Chapter XII: Section V (2)

Berta, like the cow of the fairy tales, spins silver and gold. Therefore, when we say in Italy that the time when Berta spun is past,[470] this expression means, that the golden age, the age in which gold abounded is past. And instead of this expression we also use another in Italy to denote an incident which took place in a very ancient era, at a time very remote from the memory of men; we say, in the times of King Pipino (Pepin). Queen Berta having been the wife of Pepin, it was natural that the times of the husband should correspond to the fabled era of his wife, who was, tradition alleges, mother of Charlemagne, the hero so-named of the legends, of whom it is said, in Turpin's Chronicle, that he had long feet, and his _alter ego_ Orlando (a new and splendid mediæval form of the twin heroes), rather than of the King Charlemagne of history.

Berta has a large foot, like the goddess Freya, the German Venus, who has swan's feet. It is this large foot that distinguishes her from other women, and enables her husband to recognise her, in the same way as it is the foot, or footprint (the sun follows the path taken by the aurora), that betrays and discovers the fugitive maiden, who, we have said, is the aurora with the vast chariot (the vast chariot which, if it pass over the hare, may crush it. Frau Stempe, and Frau Trempe, and the large-footed Bertha, are the same person)--vast, because she occupies a large extent of the heavens when she appears. When standing on the chariot, she seems to have no feet, or a very small, an imperceptible foot; but the chariot on which she stands and which represents her foot is so much the larger; therefore when we leave the chariot out of account, and suppose, on the contrary, that she goes on foot, inasmuch as, when walking, she takes up much room, the swan's, or goose's, or duck's foot given to her in the myth of Freya and the legend of Berta is quite suited to her. And seeing, as we have said, that the foot (the myths almost always speak of one foot alone; even the devil is lame, or has only one foot) and the tail of an animal are often substituted for each other in mythology, we can understand how, in a Russian story,[471] the hero who has fallen into a marsh was able to deliver himself by clutching hold of the tail of a duck. This duck being the aurora, and having a wide spreading tail as well as a large foot, the solar hero, or the sun, can easily, by holding on to her, raise himself out of the swamp of night. There is a German story[472] in which the white woman, or the Berta, is transformed into a duck. In another German legend,[473] instead of the swan-footed Berta, we have the Virgin Mary (who, as a maiden, represents the virgin aurora, always pure, even after having given birth to the sun; like the Kuntî of the _Mahâbhâratam_, who gives birth to Karnas, the child of the sun, and yet is still a virgin. On the other hand, when a good old woman, good woman or Madonna, she generally personifies, in the legends, the moon) who, in the shape of a swan, comes to deliver from the prison of the infidels (the Saracens or Turks, here the black demons, or the darkness of night), and carry off by land and by sea, the young hero whom she protects (the aurora delivers the sun from the night).[474] The same luminous Berta also assumes, in popular German tradition, the form of St Lucia, that is, the saint who, after having been made blind, became the protectress of eyesight. Of the blind or black cow of night is born the luminous cow of morning, the aurora that sees everything herself and makes us see everything. For the same reason that the cow or duck, Berta, is consecrated to St Lucia, whose appearance she assumes, the bull (the sun) is sacred to St Luke, the festival of whom is on this account celebrated at Charlton, near London, with a horn-fair or exhibition of horns, generally ornamented and perfumed.

