It will have been observed that a common opening of stories which culminate in the incident of the Rescue is the hero’s acquisition of Helpful Animals. Sometimes, as in a tale from Oldenburg, it is the only other incident.[26.2] More often it forms part of a larger series of adventures. Occasionally the hero obtains the power of transformation instead of the personal service of the beasts. Thus, in a Norwegian tale he divides a dead horse between a lion, a falcon, and an ant, and in return for the service they confer on him this power. It enables him to get into a princess’ chamber and secretly make love to her; and it stands him in good stead when he goes to fight the dragon. This dragon was a less delicate feeder than some, for he only demanded a tax of pigs, not maidens. The king had promised his daughter to the deliverer; but before the wedding could take place she was stolen by a hill-ogre, whose life was bound up with a grain of sand under the ninth tongue of the ninth head of the slaughtered dragon. Here, again, the power of transformation enables the lad to triumph.[27.1]
There remain one or two types of a more abnormal kind briefly to mention. A märchen of the Gipsies of Southern Hungary speaks of a dragon which threatened a certain city with destruction, unless in ten years the king’s fair daughter were given to him. In the interval she marries a man who wins the favour of a Keshalyi (a forest-fairy, or Fate) by kindly combing her hair. The Keshalyi’s hairs, as we have already seen, are powerful talismans, identified in Gipsy superstitions with the floating cobwebs of autumn. He obtains one of them, and by this means is able to take from the horns of the moon-king’s black cattle a gold ring, a similar ring from the horns of the sun-king’s white cattle, and one from the horns of the cloud-king’s yellow cattle. These he gives to his bride. Their virtue causes her to give birth successively to three heroes, of whom one is so strong he can throw high into the air a stone which ten horses cannot move, another can by blowing burn everything around him to ashes, and the third can spit balls from his mouth farther and truer than the best guns can carry. When, at the appointed time, the great dragon comes for her, sons like these prove invaluable. Though the very houses shook with the monster’s voice, the youths quickly riddled his skin with balls, buried him beneath great rocks, and burnt him up.[28.1]
Another Gipsy tale concerns a youth who piped so well for the dancing of a silver-clad river-nymph, daughter of the moon-king, that she gave him a silver sickle and prayed him to come again on the morrow and she would give him yet fairer gifts. But he is late for the tryst, and finds her dead on the ground, heart-broken at his breach of faith; for these ladies’ hearts are very fragile. Her sister appears from the river and curses him, if a man, to become a woman, if a woman, to become a man. She then carries the dead nymph back into the river, and, as it seems, there restores her to life; for immediately afterwards a magnificent black steed stands before the desolate youth (now become a girl) and declares that he is sent by the deceased maiden to bear him where his fortune blossoms. Mounted on the steed, he is borne through the air like lightning to the aid of a king’s daughter, given to a dragon who dwells in a fountain and requires a maid once a year for dinner. He slays the dragon with the sickle; and the king in his joy gives him his daughter to wife. He accepted the lady amid the general excitement, without thinking that he was no longer a man but a woman. This was awkward. The bride complained to her father, who was afraid to attempt his life by direct means. Wherefore he sent him instead to rob the cloud-king of three golden apples which had the property, one of them of making wealthy, another of making lucky, and the third of making healthy. His steed helps him to accomplish the task. But when the monster, half-man, half-dog, that guards the apples, finds that he has been cozened, he flings the curse after the robber: “If a man, become woman; if a woman, become man.” The curse sets matters right again. “I don’t know what has happened, dearest father,” says the bride to the king, “but my husband is a man after all.”[29.1] In an Albanian variant the dragon-slayer is born a girl. She kills a lamia to whom the king has given his son, and is rewarded with a magical steed. Later on she wins another king’s daughter in marriage by a feat of athletics, and, as in the last tale, is guilty of the thoughtlessness of taking the bride. Being prescribed a series of tasks by the king with the same object of getting rid of her, she at last is cursed by some serpents with the requisite change of sex.[29.2]
