whenever it sings ("Der goldne Vogel," Haltrich's _Siebenbuergische
Maerchen_, pp. 31, 35). The princess, its mistress, wears (p. 39) a
golden mantle "adorned with _carbuncles_ and pearls from the golden
bird."
III.--THE CAT AND THE DOG.
1. The Tiger promises not to eat the man who helps him and then tries
to break his promise. Compare "The Brahman, the Tiger, and the six
Judges," _Old Deccan Days_, p. 159; and "Ananzi and the Lion" in
Dasent's _Ananzi Stories_, p. 490.
2. In a Slavonic story mentioned by Gubernatis (_Zoological
Mythology_, vol. II. p. 111), a bear is about to kill a peasant in
revenge. A fox appears, "shakes its tail and says to the peasant,
'Man, thou hast ingenuity in thy head and a stick in thy hand.' The
peasant immediately understands the stratagem," and persuades the bear
to get into a sack he has with him that he may carry the bear three
times round the field instead of doing penance, after which the bear
is to do what he likes with him. The bear gets into the sack, the man
"binds it strongly" together, and then beats the bear to death with
his stick. Gubernatis at p. 132 of the same volume tells a similar
story from Russia in which a wolf plays the part of the bear and of
our tiger.
IV.--THE CAT THAT COULD NOT BE KILLED.
1. In an unpublished story told us by Gangiyá, a hill-man from near
Simla, a cat saves herself from being eaten by a jackal very much in
the same way that this cat saved herself from the leopard. The jackal
(in Gangiyá's story) ate anything it came across, whether it were dead
or alive. One day he met a tiger and said to him, "I will eat you. I
will not let you go." "Very good," said the tiger, "eat me." So the
jackal ate him up. He went a little further and met a leopard; he said
to the leopard, "I will eat you." "Very good," said the leopard. So he
ate the leopard. He went a little further and met a tiny mouse.
"Mouse," he said, "I have eaten a tiger and a leopard, and now I will
eat you." "Very good," said the mouse. He ate the mouse. He went a
little further and met a cat. "I will eat you," said the jackal. The
cat answered, "What will it profit you to eat me, who am so small? A
little further on you will see a dead buffalo: eat that." So the
jackal left the cat and went to eat the buffalo. He walked on and on,
but could find no buffalo; and the cat, meanwhile ran away. The jackal
was very angry, and set off to seek the cat, but could not find her.
He was furious.
VI.--THE RAT AND THE FROG.
Compare the Bohemian "Long-desired child," Naake's _Slavonic Fairy
Tales_, p. 226. This child is carved out of a tree-root by a woodman,
who brings him home to his wife. They delight in having a child at
last. The child eats all the food in the house; his father and mother;
a girl with a wheelbarrow full of clover; a peasant, his hay-laden
cart, and his cart-horses; a man and his pigs; a shepherd, his flock
and dog; lastly, cabbages belonging to an old woman who cuts him in
two with her mattock just as he tries to eat her. Out of him jump
unhurt every thing and every one he has swallowed. In a story from the
south of Siberia (Gubernatis' _Zoological Mythology_, vol. I. p. 140)
the hero vanquishes a demon, who tells him that in his stomach he will
find a silver casket. He cuts the monster open and out of him come
"innumerable animals, men, treasures, and other objects. Some of the
men say, 'What noble youth has delivered us from the black night?'"
In two of the caskets the hero finds the eyes of an old woman who has
befriended him, and money, "and from the last casket came forth more
men, animals, and valuables of every kind." In a Russian story quoted
by Gubernatis (_Zoological Mythology_, vol. I. pp. 406, 407) the wolf
eats the kids all but one. The mother goat persuades him to jump over
a fire. The fire splits his belly open, out tumble all the little
kids, lively as ever. There is a very similar story with fox, goat,
and kid for actors in Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West
Highlands_, vol. III. p. 93; and Grimm has one also, "Der Wolf und die
sieben jungen Geislein," in his _Kinder und Hausmaerchen_, vol. I. p.
29. In the notes to this story, vol. III. p. 15, Grimm says, "In
Pomerania this is told of a child who when his mother had gone out was
swallowed by the child-spectre, resembling the varlet Ruprecht. But
the stones which he swallows with the child make the spectre so heavy
that he falls to the earth, and the child unhurt springs out of him."
