Zoological Mythology Volume Ii Part 28

[510] It is interesting in this connection to find in the translation of Lane a pa.s.sage from the _A?ab-el-Makhloo?at_ (_Marvels of Creation_), a work of the thirteenth century: "The tortoise is a sea and land animal.

As to the sea tortoise it is very enormous, so that the people of the s.h.i.+p imagine it to be an island. One of the merchants relates as follows regarding it: 'We found in the sea an island elevated above the water, having upon it green plants, and we went forth to it, and dug [holes for fire] to cook; whereupon the island moved, and the sailors said, "Come ye to your place, for it is a tortoise, and the heat of the fire hath hurt it, lest it carry you away." By reason of the enormity of its body,' said he [_i.e._, the narrator above mentioned], 'it was as though it were an island, and earth collected upon its back in the length of time, so that it became like land, and produced plants.'" Evidently here the tortoise occupies the same place as, in popular tradition, the lunar whale recorded by us in the chapter on the Fishes. Cfr. Lane, _The Thousand and One Nights_, London, 1841, vol. iii. chap. xx. n. 1 and 8, p. 80 _seq._--Grein, _Bibliothek der angelsachsischen Poesie_, Gottingen, 1857, 1, 235, the Celtic legend of St Brandan and the _Pseudo-Callisthenes_.

CHAPTER IV.

THE FROG, THE LACERTA VIRIDIS, AND THE TOAD.

SUMMARY.

The ma??ukas or frogs as clouds in the _?igvedas_.--Bhekas.--The frog announces the summer; the _canta-rana_ announces Christ.--The serpent, the hero, and the frog.--The frog and the ox.--Dionysos and the frogs.--Indras and the frogs.--The dumb frogs.--Proserpina and the frog.--Rana c.u.m gryllo.--The frog finds the sultan's ring.--The frog and the rook.--The frog as the serpent's daughter.--The demoniacal frog.--The yellow and the green frog.--The beautiful maiden as a frog.--The demoniacal toad.--The sacred toad.--The beautiful maiden as a toad.--The toad in Tuscany, in Sicily, and in Germany.--The handsome youth as a toad.--Women who gave birth to toads.--The venomous and the alexipharmic toad.--Krote and Schildkrote.--The toad swallows the dew.--The stone of the frog.--The horned lizard.--Eidechse, hagedisse.--Apollo as sauroktanos.--The lizard on St Agnes's Day.--The little lizards must not be killed in Sicily, being intercessors before the Lord.--The amphisbhaena.--The _lacerta viridis_.--The _couleuvre_ as a good fairy.

