THE BULL AND THE COW IN THE GERMANICO-SCANDINAVIAN AND FRANCO-CELTIC
TRADITIONS.
SUMMARY.
The four bulls, sons of the virgin Gefion.--The bull which comes out
of the sea.--The bull progenitor of royal races.--The bull who
carries the maiden.--The cow of abundance, Audhumla, nurse and
mother of heroes.--The three brothers of Scandinavian and German
mythology.--The warrior-cow.--The sacred cow of Ögwaldr burned upon
the hero's tomb.--The rod-phallos used to strike the cow, as an
augury of abundance and fecundity.--The head of the ox used as a
hook to catch the sea-serpent.--The Scandinavian cornucopia made of
the horns of oxen.--The horn full of honey.--The horn-trumpet.--The
daughter that milks.--The hero who eats oxen.--Atli eats the hearts
of his sons, believing them to be the hearts of
calves.--Hornboge.--To a wicked cow God gives short horns; to cut
off the cow's horns; to take the bull or cow by the horns, three
Germanic proverbs.--To dream of eagles announces the vicinity of
cows; Scandinavian corresponding legend.--A red cow on a certain
bridge announces a battle.--The Germanico-Scandinavian mythical
bridge.--The red cow and the black cow yield white milk.--Digression
upon mythical proverbs, and the explanation which seems to be the
most likely.--To shut the stable after the cow has been
stolen.--When the daughter is stolen, shut Peppergate.--He who has
lost a cow and gets its tail back again has not much, but he has
more than nothing.--To take by the horns.--Even if the cow's tail
moves it does not fall.--The tails in the mud.--The virtues of the
tail.--The ascent to heaven by means of the tails.--The hero in the
sack made of a cow's hide thrown into the sea.--The punishment of
the bull.--When the cow places herself upon the eggs, do not expect
fowls.--The black cow has crushed him.--The sack of the wolf or of
the black beast is his body itself.--The trial between hero and
monster to take off their skins; the hero gives cows' skins, but the
monster is obliged to give his own.--The cow's hide, when sold, is
the beginning of good luck.--The daughter flees from her father, who
wishes to seduce her; the story of the slipper again.--The cow can
pass before the hare.--The cow jumped over the moon.--Tarde sed
tute.--To take the hare with the chariot.--All those who blow the
horn do not hunt hares.--As a blind cow finds a pea.--Marvellous
pipkins and amphoræ.--The cow that laughs.--The princess who
laughs.--The cow that speaks.--The language of animals.--Phallical
mysteries.--What the king said in the queen's ear.--Because they
have spoken, the husband and wife are separated.--Bulls that speak
at Rome.--Women know everything, even how Zeus married Hêra.--The
mythical laugh is in the sun's ray and in the lightning.--The fishes
that laugh; Phallic meaning of the myth.--If the cow-maid must spin,
there will be little yarn.--The cows that spin.--The spinning
Berta.--Berchta and Holda.--The time is passed when Berta spun.--The
times of King Pipino.--Berta with the large foot.--Berta with the
goose's foot.--St Lucia and St Luke.--Virgins after
parturition.--The old husband Pepin, a form of St Joseph.--The wife
Berta changed.--The Italian proverbs dare la Berta and dare la Madre
d'Orlando.--Continuation of the story of Berta persecuted in the
forest.--Orlando and Charlemagne.--The bull-priest and the
priest-bull.--The bull in funerals, in pregnancy, and as the food of
the hero.--The dwarf and the giant.--A French dwarf explains a myth
to us; a Scandinavian explains other myths to us.
I shall here combine under one category the Germanico-Scandinavian and
Franco-Celtic traditions, as traditions which, in the Middle Ages
especially, had a close and continual correlation of correspondence
with each other.
The _Edda_ of Snorri begins with the voyage of Gefion, with the four
oxen, her sons (although she is a virgin), yoked to a plough. The king
Gylfi concedes to her the right of occupying and possessing as much
ground as she can plough in twenty-four hours. When they come to the
western sea-board, the four oxen rush forward and drag Gefion with them
into the sea, until they arrive at the land of Seelund (Seeland).[423]
In which, it is obvious we have again the Vedic bull with a thousand
horns which comes out of the sea, and the bull which carries off the
maiden. The bull which comes out of the sea is also found in Irish
legends, and in German ones. According to a German legend, of which
several variations exist, a shepherd received a dinner every day and a
clean shirt every Sunday from a variegated bull that came out of the
sea.[424] A bull on the seaside begets, by the sleeping queen, the king
Meroveus, the first of the Merovingians; perhaps it is on this account
that we find a golden bull's head represented on the tomb of King
Childeric. Charles Simrock[425] found a similar legend also in Spain.
The bull which carries the girl, which we have already met with in the
Russian stories, occurs again in the Norse tale[426] of "_Katee Wooden
Cloak_ (Dasent), endowed with the powers of wish. In its left ear is a
cloth (which reminds us of that spun on the cow's horns), which, when
spread out, is covered with dainties of all kinds for the dawn-maiden,
who has been thrust out of her father's house; but when the step-mother
informs her that she cannot rest until she has eaten the dun bull's
flesh, the animal, hearing her, engages to deliver her, and offers, if
she so wills, to carry her away."
In the voyage of Gylfi in the _Edda_ of Snorri, we find that the cow
Audhumla, the cow of abundance, was the parent of the supreme
Scandinavian god Odin, as it was of the supreme Vedic god Indras. The
cow Audhumla nourishes with her milk Ymir, the first of the giants. She
licks the salt mountain of ice (the Esthonian ice-mountain, the twelve
glasses of the Russian princess, through which the young hero Ivan
penetrates to kiss her). From the ice which the cow has licked, comes
forth, first the hair, then the head, then the whole body, of the hero
Buri. (The sun arises little by little from the mountain of the east,
warmed, attracted by the cow-aurora, and shows, first a few rays, then
his disc, and then himself in all his splendour and strength; and that
which the sun does every day he repeats on a larger scale once a year,
rising again from the ice of winter through the tepidity of spring.) Of
Buri, who is at birth strong, is born Bör, who has, by Bestla, the
daughter of the giant Bölthorn, three sons, Odin, Wili, and We (the
usual three brothers of the legends), who correspond to the three sons
of Mannus in German tradition, that is, Inguis, Istio, and Irminius. The
Swedish king Eistein had a great veneration for the cow Sibilia, and
used to take her with him to battle, that she might terrify the enemy by
her lowing. (The lowing of cows plays an important part in the battles
of the Vedic hero Indras. In the _Pancatantram_, as we have noticed, the
bellowing of the bull fills the lion with terror.) The Scandinavian
king, Ögwaldr, was accompanied everywhere by a sacred cow, of which he
drank the milk, and with which he desired to be buried. In the
_Rigvedas_, as we have seen, the hero Indras makes the cow fruitful;
and the thunderbolt of the god, penetrating the cloud, takes the form of
a phallos. Afterwards, as a symbol of the rod-phallos, the branch or rod
of the tree palâças was adopted, with which the cow was struck to make
it fruitful; such a magic rod is used in Germany to this day, where it
is in many parts the custom to strike the cow, in the belief that it
will render her fruitful.[427]
It is with the head of the most beautiful of the giant Hymir's oxen
fastened to his hook that, in Snorri's _Edda_, the god Thor goes to
fish up the immense serpent of Midgard from the bottom of the sea, and
destroys it upon the sea-shore. (This myth, if I am not mistaken, has
the following meaning:--The head of the solar, or lunar, bull is
devoured by the monster of night; this same head, tossed about, draws
up, towards morning as sun, and towards evening as moon, upon the
shore of the sea of night, that is to say, on the eastern mountain,
the monster-serpent: thus Hanumant, in the _Râmâyanam_, passes over to
the opposite shore of the sea, crossing the body of the marine
monster, which he causes to burst; thus Indras kills Ahis the serpent
upon the mountain).
Nor is there the cow of abundance only. Scandinavian tradition, in the
short poem on the dwarf Allwis, offers us the cornucopia in the cup
formed of the defence of oxen (_i.e._, with their horns), in which the
god Thor drinks hydromel. Thus Sigurd offers to Brünhilt a horn full of
mead to drink. And this horn, moreover, besides serving as a cornucopia,
becomes as a golden horn the war-trumpet of Odin (the Giallarhorn).
The Scandinavian hero then, it appears also, has his relationship with
cows, though his life has far more of a warlike character than a
pastoral one; he therefore accuses Loki, and in so doing fills him with
shame, with having passed eight winters underground occupied in milking
the cows like a woman. (It is known that the Hindoo word _duhitar_,
whence Tochter, means she who milks). The Scandinavian hero, instead of
milking cows, eats bulls. We find more than once in the _Eddas_ the
heroes occupied in roasting oxen. Atli, the husband of Gudrun, boasts of
having killed some oxen and having eaten them with her. Gudrun, the
Scandinavian Medea, gives Atli the hearts of his two sons to eat,
assuring him that they are calves' hearts. The god Thor, disguised as
the goddess Freya, drinks three barrels of mead, and eats a whole bull,
when he sets out on the enterprise of recovering his marvellous hammer.
