Chapter II

THE STORY IN MODERN FOLKLORE--THE KING OF THE FISHES TYPE.

{24}

In our previous chapter we have examined the classical legend of Perseus, and a few of the recently recorded popular traditions of Europe most nearly akin to it, all of which I have ventured to class together as the _Danae type_. Turn we now to another type, not less interesting and even more widely diffused, which may be called _The King of the Fishes type_, from the title of the Breton story I am about to summarise.

A poor and childless fisherman once caught in his net a fish whose scales shone like gold. He was going to put it into his basket, when, to his surprise, the fish addressed him. “I am the King of the Fishes,” it said; “spare me and thou shalt find many.” The fisherman accordingly let it slip back into the water, and was rewarded with a bountiful catch. His wife, however, rebuked him for letting the King of the Fishes go, and insisted on his trying again to catch it; for she desired to eat it. Accordingly, the next day he caught it again; and this time he was not to be moved by its supplications to return it to the water. Finding its prayers vain, the fish directed its captor to give its head to his wife to eat, and to throw its scales into a corner of his garden and cover them with earth, promising {25} that his wife should give birth to three beautiful boys with stars on their foreheads, who should be so perfectly alike that their mother herself should not be able to distinguish between them, and that from its scales should grow three rose-trees corresponding to the three children. The rose-trees were to have this property--that when either of the boys should be in danger of death, his tree should wither. The boys were born in due course, and grew up. A rumour then reached them that in a distant land was a seven-headed monster, to which every month a young maiden was given to devour; and the king of that land had promised his daughter to any one who would deliver the realm from so terrible a scourge. The eldest son set forth on the adventure, and arrived in time to rescue the princess herself from the fate of being eaten by the monster. He then married her as the reward of his valour. But this does not end the tale; for from the windows of the castle where they dwell together, he sees another castle, covered with diamonds and shining like the sun. On inquiring of his wife what it is, she tells him that it is a dangerous place; many persons have entered there, but none have been seen to return; and she prays him for her sake to beware of going thither. This, however, only excites his curiosity; so one day, without saying anything to the princess, he starts as for the chase, accompanied by a large dog. Entering the castle, he meets a wrinkled beldam, who spins as she comes towards him. He allows her to pass a thread of wool through his dog’s collar. The thread is instantly changed into an iron chain; and he himself is compelled to follow her. At that moment his next brother is walking in the garden at home; and, casting his eyes on his brother’s rose-tree, he sees that it {26} is withering. The youth understands at once that his elder brother is in mortal peril, and sets out to help him. He is received by the princess, who mistakes him for her husband; and, happening to catch sight of the castle of diamonds, he asks what it is. The princess replies that she has already told him it is a place whence no one who has once entered it ever comes forth. Immediately he suspects the truth. He makes an excuse to go out, and is joined as he sallies forth by a dog. With this animal he enters the castle, only to meet the doom that has previously befallen his brother. The youngest brother, following for the same reason, and attempting the same adventure, is more fortunate; for he resists the witch’s importunities to allow her to tie up his dog, and compels her to show him his brothers, whom he finds turned into statues of stone. She restores them at his bidding to life; the three then rifle her castle and return to the princess, who is puzzled to decide which of them is her true husband.[26.1]

The plot as developed in this story consists of four incidents, distinguishable as--

1. The Supernatural Birth, 2. The Life-token, 3. The Dragon-slaying, and 4. The Medusa-witch.

Of these the only one we did not find in the classical legend is that of the Life-token. It has already appeared in the German, Swedish, and Russian stories cited in the last chapter. There, however, it assumed an arbitrary form: the brothers stuck their knives into a tree, or threw them into a fountain, or buried a measure of wine apiece. In {27} the present type the Life-token is frequently a consequence of the Supernatural Birth; it is then inseparably connected with the hero whose well-being it indicates; it is not dependent on his will, but is, in fact, part of himself. Born with the heroes, and as inseparable from them as the Life-token, are usually also their horses and dogs, and sometimes their weapons.