I am sorry to be unable to concur entirely in the opinion of the ill.u.s.trious Professor Max Muller, when, in translating a hymn of the _?igvedas_, in his _History of Ancient Sansk?it Literature_, he remarks, "The 103d hymn, in the seventh Ma??alam, which is called a panegyric of the frogs, is clearly a satire on the priests." It is possible that at a later period, in deriding a brahmanic school similar to that of the ma??ukas, a satirical sense would have been ascribed to this hymn, but it does not seem to me that the intention of the author of the Vedic hymn was such. Professor Max Muller has shown well in his History how the Vedic hymns have suffered in the hands of the Brahmans, by means of their arbitrary interpretations; the interesting story of the hypothetical G.o.d Kas is a very convincing proof of it; it is, therefore, possible, and even probable, that attempts were made to use this Vedic hymn as an arrow for satire; but if I am not mistaken, no trace of a satirical meaning can be found in the hymn itself. Above all, I must observe that the Anukrama?ika of the _?igvedas_ properly calls the hymn only par?anyastutis, or hymn in honour of Par?anyas, the hymn of the tempest; secondly, it scarcely seems possible that a satirical hymn, intended to caricature the priests, should be inserted in the seventh book, which is attributed to Vasish?as, the most religious of all the legendary Brahmans, and he who, for the glory of Brahmanism and the rights of the sacerdotal caste, maintained such a protracted and disastrous war against Vicvamitras, the champion of the warrior race; hence, if a satirical hymn against priests had been found in the third book of the _?igvedas_, ascribed to the wise Vicvamitras, I should not have thought it so strange, whilst it would be misplaced in the hymns said to be written by Vasish?as. To me it seems rather that, when speaking of frogs, the hymn does not allude to the frogs of the earth, but to the clouds, the cloud-frogs, attracted by the pluvial moon, whilst the tempest is at its height. We know that in the _?igvedas_, the wives of the G.o.ds weave hymns in honour of the lightning and thundering G.o.d Indras, who has killed the monster serpent which kept back the waters of the heavenly cloud; we have also, in the first chapter of the first book, heard the cows lowing and exulting joyfully before their deliverer Indras, who lets his seed drop in the midst of them as soon as they are released from the cave where they were imprisoned. In the seventh book, the hymns 101 and 102 are sung in honour of Indras as Par?anyas; the hymn 103 is also sung in his honour, but by the clouds of the sky themselves, by the celestial frogs, inasmuch as the frog which croaks, when transported into the sky, is nought else then the thundering cloud; in fact, in Sansk?it the word _bhekas_, which means frog, has also the meaning of cloud. We have seen that the cuckoo who sings in spring, and admonishes the tillers of the soil to begin their work, personifies the thunder in the sky: the frog has the same office; it, like the thunder, announces the approaching tempest. And because, when the first claps of thunder are heard, it is the summer which announces its coming, so the frog that croaks and the frog that sings served specially to announce the summer. I remember that, a few years ago, there still existed at Turin, among children, the custom of sounding in the Holy Week (in order to greet the approaching festival of the resurrection of Christ, who died amongst flashes of lightning and peals of thunder) a wooden instrument, which emitted a sharp squeak resembling the croaking of a frog, and which was therefore called _canta-rana_ (the frog sings). It was also the custom on Easter Eve to strike all the doors violently with sticks, as if to reproduce under another form the sound of the _canta-rana_. According to Pliny, the frogs die in winter, and are born again in spring; when the frogs ask for a king, and obtain, in the Greek fable[511] a serpent, and in the Russian fable of Kriloff a heron, the serpent and the heron symbolise the autumnal and wintry seasons. Indras, Zeus, and Christ are born and born again amid the noise of musical instruments, s.h.i.