In Siberia we find a legend of swan-maidens, which also reminds us of the story of the Heartless Giant. A certain Samojed once went out to catch foxes, and found seven maidens swimming in a lake surrounded by gloomy pine-trees, while their feather dresses lay on the shore. He crept up and stole one of these dresses, and by and by the swan-maiden came to him shivering with cold and promising to become his wife if he would only give her back her garment of feathers. The ungallant fellow, however, did not care for a wife, but a little revenge was not unsuited to his way of thinking. There were seven robbers who used to prowl about the neighbourhood, and who, when they got home, finding their hearts in the way, used to hang them up on some pegs in the tent. One of these robbers had killed the Samojed's mother; and so he promised to return the swan-maiden's dress after she should have procured for him these seven hearts. So she stole the hearts, and the Samojed smashed six of them, and then woke up the seventh robber, and told him to restore his mother to life, on pain of instant death, Then the robber produced a purse containing the old woman's soul, and going to the graveyard shook it over her bones, and she revived at once. Then the Samojed smashed the seventh heart, and the robber died; and so the swan-maiden got back her plumage and flew away rejoicing. [141]
Swan-maidens are also, according to Mr. Baring-Gould, found among the Minussinian Tartars. But there they appear as foul demons, like the Greek Harpies, who delight in drinking the blood of men slain in battle. There are forty of them, who darken the whole firmament in their flight; but sometimes they all coalesce into one great black storm-fiend, who rages for blood, like a werewolf.
In South Africa we find the werewolf himself. [142] A certain Hottentot was once travelling with a Bushwoman and her child, when they perceived at a distance a troop of wild horses. The man, being hungry, asked the woman to turn herself into a lioness and catch one of these horses, that they might eat of it; whereupon the woman set down her child, and taking off a sort of petticoat made of human skin became instantly transformed into a lioness, which rushed across the plain, struck down a wild horse and lapped its blood. The man climbed a tree in terror, and conjured his companion to resume her natural shape. Then the lioness came back, and putting on the skirt made of human skin reappeared as a woman, and took up her child, and the two friends resumed their journey after making a meal of the horse's flesh. [143]
The werewolf also appears in North America, duly furnished with his wolf-skin sack; but neither in America nor in Africa is he the genuine European werewolf, inspired by a diabolic frenzy, and ravening for human flesh. The barbaric myths testify to the belief that men can be changed into beasts or have in some cases descended from beast ancestors, but the application of this belief to the explanation of abnormal cannibal cravings seems to have been confined to Europe. The werewolf of the Middle Ages was not merely a transformed man,—he was an insane cannibal, whose monstrous appetite, due to the machinations of the Devil, showed its power over his physical organism by changing the shape of it. The barbaric werewolf is the product of a lower and simpler kind of thinking. There is no diabolism about him; for barbaric races, while believing in the existence of hurtful and malicious fiends, have not a sufficiently vivid sense of moral abnormity to form the conception of diabolism. And the cannibal craving, which to the mediaeval European was a phenomenon so strange as to demand a mythological explanation, would not impress the barbarian as either very exceptional or very blameworthy.