The bull's or cow's horn, moreover, not only supplies mead to the hero,
nor is it only used to call his friends to his aid and to throw down the
enemy; it also forms the hero's bow, which therefore, in the _Vilkina
Saga_,[428] also takes the name of Hornboge, and, as such, assists the
greatest hero, Thidrek or Dîtrich, and is the parent of the celebrated
hero Sigurd (Sîfrit, or Siegfried). And, in conclusion, the horns are
considered such an important weapon of the cow and bull, that a proverb,
which is at once Slavonic, German, and Italian, says, "To a wicked cow,
God gives short horns" (that it may do no harm, or rather, because it
wears them away by use); to cut off the cow's horns means, in a German
proverb, to surmount a difficulty; and to take the bull or cow by the
horns, is to disarm them.[429]
In the Greenland poem on Atli, in the _Edda_ of Sömund, Högni says, that
when many cattle are killed much blood is seen, and that when one dreams
of eagles, oxen are not far distant. In the _Edda_ of Snorri, whilst
Odin, Loki, and Hönir are cooking an ox under a tree, an eagle on its
summit prevents the meat from being cooked, till the heroes consent to
give him part of it. The heroes consent, but the eagle carries off no
less than the two thighs and the two shoulders of the ox. The eagle has
in the _Edda_ the same demoniacal and infernal character that is in
other traditions ascribed to the crow, the funereal stork, and the
vulture: it searches for oxen; and therefore to dream of eagles is an
intimation that an ox is near, in the same way as they say the presence
of a vulture is a sign of the proximity of a corpse.
A German legend, cited by Kuhn and Schwartz,[430] makes a battle begin
"as soon as a red cow is led over a certain bridge." We remember the
Russian story of the girl who, by means of the magical towel of her
brother, makes a bridge arise over the river, over which the
monster-serpent, in the form of a handsome young man, crosses to take
her; how the brother is sacrificed in the battle which he is obliged to
fight against the monster, who disarms him by fraud; and how the battle
between the hero and the monster begins when the maiden, passing the
bridge, abandons the hero, her brother, who falls and sheds his blood in
the unequal struggle. I have already remarked that in the popular
belief the bloody sun of evening forebodes war, and the red cow of
German tradition represents no other than this sky. As to the bridge, an
interesting note of Kuhn and Schwartz[431] seems to confirm the
hypothesis which I have already hinted at in connection with the
Slavonic story, _i.e._, that it represents the milky way; from this
note, too, in which a resemblance is noticed between the bridge of the
red cow, which determines the beginning of a battle, and the
Scandinavian celestial Bîfröst (as perhaps there is between it and even
the Persian bridge Cinvant itself), I gather that in Frisia the milky
way is called Kau-pat (or Kuh-pfad, cow's-path). That is to say, it is
supposed that the red cow of evening passes during the night along the
milky way, scattering her milk over it; whence perhaps is derived the
German proverb, "Even red cows yield white milk,"[432]--like that other
which we have already seen current in India, and met with again in
Turanian tradition, and which exists as a German, Slavonic, and Italian
proverb, "Even the black cow yields white milk"--(the black night which
produces the alba or white dawn of morning, and we might add, the silver
moon and the milky way).
Since it seems to me, therefore, as I trust it also does to the
reader, that the maiden who crosses the bridge in the Slavonic
stories is, without doubt, the same as the red cow which does the like
in German legend, and if I have not been mistaken in identifying the
maiden who travels with her brother to the kingdom of the dead with
the evening aurora and the dying sun, I shall here adduce a few other
German proverbs, which may also be said to be universal in European
tradition, relating to the cow, all pointing to a similar conclusion.
They are as follows:--"Shutting the stable after the cow has been
stolen." "He who has lost a cow, and recovers her tail, has not much,
but he has more than nothing." "A cow's tail might reach heaven, if it
were only a long one."[434] "A cow does not know what her tail is
worth till she loses it." "To take the cow by her tail." "The black
cow has crushed him, or has got upon him." "A cow cannot overtake a
hare." "The cow has outrun the hare." "Not all who sound the horn hunt
the hare." "When the cows laugh." "As a blind cow can find a pea." "He
must be carried about in an old cow's hide." "If the cow-maid spins,
there will be little yarn." "The cow will learn to spin first."[435]
Meditating upon all these German proverbs, it is, it appears to me,
not difficult to recognise in them a reminiscence of ancient myths
with which we are already acquainted. When we reflect that almost
every proverb has passed into contradictory forms and varieties, and
as in these varieties we may trace the elements of the history of a
great number of strange proverbs, it does not seem rash to affirm that
the said history generally had, in like manner, its origin in a myth.
Not to wander from the subject in hand, that the same proverb is
attributed to different animals, not only by different nations, but in
the oral traditions of the same people, I must refer the reader to
what I have remarked in the preface to this volume concerning the
contradiction which exists between certain superstitious beliefs. The
contradiction between many proverbs, as also between many
superstitions, compared with each other, can only be reconciled by
referring both back to the battle-field of mythology, where an
inconceivable number of myths arise, and can only arise, out of
contradictions; that is, out of contrasted aspects which celestial
phenomena present, even to the same observer, still more so to
different observers. The comparative history of mythical proverbs is
yet to be written, and perhaps it is not yet possible to write it
according to rigorous scientific method in all its completeness. A
preliminary study of the details is necessary to understand a proverb
as well as a popular custom, a superstitious belief, a legend, or a
myth; and this study will demand some labour; for one proverb,
completely illustrated, may involve the development of an entire
epical history. I shall not presume here to solve the enigma of the
above-quoted German proverbs, but only to indicate what seems to me to
be the way of arriving at their most probable solution. In the study
of a proverb, it is necessary to lay great stress upon its
intonation. Upon the different tones in which an ancient proverb was
originally pronounced, and afterwards repeated, passing from tongue to
tongue, and from people to people, depends a great part of the
alteration in the meaning even of the most interesting of the
proverbs, which are a patrimony we owe in common to Aryan tradition. A
proverb, for instance, began by being a simple affirmation, the simple
expression of a natural mythical image; with the lapse of time the
expression remained, and the myth was forgotten; the expression then
appeared to refer to a strange thing, and was accompanied, when
pronounced, with a doubtful mark of interrogation; it was now adopted
in the denial of an impossible thing, and became an instrument for
satire. Thus many proverbs which have become satirical, must have been
originally nothing more than mythical affirmative phrases.
"To shut the stable after the cow has been stolen." In England, instead
of the cow, we have in the proverb a girl: "When your daughter is
stolen, shut Peppergate" (the name of a little gate of the city of
Chester, which it is said the mayor ordered to be shut when his daughter
had been carried off). The proverb is now used to stir up a laugh at the
expense of those who are at pains to guard their property after it has
been robbed; but it perhaps had not always the same meaning. We are
already familiar in Hindoo tradition with the hero who delivers the
beautiful maiden out of the enclosure, and have seen how she is scarcely
free, when she is led away by iniquitous brothers or companions, after
shutting up the legitimate proprietor of the cow or maiden in the cave
whence the cow or girl came forth; how the ravishing brothers shut the
door of the stable or cavern, after having carried off the maiden. The
hero imprisoned in the stable, the hero shut up in the darkness of
night, often assumed in mythology the form of a fool. Hence from the
idea of shutting the gate of the stable upon the hero, by the ravishers
of his cow, the transition seems natural, in my opinion, to the hero
lost in the cavern, to the hero become foolish, to the peasant who shuts
the door of the stable when the cow has been robbed, or to the mayor of
Chester, who, being shut up in the town, shuts the Peppergate, through
which the girl who had been carried off passed.
"He who has lost a cow and recovers its tail has not much, but he has
more than nothing." This proverb also appears to me to have a mythical
meaning. I have already remarked that the tail, the heel, the feet,
that is to say, the lower or hinder extremities, betray the mythical
animal; which we shall see more convincingly when we come to examine
the legends which refer to the wolf, the fox, and the serpent. It is
the footprint which, in all the European traditions, betrays the
beautiful maiden in her flight; and when the brigand Cacus carried off
the oxen of Hercules, the hero, to recover them, searches for their
footprints. But in order that these may not be recognised, the cunning
brigand, instead of leading the oxen by their heads, takes them by
their tails,[436] and makes them walk backwards. Hence, to take by the
tail, means to take hold of the wrong way, and it is applied to the
ass as well as the cow. It is said in Germany that a cow once fell
into a ditch from which none of the bystanders dared to extricate it.
The peasant to whom the cow belonged came up, and, according to some,
took it fearlessly by the horns, while, according to others, he
dragged it out by its tail, whence can be explained the double proverb
to take by the horns, _i.e._, to take by the right side, and to take
by the tail, or, as we have said, to take by the wrong. But the
peasant could only take his cow out by the horns, or by the tail,
according to the way in which it had fallen in; that is, if it had
fallen down head foremost, it could only be dragged out by the tail,
and if, on the contrary, it had fallen in tail foremost, he could only
extricate it by laying hold of its horns. The cow-aurora is taken by
surprise and devoured by the wolf, bear, wild-boar, or serpent of
night, who takes her by the shoulders (it is on this account that, in
the Russian story, we have seen the bull recommend the fugitive hero,
accompanied by his sister, to keep his face turned in the direction
whence the pursuing monster might be expected to come up). The monster
(the shadow, or the cloud) clutches the cow by her tail and devours
her, or drags her into his cave. The hero, in order to deliver his cow
out of the cave, can take her by the horns only on condition that he
penetrates into the cavern by the same way by which the cow entered,
that is, by the monster's mouth; but, as the monster endeavours to
surprise the hero from behind, so the hero often wounds the monster
from behind, catches hold of him by the tail, and in this way drags
him out of the cavern, ditch, or mud--his fallen cow. In a Hindoo
fable in the second book of the _Pancatantram_, we have the story of a
jackal, who, to satisfy a desire of his wife, follows the bull for
whole years together, in the hope that his two hanging testicles might
fall some day or another. In a joke of Poggius, and in Lessing,[437]
we find the same subject spoken of, of which a variation is given in
a German proverb, "Though the cow's tail moves, it does not
fall."[438] In the hope of this it is that the wolf, or the fox, runs
after the tail of the cow or bull. There is a Piedmontese story which
I heard in my infancy, one comic feature of which lingers vividly in
the memory: a boy who took the hogs to pasture, cut off their tails
and stuck them in the mud, and then made off with the animals. The
owner of the hogs, seeing their tails, is under the impression that
they have sunk into the mud. He tugs at them, brings away their tails,
but cannot fish up their bodies. In a Russian story given by
_Afanassieff_,[439] we read that the cunning Little Thomas (Thomka,
Fomka) cheats the priest of his horse (in some versions his ass) by
cutting off its tail and planting it in the mud of a marsh. He makes
the priest believe that his horse has fallen into the marsh; the
priest, thinking to pull it out, gives one stiff tug, and falls down
on his back with the tail in his hand; upon which Tom persuades him to
believe that he has broken it off himself, and to be content with the
recovery of so much of the lost animal. In the fifty-seventh Gaelic
story of Campbell,[440] a priest endeavours to pull out of the water a
drowning sheep, but the tail comes away, and the story-teller adds,
"If the tail had not come off, the story would have been longer." And
so the owner of the cow, the robber of which has left the tail behind
as a consolation, has in reality but little, but yet this little is
something; for, just as the slipper left behind her by the fugitive
girl, although it is of little value, enables the hero to identify
her, so in the tail of his cow the owner has something in hand to set
out on its search with, and to recover his lost property; either
because the tail of an animal is like its shadow and serves to trace
it, as the slipper does the maiden by showing the footstep; or else,
because tailless cows are evidently stolen ones. (In the myth of
Cacus, in which Hercules traces the stolen oxen by the footprints, and
Cacus drags them by their tails, the mythical figure of the slipper
and that of the lost tail are perhaps united. It is possible that the
tails of the oxen came off in the hands of Cacus when dragging them
into the cavern, and that, thrown away by the brigand, and found by
Hercules, they may have served him as a guide to recover his oxen. It
is also possible that Cacus, pursued by Hercules, had not time to
drive the oxen in entirely, but that their tails still protruded and
betrayed their whereabouts. Relative to the Latin legend of Cacus,
these are simply hypotheses, and I have therefore enclosed them in a
parenthesis; but inasmuch as in the above-quoted Russian story, we
find the horse's tail cut off by the robber, and as in the chapter on
the fox, we shall see the fox who betrays himself by not drawing in
his tail, whence the proverb, "Cauda de vulpe testatur," the two
hypotheses advanced above are, after all, not so visionary.) In
_Pausanias_[441] the hero Aristomenes, who has been thrown into a deep
cistern, liberates himself in a marvellous manner by means of an
eagle, after a fox had opened a passage. The fox's tail has such a
bewitching power of attraction, that according to popular tradition,
when it is moved the cock falls down unable to resist the charm.
According to popular belief, the tail (as well as the nose and mouth)
is the most splendid part of the body of an animal. The great monkey
Hanumant, with his tail on fire, burns Lanka (in the same way as the
burning tails of the foxes of the biblical Samson burn the ripe
harvests of the Philistines). The grey, or black, horse of mythology
(having devoured the solar white, or red horse) emits fire from his
mouth or tail. This black horse being the night, the horse's jaws and
tail, which emit fire, represent the luminous heavens of evening and
of morning; when, therefore, the tail of his horse (stolen by the
robber in the same way as the bull and the cow[442]) remains in the
mythical hero's hand, this light-streaming tail is enough to enable
him to find the whole animal, _i.e._, the solar hero comes out of his
hiding-place (Hanumant comes out of the hinder parts of the marine
monster, the dwarf comes out of the wolf's back[443]), the bull-sun
finds his cow the aurora again; the prince sun, the princess aurora;
the peasant recovers his ass or his cow; Hercules, his oxen; the white
horse comes out of the tail of the black horse, who had eaten him, and
then, by means of the tail, ascends to heaven;[444] the white bull
comes out of the black one; the white, or the red, cow comes out of
the black cow; the tail comes out of the body; the hero comes out of
the sack, or hide, in which he had been enclosed or sewed up. The sack
plays a great part in the tradition of the hidden or persecuted hero;
this sack is the night or the cloud, or the winter; the hero shut up
in the sack, and thrown into the sea, is the sun. The hero enclosed in
the sack and thrown into the sea, and the heroine shut up in a chest
(covered, moreover, with a cow's hide, in the myth of Pasiphäe) or
barrel, and abandoned to the water,[445] are equivalent to each other,
and so are the heroes shut up in the well, in the cavern, in the
stables, and even in the cow. Inasmuch as the sack in which, according
to the proverb quoted above, the delinquent hero is to be sewed, is an
old cow's-hide, or else the hide of an old cow, or a dark one (of the
night), when this black cow sits on the eggs of the bird of evening,
to hatch them, the eggs come to evil; whence I derive the German
proverb, "When the cow sits upon the eggs, do not expect fowls."[446]
And when the night was observed to overwhelm the sun and withdraw him
from human sight, this other proverb took its origin, "The black cow
has crushed him." The black cow does not only crush the hero, but, as
the wolf does, shuts him up in her own hide,[447] in her own sack,
_i.e._, devours him--to fill the sack is the same as to fill the body,
and to empty the sack as to empty the body. In the Piedmontese story
of the dwarf child (the Norwegian Schmierbock), whom the wolf[448]
encloses in the sack, the dwarf comes out of the sack while the wolf
is emptying his body. Of two Russian stories given by _Afanassieff_,
which we shall examine in the chapter on the wolf, one shows us the
wolf who puts the peasant in a sack, and the other the wolf who puts
the dwarf-hero in his body; and both peasant and dwarf save
themselves. The two variations took their origin in the comparison
drawn between the body and a sack, which, in mythical speech, are
therefore the same thing. The hide of the black bull, black ox, black
or grey horse, or black or grey wolf, and the sack which wraps up the
hero or the devil, play a great part in popular Indo-European
tradition.[449] From the sack of the funeral stork (the night), in a
Russian story,[450] come forth two young heroes (the Açvinâu),
defeaters of their enemies, who spread out the tablecloth of abundance
(the aurora), and a horse which drops gold (the sun). The hero shut up
in the sack, or the cow's hide, and thrown into the water, escapes
from shipwreck in the same way as those navigators of the Chinese sea
described in his voyages by Benjamin of Tudela, who, he says, when
shipwrecked, escaped being swallowed up by the waves by covering
themselves with the whole hide of a cow or an ox; for the eagles,
mistaking them for real, flew to the spot and pouncing upon them, drew
them ashore. The ship with the buffalo's hide is found again in
popular stories. This is evidently a reminiscence of mythical
derivation (from which was, perhaps, afterwards derived the idea of
torture, as in the famous bull of Phalaris, in which many see a symbol
of the god of the waters, the bull's hide in which the tetrarch
Acarnides, vanquished by Memnon, was sewed up,[451] in antiquity, and,
in the Middle Ages, the ox's hide in which, according to the
chronicles, the horrid Duke of Spalato Euroia orders Paulus Chuporus,
prefect of the Emperor Sigismond, to be sewed, to revenge himself upon
him, because he had, out of contempt, saluted him by bellowing like an
ox). Thus with the Celtic hero Brian,[452] the pretended fool, who
speculates upon the stupidity of those who are reputed wise. When one
of these so-called sages, deceived by him, proposes to throw him into
the sea shut up in a sack, he makes another man take his place by
means of a witty invention, as Goldoni's liar would say, whilst he
himself comes back to the shore with a whole herd of cattle. In the
other Celtic, Slavonic, German, and Italian variations of this story,
the would-be fool begins his fortune-making, in one version, by
putting a few coins into his dead cow's hide, and then selling it at a
very high price as a purse which will give out money whenever shaken;
and in another, by palming off his ass or horse, persuading the
purchaser, by means of an easy deceit, to believe that it yields gold
and silver, and thus obtaining a high price for it. With the cow are
also connected the two horns, by blowing into which he causes his
wife, who feigns death, to rise to life again, which horns he thus
prevails on his brothers or companions to buy at a great ransom, who,
thinking themselves cunning, and wishing by means of the horns to
speculate upon corpses,[453] begin by killing people, and are ruined.
