THE RESCUE OF ANDROMEDA IN SAGAS.
{36}
How far the tale of the loving spirit, Vira, is accepted by the
Tuscan peasant as a recital of facts may be disputed. We have little
but internal evidence to guide us; and that hardly seems conclusive.
It may perhaps be regarded as a saga once inspired by faith in the
powers of a supernatural being, but now the subject of more or less
scepticism. The effect of doubt on a story would be to sever its
moorings and set it free on the vague waters of tradition, unhampered
by any names of known persons or places, or to which a serious credit
is intended to be attached. The tale, as it was found by Mr. Leland,
had not yet reached entire freedom. It is therefore a convenient link
between the true _märchen_ and the true saga,--neither wholly
believed, nor recognised as merely told for pleasure.
That the story of the conquered dragon was believed, at least in
classical times, we have already seen. Perseus, the slayer of the
dragon and of Medusa, was one of the minor divinities of Greece; and
the rescue of Hesione by Herakles seems to have been admitted among
the achievements of a personage even more renowned and more generally
worshipped than Perseus. Nor were these heroes alone in ancient
Hellas. The Athenians honoured Theseus for a similar {37} deed. Minos,
who reigned at Gnossos in Crete, having desolated Attica with war to
avenge the treacherous death of his son Androgeos, made peace at last
for an annual tribute of seven young men and seven virgins, chosen
from the most illustrious families of Athens, to be thrown as victims
to the Minotaur, a monster half-bull and half-man, the issue of
Pasiphae, the queen of Crete. Theseus volunteered as one of the
victims. When the devoted band arrived at Crete, Ariadne, Minos’
daughter, fell in love with Theseus, and furnished him with a sword to
kill the monster, and a clew of thread to enable him to find his way
out of the labyrinth wherein it was kept. The city of Thespia at the
foot of Mount Helicon rejoiced in a legend which bears a somewhat
closer resemblance to Herakles’ adventure. By command of Zeus certain
youths were every year exposed to a dragon. The lot fell on one
occasion on Kleostratos. Clad in brazen armour set with hooks he went
boldly forth; and though he lost his own life, he proved the monster’s
bane.[37.1]
{38}
In later times the most famous name to which the exploit has been
attributed is that of Saint George. Some versions of the legend
reproduce one or other of the classical stories with more or less
fidelity. Saint George is one of that numerous class of saints about
whom nothing whatever authentic is known. It is indeed “very
improbable that such a person ever lived.”[38.1] So much the greater
scope has there been for the exercise of the pious imagination. The
horrible details of his martyrdom, a subject on which ecclesiastical
writers have expatiated with congenial extravagance and delight, have
been grafted on those of the Rescue of Andromeda; and the Church may
be congratulated on having converted and baptized the pagan hero,
Perseus. The story of his fight with the dragon, as found at large in
the _Golden Legend_ of Jacob à Voragine, relates that a great swamp
or pool near the town of Silena in Libya, was the lurking-place of a
dragon, against which the people had often taken arms, only to be
driven back. When it approached the city walls its pestiferous breath
poisoned every one. Rather than suffer these visits, the citizens gave
two sheep every day to appease it. After a while their flocks began to
fail; and to meet the deficiency it was determined to offer for the
future one sheep and a human being. The children, sons and daughters
of the citizens, were chosen for the purpose by lot, and none were
exempted from the chance. Almost all had been thus sacrificed when the
lot fell upon the king’s only daughter. Her afflicted father offered
his treasures of gold and silver and half his {39} kingdom to purchase
her exemption from so terrible a death. In vain. The people angrily,
though justly, replied: “Thou thyself, O king, didst issue this edict;
and now all our children are dead, and dost thou wish thy daughter to
be saved? Unless thou obey the commands thou hast enforced upon
others, we will deliver thee and thy house to the flames.” A delay of
eight days, on the pretext of lamenting her fate, was all the monarch
was able to obtain. At the end of that time the populace returned and
said: “Why lose thy subjects for the sake of thy daughter? Lo! we are
all dying from the breath of the dragon.” Then the king, seeing that
there was no escape, caused the maiden to be clad in royal garments,
and, folding her in his arms, bewailed her fate. At last, kissing her,
he sobbed: “Would, my daughter, that I had died before thee, rather
than to have lost thee thus!” She fell at his feet and besought his
blessing, which, when he had bestowed amid his tears, she rose and
went forth to the lake. Now it happened that the blessed George, a
Cappadocian by birth, and a tribune, was passing by at that very time,
and seeing her weeping he stopped and asked what was the matter. She
replied: “Good youth, mount thy horse quickly and fly, lest thou die
as well as I.” But the stranger answered: “Fear not, maiden, but tell
me what thou awaitest here, with all the people looking on.” And she:
“Thou hast a noble heart, good youth, I see, but why wilt thou die
with me? Flee quickly.” “I will not stir a step,” quoth George, “until
thou tell me what is the matter.” Then she explained it all to him.
