But battles are not always going on in the heavens; even the wild animals of the gloomy forest become tame and rest themselves; music fills the soul with calm sentiments. Therefore even the warrior Gandharvâs of the Hindoo Olympus are transformed into expert musicians, who entrance the very gods with wonder. The song of the Sirens attracts and seduces the traveller; the lyre of Orpheus draws after it mountains, trees, and animals; the harp of Väinämöinen, in the Kalevala, makes the wolf forget his ferocity, the bear his wildness, the fish his coldness. And it is grief which is the first inspirer of song; the first stanza of the poet Vâlmîkis had its origin in the sorrow he felt upon seeing a bird bereft of its companion. Orpheus (the Thracian sun) sings and plays for grief, when the serpent (the shade of night) has bitten and thrown into the gloomy regions his sweet bride Eurydice (the aurora), and moves the demons to pity; the harp of Väinämöinen is also born of sorrow.[341] The epopee of the Finns contains, moreover, several other myths cognate with those of Aryan mythical tradition;—such as the resuscitated hero; the winning of the maiden by display of heroism; the bride heroically won and afterwards cut in pieces; the cup of abundance, or the cornucopia (the Sampo); the golden cradle; the marvellous vessel in which the hero crosses the sea; the three sisters, of whom one gives black milk, one white, and one red (night, the alba or moon, and aurora); the invulnerable shirt; the magician who makes children of gold and silver; and others of secondary importance,[342] but all tending to prove that formerly the Turanian and Aryan races, in their neighbouring abodes, were originally much more similar to each other than they now appear, on account of partly diversity of language, and partly their different degrees of civilisation.

I have just named the Finnish Sampo as a cup of abundance or cornucopia; it does, in fact, yield marvellous abundance to whoever possesses it, and wherever it falls. It is made of the feather of a swan, or of a duck (the swan and the duck are, as we shall see, confounded together in tradition, and the duck, like the hen, is a symbol of abundance), of a tuft of wool, of a grain of corn, and of chips from a spindle, all evident symbols of abundance; and it becomes so large that it has to be carried by a hundred-horned ox (reminding us of the horns of the cow which spin). The ox bears abundance upon its horns, it yields abundance from its horns. The cornucopia is, in my mind, unmistakably implied in these mythical data. The same mythical correspondence which we have found to exist between the Finnic epos and the various legendary Aryan traditions is observable between the latter and the Esthonian popular tales. In the collection of Frederic Kreuzwald[343] we find numerous proofs of this correspondence.

In the first story we have, in a hut in the forest, three sisters, of whom the youngest is the most beautiful. The old witch, her step-mother, persecutes her, and always gives her filaments of gold to spin, hiding from time to time the gold she has spun in a secret room. During the summer the old woman goes out of the house, no one knows where, after having apportioned their respective tasks to the three sisters. While the old woman is out, a young prince, having lost himself in the forest, finds his way to the hut, and becomes enamoured of the youngest of the three sisters. The young couple speak to each other of love in the light of the moon and of the stars; while the old king, impatient at the absence of his son, falls into grief, and sends everywhere to look for him. After three days he is found; before going back to the palace, he secretly promises to the youngest sister that he will return. Meanwhile the old woman comes back, finds the work badly done, curses, threatens, and maltreats the girl. Early in the morning, while the old woman and the two elder sisters are slumbering, the maiden slips out, and leaves the house. During her childhood she had learned the language of birds; accordingly, when she meets a crow, she salutes him by the name of "bird of light," and sends him as a messenger to the young prince, to warn him not to come back to see her, on account of the fury of the old woman. The prince then names her another trysting-place, and the young couple meet under a tree, between the second and third crowing of the cock; and when the sun rises, they flee away together. The old witch causes them to be followed by a ball made of nine evil herbs, and carried by malignant winds. The fugitives are overtaken on the banks of a river, where the ball strikes the prince's horse; it rears up on its hind legs, and the girl falls off into the river, into the hands of a marine monster; upon which the prince is struck by a disease which no one can cure. By eating the flesh of a hog, the prince acquires a knowledge of the language of birds; he sends the swallows as messengers to the magician of Finland, that he may teach him the way to free a girl who has been transformed into a pond-rose (lotus-flower). The answer, instead of being brought by the swallows, is brought by an eagle. The prince must become a shrimp, in order to enter the water without being drowned; he must detach the lotus by its root, draw it along the surface of the water to the bank, near a stone, and pronounce these words, "From the pond-rose, a maiden—from the shrimp, a man." The crow confirms the eagle's words. The prince hears a song issue from the rose; he then determines to deliver the girl. The two young people emerge together from the water. The maiden is ashamed of being naked, and the prince goes to procure nuptial robes for her; after which he conducts her to the palace in a beautiful chariot, where a joyous and gorgeous wedding-festival is celebrated. Soon afterwards the old witch dies, to appear again in the form of a cat, which is taken by the tail and flung into the fire. In the witch's house are found mountains of spun gold, which serve for the dowry of the three sisters. We have already said that the three sisters correspond to the three brothers, and the youngest sister to the youngest brother. The epithet of young is often given to the Vedic aurora, whom the sun marries. Here the prince marries the youngest of the three sisters; the morning aurora is united to the sun. Towards night she falls into the water; it is the witch (night) who throws her in; the hog which the prince (the sun) eats we shall see to be a figurative representation of the nocturnal monster, or the moon. Eating the hog, staying in the forest of night, the prince learns the language of birds. The prince frees the maiden from the waters; the sun delivers the aurora from the gloomy ocean of night, and robes her in his splendour, causing the witch of night to be burned in the flames of the aurora, and taking from the witch's abode the spun gold or golden fleece.

