously undertaken her defence, came upon the scene when all was
safely over, and compelled her to promise to say it was he who had
rescued her. Moreover, in proof of his victory he took the tongues and
lungs of the trolls in his handkerchief, but left the monsters’ ships
untouched. Lillekort, on the other hand, on awaking proceeded to sack
the ships; and by the {33} gold, silver, and other precious articles
they contained, he ultimately made good his claim to be the true
deliverer against the trophies brought by the Knight Röd. He
afterwards goes in search of the king’s other daughter, held captive
by a troll beneath the bottom of the sea. By means of his gift of
brewing he brews beer of such enormous strength that even the trolls
on tasting it fall down dead like so many flies. Both princesses then
insist on marrying him. In this awkward dilemma--this extreme
peril--he bethinks himself of his brother, King Lavring, whom he
summons to his aid; and the ladies are suited with a husband
apiece.[33.1]
The encounters with the one-eyed hags here fuse together into one
thrice-repeated episode the divine gifts bestowed upon Perseus and the
adventure with the Graiæ; but the brewing for the troll bears no
resemblance to the slaughter of the Gorgon. In some variants the
Medusa-witch is a relative of the monster, bent upon revenging his
death. In the Swedish tale already referred to, she is the dragon’s
sister. In the Danish tale a cock, by his repeated crowing, keeps the
hero and his bride awake for the first three nights. The bridegroom,
convinced that it is no common fowl, pursues it through the forest to
the sea-shore, where he had fought the sea-monster. There the cock
vanishes, and an old woman appears. She beguiles the hero into
accompanying her over a magical bridge across the sea to her den, and
laying hairs from her head upon his horse, hound, sparrow-hawk and
sword, thus rendering them harmless. Then she reveals herself as the
sea-monster’s mother, and revenges her loss by striking his conqueror
dead with her wand. The younger brother, repeating the {34} adventure,
burns the hairs, and forces the witch to restore the hero with the
Water of Life. The murder of the younger by the elder brother from
jealousy, and his resuscitation with the Water of Life, follow, as in
many of the other variants.[34.1]
The Greek story of _The Little Red Mullet-Sorcerer_ contains some
curious variations. There the desire to eat the fish does not arise in
the bosom of the fisherman’s wife; but it is suggested to her by
lady-friends, who amiably envy her husband’s good-fortune, and refuse
to believe that he is not a wizard. The fish requests to be divided
between the fisherman’s wife, his mare and his bitch, and that its
tail be planted in the garden. From the tail two cypresses grow up,
which are the life-tokens of the two boys thereafter born to the
fisherman. The king’s only daughter was possessed of an evil spirit.
She had an awkward habit of ascending a balcony every evening and
invoking the stars with insane gestures. Everybody whom she saw
looking at this queer spectacle she struck with madness. The elder of
the brothers, however, overcame her by stealing unawares upon her and
seizing her by the hair of her head. In this way he terrified her into
swearing never to do it again. When the king found his daughter in her
right mind, he desired to know to whom he was indebted for her
recovery; but his benefactor had fled to the inn where he was staying.
Wherefore, in order to find him out, the king issued a proclamation
commanding all the men in the town to pass beneath the palace windows,
at one of which the princess was posted with an apple in her hand,
ready to drop it on her deliverer. The latter, however, was burdened
with the modesty which {35} often affects the heroes of folktales, and
tried to evade the proclamation, but in vain. Even when he was caught
and brought before the king, he refused the offer of the princess’
hand: evidently he knew too much about her. He travels on, and
delivers another princess from a seven-headed monster who haunts a
fountain. The impostor is a charcoal-burner, discovered in the usual
manner. While the princess, his wife, is bathing one day, the hero
takes the opportunity of walking through some of the rooms of their
castle which he has not before examined. At the end of a corridor he
opens a door, and finds himself in a vast plain filled with statues of
human form. He meets an old woman who hands him a stick, on taking
which he is immediately petrified. His brother, warned of the witch’s
tricks, and going in search of him, refused the stick and set his dog
on her. The dog tore her to pieces, and thus delivered his master and
many others from her power. Among her effects the younger brother
luckily discovered a bottle of the Water of Immortality, with which he
restored to life not only his brother, but so many other persons
beside that they formed an entire nation and chose him, out of
gratitude, for their king.[35.1]
It would be tedious to relate all the variants of the tale found in
Europe; nor do the minuter differences between them concern us at this
moment. I am anxious merely to lay before the reader the general
outlines of the plot as they are found in the more striking and
important examples. For that purpose it will be needful to mention one
or two more variants falling under the present type, before proceeding
to consider some {36} in which one or more of the essential incidents
are wanting.
