And still another example is seen at the very opposite extreme of Europe, in the legend of the priestess of Hertha in the island of Rugen. She had been unfaithful to her vows, and the gods furnished a proof of her guilt by causing her and her child to sink into the rock on which she stood.(423)
(423) For myths and legend crystallizing about boulders and other stones
curiously shaped or marked, see, on the general subject, in addition to
works already cited, Des Brosses, Les Dieux Fetiches, 1760, passim, but
especially pages 166, 167; and for a condensed statement as to worship
paid them, see Gerard de Rialle, Mythologie comparee, vol. vi, chapter
ii. For imprints of Buddha's feet, see Tylor, Researches into the Early
History of Mankind, London, 1878, pp. 115 et seq.; also Coleman, p. 203,
and Charton, Voyageurs anciens et modernes, tome i, pp. 365, 366, where
engravings of one of the imprints, and of the temple above another, are
seen. There are five which are considered authentic by the Siamese,
and a multitude of others more or less strongly insisted upon. For the
imprint os Moses' body, see travellers from Sir John Mandeville down.
For the mark of Neptune's trident, see last edition of Murray's Handbook
of Greece, vol. i, p. 322; and Burnouf, La Legende Athenienne, p. 153.
For imprint of the feet of Christ, and of the Virgin's girdle and tears,
see many of the older travellers in Palestine, as Arculf, Bouchard,
Roger, and especially Bertrandon de la Brocquiere in Wright's
collection, pp. 339, 340; also Maundrell's Travels, and Mandeville. For
the curious legend regarding the imprint of Abraham's foot, see Weil,
Biblische Legenden der Muselmanner, pp. 91 et seq. For many additional
examples in Palestine, particularly the imprints of the bodies of three
apostles on stones in the Garden of Gethsemane and of St. Jerome's body
in the desert, see Beauvau, Relation du Voyage du Lavant, Nancy, 1615,
passim. For the various imprints made by Satan and giants in Scandanavia
and Germany, see Thorpe, vol. ii, p. 85; Friedrichs, pp. 126 and passim.
For a very rich collection of such explanatory legends regarding stones
and marks in Germany, see Karl Bartsch, Sagen, Marchen und Gebrauche
aus Meklenburg, Wien, 1880, vol. ii, pp. 420 et seq. For a woodcut
representing the imprint of Christ's feet on the stone from which he
ascended to heaven, see woodcut in Mandeville, edition of 1484, in the
White Library, Cornell University. For the legend of Domine quo vadis,
see many books of travel and nearly all guide books for Rome, from
the mediaeval Mirabilia Romae to the latest edition of Murray. The
footprints of Mohammed at Cairo were shown to the present writer in
1889. On the general subject, with many striking examples, see Falsan,
La Periode glaciaire, Paris, 1889, pp. 17, 294, 295.
Another and very fruitful source of explanatory myths is found in ancient centres of volcanic action, and especially in old craters of volcanoes and fissures filled with water.
In China we have, among other examples, Lake Man, which was once the site of the flourishing city Chiang Shui—overwhelmed and sunk on account of the heedlessness of its inhabitants regarding a divine warning.
In Phrygia, the lake and morass near Tyana were ascribed to the wrath of Zeus and Hermes, who, having visited the cities which formerly stood there, and having been refused shelter by all the inhabitants save Philemon and Baucis, rewarded their benefactors, but sunk the wicked cities beneath the lake and morass.
Stories of similar import grew up to explain the crater near Sipylos in Asia Minor and that of Avernus in Italy: the latter came to be considered the mouth of the infernal regions, as every schoolboy knows when he has read his Virgil.
In the later Christian mythologies we have such typical legends as those which grew up about the old crater in Ceylon; the salt water in it being accounted for by supposing it the tears of Adam and Eve, who retreated to this point after their expulsion from paradise and bewailed their sin during a hundred years.
So, too, in Germany we have multitudes of lakes supposed to owe their origin to the sinking of valleys as a punishment for human sin. Of these are the "Devil's Lake," near Gustrow, which rose and covered a church and its priests on account of their corruption; the lake at Probst-Jesar, which rose and covered an oak grove and a number of peasants resting in it on account of their want of charity to beggars; and the Lucin Lake, which rose and covered a number of soldiers on account of their cruelty to a poor peasant.
Such legends are found throughout America and in Japan, and will doubtless be found throughout Asia and Africa, and especially among the volcanic lakes of South America, the pitch lakes of the Caribbean Islands, and even about the Salt Lake of Utah; for explanatory myths and legends under such circumstances are inevitable.(424)
(424) As to myths explaining volcanic craters and lakes, and embodying
ideas of the wrath of Heaven against former inhabitants of the
neighboring country, see Forbiger, Alte Geographie, Hamburg, 1877, vol.
i, p. 563. For exaggerations concerning the Dead Sea, see ibid., vol. i,
p. 575. For the sinking of Chiang Shui and other examples, see Denny's
Folklore of China, pp. 126 et seq. For the sinking of the Phrygian
region, the destruction of its inhabitants, and the saving of Philemon
and Baucis, see Ovid's Metamorphoses, book viii; also Botticher,
Baumcultus der Alten, etc. For the lake in Ceylon arising from the tears
of Adam and Eve, see variants of the original legend in Mandeville and
in Jurgen Andersen, Reisebeschreibung, 1669, vol. ii, p. 132. For
the volcanic nature of the Dead Sea, see Daubeny, cited in Smith's
Dictionary of the Bible, s.v. Palestine. For lakes in Germany owing
their origin to human sin and various supernatural causes, see Karl
Bartsch, Sagen, Marche und Gebrauche aus Meklenburg, vol. i, pp. 397 et
seq. For lakes in America, see any good collection of Indian legends.
For lakes in Japan sunk supernaturally, see Braun's Japanesische Marche
und Sagen, Leipsic, 1885, pp. 350, 351.