In the story of _The Fisherman’s Sons_, collected in Lorraine by M. Cosquin, the fish puts forth no claim to royalty. It is caught thrice ere it is finally taken home to the fisher’s wife. The counsel it gives to her husband is to place some of its bones under his bitch, some under the mare, and some in the garden behind his house, and to fill three phials with its blood. When the three boys that would be born should grow up, the fisher was to give one of these phials to each of them; and if any mischance happened to either, forthwith the blood would boil. Not only does the woman give birth to three sons, but the mare also has three colts, and the bitch three puppies. From the bones in the garden sprang up three lances. The boys, when grown to manhood, set out together, each with his horse, dog, lance, and phial of blood. They separated at a crossway; and the eldest reached a village where every one was in mourning because year by year a maiden was delivered to a seven-headed monster, and the lot had fallen that year on a princess. Aided by his dog, he slays the beast, and wrapping up its seven tongues in the lady’s handkerchief (which she gives him for the purpose) he bids her goodbye, and leaves her to find her way back alone to her father’s castle. She meets on the way three charcoal-burners. Hearing her story, they compel her to show them the corpse of the beast, whose heads they take, and make {28} her swear to tell her father it was they who had killed it. The king, overjoyed, promises his daughter to one of them; but she obtains a delay of a year and a day. At the end of that time her true deliverer reaches Paris just as the marriage festivities are beginning, and sends his dog to get him of the best from the palace. The dog brings him two good dishes. The cooks complain to the king, who orders some of his guard to pursue the hound. The hero kills them all but one, whom he spares to carry back the tidings. Then he sends the dog to steal the best cakes from the king. Other guards, following the dog, share the fate of the first; and the king concludes to go himself. He brings the hero back in his carriage to the feast. Over the dessert the king calls upon every one to tell his own story--the charcoal-burners first. They of course relate that they had delivered the princess; and in proof they produce the monster’s seven heads. The hero asks the king to see if the seven tongues are in the heads; but the tongues are not to be found. The hero then brings them forth in the handkerchief, which the princess at once recognises, and declares that it was he, and not the charcoal-burners, who had rescued her. The three impostors are hanged without more ado, and the fisherman’s son weds the princess. After supper, when he is in the chamber with his bride, he looks out of window and beholds a castle all on fire; and she tells him, in reply to his question, that she sees it every night without being able to explain it. As soon as she is asleep, he gets up and goes out with his horse and dog to see what it is. The castle stands in the middle of a fair meadow; and there he meets a wicked old fairy who asks him to jump down from his horse and help her with a bundle of grass, that she wishes to lift upon her back. {29} He politely complies; but no sooner has he touched the ground than she strikes him with a wand and changes into a tuft of grass himself, his horse and his dog. His brothers find the blood in their phials boiling; and the second starts to discover what has become of the eldest. His reception by the princess as her husband, his inquiry as to the castle on fire, and his fate correspond with those of the second brother in the Breton tale. But the youngest, by refusing to come down from his horse and seizing the fairy by her hair, compels her, under threat of death, to restore his brothers to life, which she does by striking the tufts of grass with her wand. When she has finished, the youngest hero cuts her in pieces. On their return, the princess cannot tell which of the three brothers is her husband. The eldest claims her; and the two others are provided with her two sisters, of whom we thus hear for the first time.[29.1]

In this tale we have the additional detail of the charcoal-burners who pretend to the princess’ hand on the ground that they have slain the monster. This has already appeared in some of the stories recounted in the first chapter, and is the counterpart in modern folktales of Phineus, the betrothed bridegroom who lifted no finger to avert Andromeda’s fate, but came to claim her when the fight was safely over. It is not usual, however, and assuredly it is unnecessary, for the impostor to be multiplied by three. In a Tirolese tale we find a cobbler making the same preposterous claim. Here is no mention of the seven heads, the brothers are two only, and their two dogs, horses and lances, as well as themselves, are derived from the King of the Fishes. Setting out together they meet an old woman, who bestows on each of them a bottle of {30} clear water, which will become foul when the other meets with misfortune. The day following his marriage the elder hero sees from the balcony a glittering castle, where dwells a witch. He goes thither secretly; and the witch meets him, carrying her brazier, and requests him to blow, for she is cold. He blows and is turned into stone. The younger brother, on being mistaken for his elder, lays his sword in the bed, as in the Hessian story; but the elder brother’s jealousy is omitted.[30.1]