In the third Esthonian story, a woman, called mother-of-gold, bears, by the favour of a dwarf, three dwarf-sons at the same time, who become three heroes. The first is the seer (the wise brother), the second has a ready arm (the strong brother), the third runs swiftly in the race (a quality distinctive of the third brother, Arǵunas, in the Mahâbhâratam, and which is applicable to the victorious sun of morning, who wins the race, together with the aurora).

A variation of the story relating to the youngest sister and the dwarf is that of the girl seven years old, the wise girl (the aurora), in the fourth Esthonian tale, who, being persecuted by her step-mother, retires into the forest (the night). While there, it seems to her that she is in heaven, where, in a house of crystal and pearls, she is received by a well-dressed woman of gold (the fair-haired moon). The girl asks the golden woman to be allowed to take care of the cattle, like the cowmaid aurora. In the history of Ardshi Bordshi we have seen the wise puppet. This form of the wise girl, the dressed girl of wood, occurs again in the Esthonian story; in which she is made of wood from the forest, of three anchovies, of bread, of a black serpent, and of the blood of the girl herself, to whom the image has a great likeness, and which may be beaten by the old step-mother without being hurt. From the forest-tree, wood, or wooden box of the night, with the juice of the black serpent of night and the blood of the girl aurora of evening, comes forth the maiden aurora of morning, the wise, the speaking puppet, the puppet who guesses the riddles. The girl who comes out of wood is represented as a wooden puppet; more frequently the puppet is the moon, the wise fairy who comes out of the forest. In the same story we have the magic rod which produces a cock upon the mountain, beside which a tablecloth spreads itself out, while the chairs range themselves in their places, and the dishes are filled of their own accord. The story ends with the usual marriage between the beautiful maiden, and a king's son returning from the chase (or the son who comes out of the forest of night, viewed as infested by ferocious animals).

In the sixth Esthonian tale, the poor girl finds a woman in a white robe (the moon), adorned with gold, upon a rock near a fountain, who announces her approaching marriage with a youth as poor as herself; but the good fairy godmother—for in the legends the godmother is represented as good, as the stepmother is wicked—promises to make them both rich and happy. She calls herself the lady of the waters, secret wife of the wind, and she judges the criminals who present themselves at her tribunal (Proserpina or Persephonê).

In the seventh tale, a boy nine years of age, the third son of two poor people, goes out to be a cowherd; his master treats him well, but his mistress gives him more floggings than bread. One day the young cowherd is unfortunate enough to lose a cow; he searches for it all through the forest, but in vain. He re-enters the house with the cattle, after the sun has set some time. The observant eye of his mistress perceives at once that there is a cow missing; she beats the boy without pity, and sends him out to look for it, threatening to kill him if he returns without it. He wanders through the forest; but when the sun arises from out the bosom of the dawn, he resolves to stay out of the house, and not to return to his persecutor (the young morning sun flees from the old and perverse night). In the evening, the boy finds an old dwarf, who is his host during the night (the moon), and who says to him, "When the sun rises to-morrow, carefully observe the spot in which he rises. Thou must go in that direction, so that every morning thou may'st have the sun before thee, and every evening the sun behind thee. Thus thy strength will increase more and more every day." How can one indicate better the apparent course of the solar hero, or of the sun in the night? The hero, in order to go towards the morning sun, must necessarily have the sun of evening behind him. The old dwarf also gives him a sack and a little barrel, in which he will always find the food and drink he requires; but he recommends him never to eat or drink more than is necessary, that he may have to give to a hungry bird or a thirsty wild beast. He also leaves him a rolled-up leaf of burdock, upon which, by rolling it out, he will always be able to cross water (a new form of the cup). We know how the Hindoos represented their god as floating upon a lotus-leaf in the midst of the waters, and how Padmaǵas (born of the lotus-flower, or the rose of the waters, which shuts during the night) was one of the names of Brâhman; here we have the god or hero shutting himself up in the flower, from which he afterwards comes out. In the chapters on the Serpent and the Frog we shall again see how the god sometimes shuts himself up in a monstrous form in this flower, the rose, on account of a curse from which he is to be freed by a beautiful maiden. We have seen how the Esthonian girl, who was by the curse of the old woman thrown into the water, was transformed into a water-rose or lotus-flower, and delivered by the young prince. The Esthonian boy finds himself before a small lake; he throws the leaf in, and it becomes a magical boat, which carries him over. Meanwhile he has become strong. Upon the mountain he sees a serpent, a tortoise, and an eagle, all three of enormous dimensions, approaching to attack him, with a man upon a black horse, which has wings on its feet, in the rear of them. He kills the serpent and the tortoise, but the eagle flies away. The man with the black horse takes the boy into his house, and appoints him to look after the dogs, that they may not get loose from their chains, a danger against which the man provides by making twelve colossal oxen fetch rocks upon rocks, to repair the damage done by the dogs. The rocks, touched by a magical rod, arrange themselves upon the car drawn by the oxen. At last, by the advice of the eagle, he steals his master's horse, and departs to sojourn among mankind, taking a wife with him.

