[353] In the Engadine in Switzerland, too, it is believed that the souls of men emigrate from the world and return into it in the forms of bees. The bees are there considered messengers of death; cfr. Rochholtz, Deutscher Glaube und Brauch, i. 147, 148.—When some one dies, the bee is invoked as follows, almost as if requesting the soul of the departed to watch for ever over the living:—
"Bienchen, unser Herr ist todt,
Verlass mich nicht in meiner Noth."
In Germany, people are unwilling to buy the bees of a dead man, it being believed that they will die or disappear immediately after him:—"Stirbt der Hausherr, so muss sein Tod nicht bloss dem Vieh im Stall und den Bienen im Stocke angesagt werden;" Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 601.—In the East, as is well-known, it was the custom to bury great men in a tomb sprinkled over with honey or beeswax as a symbol of immortality.
[354] Der Adel der Bienen ist vom Paradies entsprossen und wegen der Sünde des Menschen kamen sie von da heraus und Gott schenkte ihnen seinen Segen, und deshalb ist die Messe nicht zu singen ohne Wachs; Leo, Malberg. Glossæ, 1842.
[355] Baluz. Capitulor. tom. ii. p. 663, in oratione ad revocandum examen apum dispersum ex Cod. MS. S. Gallï.
[356] In Du Cange: "Apis significat formam virginitatis, sive sapientiam, in malo, invasorem."—Papias M. S. Bitur; ex illo forsitan officii Ecclesiast. in festo S. Ceciliæ: "Cecilia famula tua, Domine, quasi Apis tibi argumentosa deservit," &c.
[357] Cfr. the chapters on the Hare, the Lion, and the Elephant. The louse and the flea have the same mythical nature as the mosquito and the fly.—In the ninth Esthonian story, the son of the thunder, by means of a louse, obliges the thunder-god to scratch his head for a moment, and thus to let fall the weapon of thunder, which is instantly carried off to hell. The lice that fall down from the head of the witch combed by the good maiden, or from that of the Madonna combed by the wicked maiden, have already been mentioned. The Madonna that combs the child is, moreover, a subject of traditional Christian painting.—In the fifth story of the first book of the Pentamerone, we read of a monstrous louse. The king of Altamonte fattens a louse so much that it grows to the size of a wether. He then has it flayed, orders the skin to be dirtied, and promises to give his daughter to wife to whoever guesses what skin this is. The ogre alone guesses, and carries the maiden off, whom seven heroes afterwards go to deliver towards the aurora "subito che l'Aucielle (the birds) gridaro: Viva lo Sole."
"Quando la cicala il c. batte
L'ha del m. chi non si fa la parte."
[359] Peri Zôôn idiotêtos, xxiv., with the additions of Joachim Camerarius.