A Gascon variant was told to M. Bladé by an illiterate peasant-girl. Here the speaking fish directs its head to be given to the bitch, its tail to the mare; and the fisherman’s wife is to eat the rest. Two puppies, two colts and two boys are the result. The twins set out together, with their horses and dogs. They part at a cross-road where a great stone cross is erected; and the life-token given by the elder to his brother is to strike the cross on his return with his sword: if blood flow out, it is a sign of misfortune. No impostor appears to claim the rescued maiden; but the hero cuts out the seven tongues and wraps them in his own handkerchief. After his marriage he walks with his wife--who is no princess, only the fairest girl of the town--in the fields, and sees a little house, which he thinks he should like to buy as a hunting-box. She bids him beware, for it has a bad reputation. This whets his curiosity, and he goes to make inquiries. Having knocked at the door, he is answered from within and told that he cannot break the door in, as he threatens to do, but the way to enter is to pull out a hair from his head and pass it through the hole for the cat. The earth swallows him as soon as he complies. The younger {31} brother is wiser. He passes a horse-hair through the hole, and his horse is swallowed up. Then the door opens; and he enters with his dog, slays the wicked persons within, makes his way to the cellar, and delivers thence his brother and his brother’s horse. So much alike are the brothers that the lady, who has already mistaken the younger for her husband, cannot decide between the two when they both present themselves together, until the elder brother pulls out of his pocket the beast’s seven tongues, which he seems meanwhile to have carried about in his handkerchief as an agreeable souvenir.[31.1]

The foregoing story doubtless once contained the episode of the impostor. So many are the variants wherein the episode is found, and usually associated with the seven tongues, that it is hardly likely the Gascon tale could have originally preserved the tongues merely for the purpose for which they are now kept. Occasionally indeed the impostor is detected without their aid. In the Swedish tale of _The Wonderful Pike_, told in East Gothland, the impostor is the princess’ coachman; and she recognises her true deliverer by the ring she has fastened in his locks.[31.2] A curious Norwegian tale goes further. In it the impostor is detected in spite of his thoughtfulness in collecting the tongues. A poor woman, already rich in children, bears a son who, immediately after his birth, insists on going out to seek his fortune. He has hardly left the house when another son is born, who, quite as hastily, starts in search of his brother and overtakes him. They choose names--the younger, Lillekort (Littleshort), the elder, King Lavring--and then part, King Lavring telling his brother if ever he fall into {32} extreme peril (but only then) to call him by name, and he will come and help him. This is the equivalent of the Life-token. Lillekort meets a one-eyed, humpbacked old woman; he steals her eye, and only restores it in exchange for a magical sword. Erelong the adventure is twice repeated; and he gets a magical ship and the secret art of brewing a hundred lasts of malt at once. Thus armed, he takes service as a scullion in the palace; and on successive Thursday evenings he fights a five-, a ten-, and a fifteen-headed troll, to whom the princess has been promised, and slays them all. Lillekort and the trolls defy one another in a style leaving nothing to be desired. “Fire!” screamed the fifteen-headed troll. “Fire likewise!” shouted Lillekort. “Canst thou fight?” cried the troll. “If I cannot, I can learn,” retorted the undaunted hero. “I’ll learn thee!” cried the troll, and struck out with his iron bar so that the earth flew fifteen ells high in the air. “Fuh!” exclaimed Lillekort, “that was good! But now thou shalt see a stroke from me!” And therewithal he grasped his sword and dealt such a blow at the troll that all fifteen heads danced over the sand. After each combat Lillekort laid his head on the princess’ lap and slept, and she drew over him on the first occasion a gold, on the second a silver, and on the third a brazen dress. Meanwhile the Knight Röd (or The Red, a title for the impostor which reappears in the Danish variant), who had previously undertaken her defence, came upon the scene when all was safely over, and compelled her to promise to say it was he who had rescued her. Moreover, in proof of his victory he took the tongues and lungs of the trolls in his handkerchief, but left the monsters’ ships untouched. Lillekort, on the other hand, on awaking proceeded to sack the ships; and by the {33} gold, silver, and other precious articles they contained, he ultimately made good his claim to be the true deliverer against the trophies brought by the Knight Röd. He afterwards goes in search of the king’s other daughter, held captive by a troll beneath the bottom of the sea. By means of his gift of brewing he brews beer of such enormous strength that even the trolls on tasting it fall down dead like so many flies. Both princesses then insist on marrying him. In this awkward dilemma--this extreme peril--he bethinks himself of his brother, King Lavring, whom he summons to his aid; and the ladies are suited with a husband apiece.[33.1]

