In a Polish legend, derived doubtless from the myth of the Hesperides, the hawk takes the place of the dragon. A young princess, through magic, is shut up in a golden castle situated on a mountain of ice: before the castle she finds an Apple-tree bearing golden Apples. No one is able to come to this castle. Whenever a cavalier ascends the side of the ice mountain in order to release the princess, the hawk darts down and blinds his horse, and both horse and rider are precipitated down the abyss. At length the appointed hero arrives, slays the hawk, gathers the golden Apples, and delivers the princess.
According to a Hanoverian legend, a young girl descends to the infernal regions by means of a staircase, which she discovers under an Apple-tree growing at the back of the house. She sees a garden, where the sun seems to shine more brightly than on earth; the trees are blossoming or are loaded with fruit. The damsel fills her apron with Apples, which become golden when she returns to earth.
In the popular tales of all countries, the Apple is represented as the magical fruit par excellence. The Celtic priests held the Apple sacred, and in Gaelic, Norse, German, and Italian stories it is constantly introduced as a mysterious and enchanted fruit. Mr. Campbell, in the introduction to his Tales of the West Highlands, points out that when the hero wishes to pass from Islay to Ireland, he pulls out sixteen Apples and throws them into the sea one after another, and he steps from one to the other. When the giant’s daughter runs away with the king’s son, she cuts an Apple into a mystical number of small bits, and each bit talks. When she kills the giant, she puts an Apple under the hoof of the magic filly, and he dies, for his life is the Apple, and it is crushed. When the byre is cleansed, it is so clean, that a golden Apple would run from end to end and never raise a stain. There is a Gruagach who has a golden Apple, which is thrown at all comers, who, if they fail to catch it, die. When it is caught and thrown back by the hero, Gruagach an Ubhail, dies. There is a certain game called cluich an ubhail—the Apple play—which seems to have been a deadly game. When the king’s daughter transports the soldier to the green island on the magic table-cloth, he finds magic Apples which transform him, and others which cure him, and by which he transforms the cruel princess, and recovers his magic treasures. When the two eldest idle king’s sons go out to herd the giant’s cattle, they find an Apple-tree whose fruit moves up and down as they vainly strive to pluck it; in fact, in all Gaelic stories, the Apple when introduced has something marvellous about it.
So, in the German, in the ‘Man of Iron,’ a princess throws a golden Apple as a prize, which the hero catches three times, and carries off, and wins. In ‘Snow White,’ where the poisoned comb occurs, there is a poisoned magic Apple also. In the ‘Old Griffin,’ the rich princess is cured by rosy-cheeked Apples. In the ‘White Snake,’ a servant who understands the voice of birds, helps creatures in distress, gets them aid, and procures golden Apples from three ravens which fly over the sea to the end of the world, where stands the tree of life. When he had got the Apple, he and the princess eat it and marry. Again, in the ‘Wonderful Hares,’ a golden Apple is the gift for which the finder is to gain a princess; and that Apple grew on a tree, the sole one of its kind.
In Norse it is the same: the princess on the glass mountain held three golden Apples in her lap, and he who could ride up the hill and carry off the Apples was to win the prize; and the princess rolled them down to the hero, and they rolled into his shoe. The good girl plucked the Apples from the tree which spoke to her when she went down the well to the underground world; but the ill-tempered step-sister thrashed down the fruit; and when the time of trial came, the Apple-tree played its part and protected the poor girl.
In a French tale, a singing Apple is one of the marvels which Princess Belle Etoile and her brothers and her cousin bring from the end of the world. In an Italian story, a lady when she has lost her husband goes off to the Atlantic Ocean with three golden Apples; and the mermaid who has swallowed the husband shows first his head, then his body to the waist, and then to the knees, each time for a golden Apple. Then, finally, in the ‘Arabian Nights,’ there is a long story, called the Three Apples, which turns upon the theft of one, which was considered to have been of priceless value. The Apple-blossom is considered to be an emblem of preference. To dream of Apples betokens long life, success in trade, and a lover’s faithfulness.
APPLE OF SODOM.—The Solanum Sodomeum is a purple Egg-plant of which the fruit is naturally large and handsome. It is, however, subject to the attacks of an insect (a species of Cynips), which punctures the rind, and converts the interior of the fruit into a substance like ashes, while the outside remains fair and beautiful. It is found on the desolate shores of the Dead Sea, on the site of those cities of the plain the dreadful judgment on which is recorded in sacred history. Hence the fruit, called the Apple of Sodom, has acquired a sinister reputation, and is regarded as the symbol of sin. Its first appearance, it is said, is always attended with a bitter north-east wind, and therefore ships for the Black Sea take care to sail before the harbinger of bad weather comes forth. The fruit is reputed to be poisonous. Josephus, the Jewish historian, speaks of them as having “a fair colour, as if they were fit to be eaten; but if you pluck them with your hand, they vanish into smoke and ashes.” Milton, describing an Apple which added new torments to the fallen angels, compares it to the Apples of Sodom:—
“Greedily they pluck’d
The fruitage fair to sight, like that which grew
Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flamed.