I have said above, that the sack in which the hero is generally
enclosed is the same as the chest in which the heroine is usually shut
up on account of her beauty, that is to say, in which the beautiful
heroine hides her splendour, or in which the red cow, the evening
aurora with the sun, loses herself. The fourteenth Scottish story of
Mr J. F. Campbell's contains the following narrative:--A king, whose
first wife (the morning aurora) is dead, engages to marry the woman
whom the dead queen's dresses will fit, and finds no one who can wear
them except his own daughter (the evening aurora). She makes her
father give her gold and silver dresses and shoes (that is, she takes
from her father, the sun, the splendour of the morning aurora); she
shuts herself up with them in a chest, and lets herself be thrown into
the sea. The chest drifts about on the waves, and comes at last to the
shore; the beautiful maiden enters the service of a young king; she
shows herself in church with her splendid robes; the young king, who
does not recognise his servant-maid in this beautiful princess,
becomes enamoured of her, and hastens to overtake her; she flees and
loses her golden slipper; the king finds it, and to discover her, has
it measured on every foot; many maidens cut off their toes to make the
slipper go on, but a bird divulges the deceit; the young king marries
the beautiful maiden who came out of the wooden chest. Here we have
again, not only the heroine who escapes, but the walking heroine; this
heroine is the aurora, and the aurora is often a cow. Another swift
cow passes in the proverb before the hare (the leaping moon), in the
fable of the ant and the grasshopper, of which the former represents
the cloud or the night, or Indras or the aurora in the cloud of night,
or the earth,[454] and the latter, the leaping one, the moon; the ant
passes the grasshopper in the race, not because it walks faster, but
because the two runners must necessarily meet, and therefore the one
must pass the other. The English infantile rhyme, "Hey! diddle,
diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon," refers
to the myth of the cow which jumps over the hare. The observation of
celestial phenomena being afterwards neglected, and it being forgotten
that the running ant or cow meant the cloud, or the sun, or the
aurora, or the earth, and the jumping hare or grasshopper the moon,
only a regular and parallel race, on the terrestrial soil, between cow
and hare, or ant and grasshopper, was seen; and from the myth of the
two animals which meet and pass each other in the sky, was derived,
according to the different characters of nations or eras, a double
proverb--one deriding the slow and rash animal which presumes to try
and overtake the swift one in the race, the other serving as an
example to prove the truth of the sentence, "Tarde sed tute," which,
in Italian, is "Chi va piano va sano e va lontano" (he who goes
slowly, goes well and far). The first proverb has for its parent the
Greek one, "to hunt the hare with an ox," which, in Italian, is
"pigliar la lepre col carro" (to take the hare with a car);[455]
referring to cases where means disproportionate to the end are made
use of. When the hare and the cow meet, if the cow is obliged to stop
the hare, she crushes it, as we have seen above that she crushes the
bird's eggs instead of hatching them. The idea, moreover, of the ox
hunting the hare arose naturally out of the idea of the ox or cow
overtaking and passing beyond the hare. To these proverbs can perhaps
be joined the next German one:--"All who blow the horn do not hunt
hares," which is now directed against those who think by an easy
method, such as blowing a horn, to accomplish a difficult enterprise,
such as hunting a hare; in the same way as in Germany it is said, that
all thunder-clouds do not give rain, and the cow must do more than low
in order to have much milk, or the cow that lows most is not the one
that yields most milk.[456] In fact, a cow which lows much is unwell,
neither while it is lowing can it eat and make milk; so he who
fatigues himself with blowing the horn is not able, at the same time,
to run after the hare; as in the Italian proverb, "Il can che abbaia
non morde" (the dog that barks does not bite), for the simple reason
that whilst he opens his mouth to bark, he cannot shut it to bite. The
hen that clucks, on the other hand, is the one that lays the egg,
because the act of clucking with the mouth does not interfere with the
operation of egg-laying; there is no incompatibility of offices.
The German proverb, "As a blind cow finds a pea," is now used to
indicate an impossibility; and yet in the myth the blind cow (or the
night) really finds the pea, kidney-bean, or bean (the moon), which
are the same thing to all intents and purposes. The night is sacred to
the dead; for the dead are as eaten vegetables--kidney-beans, vetches,
peas, and cabbages--lunar symbols of resurrection and abundance. In
the ninth story of the fourth book of _Afanassieff_, the daughter of
the old man and woman eats beans; a bean falls upon the ground, and
grows up to the sky; upon this bean the old man (the sun) climbs up to
heaven and sees everything. In the numerous stories in which the young
hero sells a cow or cow's hide, we almost always find a pipkin full of
kidney-beans, which he induces people to think can cook themselves,
the hero having first cooked them, and then placed them upon the fire
covered with ashes (the darkness); the pipkin is also the moon. The
stories of the pipkin belonging to the house-mother in the
_Mahâbhâratam_, which the god Krishnas, having been hospitably
entertained by her, refills with beans, and of the lord who, in an
unpublished Piedmontese legend, disguised as a poor old man, throws
pebbles into the kettle of the pious widow, which, as soon as thrown
in, become kidney-beans, involve the same myth. In the same way I
think the kidney-bean is evidently intended by the fruit of fruits,
which, according to the _Mahâbhâratam_, the merciful man receives in
exchange for the little black cow (_krishnadhenukâ_) given to the
priest.[457] In the English fairy tale of "Jack and the Bean-stalk,"
Jack barters his cow for some beans; his mother (the blind cow)
scatters the beans; one of them takes root, and grows up to the
sky.[458] By means of the black cow, of the funereal or blind cow, of
the cow-aurora, which becomes black or blind during the night, the
hero finds the bean or the pea of abundance (the moon), by means of
which he sees again in the morning and becomes rich.
We have seen a sack, instead of the hide of a black cow, used to
signify the night; in like manner, after or instead of this same cow's
hide (which the hero goes to sell), as well as the pea or bean, we
have the pipkin--the poor hero finds the moon. The Slavonic story of
the potter who becomes rich, and that of the brother believed to be
stupid, who sells at a high price his pipkin, which makes the beans
boil without a fire, are varieties of the same subject. In a Russian
story in _Afanassieff_,[459] the amphora takes the place of the pipkin
that makes its owner rich. The poor brother draws it out of the water;
from the broken amphora comes a duck, which lays one day golden eggs,
and the next silver ones--the sun and the moon (at morning the aurora
hatches the golden day, at evening the silver night).
We have still to explain the proverbs of the cow that laughs and the
cow that spins. The laughing aurora (after having, during the night,
acted the princess that never laughs) and the spinning aurora (in
relation with the cow, the moon, that spins by means of its horns) are
already known to us. The aurora laughs at morn in the sky, at the
sight of her husband; thus the princess that never laughs, in a
numerous series of Slavonic, German, and Italian stories, laughs when
she sees her predestined husband.[460] The proverb of the cow that
laughs is connected with that of the cow that speaks; it is perhaps on
this account that bulls and cows (and other animals) which speak, and
say and do complimentary things among themselves, in an entire cycle
of Indo-European stories, which have been learnedly illustrated by
Professor Benfey, in _Orient und Occident_, under the title of "Ein
Märchen von der Thiersprachen," always make the man who understands,
and indiscreetly listens to their language, laugh. But if the man
reveals what the bulls or cows (or other animals) have said to each
other, he prepares his own ruin: the language and the inner life of
animals must not be divulged to all; if published abroad, the augury
is a sinister one. That which makes the princess of the Russian tale
laugh, is seeing the courtesy which the animals, like men, show to the
man taken out of the mud; that which makes the man who understands the
language of animals laugh, is seeing them speak and act to each other
exactly as men do in similar private relations. To betray this mystery
is to wish for one's death. No one must know what the bull said in
secret to the cow, the sun to his mistress, what the king said in the
queen's ear. The violator of the mysteries of Venus is guilty of
sacrilege, and merits the punishment of death, or at least brings evil
down upon his head. Woe to the heroine if the hero hidden in the skin
of an animal, on account of some indiscretion, or because she has
spoken to her sisters, shows himself naked in his human form; she
loses him, and their separation is inevitable.