See, too, the demons at p. 99 of these stories, who swallow the
Princess Champákálí's suitors.
* * * * *
Tylor in his _Primitive Culture_, vol. I. p. 341, classes Little Red
Riding Hood among these Day and Night myths. It is, he says,
"mutilated in the English Nursery version, but known more perfectly by
old wives in Germany, who can tell that the lovely little maid in her
shining red satin cloak was swallowed with her grandmother by the
wolf, but they both came out safe and sound when the hunter cut open
the sleeping beast." He also quotes among these myths (_ib._ p. 338) a
story of the Ojibwas in which the hero is swallowed by a great fish
and cut out again by his sister; and another belonging to the Basutos
in which all mankind save the hero and his mother were devoured by a
monster. The hero "attacked the creature and was swallowed whole, but
cutting his way out he set free all the inhabitants of the world." At
the same page is the story of the Zulu Princess Untombinde who was
carried off by a dreadful beast. "The king gathered his army and
attacked it, but it swallowed up men, and dogs, and cattle, all but
one warrior; he slew the monster, and there came out cattle, and
horses, and men, and last of all the princess herself." Mr. Tylor
quotes, too (_ib._ p. 336), in connexion with this class of myths, the
story of the death of the New Zealand sun-hero, Maui, which he tells
more fully than does Sir George Grey in his _Polynesian Mythology_;
and he goes on at pp. 338, 339, 340, to connect these myths with those
of Perseus and Andromeda; Heracles and Hesione; the story of Jonah and
his fish; the Greenland angakok swallowed by bear and walrus and
thrown up again; and the legend of Hades.
Besides the angakok mentioned by Mr. Tylor, Dr. Rink, in his _Tales
and Traditions of the Eskimo_, has two other stories of escapes from
the stomach of a dead animal when it is cut open. In the first, at p.
260, the boy is devoured by a gull; his sister kills the bird, takes
her brother's bones from its pouch and carries them home: on the way
the boy comes to life again. The other tale, p. 438, tells how
Nakasungnak jumped out of the hole his friends had made in the dead
"ice-covered" bear's side; but his hair as well as the skin of his
face had come off, and he shivered from cold and ague. And in
Ralston's _Songs of the Russian People_, p. 177, is a story of a snake
who steals "the luminaries of the night. A hero cuts off his head, and
out of the slain monster issue the Bright Moon and the Morning Star."
VII.--FOOLISH SACHÚLÍ.
1. Foolish Sachúlí lives in many lands. In his Russian dress he
figures in "The Fool and the Birch-tree," Ralston's _Russian Folk
Tales_, p. 52. In the Sicilian "Giufá" we find him again (Gonzenbach's
_Sicilianische Maerchen_, vol. I. p. 249). In England he appears in an
out-of-the-way village in the south (see _Pall Mall Budget_, July 12,
1878, p. 11, _Wild Life in a Southern Country_, No. XIV.) with, to use
his mother's words, "no more sense than God had given him." She
wishing to have his testimony discredited when he bears witness
against her, as she knows he will, goes upstairs and rains raisins on
him from the window. So when asked to specify the time he speaks of,
he says, "When it rained raisins," and is of course disbelieved.
Note by Mr. J. F. Campbell: "This story of a stupid boy has a parallel
in a Gaelic tale in my collection, where the boy dated an event which
was true by a fall of pancakes or something of the kind which was not
true, and was not believed though he told the truth." [At p. 385, vol.
II. of the _Tales of the West Highlands_ a "half booby" is inveigled
by his mother into dating his theft of some planks by a "shower of
milk-porridge."]
2. The magic gifts given by the fairies are a common incident in fairy
tales: so is the adventure with the jar of ghee.
VIII.--BARBER HÍM AND THE TIGERS.
1. Forbes in his Hindústání Dictionary says _Kans_ or _Kansa_ was the
name of a wicked tyrant whom Krish[n.]a was born to destroy, and that
the word now means a wicked tyrant. But Rájá Káns is an historical
character. All that is known of him is told by the late Professor
Blochmann in the Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal for 1873, Pt. I. p.
264.
