Now, a lock of the woman's hair fell into the river, and it floated to the place where Pharaoh's washermen were at work. And the sweet lock perfumed all the raiment of Pharaoh, and the washermen knew not wherefore, and they were rebuked. Then Pharaoh's chief washerman went to the water and found the hair of the wife of Bitiou; and Pharaoh's magicians went to him and said, "Our lord, thou must marry the woman from whose head this tress of hair hath floated hither". And Pharaoh hearkened unto them, and he sent messengers even to the Valley of Acacias, and they came unto the wife of Bitiou. And she said, "First you must slay my husband"; and she showed them the acacia tree, and they out the flower that held the heart of Bitiou, and he died.
Then it so befel that the brother of Bitiou held in his hand a cup of beer, and, lo! the beer was troubled. And he said, "Alas, my brother!" and he sought his brother's heart, and he found it in the berry of the acacia. Then he laid it in a cup of fresh water, and Bitiou drank of it, and his heart went into his own place, and lived again.
Then said Bitiou, "Lo! I shall become the bull, even Apis" (Hapi); and they led him to the king, and all men rejoiced that Apis was found. But the bull went into the chamber of the king's women, and he spake to the woman that had been the wife of Bitiou. And she was afraid, and said to Pharaoh, "Wilt thou swear to give me my heart's desire?" and he swore it with an oath. And she said, "Slay that bull that I may eat his liver". Then felt Pharaoh sick for sorrow, yet for his oath's sake he let slay the bull. And there fell of his blood two quarts on either side of the son of Pharaoh, and thence grew two persea trees, great and fair, and offerings were made to the trees, as they had been gods.
Then the wife of Pharaoh went forth in her chariot, and the tree spake to her, saying, "I am Bitiou". And she let cut down that tree, and a chip leaped into her mouth, and she conceived and bare a son. And that child was Bitiou; and when he came to full age and was prince of that land, he called together the councillors of the king, and accused the woman, and they slew her. And he sent for his elder brother, and made him a prince in the land of Egypt.
We now propose to show, not only that the incidents of this tale—far more ancient than historic India as it is—are common in the märchen of many countries, but that they are inextricably entangled and intertwisted with the chief plots of popular tales. There are few of the main cycles of popular tales which do not contain, as essential parts of their machinery, one or more of the ideas and situations of this legend. There is thus at least a presumption that these cycles of story may have been in existence in the reign of Rameses II., and for an indefinite period earlier; while, if they were not, and if they are made of borrowed materials, it may have been from the Egypt of an unknown antiquity, not from much later Indian sources, that they were adapted.
The incidents will now be analysed and compared with those of märchen in general.
To this end let us examine the incidents in the ancient Egyptian tale of The Two Brothers. These incidents are:—
(1) The spretæ injuria formæ of the wedded woman, who, having offered herself in vain to a man, her brother-in-law, accuses him of being her assailant. This incident, of course, occurs in Homer, in the tale of Bellerophon, before we know anything of historic India. This, moreover, seems one of the notions (M. Cosquin admits, with Benfey, that there are such notions) which are "universally human," and might be invented anywhere.
(2) The Egyptian Hippolytus is warned of his danger by his cow, which speaks with human voice. Every one will recognise the ram which warns Phrixus and Helle in the Jason legend.* In the Albanian märchen,** a dog, not a cow nor a ram, gives warning of the danger. Animals, in short, often warn of danger by spoken messages, as the fish does in the Brahmanic deluge-myth, and the dog in a deluge-myth from North America.
* The authority cited by the scholiast (Apoll. Rhod.,
Argon., i. 256) is Hecatseus. Scholiast on Iliad, vii. 86,
quotes Philostephanus.
** Von Hahn, i. 65.