+elds, arms, winds and thunder, among the lowing of cows, the bleating of goats, the braying of a.s.ses, and the croaking of frogs, called by Aristophanes _philodon genos_. In the 103d hymn of the seventh book of the _?igvedas_, one ma??ukas (frog or cloud) lows like a cow (gomayus); another like a goat (a?amayus); one is p?icnis, or variegated; another haritas, or fair-haired, golden, red (the cloud born by the lightning and the violence of the wind), and, as a frog, green or grey; the ma??ukas or frog being transported into the sky, or identified, as a ?omayus, with the cow, it is no wonder that, in the fable, the frog has the presumption of thinking it can inflate itself to the size of an ox; but when the little cloud has become a large one, it ends by bursting, and so does the frog in his attempt to distend himself and become as large as the ox. (In the eighteenth Esthonian story, we find a monster who has a body like that of an ox, and feet like those of a frog.) When Indras and Zeus have accomplished their work in the celestial cloud, when the cloud has pa.s.sed away and dispersed, when the frogs are drunk with water, they cease their croaking; thus, in the _Frogs_ of Aristophanes, when Dionusos (nuseios Dios) has pa.s.sed the Stygian marsh, they stop croaking; whilst Zeus, on the other hand, floods the earth with water, they (Dios pheugontes...o...b..on) retire into the depths of the waters to dance in chorus (as the ap-saras). On the other hand, before the pluvial G.o.d satisfies their desires, before it rains, they croak incessantly; the thunder always makes itself heard before the rain, and at the outbreak of the tempest; hence, in the _?igvedas_ itself, Indus (the moon), as a bringer of rain (or the rain itself), is implored to run and plead with Indras, the pluvial G.o.d, to satisfy the desire of the frog.[512] Here, therefore, it is especially Indus who satisfies the frogs' desire for rain. Indus, as the moon, brings or announces the somas, or the rain; the frog, croaking, announces or brings the rain; and at this point the frog, which we have seen identified at first with the cloud, is also identified with the pluvial moon. Another characteristic of the frog made this identification all the more natural, and that was, its green colour (harit). By the word _harit_ (which, as we, several times, have remarked, means yellow and green in Sansk?it) not only the moon, but the green parrot was designated, and also the frog. The identification having been effected, the Greeks could then relate fables concerning the frog of the Island of Seriphos (batrachos ek Seriphou), which was dumb; so in the Lives of St Regulus and St Benno, we read that when these two saints, as they preached the Christian faith, were annoyed by the croaking of the frogs, they ordered the frogs to be silent, and they became dumb for ever. In truth, the frogs are silent (and even die, according to Pliny) in winter, which is under the especial dominion of the silent moon; the frog and the moon are exchanged one for the other. In _Ovid_, the metamorphosis of the frog is made to enter into the lunar myth, that is, into the myth of Proserpina; it was the form of the frog which certain peasants of Lycia a.s.sumed who dirtied the water of which Ceres and Proserpina wished to drink; their croaking (coax) is the punishment to which the G.o.ddesses condemned them, because in those waters they had emitted a vile sound from their mouths.[513] Another proof of the ident.i.ty of the frog with the moon is the Latin proverb, "Rana c.u.m gryllo," which afterwards served to represent two opposite things, but which, in fact, are the same, on account of their shrill voice, their way of hopping, and their common mythical connection with the leaping moon. We are reminded of the moon and the cloud in the war waged between the frogs and the mice, who are mutually destroying each other until the falcon comes with impartiality to annihilate both. We are, moreover, reminded of the little goldfish, the fair-haired moon, and the pike, in the frog which, in the _Tuti-Name_, finds the sultan's ring, which had fallen into the river, for the young hero, in grat.i.tude to him for having saved it from the serpent who was about to devour it; it is said that both the frog and the serpent were two fairies who, freed from their curse, united themselves to protect the young hero (the new sun). In the twenty-third Mongol story, the golden frog (the moon) is dancing; the rook (the night) carries it off to eat it; the frog recommends it to wash it in water; the rook is taken in, and the frog, like the jorsh of Russian stories, succeeds in escaping; this frog is said to be the daughter of the prince of the dragons, who watches over the pearl. As the daughter of a serpent, the golden frog (the moon), when it is darkened, itself appears as a diabolical serpent or pythoness, and is more like a toad than a frog; then it becomes, according to Sadder, a meritorious service to kill the frogs: "Ranas si interfecerit aliquis quicunque fortis eorum adversarius, ejus quidem merita propterea erunt mille et ducenta. Aquam eximat eamque removeat et loc.u.m sicc.u.m faciat et tum eas necabit a capite ad calcem. Hinc Diaboli d.a.m.num percipientes maximum flebunt et ploratum edent copiosissimum."