“Fear not, maiden,” he cried, “for in Christ’s name I will help thee.”
“Good soldier, save thyself rather, lest thou perish too. Enough that
I perish alone; for thou canst not deliver me--thou wouldst only die
with me.” While they were thus {40} talking, the dragon, approaching,
lifted his head above the water. The maiden, trembling, cried: “Fly,
sir, fly quickly!” But George mounted his horse, and, fortifying
himself with the sign of the cross, he boldly advanced to meet the
monster. Brandishing his lance, and commending himself to God, he
pierced it with a mighty wound and threw it to the ground. Then he
called to the damsel: “Pass thy girdle round its neck, nothing
doubting.” When she had done so the dragon followed her like a gentle
hound; and she led it to the city. The people fled in terror; but the
blessed George signalled to them to stop, saying: “Fear not, for the
Lord sent me unto you for this very thing, that I should deliver you
from the torment of the dragon. Wherefore believe in Christ, and let
every one of you be baptized, and I will slay the monster.” Then the
king and all the people were baptized, to the number of twenty
thousand men, beside women and children. The blessed George unsheathed
his sword, slew the dragon; and four pairs of oxen were required to
take it out of the city. The king built in honour of the blessed Mary
and the blessed George a great church, from beneath whose altar a
living fountain flowed for the healing of all who were sick. Moreover
the king offered the victor an immense sum of money; but _he_
commanded it to be given to the poor, and instructed the king in these
four precepts (and here comes the moral), namely, to take care of the
Church, to honour the priests, diligently to attend divine worship,
and to be ever mindful of the poor. Then, having embraced the monarch,
he departed.[40.1]
Such is the legend in its ecclesiastical shape; and in this edifying
guise (though not to the same length) it seems to {41} have been
given, at least in England, together with some equally valuable
details of the saint’s martyrdom, every year by the priest at the
proper moment during divine service, on the Sunday preceding the
saint’s festival, as part of the notice of the feast. It thus came to
the people stamped with the authority of the Church.[41.1] The
Christian nations of the Balkan peninsula have preserved it in popular
tradition, with some circumstances which more nearly recall the
classic saga. The name of the city desolated by the dragon is given as
Troyan. Its inhabitants were given up to various kinds of sin. The
blessed Virgin, having paid a visit to the place, returns to heaven
bathed in tears, and recites in an assembly of the saints a dreadful
catalogue of iniquities whereof she declares the inhabitants are
guilty. The thundering Elijah advises that God send them terrible
maladies, the plague, the typhus and the small-pox, to convert them
from their evil ways. After seven years, however, they are still
unconverted. Unseasonable and severe frost and snow are then tried for
seven years, and after that seven years of drought; but all in vain.
Then God made a lake beside the city; and in it He placed an
insatiable dragon, which entered the town thrice a day, and devoured
on every visit three hundred of the people. Over and above these
hearty meals the monster every night exacted a fair maiden from the
white city of Troyan; and soon the whole place was depopulated. The
turn of Sava, the king’s daughter, came at last. She was conducted by
the nobility of Troyan to the cold waters of the lake, and there
abandoned to her fate. Suddenly a youth appeared {42} upon a dappled
courser, brandishing his mortal lance. Advancing to the shore, he
greeted the maiden with the name of God; and she politely returned the
salutation: “Life and health to thee, O hero on the dappled steed!” He
goes on to inquire what she is doing there alone by the water; and she
tells him her story. Then he catechises her as to her morals. Has her
heart been always pure? Has she always been obedient to her parents?
Has she ever adored the god of silver, or the god of gold, to which
her people are in the habit of bowing down? When this highly orthodox
knight has been satisfied on these points, he dismounts from his
dappled steed, plants his lance in the grass, and says to the
princess: “Pray examine my head a little, for I feel strangely
sleepy.” Whereupon he lays his head in her lap, and she proceeds to
perform for him a service doubtless highly appreciated by the peasants
who sing the ballad. Under the soothing influence of her gentle
fingers he falls asleep; and while he rests the lake rises in waves
and the dragon emerges. The bashful maid was ashamed to awaken her
deliverer; but her tears rolled down upon his face, and he leaped up
like one possessed. He tore out the lance from the earth, and pricking
his steed forward until it stood up to its knees in the lake, struck
the monster in the jaw with his lance, dragged it ashore, bound it
with a silken girdle, and put the girdle into the princess’ hand. He
directed her to conduct it through the city, in the hope that the
sight would at last convert the inhabitants, that they might desist
from their infinite wickednesses, destroy the god of silver, worship
the true God, and venerate himself, Saint George, as their patron. “If
they will not be converted, set free,” he says, “the insatiable
dragon, and he will devour the people of Troyan.” {43} The argument
thus presented on his behalf by the princess was irresistible. The
city was converted, and its harvests of corn and wine thenceforward
prospered. Its patron, Saint George, became an object of reverence, as
he is to this day; but whether the dragon also became a reformed
character, or was put to death, the ballad omits to inform us.[43.1]
The Bosnian folk-song I have here summarised reappears with little
change, both in Servia and in Bulgaria.[43.2] In the island of Lesbos,
on the other hand, it has greater affinities to the _märchen_
discussed in previous chapters. A monster, having established himself
near a fountain, is propitiated with a human being every morning and
evening, otherwise he would stop the flow of water. The lot fell in
due course on the king’s daughter. On one side wept the king; on the
other wept the queen. They wept and cried: “Alas, our only daughter!”
