Zoological Mythology Volume I Part 17

[424] Kuhn und Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Marchen und Gebrauche_, p. 501.

[425] _Handbuch der Deutschen Mythologie_, mit Einschluss der nordischen, 2te. aufl. p. 437.--We find also in Eginhardus (_Vita Caroli Magni_): "Quoc.u.mque 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 avez 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, quae marito fidem non servat (a variety of the Mongol Surya Bagatur).

[426] Recorded by c.o.x, _Mythology of the Aryan Nations_, vol. i. p.

438, when speaking of the h.e.l.lenic myth of Zeus and Europa.

[427] Cfr. Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Gottertranks_, p.

181 and following.--In Du Cange, _Glossarium Mediae et Infimae 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 d.a.m.num 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 Brucke wird keine andere sein, als die himmlische Bifrost, deren er hutet, eine Vermuthung, die noch an Wahrscheinlichkeit gewinnt, wenn man den friesischen Namen der Milchstra.s.se Kaupat, der Kuhpfad, hinzunimmt; denn Milchstra.s.se und Regenbogen beruhren einander sehr nahe. Dieser ist die Tagesbrucke zwischen Gottern und Menschen, jene die nachtliche.

[432] Rothe Kuhe geben auch weisse Milch; Wander, _Deutsches Sprichworter 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 zuruck erhalt, hat nicht viel, aber mehr als nichts.--Die Kuh konnte mit dem Schwanze bis an den Himmel reichen, wenn er nur lang genug ware.--Une vache ne sceit que lui vault sa queue jusques elle l'a perdue.--Die Kuh beim Schwanz fa.s.sen.--Die schwarze Kuh hat ihn gedruckt.--Eine Kuh kann keinen Hasen erlaufen.--Die Kuh uberlauft einen Hasen.--Nicht alle, die Horner blasen, jagen Hasen.--Wenn die Kuhe 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 wurde 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 quaerentem dominum eo deductura erant, aversos boves eximium quemque pulchritudine caudis in speluncam traxit."

[437] _Facetiae_, 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 caeteris hujus facultatibus admiscent."

[438] Wenn auch der Kuhschwanz wackelt, so fallt er doch nicht ab; in Wander, _Deutsches Sprichworter Lexicon_.

[439] v. 8.

[440] Referred to by Kohler 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 _Afana.s.sieff_, 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 _Afana.s.sieff_ (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_, _Afana.s.sieff_, 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 Huhner; Wander, the work quoted before.

[447] In the Russian story of _Afana.s.sieff_, 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] _Afana.s.sieff_, ii. 17.

[451] Acarnides insutus pelle juvenci; Ovidius, _In Ibin_.

[452] Kohler, _Ueber T. F. Campbell's Sammlung galischer Marchen_, in _Orient und Occident_.--Cfr. the 30th of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_.

[453] Kohler, 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 Sansk?it, _go_ means earth as well as cow) really pa.s.ses 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 superst.i.tion, when a hare pa.s.ses 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 brullt, gibt nicht die meiste Milch.

[457] Phalanam phalam acnoti tada dattva; _Mahabharatam_, 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 _Afana.s.sieff_, 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 grat.i.tude, 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 a.n.a.logous 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 f.a.ggot of wood, instead of carrying it. The Russian stories of the ducks which save the hero, in _Afana.s.sieff_, vi.

17-19, and the faithless wife and her lover bound together, are variations of the eagles of the Tuscan story.

[461] _?igvedas_, v. 46, 8; v. 43, 6; i. 61, 8.

[462] In the _Nibelungen_, Krimhilt, who has never saluted any one, (diu nie gruozte reeken), salutes for the first time the young Sifrit, the victorious and predestined hero, and, whilst she is saluting him, turns the colour of flame (do erzunde sich sin varwe).

[463] In a mediaeval paper in Du Cange, s. v. _Abocellus_, we read: "De quodam caeco 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 f.a.ggot 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 Sifrit.

[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 Duringsfeld, _Das festliche Jahr_, p.

19.

[470] In the _Pentameron_ of Basil, i. 9, we read: "Pa.s.saie lo tiempo che Berta filava; mo hanno apierto l'huocchie li gattille."