In the second Calmuc story of Siddhikur, two dragons who keep back the river which irrigates the earth and makes it fruitful, and who eat a man every year, a.s.sume the form of frogs (one yellow and the other green), and speak to one another of the way in which they can be killed. The king's son understands their language, and kills them, helped by a poor friend of his, with whom he enriches himself, but only to encounter (like the two mythical brothers) the most dangerous adventures afterwards.

But the diabolical form of a frog is sometimes a.s.sumed by the beautiful maiden (or else by the handsome youth) as the effect of a malediction or an enchantment. Thus it is in the interesting twenty-third story of the second book of _Afana.s.sieff_. There is a Tzar who has three sons; each son must shoot an arrow; where the arrow falls, each brother will find his predestined wife. The two eldest brothers marry in this way two beautiful women; the arrow of the youngest brother Ivan, however, is taken up by a frog, whom he is obliged to marry. The Tzar wishes to see which of the three brides makes the handsomest present to her husband. All three give their husbands a s.h.i.+rt, but that of the frog is the most beautiful; for whilst Ivan sleeps (that is, in the night), she casts her skin, becomes the beautiful Helen (generally the aurora, but here, it would seem, the same transformed into the good fairy moon), and orders her attendants to prepare the finest s.h.i.+rt possible; she then again becomes a frog. The Tzar (a truly patriarchal Tzar) then wishes to see which of his three daughters-in-law bakes bread best; the first two brides know not what to do, and send secretly to see what the frog does; the frog, who sees all, understands the trick, and bakes the bread badly on purpose; afterwards, when she is alone and Ivan asleep, she again becomes the beautiful Helen, and orders her attendants to bake a loaf such as those which her father ate only on feast-days. The loaf of the frog is p.r.o.nounced the best. Lastly, the Tzar wishes to see which of his daughters-in-law dances best. Ivan is sorrowful, thinking that his bride is a frog; but Helen consoles him, sending him to the ball, where she will join him; Ivan rejoices to think that his wife has the gift of speech, and goes to the ball; the frog takes her robes off, becomes the beautiful Helen once more, dresses herself splendidly, comes to the ball, and all exclaim as they pa.s.s by her (as to the Homeric Helen), "How beautiful!" They first sit down to table to eat; Helen takes bones in one hand, and water in the other; her sisters-in-law do the same. Then the ball begins. Helen throws water from one hand, and groves and fountains spring up; and bones (we remember a similar virtue in the bones of the cow) from the other, from which birds flutter upward (the same is narrated in a story I heard in Piedmont when a child). Meanwhile, Ivan runs home to burn the frog's skin. Helen returns home, can no longer become a frog, and is sorrowful; she goes with Ivan to bed, and awakening at morn, says to him, "Ivan Tzarevic, thou hast not been patient enough; I would have been thine; now, as G.o.d wills it, Farewell! Seek me in the twenty-seventh earth, in the thirtieth kingdom" (_i.e._, in my opinion, in h.e.l.l, in the night into which the moon and the aurora descend, and whence the moon comes out again and renews itself after twenty-seven days; the Russian story is evidently a variety of the fable of Cupid and Psyche).[514] She then disappears. Ivan goes to seek his bride at the dwelling of the frog's mother, who is a witch; he takes from her the spindle which spins gold, throws part of it before him, and the rest behind. Helen appears once more, and the pair flee away upon the carpet which flies by itself. Here the helped aurora and the helping moon are a.s.similated.

But in popular stories the hero and heroine a.s.sume by witchcraft, instead of the form of a dark frog, that of a toad, and sometimes that of a horned lizard,[515] whence the verse of Mehun--

"Boteraulx et couleuvres, visions de deables."

Inasmuch as the toad is a form proper to the demon, it is feared and hunted; inasmuch as, on the contrary, it is considered as a diabolical form imposed by force upon a divine or princely being, it is respected and venerated as a sacred animal. In Tuscany it is considered by the peasants a sacrilege to kill a toad. A low Tuscan song heard by me at Santo Stefano di Calcinaia records the transformation of the beautiful maiden into a toad; the mother toad speaks to her daughter to console her, inspiring her with the hope of being soon married to the king's son--

"Botta, gragna,[516]

Il figlio del re che poco ti ama Se non t'ama, t'amera, Quando per isposa lui t'avra."

(Wretched toad! the king's son, who little loves thee, if he love thee not, will love thee when he has thee for his wife.) The prince weds the toad, which is immediately transformed into a beautiful maiden.

