The next morning, to their astonishment, he woke hale and hearty, and there and then he told them all about the goat and the vine and the grape and the sweet juice. Then Noah gave orders that the vine should be taken from the hills and planted in his garden. Before he did so, he killed the goat and poured the blood of it on to the roots in remembrance of the fact that it was through the goat that he discovered the vine.
Thus far the Rumanian story, which, however, requires completion. As far as it goes it agrees almost verbatim with a story found in a very ancient Hebrew collection of legends (Midrash Abkhir); the sequel there is as follows: When Noah started planting the vine, the devil came and asked to be allowed to take a part in it. Noah willingly agreed. After killing the goat, the devil brought a lion, whose blood was also used to water the roots of the vine, and finally brought a swine, and his blood was also poured over the roots of the vine.
For this reason it comes to pass that, when a man drinks a little wine he gets merry and jumps and frolics like a young kid; and if he drinks a little more, he becomes hot and roars like the lion; and his last stage is reached when he wallows in the mire like the pig, for he has drunk the blood of all of them.
Here, then, we have a tale which shows how a man can become a beast without changing his human form, not like all the other tales, in which he remains a bird or a beetle to the end of his days.
A peculiar transformation of this legend is found in the following variant, in which the bones of the animals are substituted for their blood. The whole setting is different from the more primitive type preserved in the Rumanian.
When Saint Dionysios was still young, he once made a journey through Greece, in order to go to Naxia (the isle of Naxos), but the way being very long, he got tired and sat down on a stone to rest. While he was sitting, and looking down in front of himself, he saw at his feet a little plant sprouting from the earth, which seemed to him so beautiful that he resolved at once to take it with him and to plant it. He took the plant out of the ground and carried it away; but, as the sun was very hot just then, he feared that it might dry up before his arrival in Naxia. Then he found the small bone of a bird, and put the plant into it and went on. In his holy hand, however, the plant grew so quickly that it peeped forth from both sides of the bone. Then he again feared that it would dry up, and thought of a remedy. He found the bone of a lion, which was thicker than the bird’s bone, and he put the bird’s bone, together with the plant, into the bone of the lion. But the plant quickly grew, even out of the lion’s bone. Then he found the bone of a donkey, which was still thicker, and he put the plant, together with the bird’s and lion’s bones, into the donkey’s bone, and so he came to Naxia. When he was planting it, he saw that the roots had wound thickly round the bones of the bird, the lion and the donkey; and, as he could not take it out without injuring the roots, he planted it in the ground as it was, and it quickly grew up and produced, to his delight, the finest grapes, from which he made the first wine, which he gave to men to drink. But what a wonder did he see now! When men drank of it, they sang in the beginning like merry little birds; drinking more of it, they became strong as lions; and drinking still more, they became stupid like donkeys. (Hahn, Albn. Märchen, ii. 76; v. also Thumb, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Manchester, vol. ii. No. 1, Oct. 1914, p. 38 and note 50).
I add here a Christmas carol about the shepherd and the sheep, for it seems that at the basis of it lies the idea of God giving a special blessing to the sheep. It is a second stage after the idea of creation of the sheep by God.