After the Giant's daughter and her husband had got free from the Giant, she bade him go to his father's house, and tell them about her; but he was not to suffer anything to kiss him, or he would forget her altogether. So he told everybody they were not to kiss him, but an old greyhound leapt up at him, and touched his mouth, and then he forgot all about the Giant's daughter, just as if she had never lived. Now when the King's son left her, the poor forgotten wife sat beside a well, and when night came she climbed into an oak-tree, and slept amongst the branches. There was a shoemaker who lived near the well, and next day he sent his wife to fetch water, and as she drew it she saw what she fancied to be her own reflection in the water, but it was really the likeness of the maiden in the tree above it. The shoemaker's wife, however, thinking it was her own, imagined herself to be very handsome, and so she went back and told the shoemaker that she was too beautiful to be his thrall, or slave, any longer, and so she went off. The same thing happened to the shoemaker's daughter; and she went off too. Then the man himself went to the well, and saw the maiden in the tree, and understood it all, and asked her to come down and stay at his house, and to be his daughter. So she went with him. After a while there came three gentlemen from the King's Court, and each of them wanted to marry her; and she agreed with each of them privately, on condition that each should give a sum of money for a wedding gift. Well, they agreed to this, each unknown to the other; and she married one of them, but when he came and had paid the money, she gave him a cup of water to hold, and there he had to stand, all night long, unable to move or to let go the cup of water, and in the morning he went away ashamed, but said nothing to his friends. Next night it was the turn of the second; and she told him to see that the door-latch was fastened; and when he touched the latch he could not let it go, and had to stand there all night holding it; and so he went away, and said nothing. The next night the third came, and when he stepped upon the floor, one foot stuck so fast that he could not draw it out until morning; and then he did the same as the others—went off quite cast down. And then the maiden gave all the money to the shoemaker for his kindness to her. This is like the story of "The Master Maid," in Dr. Dasent's collection of "Tales from the Norse." But there is the end of it to come. The shoemaker had to finish some shoes because the young King was going to be married; and the maiden said she should like to see the King before he married. So the shoemaker took her to the King's castle; and then she went into the wedding-room, and because of her beauty they filled a vessel of wine for her. When she was going to drink it, there came a flame out of the glass, and out of the flame there came a silver pigeon and a golden pigeon; and just then three grains of barley fell upon the floor, and the silver pigeon ate them up. Then the golden one said, "If thou hadst mind when I cleaned the byre, thou wouldst not eat that without giving me a share." Then three more grains fell, and the silver pigeon ate them also. Then said the golden pigeon, "If thou hadst mind when I thatched the byre, thou wouldst not eat that without giving me a share." Then three other grains fell, and the silver pigeon ate them up. And the golden pigeon said, "If thou hadst mind when I harried the magpie's nest, thou wouldst not eat that without giving me my share. I lost my little finger bringing it down, and I want it still." Then, suddenly, the King's son remembered, and knew who it was, and sprang to her and kissed her from hand to mouth; and the priest came, and they were married.
These stories will be enough to show how the same idea repeats itself in different ways among various peoples who have come from the same stock: for the ancient Hindu legend of Urvasi and Pururavas, the Greek fable of Eros and Psyche, the Norse story of the Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon, the Teutonic story of the Soaring Lark, and the Celtic story of the Battle of the Birds, are all one and the same in their general character, their origin, and their meaning; and in all these respects they resemble the story which we know so well in English—that of Beauty and the Beast. The same kind of likeness has already been shown in the story of Cinderella, and in those which resemble it in the older Aryan legends and in the later stories of the Greeks. If space allowed, such comparisons might be carried much further; indeed, there is no famous fairy tale known to children in our day which has not proceeded from our Aryan forefathers, thousands of years ago, and which is not repeated in Hindu, Persian, Greek, Teutonic, Scandinavian, and Celtic folk-lore; the stories being always the same in their leading idea, and yet always so different in their details as to show that the story-tellers have not copied from each other, but that they are repeating, in their own way, legends and fancies which existed thousands of years ago, before the Aryan people broke up from their old homes, and went southward and westward, and spread themselves over India and throughout Europe.
