The legend of Perseus, Volume II E-Book

Edwin Sidney Hartland

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

The life-tokens we have met with in previous chapters may be divided into two classes, namely, such as have some original connection with the hero, and such as are merely arbitrary. Of the first, the most widespread and important is the tree that grows up from some portion of the magical fish. In The King of the Fishes and in the corresponding Norman tale the tree is a rose-tree growing, in the one case from the buried scales, in the other from the buried bones. In one of the stories from Lorraine it will be remembered that some of the fish’s bones were buried under a rose-tree, and there the babes are subsequently found. Their life-tokens are not the tree, but three roses growing upon it. In one of Grimm’s German tales we find two golden lilies growing from two pieces of the fish. Two cypresses arise from the fish’s tail in the Greek story. In the Hungarian Gipsy tale, where the mother becomes pregnant by drinking from an urme’s breast, the urme drops of her milk into two holes in the ground, whence the life-tokens, two oak-trees, spring. The mermaid, in a Highland märchen, gives twelve grains, of which three are for the fisher’s wife and produce three boys, and three are to be planted and produce trees of a kind unspecified. Equally, doomed to death at the hands of a Rakshasi, her fellow-wife, gives her son in a golden vessel a small quantity of her own breast-milk, which will become red if his father be killed, and more deeply red if she herself be slain

Leseprobe

The Legend of Perseus

A STUDY OF TRADITION IN STORY CUSTOM AND BELIEF: BY

Edwin Sidney HartlandF.S.A

VOL. II. THE LIFE-TOKEN

1895

© 2023 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782385742379

NOTE

The discussion of the Life-token has proved so important, going down to the very foundations of the savage philosophy of life, that I have found it impossible to bring to a close this study of the Legend of Perseus within the compass of two volumes. A third, however, will complete the task, and will also include a supplementary Bibliographical List and an Index.

I desire to add to the names of friends who have so kindly extended to me their assistance in various ways, those of Mr. Edward Clodd, now president of the Folklore Society, the Rev. W. Gregor, LL.D., Mrs. Fanny D. Bergen, M. J. D. E. Schmeltz, the learned Curator of the Ethnographical Museum at Leiden, and editor of the Internationales Archiv, and Mr. W. R. Paton. To Mr. W. H. D. Rouse I have had occasion to refer so frequently for assistance of various kinds, constantly and ungrudgingly rendered, that I hardly know how to thank him.

Highgarth, Gloucester,May 1895.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER VIII

The Life-token in Tale and Custom

Two classes of life-tokens; the one, originally connected with the hero; the other, arbitrary—Examples given in previous chapters—Examples from märchen outside the Perseus cycle—The magical mirror—The Life-token in mirror and well—Tokens of Fidelity—Connection of the Life-token and External Soul—Birth Ceremonies—Planting of trees and other life-tokens in custom—Divination.

CHAPTER IX

Witchcraft: Sympathetic Magic

Folktale incidents presenting the divisibility of a person, continued sympathy of severed portions of a person with the bulk, and the endowment of the severed portions with consciousness—Modes of witchcraft—Witchcraft upon objects identified with the victim—Severed portions of the body—Footprints—Food—Dress—Objects more remotely associated with the victim—Witchcraft upon arbitrary objects—Name—Defences against witchcraft.

CHAPTER X

Witchcraft: Philtres—Preventive and remedial Leechcraft

Different kinds of love-potions—Hair and other substances taken from the body—Clothing—Footprints—Dangers of carelessness over severed parts of the body—Cure for warts—Doctrine of Transplantation—Mistaken applications of—Doctrine of Sympathy—Remedies derived from the dead—“A hair of the dog that bit you.”

CHAPTER XI

Sacred Wells and Trees

Ceremonies at wells and trees in the British Islands—On the Continent of Europe—Nails driven into trees and images—Analogous rites elsewhere—Usual explanations discussed—Rites at cairns—True meaning of the rites—Dedication of hair at sacred shrines and graves—Other votive offerings.

CHAPTER XII

Totemism—The Blood Covenant—Customs connected with Saliva

Recapitulation—Union with the god—Totemism—Sacrifices—The Blood Covenant—Its evolution—Its sacramental character—Its decay—Changes in its effect—Saliva customs—Analogy to the Blood Covenant—Spitting on infants—Spitting on various occasions—Against witchcraft—Saliva of sacred personages.

CHAPTER XIII

Funeral Rites

The clan one body—The common meal—Eating the dead in antiquity—Among modern savages—Survivals in modern Europe—Funeral feasts—The Sin-eater—Similar customs in other countries—Eating with the dead—Sacramental union with the dead—Smearing with ashes, etc.—Wearing bones and other relics of the dead—Cutting oneself for the dead—Mutilation—Gifts of hair to the dead—Burial in a common grave—Custom of Ettá.

CHAPTER XIV

Marriage Rites

Analogy of marriage with admission into the clan—Custom of Sindra-dán—Blood-rites—Confarreatio—Ritual food shared by all guests—Meaning of the rite—Marriage constitutes a new relationship on the part of the entire kin—Bridal dance and kiss—Nasamonian rite—Group-marriage—Rights of the kin over husband or wife—The Levirate—Reception by marriage into the kin—Consent of the kin.

CHAPTER XV

The Couvade and other illustrations of the strength of the Blood-tie—Conclusion of the inquiry into the theory of the Life-token

The Couvade—Its true meaning—Not found among the lowest savages—Sponsorship—Adoption—Collective responsibility of the clan—The Blood-feud—Medical treatment of the kin for the disease of one member—Solidarity of the family—Cannot be terminated even by death—Sacramental conception of a kindred—The theory of life underlying the Life-token—Conclusion of the inquiry into the Life-token.

Endnotes

Press Notices

Errata

THE LEGEND OF PERSEUS

CHAPTER VIII.THE LIFE-TOKEN IN TALE AND CUSTOM.