In this tale it is no longer Andromeda who is rescued, but a young man. The variation is doubtless due to Oriental influence, conveyed through a Mohammedan channel. At least, all the variants of this form with which I am acquainted are of Arab or Indian provenience. In a story from the Panjáb the hero is the younger of two brothers, princes, the elder of whom has eaten a parrot and the other a starling. Now the fate of these birds was that whoever ate the parrot would become a king, and whoever ate the starling a prime minister. The elder brother received his kingdom; but the younger is slain by a snake-demon and afterwards restored to life. Coming into a strange town, he takes shelter with an old woman whose turn it is to provide the victim for an ogre who daily eats a young man, a goat and a wheaten cake. She has no difficulty about the goat and the cake; and the prince volunteers to take the place of the human victim, in order to kill the ogre. He is successful; and then, cutting off the monster’s head, he ties it up in a handkerchief and falls asleep. An impostor in the shape of a scavenger finds him, buries him in a clay-pit and, taking the ogre’s head, claims from the king half the kingdom and his daughter in marriage, as a reward for overcoming the monster. We should expect the end to be the impostor’s conviction and the hero’s wedding. However, the further adventures of the latter result in his obtaining a different wife. With self-denial unusual in polygamous countries, he finds one enough; so he makes the princess over to his brother.[30.1] It would seem as though we had here a relic of an earlier form of the tale wherein it is a maiden who is rescued. Another tale, also from the Panjáb, countenances the supposition.[30.2] As given in the Siddhi-Kür, on the other hand, there is no reference to a lady. Two dragon-frogs who dwell at the source of a river and can withhold the water, demand every year a human being to eat. The lot falls on the khan himself; and no one but his son will go in his stead. The son is accompanied by a poor man’s son, who is his friend and will not quit his side. They overhear the frogs incautiously talking, after the manner of supernatural beings in fairy tales, and telling one another how they may be subdued. Thus they succeed in ridding the land of the pest; and further, by eating the frogs’ heads, the one acquires the power of spitting gold and the other of spitting emeralds—an endowment which develops the plot in a new direction.[31.1] It would be strange if the endless adventures of the favourite Arab hero, Hatim Taï, did not include the incident. Accordingly, we learn that Hatim reaches a village where a giant devours one of the villagers every week. That week the lot has fallen upon the chief’s son. Hatim rescues him from his impending fate by causing a mirror to be prepared and set up in the monster’s path. When the giant beholds his own ugliness he bursts with rage in the most natural but horrible manner. Substantial rewards are offered to the deliverer. He rejects them, however, and goes about his business as if nothing had happened.[31.2]
A Sanskrit story found in one of the manuscripts of the Twenty-five Tales of a Demon relates that a certain king had had a quarrel with some demons about a lady, whom he had taken to wife, whereas they had intended her for their son. Peace was established on the terms of making over to them daily a human victim. When it came to the turn of the king’s own son he was fortunately rescued by a stranger-prince, named Mahâbala. The demon, who expected a good meal, was overcome and made to swear that he would henceforth protect brahmans and never again set foot in the city. In contrast, however, to the generous Hatim Taï, Mahâbala was dissatisfied with the rewards offered him, and allowed the demon to return to his evil ways. This of course resulted in a fresh application to the deliverer, who made the monster renew his oath. He had no cause for dissatisfaction a second time.[32.1]