Saint George heard their lamentations, and drew nigh to save her. He
did not stop to put her through her catechism; but having learnt in
the briefest words from the maiden that the dragon was to eat her, he
hurriedly called to her: “Come here, my dear; sit down and louse me;
and when the water foams, then awaken me!” The abrupt transitions of a
traditional ballad do not enable us to judge whether the damsel was
long occupied in removing the consequences of his saintly disregard of
cleanliness; for her next exclamation is: “Rise up, rise up, O
conqueror! The water foams, and the dragon is sharpening his teeth for
me!” Her tears flowed like an impetuous river, and wetted the saint in
his {44} armour of gold. He sprang at the winged monster, and with a
thrust of his javelin stretched him dead. The king in his gratitude
offered him his daughter in marriage. “Instead of marrying thy
daughter,” the holy and unambitious man replied, “instead of calling
me thy son-in-law, build a church in the name of Christ. In the midst
of the church erect a knight; write on the knight this one word:
_Saint George_, that all the world may come and pay him homage.”[44.1]
The name and legend of Saint George are known in Abyssinia, where the
story is perhaps told in a fashion as pious as the foregoing.
Unfortunately I am unable to give the edifying details. But at the
Exhibition at Palermo a few years ago, some pictures were shown as
specimens of native art. One of them represented Saint George on
horseback, and another was thus described by an interpreter: “There
was a dragon that slew all the virgins; Saint George killed it. Near
the place where the dragon died was a euphorbia tree, wherein a virgin
who was afraid of the beast had taken refuge. The virgin did not
believe that the dragon was dead, and Saint George gave her the cord,
saying: ‘Pull it, and thou wilt see that it does not move.’”[44.2]
We are not immediately concerned with the revolting legend of the
saint’s martyrdom. It may be well, however, to point out that this
appears to be the oldest part of the story. Mr. Baring-Gould, indeed,
conjectures that the incident of the Rescue of Andromeda attached
itself to his name in consequence of a misunderstanding--on whose part
he does not specify--of the concluding words of {45} an encomium on
the saint made by Metaphrastes, a Byzantine writer of the early part
of the tenth century, in which he ascribes to his hero the feat of
confounding and making a mock of the cunning dragon, meaning of course
the Devil.[45.1] Such misunderstandings are not unknown in the legends
of the saints. M. Maury enumerates forty-two saints, not including
Saint George, to whom a victory over a dragon has been ascribed by a
similar blunder; and it {46} would not be surprising to find that his
list is far from complete.[46.1] Whatever may have been the cause of
the appropriation of the incident to Saint George, it is certain that
the belief in the story is to be found everywhere in Europe. In some
places it has even been localised, as at Mansfeld, where the saint is
declared to have been a knight named George, who was Count of
Mansfeld, and whose own daughter was the damsel rescued from the maw
of the dragon. His statue as he slew the monster stands over the
church-door; and there can be little doubt that the statue, whether
intended for Saint George or any other person, has caused the
localisation of the tradition.[46.2]
The islanders of Sardinia have a Saint George of their own, who was
bishop of Suelli. In the commune of Sant’ Andrea Frius, a village in
the province of Cagliari, is a {47} tract called “the Plain of Blood,”
where grew a reddish plant, said to have been tinged by the blood of
the dragon, whom this very saint slew there.[47.1] This is an instance
in which coincidence of name has been the cause of confusion.
Outside the legends of the saints, the deliverance of a maiden is,
with one exception, hardly found in modern Europe. Tales of the
conquest of a dragon or other monster are common enough, both in this
island and on the Continent; but since there is no lady in the case it
is needless to refer here more particularly to any save the remarkable
story of the Pollard Worm. The tradition is that long ago a huge and
savage wild boar--not a serpent--infested the woods of Bishop
Auckland, and every effort to destroy it failed, the adventurers who
had undertaken the achievement having all perished in the attempt. At
length both the king and the prince-bishop of Durham, whose favourite
residence was at Auckland Castle, offered rewards for its destruction.