In the above-quoted Hindoo legend of the _Mahâbhâratam_, the queen will not sleep with the old blind man, but sends instead her servant-maid. In the _Reali di Francia_, King Pepin is advised by his barons to take a wife, when he is already "far advanced in years" (he is a form of St Joseph). The barons look for a wife, and find, in Hungary, Berta, the daughter of King Philip, "the most beautiful and skilful horsewoman," or Berta with the large foot upon a beautiful and stately horse, which goes along the road bounding, whilst she is always laughing. Berta has a maid called Elizabeth, who resembles her in every respect except her feet. King Pepin is married by proxy to Berta, sends for her, and comes to meet her. Berta when she sees that King Pepin is so ill-favoured, grieves "although forewarned of his old age." When evening comes she takes off her royal robes and gives them to Elizabeth, that she may take her place and sleep with the king.[475] Hence the Italian proverbs, "Dar la Berta" (to give the Berta), and "Pigliar la Berta" (to take the Berta), meaning to deride and to be derided. But instead of to give the Berta, in Italy we also say, "Dar la madre d'Orlando" (to give the mother of Orlando). The _Reali di Francia_ informs us that King Pepin had, by Elizabeth, two perverse bastards, Lanfroi and Olderigi, and by Berta, Charlemagne and another Berta, mother of Orlando; but the Italian proverb is perhaps nearer the mythical truth when it recognises the mother of Orlando as herself Pepin's wife, so that Charlemagne and Orlando are brothers; and, in fact, they accomplish several of the undertakings mentioned in the legend of the two brothers. In the so-called Chronicle of Turpin[476] when Orlando dies, Charlemagne says that Orlando was his right arm, and he has no longer anything to do in life without him; but he lives long enough to avenge the death of Orlando; and after this vengeance, the heroic life of Charlemagne comes at once to an end. In the _Chanson de Roland_, too, after the death of his hero, whom he avenges, Charlemagne feels the burden of life, weeps, tears his beard, unable to support this solitude; but in the _Chanson_, as well as in the _Reali di Francia_, Orlando explicitly appears as the nephew of Charlemagne, that is, as the son of his sister Berta. (As the Vedic aurora was now the mother, now the sister of the sun and of the Açvinâu, thus Berta may, mythically, be mother or sister of Charlemagne, and yet be always the mother of Orlando).

It would be a never-ending work to collect together all the Germanic, Scandinavian, and Celtic legends which, in one way or another, are connected with the myth of the cow and of the bull. The literature relating to this subject is composed not of one or a hundred, but of thousands of volumes, of which some (such, for instance, as the poem of the _Nibelungen_, and the poems of the _Round Table_) individually contain, in the germ, almost the whole diverse world of fairy tales. I must therefore limit myself to the indication of the more general features, leaving to more diligent investigators the minuter comparisons; and esteeming myself, I repeat, too happy if my brief notices should be found clear enough to spare others the labour of preparing the warp upon which to weave comparisons.

From what we have said thus far, it seems to me that two essential particulars have been made clear:--1st, That the worship of the bull and the cow was wide-spread, even in northern nations; 2d, That the mythical bull and cow were easily transformed into a hero and heroine.

The sacred character ascribed to the cow and the bull is further evidenced by a Scandinavian song, in which, on the occasion of the nuptials of the animals (the crow and the crane), the calf (perhaps the bull) appears as a priest, and reads a beautiful text.[477] As a symbol of generation, the bull is the best adapted to propitiate the married couple; so the priest in the _Atharvavedas_ teaches the inexperienced husband and wife, by formulas _ad hoc_, the mysteries of Venus. Thus the _jus primæ noctis_ was conceded to the Brahman in mediæval India; and so in the ritual of mediæval France, we still find indications of the priest _pronubus_. The beautiful text that the calf, or bull, recites in the Scandinavian song must be the same which, according to the ceremonial recorded by Villemarqué, the priest recited, whilst sprinkling them with incense, to the married couple _sedentes vel jacentes in lectulo suo_.[478] Thus, when the wolf dies (in a German writing of the twelfth century), it is the ox that reads the gospel.[479] Besides marriages and funerals, the bull or ox also appears, finally, as in the Hindoo ceremonial, in pregnancy. Gargamelle, while she has Gargantua in her womb, eats an excessive quantity[480] of tripe of fattened oxen. When she feels the pains of child-birth, her husband comforts her with an agricultural proverb of Poitou, "Laissez faire aux quatre beufz de devant;" and she then gives birth to Gargantua, who comes out of her left ear, in the same way as in the Slavonic stories we find the heroes come out of the ears of the horse (or of the ass of night; the luminous solar hero comes out of the ears of the ass, or of the grey or black horse; the twin horsemen come out of the two ears). Rabelais, to explain this extraordinary birth, asks "Minerve ne naquit-elle pas du cerveau par l'aureille de Iupiter?" No sooner is Gargantua born, than he asks with loud cries for something to drink; to give him milk, 17,913 cows are brought, his mother's breasts not being enough, although each time she is milked she yields "quatorze cens deux pipes neuf potées de laict." This is the giant of popular tradition, whom the gigantic phantasy of Rabelais has coloured in order to make him the butt of an immense satire. It is an amplified and humorous rendering in a literary form of the popular Superlatif,[481] whose mythical character is revealed in the curse hurled against him by the old dwarf-fairy, whom he maltreated: "One sun, to accomplish his work, eats eleven entire moons; but this time every moon will eat the work of a sun." The ascending and descending life of the solar hero is thus indicated. Superlatif will become continually smaller, until it seems as though he were about to disappear altogether; but at that very instant the curse comes to an end, and from a dwarf, he grows into a giant again in the arms of his bride.[482] Thus the days become continually shorter and shorter, till the winter solstice, till Christmas. At Christmas the sun is born again, the days lengthen, the dwarf grows tall; the sun, by a double but analogous conception of ideas, passes once each day and once each year from giant to dwarf, and from dwarf to giant.