In the eighth Esthonian story too, the third brother is the cunning one. His two elder brothers, after the death of their father, despoil him of his share of the inheritance, and he is reduced to wander alone and impoverished about the world in quest of good fortune. He falls in with a woman who complains to him that her husband regularly beats her when she is unable to procure for him the things he wants, which he asks for in the form of a riddle. The third brother solves the enigma for the woman (the moon), who, in gratitude, gives him provisions for his travels. He then comes to a palace, where the king is engaged in celebrating a summer festival, and he undertakes to provide and prepare the feast. A magician presents himself at the festival in the shape of an old man, and asks to taste the food. The young man suspects him, but, seeing a ring upon his finger, he consents to allow him if he gives him a pledge. The magician vows that he has nothing to give. The youth asks for his ring, and the old man in his gluttony at once gives it up; upon which the youth, who, along with the ring, has taken all the magician's strength away, first binds and derides him, and then has him beaten by seven strong men. The old man breaks the ropes and disappears; however, the young man, having the ring in his hands, possesses the means of tracking his footsteps and making him his. (This is the usual disc, lasso, or bridle which is now in the hands of the hero, now in those of the monster.) The youth follows the magician underground. The latter, it appears, is served by three maidens, who, when they perceive that the sorcerer has lost his ring, and that they have a young man for companion, enjoy themselves with him while the magician is asleep. The youth learns from them that the old wizard also possesses a sword which can destroy armies, and a magical rod which can create a bridge to span the sea; these, therefore, he steals, and departs, returning by a wonderful bridge thrown over the sea to the palace whence he had started. It seems to him as if his journey had lasted only two nights, instead of which a year has passed.[344] He finds on his arrival his two brothers in the king's service, one as coachman and the other as a valet, both enriched because they have received the pay due to their younger brother for having prepared the great feast. The young man now engages himself in another capacity, in a species of service especially dear to the young hero, next to those of stable-boy and cowherd; that is to say, he becomes under-cook of the king. (In the Vîrâṭa-Parvam of the Mahâbhâratam, it is the second of the brothers who disguises himself as a cook, in order to prepare good sauces and substantial food for the king whose guest he is; the elder brother is disguised as a Brâhmanas, a wise adviser; the third brother, Arǵunas, the agile, the swift one, pretends to be a eunuch, is given in exchange for a woman, and teaches dancing, music, and singing in the gynecium. Of the two sons of the Açvinâu, one becomes a groom, the other a cowherd.) His brothers continue to dislike him, and because he boasts to them that he had seen in hell golden birds, they induce the king to send him to hell in order to procure them. He accomplishes this undertaking with great difficulty, and brings the birds in a sack made of spiders' webs, which is so strong that the birds enclosed in it cannot extricate themselves. In the same sack, during another expedition, the young man brings from hell many precious objects of gold and silver. In compensation, he only asks of the king to send the princess, his daughter, to listen for one evening to the conversation of his two brothers the coachman and the valet. Both boast of having enjoyed to satiety the favours of the princess. The latter, indignant and full of shame, runs to tell the king everything, upon which he arraigns them before him and has them judged. The third brother is named Counsellor; with his enchanted sword he destroys an entire army of enemies, and obtains in reward for his services and his valour the king's daughter to wife.

