The oldest known story wherein transformation of this kind forms an incident is that of The Two Brothers. The manuscript now in the British Museum was written by the scribe Enna, or Ennana, and belonged to the Egyptian monarch Seti II., of the nineteenth dynasty, before he came to the throne. We have the story, therefore, in the shape it bore about the earlier half of the thirteenth century before Christ. It is a long one, and I have only space for a very meagre abstract. There were, thus it runs, two brothers, Anpu and Bata, of whom Anpu, the elder, was married, and Bata served him. Anpu’s wife fell in love with the younger brother, and tempted him as Potiphar’s wife tempted Joseph, and with a similar result. The elder brother, when his wife denounced Bata to him, became like a panther with rage, and lay in wait behind the stable-door to slay his brother when he returned from the field. The oxen, however, warn the youth, who flees and invokes the Sun-god Horus to judge between himself and his brother. With the god’s assistance he escapes; and Chnum, at Horus’ request, makes a wife for him, that he may not dwell alone. His happiness, however, is not lasting. The sea carries one of the woman’s fragrant locks to Egypt, where it is taken to the king, who sends to seek its owner, and makes her his favourite. Now Bata kept his heart in the top of the flower of the Cedar. This was known to the woman; and by her advice the king sent and cut down the Cedar. The flower fell to the ground, and Bata’s heart with it; and he died. When he escaped from his brother, Bata had found means to convince him of his innocence, and had given him a sign, saying that when Anpu should take a jug of beer in his hand and it should turn into froth, then he should know that Bata was dead, and he should come and look for him. Anpu, warned in this way of his brother’s death, sought and found him; and after a long search he discovered his heart lying beneath the Cedar. He picked it up and put it into a cup of cold water. Bata thereupon revived, and having drunk up the water and his heart with it, he became as he had been before. The next day he assumed the form of a great bull with all the sacred marks, which his brother brought and gave to the king. In this form Bata found means to make himself known to his wife. She for her part was by no means pleased to see him; and having wheedled an oath out of the king that he would grant her whatsoever she asked, she demanded the bull’s liver. As he was being slain two drops of his blood fell upon the king’s door-posts, and forthwith grew up two mighty persea-trees. One of these trees spoke to the Favourite, accusing her of her crimes, and declaring: “I am Bata, I am living still, I have transformed myself.” She caused the trees to be cut down; but while she stood by to watch, a splinter flew off, and, entering her mouth, rendered her pregnant. In due time she gave birth to a son, who became prince, and upon the king’s death succeeded to the throne. Then he summoned the nobles and councillors; his wife was brought to him, and he had a reckoning with her.[184.1]
There are many points of exceeding interest in this, one of the oldest fairy-tales on record. For us, however, they centre on Bata’s transformations. He changes first into a sacred bull without undergoing death. He is then slain; and from his blood spring up two persea-trees. These are cut down; and his final metamorphosis is, by the medium of birth, once more into a human being; for there can be no doubt that the child born of the king’s Favourite is regarded as Bata himself. A modern Transylvanian märchen unfolds a similar series of adventures; though it is wanting in the consummate irony of the Egyptian tale, which makes the lady become pregnant of her foe and give him at last the life to avenge himself of her villainies. A king overhears two maidens boasting of what they would do, the one, if she were married to him, the other, if she were his cook. He marries the former, and makes the other his cook. But the latter is jealous; and when the queen bears twins, a boy and a girl with golden hair, she contrives to bury them in the dung-heap, and impose upon the king and court with a cat and dog, which she alleges to be the queen’s offspring. The king therefore buries his queen alive, and marries the cook. Out of the dung-heap grew two golden fir-trees, in whose beauty the king took great pleasure. His new wife, on the contrary, is uneasy, and declares she cannot rest unless on boards made from those very trees. The king reluctantly has them cut down; and now she would be happy, but that in the night she hears the boards beneath the royal bed conversing as brother and sister. Accordingly the next day she causes them to be burnt in the oven; but two sparks fall among some barley, which is given to an ewe. The ewe drops two lambs with golden fleeces. As soon as she sees them, the queen falls sick and craves for their hearts to eat. Once more compliant, her husband allows them to be killed. Their hearts are roasted for the queen; their entrails are thrown into the river. Two pieces are carried by the water and thrown on a distant shore, where the two children with golden hair reappear from them, and so charm the sun with their beauty that he stands to watch them and goes not down for seven whole days. God, wondering why the night so long delayed, went to inquire of the sun, and was shown the twins. By His means they were restored to their father, the wicked queen was punished, and their mother brought back to life.[186.1]