And the dwarfs of tradition know and reveal the mythical how and why of their transformations, since, though they are dwarfs and hidden, they see all and learn all. It is from the knowing dwarf Allwis, his diminutive _alter ego_, that the mighty Thor, in the _Edda_, learns the names of the moon, the sun, the clouds, and the winds. The moon, according to Allwis, when it is in the kingdom of hell (in the kingdom of death, in the infernal world, when it is Proserpina), is called a wheel that is hurrying on; it then shines among the dwarfs (_i.e._, in the luminous night, in which the sun hides itself; it becomes an invisible dwarf). The sun among the dwarfs (_i.e._, when it is a dwarf) plays with Dwalin (the mythical stag, probably the horned moon); among the giants (_i.e._, when in the aurora, it becomes a giant again), it is a burning brand; among the gods (the Ases), it is the light of the world. The cloud, the dwarf Allwis goes on to inform us, is the ship of the winds, the strength of the winds, the helmet (or hat, or hood) which makes its wearer invisible. The wind, again, is the wanderer, the noisy one, the weeper, the bellower, the whistler (no one can resist the cries or the whistling of the hero of fairy tales; the bellowing of the bull makes the lion tremble in his cave). In this learned lesson on Germanico-Scandinavian mythology, given us by the dwarf Allwis, we have a further justification of the transition which we here assume to have been made from the natural celestial phenomenon to its personification in an animal, and to the personification of the animal in a man: Allwis, who knew all things, has explained the mystery to us.

FOOTNOTES:

[423] _Les Eddas_, traduites de l'ancien idiome Scandinave par Mdlle. du Puget, 2ème édition, p. 16.

[424] Kuhn und Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche_, p. 501.

[425] _Handbuch der Deutschen Mythologie_, mit Einschluss der nordischen, 2te. aufl. p. 437.--We find also in Eginhardus (_Vita Caroli Magni_): "Quocumque eundum erat, carpento ibat, quod bubus junctis et bubulco rustico more agente, trahebatur."--The bull is a symbol of generation; the man who fears the bull is a stupid and ridiculous eunuch. We find in Du Cange, Lit. Remiss, ann. 1397, "Le suppliant, lui dist, Eudet, vous avéz un toreau qui purte les gens et ne osent aler aux champs pour luy; lequel Eudet luy respondis: as tu nom Jehannot?" Faire Johan dicitur mulier, quæ marito fidem non servat (a variety of the Mongol Sûrya Bagatur).

[426] Recorded by Cox, _Mythology of the Aryan Nations_, vol. i. p. 438, when speaking of the Hellenic myth of Zeus and Eurôpâ.

[427] Cfr. Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks_, p. 181 and following.--In Du Cange, _Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis_, s. v. Acannizare, we read an extract of a paper of Jacob, i. _Regis Arag._ fol. 16: "Quicunque Acannizaverit vaccam vel bovem, si bos vel vacca fecerit damnum casu fortuito, dum Acannizatur, cujus est amittat ipsum bovem vel vaccam, nisi Acannizetur causa nuptiarum;" and in Du Cange also: "Ut in anserem ludendo baculos torquere in usu fuit, ita et in bovem."

[428] _Die Deutsche Heldensage_, von Wilhelm Grimm, 2te Aus., No 102, 182.

[429] Cfr. the chapter on the Goat and He-goat for more information on mythical horns.

[430] _Vide_ p. 497.

[431] Diese Brücke wird keine andere sein, als die himmlische Bîfröst, deren er hütet, eine Vermuthung, die noch an Wahrscheinlichkeit gewinnt, wenn man den friesischen Namen der Milchstrasse Kaupat, der Kuhpfad, hinzunimmt; denn Milchstrasse und Regenbogen berühren einander sehr nahe. Dieser ist die Tagesbrücke zwischen Göttern und Menschen, jene die nächtliche.

[432] Rothe Kühe geben auch weisse Milch; Wander, _Deutsches Sprichwörter Lexicon_, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1870.