An Argyllshire story runs as follows:--A sea-maiden appears at the
side of a fisherman’s boat one day, and gives him three grains for his
wife, three for the dog, three for the mare, and three to be planted
behind the house, promising him three sons, three puppies, three
colts, and three trees which will be his sons’ life-token. In return,
one of the sons is to be hers at three years of age. This period is
afterwards extended first to seven, and then to fourteen years. The
eldest son, who apparently is the promised one, gets a smith to forge
a sword for him, and goes out upon his horse, with his dog by his
side, to seek his fortune. The carcase of a sheep lay beside the road,
and a great dog, a falcon and an otter were disputing over it. He
divided it between these animals to their satisfaction, and each of
them promised him in reward assistance in the time of need. Going
onward until he reached a king’s house, he took service as a cowherd;
and while in this situation he slew two giants, who owned green
pastures, and fed the herd upon their meadows. Now there was in the
loch a great three-headed she-beast to which some one was thrown every
year; and it happened that year that the lot fell on the king’s
daughter. Her suitor, “a great general of arms,” undertook to rescue
her; but when he saw “this terror of a beast” stirring far off in the
midst of the loch, he took fright and slunk away. In this emergency
the hero appeared; the damsel put a ring on his finger; he fought the
beast and cut one of her heads off. She retired for the night beneath
the waters of the loch. The deliverer sent the maiden home with the
beast’s head over her shoulder, but refused to accompany her. On the
way she met the {37} general, who threatened to kill her unless she
would say it was he who had cut off the monster’s head. The next day
the beast returned, and a second head was struck off. On the third day
the hero struck off the third head and slew the beast. But each day he
ungallantly allowed the princess to go home alone; the general met her
as on the first day, and got the credit for the achievement. When it
came to the point of marriage, however, she refused point-blank to
marry any one but him who could take the heads off the withy on which
the hero had strung them, without cutting it. Of course the cowherd
alone succeeded. He also produced the ring, and two earrings beside,
which the lady averred she had given to the man who took the heads off
the beast. What became of the general is not stated: the cowherd
married the king’s daughter. His adventures were now fairly begun:
they were far from being at an end. Another, “a more wonderfully
terrible,” beast came out of the loch and tore him away from his
bride. By the advice of a smith (smiths are often men of more than
ordinary powers and wisdom, in fairy tales) the lady spread all her
jewellery out on the strand, on the spot where her husband had been
captured. The bait took: in exchange for this finery the beast gave up
the man. Encouraged, probably, by success, the beast, shortly after,
seized the princess. Again it is the old smith who gives advice. The
beast was only to be killed in one way. Her soul was in an egg, in the
mouth of a trout, inside a hoodie, which was inside a white-footed
hind that dwelt on an island in the midst of the loch. If the egg were
broken, the beast would die. The hero invoked the help of the great
dog, the falcon and the otter. The great dog caught the hind. A hoodie
sprang out of her, and the falcon brought it to earth. A {38} trout
leaped out of the hoodie into the water, and the otter brought the
trout to land. The egg fell out of the trout’s mouth, and the hero put
his foot on it. He made the beast give up his wife, and then broke the
egg. After that the hero and his wife were walking one day, and he
noticed a little castle beside the loch in a wood. On inquiry, his
wife warned him that no one who went thither had ever returned to tell
the tale. He goes to see who dwells there; and the crone who meets him
draws “the Slachdan druidhach on him, on the back of his head, and at
once--there he fell.” His tree accordingly withers; his next brother
sets out to find his corpse, and shares his fate. The third brother is
beforehand with the hag, and after a terrible tussle slays her with
the “Slachdan druidhach.” Then with the same weapon he strikes his
brothers’ corpses, and they rise to their feet. The three take the
spoil and come back rejoicing.[38.1]
This long and not very coherent story gains a little in unity in a
variant by the identification of the second and “more wonderfully
terrible beast” with the sea-maiden to whom the hero had been promised
ere his birth. Omitting this episode and that of the giants, we have
the ordinary plot of the King of the Fishes with little change, beyond
the substitution of the sea-maiden for the wizard-fish. The alteration
does not affect the substance of the tale, for it matters little
whether the food which results in the birth of the twin heroes be the
flesh of the King of the Fishes, or some other gift of supernatural
power.