The life-tokens we have met with in previous chapters may be divided into two classes, namely, such as have some original connection with the hero, and such as are merely arbitrary. Of the first, the most widespread and important is the tree that grows up from some portion of the magical fish. In The King of the Fishes and in the corresponding Norman tale the tree is a rose-tree growing, in the one case from the buried scales, in the other from the buried bones. In one of the stories from Lorraine it will be remembered that some of the fish’s bones were buried under a rose-tree, and there the babes are subsequently found. Their life-tokens are not the tree, but three roses growing upon it. In one of Grimm’s German tales we find two golden lilies growing from two pieces of the fish. Two cypresses arise from the fish’s tail in the Greek story. In the Hungarian Gipsy tale, where the mother becomes pregnant by drinking from an urme’s breast, the urme drops of her milk into two holes in the ground, whence the life-tokens, two oak-trees, spring. The mermaid, in a Highland märchen, gives twelve grains, of which three are for the fisher’s wife and produce three boys, and three are to be planted and produce trees of a kind unspecified. Equally, doomed to death at the hands of a Rakshasi, her fellow-wife, gives her son in a golden vessel a small quantity of her own breast-milk, which will become red if his father be killed, and more deeply red if she herself be slain.4.1

In both these cases there has been originally an organic connection between the token and the person whose condition is indicated. Such a connection is not common outside the Perseus cycle. Usually there is no more connection traceable between the hero and his life-token than that subsisting between an owner and his property, sometimes not so much. At most it is founded in the planting by him, or at the time of his birth, of the tree that serves as the token. A remnant of organic connection, however, appears in the Panjâbi story about Prince Lionheart. This personage was born in consequence of his mother’s eating some barleycorns given her by a fakir. When the prince bids farewell to his retainer, the knife-grinder, on whom he has bestowed a kingdom and a bride, he gives him a barley-plant as a life-token. He afterwards gives, in similar circumstances, a barley-plant each to his other retainers, the blacksmith and the carpenter. His instructions are that these plants be carefully tended and watered, for so long as they flourish he will be alive and well; but if they droop, misfortune will be at hand. The prince’s life is dependent on his sword. When the sword is thrown into the fire, a burning fever comes over him: when the hilt comes off, his head rolls off; and at the same moment every one of the barley-plants snaps, so that the ears fall to the ground.5.1 In a Bengali tale, and in the first of the tales in the Siddhi-Kür, each of the heroes plants a “life-tree.”5.2 In a Karen tale the hero sets two plants, and directs his comrades, if the plants wither, to come and seek for him.5.3 Ibonia, a Malagasy hero, plants arums and plantain-trees, saying to his parents: “If these grow withered, then I am ill; and if they die, that is a sign that I also am dead.”5.4 The princess in a Russian tale, when her husband leaves her, gives him a sackful of seeds, telling him to throw them on either side of the road he travels: “Wherever they fall, that moment trees will spring up; on the trees precious fruit will be hanging in beauty, various birds will sing songs, and tom-cats from over the sea will tell tales.” When he is drugged, the tree-tops begin to wither; and the princess sets out after him.5.5 An Indian story shows us the lame prince, on undertaking an adventure, giving his mother a plant as his life-token.5.6 Apparently the plant is a growing one, but it does not appear whether the prince had himself set it. A curious example is found in a variant of Cinderella, collected by M. Cosquin in Lorraine. Florine was a king’s only daughter. Her mother in dying had commended above all things to her daughter’s care a little white lamb. This lamb gives her magical food. When her stepmother discovers this, she feigns to be sick and persuades the king to kill the lamb that she may eat of it. Ere it dies the lamb directs Florine to gather its bones and put them on the pear-tree, whose branches will thenceforward be adorned with pretty little golden bells, ringing ceaseless chimes: if these bells be ever silent, it will be a sign of misfortune. By her command over this magical tree Florine is enabled to pluck and give to a certain king some of the bells, which her stepsister cannot do. The king, therefore, marries her. In his absence her stepmother throws the bride into the river and puts her own daughter in her place. Forthwith the golden bells cease to chime. Now, their sound could be heard two hundred leagues around. The king, remarking that they have stopped, hastens home, and arrives just in time to save the drowning heroine.6.1 There is little doubt that the tale in its more archaic shape exhibited both the lamb and the pear-tree as transformations of the heroine’s mother, and in this way connected with the heroine by a tie of blood.

It is not uncommon for the plants to be set by natural or adoptive parents. The young Klepht in a modern Greek folksong begs his mother:

“Do thou plant a rose-tree, and plant a dusky clove,

And water them with sugar, and water them with musk.

So long they blossom, mother, so long they put forth flowers,

This son of thine will not be dead, but meet the Turks in battle.

But if the day of sorrow, the bitter day should come,

If the two trees fade together, and if their flowers fall,

Then I, too, shall be smitten, and thou shalt wear the black.”6.2

A Negro story from Angola represents one of the heroes, immediately on his birth, as directing his parents to plant his kilembe, or life-tree, at the back of the house.7.1

The Smyrnæan tale I have already mentioned in Chapter IV. brings before us a childless queen, who is gifted by a dervish with three apples. These she must eat, and she will then give birth to three boys. At the birth of each a pumpkin is to be planted in the garden: it will bring forth one fruit, wherein the child’s strength will reside. Afterwards, when one of the pumpkins is cut and carried away, the corresponding youth falls ill, until it is recovered.7.2 Here the pumpkin is rather the life itself than the life-token; but the distinction, as we shall hereafter see, is not very important. A Tirolese variant of The Two Sisters who envied their Cadette describes the gardener who rescues the children as planting a gilliflower for each of the two boys, and a rose for the girl. Apparently this is done at the time he finds and adopts the babe. The boys grow up and go away successively to seek the Three Beauties of the World; and their flowers wither when they themselves are changed into marble by the Medusa-witch.7.3

Often, however, the original planting is not mentioned. The twins, in a Melanesian story from the island of Aurora, simply set a taboo upon a banana belonging to them, and said to their uncle Qatu: “If you go into the garden and see our bunch of bananas beginning to ripen at the top and ripening downwards to the end, Taso has killed us; but if you see that it has begun to ripen at the end and is ripening upwards, we shall have killed him.”7.4 A banana growing by the hero’s hut is also his life-token, in a Malagasy story.8.1

There is a large number of cases which need not detain us now, where on departure the hero gives a flower that will continue fresh and flourishing so long as he is hale and prosperous, but will fade on misfortune or death happening to him. This is a markedly oriental form of the Life-token, occurring repeatedly in India and among the Arabs of modern Egypt.8.2 In the Sinhasana Dwatrinsatika, or Thirty-two Stories of the Speaking Statues, a Sanskrit work, Siva gives to Vikram a lotus-flower, saying: “When this flower withers, then you will know that you must die in six months, and prepare accordingly.”8.3 Here the ideas of the Life-token, the life itself, and a prophetic message are all mixed up.