The encounters with the one-eyed hags here fuse together into one thrice-repeated episode the divine gifts bestowed upon Perseus and the adventure with the Graiæ; but the brewing for the troll bears no resemblance to the slaughter of the Gorgon. In some variants the Medusa-witch is a relative of the monster, bent upon revenging his death. In the Swedish tale already referred to, she is the dragon’s sister. In the Danish tale a cock, by his repeated crowing, keeps the hero and his bride awake for the first three nights. The bridegroom, convinced that it is no common fowl, pursues it through the forest to the sea-shore, where he had fought the sea-monster. There the cock vanishes, and an old woman appears. She beguiles the hero into accompanying her over a magical bridge across the sea to her den, and laying hairs from her head upon his horse, hound, sparrow-hawk and sword, thus rendering them harmless. Then she reveals herself as the sea-monster’s mother, and revenges her loss by striking his conqueror dead with her wand. The younger brother, repeating the {34} adventure, burns the hairs, and forces the witch to restore the hero with the Water of Life. The murder of the younger by the elder brother from jealousy, and his resuscitation with the Water of Life, follow, as in many of the other variants.[34.1]

The Greek story of _The Little Red Mullet-Sorcerer_ contains some curious variations. There the desire to eat the fish does not arise in the bosom of the fisherman’s wife; but it is suggested to her by lady-friends, who amiably envy her husband’s good-fortune, and refuse to believe that he is not a wizard. The fish requests to be divided between the fisherman’s wife, his mare and his bitch, and that its tail be planted in the garden. From the tail two cypresses grow up, which are the life-tokens of the two boys thereafter born to the fisherman. The king’s only daughter was possessed of an evil spirit. She had an awkward habit of ascending a balcony every evening and invoking the stars with insane gestures. Everybody whom she saw looking at this queer spectacle she struck with madness. The elder of the brothers, however, overcame her by stealing unawares upon her and seizing her by the hair of her head. In this way he terrified her into swearing never to do it again. When the king found his daughter in her right mind, he desired to know to whom he was indebted for her recovery; but his benefactor had fled to the inn where he was staying. Wherefore, in order to find him out, the king issued a proclamation commanding all the men in the town to pass beneath the palace windows, at one of which the princess was posted with an apple in her hand, ready to drop it on her deliverer. The latter, however, was burdened with the modesty which {35} often affects the heroes of folktales, and tried to evade the proclamation, but in vain. Even when he was caught and brought before the king, he refused the offer of the princess’ hand: evidently he knew too much about her. He travels on, and delivers another princess from a seven-headed monster who haunts a fountain. The impostor is a charcoal-burner, discovered in the usual manner. While the princess, his wife, is bathing one day, the hero takes the opportunity of walking through some of the rooms of their castle which he has not before examined. At the end of a corridor he opens a door, and finds himself in a vast plain filled with statues of human form. He meets an old woman who hands him a stick, on taking which he is immediately petrified. His brother, warned of the witch’s tricks, and going in search of him, refused the stick and set his dog on her. The dog tore her to pieces, and thus delivered his master and many others from her power. Among her effects the younger brother luckily discovered a bottle of the Water of Immortality, with which he restored to life not only his brother, but so many other persons beside that they formed an entire nation and chose him, out of gratitude, for their king.[35.1]