2. In the note (p. 380) to the XIXth Tale in the _Sagas from the Far
East_, is a story in which Barber Hím's part is played by a he-goat,
and that of his tigers by a lion. See, too, "How the three clever men
outwitted the demons" in _Old Deccan Days_, pp. 273-278. In a Santálí
tale, "Kanran and Guja," sent by the Rev. F. T. Cole to the _Indian
Antiquary_, vol. IV. September 1875, p. 257, two brothers, Kanran and
Guja, climb into a tál tree. Here they are discovered by a tiger whom
they have deprived of his tail, and who has brought a number of his
friends to help him revenge himself on the brothers. The tailless
tiger proposes they shall all stand one the top of the other, to reach
the men in the tree. His friends agree provided he takes his stand at
the bottom, and they climb as proposed till they almost reach the
brothers. Then Kanran calls out to Guja, "Give me your axe. I will
kill the tailless tiger." The tigers in terror all tumble to the
ground, crushing their tailless friend in their fall, and flee to
their homes. In "The Leopard and the Ram" (Bleek's _Hottentot Fables
and Tales_, p. 24) the ram and the leopard play the parts of the
barber and his tigers. See, too, "The Lion and the Bushman," p. 59 of
the same collection.
Note by Mr. J. F. Campbell: "Compare the Irish story of two hunchbacks
in Keightley. A version is in Mitford's Japanese book; and far better
versions are common in Japan."
IX.--THE BULBUL AND THE COTTON-TREE.
1. Cotton-tree, in Hindústání _Semal_.
2. Koel, Indian cuckoo.
X.--THE MONKEY PRINCE.
1. Bandarsá means like a monkey; Dunkní in telling this husk-story
just as often called the monkey-skin a husk (_chhilka_) as she called
it a skin (_chamrá_).
2. Princess Jahúran throws mattresses to her drowning husband. In a
Manípúrí tale published by Mr. G. H. Damant in the _Indian Antiquary_,
vol. IV. September 1875, p. 260, Basanta's wife throws him a pillow
that he may save himself when the envious merchant, on board whose
boat they are, pitches the prince into the river that he may secure
the princess for himself.
XI.--BRAVE HÍRÁLÁLBÁSÁ.
1. With this story all through compare "The Demon is at last conquered
by the King's Son," p. 173 of this collection.
2. Rakshas means protector, and is, probably, an euphemistic term. The
chapter on Mystic Animals in Swedish traditions (Thorpe's _Northern
Mythology_, vol. II. p. 83) gives a list of certain creatures that are
not to be mentioned by their own but by euphemistic names for fear of
incurring their wrath. This belief, Thorpe in the same chapter, p. 84,
says, extends to certain inanimate things: water used for brewing, for
instance, must not be called _vatn_ (water) or the beer will not be so
good; and fire occasionally is to be spoken of as _hetta_ (heat). The
girl in an Esthonian tale quoted by Gubernatis at p. 151 of the 1st
vol. of his _Zoological Mythology_ addresses a crow whose help she
needs as "Bird of light." Fiske says (_Myths and Mythmakers_, p. 223),
"A Dayak will not allude by name to the small-pox, but will call it
'The chief' or 'Jungle leaves;' the Laplander speaks of the bear as
'the old man with the fur coat;' in Annam the tiger is called
'Grandfather,' or 'Lord.' The Finnish hunters called the bear 'the
Apple of the Forest, the beautiful Honey-claw, the Pride of the
thicket'" ("The Mythology of Finnland," _Fraser's Magazine_, May
1857). The Furies, as every one knows, were called the Eumenides, or
the gracious ones.
The Rakshases are a kind of huge demons who delight in devouring men
and beasts. They can take any shape they please. The female Rakshas
often assumes that of a beautiful woman. Compare the demon Mara as
described by Fiske at p. 93 of his book above quoted.
The Rakshases do not travel in the way mortals do. See a Dinájpur
story told by Mr. G. H. Damant in the _Indian Antiquary_ (February
1875, vol. IV. p. 54), where the hero, who has married both the
Rakshas-king's daughter and his niece, asks his father-in-law's leave
to return home with his Rakshas-wives. The King consents (p. 58), but
says, "We Rakshases do not travel in pálkís (palanquins), but in the
air." Accordingly the prince, his two Rakshas wives and his mortal
wife, all travel towards his father's country through the air "along
the sky." One kind of jinn travel in the same way (Lane's _Arabian
Nights_, vol. I., "Notes to Introduction," p. 29). So do the drakes
and kobolds in Northern Germany. The drake is as big as a cauldron, "a
person may sit in him," and travel with him to any spot he pleases.