The ninth Esthonian story presents to us the son of the thunder, who sells his soul to the devil, on condition that the latter serves him for seven years. The time agreed upon is nearly come to an end, and the son of the thunder wishes to escape from him, and profits by an opportunity which has chanced. The devil sees a black cloud, which is a sign of an approaching tempest; he is afraid, hides himself under a stone, and asks the son of the thunder to keep him company. The latter consents; but seeing that the devil is afraid, at each thunderclap he presses his ears and eyes in such a manner as to make him perspire and shiver all over. The devil, believing this to be the effect of the thunder, promises the son of the thunder that he will not only leave him his soul, but give him three other souls, if he will deliver him from the evils which he suffers on account of the thunder, by taking from the thundering god, the father of the clouds, his weapon (which is also a musical instrument). This weapon, having been ravished from the god, is taken by the devil into hell, into a chamber of iron, shut up within seven castles. A great drought coming upon the earth, the son of the thunder repents of having rendered such a service to the devil; he finds means, however, of informing the thunder-god where his weapon is concealed. The thunder-god then becomes a child, and engages himself in the service of a fisherman, near a lake which the devil is accustomed to visit to steal the fishes. He surprises him in the act of robbery, and by the help of a magician takes him prisoner, and has him beaten without pity, until he promises to pay a heavy ransom in money to be let free, the fisherman and his child to accompany him to hell itself to receive the sum of money. Arrived in hell, the devil entertains them like a gentleman. The child tells the fisherman to ask the devil to show them the musical instrument which he keeps enclosed in the iron room. The devil kindly consents, but cannot draw from the instrument anything more musical than the mewing of a cat or the grunting of a pig. The fisherman then laughs at the devil, and says that his boy can play better. The devil does not believe it, and laughingly gives the instrument, which he calls bagpipes, to the boy. The latter blows into them and makes such a noise that all hell resounds with it, and the devils fall to the earth as if dead. The child then becomes the god of thunder again, and returns to heaven, where by the noise of his instrument he opens the celestial reservoirs and lets out the beneficent rain. The description of the tempest which occurs in many Vedic hymns is the germ of this interesting myth. The drum or kettledrum thunder is a familiar image in Hindoo poetry, and the Gandharvâs, the musician-warriors of the Hindoo Olympus, have no other instrument than the thunder. The conch of the warrior Pâṇḍavâs in the Mahâbhâratam, and the famous horn of Orlando (which comes from the golden horn of Odin), are epical reminiscences of thunder. Orpheus, who in hell plays on his lyre and tames the animals, is a more lucid and more perfect form of this Esthonian thunder-god who plays the bagpipes in hell. It is also remarkable how, in harmony with the pastoral bagpipes, in the tenth Esthonian story, which is a variation of the preceding one, the god transformed into a powerful boy is called a little shepherd or cowherd—another interesting fact, which completes his identification with Orpheus.[345] The magic flute is a variation of the same celestial musical instrument. The magic flute, the bagpipes or wonderful pipe, occurs again in the twenty-third Esthonian story, in which the good Tiidu, by means of it and of his virtue, obtains riches. The magical harp of Gunnar in the Edda has the same marvellous effects.

Evidently the monster-dwarf is a favourite subject of Esthonian tradition, and it often occurs in the Hindoo and in the German traditions, as well as in the Franco-Latin tradition of Charlemagne. The eleventh story introduces us to three dwarf-brothers who contend for the inheritance left by their father, consisting of a miraculous hat, which enables its wearer to see everything, whilst he can himself be visible or invisible at pleasure (this hat is made of pieces of men's nails cut up);[346] of a pair of slippers which transport the owner in an instant wherever he wishes (we must not forget that Cinderella, when she loses the slipper, is overtaken by the prince bridegroom); and of a stick which strikes of itself, and destroys everything, even stronger than the thunderbolt (the thunderbolt itself). The three brothers maintain that these three articles, to be really useful, must be the property of one; but who is to enjoy this privilege? A man comes up to put an end to the dispute, and feigns disbelief in the virtue of these three things, unless he proves it himself. The three simpletons give them to him that he may prove them. The man takes them off, and the three dwarfs are left to meditate upon the truth of the above-quoted proverb, "Between two disputers the third profits," or at least that variation of it which their own case suggests "Between three that dispute, the fourth profits."

In the thirteenth Esthonian story, the privileged character of the third brother is explained, as we are told that he is the son of a king, but was exchanged by a witch during his infancy for the child of a peasant. The latter died in the palace, whilst the king's son grew in the hut, showing in every action his royal pedigree. Here we have the story of the hero who is exposed on the mountains intimately connected with that of the third brother. To this third brother, who alone shows himself to be devoted to his father, and who alone makes a vow to watch by his grave, is also attributed the merit of having delivered, upon a high mountain of crystal, from a seven years' sleep, a princess, who then becomes his wife. We have seen the aurora-awakener in the Vedic hymns—the sun and the aurora arouse each other: the sun sends forth the aurora; the aurora draws out the sun. The myth reproduces itself every day, and expresses in its entirety a daily phenomenon of light in the heavens. In Northern countries, where the contrast is great between winter and spring, and therefore the impression is striking which is caused by the cessation of vegetation in autumn, the earth also assumed the aspect of a dead young princess; but an omniscient magician having said, Non est mortua puella, sed dormit, the third brother, predestined to the enterprise, lays down his poor robes, and dresses himself, on the first occasion, in the colour of bronze; on the second, the colour of silver; on the third, the colour of gold, and ascends the mountain of crystal, or ice, whence he brings forth the beautiful spring. The sky, grey in autumn, snowy in winter, and golden in spring, corresponds to the grey sky of evening, the silver one of night, and the golden one of morning. Spring is the dawn of the year; the primitive myth is but amplified; the last hour of the day awakens the aurora; the last month of the solar year awakens the spring. The application of the myth of the day to the year is one of the greatest simplicity.