We are already acquainted with the cloud-cow and the cloud-bull; the
cloud thunders, the bull bellows and speaks. The clouds, the Vedic
_gnâ devapatnîs_, _gnâ devîs_,[461] that is, the goddesses, or divine
and knowing wives, the fairy goddesses (women with their
presentiments, the women that know more than the devil), are also
prophetic cows; these cows, in their character of fairies, speak with
a human voice, and so do the cloud-bulls. Hence the Romans could take
their auguries from an ox that spoke with a human voice. It has been
said that this omen was a sinister one, but it is a mistake. According
to Livy, under the consulate of Cn. Domitius and L. Quintius, an ox
threw Rome into terror by the words, _Cave tibi, Roma_. These words
seem to have a sinister meaning, but they are in reality nothing more
than a friendly counsel or admonition, as much as to say, Look to your
field occupations, O Rome; the thunder has been heard which announces
the summer. Thus, when we read in the fifth book of Pliny's _Natural
History_ that whenever an ox was known to have spoken with a man's
voice, the Roman Senate was accustomed to meet in the open air--_sub
dio_, I only see in this allusion, and in ascribing this practice to
the Senate, one way of saying that when thunder is heard (that is to
say, when the ox speaks) it is a sign of summer, and we may go out
into the country and sleep in the open air. And so, finally, when,
according to Eusebius, an ox said, that for the death of Cæsar (which,
as every one knows, took place on the Ides of March, that is to say,
at the beginning of spring) there would be more blades of corn than
men, I see a most evident announcement of the approach of summer, in
which men or reapers are in fact never too many, and even rare when
the harvest is a large one. The ox that with a man's voice heralds the
near advent of summer corresponds to the cuckoo, the legend of which
we shall reserve for a special chapter. Meanwhile, to confirm still
more our identification, we shall cite here the almost proverbial
verse of Theocritos: Women know everything, even how Zeus married Hêra
(or that which the king said in the queen's ear). Zeus, transformed
into a cuckoo, flew to the mountain, and alighted on the knees of
Hêra, who, to protect him from the cold, covered him over with her
robes. The cuckoo, or Zeus, disappears soon after having spoken, that
is, announced the summer loves of the sun. After St John's Day the
cuckoo, who appears in March, is no longer seen; so the ox, soon after
it has spoken and betrayed the loves of Zeus, or soon after the cloud
has thundered, revealing the secret loves of the sun within the sky
covered with clouds, or the confidential speeches and secret caresses
of the animals, pays for this indiscretion by his own death. As the
aurora is represented in the Vedic hymns by a maiden who does not
laugh, and smiles only when she sees her husband,[462] so the
lightning that tears the cloud and comes before the thunder is
compared to the laughing of an ox or a cow, or else of the man who has
seen their loves. As long as the sky only lightens, or merely
smiles,[463] there is little harm done. No one can know as yet why the
ox or the cow, the hero or heroine, or the third person who is looking
on, smiles before the spectator; but when the hero or the heroine
speaks, betraying the thought or singular surprise which makes him or
her smile, the penalty of the indiscretion is death; the thundering
cloud is soon dissolved into rain. Nor will my identification of the
cloud that lightens (making a distinction between the lightning and
the thunderbolt) with the smiling cow, or ox, or man who,
understanding the language of animals, as they speak in low tones, and
seeing their most familiar habits, smiles, seem forced when we reflect
that our language has preserved the figures of a ray of joy, of a
flash of joy, to indicate a smile, of which we say that it shines,
illumines, or lightens. Lightning is the cloud's smile. In the ninth
story of the third book of _Afanassieff_, we meet with a fish which
laughs in the face of the onlooker (the cloud that lightens, and also
the moon that comes out of the ocean of night), and for which, on
account of this singular property, the poor man (the sun in the cloud
or in the night) obtains an extraordinary sum from a rich lord, even
all his riches--_i.e._, the poor man takes the place of the lord; the
splendid sun takes the place of the sun hidden in the cloud or in the
darkness. In a Hindoo story of _Somadevas_ (i. 5), a fish laughs upon
seeing men disguised as women in the king's apartment. In the
_Tuti-Name_ (ii. 21), the fishes laugh when they see the prudery of an
adulteress. With this is connected the fable of Lafontane, "Le Rieur
et les Poissons" (viii. 8). In the legend of Merlin, the magician also
laughs because the wife of Julius Cæsar lives with twelve heroes
disguised as women, and because he himself allowed himself to be taken
by Grisandole, a princess disguised as a cavalier.[464]
The fish is a phallic symbol (in the Neapolitan dialect, _pesce_,
fish, is the phallos itself). The fish that laughs because it has been
the spectator of adultery is the phallos itself _in gaudio Veneris_.
The thunderbolt of Indras is his phallos that breaks the cloud. In
Ovid,[465] we have Jupiter, who, by means of riddles, teaches Numa the
way of forming the thunderbolt.
"Coede caput, dixit, cui Rex, Parebimus, inquit;
Coedenda est hortis eruta cepa meis.
Addidit hic, Hominis: Summos, ait ille, capillos.
Postulat hic animam: cui Numa, Piscis, ait.
Risit; et His, inquit, facito mea tela procures,
O vir colloquio non abigende meo."
The joke of the April fish (le poisson d'Avril), with which so many of
our ladies ingenuously amuse themselves, has a scandalously phallical
signification.[466] The fishes of the Zodiac are twins, a male and a
female bound together, born of Erôs (Amor) and Aphroditê (Venus). In
the Adiparvam of the _Mahâbhâratam_, we read of a fish which devours a
man's seed, and a girl who, having eaten it, brings forth a child. The
same myth occurs again in the Western popular tales.
The cow that spins still remains to be explained. We have already seen
that the cow spins with her horns for the maiden; this cow is,
generally, the moon, which spins gold and silver during the night. The
aurora is ordered by her step-mother, the night, both to pasture the
cow (the moon) and spin. If the cow-maid is to take care of her cow
and guard her well, she will be able to spin but little; whence the
German proverb is right when it says that if the cow-maid must spin
there will be little yarn. The good cow-maid prefers to keep her cow
well, and pays every regard to it, in order that it may find good
pasturage; then the grateful cow (the moon) puts gold and silver upon
its horns to spin for the maiden.[467] In the morning the girl
appears upon the mountain with the gold and silver yarn, with the gold
and silver robes given her by the good fairy or by the good cow.[468]
And when the old woman kills the cow, the girl who keeps its bones and
sows them in the garden sees, instead of the cow, an apple-tree with
gold and silver apples grow up, by offering one of which to a young
prince the maiden obtains a husband, whilst perverse women are beaten
by the apple-tree or find themselves opposed by horns. This
apple-legend is a variation of the star which falls upon the good
maiden's forehead on the mountain, and of the horns, or donkey's tail,
which grow out of the forehead of the bad sister who has maltreated
the cow or badly combed the Madonna's head. The story of the good
maiden and the wicked one, of the beautiful and the ugly one, finishes
with the attempt made by the ugly and wicked girl to take the place of
the beautiful and good one in her husband's bed, in the same way as,
in other stories, a black washerwoman tries to take the place of the
beautiful princess; and this conclusion brings us to the interesting
story of the spinning Berta, or Queen Bertha, as she is called.
In German mythology we have the luminous Berchta, who spins, in
contrast with the dark and wild Holda at the fountain (the washerwoman
of fairy tales). The former seems to be (besides the moon as a white
woman, in her period of light, the silvery night) the aurora, the
spring, or the luminous aspect of the heavens; the latter (besides the
moon in her period of darkness, Proserpina or Persephonê in hell), the
dark night, winter, the old witch.[469] The same name is given to the
various phenomena of the gloomy sky, in the same way as a contrary
name is given to the various phenomena of the luminous heavens. On
this account lunar and solar myths, daily and annual myths, enter into
the story of Berta or Berchta.
Berta, like the cow of the fairy tales, spins silver and gold.
Therefore, when we say in Italy that the time when Berta spun is
past,[470] this expression means, that the golden age, the age in
which gold abounded is past. And instead of this expression we also
use another in Italy to denote an incident which took place in a very
ancient era, at a time very remote from the memory of men; we say, in
the times of King Pipino (Pepin). Queen Berta having been the wife of
Pepin, it was natural that the times of the husband should correspond
to the fabled era of his wife, who was, tradition alleges, mother of
Charlemagne, the hero so-named of the legends, of whom it is said, in
Turpin's Chronicle, that he had long feet, and his _alter ego_ Orlando
(a new and splendid mediæval form of the twin heroes), rather than of
the King Charlemagne of history.