With regard to the superst.i.tions concerning the toad current in Sicily, it is interesting to note what my friend Giuseppe Pitre writes to me--"The toad brings fortune; he who is not fortunate must provide himself with a toad and feed it in his house[517] upon bread and wine, a consecrated nourishment, inasmuch as it is alleged toads are either 'lords' or 'women from without,' or 'uncomprehended genii,' or 'powerful fairies,' who have fallen under some malediction. Hence they are not killed, nor even molested, lest when offended they should come at night to spit water upon the offender's eyes which never heal, not even if he recommend himself to the regard of Santa Lucia." Hence the poet Meli, in his _Fata Galanti_, writes that he prevented a peasant from killing a toad--

"Jeu ch'avia 'ntisu da li miei maggiuri Che li buffi 'un si divinu ammazzari, Fici in modu chi l'ira e lu rancuri A ddu viddanu cci fici pa.s.sari."

As a recompense for having saved its life, the toad soon afterwards appears to him in the shape of a very beautiful woman, and promises to a.s.sist him all the days of his life--

"Oh picciotti furtunatu!

Eu ti prutiggir d'ora nn' avanti, Jeu su' dda buffa, chi tu, gratu e umanu Sarvasti antura da l'impiu viddanu."

In Piedmont, I have heard a popular story[518] related in which the toad is, on the other hand, the diabolical form a.s.sumed by a handsome youth; in Aldrovandi, several things are narrated of women who gave birth to toads.[519]

From the double and contradictory aspect in which the toad was regarded, popular medicine, although believing that the humour which the toad, when provoked, ejects from behind, is fatal, and that the toad not only poisoned men, but even all the plants over which it pa.s.sed, still recommends the wearing of dried toads under the armpits as amulets against plague and poison. The same alexipharmic virtue was also ascribed to the stone called and believed to be toad's-stone (or bufonite), which was said to change colour when its wearer was poisoned. The bufonite was supposed to be taken out of a toad's head, but science has demonstrated that the bufonite, sold by quacks is made of the tooth of a fossil fish.[520] Out of the toad, the dark animal of the night, the gloom or winter, the solar pearl comes; thus popular German stories regard the _Schild-krote_ (or toad with the s.h.i.+eld) as sacred, on account of the pearl supposed to be contained in its head.

In Hungary it is said that the toad swallows the dew in the dry season; it is believed, moreover, that the frog, like the serpent, vomits forth, in spring, a precious stone called the stone of the serpent or the stone of the frog. According to what Count Geza Kuun writes to me, in the testament of a citizen of Kaisa three golden rings are mentioned, one of which contained a "frog's stone."

I have observed above that the toad's place is sometimes taken in popular tales by the horned lizard; the lizard also represents the demoniacal shape, the shape of a witch. On this subject there was an interesting discussion by Karl Simrock upon the word _Eidechse_ (the lizard in German), derived from the ancient form _Hagedisse_ which is the same as _Hexe_ or witch. It is as a witch that the lizard is killed, in the Greek myth, by Apollines, whence its name of _sauroktanos_.[521]

But, inasmuch as the lizards appear in spring and announce the fine season, they are considered (according to Porphyrios) sacred to the sun, and therefore of good augury. A Bolognese proverb says, "Sant' Agnes, la luserta cor pr' al paes," to indicate that the season is beginning to improve, inasmuch as with the appearance of the lizards on the Day of St Agnes, which is in the beginning of March, spring begins to make itself felt. In Sicily it is believed that the little lizards called San Giuvanni must not be killed, because they are in the presence of the Lord in heaven, and light the little lamp to the Lord (as we have already seen the firefly give light to the grain). And when they are killed, in order that they may not curse one, one must say to the tail which is shaking, that it was not the real killer, but the dog of St Matthew who committed the crime,

"Nun fu' ieu, nun fu' ieu: Fu lu cani di San Matteu."

They are believed to be powerful intercessors before the Lord, for which reason Sicilian children warm them in their bosoms, and feed them on crumbs of bread soaked in water.

