According to another legend, the bull-flies were originally the angels who refused to help St. Elias in fastening the felloes to his fiery chariot. Therefore their mouths have been closed as with a vice, for ever, so that they be no longer able to speak, and that is why they are also called wheelwrights.
The horns of these bull-flies are used by women, who tie them into their hair against the evil eye. The sharp points of these horns have the same magical properties as the sharp points of the coral, or of the horns, fingers, etc., which figure so largely in the magical charms and amulets against the workings of the evil eye.
XVII.
WHY IS THE SAW-FLY RED?
The Story of Ileana, Voinic and the Archangel Gabriel.
The following legend is told of this little beetle.
I do not know how long ago it was that Ileana Cosinziana (Ileana the fay) walked about with her young, beautiful, and brave hero (Voinic inflorit), and, singing with a loud voice, they filled mountain and valleys with their music. It must have been long ago, for at that time the archangel Gabriel also walked the earth in the form of a very old man, leaning on iron crutches. He went about warning the people that God would send upon them a new flood of foreign tongues and wild nations, if they would not stop their quarrels and put an end to their curses. After having travelled through many countries and empires, St. Gabriel found himself one day at the top of a cliff, so high that it made your head turn when you looked down. There he met Ileana Cosinziana, who was weeping and singing a doleful tune. With her was Voinic inflorit, whom she had met in the land of the fairies, just as God makes men meet in their journeys. “How far art thou going?” asked Voinic, seeing the old man. “Much farther than thou wilt go,” replied the archangel Gabriel. The young man looked up, feeling wroth with the answer. And quite naturally so, when he heard a very old man boasting that he was going much farther than he. Was he not a young sturdy man, and more likely to walk ever so much further than a bent-down old fellow grey of hair? “O old man, you must take me for a weakling, when you say that I cannot walk as far as you do.”
“Young man, your sweet, strong voice will not be heard any more a year hence.”