The knife stuck into a tree, to drip with blood, or to rust, if the owner die, is a commonplace of Slavonic stories.8.4 In a Serbian tale the knife falls out when the hero is overpowered by the witch.8.5 When three brothers part on the search for a magical pelican, in a Hungarian märchen, they mark a finger-post at the cross-roads. Blood will ooze out of it, on the return of any of them, if the absent one be in misery or captivity; but milk will flow if he be well.8.6 A German tale represents the brothers as each cutting a tree. The cut becomes blood-red if either of them be dead or in need.9.1 In the Arabian Nights Bahman gives his hunting-knife to Perizadah: it will become blood-stained on his death. The same incident is found in Spain, in Iceland, and in Italy.9.2 Elsewhere other weapons are named. So long as a poniard can be drawn from its sheath, in a tale obtained by M. Luzel at Plouaret in Lower Brittany, no ill has happened to its owner; but if it stick, he is dead.9.3 Sikulume, in a Kaffir story, sticks his assagai in the ground before he ventures among some cannibals, saying: “If it stands still, you will know I am safe; if it shakes, you will know I am running; if it falls down, you will know I am dead.”9.4 An Epirote story makes one of the twins say, when they part: “If the sword of either of us become bloody, that will be a sign that the other one lies dying.”9.5

Among other articles of property, a rosary, or a ring, is the favourite. Parwez, in the Arabian Nights, gives his sister a string of one hundred pearls: while they run loose on the string, he is living. The rosary also appears in a modern Arab folktale from Egypt (already cited), in Catalonia, in Brittany, and in tales obtained at Troyes in Champagne and at Mantua.9.6 In Arab tales the ring tightens round the finger when the giver of the ring suffers mishap.9.7 In a Vlach ballad it rusts.9.8 More usually the stone it contains changes colour. This is the case in the old French romance of Flores et Blanchefleur; and it reappears among the Basques, in Italy, and, though rarely, in Russia.10.1 In Sicily the ring is originally the gift of a fairy, or rather a Fate, at the birth of the three children borne by the heroine of a variant of The Two Sisters who envied their Cadette.10.2 The virtues ascribed of old to precious stones were many; and we should have had cause for surprise if we had not found gems in the list of life-tokens.

A handkerchief is a frequent gift. It becomes black, or more usually besmirched with blood.10.3 In a Vlach ballad just referred to, the lady delivers to her husband her veil, adorned with a border of golden broidery. “When the gold shall melt,” she says, “know thou that I am dead.” In a modern Greek tale from the island of Syra, two brothers, starting to seek for the magical bird Dikjeretto, leave their shirts with their sister. If misfortune meet them, the shirts will turn black.10.4 Each of three brothers in a Lithuanian story sets up at the crossway, ere they part, a blue banner, which will be stained with red—in other words, with blood—in the event of his death.10.5 In a story from Southern Russia, Ivan Popyaloff, going to fight the snake that withheld the daylight, hung up his gloves, desiring his brothers to hasten to his help if blood dropped from them.10.6 In another Russian story the hero thoughtfully puts a plate beneath, to catch the blood.11.1 Lemminkäinen, in the Kalevala, having brushed his beautiful hair, flings the brush upon the oven-posts, and declares that on harm’s happening to him it will shed blood. Accordingly, when he is done to death in the Underworld, his wife is made aware of the fact by the bristles dripping with gore.11.2 Mats made from the skins of beasts he has slain, and a pipe, are left behind with his foster-mother by a young Micmac brave, who goes to make war on the savage Culloos: she will see blood on them if he be killed.11.3 Strong Hans, in a tale from Syra, cannot be got to do anything but play his cither. When he sallies forth to fight the ogre, who has ravished away the king’s daughter, he tells his mother: “If you see that the strings of my cither are broken, then up and seek me!”11.4 In an obscure passage of the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Quiché, the heroes Hunhun-Ahpu and Vukub-Hunahpu appear to leave as their life-token with their mother the india-rubber ball with which they loved to play.11.5 One of the Torres Straits islanders told Professor Haddon a tale wherein a mother, while at work, breaks her digging-stick, and at once concludes that something has happened to her baby-boy. Sure enough it has; for a gust of wind had blown down his basket-cradle, and a man and his wife passing by have found the child in the grass and taken him away.11.6 Here the instrument neither belongs to, nor is it indicated by, the person affected. So in an Iroquois legend, when the hero starts in search of the daughter of a neighbouring chief, his uncle, under whose tutelage he is, brings out “a curious thing made of coloured string and elk-hair of deep red, about a foot long. ‘I shall keep this by me,’ said he, ‘and so long as you are doing well it will hang as it is; but if you are in danger it will come down itself almost to the ground, and if it does reach the ground you will die.’ ”12.1

According to a märchen told by the Transylvanian Armenians, a maiden presses a gold coin into her lover’s hand and tells him that when it is rusty she will be dead.12.2 In the Russian tale of Marya Morevna, the hero leaves successively his silver spoon, fork and snuff-box with his three Animal Brothers-in-law, when he goes on the perilous adventure of rescuing his fair wife from Koshchei the Deathless. When he is killed and chopped into pieces by the ogre, all the silver turns black.12.3 The hero of a Tirolese tale and his sister kindle two lights; and he declares that if one of them go out, she must take it as a sign that something has happened to him and he will nevermore return.12.4 A candle is combined with the handkerchief which becomes bloody in a Russian story. The youngest brother going away in a Sicilian märchen touches a vase of cloves and utters the warning that the drying up of the cloves will be a signal of his having been turned to marble by the Medusa-witch.13.1 In Russian tales the hero’s horse stands in blood up to his knees, or even up to his neck, or up to his ankles in tears, when his master is dead.13.2 In another Russian tale a glass of water becomes tinged with blood.13.3 And in a Servian tale the eldest brother, on going out with the second, directs the youngest to put a kettle on the fire to boil, and to keep stirring the fire beneath it. If the water turn to blood, he is to let a little dog out of the cellar, and bid it follow the way the two elder brothers have taken.13.4 Similarly in a Georgian story the prince fills a cup with water and puts it near the fire. So long as it remains pure he will be alive; but on its changing to blood he will be dead.13.5 In the Egyptian manuscript the elder brother is warned of his younger’s fate by the beer he is about to drink turning into froth. Here again, it will be noted, there is no apparent connection with the hero, save that he has previously appointed this sign.