It would be tedious to relate all the variants of the tale found in Europe; nor do the minuter differences between them concern us at this moment. I am anxious merely to lay before the reader the general outlines of the plot as they are found in the more striking and important examples. For that purpose it will be needful to mention one or two more variants falling under the present type, before proceeding to consider some {36} in which one or more of the essential incidents are wanting.

An Argyllshire story runs as follows:--A sea-maiden appears at the side of a fisherman’s boat one day, and gives him three grains for his wife, three for the dog, three for the mare, and three to be planted behind the house, promising him three sons, three puppies, three colts, and three trees which will be his sons’ life-token. In return, one of the sons is to be hers at three years of age. This period is afterwards extended first to seven, and then to fourteen years. The eldest son, who apparently is the promised one, gets a smith to forge a sword for him, and goes out upon his horse, with his dog by his side, to seek his fortune. The carcase of a sheep lay beside the road, and a great dog, a falcon and an otter were disputing over it. He divided it between these animals to their satisfaction, and each of them promised him in reward assistance in the time of need. Going onward until he reached a king’s house, he took service as a cowherd; and while in this situation he slew two giants, who owned green pastures, and fed the herd upon their meadows. Now there was in the loch a great three-headed she-beast to which some one was thrown every year; and it happened that year that the lot fell on the king’s daughter. Her suitor, “a great general of arms,” undertook to rescue her; but when he saw “this terror of a beast” stirring far off in the midst of the loch, he took fright and slunk away. In this emergency the hero appeared; the damsel put a ring on his finger; he fought the beast and cut one of her heads off. She retired for the night beneath the waters of the loch. The deliverer sent the maiden home with the beast’s head over her shoulder, but refused to accompany her. On the way she met the {37} general, who threatened to kill her unless she would say it was he who had cut off the monster’s head. The next day the beast returned, and a second head was struck off. On the third day the hero struck off the third head and slew the beast. But each day he ungallantly allowed the princess to go home alone; the general met her as on the first day, and got the credit for the achievement. When it came to the point of marriage, however, she refused point-blank to marry any one but him who could take the heads off the withy on which the hero had strung them, without cutting it. Of course the cowherd alone succeeded. He also produced the ring, and two earrings beside, which the lady averred she had given to the man who took the heads off the beast. What became of the general is not stated: the cowherd married the king’s daughter. His adventures were now fairly begun: they were far from being at an end. Another, “a more wonderfully terrible,” beast came out of the loch and tore him away from his bride. By the advice of a smith (smiths are often men of more than ordinary powers and wisdom, in fairy tales) the lady spread all her jewellery out on the strand, on the spot where her husband had been captured. The bait took: in exchange for this finery the beast gave up the man. Encouraged, probably, by success, the beast, shortly after, seized the princess. Again it is the old smith who gives advice. The beast was only to be killed in one way. Her soul was in an egg, in the mouth of a trout, inside a hoodie, which was inside a white-footed hind that dwelt on an island in the midst of the loch. If the egg were broken, the beast would die. The hero invoked the help of the great dog, the falcon and the otter. The great dog caught the hind. A hoodie sprang out of her, and the falcon brought it to earth. A {38} trout leaped out of the hoodie into the water, and the otter brought the trout to land. The egg fell out of the trout’s mouth, and the hero put his foot on it. He made the beast give up his wife, and then broke the egg. After that the hero and his wife were walking one day, and he noticed a little castle beside the loch in a wood. On inquiry, his wife warned him that no one who went thither had ever returned to tell the tale. He goes to see who dwells there; and the crone who meets him draws “the Slachdan druidhach on him, on the back of his head, and at once--there he fell.” His tree accordingly withers; his next brother sets out to find his corpse, and shares his fate. The third brother is beforehand with the hag, and after a terrible tussle slays her with the “Slachdan druidhach.” Then with the same weapon he strikes his brothers’ corpses, and they rise to their feet. The three take the spoil and come back rejoicing.[38.1]