A member of the Pollard family, already an honourable and ancient one,
rode forth in search of the monster, and after a desperate struggle
succeeded in severing its head from the trunk. Having done this he cut
out the tongue, which he placed in his wallet, and then, overcome with
weariness (for he seems to have fought during the night), he stretched
himself on the ground and fell fast asleep. Now the terms of the
king’s proclamation were such that the reward was due to any one who
would bring him the boar’s head to his palace at Westminster. While
the victor slept, the lord of Mitford Castle, near Morpeth, {48} rode
by on his way to London, and seeing the slaughtered boar and the
sleeping man, he could not be in any doubt as to what had happened. So
he played the charcoal-burner’s part, and stealthily dismounting took
up the head, slung it at his saddle-bow, leapt again upon his steed,
and made all haste to London, where he showed the head and won the
reward. When Pollard awoke, to his dismay the head had disappeared.
However, he made the best of his way to Auckland Castle, where he
arrived at an unseasonable moment, for the bishop was just sitting
down to dinner. When the message was brought to his lordship, he “sent
the champion word that he might take for his guerdon as much land as
he could ride round during the hour of dinner. Weary as he was,
Pollard had all his wits about him. He turned his horse’s head and
rode round Auckland Castle, thus making it, and all it contained, his
own. The bishop could not but acknowledge his claim, and gladly
redeemed castle, goods, and chattels on the best terms he could. He
granted the champion a freehold estate, still known as Pollard’s
Lands, with this condition annexed: the possessor was to meet every
bishop of Durham on his first coming to Auckland Castle, and to
present him with a falchion, saying, ‘My lord, I, on behalf of myself,
as well as several others, possessors of Pollard’s lands, do humbly
present your lordship with this falchion at your first coming here,
wherewith as the tradition goeth he slew of old a mighty boar which
did much harm to man and beast, and by performing this service we hold
our lands.’ It may be added that the crest of the Pollard family is an
arm holding a falchion.” Pollard’s next business was to go to London
and urge his claims there. He pleaded that the head Mitford had
brought was without {49} a tongue, but to no purpose. Mitford had
fulfilled the terms of the royal proclamation, and to Mitford the
reward had already been given.[49.1]
Before leaving the subject of European sagas one important Rescue
story must, however, be mentioned. It forms part of the Irish tale of
_The Wooing of Emer_, and is to this effect: Cuchulainn, coming to the
house of Ruad, king of the Isles, on Samuin night (Hallowe’en), hears
wailing in the dun of the king. Inquiring the cause of the
lamentations, he is told that Devorgoil, the king’s daughter, has been
taken as tribute to the Fomori, a monster race dwelling beneath the
sea, and she is exposed on the sea-shore that they may fetch her. He
goes down to the strand and there finds the maiden. “He asked tidings
of her. The maiden told him fully. ‘Whence do the men come?’ said he.
‘From that distant island yonder,’ said she; ‘be not here in sight of
the robbers.’ He remained there awaiting them and killed the three
Fomori in single combat. But the last man wounded him at the wrist.
The maiden gave him a strip from her garment round his wound. He then
went away without making himself known to the maiden. The maiden came
to the dun and told her father the whole story.… Many in the dun
boasted of having killed the Fomori, but the maiden did not believe
them.” So the king prepared a bath, to which every one was brought
separately. Cuchulainn came, like everybody else, and the maiden {50}
recognised him--doubtless by the strip of her garment on his wound.
The king offered him the damsel to wife, but he said: “Not so. Let her
come this day year to Erinn after me, if it be pleasant to her, and
she will find me there.” “He ought of course to have married her,” as
Mr. Nutt, commenting on the story, remarks; “but this would have
conflicted with the purpose of the tale… which is to celebrate the
heroic loves of Cuchullainn and Emer.” So the marriage is prevented by
a device mentioned in one of our earlier chapters. Devorgoil came with
her handmaid in bird-form, and Cuchulainn, not recognising her, struck
her with a stone from his sling, which he afterwards sucked from the
wound, thereby becoming her blood-brother.[50.1] Here it is plain, as
has been noted by both Professor Rhys and Mr. Nutt, that we have a
variant of the incident under consideration. The manuscript containing
the story was compiled in A.D. 1300; and there are reasons for
thinking that in its present form the story is at least as old as the
early part of the eleventh century. It is probable that the incident
is “a folktale arbitrarily altered in order to be introduced into the”
saga of Cuchulainn. This at least is Mr. Nutt’s acute conjecture; and
I scarcely know how else to account for the resemblance the incident
bears to that found in stories of the _Herdsman_ type. The _Herdsman_
type, as we have seen, appears to have originated among the Celts, or
rather perhaps among that Iberian race which overspread in far
prehistoric times the whole of the west of Europe, and after the
Celtic conquest of these islands formed the substratum of the
population. We shall hereafter see the bearing of this fact on the
question of origin. Meanwhile, we may turn to other variants.