[433] Auch eine schwarze Kuh gibt weisse Milch; Wander, _ibid._

[434] This reminds us of the familiar English riddle, "How many cows' tails would it take to reach the moon? One, if it were long enough."

[435] Wenn die Kuh gestohlen ist, verwahrt man den Stall.--Wer eine Kuh verloren und den Schwanz zurück erhält, hat nicht viel, aber mehr als nichts.--Die Kuh könnte mit dem Schwanze bis an den Himmel reichen, wenn er nur lang genug wäre.--Une vache ne sceit que lui vault sa queue jusques elle l'a perdue.--Die Kuh beim Schwanz fassen.--Die schwarze Kuh hat ihn gedrückt.--Eine Kuh kann keinen Hasen erlaufen.--Die Kuh überläuft einen Hasen.--Nicht alle, die Hörner blasen, jagen Hasen.--Wenn die Kühe lachen.--Wie eine blinde Kuh eine Erbse findet.--Den sollt man in einer alten Kuhhaut herumfahren.--Soll die Kuhmagd spinnen, wird man wenig Garn gewinnen.--Man würde eher einer Kuh spinnen lehren; Wander's _Lexicon of German Proverbs_, ii. 1666-1695.

[436] Livius i.: "Quia si, agendo, armentum in speluncam compulisset, ipsa vestigia quærentem dominum eo deductura erant, aversos boves eximium quemque pulchritudine caudis in speluncam traxit."

[437] _Facetiæ_, Krakau, 1592, quoted by Benfey in his introduction to the _Pancatantram_, Leipzig, Brockhaus, p. 323: "Quia testiculi mei quadraginta annos pependerunt casuro similes et nunquam ceciderant."--And in Lessing, xi. 250, we read of Lachmann-Maltzahn: "De vulpe quadam asini testiculos manducandi cupido."--In Aldrovandi, _De Quadrupedibus Bisulcis_, i. Bologna, 1642, we read, "Membrum tauri in aceto maceratum et illitum, splendidam, teste secto, facit faciem; Rasis ait, genitale tauri rubri aridum tritum, et aurei pondere propinatum mulieri, fastidium coitus afferre; e contrario quidam recentiores, ut in viris Venerem excitent, tauri membrum cæteris hujus facultatibus admiscent."

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

[439] v. 8.

[440] Referred to by Köhler in _Orient und Occident_.

[441] iv. 15.

[442] Whence the proverb quoted above, relating to the stable that is shut when the cow is stolen, is also quoted as follows: "Shutting the stable when the horse has been stolen."

[443] Cfr. the chapter on the Wolf, where the dwarf enters the wolf by his mouth and comes out by his tail.

[444] In a Russian story, in _Afanassieff_, vi. 2, when the old peasant (the old sun) falls from the sky into a marsh (the sea of night), a duck (the moon or the aurora) comes to make its nest and lay an egg upon his head; the peasant clutches hold of its tail; the duck struggles and draws the peasant out of the marsh (the sun out of the night), and the peasant with the duck and its egg flies and returns to his house (the sky whence he had fallen).--In a variation of the same story in _Afanassieff_ (the two stories together refer to that of Aristomenes) the old man falls from heaven into the mud. A fox places seven young foxes on his head. A wolf comes to eat the young foxes; the peasant catches hold of his tail; the wolf, by one pull, draws him out; by another, leaves his tail in the peasant's hand. The tail of the wolf of night is the morning aurora.--In the story of _Turn-Little-Pea_, _Afanassieff_, iii. 2, the young hero enters into the horse after having taken off his (black) hide, and after having taken him by the tail, _i.e._, he becomes the luminous horse of the sun.

[445] In the Russian story of lazy and stupid Emilius, who makes his fortune, the hero is shut up in a barrel with the heroine, and thrown into the sea: the sun and the aurora, made prisoners, and shut up together, cross together the sea of night.

[446] Wenn sich eine Kuh auf die Eier legt, so erwarte keine Hühner; Wander, the work quoted before.

[447] In the Russian story of _Afanassieff_, v. 36, the hero-workman kills the monster-serpent by gambling with him for the price of his own skin. Thinking that he may lose, he has provided himself beforehand with seven ox hides and with iron claws. He loses seven times; each time the monster thinks he has him in his power, but the workman as often imposes upon him with an ox's hide, inducing him to believe that it is his own. At last the serpent loses, and the workman, with his iron claws, really takes off his skin, upon which the serpent dies. To take the sack or hide from the monster, to burn the skin of the monster-serpent, goat, hog, frog, &c., to burn the enchanted mantle or hood in which the hero is wrapped up, is the same as to kill the monster.