One of the magical objects most famous in tradition and in romantic literature is the mirror wherein the beholder can see any object at will. It became prominent in the dreams of science during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, when it is said to have figured among the properties of astrologers. In English literature the Enchanted Mirror is best remembered from the Squire’s Tale of Cambuscan Bold, and by the admirable use of it in one of the Ingoldsby Legends. I do not propose to discuss it here further than is necessary to show its relations with the Life-token. The first time we meet with it in literature is in Lucian’s True History. It is found in the moon, of enormous dimensions, lying over a well. Anybody, we are told, who enters the well hears whatever is said upon the earth; and anybody looking into the mirror sees as in a panorama all the cities and nations of the world. The Greek Munchausen declares that he saw his family and his entire fatherland; and whoever does not believe him can go there and look for himself! A singular parallel is found among the Dyaks of Borneo. According to their traditions, one of the ancient fathers of the race climbed upon a gigantic tree to the Pleiades, where he was hospitably entertained by a friendly being, who introduced him to rice—a food until then unknown on earth. Being left alone for a short time, the visitor peeped into a big jar, and there, to his astonishment, saw, as in a mirror, his father’s house, with the whole family party gathered in animated discussion. His spirits fell, for he feared he should never return home from that immense distance. But his host cheered him up; and after giving him a good dinner, and some rice to plant, with full instructions as to its cultivation and other hints on husbandry, he let him down by a rope to the earth again. The adventurer, having thus got back in safety, taught his people the lessons he had learned in the Pleiades; and he is still venerated as the father of agriculture.14.1 In the far west the Ynca Yupanqui, if we may trust the Peruvian legend reported by Molina, once went to visit his father Viracocha Ynca. Coming to a certain fountain, he saw a piece of crystal fall into it; and within the crystal he beheld the figure of a man dressed like an Ynca. From the back of his head issued three brilliant rays like those of the sun. The royal fringe was upon his head, and ear-pieces, like those of the Yncas, adorned his ears. Serpents twined around his arms and shoulders. Upon his shoulders there was a lion, while the head of another lion appeared between his legs. Yupanqui fled; but from within the fountain the apparition called him by name. “Come hither,” it said, “my son, and fear not, for I am the Sun, thy father. Thou shalt conquer many nations: therefore be careful to pay great reverence to me, and remember me in thy sacrifices.” Saying this, the apparition vanished; but the crystal remained. The Ynca took care of it, and we are told that thenceforth he saw in it everything he wanted.15.1

Mr. Clouston, in his notes to John Lane’s feeble continuation of the Squire’s Tale, has brought together a large number of instances of magical mirrors, beginning with Vergil the Magician and coming down to the practices recorded by Mr. E. W. Lane and others in modern Egypt and India.15.2 A boy is ordinarily the agent in the last-mentioned practices, and a spot of ink in the hollow of his hand the mirror. The same practices were employed in classical antiquity, and were not unknown during the Middle Ages. A German saga relates that a jewel of crystal was by a mysterious stranger left as a gift with a burgess of Nuremberg who had shown him hospitality for three days. If a chaste boy looked into the crystal he would see a little man, who would show him everything it was desired to know. So great was the reputation of the glass, that people used to threaten one another: “Speak the truth, or I’ll go to the little man.”16.1 In a Gipsy story from Transylvania a king’s daughter possesses a mirror wherein she can see everything in the world.16.2 Another mirror with somewhat more limited capacity was the gift of a mountain spirit in a German tale; but it had other powers that resulted at last in a curse.16.3 When Vasco da Gama was sailing towards India, some of the Indian wizards are said to have shown the people at Calicut in basins of water his three ships.16.4 The Egyptian and modern Indian practices are ordinarily used for discovering thefts; and this was often the purpose in Europe. In Tahiti and Hawaii the priest was sent for on similar occasions. After some prayers he caused a hole to be dug in the floor of the house, and filled with water. He continued his incantations with a young plantain in his hand until he observed the image of the thief in the water.16.5 In the Isle of Man a notorious witch is reported to have made use of a bowl of water in order to divine as to the safety of a herring-fleet.17.1 The Otando fetish-man of Equatorial Africa also uses a vessel of water; the Mpongwe fetish-man uses a mirror.17.2 In Borneo the manang, or medicine-man, is frequently provided with a magical stone into which he can look and see what is ailing a sick man, and prescribe for him accordingly.17.3 The Cakchiquels of Central America had a sacred obsidian stone, which was their national oracle, and was mysteriously connected with the origin of mankind. A stone, apparently identified with this, is preserved in the church of Tecpan, Guatemala. It was shown to Mr. Stephens, who describes it as “a piece of common slate, fourteen inches by ten, and about as thick as those used by boys at school, without characters of any kind upon it.”17.4 No doubt the eye of faith was required to see anything in it. Crystals are used by the medicine-men of the Apaches for divining.17.5 The Urim and Thummim of Hebrew antiquity seem to have been objects of the same kind of superstition. The “Mirror of Light” is not unknown even in these days, and has been honoured with the attention of the Society for Psychical Research.17.6

Lucian, in placing the mirror in a well, was probably satirising the belief in sacred wells which had properties like those he attributed to the mirror. Such wells and pools are still to be found, both in stories and in fact. A fairy in an Italian tale points out to the hero a fountain which will be a mirror for him, into which he can look, and to which he can give commands, and they will be obeyed.18.1 It was formerly believed at York that he who flung, on May morning before the Minster clock struck one, five white stones into a certain part of the Ouse near the city, would see in the water, as in a mirror, whatever he might desire, whether past, present, or future.18.2 On the promontory of Tænarum, now Cape Matapan, Pausanias tells us, was a famous fountain. In his day there was nothing remarkable to be seen in it; but anciently those who pried into its depths might see views of ports and ships. In the Cyaneæ, hard by Lycia, too, there was a spring, into which whoso descended saw whatever he wished to behold.18.3 And there is a wonderful well in Samoa, wherein a variety of scenes may be perceived by those who will undertake the risk of being enticed into its stony depths.18.4