Now there is a curious little German story, called "The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids," which is told in Grimm's collection, and which shows at once the connection between Teutonic folk-lore, and Greek mythology, and Aryan legend. There was an old Goat who had seven young ones, and when she went into the forest for wood, she warned them against the Wolf; if he came, they were not to open the door to him on any account. Presently the Wolf came, and knocked, and asked to be let in; but the little Kids said, "No, you have a gruff voice; you are a wolf." So the Wolf went and bought a large piece of chalk, and ate it up, and by this means he made his voice smooth; and then he came back to the cottage, and knocked, and again asked to be let in. The little Kids, however, saw his black paws, and they said, "No, your feet are black; you are a wolf." Then the Wolf went to a baker, and got him to powder his feet with flour; and when the little Kids saw his white feet, they thought it was their mother, and let him in. Then the little Kids were very much frightened, and ran and hid themselves. The first got under the table, the second into the bed, the third into the cupboard, the fourth into the kitchen, the fifth into the oven, the sixth into the wash-tub, and the seventh into the clock-case. The wicked Wolf, however, found all of them out, and ate them up, excepting the one in the clock-case, where he did not think of looking. And when the greedy monster had finished his meal, he went into the meadow, and lay down and slept. Just at this time the old Goat came home, and began crying for her children; but the only one who answered was the youngest, who said, "Here I am, dear mother, in the clock-case;" and then he came out and told her all about it. Presently the Goat went out into the meadow, and there lay the Wolf, snoring quite loud; and she thought she saw something stirring in his body. So she ran back, and fetched a pair of scissors and a needle and thread, and then she cut open the monster's hairy coat, and out jumped first one little kid, and then another, until all the six stood round her, for the greedy Wolf was in such a hurry that he had swallowed them whole. Then the Goat and the little Kids brought a number of stones, and put them into the Wolf's stomach, and sewed up the place again. When the Wolf woke up, he felt very thirsty, and ran off to the brook to drink, and the heavy stones overbalanced him, so that he fell into the brook, and was drowned. And then the seven little Kids danced round their mother, singing joyfully, "The wolf is dead! the wolf is dead!" Now this story is nothing but another version of an old Greek legend which tells how Kronos (Time), an ancient god, devoured his children while they were quite young; and Kronos was the son of Ouranos, which means the heavens; and Ouranos is a name which comes from that of Varuna, a god of the sky in the old sacred books, or Vedas, of the Hindus; and the meaning of the legend is that Night swallows up or devours the days of the week, all but the youngest, which still exists, because, like the little kid in the German tale, it is in the clock-case.
Again, in the Vedas we have many accounts of the fights of Indra, the sun-god, with dragons and monsters, which mean the dark-clouds, the tempest thunder-bearing clouds, which were supposed to have stolen the heavenly cows, or the light, pleasant, rain-bearing clouds, and to have shut them up in gloomy caverns. From this source we have an infinite number of Greek and Teutonic, and Scandinavian, and other legends. One of these is the story of Polyphemos, the great one-eyed giant, or Kyklops, whom Odysseus blinded. Polyphemos is the storm-cloud, and Odysseus stands for the sun. The storm-cloud threatens the mariners; the lightnings dart from the spot which seems like an eye in the darkness; he hides the blue heavens and the soft white clouds—the cows of the sky, or the white-fleeced flocks of heaven. Then comes Odysseus, the sun-god, the hero, and smites him blind, and chases him away, and disperses the threatening and the danger, and brings light, and peace, and calm again.