In the fourteenth story, the king of the golden country loses himself in the forest full of ferocious animals, and cannot find his way out. A stranger (no doubt the devil) conducts him out, on condition that he will give him whatever first comes to meet him. The king promises. The first thing he sees on his return is his royal child, who, carried by his nurse, stretches out his arms to his father. The king exchanges him for a peasant's girl, whom he gives up to the stranger, allowing his own son to be brought up among the peasant's herds. The king's son, having grown to manhood, determines to go and deliver the poor girl. He disguises himself as a poor man, puts a sack of peas on his shoulders, and goes into the forest where his father was lost eighteen years before. He also loses himself, and meets the stranger, who promises to direct him if he will give him the peas which are in the sack, as they will serve, he alleges, to recompense the assistants at the funeral of his aunt, who died in poverty during the night.—This pulse in funeral ceremonies refers to a very ancient custom. The Vedic ceremonials already mention them in connection with funerals; and in the Greek belief, the dead carried vegetables with them to hell, either for the right of passage or as provisions for travelling. In Piedmont, it is still the custom on the second of November (All Soul's Day) to make a great distribution of kidney-beans to the poor, who pray for the souls of the dead. Vegetables, peas, vetches, and kidney-beans are symbols of abundance, and to this belief may be traced the numerous Indo-European stories in which mention is made of beans which multiply themselves in the pipkin, or of peas which grow up to the sky, and up the stalk of which the hero climbs to heaven. The vegetables necessary for being introduced into the kingdom of the dead, and the pea by means of which the hero enters heaven, are variations of the same mythical subject. In Hindoo tradition, besides the pea or kidney-bean, we have the pumpkin as a symbol of abundance, which is multiplied infinitely, or which mounts up to heaven. The wife of the hero Sagaras gives birth to a pumpkin, from which afterwards come forth sixty thousand sons. The kidney-bean, the pea, the vetch, the common bean, and the pumpkin are also symbols of generation, not only on account of the facility with which they multiply, but also on account of their form. We have seen in the Vedic ceremonials what organs are represented by the two kidney-beans; we shall also see, in the chapter on the Ass, how the names given to the organs of generation are also used to designate fools. Now, it is worthy of notice that the Sanskrit word mâshas (or kidney-bean) also signified the foolish, the stolid one, in the same way as in Piedmont a bonus vir is called a kidney-bean. Thus, too, the pumpkin, which expresses fecundity, also means, in Italian, idiocy or stupidity. As to beans, I have already remarked, in my work upon "Nuptial Usages," upon their symbolical meaning, and cited the Russian and Piedmontese custom of putting a black and a white bean into the cake eaten at Epiphany, one of which represents the male and the other the female, one the king and the other the queen. The two who find the beans kiss each other with joyful auguries. As all these vegetables personify the moon, which we know to be considered as a giver of abundance, and which, by its form of a turning ball, can well be represented by the turning pea, in this personification we must search for the solution of the principal myths relating to vegetables.—The young prince of the Esthonian story, having obtained the stranger's favour in the gloomy forest by means of the peas, engages himself in his service, with intent to deliver the girl who had freed him by taking his place with the stranger during eighteen years. He therefore follows him; but on the way he lets a pea fall to the ground from time to time, in order to know the way back. He is conducted by a strange and wild subterranean passage, where silence as of the tomb reigns—it is, in fact, the kingdom of the dead—where birds have the appearance of wishing to sing, dogs to bark, and oxen to low, but cannot, and where the water flows without a murmur. The young prince feels in his heart a kind of anguish; the universal stillness in the midst of animated beings oppresses him. Having passed the region of silence, they come to that of deafening noise. The young prince thinks he hears the excruciating din of twenty-four saws at work; but the old stranger tells him that it is only his grandmother who has fallen asleep, and is snoring. At last they come to the stranger's dwelling, where the prince finds the beautiful maiden, but the old stranger will not let him speak. He sees in the stable a white horse and a black cow, with a white or luminous-headed calf. This cow the young prince is ordered to milk until there is not a drop of milk in its breast; instead of milking it with his fingers, he, by the advice of the girl, uses for that purpose red-hot pincers. Another time the youth is told to lead away the enchanted calf with the white or luminous head. In order that it may not escape, the girl gives him a magic thread, of which one end is to be tied to the left leg of the calf, and the other to the little toe of the prince's left foot.—The little finger, although the smallest, is the most privileged of the five. It is the one that knows everything; and in Piedmont, when the mothers wish to make their children believe that they are in communication with a mysterious spy, who sees everything that they do, they are accustomed to awe them by the words, "My little finger tells me everything."—At last the two young people resolve to flee. Before starting, the prince splits open the forehead of the white-headed calf; from its skull comes forth an enchanted little red ball, which shines like a small sun. He wraps it up, leaving part of it uncovered to light the way, and flees away with the girl. Being followed by malignant spirits, who are sent by the old man to follow them, the two fugitives, by means of the enchanted little ball (or pearl), turned round three times, become, first the one a pond and the other a fish, then the one a rose-bush and the other a rose, then again the one a breeze and the other a gnat, until the stone which covers the entrance to the subterranean world having been lifted up, they arrive again safe and happy upon the earth; and by means of the little red ball, they show themselves to mankind in splendid and princely robes. I scarcely think it necessary to explain to the reader the sense of this lucid mythical story. The black cow which produces the calf with the white or luminous head is a Vedic antithesis which we have already seen;[347] the cow (night) produces the calf (the moon). The prince takes the little red ball out of the calf; by means of this ball, the girl is delivered from the regions of gloom. The little ball moves the stone; the sun and the aurora come out together from the mountain, after having travelled together in the kingdom of shadows; the sun delivers the aurora. This story unites together and puts in order several myths of an analogous character, but born separately.