M. Cosquin, commenting on the Egyptian tale, has brought together a number of analogues, chiefly European. I proceed to notice some of these, and a few others containing a similar chain of incidents. In a Roumanian story which follows the main lines of the Transylvanian, an emperor’s son weds the youngest of three daughters. The heroine’s foes, however, are not her sisters, but her husband’s stepmother and her daughter. As she had foredoomed, she bears twin sons with golden hair and a golden star on the forehead. By his stepmother’s treachery her husband is induced to believe that she has given birth to two puppies; and he orders her to be buried in the earth to the breast, that the world might know what was her punishment who would betray the emperor’s son. Then he married his stepsister. The twins had been interred beneath the emperor’s window; and out of their grave grew two fair aspen-trees. In three days they had attained the stature of three years, and the emperor took great pleasure in them. Long did his wife beg for permission to cut them down ere he yielded; but, after all, emperors are but men. So cut down they were, and made by his command, the one into a bedstead for himself and the other for the empress. But the bedsteads talked, as in the Transylvanian tale, and the empress overheard them. The next day she caused them to be burnt, and their ashes thrown to the winds. When the fire was hottest there flew out two sparks and fell into the deep water that flowed through the realm. There they became two fish with golden scales. They were caught by the imperial fishermen, and then changed back into their original form of twin boys with golden hair and golden stars. When they had grown up they made their way to the palace and told their tale, to the confusion and condemnation of their enemies, and the restoration of their mother to her rightful place.[187.1] According to a Sicilian variant, the heroine, married against the will of the queen, her mother-in-law, bears thirteen children, twelve sons and a daughter. They are thrown into the garden, where they grow up as twelve orange-trees and a lemon-tree. A goat eats them and bears the children anew.[187.2] In a Bengalee tale the heroine kindly relieves her fellow-wife by accidentally tumbling into a well. A rishi explains to her husband that she was not of royal blood, but had been born a rat, and changed by him at her own wish into a cat, then into a dog, a boar, an elephant and a beautiful girl, successively. He directs the well to be filled up, and causes a poppy-tree to grow up out of her flesh and bones; and that is the origin of opium.[187.3]
A German tale belonging to an entirely different cycle approaches the Egyptian märchen in representing the transformations as incidents of a contest between a man and a woman, wherein the man is ultimately victorious. The hero, having disenchanted a king and all his court, obtains a magical sword and becomes the champion of the unspelled monarch against an aggressive neighbour. The latter has a clever daughter, who entraps the champion by her wiles and makes off with his sword. This results in his total defeat and capture by her father, who all-to hacks him, stuffs the pieces into a bag and sends it to the invaded king with his compliments, and there was his champion. The hero is, however, restored to life by a master-sorcerer, and endowed with the power of assuming what shape he will. He takes that of a magnificent horse, which the invading king is induced to buy. The king’s daughter scents a trick, and the horse’s head is cut off. Three drops of his blood fall into the apron of the king’s cook, and she buries the apron, as the horse has previously directed her, under the eaves. A cherry-tree grows up on the spot; and when the princess cuts it down, the cook throws three chips into the pond, where they change into three golden ducks. The princess kills two, and, capturing the third, takes it into her bedchamber. There it finds the stolen sword and flies off with it. Resuming his proper form, the hero defeats and destroys the aggressive king and his whole family, and marries the compassionate cook.[188.1] In a Russian story, the hero is betrayed by his wife to the Turks, and killed. Recalled to life, he changes into a marvellous horse with a golden mane, which the sultan buys. But Cleopatra, the hero’s wife, recognises her husband through his magical disguise. When the horse is slain, from his blood arises a bull with golden hair. Cleopatra kills it in turn, and from its head an apple-tree springs with fruit of gold. The apple-tree is cut down; and its first chip is transformed into a golden duck, which overswims the river and on the other side regains its pristine form as the hero.[188.2] A Breton tale represents the hero as changing himself into a horse. When the horse is put to death, a ball of his curdled blood is put on a stone in the sun and sprinkled with magical water. A cherry-tree grows out of it, laden with fine red cherries. When the cherry-tree is cut down, a cherry is sprinkled, and a beautiful blue bird comes out of it. The treacherous wife is desirous of catching it; and her new husband lays down the hero’s magical sword to enable him to move more freely. The bird then seizes the sword, and, rapidly changing back into the hero, puts his false wife and her second choice to death.[189.1]
In none of the foregoing stories do we find the hero victorious by means of a second birth from a woman. In a White-Russian variant of The Outcast Wife group, the heroine, married to a king, has two sisters, who deceive the king as to her offspring and cause her twin boys to be buried alive. Out of their graves grow two maples, one with a golden, the other with a silver, stem. The king puts away his wife, and marries one of her sisters. She has the maples cut down to make a bed, and afterwards burns the bed and sprinkles the ashes on the road. An ewe swallows some of the ashes, and bears two lambs, marked like the boys, with a moon on the head and a star on the nape of the neck. The new queen orders the lambs to be slaughtered, and their entrails to be thrown out into the street. Her divorced sister having gathered up the entrails, cooks and eats them, and thus becomes once more mother to her sons. When they are grown up they reveal the whole story to the king, and obtain the reinstatement of their mother and the punishment of her guilty sister.