[448] See the chapter on the Wolf.

[449] For the German one, cfr. Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 199.

[450] _Afanassieff_, ii. 17.

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

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

[453] Köhler, the work quoted above.

[454] To this myth of the cow which goes over the moon, the observation of a lunar eclipse might have contributed materially, in which the cow earth (in Sanskrit, _go_ means earth as well as cow) really passes over the moon or hare. Or else, the cloud and the night, as a black cow, very frequently goes over the hare or moon.

[455] In the Russian superstition, when a hare passes between the wheels of the vehicle which carries a newly-married couple, it bodes misfortune; nor is this without reason: the hare is the moon; the moon is the protectress of marriages; if she throws obstacles in the way, the marriage cannot be happy; consequently, marriages in India were celebrated at full moon.

[456] Die Kuh, die viel brüllt, gibt nicht die meiste Milch.

[457] Phalânâm phalam açnoti tadâ dattvâ; _Mahâbhâratam_, iii. 13, 423.

[458] In the German legend of King Volmar, in Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 451, we find the peas in the ashes. In the seventh of the _Contes Merveilleux_ of Porchat, we have the pot in which the cabbages are boiled, from which come forth money and partridges. In the sixth of the same _Contes Merveilleux_, the young curioso sees a nest upon an elm-tree, and wishes to climb up; the ascent never comes to an end; the tree takes him up near to heaven. On the summit of the elm-tree there is a nest, from which comes forth a beautiful fair-haired maiden (the moon).

[459] i. 53.

[460] In the story, vi. 58, of _Afanassieff_, the honest workman, when he wishes to fix his eyes upon the princess who never laughs, falls into a marsh; the fish, the beetle, and the mouse, in gratitude, clean him again; then the princess laughs for the first time, and marries the honest workman. In the 25th of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano_, an analogous detail is found, but this is not enough to make the princess laugh; it is the eagles which draw after themselves everything they touch that accomplish the miracle of making the queen's daughter laugh. In the third story of the _Pentameron_, the princess laughs upon seeing Pervonto carried by the faggot of wood, instead of carrying it. The Russian stories of the ducks which save the hero, in _Afanassieff_, vi. 17-19, and the faithless wife and her lover bound together, are variations of the eagles of the Tuscan story.

[461] _Rigvedas_, v. 46, 8; v. 43, 6; i. 61, 8.

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

[463] In a mediæval paper in Du Cange, s. v. _Abocellus_, we read: "De quodam cæco vaccarum custode," who, "quod colores et staturam vaccarum singularium specialiter discerneret," was believed to be demoniacal; hence the sacrament of confirmation was given him to deliver him from this diabolical faculty, and the paper narrates that he was immediately deprived of it. The blind hero who sees, who distinguishes his cows from each other, is the sun in the cloud. No sooner does he receive confirmation (which is a second baptism), than he ceases to see his cows, for the simple reason that the clouds are dissolved in rain, or that himself has recovered his vision.

[464] Cfr. the papers relative to Merlin by Liebrecht and Benfey in _Orient und Occident_.

[465] _Fasti_, iii. 339.

[466] Cfr. the chapter on the Fishes; where the custom of eating fish on Friday is also explained.

[467] In the first of the stories of _Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_, the cow-maid says to her cow, "Cow, my cow, spin with your mouth and wind with your horns; I will make you a faggot of green boughs."

[468] The maiden spins for her step-mother; the fairy gives luminous robes to the maiden; the maiden weaves dresses for her husband; these are all details which confound themselves in one. In the _Nibelungen_, the virgins prepared dresses of gold and pearls for the young hero Sîfrit.

[469] Holda, or Frau Holle, is burnt every year in Thuringia on the day of Epiphany, on which day (or, perhaps, better still, on the Berchtennacht, the preceding night, or Berta's night) the good fairy expels the wicked one. In England, too, the witch is burned on the day of Epiphany.--Cfr. Reinsberg von Düringsfeld, _Das festliche Jahr_, p. 19.

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

[471] _Afanassieff_, vi. 2.

[472] Cfr. Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 409, and the ninth of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_, in which the luminous maiden disguised as an old woman is uncovered by the geese, when she puts down the dress of an old woman.