The three next stories describe other voyages made by the solar hero to heaven, or in hell, and end by meaning the same thing. In the eighteenth story we again find the enchanted ring, called Solomon's ring, which the young hero goes to search for; when he finds it, by taking it from the daughter of hell, and puts it on his finger, he is of a sudden endowed with such strength that he can split a rock with one blow of his fist. The little red ball of the story just described, which lifts up the rock, and this ring which splits the stone, represent the same mythical object, i.e., the sun, the sun's ball or disc.

The twenty-first story shows us the fearless hero who frees a castle from the presence of the demons, and who thus gains a treasure; riches are the reward of valour. The twentieth Esthonian story is a variation of the exceedingly popular tale of Blue Beard, the killer of his wives. The Esthonian monster-husband has already killed eleven, and is about to murder the twelfth, by way of punishing her for having, against his express prohibition, visited the secret room opened by the golden key (perhaps the moon), when a youth who takes care of the goslings, the friend of her childhood, comes to deliver her. From the subject itself, and the expressions used in this story, we can discover the origin of the terrible charivari in the nuptials of widowers or widows. This savage custom is intended not only to deride the lust of the old man or woman who marries again, but to warn the girl who marries the one, or the youth who marries the other, of the possibility of a fate similar to the first wife or husband. When, therefore, the wife apatighnî (who does not kill her husband) is praised to the Vedic husband, we must understand that the patighnî (or killer of her husband) is a widow, whom no one must marry, as being suspected of murder. Hence, to free herself from this suspicion, an honest Hindoo wife (like Gudrun in the Edda) was to throw herself into the fire after the death of her husband; the evening aurora, after the death of the sun, dies too.

In the twenty-second story we have once more the myth of the young pastoral hero; he is the son of a king. By the order of his step-mother, a witch, who carries off shepherds, steals him from the palace during his infancy, and abandons him in a solitary place, where he is brought up by cowherds, and becomes himself an excellent cowherd. An old man finds him and says, looking at him and at the cattle, "Thou dost not seem to me born to remain a cowherd." The boy answers that he knows he was born to command, and adds, "Here I learn the duties of a commander by anticipation. If things go well with the quadrupeds, I shall also prosper with bipeds." The shepherd is therefore a little king; a good shepherd will become a good king. The boy goes through several adventures, in which he displays his valour. A wicked German lady wishes to take from him the strawberries which he has plucked. He defends himself bravely; his mistress persecutes him; and he takes twelve wolves, shuts them up in a cavern, and each day gives them a lamb to eat, in order to avenge himself upon his wicked mistress, to whom he simply says that the wolves have devoured them. At last he causes her to be devoured herself by the wolves, who eat her all up, leaving only the heart (the sun) and the tongue, which are too full of venom for the wolves of the night, because they burn their mouths. At the age of eighteen, the youth has several other adventures. He becomes enamoured of a gardener's daughter, and is found again by the king his father, who, before allowing him to marry the beautiful gardener's daughter, wishes to prove that they are predestined to each other. He cuts a ring in two with his sword, and gives one part to the young prince and the other to the maiden; the two halves must be preserved by both, and one day they will meet of themselves and form again the whole ring, in such a manner that it will be impossible to find the place where it was broken.—In a Tuscan story, the beautiful maiden gives half her necklace to the third brother. The young couple lose each other; their meeting again and mutual recognition take place when the two parts of the necklace join each other. The use of the wedding-ring has a mythical origin. The solar (and sometimes the lunar disc) is the ring which unites the heavenly husband and wife.—When, after other adventures, the two young people of the Esthonian story join together the two halves of their ring, their misfortunes come to an end; they marry and live together happily, whilst the cruel step-mother, who meanwhile has become a widow, is expelled from the kingdom.