{51}
The tale of the Rescue of Andromeda is known to the farthest limits of
Asia. Mr. J. F. Campbell describes a picture he saw in a temple at
Shimonoshua in Japan. “A man with long black hair and a hooked nose,
and a long straight sword, loose red trousers, a flowered white cloak,
and curled-up shoes, like those of the Mikado and Laplanders. Eight
round China vases, breaking waves and the sea; a weird tree, and a
storm of wind and rain driving at the man; eight heads, like the head
of the dragon of the fountain [previously described]. A woman crouched
in a cago, behind the warrior, dressed in Japanese draperies; a great
deal of unpainted wood to make the background of this curious old
sketch by a very clever hand; a lot of Japanese writing, and a black
frame which had remnants of gilding. That was the picture. The whole
was much weathered and battered and in a bad light. It is at least
three hundred years old.”[51.1] Mr. Campbell was not the man to look
at such a picture without having his curiosity aroused to know its
meaning; and he learned from Massanao, his youthful squire at
Shimonoshua, a story substantially identical with the account I follow
derived from a different source. Susa No, the tricksy son of Isanagi,
the Japanese Creator, being forbidden to return to heaven after his
exploits there, and reluctant to turn his steps to the Underworld,
which he had of his own free choice inherited as his abode, wandered
through the earth. From Corea he crossed the strait and landed at
Idzumo in Japan. As he trod the shore eager to know who dwelt in that
strange country he heard the sound of weeping and wailing. Passing
onwards in the direction of the sound, he beheld in a little glen an
old man and woman, and {52} between them was seated a lovely maiden
whose bitter sighing and tears they were striving in vain to still.
Susa No quickened his steps towards the group, and gently inquired the
reason of this grief. “I am Ashinadzutchi, the god of this country,”
said the old man, rising and bowing low before the stranger.
“Peacefully I and mine tend the cultivation of rice; and there were
nothing left for us to wish if only we were freed from one frightful,
indescribably cruel calamity. Seven daughters have already been
devoured by a hideous sea-monster. The creature came hither when my
daughters were in the very flower of their beauty. It was incapable of
compassion; it regarded not their screams of agony, but devoured them.
This is the last of our daughters, our beautiful and good Inada; and
of her too the monster will rob us; we know it only too well; and that
is why we are mourning and weeping with our dear child.” The astounded
Susa No inquired more particularly about the monster, and learned that
it was a terrible dragon with eight heads, whose glowing eyes shone
afar and were red as red berries. Its back was overgrown with
downright forests; its belly was blood-red, and continually bedabbled
in blood; its whole coiling length was as long as some winding valley.
Undaunted, however, he promised help against the oppressor; only he
prayed the old man and his wife to give him the fair Inada to wife if
he succeeded in rescuing her from the dragon’s maw. His measures were
soon taken. He requested Ashinadzutchi to prepare a great quantity of
saki. He himself the while built eight small rooms or enclosures, open
above; and in each room he put a large vat of saki. When the monster
drew nigh he threw a woman’s robe around him and placed himself so
that his reflection fell into the first vat. The hungry {53} dragon,
seeing it, plunged its first head into the vat, deeming that its prey
was there. With headlong speed it drained the saki to reach the
maiden, but found her not. Her image was shimmering and beckoning from
the second vat; and rashly and greedily it plunged another head into
that. In vain it emptied the second vat; in vain it pursued the same
false image into the depths of the remaining vats one after the other.
By the time the eight vats were emptied the monster rolled over on the
earth in a drunken sleep. Then Susa No stepped forward, flung off his
disguise, drew his sword, smote off the heads of the ungainly brute,
and hewed his mighty body into small pieces. But when he came to the
tail his good sword was notched and blunted with the blows. Then he
discovered in the dragon’s tail a sword even better than his own. He
took the prize, called it Cloud-sword, because the dragon was ever
girt with dense clouds, and sent it as a gift to his sister Amaterasu,
the sun-goddess, up yonder in heaven. She held it ever in high esteem,
and in after-days gave it to her grandson, the ancestor of the Mikado.
By him it was bequeathed to his descendants, and it is still, if
report lie not, among the most precious treasures of the imperial
crown. Inada was not unwilling to be bestowed upon a wooer who had won
her so nobly. They dwelt long and happily together in Idzumo, and
became the parents of a race of heroes and rulers renowned in story.
And Susa No made upon his conquest of the dragon and his marriage the
oldest poem in the Japanese tongue, whence he is honoured as the
inventor of the art of poetry.[53.1]
{54}
I may pause here to observe that the device of rendering the dragon
torpid by gorging it is not unknown in Western tales. To give a single
example, it shall be one that Sir Robert Atkyns turns aside from his
dreary genealogies and heraldic studies to mention, because the hero
was the traditional founder of one of those innumerable county
families whose exciting chronicle of births, marriages, and deaths is
of such vast importance to the local historian, and of none whatever
to the rest of the world. The story is that the neighbourhood of
Deerhurst, in Gloucestershire, was plagued by “a serpent of prodigious
bigness,” which poisoned the inhabitants and slew their cattle. The
people petitioned the king; and a proclamation was issued in response,
offering an estate, then belonging to the Crown, on Walton Hill in the
parish of Deerhurst to any one who should kill the serpent. This was
accomplished by one John Smith, “a labourer.” He put a quantity of
milk in a place frequented by the monster; and the brute, having
swallowed the whole, “lay down in the sun with his scales ruffled up.