So far we have found no Life-token in mirror or well. A mirror or well, however, which reveals to the inquirer only the health of one in whom he has an interest, is obviously nothing more than a special variety of the mirror or well revealing anything or everything. This is the variety mentioned in a Roman variant of Beauty and the Beast, where Beauty, on taking leave of the Beast for a short time, is given a mirror, into which she can look and see how he is.19.1 In a Swedish märchen already cited, on the two comrades parting at a crossway, one of them dips his knife into the fountain adjacent, and says to the other: “It shall be to thee a sign that I am living so long as the water of this spring is clear; but if it be red and turbid, then I shall be dead, and I certainly expect that thou wilt avenge my death.”19.2

This convenient way of obtaining news of absent friends is said to be still in use. The Eskimo of Greenland, when a man has not returned in due time from an expedition in his kayak, hold the head of his nearest relation over a tub of water, and judge from the reflection beneath whether the absent person has been upset, or is still sitting in the boat, rowing.19.3 In the island of Tahiti, if one, looking at the water of certain springs, chance to see it tinged with blood, it is a sign that one of the beholder’s friends is about to die.19.4 Nor is it different in our own country. Gulval Well, in Cornwall, answers inquiries put with the proper formula. If the person asked after be alive and well, the quiet water will instantly boil and bubble clear and pure; if he be sick, the water becomes foul and puddled; if he be dead, it remains calm and lifeless.19.5 The legends accounting for these phenomena in Tahiti and Cornwall are unrecorded. In the parish of Kirkmichael, in the county of Banff, there is a fountain dedicated to St. Michael, and famous for its healing virtues. The guardian of the well appears in the shape of a fly which, it is believed, never dies. “To the eye of ignorance,” we are told, “he might sometimes appear dead; but agreeably to the Druidic system, it was only a Transmigration into a similar form, which made little alteration on the real identity.” He was, in former days at all events, constantly on duty. “If the sober matron wished to know the issue of her husband’s ailment, or the love-sick Nymph that of her languishing Swain, they visited the Well of St. Michael. Every movement of the sympathetic Fly was regarded in silent awe; and as he appeared cheerful or dejected, the anxious votaries drew their presages; their breasts vibrated with correspondent emotions.”20.1 Brand and Ellis quote from an old writer a passage concerning fountains which prognosticate plenty or famine. The writer concludes by saying: “Myselfe know some Gentlemen that confesse, if a certaine Fountaine (being otherwise very cleane and cleare) be suddenly troubled by meanes of a Worme unknowne, that the same is a personall Summons for some of them to depart out of the world.”20.2 These superstitions frequently degenerated into mere divination. Dalyell records that auguries as to the fate of any one were drawn from the finding of a dead or a living worm in a well in the parish of Strathdon, and also in the well at Ardnacloich in Appin, Argyllshire.21.1 Sir John Lubbock quotes a striking instance from Dr. Anderson’s account of the expedition to Western Yunnan. Three men having gone to the Kakhyen hills, a report reached their families that one of them had died. To ascertain which of them it was, the old women were divining by means of needles and cotton-wool. Each needle representing one of the absent men, threaded with a piece of cotton-wool to act as a float, was let down gently into the water. As the floats got thoroughly wetted, the needles would sink one after another; and the man whose needle sank first would be the dead one.21.2 The water there was probably contained in a vessel; but the principle, as we see from several instances already cited, is the same. Before the temple of Demeter at Patras there was a spring that was consulted on the issue of any disease. The method (and here, perhaps, we touch the object of Lucian’s satire) was to let down a mirror suspended by a cord so as just to allow the water lightly to touch its edges, but not its face. After praying and clearing the air with incense, the performers (probably priests) looked down into the mirror, and thence perceived whether the patient would live or die.21.3 On the isle of Andros it is still the practice for Greek maidens to hold a mirror over a well and to look in it for the face of their future husbands reflected from the well below.21.4 In Brittany there are certain wells wherein children’s shirts are dipped. If a shirt sink to the bottom, it is a sign of the child’s death within a year. Contrariwise, if the shirt swim, the child will live; and to ensure its living and to preserve it from every kind of evil the wet garment is immediately put on.22.1 After that, nobody would deny the child’s continued health to be a miracle. The superstition was not by any means confined to Brittany; but it will suffice to give one more example of it here. “Between the towns of Alten and Newton,” says one of the Cottonian Manuscripts, “near the foot of Rosberrye Toppinge, there is a Well dedicated to St. Oswald. The neighbours have an opinion that a Shirt or Shift taken off a sick person and thrown into that Well, will show whether the person will recover or die: for, if it floated, it denoted the recovery of the party; if it sank, there remained no hope of their life; and to reward the Saint for his intelligence, they tear off a Rag of the Shirt, and leave it hanging on the Briars thereabout; where I have seen such numbers as might have made a fayre Rheme in a Paper Myll.”22.2

For divination of this kind no special connection would be necessary between the life and the pool or fountain, such as is hinted at in the quotation concerning the “Worme unknown.” This is not always so. At Brereton, in Cheshire, is a lake whereon floating logs betokened the death of the head of the family of Brereton.22.3 Leonard Vair in his book on charms and sortileges mentions a very curious case communicated to him by Cardinal Granvelle. At the monastery of Saint Maurice on the borders of Burgundy, near to the Rhone, was a fish-pond which was kept stocked with as many fish as there were monks. When any of the monks fell sick (we are bound to believe it on the authority of a bishop and cardinal), one of the fish floated on the surface of the water, half dead; and if the monk were going to die, the fish would die three or four days before him.23.1 In like manner, on a mountain in Franconia a fountain issues near the cradle (Stammhaus) of an ancient noble family. The clear stream gushes forth incessantly the whole year round; and it was believed to fail only when one of the family was about to die.23.2 It is reported of the holy spring of Szörény that its water becomes blood-red as often as a King of Hungary dies.23.3 There is a crater-lake in Madagascar, about eighty miles south-south-west of Antanánarívo, called Tritriva. It is of a deep green colour, almost black. The natives hold that there is an intimate and secret relation between the lake and the members of a neighbouring tribe, the Zanatsara. When a tribesman is taken ill, the waters of the lake are at once examined. If they are troubled and become of a brown colour, it is a presage of death: if they remain clear, the patient will have a chance of life.24.1 In these cases we have precisely the conditions of the Life-token; and we may be allowed to conjecture that other cases of inquiry after absent friends, or divination for the sick, were originally limited to persons believed to stand in some special relation with the fountain consulted. Further, the stories and superstitions regarding mirrors have evidently been transferred from pools and springs, to which they must have originally attached. And in the Eskimo practice, and the divination at Patras, and elsewhere, in the performances of Indian and Egyptian conjurers and of the fetish-men and priests of Equatorial Africa and the Pacific Islands, we may perhaps trace some of the intermediate stages.