[473] Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 410.

[474] Wuotan also saves him whom he protects upon a mantle;--this is the flying carpet or mantle, hood, or hat, which renders the wearer invisible, and for which the three brothers disputed, which is also represented as a tablecloth that lays itself. Thus the poor man who goes to sell his cow's hide finds the pot of abundance and riches. The dispute for the tablecloth is the same as the dispute for riches, for the beautiful princess who is afterwards divided, or else carried off by a third or fourth person who takes the lion's share. We must not forget the fable of the animals who wish to divide the stag among themselves, of which the lion takes all, because he is named lion. In the _Nibelungen_, Schilbung and Nibelung dispute with each other for the division of a treasure; they beg Sîfrit to divide it; Sîfrit solves the question by killing them both and taking to himself the treasure, and the hood that makes its wearer invisible (Tarnkappe).

[475] The romance of Berta continues in the _Reali di Francia_ in harmony with the popular stories of an analogous character; the false wife really causes King Pepin to marry her, and sends Berta into the forest to be killed; the hired murderers pity her, and grant her her life. Berta, whilst in the forest bound to a tree (like the Vedic cow), is found by a hunter; out of gratitude she works (she, no doubt, spins and weaves), in order that the hunter may sell her work at Paris for a high price. Meanwhile her father and mother dream that she is beset by bears and wolves who threaten to devour her, that thereupon, throwing herself into the water, a fisherman saves her (in the dream, the water has taken the place of the forest, and the fisherman that of the hunter). King Pepin goes into the forest, finds her, recognises and marries her, whilst Elizabeth is burnt alive. The change of wives also occurs in a graceful form (with a variation of the episode of the beauty thrown into the fountain) in the twelfth of the _Contes Merveilleux_ of Porchat, Paris, 1863.

[476] _Histoire de la Vie de Charlemagne et de Roland_, par Jean Turpin, traduction de Alex. de Saint-Albin, Paris, 1865, preceded by the Chanson de Roland, poème de Théroulde.--Cfr. the _Histoire Poétique de Charlemagne_, par Gaston Paris.

[477] Uhland's _Schriften zur Geschichte der Dichtung und Sage_, iii. 77.

[478] "Seigneur, bénissez ce lit et ceux qui s'y trouvent; bénissez ces chers enfants, comme vous avez béni Tobie et Sara; daignez les bénir ainsi, Seigneur, afin qu'en votre nom ils vivent et vieillissent et multiplient, par le Christ notre Seigneur.--Ainsi soit-il." Villemarqué, _Barzaz Breiz, Chants Populaires de la Bretagne_, sixième édition, Paris, 1867, p. 423.

[479] Uhland, the work quoted above, p. 81.--In the French romance of _Renard_, on occasion of the apparent death of the fox, the gospel is read, on the contrary, by the horse. In the German customs the bull also appears as a funeral animal, and is fastened to the hearse. If, while he is drawing the hearse, he turns his head back, it is considered a sinister omen. According to a popular belief, the bulls and other stalled animals speak to each other on Christmas night. A tradition narrates, that a peasant wished on that night to hide himself and hear what the bulls were saying; he heard them say that they would soon have to draw him to the grave, and died of terror. This is the usual indiscretion and its punishment.--Cfr. Rochholz, _Deutscher Glaube und Brauch_, Berlin, 1867, i. 164, and Menzel, _Die Vorchristliche Unsterblichkeits-Lehre_, Leipzig, 1870.--We have the speaking oxen again in Phædrus's fable of the stag who takes refuge in the stable, ii. 8, where the master is called "ille qui oculos centum habet."

[480] Elle en mangea seze muiz, deux bussars et six tupins; Rabelais, _Gargantua_, i. 4.

[481] Cfr. Porchat, _Contes Merveilleux_, Paris, 1863.

[482] In _Porchat_, Superlatif, while he is a dwarf, is shut up in a clothes-press; he is a male form of the wooden girl, of the wise puppet, of the sun hidden in the trunk of a tree, in the tree of night, in the nocturnal (or cloudy, or wintry) night, full of mysteries, which the little solar hero surprises from his hiding-place. The hero in hell, or who, educated by the devil, learns every kind of evil, is a variation of this multiform idea. The dwarf of _Porchat_, who comes out of the clothes-press, is in perfect accord with the popular belief which makes the man be born in the wood, on the stump of a tree, of which the Christmas-tree is a lively reminiscence.