It will have been observed that the stories cited in the present chapter, like those mentioned in the first volume as embodying more complete versions of the Perseus legend, present in the majority of cases the curious incident of the impostor. Concerning this personage I shall have more to say hereafter. We have found him in the story, from Quilimane, of Rombao and Antonyo. He is equally popular among the Omahas and Ponkas of North America, where the tale of the Rescue is so thoroughly domesticated, as to be considered by authorities familiar with the customs and modes of thought of the aborigines as for the most part “of Indian origin.” Two versions have been recorded differing only in details. An outline of one of them will enable the reader to judge of their “Indian origin.” An orphan, we are told, who lives with his grandmother, is possessed of a gun of unerring aim. He exchanges it for a magical sword and two hounds which always find and kill game at their master’s command. The villagers are heard lamenting; and the old woman tells him it is because the water-monster with seven heads has asked for the chief’s daughter, and in case of refusal has threatened to devour the whole tribe. The orphan determines to deliver her. He finds her bound by the stream, unties her and sends her home. With his dogs and sword he overcomes the monster, cuts off his heads and takes the tongues. A black man finds the heads, pretends to be the victor and claims the chief’s daughter in marriage, in accordance with an offer her father has previously made. The maiden denied that he was her deliverer; but the chief decided against her and “they cooked for the marriage.” The orphan became aware by supernatural consciousness of what was going on. He sent one of his dogs to steal one of the best slices of the meat. The dog was pursued, and the orphan discovered. He justifies having sent the dog, for he it is who has killed the water-monster and taken his tongues. On this being reported to the chief he sends for the orphan and confronts him with the black man. After the orphan has told his story, “Come, black man, confess!” he says. “ ‘Hold on! I wish to go outside,’ said the black man. ‘Take hold of him,’ said the orphan. The black man did not tell the truth, therefore they burnt him. And thus, after all, the orphan married the chief’s daughter.”[33.1]
The most hardened believer in the possibility of the independent origin of folktales having a similar plot will scarcely refuse to admit that this tale at least must have come to the Sioux from a European source—probably through French trappers or missionaries. It may be true, as the translator tells us, that only two words in it (namely, those for gun and sword) are of foreign origin. This is a fact of no importance against the multifarious coincidences of plot and idea with those of the Old World summarised in the present and previous chapters: it is only an additional testimony to the completeness with which the mind of the barbarous Ponka has absorbed the story. When an alien people thus receives and assimilates a tale, it is because the tale is suited to the alien digestion. The mental growth it indicates is the same on the part of the people giving and the people acquiring it. It satisfies the imaginative instincts of both. But though accepted among the traditions of the Cegiha-speaking tribes, the tale of the Rescue has not received that final seal of adoption which identifies the action, or some of the actors, with the mythical history of the race: it has not attained to the dignity of a saga, such as we are about to examine in the next chapter.
In the Ponka and Omaha variants the black man is burnt in accordance with Christian precedents; and this is one of the notes of their European origin. A Tuscan story, linked to the ancient mythology by the use of what seems to be a veritable tree-spirit who has survived in rustic belief to the present day, confers a very different reward on the impostor. A poor but handsome youth goes to cut wood. To him appears Vira, the forest-sprite, and comforts him. If he will do as she tells him he need not despair of making his fortune. She directs him to a district near Benevento, whose king has a daughter. This damsel has been given to a seven-headed ogre to devour; and the king has offered her in marriage to any one who will slay the ogre and bring him his heads. Signore Slaniani has conquered the monster and put his heads on a wagon to carry them to the king. But the reward is not for him. When the wagon was being loaded Vira secretly took the tongues, and she now gives them to the youth. “Carry these tongues to the king, and say that thou didst slay the ogre, and that thou dost wish for his daughter.” The tale is told with snatches of verse, which are some evidence of its antiquity. The youth readily falls into the plot.
“And thus did Vira;
The youth was clad in splendid attire,
He too was very beautiful,
Boldly he went to the king,
Boldly he claimed to have slain,
Single-handed, the ogre,
And asked for the beautiful princess
As a reward for his valour.
‘It may not be,’ said the king;
‘He who slew the monster
Has brought with him its heads,
No better proof can be found.’
‘A better proof is the tongues,’
Answered the youth, undaunted,
‘And I can show all the seven.’ ”
To the amazement of the true victor, who had never let the heads go out of his sight, the tongues are no longer in them.