Seeing him in this situation, Smith advanced, and striking between the
scales with his axe, took off his head. The family of the Smiths
enjoyed the estate when Sir Robert compiled this account, and Mr.
Lane, who married a widow of that family, had then the axe in his
possession.”[54.1] Here for saki we have milk; and the Mikado’s sword
is replaced by Mr. Lane’s axe. The church {55} at Deerhurst is one of
the most ancient in the country. Its tower in particular is of
singular interest; and it has been assigned to a date as early as the
eighth century. Beyond doubt it witnessed the Norman Conquest, and was
probably by no means a new building then. Immediately over the door
projects a broken stone, roughly carved into the shape of a dragon’s
head; and above a window higher up is a second stone of a similar
form. It is quite likely that, as in the case of the statue at
Mansfeld, so here, the carving on the church has caused the
localisation of the legend.[55.1]
These examples stand by no means alone. The carving at Brent Pelham,
referred to in a note on a previous page, appears to be the origin of
a similar story. In the church of Mordiford, in Herefordshire, is a
painting representing a winged serpent about twelve feet long, with a
large head and open mouth. The tradition is that a dragon infested
{56} the neighbourhood, and a condemned malefactor was promised pardon
if he would destroy the creature. He fought and killed it in the river
Lug, but fell a victim to the poison of its breath. Here again the
representation probably suggested the tradition as a special
appurtenance of the village; and among others of which we may suspect
the same are the famous worms of Lambton in Durham, and Linton in
Roxburghshire.[56.1] The dragon held a prominent place in the
mythology of the northern nations, as it has done in many others, and
was a favourite subject of both Teutonic and Celtic Art. To trace its
somewhat complex artistic history is foreign to my purpose; but the
briefest notice of local traditions could hardly be considered
complete without some mention of the influence of sculptures and
pictures whose meaning had been lost.
We may now return to sagas more properly coming within our ken. From
Candahar is reported a Mussulman legend, which relates that in pagan
times the king of Candahar found himself compelled to promise a young
girl every day to a dragon. Accordingly a maiden mounted on a camel
was daily sent to the monster. As soon as the camel arrived within a
certain distance of the cavern where the dragon dwelt, the latter
inhaled its breath with such force that its prey was inevitably drawn
into its throat. One day the lot fell on the fairest maid of Candahar,
when Ali, “the sword of the faith,” happened to pass through the
country, and saw the victim in tears. Learning the cause of her
distress, he placed himself in her stead on the camel, and at the
moment of being drawn into the monster’s throat he cut off its head
with his irresistible blade.[56.2] In Abyssinia {57} the tale is told
with variations, due to Christian and Jewish influences. Axum, we
learn, was the seat of a serpent-king, for whose appetite a virgin was
daily provided. When it came to the turn of Saba, a virgin of high
birth and pure spirit, she was rescued by a “celestial warrior in
earthly form,” but not before the serpent’s saliva had fallen on her
foot, causing her thereafter incurable ulcers and lameness. She was
acclaimed queen; but her disease marred her joy. Wherefore she crossed
the seas to seek for healing at the hands of the renowned King
Solomon, from whom she obtained not only restoration to health but
also a son, born after her return to Abyssinia. He was named Menelek,
and to him the kings of Gondar have ever since traced their
ancestry.[57.1] In the basin of the Upper Niger, the story concerns
not the beginnings of a royal race but the destruction of a
kingdom--that of the Bakiris whose capital was called Wagadu. It was
said to be colossally rich; the kings possessed an immense treasure;
but they owed their fortune to the protection of a serpent which dwelt
within a well near the king’s village. Every year, by lot, one of the
loveliest maidens of the country was chosen, and, arrayed like a
bride, she was conducted to the well, when the serpent would come
forth and, rolling his scaly folds around her, would carry her off to
his den. Now, one year the lot fell on a damsel betrothed to the
bravest warrior of the land, who, besides, was the king’s cousin. He
swore to save her, and mounted on his steed, which he had tethered
near the well, he awaited the dragon’s coming. Twice the serpent put
forth his head, and twice drew back. {58} But the third time, the
moment he stretched out to seize the prey the warrior lunged forward,
cut the brute in two with a single blow of his sabre; and seizing his
beloved he carried her off with all the speed of his courser, which no
horse has ever surpassed. As he disappeared, a voice was heard from
the well denouncing seven years of drought and every evil a country
could suffer. The king sought his cousin and would have put him to
death; but he could not be caught. Soon the predicted woes were
accomplished; and forced by drought and sickness the population
deserted the capital in a body for other lands. It is even said that
the king, unable to carry off his riches, buried them, and that no man
since has been able to find them, for the soil burns and bursts into
flame beneath the hardy treasure-seeker. Certain it is that scourges
of various kinds, which transformed the country into desert, caused
the emigration of a once numerous people.[58.1]
Variants in east and west represent the maiden as her own deliverer.