In the folk-lore of the Zulus, one of the most quick-witted and intelligent of African races, the cannibal possesses many features in common with the Scandinavian Troll, who also has a liking for human flesh. As we saw in the preceding paper, the Troll has very likely derived some of his characteristics from reminiscences of the barbarous races who preceded the Aryans in Central and Northern Europe. In like manner the long-haired cannibal of Zulu nursery literature, who is always represented as belonging to a distinct race, has been supposed to be explained by the existence of inferior races conquered and displaced by the Zulus. Nevertheless, as Dr. Callaway observes, neither the long-haired mountain cannibals of Western Africa, nor the Fulahs, nor the tribes of Eghedal described by Barth, "can be considered as answering to the description of long-haired as given in the Zulu legends of cannibals; neither could they possibly have formed their historical basis..... It is perfectly clear that the cannibals of the Zulu legends are not common men; they are magnified into giants and magicians; they are remarkably swift and enduring; fierce and terrible warriors." Very probably they may have a mythical origin in modes of thought akin to those which begot the Panis of the Veda and the Northern Trolls. The parallelism is perhaps the most remarkable one which can be found in comparing barbaric with Aryan folk-lore. Like the Panis and Trolls, the cannibals are represented as the foes of the solar hero Uthlakanyana, who is almost as great a traveller as Odysseus, and whose presence of mind amid trying circumstances is not to be surpassed by that of the incomparable Boots. Uthlakanyana is as precocious as Herakles or Hermes. He speaks before he is born, and no sooner has he entered the world than he begins to outwit other people and get possession of their property. He works bitter ruin for the cannibals, who, with all their strength and fleetness, are no better endowed with quick wit than the Trolls, whom Boots invariably victimizes. On one of his journeys, Uthlakanyana fell in with a cannibal. Their greetings were cordial enough, and they ate a bit of leopard together, and began to build a house, and killed a couple of cows, but the cannibal's cow was lean, while Uthlakanyana's was fat. Then the crafty traveller, fearing that his companion might insist upon having the fat cow, turned and said, "'Let the house be thatched now then we can eat our meat. You see the sky, that we shall get wet.' The cannibal said, 'You are right, child of my sister; you are a man indeed in saying, let us thatch the house, for we shall get wet.' Uthlakanyana said, 'Do you do it then; I will go inside, and push the thatching-needle for you, in the house.' The cannibal went up. His hair was very, very long. Uthlakanyana went inside and pushed the needle for him. He thatched in the hair of the cannibal, tying it very tightly; he knotted it into the thatch constantly, taking it by separate locks and fastening it firmly, that it might be tightly fastened to the house." Then the rogue went outside and began to eat of the cow which was roasted. "The cannibal said, 'What are you about, child of my sister? Let us just finish the house; afterwards we can do that; we will do it together.' Uthlakanyana replied, 'Come down then. I cannot go into the house any more. The thatching is finished.' The cannibal assented. When he thought he was going to quit the house, he was unable to quit it. He cried out saying, 'Child of my sister, how have you managed your thatching?' Uthlakanyana said, 'See to it yourself. I have thatched well, for I shall not have any dispute. Now I am about to eat in peace; I no longer dispute with anybody, for I am now alone with my cow.'" So the cannibal cried and raved and appealed in vain to Uthlakanyana's sense of justice, until by and by "the sky came with hailstones and lightning Uthlakanyana took all the meat into the house; he stayed in the house and lit a fire. It hailed and rained. The cannibal cried on the top of the house; he was struck with the hailstones, and died there on the house. It cleared. Uthlakanyana went out and said, 'Uncle, just come down, and come to me. It has become clear. It no longer rains, and there is no more hail, neither is there any more lightning. Why are you silent?' So Uthlakanyana ate his cow alone, until he had finished it. He then went on his way." [144]
In another Zulu legend, a girl is stolen by cannibals, and shut up in the rock Itshe-likantunjambili, which, like the rock of the Forty Thieves, opens and shuts at the command of those who understand its secret. She gets possession of the secret and escapes, and when the monsters pursue her she throws on the ground a calabash full of sesame, which they stop to eat. At last, getting tired of running, she climbs a tree, and there she finds her brother, who, warned by a dream, has come out to look for her. They ascend the tree together until they come to a beautiful country well stocked with fat oxen. They kill an ox, and while its flesh is roasting they amuse themselves by making a stout thong of its hide. By and by one of the cannibals, smelling the cooking meat, comes to the foot of the tree, and looking up discovers the boy and girl in the sky-country! They invite him up there; to share in their feast, and throw him an end of the thong by which to climb up. When the cannibal is dangling midway between earth and heaven, they let go the rope, and down he falls with a terrible crash. [145]
