The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12). Frazer James George

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СКАЧАТЬ each day, and each day the strength of the fairy kept ebbing away. Then after allowing himself two days' rest the hero tore off the seventh head and secured the egg, but not till it had rolled into the sea and been brought back to him by a friendly dog-fish. When he returned to the fairy with the egg in his hand, she begged and prayed him to give it her, but he made her first restore the young girls to health and send them away in handsome carriages. When she had done so, he struck her on the forehead with the egg, and she fell down dead.349 Similarly in a story from the western Riviera a sorcerer called Body-without-Soul can only be killed by means of an egg which is in an eagle, which is in a dog, which is in a lion; and the egg must be broken on the sorcerer's forehead. The hero, who achieves the adventure, has received the power of changing himself into a lion, a dog, an eagle, and an ant from four creatures of these sorts among whom he had fairly divided the carcase of a dead ass.350

      The external soul in Slavonic stories. Russian story of Koshchei the Deathless, whose death was in an egg.

      Stories of the same sort are current among Slavonic peoples. In some of them, as in the biblical story of Samson and Delilah, the warlock is questioned by a treacherous woman as to the place where his strength resides or his life or death is stowed away; and his suspicions being roused by her curiosity, he at first puts her off with false answers, but is at last beguiled into telling her the truth, thereby incurring his doom through her treachery. Thus a Russian story tells how a certain warlock called Kashtshei or Koshchei the Deathless carried off a princess and kept her prisoner in his golden castle. However, a prince made up to her one day as she was walking alone and disconsolate in the castle garden, and cheered by the prospect of escaping with him she went to the warlock and coaxed him with false and flattering words, saying, “My dearest friend, tell me, I pray you, will you never die?” “Certainly not,” says he. “Well,” says she, “and where is your death? is it in your dwelling?” “To be sure it is,” says he, “it is in the broom under the threshold.” Thereupon the princess seized the broom and threw it on the fire, but although the broom burned, the deathless Koshchei remained alive; indeed not so much as a hair of him was singed. Balked in her first attempt, the artful hussy pouted and said, “You do not love me true, for you have not told me where your death is; yet I am not angry, but love you with all my heart.” With these fawning words she besought the warlock to tell her truly where his death was. So he laughed and said, “Why do you wish to know? Well then, out of love I will tell you where it lies. In a certain field there stand three green oaks, and under the roots of the largest oak is a worm, and if ever this worm is found and crushed, that instant I shall die.” When the princess heard these words, she went straight to her lover and told him all; and he searched till he found the oaks and dug up the worm and crushed it. Then he hurried to the warlock's castle, but only to learn from the princess that the warlock was still alive. Then she fell to wheedling and coaxing Koshchei once more, and this time, overcome by her wiles, he opened his heart to her and told her the truth. “My death,” said he, “is far from here and hard to find, on the wide ocean. In that sea is an island, and on the island there grows a green oak, and beneath the oak is an iron chest, and in the chest is a small basket, and in the basket is a hare, and in the hare is a duck, and in the duck is an egg; and he who finds the egg and breaks it, kills me at the same time.” The prince naturally procured the fateful egg and with it in his hands he confronted the deathless warlock. The monster would have killed him, but the prince began to squeeze the egg. At that the warlock shrieked with pain, and turning to the false princess, who stood by smirking and smiling, “Was it not out of love for you,” said he, “that I told you where my death was? And is this the return you make to me?” With that he grabbed at his sword, which hung from a peg on the wall; but before he could reach it, the prince had crushed the egg, and sure enough the deathless warlock found his death at the same moment.351

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      1

      Ch. E. Gover, “The Pongol Festival in Southern India,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, N.S., v. (1870) pp. 96 sq.

      2

      W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India (Westminster, 1896), ii. 314 sqq.; Captain G. R. Hearn, “Passing through the Fire at Phalon,” Man, v. (1905) pp. 154 sq. On the custom of walking through fire, or rather over a furnace, see Andrew Lang, Modern Mythology (London, 1897), pp. 148-175; id., in Athenaeum, 26th August and 14th October, 1899;

1

Ch. E. Gover, “The Pongol Festival in Southern India,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, N.S., v. (1870) pp. 96 sq.

2

W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India (Westminster, 1896), ii. 314 sqq.; Captain G. R. Hearn, “Passing through the Fire at Phalon,” Man, v. (1905) pp. 154 sq. On the custom of walking through fire, or rather over a furnace, see Andrew Lang, Modern Mythology (London, 1897), pp. 148-175; id., in Athenaeum, 26th August and 14th October, 1899; id., in Folk-lore, xii. (1901) pp. 452-455; id., in Folk-lore, xiv. (1903) pp. 87-89. Mr. Lang was the first to call attention to the wide prevalence of the rite in many parts of the world.

3

Pandit Janardan Joshi, in North Indian Notes and Queries, iii. pp. 92 sq., § 199 (September, 1893); W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India (Westminster, 1896), ii. 318 sq.

4

E. T. Atkinson, “Notes on the History of Religion in the Himalayas of the N.W. Provinces,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, liii. Part i. (Calcutta, 1884) p. 60. Compare W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India (Westminster, 1896), ii. 313 sq.

5

See above, vol. i. pp. 136 sq.

6

G. Schlegel, Uranographie Chinoise (The Hague and Leyden, 1875), pp. 143 sq.; id., “La fête de fouler le feu célébrée en Chine et par les Chinois à Java,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, ix. (1896) pp. 193-195. Compare J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of China, vi. (Leyden, 1910) pp. 1292 sq. According to Professor Schlegel, the connexion between this festival and the old custom of solemnly extinguishing and relighting the fire in spring is unquestionable.

7

The Dying God, p. 262.

8

(Sir) H. H. Risley, СКАЧАТЬ