Both drakes and kobolds look like fiery stripes. The kobolds appear
sometimes as a blue, sometimes as a red, stripe passing through the
air (Thorpe's _Northern Mythology_, vol. III. pp. 155, 156).
3. Dunkní says, "All Rakshases keep their souls in birds." Those that
do so resemble in this respect some of the Indian demons, and the
giants, trolls, and such like noxious actors in the Norse, Scotch, and
other popular tales.
Tylor (_Primitive Culture_, vol. II. pp. 152, 153) mentions the Tatar
story of the giant who could not be killed till the twelve-headed
snake in which he kept his soul was destroyed. This tale, he says,
"illustrates the idea of soul-embodiment," and "very likely" indicates
the sense of the myths where giants, &c., keep their souls out of
their own bodies. The civilized notion of soul-embodiment, he adds
(quoting from "Grose's bantering description of the art of laying
ghosts in the last century,") is that of conjuring ghosts into
different objects: "one of the many good instances of articles of
savage belief serving as jests among civilized men." Possibly these
giants, trolls, rakshases, demons, once belonged to that class of
spirits who could, in popular belief, enter at pleasure into stocks
and stones and other objects of idolatrous veneration.
But all Rakshases do not keep their souls in birds. Some have their
souls in bees (see a Dinájpur tale published by Mr. G. H. Damant in
the _Indian Antiquary_ for April 6, 1872, p. 115): and in another
Dinájpur story printed by Mr. Damant in the _Indian Antiquary_ for
June 7, 1872, p. 120, a whole tribe of Rakshases dwelling in Ceylon
kept theirs in one and the same lemon.
4. In the first quoted of these stories collected by Mr. Damant, that
where the Rakshases keep their life in bees, the hero is a prince who
starts in search of the wonderful tree mentioned in paragraph 8 of the
note to Phúlmati Rání (p. 244). In his wanderings he finds himself in
the Rakshas country. There he meets with the woman who when cut up
turns into the tree he seeks. When he first sees her she lies dead on
a bed with a golden wand on one side of her, and a silver wand on the
other. He accidentally touches her with the golden wand and she
wakes. She tells him the Rakshases, every morning when they go out in
search of food, make her dead by touching her with the silver wand,
and wake her with the golden wand when they return at night. Mr.
Damant has another story in the _Indian Antiquary_ (July 5, 1872, vol.
I. p. 219), from Dinájpur, in which there is a prince Dalim who dies
and is laid in a tomb above ground, not buried. Daily the Apsarases,
the dancing-girls in the court of Indra, wake him from death by
touching his face with a golden wand, and make him dead again by
touching him with a silver wand. These wands they always leave lying
beside him. His wife comes one day to mourn over him and accidentally
discovers the secret of bringing him to life. He is, finally, restored
to her by the Apsarases.
5. According to Gubernatis, "three and seven are sacred numbers in
Aryan faith" (_Zoological Mythology_, vol. I. p. 6).
6. Hírálálbásá addresses the Rakshas as "uncle." The two brothers
Kanran and Guja (in a Santálí fairy tale bearing their name printed by
the Rev. F. T. Cole in the _Indian Antiquary_, September 1875, vol.
IV. p. 257), address a tiger by the same propitiatory title. The tiger
in return addresses them as nephews, and gives them the fire they
want.
"Uncle" and "aunt" are used in a propitiatory sense over a great part
of the world. Hunt at p. 6 of his introduction to the _Romances and
Drolls of the West of England_ says, "Uncle is a term of respect,
which was very commonly applied to aged men by their juniors in
Cornwall. Aunt ... was used in the same manner when addressing aged
women." "Mon oncle" and "ma tante" are sometimes used in the same way
in France. Fiske in his _Myths and Mythmakers_, pp. 166, 167, tells
how the Zulu solar hero Uthlakanyana outwits a cannibal: in this story
the hero addresses the cannibal as "uncle," and the cannibal in return
calls him "child of my sister." Fiske, quoting from Dr. Callaway, at
p. 166, says, "It is perfectly clear that the cannibals of the Zulu
legends are not common men; they are magnified into giants and
magicians; they are remarkably swift and enduring; fierce and terrible
warriors." In the Hottentot story of the "Lion who took a woman's
shape," the lion and the woman address each other as "my aunt," and
"my uncle" (Bleek's _Hottentot Fables and Tales_, pp. 51, 52). In
Siberia the Yakuts worship the bear under the name of their "beloved
uncle" (Tylor's _Primitive Culture_, vol. II. p. 231); and when the
Russian peasant calls on the dreaded Lyeshy to appear he cries, "Uncle
Lyeshy" (Ralston's _Songs of the Russian people_, p. 159).