In this story the enchanted rock opened by a talismanic formula brings us again into contact with Indo-European folk-lore. And that the conception has in both cases been suggested by the same natural phenomenon is rendered probable by another Zulu tale, in which the cannibal's cave is opened by a swallow which flies in the air. Here we have the elements of a genuine lightning-myth. We see that among these African barbarians, as well as among our own forefathers, the clouds have been conceived as birds carrying the lightning which can cleave the rocks. In America we find the same notion prevalent. The Dakotahs explain the thunder as "the sound of the cloud-bird flapping his wings," and the Caribs describe the lightning as a poisoned dart which the bird blows through a hollow reed, after the Carib style of shooting. [146] On the other hand, the Kamtchatkans know nothing of a cloud-bird, but explain the lightning as something analogous to the flames of a volcano. The Kamtchatkans say that when the mountain goblins have got their stoves well heated up, they throw overboard, with true barbaric shiftlessness, all the brands not needed for immediate use, which makes a volcanic eruption. So when it is summer on earth, it is winter in heaven; and the gods, after heating up their stoves, throw away their spare kindlingwood, which makes the lightning. [147]
When treating of Indo-European solar myths, we saw the unvarying, unresting course of the sun variously explained as due to the subjection of Herakles to Eurystheus, to the anger of Poseidon at Odysseus, or to the curse laid upon the Wandering Jew. The barbaric mind has worked at the same problem; but the explanations which it has given are more childlike and more grotesque. A Polynesian myth tells how the Sun used to race through the sky so fast that men could not get enough daylight to hunt game for their subsistence. By and by an inventive genius, named Maui, conceived the idea of catching the Sun in a noose and making him go more deliberately. He plaited ropes and made a strong net, and, arming himself with the jawbone of his ancestress, Muri-ranga-whenua, called together all his brethren, and they journeyed to the place where the Sun rises, and there spread the net. When the Sun came up, he stuck his head and fore-paws into the net, and while the brothers tightened the ropes so that they cut him and made him scream for mercy, Maui beat him with the jawbone until he became so weak that ever since he has only been able to crawl through the sky. According to another Polynesian myth, there was once a grumbling Radical, who never could be satisfied with the way in which things are managed on this earth. This bold Radical set out to build a stone house which should last forever; but the days were so short and the stones so heavy that he despaired of ever accomplishing his project. One night, as he lay awake thinking the matter over, it occurred to him that if he could catch the Sun in a net, he could have as much daylight as was needful in order to finish his house. So he borrowed a noose from the god Itu, and, it being autumn, when the Sun gets sleepy and stupid, he easily caught the luminary. The Sun cried till his tears made a great freshet which nearly drowned the island; but it was of no use; there he is tethered to this day.
Similar stories are met with in North America. A Dog-Rib Indian once chased a squirrel up a tree until he reached the sky. There he set a snare for the squirrel and climbed down again. Next day the Sun was caught in the snare, and night came on at once. That is to say, the sun was eclipsed. "Something wrong up there," thought the Indian, "I must have caught the Sun"; and so he sent up ever so many animals to release the captive. They were all burned to ashes, but at last the mole, going up and burrowing out through the GROUND OF THE SKY, (!) succeeded in gnawing asunder the cords of the snare. Just as it thrust its head out through the opening made in the sky-ground, it received a flash of light which put its eyes out, and that is why the mole is blind. The Sun got away, but has ever since travelled more deliberately. [148]
These sun-myths, many more of which are to be found collected in Mr. Tylor's excellent treatise on "The Early History of Mankind," well illustrate both the similarity and the diversity of the results obtained by the primitive mind, in different times and countries, when engaged upon similar problems. No one would think of referring these stories to a common traditional origin with the myths of Herakles and Odysseus; yet both classes of tales were devised to explain the same phenomenon. Both to the Aryan and to the Polynesian the steadfast but deliberate journey of the sun through the firmament was a strange circumstance which called for explanation; but while the meagre intelligence of the barbarian could only attain to the quaint conception of a man throwing a noose over the sun's head, the rich imagination of the Indo-European created the noble picture of Herakles doomed to serve the son of Sthenelos, in accordance with the resistless decree of fate.