Now this legend of Polyphemos is to be found everywhere; in the oldest Hindu books, in Teutonic, and Norse, and Slav stories; and everywhere also the great giant, stormy, angry, and one-eyed, is always very stupid, and is always overthrown or outwitted by the hero, Odysseus, when he is shut up in the cavern of Polyphemos, cheats the monster by tying himself under the belly of the largest and oldest ram, and so passes out while the blind giant feels the fleece, and thinks that all is safe. Almost exactly the same trick is told in an old Gaelic story, that of Conall Cra Bhuidhe.[6] A great Giant with only one eye seized upon Conall, who was hunting on the Giant's lands. Conall himself is made to tell the story:
"I hear a great clattering coming, and what was there but a great Giant and his dozen of goats with him, and a buck at their head. And when the Giant had tied the goats, he came up, and he said to me, 'Hao O! Conall, it's long since my knife is rusting in my pouch waiting for thy tender flesh.' 'Och!' said I, 'it's not much thou wilt be bettered by me, though thou shouldst tear me asunder; I will make but one meal for thee. But I see that thou art one-eyed. I am a good leech, and I will give thee the sight of the other eye.' The Giant went and he drew the great caldron on the site of the fire. I was telling him how he should heat the water, so that I should give its sight to the other eye. I got leather and I made a rubber of it, and I set him upright in the caldron. I began at the eye that was well, till I left them as bad as each other. When he saw that he could not see a glimpse, and when I myself said to him that I would get out in spite of him, he gave that spring out of the water, and he stood in the mouth of the cave, and he said that he would have revenge for the sight of his eye. I had but to stay there crouched the length of the night, holding in my breath in such a way that he might not feel where I was. When he felt the birds calling in the morning, and knew that the day was, he said, 'Art thou sleeping? Awake, and let out my lot of goats!' I killed the buck. He cried, 'I will not believe that thou art not killing my buck.' 'I am not,' I said, 'but the ropes are so tight that I take long to loose them.' I let out one of the goats, and he was caressing her, and he said to her, 'There thou art, thou shaggy hairy white goat; and thou seest me, but I see thee not.' I was letting them out, by way of one by one, as I flayed the buck, and before the last one was out I had him flayed, bag-wise. Then I went and put my legs in the place of his legs, and my hands in the place of his fore-legs, and my head in the place of his head, and the horns on top of my head, so that the brute might think it was the buck. I went out. When I was going out the Giant laid his hand on me, and said, 'There thou art, thou pretty buck; thou seest me, but I see thee not.' When I myself got out, and I saw the world about me, surely joy was on me. When I was out and had shaken the skin off me, I said to the brute, 'I am out now, in spite of thee!'"
It was a blind fiddler, in Islay, who told the story of Conall, as it had been handed down by tradition from generation to generation; just as thousands of years before the story of Odysseus and Polyphemos was told by Greek bards to wondering villagers.
Here we must stop; for volumes would not contain all that might be said of the likeness of legend to legend in all the branches of the Aryan family, or of the meaning of these stories, and of the lessons they teach—lessons of history, and religious belief, and customs, and morals and ways of thought, and poetic fancies, and of well-nigh all things, heavenly and human—stretching back to the very spring and cradle of our race, older than the oldest writings, and yet so ever fresh and new that while great scholars ponder over them for their deep meaning, little children in the nursery or by the fire-side in winter listen to them with delight for their wonder and their beauty. Else, if there were time and space we might tell the story of Jason, and show how it springs from the changes of day and night, and how the hero, in his good ship Argo, our mother Earth, searches for and bears away in triumph the Golden Fleece, the beams of the radiant sun. Or we might fly with Perseus on his weary, endless journey—the light pursuing and scattering the darkness; the glittering hero, borne by the mystic sandals of Hermes, bearing the sword of the sunlight, piercing the twilight or gloaming in the land of the mystic Graiae; slaying Medusa, the solemn star-lit night; destroying the dark dragon, and setting free Andromeda the dawn-maiden; and doing many wonders more. Or in Hermes we might trace out the Master Thief of Teutonic, and Scandinavian, and Hindu legends; or in Herakles, the type of the heroes who are god-like in their strength, yet who do the bidding of others, and who suffer toil and wrong, and die glorious deaths, and leave great names for men to wonder at: heroes such as Odysseus, and Theseus, and Phoebus, and Achilles, and Sigurd, and Arthur, and all of whom represent, in one form or another, the great mystery of Nature, and the conflict of light and darkness; and so, if we look to their deeper meaning, the constant triumph of good over evil, and of right over wrong.