[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.
[483] According to Eustatius, "Iô gar hê selênê katà tên tôn Argetôn dialekton."
[484] Cfr. Pott, Studien zur griechischen Mythologie, Leipzig, Teubner, 1859; and Cox, the work quoted before.
[485] Dionysiakôn, i. 45, and following; iii. 306, and following.
[486] Metamorphoseôn, iv. 754.
[487] In England, as I have already noticed, the bull or ox is sacred to St Luke; in Russia, to the saints Froh and Laver. In Sicily, the protector of oxen is San Cataldo, who was bishop of Taranto. (For the notices relating to Sicilian beliefs concerning animals, I am indebted to my good friend Giuseppe Pitrè.) In Tuscany, and in other parts of Italy, oxen and horses are recommended to the care of St Antony, the great protector of domestic animals. In the rural parts of Tuscany, it was the custom, on the 17th of February, to lead oxen and horses to the church-door, that they might be blessed. Now, to save trouble, only a basket of hay is carried to be blessed; which done, it is taken to the animals that they may eat it and be preserved from evil. On Palm Sunday, to drive away every evil, juniper is put into the stables in Tuscany.
[488] Taúrous pammélanai, in the Odyssey; the commentator explains that the bulls are black because they resemble the colour of water.
[489] Kelainefès-nefelêgeréta Zeús; Odyssey, xiii. 147 and 153.