But an especially sacred character is ascribed to the _lacerta viridis_ (It. _ramarro_; Sicilian, _vanuzzu_, a diminutive of Giovanni) and to the _amphisbh?na_, of which the ancients believed that it had two heads (like the Hindoo ahira?is), its tail being taken for one. The _amphisbh?na_ is still held sacred and revered in India.[522] The green lizard of popular superst.i.tion is partly solar and partly lunar; the firefly and the quail, as summer animals, are sacred to the sun; as watchers by night, to the moon. Thus the green lizard, as a summer animal which hunts away the serpent of winter, appears particularly in relation with the sun; but inasmuch as there is also the serpent of night, the green lizard or green _ramarro_ takes the place of the crab-moon, that is, it wakens the young solar hero who sleeps in the night, and wakens the sleeping man lest the serpent should bite him. The moon of winter wakens the sun of spring, the moon of night wakens the sun of day; the moon-lizard, like the moon crab, hunts the serpent or black monster away. In Piedmont, Tuscany, and Sicily, the green lizard is believed to be the friend of mankind; indeed, it is called _guarda omu_ in Sicily, where it is believed to cure from incantations, perhaps on account of the yellow cross which the people think they can see upon its head. At Santo Stefano of Calcinaia it is said that the green lizard hisses in the ears of Christians like a Christian when the serpent approaches a man; they even relate several cases of shepherds or peasants who, being asleep, were saved by the green lizard pa.s.sing over them (Aldrovandi speaks of a similar superst.i.tion). It is, moreover, believed that the green lizard, if caught and put in a vase full of oil, will produce the oil of a _ramarro_, which is said to be good against wounds and poisons. In the _Contes Merveilleux de Porchat_, a fairy protects the poor Laric and brings fortune to him in the shape of a grateful _couleuvre_, which he, in winter, found frozen and warmed in his bosom. The _couleuvre_ makes radiant coins fall to Laric from the beaks of certain partridges, enables him to find whatever he is in need of, and puts a golden chain round the neck of his wife. Thus the myths of the golden (or green) fish, the golden (or green) frog and the golden (or green) lizard, correspond to each other in the beautiful myth of the good moon-fairy, who protects the solar hero or heroine in the nights both of the day and the year.

FOOTNOTES:

[511] Cfr. the first story of the fourth book of the _Pancatantram_, where the king of the frogs invokes the help of a black serpent to avenge himself upon certain frogs who are his enemies, and, instead of this, draws down death upon all the frogs and upon his own son.

[512] Var in ma??uka ichatindrayendo pari srava; _?igv._ ix. 112.

[513] A similar tradition was current concerning the tarantula (stellio). Ceres, being thirsty, wished to drink; the boy Stelles prevented her, and the G.o.ddess transformed him into a _stellio_.

According to Ulpia.n.u.s, from the _stellio_ was derived the _crimen stellionatus_.

[514] Cfr. also _Afana.s.sieff_, vi. 55; Masha (Mary), the wife of Ivan, at first appears as a goose, afterwards as a frog, a lizard, and a spindle.

[515] In the eighth story of the first book of the _Pentamerone_ it is a lacerta cornuta (horned lizard, the moon) which watches over the destiny of the girl Renzolle (the aurora).

[516] It was thus that I heard it recited, but it should, as it appears to me, be corrected both in rhyme and sense, and _gragna_ changed into _grama_, unless _gragna_ is a verb and stands for _grandina_ (hail); in Italy, there is a superst.i.tious belief that the toads are generated of the first large drops of rain which fall into the dust at the beginning of a tempest.

[517] A similar superst.i.tion is current in Germany, as I find in Rochholtz, the work quoted before, i. 147: "Auch die Hauskrote, Unke, Muhme genannt, wohnt im Hauskeller und halt durch ihren Einfluss die hier verwahrten Lebensmittel in einem gedeihlichen Zustand. Dadurch kommt Wohlstand ins Haus, und das Thier heisst daher Schatzkrote. In Verwechslung mit dem braunschwarzen Kellermolch wird sie auch Gmohl genannt und soll eben so oft ihre Farbe verandern, als der Familie eine Veranderung bevorsteht."--The various popular superst.i.tions concerning the salamander are well known,--viz., that it resists the power of fire, that it lives in fire, that it becomes like fire: "immo ad ignem usque elementarem orbi lunari finitimum ascendere" (according to Aldrovandi), and that, devoid of hairs itself, it causes the hairs of others to fall out by means of its saliva, whence Martial, cursing the baldness of a woman's head--

"Hoc salamandra caput, aut saeva novacula nudet."