The last Esthonian story tells of the extraordinary births, in the same day, of a handsome prince and a beautiful princess. The princess is born in a bird's egg, laid like a pearl in the bosom of the queen; she has at first the form of a living puppet, and afterwards, when warmed in wool, she becomes a real girl. Whilst she undergoes this transformation, the queen also gives birth to a beautiful boy. The two children are considered as twins, and baptized together. To the baptism of the girl there comes as godmother, in a splendid chariot drawn by six horses, a young woman dressed in rose-coloured and golden robes, who shines like the sun, and who, as she lets her veil drop, like the beautiful Argive Helen, fills the bystanders with admiration. [The aurora, who, before appearing in the form of a beautiful girl, is enclosed in the wood of the forest, is a wooden puppet, and becomes a wooden puppet once more when, fleeing from the sun, she hides herself in a creeping-plant, like the Hindoo Urvaçî (the first of the dawns), or in a laurel-plant, like the Hellenic Daphne (the Vedic Dahanâ-aurora). The aurora is born together with the sun; the beautiful doll-maiden is born with the little prince. The mother and the beneficent godmother seem to be the moon, or a more ancient aurora.] The mother, dying, leaves her daughter, putting it upon her breast, a gem which is to bring her happiness; that is, the little basket which contained the bird's egg, with the eggshell itself. By means of the magical little basket, and by pronouncing some magic words, the maiden can find all that she searches or wishes for. The young man and woman end by marrying each other, having discovered that, although both born of a king, they are children of different fathers; they marry, and the little basket of happiness mysteriously disappears.

SECTION IV.

The Bull and the Cow in Slavonic Tradition.

SUMMARY.