These pools and mirrors have led me to anticipate somewhat. And before returning to Life-tokens a few words must be spent upon the cognate subject of Tokens of Fidelity. The extension of the idea of a life-token to a faith-token is obvious where the persons parted are lovers or spouses. In such cases it would not be enough for one to know that the other was living: constant assurance of the absent one’s fidelity would be as necessary to the other’s happiness as his life. There is another magical object, familiar in certain stages of civilisation, with which the Faith-token may easily be confounded. I mean the Test of Chastity, like the mirror in the beautiful tale of Zayn al-Asnam, or Florimel’s girdle in the Faerie Queene. With this test of chastity in a general sense we have not here to do; nor is it necessary to discuss the Faith-token itself at any length.

In Eastern tales the Faith-token ordinarily assumes the form of a flower. In the Tutinameh, a soldier’s wife gives her husband on his departure a rose which will remain fresh while she preserves her purity.25.1 In the Kathá-sarit-Ságara, the god Siva appears in a dream to Guhasena and his wife Devasmitá when they are about to part, and gives them a red lotus apiece, saying: “Take each of you one of these lotuses in your hand. And if either of you shall be unfaithful during your separation, the lotus in the hand of the other shall fade, but not otherwise.” When they awoke, each beheld in the other’s hand a red lotus, “and it seemed as if they had got one another’s hearts.”25.2 In a modern folktale obtained in the Panjáb the kind of flower is not specified, but the incident is the same.25.3 The token appears also as a flower or a garland in several of the European romances of chivalry; and in a Hungarian märchen a king, going to war, gives to his two daughters two wreaths which will wither if they lose their maidenhood.25.4 In a modern folksong of one of the Greek islands, an apple-tree, questioned why it withers, replies:

“They plighted a youth and maiden beneath my shelter;

They swore by my branches that they would cling together,

And now, because I know they part, my leaves are turning yellow.”25.5

These stories have their counterpart in practice. Siva, the Hindu god who is the agent in one of the stories just quoted, is a phallic deity. Among the Mech of Bengal, a Mongoloid tribe just now in a transitional state of religion between animism and the Hinduism which is macadamising the innumerable aboriginal cults of India, a sij plant (Euphorbia Indica) grows in the courtyard of every house. This plant is carefully tended as the abode of Siva and the emblem of conjugal fidelity. If its leaves wither, something is wrong with one of the women of the household.26.1 A curious superstition of an analogous kind was commonly practised among our own countrymen within the memory of men only a few years dead. Lovers who desired to know how they should succeed in their suit carried flowers called bachelors’ buttons in their pockets, and judged of their good or bad success by the flowers’ growing or not growing there.26.2 So it is noted among the superstitions prevalent in France two hundred years ago, that, in order to know which of three or four persons loved one the best, a corresponding number of thistles should be taken, the buds cut off, and to each plant should be imputed the name of one of the persons concerning whom it was intended to inquire. The thistles were then to be placed under the head of the inquirer’s bed; and the one representing the person who had most affection would put forth new buds.26.3 At Siena a maiden who wished to know how her love progressed kept and tended a plant of rue. While it flourished all went well; but if it withered it was a sign that the love she desired had failed her.26.4

In the ballad of Hind Horn the king’s daughter gives the hero a jewelled ring. As long as the stone keeps its colour, he may know that she is faithful; but if it change its hue, he may ken she loves another man. Professor Child, commenting on the ballad, adduces not merely several variants and romances on the same subject, but also a Roumanian ballad wherein a prince going to war gives his wife a ring which will rust if he be dead, and a Silesian story and another British ballad where the ring breaks in twain.27.1 In these ballads and stories we probably have the real meaning of plighting the troth in the marriage service with a ring. Bacon, somewhere discussing the superstition, gravely suggests that a trial should be made by two persons of the effect of compact and agreement; that a ring should be put on for each other’s sake, to try whether, if one should break his promise, the other would have any feeling of it in his absence. The hero of a North German tale receives from his bride the day after marriage a snow-white shirt, which will turn black if she die, and become stained and spotted if she be untrue.27.2 A Hungarian tradition speaks of a carbuncle which lighted up the neighbourhood of a lake in the Carpathians while the consort of the king of the water-fays was true to him; but when she fell in love with a mortal prince it lost its splendour, and the king with his golden palace and all his treasures sank into the black depths of the lake.27.3 The Faith-token is a piece of machinery too suggestive to be overlooked by poets and dramatists of more refined art than the mediæval romancers. Davenant mentions an emerald, not set like the Carpathian carbuncle on a palace tower, but worn by a lady, and growing pale when her husband is unfaithful. Massinger’s play of The Picture turns upon a portrait of his wife given to the parting knight, Mathias, by “a great scholar,” or magician, with these instructions:

“Carry it still about you, and as oft

As you desire to know how she’s affected,

With curious eyes peruse it: while it keeps

The figure it now has, entire and perfect,

She is not only innocent in fact,

But unattempted; but if once it vary

From the true form, and what’s now white and red

Incline to yellow, rest most confident

She’s with all violence courted, but unconquer’d;

But if it all turn black, ’tis an assurance

The fort by composition or surprise

Is forced or with her free consent surrender’d.”

