[586] A variety of the Hindoo legend of the hawk (Indras), of the dove (Agnis), and of King Çivis, who, to save the dove from the hawk, his guest, gives some of his own flesh to the hawk to eat. Here the serpent is identified with the hawk or eagle; in the Mongol story, however, the dragon is grateful to the man who delivered him from the bird Garuḍas; the king of the dragons keeps guard over the white pearls, arrives upon a white horse, dressed in white (probably the snow of winter, or the moon); the king of the dragons rewards the hero by giving him a red bitch, some fat, and a string of pearls.—In the sixth story of the Pańćatantram, we have the serpent and the crow, one at the foot of a tree, the other on the summit; the serpent eats the crow's eggs, and the crow avenges itself by stealing a golden necklace from the queen and throwing it into the snake's hole; the men go to seek the necklace, find the serpent and kill it.
[587] We have seen in the chapter on the Ant how the ants make serpents come out of their holes; in Bavaria, according to Baron Reinsberg von Düringsfeld, the work quoted before, p. 259, an asp (natter) taken in August must be shut well up in a vase in order that it may die of heat and of hunger; then it is placed upon an ants' nest, that the ants may eat all its flesh; of what remains, a sort of paternoster is made, which is supposed to be very useful against all kinds of eruptions upon the head.
[588] Cfr. the interminable riches of the uhlan-serpent in the story vi. 11, of Afanassieff.
[589] Here we have a serpent which expels and ruins another. In a similar manner, before the times of San Carlo Borromeo, a bronze serpent, which had been carried from Constantinople by the Archbishop Arnolfo in the year 1001, was revered in the basilica of St Ambrose at Milan; some said that it was the serpent of Æsculapius, others that of Moses, others that it was an image of Christ; for us it is enough to remark here that it was a mythical serpent, before which Milanese mothers brought their children when they suffered from worms, in order to relieve them, as we learn from the depositions of the visit of San Carlo to this basilica: "Est quædam superstitio de ibi mulierum pro infantibus morbo verminum laborantibus." San Carlo put down this superstition.
[590] These marvels are always three, as the apples are three, the beautiful girls three, the enchanted palaces in the kingdom of the serpents which they inhabit three (cfr. Afanassieff, i. 5). The heads of the dragon are in this story and generally three, but sometimes also five, six (cfr. Afanassieff, v. 28), seven (cfr. Pentamerone, i. 7, and Afanassieff, ii. 27; the serpent of the seven heads emits foul exhalations), nine (iii. 2, v. 24), or twelve (cfr. Afanassieff, ii. 30).—In the twenty-first story of the second book of Afanassieff, first the serpent with three heads appears, then that with six, then that with nine heads which throw out water and threaten to inundate the kingdom. Ivan Tzarević exterminates them. In the twenty-second story of the same book the serpent of the Black Sea, with wings of fire, flies into the Tzar's garden and carries off the three daughters; the first is obtained and shut up by the five-headed serpent, the second by the seven-headed one, and the third by the serpent with twelve heads; the young hero Frolka Sidien kills the three serpents and liberates the three daughters.
[591] Cfr. also, for the legend of the blind woman, the first chapter of the first book.
[592] When the mythical serpent refers to the year, the hours correspond to the months, and the months during which the mythical serpent sleeps seem to be those of summer, in contradiction to what is observed in nature.
[593] In the fifth story of the second book of the Pentamerone, a serpent has itself adopted, as their son, by a man and woman who have no children, and then asks for the king's daughter to wife; the king, who thinks to turn the serpent into ridicule, answers that he will consent when the serpent has made all the fruit-trees of the royal garden become golden, the soil of the same garden turn into precious stones, and his whole palace into a pile of gold. The serpent sows kernels of fruits and egg-shells in the garden; from the first, the required trees spring up; from the second, the pavement of precious stones; he then anoints the palace with a certain herb, and it turns to gold. The serpent comes to take his wife in a golden chariot, drawn by four golden elephants, lays aside his serpent's disguise, and becomes a handsome youth.
[594] Cfr. Mone, Anzeig. iii. 88.
[595] Cfr. on this subject the stories recorded in the first and second chapters of the first book.