In the _Golden Legend_ of à Voragine we read that Saint Margaret was
flung into a dungeon, after tortures of the kind that churchmen, with
equal piety and delight, ascribed to their martyrs and inflicted on
their opponents. In her cell she prayed to the Lord that the Enemy
with whom she was fighting might appear to her in visible form. A huge
dragon instantly assailed and attempted to devour her; but she made
the sign of the cross, and it vanished. It is elsewhere stated, we are
told, that the dragon had actually got her into its mouth and was
about to swallow her, when she fortified herself with the sign of the
cross: the dragon forthwith burst asunder {59} and the virgin came
forth unharmed. Here, however, the pious author becomes critical. It
was not incredible that the Devil should come in the shape of a dragon
and should seek to devour her, nor that she should repulse him unaided
save by the sign of the cross. But that he should have got her between
his jaws, and that he should have burst asunder, was apocryphal and
frivolous.[59.1] Obviously it would never have done to let people
believe that the Devil had come to an end in this way: it would be
killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.
In Germany the maiden’s victory is localised on the far-famed
Drachenfels. While Rome was yet mistress of the left bank of the
Rhine, and Christianity under her power had established itself there,
the heathen hordes on the right bank continued to assert their
independence, and made constant raids on the opposite side. On one of
these freebooting excursions they captured a Christian king’s
daughter. The son of the ruler of the Löwenburg fell in love with
her, and would have wedded her had she not refused to give her hand to
a worshipper of false gods. Whereupon it was decreed in a council of
the chiefs that the damsel should be offered up to a ferocious dragon
dwelling in a cave on that one of the Seven Mountains whose steep top
looked down into the green waves of the surging Rhine. Early on the
morrow, while the dragon yet slept, she was accordingly dragged up the
rock and fettered to a tree near the cavern. At the foot of the
mountain gathered an expectant crowd--among them her {60} heathen
lover, who longed to hasten up and shield the maiden’s life with his
own; but she was condemned to death by the nobles, and he durst not
interfere. Meanwhile she stood unterrified; and as she quietly awaited
the dragon, she drew from her bosom a crucifix and fixed her trustful
gaze upon it. Out came the monster from his hole, and, catching sight
of the sacrifice provided for him, he rushed upon her. The crucifix,
however, proved too much for him. When he beheld it in her hands
terror and stupefaction seized him; he fell down in the most natural
way and rolled from the precipitous cliff right into the foaming flood
below, there to find a watery grave. Nothing more of course was wanted
to convert the heathen; and the legend winds up, in a manner somewhat
more idyllic than orthodox, with the wedding of the pious maiden to
the king’s son after he had received “the bath of regeneration.”[60.1]
The story has clearly been provided with a religious and literary
gloss; but there is no reason why in substance it may not be of
traditional origin, and the conclusion indicates a strong probability
that as originally told it was the king’s son who effected the
maiden’s deliverance. The _Kwang-po-wu-chih_, a compilation of the end
of the sixteenth century, furnishes a Chinese version also literary in
appearance, the popular provenience of which cannot be doubted. “In
the eastern regions of Yueh Min (the present Fuhkien) there exists a
range of mountains called the Yung Ling, many tens of _li_ in height,
in the north-western recesses of which there abode a mighty serpent,
seven or eight _chang_ (seventy or eighty feet) in length and ten feet
in circumference, which was held in great awe by the people of the
country. At a certain time it signified, {61} either to some person in
a dream or to those versed in the art of divination, that it lusted to
devour a maiden of the age of twelve or thirteen; and the governors
and men in authority of that region, equally alarmed respecting the
monster, sought out female bond-servants and the daughters of
criminals to satisfy the serpent’s appetite. In the morning of the day
in the eighth moon, after offering sacrifices, the victim was taken to
the mouth of the serpent’s cavern, and at night the serpent suddenly
issued forth and devoured its prey. Year after year this happened,
until at length nine maidens in all had been offered up; and a fresh
demand was being made but no victim could be obtained. At this time Li
Tan, Magistrate of Tsing Lo, had six daughters and no sons. His
youngest daughter, named Ki, responded to the call and was ready to
proceed (to the cavern), but her parents refused consent. She urged,
however, that she was unable to be of use to her parents, as was Ti
Ying (the faithful daughter of olden times), and being a mere source
of useless expense might as well bring her life to a speedy close, and
only requested to be supplied with a good sword and a dog that would
bite at snakes. In the morning of the day of the eighth month she
visited the Temple with the sword beside her and the dog provided. She
had also previously prepared several measures of boiled rice mixed
with honey, which she placed at the mouth of the cavern. At night the
serpent came forth, its head as large as a rice stock and its eyes
like mirrors two feet across--when, perceiving the aroma of the mess
of rice, it began to devour it. Ki forthwith let loose her dog which
seized the serpent in its teeth, and the maiden hereupon hacked the
monster from behind, so that after dragging itself to the mouth of its
cave it died. The {62} maiden entered the cavern and recovered the
skeletons of the nine previous victims, whose untimely fate she
bewailed. After this she leisurely returned home, and the Prince of
Sueh, hearing of her exploit, raised her to be his Queen.”[62.1]
In the last chapter I summarised several _märchen_ wherein Andromeda
was replaced by a youth of the opposite sex. Such examples are rare
among sagas. Beside the cases of Kleostratos and Theseus already cited
I am only aware of one other, which indeed appears to be merely one of
the _märchen_ from the Panjáb with its hero identified as the
celebrated Râjâ Rasâlu. The râjâ comes with his pet parrot of
supernatural wisdom to Nîlâ City and finds an old woman, six of
whose seven sons have been already sent by the king to feed a certain
giant. It is now her seventh son’s turn, and he is to be sent that day
for the giant’s dinner, together with a basket of bread and a buffalo.