Berta has a large foot, like the goddess Freya, the German Venus, who
has swan's feet. It is this large foot that distinguishes her from other
women, and enables her husband to recognise her, in the same way as it
is the foot, or footprint (the sun follows the path taken by the
aurora), that betrays and discovers the fugitive maiden, who, we have
said, is the aurora with the vast chariot (the vast chariot which, if it
pass over the hare, may crush it. Frau Stempe, and Frau Trempe, and the
large-footed Bertha, are the same person)--vast, because she occupies a
large extent of the heavens when she appears. When standing on the
chariot, she seems to have no feet, or a very small, an imperceptible
foot; but the chariot on which she stands and which represents her foot
is so much the larger; therefore when we leave the chariot out of
account, and suppose, on the contrary, that she goes on foot, inasmuch
as, when walking, she takes up much room, the swan's, or goose's, or
duck's foot given to her in the myth of Freya and the legend of Berta is
quite suited to her. And seeing, as we have said, that the foot (the
myths almost always speak of one foot alone; even the devil is lame, or
has only one foot) and the tail of an animal are often substituted for
each other in mythology, we can understand how, in a Russian story,[471]
the hero who has fallen into a marsh was able to deliver himself by
clutching hold of the tail of a duck. This duck being the aurora, and
having a wide spreading tail as well as a large foot, the solar hero, or
the sun, can easily, by holding on to her, raise himself out of the
swamp of night. There is a German story[472] in which the white woman,
or the Berta, is transformed into a duck. In another German legend,[473]
instead of the swan-footed Berta, we have the Virgin Mary (who, as a
maiden, represents the virgin aurora, always pure, even after having
given birth to the sun; like the Kuntî of the _Mahâbhâratam_, who gives
birth to Karnas, the child of the sun, and yet is still a virgin. On the
other hand, when a good old woman, good woman or Madonna, she generally
personifies, in the legends, the moon) who, in the shape of a swan,
comes to deliver from the prison of the infidels (the Saracens or Turks,
here the black demons, or the darkness of night), and carry off by land
and by sea, the young hero whom she protects (the aurora delivers the
sun from the night).[474] The same luminous Berta also assumes, in
popular German tradition, the form of St Lucia, that is, the saint who,
after having been made blind, became the protectress of eyesight. Of the
blind or black cow of night is born the luminous cow of morning, the
aurora that sees everything herself and makes us see everything. For the
same reason that the cow or duck, Berta, is consecrated to St Lucia,
whose appearance she assumes, the bull (the sun) is sacred to St Luke,
the festival of whom is on this account celebrated at Charlton, near
London, with a horn-fair or exhibition of horns, generally ornamented
and perfumed.
In the above-quoted Hindoo legend of the _Mahâbhâratam_, the queen
will not sleep with the old blind man, but sends instead her
servant-maid. In the _Reali di Francia_, King Pepin is advised by his
barons to take a wife, when he is already "far advanced in years" (he
is a form of St Joseph). The barons look for a wife, and find, in
Hungary, Berta, the daughter of King Philip, "the most beautiful and
skilful horsewoman," or Berta with the large foot upon a beautiful and
stately horse, which goes along the road bounding, whilst she is
always laughing. Berta has a maid called Elizabeth, who resembles her
in every respect except her feet. King Pepin is married by proxy to
Berta, sends for her, and comes to meet her. Berta when she sees that
King Pepin is so ill-favoured, grieves "although forewarned of his old
age." When evening comes she takes off her royal robes and gives them
to Elizabeth, that she may take her place and sleep with the
king.[475] Hence the Italian proverbs, "Dar la Berta" (to give the
Berta), and "Pigliar la Berta" (to take the Berta), meaning to deride
and to be derided. But instead of to give the Berta, in Italy we also
say, "Dar la madre d'Orlando" (to give the mother of Orlando). The
_Reali di Francia_ informs us that King Pepin had, by Elizabeth, two
perverse bastards, Lanfroi and Olderigi, and by Berta, Charlemagne and
another Berta, mother of Orlando; but the Italian proverb is perhaps
nearer the mythical truth when it recognises the mother of Orlando as
herself Pepin's wife, so that Charlemagne and Orlando are brothers;
and, in fact, they accomplish several of the undertakings mentioned in
the legend of the two brothers. In the so-called Chronicle of
Turpin[476] when Orlando dies, Charlemagne says that Orlando was his
right arm, and he has no longer anything to do in life without him;
but he lives long enough to avenge the death of Orlando; and after
this vengeance, the heroic life of Charlemagne comes at once to an
end. In the _Chanson de Roland_, too, after the death of his hero,
whom he avenges, Charlemagne feels the burden of life, weeps, tears
his beard, unable to support this solitude; but in the _Chanson_, as
well as in the _Reali di Francia_, Orlando explicitly appears as the
nephew of Charlemagne, that is, as the son of his sister Berta. (As
the Vedic aurora was now the mother, now the sister of the sun and of
the Açvinâu, thus Berta may, mythically, be mother or sister of
Charlemagne, and yet be always the mother of Orlando).
It would be a never-ending work to collect together all the Germanic,
Scandinavian, and Celtic legends which, in one way or another, are
connected with the myth of the cow and of the bull. The literature
relating to this subject is composed not of one or a hundred, but of
thousands of volumes, of which some (such, for instance, as the poem
of the _Nibelungen_, and the poems of the _Round Table_) individually
contain, in the germ, almost the whole diverse world of fairy tales. I
must therefore limit myself to the indication of the more general
features, leaving to more diligent investigators the minuter
comparisons; and esteeming myself, I repeat, too happy if my brief
notices should be found clear enough to spare others the labour of
preparing the warp upon which to weave comparisons.
From what we have said thus far, it seems to me that two essential
particulars have been made clear:--1st, That the worship of the bull
and the cow was wide-spread, even in northern nations; 2d, That the
mythical bull and cow were easily transformed into a hero and heroine.
The sacred character ascribed to the cow and the bull is further
evidenced by a Scandinavian song, in which, on the occasion of the
nuptials of the animals (the crow and the crane), the calf (perhaps
the bull) appears as a priest, and reads a beautiful text.[477] As a
symbol of generation, the bull is the best adapted to propitiate the
married couple; so the priest in the _Atharvavedas_ teaches the
inexperienced husband and wife, by formulas _ad hoc_, the mysteries
of Venus. Thus the _jus primæ noctis_ was conceded to the Brahman in
mediæval India; and so in the ritual of mediæval France, we still find
indications of the priest _pronubus_. The beautiful text that the
calf, or bull, recites in the Scandinavian song must be the same
which, according to the ceremonial recorded by Villemarqué, the priest
recited, whilst sprinkling them with incense, to the married couple
_sedentes vel jacentes in lectulo suo_.[478] Thus, when the wolf dies
(in a German writing of the twelfth century), it is the ox that reads
the gospel.[479] Besides marriages and funerals, the bull or ox also
appears, finally, as in the Hindoo ceremonial, in pregnancy.
Gargamelle, while she has Gargantua in her womb, eats an excessive
quantity[480] of tripe of fattened oxen. When she feels the pains of
child-birth, her husband comforts her with an agricultural proverb of
Poitou, "Laissez faire aux quatre beufz de devant;" and she then gives
birth to Gargantua, who comes out of her left ear, in the same way as
in the Slavonic stories we find the heroes come out of the ears of the
horse (or of the ass of night; the luminous solar hero comes out of
the ears of the ass, or of the grey or black horse; the twin horsemen
come out of the two ears). Rabelais, to explain this extraordinary
birth, asks "Minerve ne naquit-elle pas du cerveau par l'aureille de
Iupiter?" No sooner is Gargantua born, than he asks with loud cries
for something to drink; to give him milk, 17,913 cows are brought, his
mother's breasts not being enough, although each time she is milked
she yields "quatorze cens deux pipes neuf potées de laict." This is
the giant of popular tradition, whom the gigantic phantasy of Rabelais
has coloured in order to make him the butt of an immense satire. It is
an amplified and humorous rendering in a literary form of the popular
Superlatif,[481] whose mythical character is revealed in the curse
hurled against him by the old dwarf-fairy, whom he maltreated: "One
sun, to accomplish his work, eats eleven entire moons; but this time
every moon will eat the work of a sun." The ascending and descending
life of the solar hero is thus indicated. Superlatif will become
continually smaller, until it seems as though he were about to
disappear altogether; but at that very instant the curse comes to an
end, and from a dwarf, he grows into a giant again in the arms of his
bride.[482] Thus the days become continually shorter and shorter,
till the winter solstice, till Christmas. At Christmas the sun is born
again, the days lengthen, the dwarf grows tall; the sun, by a double
but analogous conception of ideas, passes once each day and once each
year from giant to dwarf, and from dwarf to giant.