The opening of the North German tale of _The Two Similar Brothers_
approaches that of _The Sea-Maiden_, while {39} it also recalls one of
the great stories of _The Arabian Nights_. A fisherman, casting his
net into a pool, brings up, instead of fish, a little urn covered with
a lid. On his opening the urn, a thick red cloud curls up from within;
and before he is aware of it a big burly fellow appears in the midst
of the cloud and begs to be put back into the vase. “How can I put you
back,” asks the fisherman, “when you are so big and the vase so
little?” But the apparition prevails on him to try, promising in
reward not merely a good catch of fishes, but also a casket which he
must divide into six parts, whereof one is to be given to his wife,
one to his horse, one to his dog, and the remaining three are to be
buried under the eaves of his dwelling; but he is to beware of looking
into the casket before he gets home. Thereupon the fisherman lays
hands upon the apparition, finds him as collapsible as a modern
travelling-bag, and soon succeeds in fastening down this fairy
Jack-in-the-box once more. Flinging the vase again into the water, he
cast his net, and was rewarded as the apparition had promised. Before
a year had passed, the fisherman’s wife had borne twin boys so much
alike as to be indistinguishable. Two foals and two puppies were also
added to the household; and under the eaves up-sprouted two swords,
two pistols and two guns. The twins set out together. They obtained
the usual helpful animals--in this case, two young bears, wolves and
lions. Parting at a crossway, one of them sticks his knife into a
tree; and it is agreed that they will meet there again in a year’s
time. Whichever of them comes first is to examine the blade of the
knife: if it be rusted, that will be a token that his brother is dead.
The dragon in this tale has no fewer than fourteen heads, and is
beside reinforced by fourteen giants, to whom he belongs. The {40}
hero, of course, kills them all; and the rest of the story follows the
ordinary course.[40.1]
In the _Pentameron_ the magical food is a sea-dragon’s heart, which
must be cooked by a pure maiden. A king who wants offspring is advised
by a beggar to get this powerful medicine. When it is brought to him
he gives it to a pretty maid of honour to cook. No sooner has she put
it on the fire than it begins to emit a pitch-black smoke so powerful
in its effects that not merely the condition of the queen who tastes
the heart, but that of the maiden who cooks it, as well as of every
article of furniture in the room where it is cooked, becomes
interesting. The old four-post bedstead gives birth to a cradle, the
chest to a little chest, the settle to a little settle, the table to a
little table: nay, the very night-commode brings forth a tiny
night-commode so charming and pretty that one could have kissed it! At
the end of four days the queen and her maiden bear each a son, who
grow up fast friends. The queen’s jealousy, however, causes Canneloro,
the maid’s son, to leave his friend. Before departing, in a final
interview with Fonzo, the queen’s son, he flings his dagger on the
ground, and a spring starts forth, which he declares will run clear so
long as his life is clear and serene. Not satisfied with this, he
sticks his sword in the earth, and there sprouts a bilberry bush from
the soil as a further token. But whereas the magical elements in the
opening scenes are thus grotesquely exaggerated, the central portion
of the story is tamed down to a commonplace tournament, at which
Canneloro wins a king’s daughter. This treatment has for its purpose
to throw into relief the episode of the Medusa-witch. As the Enchanted
Hind, the witch {41} gives her name to the story. Pursuing this
animal, Canneloro is met by a snowstorm, and takes refuge in a cave,
where he kindles a fire. The hind he has been following appears at the
door of the cave, and asks leave to come in and warm herself. To calm
her fears the hero binds his dogs, his horse and his sword. The hind
then changes into an ogre, who throws Canneloro into a pit, whence he
is of course rescued by Fonzo.[41.1]
That Basile took some liberties with the story might thus be suspected
from internal evidence. How slight those liberties really were has
been proved by the discovery of an almost exact parallel as a folktale
in the Basilicata. Even the hero’s name is preserved as Cannelora. His
life-tokens are a jet of water and a myrtle. He is directed at a
crossway by two gardeners whose quarrel he has reconciled; and he
rescues a fairy under guise of a serpent from some boys who are
persecuting it and have already cut off its tail. The Medusa-witch is
a golden-horned snake. The storm is a tempest of thunder and
lightning, from which he takes refuge in a cavern. The snake becomes a
giant and imprisons the hero, exactly as in Basile’s version.