Pliny therefore recommends against the poisonous venom which is ascribed to the salamander, the seeds of the hairy and stinging nettle, with broth of a tortoise (which it resembles by its yellow spots). The salamander of popular superst.i.tion seems to me to represent the moon which lights itself, which lives by its own fire, which has no rays or hairs of its own, and which makes the rays or hairs of the sun fall.

[518] It was narrated to me by a peasant woman who heard it at Cavour in Piedmont:--

A man who is paralytic has three daughters, Catherine, Clorinda, and Margaret; he sets out on a journey to consult a great doctor, and asks his daughters what they wish him to bring them when he returns; Margaret will be content if he bring her a flower. He arrives at his destination, a castle; everything is prepared to receive him, but the doctor is not to be found; he sets out to return home, but on the way he recollects the flower, which he had forgotten; he goes back to the garden of the castle and is about to pluck a daisy (margherita), when a toad warns him that he will die in three days if he does not give it one of his daughters to wife. The father informs his daughters of this, upon which the two eldest refuse; but the youngest, in order to save her father's life, consents. Her father is cured, and the wedding takes place; during the night the toad becomes a beautiful youth, but warns his bride never to tell any one, for if she does, he will always remain a toad, and he gives her a ring by means of which she will obtain whatever she wishes for. The sisters have an inkling of some mystery, and make her confess; the toad falls ill and disappears; she calls him with the ring, but in vain; seeing this, she throws the ring, as useless, into a pond, upon which the beautiful youth steps out, and never becomes a toad again; their happiness together thereafter is unbroken.

In an unpublished Tuscan story, related to me by Uliva Selvi at Antignano near Leghorn, instead of the toad we have a magician of frightful aspect. The father of the three daughters is a sailor; he promises to fetch a shawl to the first, a hat to the second, and a rose to the third. When the voyage is over, he is about to return, but, having forgotten the rose, the s.h.i.+p refuses to move; he is compelled to go back to look for the rose in a garden; a magician hands the rose with a little box to the father to give it to one of his daughters, whom the magician is to marry. At midnight, the father, having returned home, relates to his third daughter all that happened.

The little box is opened; it carries off the third daughter to the magician, who happens to be king of Pietraverde, and is now a handsome young man. He shows her, in the palace, three rooms, of which one is red, one white, and another black. They live together happily.

Meanwhile, the eldest sister is to be married; the magician conducts his wife into the red room; she wishes to go to the wedding, and the magician consents, but warns her not to say either who he is, or aught she knows of him, if she does not wish to lose him, as to recover him again she would have to wait till she should wear out as many shoes as there are in the world. He gives her a dress which, as she goes, is heard rustling a long way off; and he tells her, if her pin should drop, to let the bride pick it up and keep it; warning her, moreover, not to drink or to eat of anything they may offer her. All this she observes to the letter. The second sister is about to be married; the magician leads his wife into the white room and repeats the same instructions, only, instead of the pin, she is to let her ring of brilliants drop. The father dies; the magician then takes his wife into the black room, the chamber of melancholy. She wishes to go to the funeral, and is permitted, after the usual warnings; the magician, moreover, gives her a ring; if it become black, she will lose him; she forgets the warning and loses him. She wanders about for seven years, and no one can give her any news of the king of Pietraverde; she then disguises herself as a man, and arrives at a city where the king's hostler takes her into his service; no sooner does she touch the carriages than they become clean. The queen pa.s.ses by and wonders at the personal appearance of the youth; she engages him to work in her kitchen, then to serve at table, and finally to be her _valet de chambre_. The queen falls in love with him, and wishes to have him at any cost; in vain; she then accuses him of designing to take her life.

