The Helpful Beasts, to whom so many adventurers are indebted in our Nursery Tales, furnish another incident illustrative of the same faculty. In the Transformation-fight it is not necessary to manifest the continued sympathy of the divided personality; but it is different when a Helpful Beast offers one of its own limbs as the summons for aid. Thus an ant will give one of its legs, a bird will give a feather, or a lion one of its hairs, to be burnt, or fumigated, or simply rubbed. On this being done the owner forthwith appears and performs the necessary services.[58.1] In a Tirolese tale the power is extended to a human being. A merchant’s daughter having fallen in love with a golden-haired prince, is advised by a great sorceress to procure three hairs from his head and beard, lay them in a jar with warm ashes, and boil the contents a little. The prince would then change into a dove, and fly hurriedly through the window into her room, where she must have a basin of water ready for him. In this he would dip himself and return to his proper form. The spell is successful; but we need not follow the lady’s further fortunes.[58.2]
Nor is the incident restricted to märchen. A Pomeranian saga records that a supernatural boar which haunted a pool in the forest of Kehrberg once fell into a wolf-pit and could not get out. A courageous man, hearing its grunting, approached; and the monster begged for help. When it was released it tore three bristles from its hide, and, giving them to its deliverer, said: “When thou art in deadly peril, rub these three bristles between thy fingers, and I will be with thee forthwith and save thee.” The man was the lord of a manor. He might have been an Irish landlord for harshness; and this promise made him worse than ever. Many of his serfs in desperation joined the robber-bands that infested the forest; and one day they caught him in an ambush. Nor would he have escaped the punishment of his misdeeds, had he not quickly rubbed the bristles between his fingers. The boar was at his side in an instant, and not one of his enemies escaped. I wish I could add that the adventure made him repent of his evil ways. His godless, frantic life continued to the end; and after death he naturally found no rest in the grave. Wherefore, ever since, in company with his friend the boar, he dwells in the pool and ranges the forest, to the no small terror and danger of wayfarers.[59.1]
A belief of the kind of which these are the remains is put to a practical use by the natives of Borneo, where it is said that the gift of a tiger’s tooth to a chief of the Kinah tribe will make him a friend for life. He will not dare to fail the giver, or to turn false to him, for fear of being devoured by the beast.[60.1] Here, and in the stories, the portion of the animal’s body given away is still linked by sympathy with the rest. What happens to it is felt by the bulk. The apparent severance is continuous and real union.
A third incident found in European folktales endows the heroine’s saliva with consciousness like her own. In a Danish tale, when Maiden Misery is about to elope with Prince Wanderer from the Kobold who has them both in his power, she heats the oven and puts two pieces of wood to stand, one on either side. Then she spits on each of them and whispers something to it. After she and the prince have started, the Kobold wakes up and inquires: “Is the oven hot, Maiden Misery?” “No, not yet,” answers one of the pieces of wood, but it sounded as if it were she who answered. The Kobold turned over and went to sleep again. After a while he awoke again and repeated the question. He got the same answer and went to sleep once more. When he called out again there was no reply. He got up and found the oven quite cold; but Maiden Misery and Prince Wanderer had vanished, and so had the Kobold’s wonderful steed.[60.2] The same device for delaying pursuit appears in the Polish märchen of Prince Unexpected. There the maiden spits on one of the window-panes, and her spittle freezes. Then she locks up the room and escapes with the prince. When they are well on their way King Bony awakes, and sends his servants for the prince. The spittle answers in his voice: “Anon.” They are thus put off twice before the door is broken open, and the spittle on the window splits with laughter at the disappointed messengers.[61.1] In another story from Poland, a brother desires to wed his sister, and makes her various presents of robes, and a magical car. She shuts herself in her room, puts on the dresses, and mounts the car. She spits on the ground and commands the saliva to answer with the voice of her maid, whom she has secretly sent away. The earth then opens at her request and swallows her up. When the brother sends to know if she be ready, the saliva replies: “She has just drawn one stocking on.” The next time it answers: “She has just put her dress on: she will be quite ready directly.” When the impatient brother himself comes, the spittle taunts him in the most intelligent way:—
“Thy sister is far beneath;
This message did she bequeath:
Earth, open wide! When a sister is bride
To her brother, ’tis sin.”[61.2]
In a story from Hesse, Hänsel and Grethel are in a witch’s power. They run away, but before going Grethel spits in front of the hearth. So when the sleepy witch cries out to ask whether the water will soon be hot, to cook Hänsel in, the saliva replies: “I am just fetching it”; and to subsequent inquiries: “It’s boiling now,” and “I am just bringing it.” At last the spittle is dried up; and, receiving no further answer, the witch gets out of bed, discovers the real state of the case, and follows the children.[62.1] Among the Kaffirs, an equivalent incident represents the misleading agent as tufts of hair. The hero, rescuing his sister and her child from a band of cannibals, directed her to pluck the hair from her head and scatter it about in different directions. When the cannibals, coming to look for her, called out, the tufts of hair answered; and the fugitives gained time while the seekers were thus confused. Another Kaffir tale represents a single feather of a certain magical bird as endowed with the entire power of the bird after the latter has been swallowed by the heroine.[62.2] The Cegihas of North America, a branch of the Sioux, have a legend of a rabbit who overcame the black bears. He visited their lodge; and at night on departing he left his fœces all round the door, with instructions to give the scalp-yell as soon as it was day. The fœces accordingly yelled as if a large number of persons were attacking the lodge. The black bear rushed out and was killed by the rabbit.[62.3]
In this case, too, we are fortunate in being able to produce evidence that the belief on which the tale is grounded is still living. When a Hungarian Gipsy is pursued as a thief, he scratches his left hand as he runs, and smearing the spurting blood on any convenient object, exclaims: “Speak for me!” In this way he hopes to escape; and the more scars a Gipsy has upon his left hand from this cause the more he is honoured for his dexterity in stealing and evading pursuit.[63.1]
In Grimm’s tale of The Goose-girl, which belongs to the cycle of The Substituted Bride, the maiden’s mother, on parting with her, cuts her own finger, and, letting three drops of blood fall upon a handkerchief, hands it to her daughter as a protection. The drops of blood speak to her from time to time on the way, though it must be owned their observations are not very helpful. When she loses them she becomes powerless, and her waiting-maid ousts her from her place as the bride.[63.2] It is impossible to misapprehend the meaning of the three drops of blood. So long as the maiden keeps them she retains her mother’s presence and protection, of which they are more than a symbol.
The folktales I have just cited present in an ascending series, first, the divisibility of a person, secondly, the continued sympathy of the severed portions with the bulk, and thirdly, the endowment of each of the severed portions with speech and power—in other words, with consciousness and reason. The identification of the severed portions with the whole is thus complete in the stories. Nor are we without illustrations in practical superstition of this belief. The two examples already given afford a striking exhibition of the truth which I may perhaps be pardoned for insisting on with wearisome iteration, that, namely, of the dependence of folktales on custom and belief. It is, however, in the practices of witchcraft that we find the severed portions of a person most frequently and completely identified with the whole. To some of these practices we will accordingly now turn our attention.
Witchcraft is usually wrought in one or more of three ways—by incantations or curses, by symbolic actions, or (and it is this only with which we are now concerned) by acts done upon objects identified with the person intended to be affected. Among these objects severed portions of his body take the first rank.