[323] These are the concluding verses, coming much nearer to the language of this world than the rest. They may have a basis of tradition:
Whar they war aware o the Fairy King,
A huntan wi his train.
Four an twenty gentlemen
Cam by on steeds o brown;
In his hand ilk bore a siller wand,
On his head a siller crown.
Four an twenty beltit knichts
On duiplit greys cam by;
Gowden their wands an crowns, whilk scanct
Like streamers in the sky.
Four an twenty noble kings
Cam by on steeds o snaw,
But True Thomas, the gude Rhymer,
Was king outower them a'.
[324] "Tamlane: an old Scottish Border Ballad. Aberdeen, Lewis and James Smith, 1862. "I am indebted for a sight of this copy, and for the information as to the editor, to Mr Macmath.
[325] Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, II, 221-24, ed. 1802.
[326] Restoration from enchantment is effected by drinking blood, in other ballads, as Grundtvig, No 55, II, 156, No 58, II, 174; in No 56, II, 158, by a maid in falcon shape eating of a bit of flesh which her lover had cut from his breast.
[327] Volksleben der Neugriechen, pp 115-17, "from Chourmouzis, [Greek: Krêtika], p. 69 f, Athens, 1842." Chourmouzis heard this story, about 1820 or 1830, from an old Cretan peasant, who had heard it from his grandfather.
[328] The silence of the Cretan fairy, as B. Schmidt has remarked, even seems to explain Sophocles calling the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis "speechless," [Greek: aphthongous gamous]. Sophocles gives the transformations as being lion, snake, fire, water: Scholia in Pindari Nemea, III, 60; Schmidt, as before, p. 116, note. That a firm grip and a fearless one would make any sea-god do your will would appear from the additional instances of Menelaus and Proteus, in Odyssey, IV, and of Hercules and Nereus, Apollodorus, II, 5, 11, 4, Scholia in Apollonii Argonaut., IV, 1396. Proteus masks as lion, snake, panther, boar, running water, tree; Nereus as water, fire, or, as Apollodorus says, in all sorts of shapes. Bacchus was accustomed to transform himself when violence was done him, but it is not recorded that he was ever brought to terms like the watery divinities. See Mannhardt, Wald- und Feldkulte, II, 60-64, who also well remarks that the tales of the White Ladies, who, to be released from a ban, must be kissed three times in various shapes, as toad, wolf, snake, etc., have relation to these Greek traditions.