[189.2] A curious tale from Cyprus brings before us a girl who is fated to wed her own father, of whom she is to have a son, and that son she is afterwards to take for husband. In order to defeat the prophecy she contrives her father’s murder. From the ground where the body is buried an apple-tree springs up and produces beautiful apples. The heroine buys some, and, eating them, becomes pregnant. When she learns where the apples grew she determines to kill her child. As soon as it is born, therefore, she stabs it in the breast, nails it up in a coffer, and flings the coffer into the sea. It is picked up by a vessel; and the captain, finding the child still living, adopts it. It grows up to manhood and fulfils the prophecy. From the wound-marks on his breast the mother recognises in her husband her own child; and on hearing his story she understands at last how useless it is to struggle against fate, and puts an end to her own life.[190.1]
Quite another group is reached when we come to a series wherein the heroine first appears in the shape of a fruit. This is opened by the hero, and a maiden comes out. In a märchen from Asia Minor the maiden is, in the hero’s absence, thrown into a well by a black slave, who takes her place. In the well she becomes a golden fish. When the prince catches it the slave gets him to kill it and make broth of it for her. But three drops of its blood fall to the ground and shoot up into a cypress-tree. The tree is cut down and burnt. A chip clings to the dress of an old woman who comes and asks for a light; and this chip changes again into the heroine.[190.2] In Basile’s version the slave sticks a needle into the lady’s temple and transforms her into a dove. The dove is caught, killed, scalded and plucked, in order to be cooked; and the water and feathers are thrown into the garden. Within three days a citron-tree, like that out of which the heroine originally came, rises, and bears three fine citrons. The king plucks them; and when he has opened them, his true love emerges from the third, and condign punishment is meted out to the slave.[191.1] A tale from the Deccan presents a maiden, brought up in an eagle’s nest, after sundry adventures happily married to a rajah. She is pitched into the water-tank by her jealous fellow-wife. A sunflower grows up in the tank; and the jealous woman, when she finds her husband becoming fond of it, orders her servants to dig it up and burn it. A mango-tree grows up on the spot where the sunflower has been burnt, bearing one magnificent mango. It is gathered by a milk-woman, and turns into the heroine.[191.2] A variant, which looks like an earlier form of the story, brings the heroine originally out of a bél-fruit. The sunflower is replaced by a lotus; and when the false wife tears the lotus-flower to pieces a bél-tree grows on the spot, bearing one fruit, which contains the Bél-princess once more.[191.3] In a Cinderella tale, told by the Tjames, Kajong, persecuted by her foster-sister Halœk, throws herself into a lake and suffers transformation into a golden turtle. The king marries Halœk instead, but cannot forget Kajong. The golden turtle is caught, and in the king’s absence his wife kills and eats it, throwing the shell behind the house. A bamboo springs up from the shell. When Halœk cooks and eats the bamboo-shoot, the husk becomes a bird. She cooks the bird; and the feathers, thrown away, turn into a mœkya-tree, the fruit of which bears a resemblance to the outline of a woman. Out of the fruit the heroine comes again.[192.1]
There is a group of stories very popular in Europe and known to the farthest extremities of Asia and Africa. As usually told, a girl or a boy is killed by an envious brother and buried. Some time after, a bone is picked up and fashioned into a shepherd’s pipe; or a reed growing on the grave is cut and made into a similar instrument. No sooner does the musician put the pipe to his mouth than the voice of the murdered child is heard within it, reciting his death and accusing his murderer. Occasionally, however, the tree, or plant, which grows from the grave sings or speaks of itself, as in the Dahoman version, where a mushroom appears on the grave. The mother of the murdered boy is about to pluck it, when it says to her: “Mother, pluck not. I was with my comrades. They gave me two thousand cowries. They only gave one thousand to my brother. Then he cruelly killed me; my brother killed me!” Sometimes it is a rose which speaks of itself, or when it is put to the mouth; sometimes a flute made from the branch of a tree which has grown on the grave. In one case it is a pomegranate from such a tree: when the fruit is brought to the king it changes into the head of the murdered man. At other times the crime is revealed by a whistle, or pipe, which has belonged to the victim, or has fallen in his blood. Again, a bird will proclaim itself the victim and tell the story, or lead the avenging kindred to the grave. A Chinese drama, believed to be founded on a folktale, represents the body as burnt by the assassin, and the ashes made into a dish. The dish denounces the criminal.[193.1]
The old Scottish ballad of Binnorie belongs to this group, though in all its British variants it has been modernised. Scott’s version, the best known, is only half traditional. The elder sister drowns the younger for the sake of her lover. The body is found by the miller in “the bonny mill-dams of Binnorie.”
“A famous harper passing by
The sweet pale face he chanced to spy.
. . . . . .
“He made a harp of her breast-bone,
Whose sounds would melt a heart of stone.
“The strings he framed of her yellow hair,
Whose notes made sad the listening ear.”
Here the ballad has obviously been manipulated; but a comparison of other versions shows that the sense has been preserved.