"Grannie" is the word used by Dunkní herself.
7. The Rakshas queen is tricked to her death in the same way as the
wicked step-mother in the "Pomegranate King," p. 12 of this
collection.
XII.--THE MAN WHO WENT TO SEEK HIS FATE.
1. Compare a Servian story, "Das Schicksal" (Karadschitsch,
_Volksmaerchen der Serben_, p. 106), in which a man sets out to seek
his fate, and on the road is commissioned by a rich householder to ask
the fate why, though he gives abundance of food to his servants, he
can never satisfy their hunger, and why his aged, miserable father and
mother do not die: by another man, to ask why his cattle diminish
instead of thriving: and, thirdly, by a river whose waters bear him
safely across it, to ask why no living thing lives in it. His fate
answers all these questions, and instructs him how to thrive himself.
In Fräulein Gonzenbach's _Sicilian Fairy Tales_, "Die Geschichte von
Caterina und ihrem Schicksal," vol. I. p. 130, Caterina is persecuted
by her fate, who wears the form of a lovely woman. At last she begs
her mistress's fate, to whom she daily carries a propitiatory
offering, to intercede for her with her own fate. She is told in
answer that her own fate is wrapped in seven veils and so cannot hear
her prayer. Finally her mistress's fate leads her to her own. In the
same collection, in "Feledico und Epomata" (vol. I. p. 350),
Feledico's fate plays a personal part.
This Indian story looks like a relic of stock and stone worship (see
Tylor's _Primitive Culture_, vol. II. chapters XIV. and XV.). Compare
the man's beating his fate-stone with the treatment the Ostyak gives
his puppet. If it is good to him he clothes and feeds it with broth;
"if it brings him no sport he will try the effect of a good thrashing
on it, after which he will clothe and feed it again" (_ib._ p. 170).
Other examples are given at the same page. These spirits and gods, for
whose dwelling-place stocks and stones and other objects had been
supplied, were not supposed always to inhabit these abodes; but they
did so at pleasure. Compare Elijah's address to the priests of Baal,
"Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing,
or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth" (1 Kings xviii.
27), with Caterina's seven-veiled fate, and the prostrate fate-stone
in our story whose spirit-owner was evidently absent on some
expedition. These fates may be compared with the patron or guardian
spirits of whom Mr. Tylor speaks at pp. 199-203 of the same volume. He
says (p. 202), "The Egyptian astrologer warned Antonius to keep far
from the young Octavius, 'for thy demon,' said he, 'is in fear of
his.'" If one man's demon or genius were at enmity with that of
another man, it would probably be friendly to that of a third man, and
would therefore be acquainted with its secrets and with its motives of
behaviour to the man it guarded. Hence the advice given by her
mistress to Caterina to inquire of her own fate from her mistress's
fate, and the questions to be put to their fates when found given to
the men in the Indian and Servian stories. These questions remind one
of those entrusted to the youths in European tales as they journey to
the dragon or devil to whom they are sent for destruction. Like the
fates in the Indian and Servian stories, these dragons and devils live
at the end of a long and difficult journey. Caterina has to climb a
mountain to visit her mistress's fate.
2. Gubernatis (_Zoological Mythology_, vol. I. p. 22), speaking of the
three _Ribhavas_, says, "During the twelve days (the twelve hours of
the night or the twelve months in the year) in which they are the
guests of Agohyas," &c. So possibly the twelve years in this and other
stories in this collection may be the twelve hours of the night. In an
unpublished story told by Dunkní, "Prince Húsainsá's journey," the
prince journeys for twelve years. When he returns home he finds his
parents as he had left them--fast asleep in bed. To them the twelve
years had only been as one night.
XIII.--THE UPRIGHT KING.
1. The Boar is an avatár of Vish[n.]u.
2. A [d.]om (the d is lingual) is a Hindú of a very low caste.
3. Possibly this king is the same as the king Harichand in the last
story but one in the collection, p. 224, and he may also be the
Hariçchandra of the following letter from Mr. C. H. Tawney:--