I do not propose, however, to trace the Faith-token through literature. If a gift of doubtful benefit to a jealous lover, many a literary artist in search of a plot has found it useful. Our business is with the Life-token, to which we may now return. Tales of life-tokens credited as facts are not very numerous. Perhaps one or two of the stories already mentioned may be included in that category. The rest may be treated together with superstitions and customs.

In many variants of the Perseus cycle, as well as in many of the märchen cited in the present chapter, we have found the life-token to be a tree planted before or at the time of the hero’s birth, or sometimes planted by himself or merely indicated by him. In the Smyrnæan tale, it will be remembered, the queen plants a pumpkin on the birth of each of her sons. The pumpkin brings forth one fruit, wherein the strength of the boy resides; and when it is cut the boy falls ill. As I have already pointed out, the pumpkin would seem here to be the life itself, and not merely the life-token. A distinction between the life and the life-token is generally observed in märchen. On the one hand, we have the story of Punchkin with his hidden soul, in which the magician, or demoniacal enemy of the hero, cannot be slain by any evil inflicted on his own body. His soul, or life, must be sought out in a distant spot where, enveloped in various coverings and protected by numerous defences, is a parrot, or an egg, to destroy which is to kill the magician. On the other hand, we have in the variants of The King of the Fishes and other types the mysterious token left at home while its owner sallies forth in search of adventures. If he fall, or suffer reverses, the token at home, if a tree or a flower, withers; if a knife, or a phial of liquid, or some other article, it drops blood, or rusts, or changes colour, or indicates in some other manner its sympathy with the hero’s fortunes.

This broad distinction is natural in a story the plot of which is made to depend upon it. It is easy to understand, however, that the distinction could not be maintained in any corresponding practical superstition. To assume, for instance—what is quite possible—that the lives of the monks of Saint Maurice were actually believed to be bound up with those of the fishes in the fishpond of the monastery, how could it be determined whether a fish’s death caused the death of one of the brethren or only betokened it? In the course of the following pages we shall meet with many cases of sympathy between a child and a tree or other object. The child’s death and the withering of the tree, or some other corresponding change, are believed to be coincident. Experience will very soon show that sometimes the injury may happen to the child, sometimes to the life-token. If the superstition survive, it can only do so by supposing that both alike are vulnerable, and that the consequences of an injury to either are mysteriously transmitted to the other.30.1 Even in a story, however, the distinction between the Life-token and the “External Soul,” as Mr. Frazer calls it, is not always maintained. In the tale of Prince Lionheart, referred to at the beginning of this chapter, the hero derives his origin from a barleycorn. His life-token, multiplied in a lavish oriental manner by three, consists of three barley-plants. It is noteworthy that he directs that every one of them shall be carefully tended, for so long as they flourished he would be alive and well, and, on the contrary, if they drooped, misfortune would be at hand: implying that his life and prosperity were dependent upon them. His external soul proper is a sword. When its hilt comes off, his head falls, and at the same instant the ear of each of the barley-plants snaps. Other stories may easily be recalled where a plant as the hero’s life-token is commended to the special care of the friend or kinsman left behind, as if injury to the plant would affect its absent owner. We shall, accordingly, be justified in treating the Life-token and the External Soul as almost always one and the same thing in belief and custom.

In the Popol Vuh, the twin divinities, Hun Ahpu and Xbalanque, whose birth I have already described in Chapter v., on starting for the realm of Xibalba to avenge their father’s death, plant each a cane in the midst of their grandmother’s dwelling, that she may know by its flourishing or fading whether they are alive or dead.31.1 According to a tradition of the province of Berri, in central France, a local saint, Honoré de Buzançais, who flourished at the end of the thirteenth century, in setting forth on a journey told his mother that, by means of a certain laurel which had been planted the day he was born, she would at any time be able to learn how he fared. The tree would languish if he were ill, and wither if he died. He was murdered, and the laurel withered at the same instant.31.2 On the island of Tahiti, a sacred tree, resembling the banian of India, was said to have shot forth a new tendril at the birth of one of the kings whose inauguration is described by Ellis; and this branch reached the ground when the inauguration took place.31.3 So Suetonius tells us that thrice when the mother of the Emperor Vespasian gave birth to a boy a certain ancient oak-tree belonging to the Flavian gens and sacred to Mars put forth a new shoot; and when the Emperor himself was born the shoot was of such vitality that it grew to the size of the old trunk itself.31.4

These are legends. In actual life, among the Maori, when the navel-string came off a newborn child, the child was carried to a priest. The cord was buried in a sacred place; and over it a young sapling was planted, which was expressly regarded as the babe’s “Sign of Life,” or life-token.31.5 Another account states that the placenta was buried and a tree planted over the spot. “Instances have been known of territorial right being claimed in consequence of the placenta and umbilical cord having been buried in the vicinity, the tree being pointed to as evidence.” Elsewhere in New Zealand the cord was buried by the mother at the foot of some out-of-the-way tree or bush, with certain mystic words. If the tree or bush decayed or died, the child would not be expected to live long.32.1 In Southern Celebes a cocoa-nut is planted at the child’s birth, and watered with the water in which the cord and after-birth have been washed. The tree, as it grows up, is called the “contemporary” of the child.32.2 In Old Calabar a palm-tree is planted, so as to grow with the child, and the after-birth is buried beside it.32.3 The superstition is not confined to these distant lands. In Pomerania the after-birth is buried at the foot of a young tree; in Mecklenburg it is merely cast there; in either case the child will grow with the tree, and thrive as it thrives.32.4

It is obvious that in all these cases there is a connection established between the child and the tree by means of the placenta. The reasons for planting a tree are probably twofold. Not only is it difficult to preserve the after-birth itself; it is also desired to bring to bear upon the child all the gracious influences of Nature, to aid in his growth and development. This is done by the intervention of the young tree, which thus becomes more than a mere index of his fortunes. The placenta is, in fact, a portion of the child incorporated in the tree. A caul, which is as much a portion of the child as the placenta, and which, unlike the latter, is easy of preservation, was formerly regarded in this country as an index of the health of the person who was so lucky as to be born with it. While he remained alive and well, it was firm and crisp; if he sickened or died, it became flaccid and relaxed.33.1 Any fragment of a human being may, indeed, become his life-token. A pathetic instance is on record of a boy in Grafton County, New Hampshire, who, early in the present century, was badly scalded, so that a piece of his skin, fully one inch in diameter, sloughed off, and was carefully treasured by his mother. When the boy came of age he left home, and was never heard of after; but his mother used from time to time to examine the skin, persuaded that so long as it was sound her son was alive and well, and that it would not begin to decay until his death. She died about 1843; and thenceforth her daughters kept the skin for their brother’s sake as she had done, and with the same notions about its preservation and decay.33.2 In these examples we do not find the idea of the External Soul. The object, whether caul or skin, is kept merely to obtain tidings of the absent. It is not united for his benefit to any living organism like a tree; nor does it seem to be necessary to his life to preserve it from harm.