This long and not very coherent story gains a little in unity in a variant by the identification of the second and “more wonderfully terrible beast” with the sea-maiden to whom the hero had been promised ere his birth. Omitting this episode and that of the giants, we have the ordinary plot of the King of the Fishes with little change, beyond the substitution of the sea-maiden for the wizard-fish. The alteration does not affect the substance of the tale, for it matters little whether the food which results in the birth of the twin heroes be the flesh of the King of the Fishes, or some other gift of supernatural power.

The opening of the North German tale of _The Two Similar Brothers_ approaches that of _The Sea-Maiden_, while {39} it also recalls one of the great stories of _The Arabian Nights_. A fisherman, casting his net into a pool, brings up, instead of fish, a little urn covered with a lid. On his opening the urn, a thick red cloud curls up from within; and before he is aware of it a big burly fellow appears in the midst of the cloud and begs to be put back into the vase. “How can I put you back,” asks the fisherman, “when you are so big and the vase so little?” But the apparition prevails on him to try, promising in reward not merely a good catch of fishes, but also a casket which he must divide into six parts, whereof one is to be given to his wife, one to his horse, one to his dog, and the remaining three are to be buried under the eaves of his dwelling; but he is to beware of looking into the casket before he gets home. Thereupon the fisherman lays hands upon the apparition, finds him as collapsible as a modern travelling-bag, and soon succeeds in fastening down this fairy Jack-in-the-box once more. Flinging the vase again into the water, he cast his net, and was rewarded as the apparition had promised. Before a year had passed, the fisherman’s wife had borne twin boys so much alike as to be indistinguishable. Two foals and two puppies were also added to the household; and under the eaves up-sprouted two swords, two pistols and two guns. The twins set out together. They obtained the usual helpful animals--in this case, two young bears, wolves and lions. Parting at a crossway, one of them sticks his knife into a tree; and it is agreed that they will meet there again in a year’s time. Whichever of them comes first is to examine the blade of the knife: if it be rusted, that will be a token that his brother is dead. The dragon in this tale has no fewer than fourteen heads, and is beside reinforced by fourteen giants, to whom he belongs. The {40} hero, of course, kills them all; and the rest of the story follows the ordinary course.[40.1]

In the _Pentameron_ the magical food is a sea-dragon’s heart, which must be cooked by a pure maiden. A king who wants offspring is advised by a beggar to get this powerful medicine. When it is brought to him he gives it to a pretty maid of honour to cook. No sooner has she put it on the fire than it begins to emit a pitch-black smoke so powerful in its effects that not merely the condition of the queen who tastes the heart, but that of the maiden who cooks it, as well as of every article of furniture in the room where it is cooked, becomes interesting. The old four-post bedstead gives birth to a cradle, the chest to a little chest, the settle to a little settle, the table to a little table: nay, the very night-commode brings forth a tiny night-commode so charming and pretty that one could have kissed it! At the end of four days the queen and her maiden bear each a son, who grow up fast friends. The queen’s jealousy, however, causes Canneloro, the maid’s son, to leave his friend. Before departing, in a final interview with Fonzo, the queen’s son, he flings his dagger on the ground, and a spring starts forth, which he declares will run clear so long as his life is clear and serene. Not satisfied with this, he sticks his sword in the earth, and there sprouts a bilberry bush from the soil as a further token. But whereas the magical elements in the opening scenes are thus grotesquely exaggerated, the central portion of the story is tamed down to a commonplace tournament, at which Canneloro wins a king’s daughter. This treatment has for its purpose to throw into relief the episode of the Medusa-witch. As the Enchanted Hind, the witch {41} gives her name to the story. Pursuing this animal, Canneloro is met by a snowstorm, and takes refuge in a cave, where he kindles a fire. The hind he has been following appears at the door of the cave, and asks leave to come in and warm herself. To calm her fears the hero binds his dogs, his horse and his sword. The hind then changes into an ogre, who throws Canneloro into a pit, whence he is of course rescued by Fonzo.[41.1]