And the dwarfs of tradition know and reveal the mythical how and why
of their transformations, since, though they are dwarfs and hidden,
they see all and learn all. It is from the knowing dwarf Allwis, his
diminutive _alter ego_, that the mighty Thor, in the _Edda_, learns
the names of the moon, the sun, the clouds, and the winds. The moon,
according to Allwis, when it is in the kingdom of hell (in the kingdom
of death, in the infernal world, when it is Proserpina), is called a
wheel that is hurrying on; it then shines among the dwarfs (_i.e._, in
the luminous night, in which the sun hides itself; it becomes an
invisible dwarf). The sun among the dwarfs (_i.e._, when it is a
dwarf) plays with Dwalin (the mythical stag, probably the horned
moon); among the giants (_i.e._, when in the aurora, it becomes a
giant again), it is a burning brand; among the gods (the Ases), it is
the light of the world. The cloud, the dwarf Allwis goes on to inform
us, is the ship of the winds, the strength of the winds, the helmet
(or hat, or hood) which makes its wearer invisible. The wind, again,
is the wanderer, the noisy one, the weeper, the bellower, the
whistler (no one can resist the cries or the whistling of the hero of
fairy tales; the bellowing of the bull makes the lion tremble in his
cave). In this learned lesson on Germanico-Scandinavian mythology,
given us by the dwarf Allwis, we have a further justification of the
transition which we here assume to have been made from the natural
celestial phenomenon to its personification in an animal, and to the
personification of the animal in a man: Allwis, who knew all things,
has explained the mystery to us.
FOOTNOTES:
[423] _Les Eddas_, traduites de l'ancien idiome Scandinave par Mdlle.
du Puget, 2ème édition, p. 16.
[424] Kuhn und Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche_,
p. 501.
[425] _Handbuch der Deutschen Mythologie_, mit Einschluss der
nordischen, 2te. aufl. p. 437.--We find also in Eginhardus (_Vita
Caroli Magni_): "Quocumque eundum erat, carpento ibat, quod bubus
junctis et bubulco rustico more agente, trahebatur."--The bull is a
symbol of generation; the man who fears the bull is a stupid and
ridiculous eunuch. We find in Du Cange, Lit. Remiss, ann. 1397, "Le
suppliant, lui dist, Eudet, vous avéz un toreau qui purte les gens et
ne osent aler aux champs pour luy; lequel Eudet luy respondis: as tu
nom Jehannot?" Faire Johan dicitur mulier, quæ marito fidem non servat
(a variety of the Mongol Sûrya Bagatur).
[426] Recorded by Cox, _Mythology of the Aryan Nations_, vol. i. p.
438, when speaking of the Hellenic myth of Zeus and Eurôpâ.
[427] Cfr. Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks_, p.
181 and following.--In Du Cange, _Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ
Latinitatis_, s. v. Acannizare, we read an extract of a paper of
Jacob, i. _Regis Arag._ fol. 16: "Quicunque Acannizaverit vaccam vel
bovem, si bos vel vacca fecerit damnum casu fortuito, dum Acannizatur,
cujus est amittat ipsum bovem vel vaccam, nisi Acannizetur causa
nuptiarum;" and in Du Cange also: "Ut in anserem ludendo baculos
torquere in usu fuit, ita et in bovem."
[428] _Die Deutsche Heldensage_, von Wilhelm Grimm, 2te Aus., No 102,
182.
[429] Cfr. the chapter on the Goat and He-goat for more information on
mythical horns.
[430] _Vide_ p. 497.
[431] Diese Brücke wird keine andere sein, als die himmlische Bîfröst,
deren er hütet, eine Vermuthung, die noch an Wahrscheinlichkeit
gewinnt, wenn man den friesischen Namen der Milchstrasse Kaupat, der
Kuhpfad, hinzunimmt; denn Milchstrasse und Regenbogen berühren
einander sehr nahe. Dieser ist die Tagesbrücke zwischen Göttern und
Menschen, jene die nächtliche.
[432] Rothe Kühe geben auch weisse Milch; Wander, _Deutsches
Sprichwörter Lexicon_, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1870.
[433] Auch eine schwarze Kuh gibt weisse Milch; Wander, _ibid._
[434] This reminds us of the familiar English riddle, "How many cows'
tails would it take to reach the moon? One, if it were long enough."
[435] Wenn die Kuh gestohlen ist, verwahrt man den Stall.--Wer eine
Kuh verloren und den Schwanz zurück erhält, hat nicht viel, aber mehr
als nichts.--Die Kuh könnte mit dem Schwanze bis an den Himmel
reichen, wenn er nur lang genug wäre.--Une vache ne sceit que lui
vault sa queue jusques elle l'a perdue.--Die Kuh beim Schwanz
fassen.--Die schwarze Kuh hat ihn gedrückt.--Eine Kuh kann keinen
Hasen erlaufen.--Die Kuh überläuft einen Hasen.--Nicht alle, die
Hörner blasen, jagen Hasen.--Wenn die Kühe lachen.--Wie eine blinde
Kuh eine Erbse findet.--Den sollt man in einer alten Kuhhaut
herumfahren.--Soll die Kuhmagd spinnen, wird man wenig Garn
gewinnen.--Man würde eher einer Kuh spinnen lehren; Wander's _Lexicon
of German Proverbs_, ii. 1666-1695.
[436] Livius i.: "Quia si, agendo, armentum in speluncam compulisset,
ipsa vestigia quærentem dominum eo deductura erant, aversos boves
eximium quemque pulchritudine caudis in speluncam traxit."
[437] _Facetiæ_, Krakau, 1592, quoted by Benfey in his introduction to
the _Pancatantram_, Leipzig, Brockhaus, p. 323: "Quia testiculi mei
quadraginta annos pependerunt casuro similes et nunquam
ceciderant."--And in Lessing, xi. 250, we read of Lachmann-Maltzahn:
"De vulpe quadam asini testiculos manducandi cupido."--In Aldrovandi,
_De Quadrupedibus Bisulcis_, i. Bologna, 1642, we read, "Membrum tauri
in aceto maceratum et illitum, splendidam, teste secto, facit faciem;
Rasis ait, genitale tauri rubri aridum tritum, et aurei pondere
propinatum mulieri, fastidium coitus afferre; e contrario quidam
recentiores, ut in viris Venerem excitent, tauri membrum cæteris hujus
facultatibus admiscent."
[438] Wenn auch der Kuhschwanz wackelt, so fällt er doch nicht ab; in
Wander, _Deutsches Sprichwörter Lexicon_.
[439] v. 8.
[440] Referred to by Köhler in _Orient und Occident_.
[441] iv. 15.
[442] Whence the proverb quoted above, relating to the stable that is
shut when the cow is stolen, is also quoted as follows: "Shutting the
stable when the horse has been stolen."
[443] Cfr. the chapter on the Wolf, where the dwarf enters the wolf by
his mouth and comes out by his tail.
[444] In a Russian story, in _Afanassieff_, vi. 2, when the old peasant
(the old sun) falls from the sky into a marsh (the sea of night), a duck
(the moon or the aurora) comes to make its nest and lay an egg upon his
head; the peasant clutches hold of its tail; the duck struggles and
draws the peasant out of the marsh (the sun out of the night), and the
peasant with the duck and its egg flies and returns to his house (the
sky whence he had fallen).--In a variation of the same story in
_Afanassieff_ (the two stories together refer to that of Aristomenes)
the old man falls from heaven into the mud. A fox places seven young
foxes on his head. A wolf comes to eat the young foxes; the peasant
catches hold of his tail; the wolf, by one pull, draws him out; by
another, leaves his tail in the peasant's hand. The tail of the wolf of
night is the morning aurora.--In the story of _Turn-Little-Pea_,
_Afanassieff_, iii. 2, the young hero enters into the horse after having
taken off his (black) hide, and after having taken him by the tail,
_i.e._, he becomes the luminous horse of the sun.
[445] In the Russian story of lazy and stupid Emilius, who makes his
fortune, the hero is shut up in a barrel with the heroine, and thrown
into the sea: the sun and the aurora, made prisoners, and shut up
together, cross together the sea of night.
[446] Wenn sich eine Kuh auf die Eier legt, so erwarte keine Hühner;
Wander, the work quoted before.
[447] In the Russian story of _Afanassieff_, v. 36, the hero-workman
kills the monster-serpent by gambling with him for the price of his
own skin. Thinking that he may lose, he has provided himself
beforehand with seven ox hides and with iron claws. He loses seven
times; each time the monster thinks he has him in his power, but the
workman as often imposes upon him with an ox's hide, inducing him to
believe that it is his own. At last the serpent loses, and the
workman, with his iron claws, really takes off his skin, upon which
the serpent dies. To take the sack or hide from the monster, to burn
the skin of the monster-serpent, goat, hog, frog, &c., to burn the
enchanted mantle or hood in which the hero is wrapped up, is the same
as to kill the monster.
[448] See the chapter on the Wolf.
[449] For the German one, cfr. Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 199.
[450] _Afanassieff_, ii. 17.
[451] Acarnides insutus pelle juvenci; Ovidius, _In Ibin_.
[452] Köhler, _Ueber T. F. Campbell's Sammlung gälischer Märchen_, in
_Orient und Occident_.--Cfr. the 30th of the _Novelline di Santo
Stefano di Calcinaia_.
[453] Köhler, the work quoted above.