Sometimes, however, the belief connected with the rite of planting at a birth is more obscure, whether from the fault of those who have recorded it, or because it has faded out of the memory of those who perform it. The Fiji islanders bury the navel-string with a cocoa-nut, which is intended to germinate and grow. The tree produced is considered the property of the child.34.1 Among the tribes of Guatemala, and also of Virginia, the cord was cut upon an ear of maize, and the grains thus besprent with blood were sown in the infant’s name.34.2 The umbilical cord of an Aztec boy was buried with mimic weapons in a place where a battle might be expected to take place on a future day. A girl’s cord, with domestic implements proper to her sex, was buried under a metate, or stone whereon the maize was crushed.34.3 The interpretation of none of these presents any difficulty, save that of the Aztec boy. But if we regard the cord as his external soul, we may suppose that it was either put into a safe place, or was expected to strengthen and encourage its owner on the day of battle. The Badouj husband, in Java, buries the placenta in the forest. We are told nothing as to the situation in which it is buried; if not at the foot of a tree, it is probably intended to be hidden securely away.35.1

In other cases there appears no physical contact with the infant, or with the accompaniments of its birth, though the intention is plain. On the island of Bali, in the East Indies, a cocoa-palm is simply planted. It is called the child’s “Life-plant,” and is believed to grow up equally with him. When twins are born, in some Zulu tribes, the father plants two euphorbia-trees near the door of the hut. Among the Mbengas of Western Africa, when two babes are born on the same day, two trees of the same kind are planted, and the people dance round them. “The life of each of the children is believed to be bound up with the life of one of the trees; and if the tree dies, or is thrown down, they are sure that the child will die soon.” The life of a newborn child is united by some of the Papuans with that of the tree by driving a pebble into the bark. “This is supposed to give them complete mastery over the child’s life; if the tree is cut down, the child will die.”35.2 Among the Sakalava of Madagascar, a tree called Hàzomànitra (Fragrant Wood) is planted at the birth of a first child. This is said to be a witness that the father acknowledges it as his own.35.3 But had he not acknowledged it, the child must presumably have been put to death, so that this can hardly be the real reason. According to the Babylonian Talmud it was a Hebrew practice to plant a cedar at the birth of a boy, and a pine at the birth of a girl.36.1 On the New Marquesas Islands a breadfruit-tree is set apart for the use of every infant at its birth; or, if the parents be too poor to do this, a sapling is immediately planted. The fruit of the tree is taboo to every one save the child; even the parents dare not touch it.36.2 Among several European nations it is, or has been up to recent times, the custom to plant a tree at the birth of a child. When the poet Vergil was born, his parents are said to have planted a poplar, in the hope that, as that tree overtopped all the rest, their son’s greatness would outstrip all others’. Poplars are still set in the neighbourhood of Turin when a girl is born; and they become in after-years the maiden’s dower. In Switzerland an apple-tree is set for a boy, a pear or a nut for a girl; and it is believed that as the young tree flourishes, so will the child. In Aargau, in particular, it was the custom, not many years back, to plant a fruit-tree on the land of the commune for every infant that was born; and if a father were enraged with a son who was at a distance, and therefore out of his reach, he would go to the field and cut down the tree planted at his son’s birth.36.3 In England we still hear sometimes of trees being planted at a birth. Count de Gubernatis, I know not on what authority, asserts that there are families in Russia, Germany, England, France, and Italy, whose practice it is to plant at the birth of a child a fruit-tree, which is loved and tended with special care as the symbol of the child and of the child’s fate.37.1 Only thirty years ago it was the custom of the good folk of Liége to plant a tree in the garden when a child was born: a custom which, it seems, is still continued in some parts of Belgium.37.2 In the province of Canton, in China, although we are not informed that trees are planted on the like occasions, we seem to have a relic of some such practice in the superstition requiring a child’s fortune to be told, in order to ascertain the particular idol or tree to which he belongs. It is thought that a tree is planted in the spirit-world to represent the life in this world, “and that the child is as much the fruit of the tree as it is that of the womb.”37.3 It is difficult to see how such a thought could have originated, unless it were connected with the planting of a tree in this world when the babe was born.

Nor is it only at a birth that the life-token is planted. Among the English-speaking population on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, when one of a family leaves home, a bit of live-for-ever is stuck in the ground to indicate the fortune of the absent one. It will flourish if he prosper; otherwise it will wither or die.37.4 An Italian work falsely attributed to Cornelius Agrippa gives the following prescription for divining the health of a person far distant: Gather onions on the Eve of Christmas, and put them on an altar, and under every onion write the name of one of the persons as to whom information is desired. When planted, the onion that sprouts the first will clearly announce that the person whose name it bears is well.38.1 In the north-east of Scotland, when potatoes were dug for the first time in the season a stem was put for each member of the family, the father first, the mother next, and the rest in order of age. Omens of the prosperity of the year were drawn from the number and size of the potatoes growing from each stem.38.2 Every Roman emperor solemnly planted on the Capitol a laurel, which was said to wither when he was about to die. It was the custom, too, of a successful general at his triumph to plant in a shrubbery set by Livia a laurel which was believed to fade after his death.38.3 Marco Polo records that the Great Khan planted the highways through his realm with rows of trees, for the purpose of marking the roads; and that he did it all the more readily because his astrologers and diviners told him that he who planted trees lived long.38.4 Why, unless his life were bound up with the trees he planted? In British Guiana, when young children are betrothed, as is the custom among the aborigines, trees are planted by the respective parties in witness of the contract.