The râjâ offers himself in place of the youth. It turns out that
there are in all seven giants, who are fated to be overcome by Râjâ
Rasâlu. They candidly tell him, as these stupid monsters are
accustomed to do, how to perform the feat. Taught by them, he looses
the heel-ropes from his horse and drops the sword out of his hand. The
ropes tie up the giants and the sword cuts them in pieces. But this is
not enough to satisfy the conditions; and the giants, still living,
are obliging enough to put seven frying-pans, one behind the other,
and behind the frying-pans to arrange themselves one behind the other,
so that their antagonist may conveniently loose an arrow from his bow
to pierce them all through the frying-pans, and slay them at one blow
in the predestined manner. A giantess, {63} their sister, however,
escaped to a cave. The hero pursued her, and placed a statue of
himself at the mouth of the cave, so that, being afraid to venture
forth again, she was starved to death within.[63.1]
A few variants are also found, in which the maiden is rescued, not
from death by the dragon, but only from thraldom. Such is the tale of
Ragnar Lodbrog as developed in his _Saga_. As told by Saxo, Herodd,
king of the Swedes, found some snakes in the woods and gave them to
his daughter Thora to bring up. They grew and became such a nuisance
to the whole country-side that at last the king was forced to issue a
proclamation, offering his daughter in marriage to any one who would
remove the pest. Ragnar procured a woollen mantle and thigh-pieces
thick with hair that would protect him from snake-bites. To make
assurance doubly sure he plunged into water on a frosty night and
froze his clothing stiff. Thus defended, and armed with his sword and
spear, he attacked and killed two serpents; the courtiers, meanwhile,
flying from the struggle and hiding like frightened little girls.
After the combat the king, laughing at his uncouth garb, nicknamed him
Lodbrog, or Shaggy-brogues.[63.2] The _Saga_, however, gives a
somewhat different version. It only mentions one worm, found when
quite small in a vulture’s egg which Thora’s father had brought to her
as a gift from Bjarmeland. She took a fancy to the creature and made a
bed of gold for it in a little box. There it grew, and the gold with
it, until at length it lay coiled round the house and allowed no one
{64} to approach except the man who brought its daily food. The Jarl
Herraud was moved to offer his daughter and the dragon’s hoard to any
one who would kill it. Ragnar’s shaggy mantle and leggings were boiled
in pitch and then rolled in sand. He attacked the monster with his
lance early in the morning while all men yet slept, and drove the
weapon home. So mighty were the worm’s death-struggles that the
building shook with them and Thora was awakened. She cried out,
inquiring the hero’s name. He replied by singing some verses in which
he hardly gave her more than his age, and hastened away, leaving the
iron spear-head imbedded in the carcase, but carrying the shaft with
him. The Jarl forthwith summoned an assembly and passed round the
spear-head, that it might be found who owned the shaft it would fit
and who was entitled to the reward.[64.1] Note here the inveterate
habit of the adventurer in these tales: the habit of running away
after performing the deed and thus necessitating his discovery by a
token. This is wanting in Saxo’s account; but we cannot infer that it
was unknown to him. A careful examination of his narrative shows, in
more than one place, evidence of omissions not unconnected, probably,
with his purpose of turning popular traditions into serious
history.[64.2]
A story of the deliverance of a maiden imprisoned by a dragon, still
current in the mouths of the people, places the scene of the captivity
on a little island, called Lindwerder, in the Lake of Dratzig, in
Pomerania. After many knights had essayed the task in vain one came
who, with a song, {65} threw a spell over the monster and slew him.
The lady, however, refused marriage with her deliverer, having vowed
her life to God; and she became a nun.[65.1] I might refer to other
cases of rescue from the toils of a serpent or some such monster, but
it is needless to pursue this form of the tale, since it seems
connected rather with the myth of the Enchanted Princess, which I have
studied elsewhere,[65.2] than with that of Perseus and Andromeda.