That Basile took some liberties with the story might thus be suspected from internal evidence. How slight those liberties really were has been proved by the discovery of an almost exact parallel as a folktale in the Basilicata. Even the hero’s name is preserved as Cannelora. His life-tokens are a jet of water and a myrtle. He is directed at a crossway by two gardeners whose quarrel he has reconciled; and he rescues a fairy under guise of a serpent from some boys who are persecuting it and have already cut off its tail. The Medusa-witch is a golden-horned snake. The storm is a tempest of thunder and lightning, from which he takes refuge in a cavern. The snake becomes a giant and imprisons the hero, exactly as in Basile’s version. Delivered by Emilio, as the queen’s son is here called, together with the giant’s other prisoners, he weds the fairy, who provides wives also for Emilio and the rest.[41.2]

In a Pisan tale of the same collection we are brought back to the talking fish of the typical story. The life-token is a bone tied to a beam in the kitchen: it sweats blood when anything untoward happens to either of the fisherman’s three sons. The dragon is a fairy in the shape of a cloud that carries away a girl every year. The lot having {42} fallen on the king’s daughter, the cloud sucks her blood through her finger, and, when she faints, carries her away. The hero, having previously obtained from three grateful animals, a lion, an eagle and an ant, the power of transforming himself into their shapes, sets out after the cloud, in the form of an eagle. The fairy-cloud could only be slain by hitting her on the forehead with an egg, which was in the body of a seven-headed tigress. The hero accomplishes this, and weds the princess. The Medusa-witch is a supernatural mist. Penetrating this, the hero is invited to play a game with some ladies. He loses, and is, with his horse and dog, turned into marble.[42.1] In a Tuscan variant, imperfectly recollected by the teller, the fish is an eel with two heads and two tails; the boys are twins; the tails, planted in the garden, yield two swords; and the heads, given to the bitch, produce puppies; the life-token is a cornel-tree planted by the hero before leaving home. The hero’s brother, arriving in search of him, finds that he is imprisoned with his horse and dog in an enchanted castle, leaves him to his fate, and, being precisely like the unhappy prisoner in appearance, he takes possession of the princess his wife. This chivalrous conduct, however, is perhaps to be imputed rather to the teller’s defective memory than to the original sin of the younger brother.[42.2]

When the childless fisherman, in a Lettish tale, catches a certain pike, the latter gets its freedom by giving two fishes in its stead, both of which the fisher’s wife is to eat. The two boys thereafter born set out on their adventures together, and part at a cross-road, leaving as their life-token a knife sticking in an oak. The one who goes to the right {43} spares to shoot five animals in succession, and out of gratitude they follow him. With their help he wins a princess from demons who haunt a castle; and by virtue of his victory over them he becomes king. The other brother is, for our purpose, the hero. Going to the left, he obtains similar animals, which conquer the nine-headed devil to whom a princess is to be given. The princess’ coachman is the impostor; and the Medusa-witch is the mother of the nine-headed devil, who lures and petrifies the hero in revenge. He is rescued at last by his brother.[43.1]

A Gipsy tale from Hungary attributes the Supernatural Birth to the mother’s having drunk from the two breasts of an _urme_, or fairy, who also suckled at the same time the dog and mare, and dropped milk into two holes in the earth. Each of the two boys had a golden star on his forehead; and from the earth sprang two oaks, the twins’ life-tokens. The hero’s horse and dog assist him in winning his bride by the performance of three tasks, the third of which is the lady’s deliverance from the enchanted form of a dragon watching three golden apples. Her father then sends him to hunt for the wedding-feast, and he meets the Medusa-witch. His younger brother delivers him, with his animals, from the enchantment by means of the golden apples; and by the same means the witch is destroyed. In the fit of jealousy often found in stories of this type, the hero subsequently kills his deliverer, who is, after explanations, restored to life with a magical plant.[43.2]