Delivered by Emilio, as the queen’s son is here called, together with
the giant’s other prisoners, he weds the fairy, who provides wives
also for Emilio and the rest.[41.2]
In a Pisan tale of the same collection we are brought back to the
talking fish of the typical story. The life-token is a bone tied to a
beam in the kitchen: it sweats blood when anything untoward happens to
either of the fisherman’s three sons. The dragon is a fairy in the
shape of a cloud that carries away a girl every year. The lot having
{42} fallen on the king’s daughter, the cloud sucks her blood through
her finger, and, when she faints, carries her away. The hero, having
previously obtained from three grateful animals, a lion, an eagle and
an ant, the power of transforming himself into their shapes, sets out
after the cloud, in the form of an eagle. The fairy-cloud could only
be slain by hitting her on the forehead with an egg, which was in the
body of a seven-headed tigress. The hero accomplishes this, and weds
the princess. The Medusa-witch is a supernatural mist. Penetrating
this, the hero is invited to play a game with some ladies. He loses,
and is, with his horse and dog, turned into marble.[42.1] In a Tuscan
variant, imperfectly recollected by the teller, the fish is an eel
with two heads and two tails; the boys are twins; the tails, planted
in the garden, yield two swords; and the heads, given to the bitch,
produce puppies; the life-token is a cornel-tree planted by the hero
before leaving home. The hero’s brother, arriving in search of him,
finds that he is imprisoned with his horse and dog in an enchanted
castle, leaves him to his fate, and, being precisely like the unhappy
prisoner in appearance, he takes possession of the princess his wife.
This chivalrous conduct, however, is perhaps to be imputed rather to
the teller’s defective memory than to the original sin of the younger
brother.[42.2]
When the childless fisherman, in a Lettish tale, catches a certain
pike, the latter gets its freedom by giving two fishes in its stead,
both of which the fisher’s wife is to eat. The two boys thereafter
born set out on their adventures together, and part at a cross-road,
leaving as their life-token a knife sticking in an oak. The one who
goes to the right {43} spares to shoot five animals in succession, and
out of gratitude they follow him. With their help he wins a princess
from demons who haunt a castle; and by virtue of his victory over them
he becomes king. The other brother is, for our purpose, the hero.
Going to the left, he obtains similar animals, which conquer the
nine-headed devil to whom a princess is to be given. The princess’
coachman is the impostor; and the Medusa-witch is the mother of the
nine-headed devil, who lures and petrifies the hero in revenge. He is
rescued at last by his brother.[43.1]
A Gipsy tale from Hungary attributes the Supernatural Birth to the
mother’s having drunk from the two breasts of an _urme_, or fairy, who
also suckled at the same time the dog and mare, and dropped milk into
two holes in the earth. Each of the two boys had a golden star on his
forehead; and from the earth sprang two oaks, the twins’ life-tokens.