The king, although unwillingly, has him put in prison; soon he has pity upon him and lets him free. The fict.i.tious youth continues to wander about; he arrives at the city, and asks for news of the king of Pietraverde; they tell her that he has long been dead, and point her to a room where his bier is supported by columns of wax, or candles; he will not awake until the candles are consumed. She goes up and weeps; the king takes three hairs from his beard and recommends her to preserve them carefully. She continues her wanderings, still dressed as a man, and is engaged by other hostlers of a king as a.s.sistant. The news of her bravery reach the king, who takes her into his kitchen.

The queen sees him and falls in love with him; in vain; she accuses him to the king, who puts her in prison; she is condemned to death, and the guillotine is prepared. While going to execution, she remembers the three hairs, and burns one; an army of warriors appear, sent by the king of Pietraverde; they terrify all the king's people, whom they compel to postpone the execution till next day. The next day she does the same with the same result. The third day she brings out the third hair; the cavalry appear again, commanded this time by the king of Pietraverde in person, dressed so that he shone like a brilliant, that he appeared like a sun; he releases the youth from the execution; the king of Pietraverde has the young girl dressed as a princess; she is tried in a court of justice; her innocence is established; the queen's head is cut off.

[519] "Suessa.n.u.s tradit, quod bufonem quempiam obviam fieri felicissimum augurium fuisse antiquitas existimavit.--Anno 1553, in villa quadam Thuringia ad Unstrum, a muliere bufo caudatus natus est, quemadmodum in libro de prodigiis et ostentis habetur. Nec mirum, quia C?lius Aurelia.n.u.s et Platearius scribunt mulieres aliquando c.u.m f?to humano bufones et alia animalia hujus generis eniti. Sed hujus monstrosae conceptionis causam non a.s.signant. Tradit quidem Platearius illa praesidia, quae ad provocandos menses commendantur, ducere; etiam bufonem fratrem Salernitanorum quemadmodum aliqui lacertum fratrem Longobardorum nominant. Quoniam mulieres Salernitanae potissimum in principio conceptionis succ.u.m apii et porrorum potant, ut hoc animal interimant, antequam f?tus viviscat. Insuper mulier quaedam ex Gesnero, recens nupta c.u.m omnium opinione praegnans diceretur, quatuor animalia bufonibus similia peperit et optime valuit."--Aldrovandi also reads: "apud Heisterbacensem in historia miraculorum," that some monks found a living toad inside a hen in place of intestines. In the same author, a priest finds an immense toad at the bottom of a jar of wine; whilst he is wondering how such a large toad should have been able to enter by such a small orifice, the toad disappears.

[520] Cfr. Targioni Tozzetti, _Lezioni di Materia Medica_, Florence, 1821.

[521] Some extraordinary lizards of which Aldrovandi speaks are of a half sacred and half monstrous nature: "Praeter illud memorabile, quod Mizaldus recitat accidisse anno Domini 1551, mense Julii in Hungaria prope pagum Zichsum juxta Theisum fluvium nimirum in multorum hominum alvo lacertas naturalibus similes ortas fuisse. Interdum contingit, ut animadvert.i.t Schenchius, lacertam viridem in caeti magnitudinem excrescere, qualis aliquando Lutetiae visa est. Saepe etiam lacertae duobus et tribus caudis refertae nasc.u.n.tur, quas vulgus ludentibus favorabiles esse nugatur."

[522] In the _Mahabharatam_, i. 981-1003, it is said that the serpents amphisbhaenae (du??ubhas, du??avas, nagabh?itas, the same, I think, as the mannuni of Malabar,) being good, must not be killed; an amphisbhaena relates that it had once been the wise Sahasrapad (properly of the hundred feet; the amphisbhaena appears to be a lizard without feet, and with a tail the same size as its head, for which reason the belief arose that it had two heads; it seems to be another personification of the circular year, like the serpent), and that it became a serpent by a curse, because it had once frightened a Brahman with a fict.i.tious serpent made of gra.s.s; at the sight of the wise Kurus, the amphisbhaena is released from its malediction.

CHAPTER V.

THE SERPENT AND THE AQUATIC MONSTER.