In two Russian tales the Medusa-witch incident precedes that of the Rescue of Andromeda. One of these calls for no special mention. But in the other--from Great {44} Russia--the two heroes are the sons of the king’s granddaughter and her maid, born in consequence of their eating fish. The Medusa-witch is the Baba Yaga, who finds the youth sleeping on her meadow, and, giving him a hair, directs him to tie three knots in it and blow, whereupon he is, with his horse, turned to stone. His brother, having rescued him, passes on to the fight with the dragon. The life-token is a knife which runs with sweat.[44.1]

A Sanskrit tale departs more widely from the type than any of the foregoing. In _The Ocean of the Streams of Story_, a work of the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century of our era, Somadeva relates that a childless king sacrificed to the goddess Durgá, and did penance, to obtain a son. The goddess appeared to him in a dream, giving him two heavenly fruits, one for each of his two wives. But one of the wives, not satisfied with the prospect of one son, ate both fruits, and in due time gave birth to twins. The other wife nursed vengeance in her heart; and when the two princes attained manhood, and were sent on a warlike expedition, she forged a despatch in the king’s name to the chiefs in the camp, commanding them to put both princes to death. Their maternal grandfather, however, was with the army in his capacity of royal minister. He found means to escape with them, but died of the hardships of the road; and his two grandsons made their way to the shrine of Durgá in the Vindhya Hills, where they underwent a course of fasting and asceticism to propitiate her. Pleased with their austerities, she appeared in a dream to Indívarasena, the elder brother, and presented him with a magical sword. Armed with this, he forced an entrance into the palace of the king of the {45} Rákshasas, or ogres, and found the mighty monarch sitting on his throne, “having a mouth terrible with tusks, with a lovely woman at his left hand, and a virgin of heavenly beauty on his right hand.” Indívarasena challenged the ogre to fight, but found it useless to cut off his head, for as often as he cut it off it grew again, until he took a hint from the virgin, who made him a sign to cut the head in two after smiting it off. The treacherous virgin turned out to be the Rákshasa’s sister. She had fallen in love at first sight with the valorous youth, and on his victory immediately offered herself in marriage to him. This conduct is not uncommon in Somadeva’s amusing work, and is always eagerly responded to by the lucky (and polygamous) heroes. Indívarasena was no exception. He married her on the spot, and lived happily with her for some time. By virtue of his magical sword he obtained everything he wished for. In this way he got a flying chariot, and sent his brother in it to bear tidings of him to his parents. Meanwhile the other lady, who was the widow of the Rákshasa, attracted Indívarasena’s attention. His wife naturally grew jealous, and in a fit of pique flung his magical sword into the fire. She hardly expected the consequence. The sword was dimmed by the fire, and her husband lay senseless on the ground. Warned by a dream at that instant, his brother returned; and on hearing the miserable woman’s confession he thought he ought not to kill her, on account of her repentance; so he prepared to cut off his own head. However logical and proper this alternative may have been, the goddess interfered. He heard a voice arresting him, declaring that Durgá had struck his brother senseless--not, of course, for flirting, but for not taking enough care of the divine sword--and {46} directing him to propitiate her. When he complied, the sword lost its stain, and his brother regained consciousness. By a revelation as convenient as those of Mohammed, the hero then learned that both ladies had been his wives in a former existence, and therefore it was quite right for him to have both now. So they were all happy ever after--especially Indívarasena.[46.1]

Here we have the Supernatural Birth, the Dragon-slaying, and the Medusa-witch, though the two latter are somewhat disguised. For the Life-token a miraculous dream is substituted. And the whole is overlaid by the practices and beliefs of the revived Hinduism paramount in India after the expulsion of Buddhism.