The hero’s horse and dog assist him in winning his bride by the
performance of three tasks, the third of which is the lady’s
deliverance from the enchanted form of a dragon watching three golden
apples. Her father then sends him to hunt for the wedding-feast, and
he meets the Medusa-witch. His younger brother delivers him, with his
animals, from the enchantment by means of the golden apples; and by
the same means the witch is destroyed. In the fit of jealousy often
found in stories of this type, the hero subsequently kills his
deliverer, who is, after explanations, restored to life with a magical
plant.[43.2]
In two Russian tales the Medusa-witch incident precedes that of the
Rescue of Andromeda. One of these calls for no special mention. But in
the other--from Great {44} Russia--the two heroes are the sons of the
king’s granddaughter and her maid, born in consequence of their eating
fish. The Medusa-witch is the Baba Yaga, who finds the youth sleeping
on her meadow, and, giving him a hair, directs him to tie three knots
in it and blow, whereupon he is, with his horse, turned to stone. His
brother, having rescued him, passes on to the fight with the dragon.
The life-token is a knife which runs with sweat.[44.1]
A Sanskrit tale departs more widely from the type than any of the
foregoing. In _The Ocean of the Streams of Story_, a work of the end
of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century of our era,
Somadeva relates that a childless king sacrificed to the goddess
Durgá, and did penance, to obtain a son. The goddess appeared to him
in a dream, giving him two heavenly fruits, one for each of his two
wives. But one of the wives, not satisfied with the prospect of one
son, ate both fruits, and in due time gave birth to twins. The other
wife nursed vengeance in her heart; and when the two princes attained
manhood, and were sent on a warlike expedition, she forged a despatch
in the king’s name to the chiefs in the camp, commanding them to put
both princes to death. Their maternal grandfather, however, was with
the army in his capacity of royal minister. He found means to escape
with them, but died of the hardships of the road; and his two
grandsons made their way to the shrine of Durgá in the Vindhya Hills,
where they underwent a course of fasting and asceticism to propitiate
her. Pleased with their austerities, she appeared in a dream to
Indívarasena, the elder brother, and presented him with a magical
sword. Armed with this, he forced an entrance into the palace of the
king of the {45} Rákshasas, or ogres, and found the mighty monarch
sitting on his throne, “having a mouth terrible with tusks, with a
lovely woman at his left hand, and a virgin of heavenly beauty on his
right hand.” Indívarasena challenged the ogre to fight, but found it
useless to cut off his head, for as often as he cut it off it grew
again, until he took a hint from the virgin, who made him a sign to
cut the head in two after smiting it off. The treacherous virgin
turned out to be the Rákshasa’s sister. She had fallen in love at
first sight with the valorous youth, and on his victory immediately
offered herself in marriage to him. This conduct is not uncommon in
Somadeva’s amusing work, and is always eagerly responded to by the
lucky (and polygamous) heroes. Indívarasena was no exception. He
married her on the spot, and lived happily with her for some time. By
virtue of his magical sword he obtained everything he wished for. In
this way he got a flying chariot, and sent his brother in it to bear
tidings of him to his parents. Meanwhile the other lady, who was the
widow of the Rákshasa, attracted Indívarasena’s attention. His wife
naturally grew jealous, and in a fit of pique flung his magical sword
into the fire. She hardly expected the consequence. The sword was
dimmed by the fire, and her husband lay senseless on the ground.
Warned by a dream at that instant, his brother returned; and on
hearing the miserable woman’s confession he thought he ought not to
kill her, on account of her repentance; so he prepared to cut off his
own head. However logical and proper this alternative may have been,
the goddess interfered. He heard a voice arresting him, declaring that
Durgá had struck his brother senseless--not, of course, for flirting,
but for not taking enough care of the divine sword--and {46} directing
him to propitiate her. When he complied, the sword lost its stain, and
his brother regained consciousness. By a revelation as convenient as
those of Mohammed, the hero then learned that both ladies had been his
wives in a former existence, and therefore it was quite right for him
to have both now. So they were all happy ever after--especially
Indívarasena.[46.1]
Here we have the Supernatural Birth, the Dragon-slaying, and the
Medusa-witch, though the two latter are somewhat disguised. For the
Life-token a miraculous dream is substituted. And the whole is
overlaid by the practices and beliefs of the revived Hinduism
paramount in India after the expulsion of Buddhism.