[454] To this myth of the cow which goes over the moon, the
observation of a lunar eclipse might have contributed materially, in
which the cow earth (in Sanskrit, _go_ means earth as well as cow)
really passes over the moon or hare. Or else, the cloud and the night,
as a black cow, very frequently goes over the hare or moon.
[455] In the Russian superstition, when a hare passes between the
wheels of the vehicle which carries a newly-married couple, it bodes
misfortune; nor is this without reason: the hare is the moon; the moon
is the protectress of marriages; if she throws obstacles in the way,
the marriage cannot be happy; consequently, marriages in India were
celebrated at full moon.
[456] Die Kuh, die viel brüllt, gibt nicht die meiste Milch.
[457] Phalânâm phalam açnoti tadâ dattvâ; _Mahâbhâratam_, iii. 13, 423.
[458] In the German legend of King Volmar, in Simrock, the work quoted
before, p. 451, we find the peas in the ashes. In the seventh of the
_Contes Merveilleux_ of Porchat, we have the pot in which the cabbages
are boiled, from which come forth money and partridges. In the sixth
of the same _Contes Merveilleux_, the young curioso sees a nest upon
an elm-tree, and wishes to climb up; the ascent never comes to an end;
the tree takes him up near to heaven. On the summit of the elm-tree
there is a nest, from which comes forth a beautiful fair-haired maiden
(the moon).
[459] i. 53.
[460] In the story, vi. 58, of _Afanassieff_, the honest workman, when
he wishes to fix his eyes upon the princess who never laughs, falls into
a marsh; the fish, the beetle, and the mouse, in gratitude, clean him
again; then the princess laughs for the first time, and marries the
honest workman. In the 25th of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano_, an
analogous detail is found, but this is not enough to make the princess
laugh; it is the eagles which draw after themselves everything they
touch that accomplish the miracle of making the queen's daughter laugh.
In the third story of the _Pentameron_, the princess laughs upon seeing
Pervonto carried by the faggot of wood, instead of carrying it. The
Russian stories of the ducks which save the hero, in _Afanassieff_, vi.
17-19, and the faithless wife and her lover bound together, are
variations of the eagles of the Tuscan story.
[461] _Rigvedas_, v. 46, 8; v. 43, 6; i. 61, 8.
[462] In the _Nibelungen_, Krîmhilt, who has never saluted any one,
(diu nie gruozte reeken), salutes for the first time the young Sîfrit,
the victorious and predestined hero, and, whilst she is saluting him,
turns the colour of flame (do erzunde sich sîn varwe).
[463] In a mediæval paper in Du Cange, s. v. _Abocellus_, we read: "De
quodam cæco vaccarum custode," who, "quod colores et staturam vaccarum
singularium specialiter discerneret," was believed to be demoniacal;
hence the sacrament of confirmation was given him to deliver him from
this diabolical faculty, and the paper narrates that he was
immediately deprived of it. The blind hero who sees, who distinguishes
his cows from each other, is the sun in the cloud. No sooner does he
receive confirmation (which is a second baptism), than he ceases to
see his cows, for the simple reason that the clouds are dissolved in
rain, or that himself has recovered his vision.
[464] Cfr. the papers relative to Merlin by Liebrecht and Benfey in
_Orient und Occident_.
[465] _Fasti_, iii. 339.
[466] Cfr. the chapter on the Fishes; where the custom of eating fish
on Friday is also explained.
[467] In the first of the stories of _Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_, the
cow-maid says to her cow, "Cow, my cow, spin with your mouth and wind
with your horns; I will make you a faggot of green boughs."
[468] The maiden spins for her step-mother; the fairy gives luminous
robes to the maiden; the maiden weaves dresses for her husband; these
are all details which confound themselves in one. In the _Nibelungen_,
the virgins prepared dresses of gold and pearls for the young hero
Sîfrit.
[469] Holda, or Frau Holle, is burnt every year in Thuringia on the
day of Epiphany, on which day (or, perhaps, better still, on the
Berchtennacht, the preceding night, or Berta's night) the good fairy
expels the wicked one. In England, too, the witch is burned on the day
of Epiphany.--Cfr. Reinsberg von Düringsfeld, _Das festliche Jahr_, p.
19.
[470] In the _Pentameron_ of Basil, i. 9, we read: "Passaie lo tiempo
che Berta filava; mo hanno apierto l'huocchie li gattille."
[471] _Afanassieff_, vi. 2.
[472] Cfr. Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 409, and the ninth of
the _Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_, in which the luminous
maiden disguised as an old woman is uncovered by the geese, when she
puts down the dress of an old woman.
[473] Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 410.
[474] Wuotan also saves him whom he protects upon a mantle;--this is
the flying carpet or mantle, hood, or hat, which renders the wearer
invisible, and for which the three brothers disputed, which is also
represented as a tablecloth that lays itself. Thus the poor man who
goes to sell his cow's hide finds the pot of abundance and riches. The
dispute for the tablecloth is the same as the dispute for riches, for
the beautiful princess who is afterwards divided, or else carried off
by a third or fourth person who takes the lion's share. We must not
forget the fable of the animals who wish to divide the stag among
themselves, of which the lion takes all, because he is named lion. In
the _Nibelungen_, Schilbung and Nibelung dispute with each other for
the division of a treasure; they beg Sîfrit to divide it; Sîfrit
solves the question by killing them both and taking to himself the
treasure, and the hood that makes its wearer invisible (Tarnkappe).
[475] The romance of Berta continues in the _Reali di Francia_ in
harmony with the popular stories of an analogous character; the false
wife really causes King Pepin to marry her, and sends Berta into the
forest to be killed; the hired murderers pity her, and grant her her
life. Berta, whilst in the forest bound to a tree (like the Vedic
cow), is found by a hunter; out of gratitude she works (she, no doubt,
spins and weaves), in order that the hunter may sell her work at Paris
for a high price. Meanwhile her father and mother dream that she is
beset by bears and wolves who threaten to devour her, that thereupon,
throwing herself into the water, a fisherman saves her (in the dream,
the water has taken the place of the forest, and the fisherman that of
the hunter). King Pepin goes into the forest, finds her, recognises
and marries her, whilst Elizabeth is burnt alive. The change of wives
also occurs in a graceful form (with a variation of the episode of the
beauty thrown into the fountain) in the twelfth of the _Contes
Merveilleux_ of Porchat, Paris, 1863.
[476] _Histoire de la Vie de Charlemagne et de Roland_, par Jean
Turpin, traduction de Alex. de Saint-Albin, Paris, 1865, preceded by
the Chanson de Roland, poème de Théroulde.--Cfr. the _Histoire
Poétique de Charlemagne_, par Gaston Paris.
[477] Uhland's _Schriften zur Geschichte der Dichtung und Sage_, iii.
77.
[478] "Seigneur, bénissez ce lit et ceux qui s'y trouvent; bénissez
ces chers enfants, comme vous avez béni Tobie et Sara; daignez les
bénir ainsi, Seigneur, afin qu'en votre nom ils vivent et vieillissent
et multiplient, par le Christ notre Seigneur.--Ainsi soit-il."
Villemarqué, _Barzaz Breiz, Chants Populaires de la Bretagne_, sixième
édition, Paris, 1867, p. 423.
[479] Uhland, the work quoted above, p. 81.--In the French romance of
_Renard_, on occasion of the apparent death of the fox, the gospel is
read, on the contrary, by the horse. In the German customs the bull also
appears as a funeral animal, and is fastened to the hearse. If, while he
is drawing the hearse, he turns his head back, it is considered a
sinister omen. According to a popular belief, the bulls and other
stalled animals speak to each other on Christmas night. A tradition
narrates, that a peasant wished on that night to hide himself and hear
what the bulls were saying; he heard them say that they would soon have
to draw him to the grave, and died of terror. This is the usual
indiscretion and its punishment.--Cfr. Rochholz, _Deutscher Glaube und
Brauch_, Berlin, 1867, i. 164, and Menzel, _Die Vorchristliche
Unsterblichkeits-Lehre_, Leipzig, 1870.--We have the speaking oxen again
in Phædrus's fable of the stag who takes refuge in the stable, ii. 8,
where the master is called "ille qui oculos centum habet."
[480] Elle en mangea seze muiz, deux bussars et six tupins; Rabelais,
_Gargantua_, i. 4.
[481] Cfr. Porchat, _Contes Merveilleux_, Paris, 1863.
[482] In _Porchat_, Superlatif, while he is a dwarf, is shut up in a
clothes-press; he is a male form of the wooden girl, of the wise puppet,
of the sun hidden in the trunk of a tree, in the tree of night, in the
nocturnal (or cloudy, or wintry) night, full of mysteries, which the
little solar hero surprises from his hiding-place. The hero in hell, or
who, educated by the devil, learns every kind of evil, is a variation of
this multiform idea. The dwarf of _Porchat_, who comes out of the
clothes-press, is in perfect accord with the popular belief which makes
the man be born in the wood, on the stump of a tree, of which the
Christmas-tree is a lively reminiscence.