The red cow and the black cow; what they prognosticate.—The red hue of evening.—The bull that drinks.—The bull corrupts the water.—The bull's hoofs.—The cow in the bartering of animals.—The hero ascends into heaven.—The bull sold to the tree; the tree, split open, yields gold.—The fool sells the bull.—Two bulls conduct the poor brother to riches.—The bull carries the fugitive home.—The bull is split in two, and is useful even after death.—Ivan and Helen, followed by the bear, flee upon the bull with their faces turned to the part whence the bear is likely to come.—The dwarf comes out of the bull's bones; the dwarf dies amid the flames.—The beasts of prey help the hero.—John and Mary, sun and aurora of the Christians.—The saviour-bull again.—From the dead bull an apple-tree springs up.—Ivan delivers Mary.—Mary, the step-daughter, and persecuted.—The cow that spins, the good fairy, the Madonna, the moon.—The maiden who combs the hair is the same as the purifier.—The demoniacal cow obliges men to kiss her under her tail.—The witch who sucks the beautiful girl's breast whilst the latter combs her hair.—The hide of the demoniacal cow taken off.—The eye which does not sleep and plays the spy.—From the cow, the apple-tree; from the apple-tree, the branches which wound the wicked sisters, and let the good one pluck their fruit; from the apple, the husband.—The maiden bows to the right foot of the beneficent cow; a tree springs up again from the killed cow.—The red apples which cause horns to grow, and the white ones which give beauty and youth.—Ivan, the sun, persecuted by the witch his sister, is saved by the sister of the sun, the aurora.—The mythical scales; the scales of St Michael.—The cows with golden horns and tails.—The black demoniacal bull strikes the ground with his horns, in order to prevent a wedding from taking place.—The hare and the crow put obstacles in the way of nuptials.—The demon blinded whilst drinking.—The third son of the peasant throws down the bull.—The avaricious merchant.—The epidemic among the animals, and the bull killed because he has stolen some hay from a priest.—The bull in the forest.—The robber of cows and of oxen.—The black bull led away by Ivan, by means of a cock.—The hero comes out of the cow.—The intestines of the calf eaten by the fox.—Out of the calf come birds.—The son of the cow, the strongest brother.—The three brothers reduced to one with the qualities of the three.—The third brother mounts into heaven by means of the cow's hide.—He who ascends does not come down again.—Dreams.—The wife of the old man, carried to heaven in a sack, is let fall to the ground and dies.—The ascent into heaven by means of vegetables.—Turn-little-Pea, the third brother, the killer of monsters; Turn-little-Pea and Ivan identified.—Ivan followed by the serpent-witches.—The female serpent tries to file the iron gate with her tongue, which is caught by the pincers and burned.—The three brothers, the evening one, the midnight one, and the clearly-seeing one; the third is the victorious hero; he delivers three princesses out of three castles of copper, of silver, and of gold, and receives from them three eggs of copper, of silver, and of gold, new forms corresponding to those of the three brothers; the third brother, abandoned by his elders, after various vicissitudes, finds his bride again; explanation of this beautiful myth.—Ivan identified with Svetazór.—The mother of the birds, in gratitude, delivers the hero.—The third brother, the cunning one, despoils his two elder brothers of their precious objects.—Ivan of the dog is equivalent to Svetazór; the story of the goldsmith.—Ivan the great drinker.—Ivan the prince, Ivan the fool; Ivan and Emilius, foolish and lazy, are one and the same person.—The red shoes in the legend.—The sister kills her little brother to take his red shoes; a magical flute discovers the crime.—The slippers attract the bridegroom; corresponding nuptial usages.—The slipper tried on; the toe cut off.—The change of wives.—The ugly one becomes beautiful.—The grateful pike.—The barrel full of water, which walks of its own accord.—The forest which is cut down and walks of itself, the chariot which goes on by itself, the stove that moves and carries Emilius where he wishes, the cask in which the hero and heroine are shut up and thrown into the sea, all forms of the cloud and of the gloom of night; the ugly becomes beautiful; the poor, rich and pleasing.—The wine allowed to run out of the barrel, i.e., the cloud which dissolves itself in rain.—Ivan, thought to be stupid, makes his fortune out of having watched by his father's grave.—Ivan, thought to be stupid, speculates upon his dead mother; his brothers try to do the same by their wives, and are punished.—The law of atavism in tradition.—The foolish mother and the cunning son.—The funereal storks.—The thief cheats the gentleman in several ways, and finally places him to guard his hat.—Ivan without fear; a little fish terrifies him.—Various heroical forms of Ivan in Russian tradition: Alessino, the son of the priest, invokes the rain against the monster-serpent; Baldak spits in the Sultan's face—the star under his heel; Basil and Plavaćek, who demand a gift from the monster; the fortunate fictitious hero; the cunning little Thomas; the third brother, who does not allow himself to be put to sleep; the thief Klimka, who terrifies the other thieves in order to rob them; the Cossack who delivers the maiden from the flames, and receives precious gifts; Ilia Muromietz and his companions; the merchant's son educated by the devil; the boy who understands the language of birds; the virtuous workman, who prefers good advice to a large reward.—The flying ship; the protector of the unfortunate rewarded; eating and drinking.—The girl who solves the riddle of the prince, who comes with the hare and the quail, and obtains her husband.—The dwarf Allwis obtains the bride by answering the questions of his father-in-law.—The wonderful puppet (the moon), that sews for the priest's daughter (the aurora) the shirt destined for the prince.—The girl-heroine, protectress of her brother, helper of the young hero in dangers and trials of heroism.—The cow-herd's daughter, who never says anything displeasing to her husband the king, whatever the latter does.—By contact with the monster, the heroine is perverted, and also becomes a persecutor of the hero, her brother or husband; analogous types of the perfidious woman.—Dangerous trials imposed on the hero.—The sister bound to the tree.—The wife subdued, and the magical belt.—The tooth of a dead man thrust into Ivan's head; the animals deliver him; the fox knows better than the rest how to manage it.—The towel which causes a bridge to spring up across the water; the hero's sister steals the towel, and unites herself to the monster-serpent; she demands from her brother Ivan wild beasts' milk, and the flour or powder of gold which is under a mill guarded by twelve gates.—The monster burned, and the hero's sister condemned to weep and to eat hay.—The exchange of the hero.—The crow brings the water of death and of life.—The stepmother who persecutes Ivan.—Ivan resuscitated by his two sons.—Ivan chaunts his death-song; the liberating animals appear to help him.—Ivan and his preceptor persecuted by his wife Anna.—The blind man, the lame man, and the beautiful girl whose breast is sucked by the witch.—The witch is forced to find the fountain of life and of health; the blind man sees, the lame walks, and the girl recovers her good health.—The maiden blinded; the wife changed; the dew which gives eyesight; the girl finds her husband; a Russian variety of the legend of Berta.

Having drawn so far the general outline of the Turanian boundaries of Slavonian tradition, it is now time to begin to study the tradition of the Slaves itself, as far as it concerns the myth and the legend of the bull and the cow.

The Russian peasants and shepherds are accustomed to remark that the weather will be fine when a red cow places herself at the head of the herd, and that it will rain or be bad weather when, on the contrary, the first of the cows to re-enter the stable at evening is a black one. We already know what the black and the red cow signify in the language of the Vedâs. The aurora of morning and evening, that is, the red cows promise fine weather; the cloud (or black cow) announces wet weather. In Piedmont, when a beautiful evening aurora is observed, it is the custom to say—