rage, but as soon as they opened their mouths, holy water was dashed into their faces, whereat they howled more horribly than ever, and at last promised, if their lives should be spared in any manner, to tell the whole truth, and to disenchant the bride. Which they forthwith did.
“Then those present seized the witches, and said: ‘Your lives shall indeed be spared, but it is only just that ere ye go ye shall be as nicely combed, according to the proverb which says, “Comb me and I’ll comb thee!”’
“Said and done, but the combing this time drew blood, and the mother and daughter, shrinking smaller and smaller, flew away at last as two vile carrion-flies through the window.
“And as the story spread about Florence, every one came to see the house where this had happened, and so it was that the street got the name of the Via della Mosca or Fly Lane.”
There is a curious point in this story well worth noting. In it the sorceress lulls the maiden to sleep before transforming her, that is, causes her death before reviving her with a comb of thorns. Now, the thorn is a deep symbol of death—naturally enough from its dagger-like form—all over the world wherever it grows. As Schwenck writes:
“In the Germanic mythology the thorn is an emblem of death, as is the nearly allied long and deep slumber—the idea being that death kills with a sharp instrument which is called in the Edda the sleep-thorn, which belongs to Odin the god of death. It also occurs as a person in the Nibelungen Lied as Högni, Hagen, ‘the thorn who kills Siegfried.’ The tale of Dornröschen (the sleeping beauty), owes its origin to the sleep-thorn, which is, however, derived from the death-thorn, death being an eternal sleep.”
This is all true, and sleep is like death. But the soothing influence of a comb produces sleep quite apart from any association with death.
Apropos of flies, there is a saying, which is, like all new or eccentric sayings, or old and odd ones revived, called “American.” It is, “There are no flies on him,” or more vulgarly, “I ain’t got no flies on me,” and signifies
that the person thus exempt is so brisk and active, and “flies round” at such a rate, that no insect has an opportunity to alight on him. The same saying occurs in the Proverbi Italiani of Orlando Pescetti, Venice, 1618, Non si lascia posar le mosche addosso (He lets no flies light on him).
When I was a small boy in America, the general teaching to us was that it was cruel to kill flies, and I have heard it illustrated with a tale of an utterly depraved little girl of three years, who, addressing a poor fly which was buzzing in the window-pane, said: