Chapter 4 Jannet,

Louis Retore,

Louis Senlis,

Claude Corbonnet,

The case was dismissed by the Commissaire. Leclerc had to surrender the ass, and to rest content with the use that had been made of it as payment for its keep, whilst the claim for damages on account of the bite fell to the ground.

But if dismissed by the Commissaire, it was only that it might be taken up by the wits of the day and made the subject of satire and epigram. Some of the pieces in verse originated by this singular action are republished in the series Variétés Historiques et Literaires; allusions to it are not infrequent in the writers of the day.

About the same time an action was brought by a magistrate of position and fortune against the curé of St. Etienne-du-Mont, a M. Coffin, for refusing him the sacrament on account of a gross scandal he had caused. A wag contrasted the conduct of the two priests in the following lines:-

De deux curés portant blanches soutanes,

Le procédé ne se ressemble en rien;

L'un met du nombre des profanes

Le magistrat le plus homme de bien;

L'autre, dans son hameau, trouve jusqu'aux anes

Tous ses paroissiens gens de bien.

* * *

A MYSTERIOUS VALE

In the Gretla, an Icelandic Saga of the thirteenth century, is an account of the discovery of a remarkable valley buried among glacier-laden mountains, by the hero, a certain Grettir, son of Asmund, who lived in the beginning of the eleventh century. Grettir was outlawed for having set fire, accidentally, to a house in Norway, in which were at the time the sons of an Icelandic chief, too drunk to escape from the flames. He spent nineteen years in outlawry, hunted from place to place, with a price on his head. The Saga relating his life is one of the most interesting and touching of all the ancient Icelandic histories.

In the year 1025 Grettir was in such danger that he was obliged to seek out some unknown place in which to hide. In the words of the Saga:-About autumn Grettir went up into Geitland, and waited there till the weather was clear; then he ascended the Geitland glacier and struck south-east over the ice, carrying with him a kettle and some firewood. It is supposed that Hallmund (another outlaw) had given him directions, for Hallmund knew much about this part of the country. Grettir walked on till he found a dale lying among the snow-ranges, very long, and rather narrow, and shut in by glacier mountains on all sides, so that they towered over the dale.

He descended at a place where there were pleasant grassy slopes and shrubs. There were warm springs there, and he supposed that the volcanic heat prevented the valley from being closed in with glaciers.

A little river flowed through the dale, and on both banks there was smooth grassy meadow-land. The sunshine did not last long in the valley. It was full of sheep without number, and they looked in better condition and fatter than any he had seen before. Grettir now set to work, and built himself a hut with such wood as he could procure. He ate of the sheep, and found that one of these was better than two of such as were to be found elsewhere.

An ewe of mottled fleece was there with her lamb, the size of which surprised him. He fattened the lamb and slaughtered it, and it yielded forty pounds of meat, the best he had tasted. And when the ewe missed her lamb, she went up every night to Grettir's hut and bleated, so that he could get no sleep. And it distressed Grettir that he had killed her lamb, because she troubled him so much. Every evening, towards dusk, he heard a lure up in the dale, and at the sound all the sheep hurried away towards the same spot. Grettir used to declare that a Blending,[19] a Thurse named Thorir, possessed the dale, and that it was with his consent that Grettir lived there. Grettir called the dale after him, Thorir's dale. Thorir had two daughters, according to his report, and Grettir entertained himself with their society: they were all glad of his company, as visitors were scarce there. When Lent came on, Grettir determined to eat mutton-fat and liver during the long fast. There happened nothing deserving of record during the winter. But the place was so dull that Grettir could endure it no longer; so he went south over the glacier range, and came north over against the midst of Skjaldbreid. There he set up a flat stone, and knocked a hole through it, and was wont to say, that "if any one looked through the hole in the slab, he would be able to distinguish the place where the gill ran out of Thorir's dale."

It is surprising that this account should not have stirred up the interest and curiosity of the natives to rediscover the rich valley, but we know of only two such attempts having been made: one by Messrs. Olafsen and Povelsen, at the close of last century, which was unsuccessful, and another, made in 1654, by Bj?rn and Helgi, two Icelandic clergymen, an account of which is found among the Icelandic MSS. in the British Museum, and which has been kindly communicated to the writer of this paper by a native of the island, now in London. This account is of exceeding interest; it corroborates the description in the Gretla in several points, and opens a field for exploration and adventure to members of the Alpine Club more novel than the glacier world of Switzerland, and not less interesting to science.

The writer, who visited Iceland in 1862, purposed exploring this mysterious valley from the south, but was unable to find grass for his horses within a day's ride of the glaciers, and was obliged to relinquish his attempt; had he then seen the account of the visit of Bj?rn and Helgi to the valley, he would have attempted to reach it from the north.

In order that the position of this valley, and the course pursued by its explorers, may be understood, it will be necessary briefly to describe the glacier system in the midst of which it is situated.

Lang J?kull is an immense waste of snow-covered mountain, extending about forty-three miles from north-east to south-west, of breadth varying between eight and twelve miles. The mass rises into points of greater elevation along the edge than, apparently, towards the centre; and these mountains go by the names of Ball J?kull, Geitlands J?kull, Skjaldbreid J?kull, Blàfell J?kull, and Hrutafell. Skjaldbreid J?kull is opposite the volcanic dome of Skjaldbreid, an extinct volcano, with its base steeped in a sea of lava. Due east of Geitlands J?kull is another glacier-crowned dome, called Ok, from which it is cut off by a trench of desolate ruined rock filled with the rubbish brought down by the avalanches on either side-a rift between black walls of trap, crowned with green precipices of ice, which are constantly sliding over the rocky edges and falling with a crash into the valley: this valley is called Kaldidalr, or the cold dale-a title it well deserves. Those who traverse it from the south encamp at a little patch of turf around some springs, at the foot of Skjaldbreid, Brunnir by name, and thence have twelve hours' hard riding before they see grass again on the Hvitá, north of Ok. Half-way through this Allée Blanche is a mountain of trachyte, which has been protruded through the trap, from which it is clearly distinguishable by its silvery gray and ruddy streaked precipices, so different in colour from the purple-black of the trap.

This mountain is called Thorir's Head, and is popularly supposed to mask the dale discovered by Grettir.

The elaborate map of Iceland published by Gunnlaugson indicates the valley as winding from opposite Skjaldbreid to this point, but this is conjectural; and it will be seen by the sequel that it is inaccurate.

North of Geitlands J?kull is an extraordinary dish-cover-shaped cake of ice raised on precipitous sides, called E?rek's J?kull, a magnificent, but peculiar pile of basalt, ice, and snow.

Before proceeding with the narrative of Messrs. Olafsen and Povelsen, and of the two clergymen, we may observe that several circumstances tend to give a colour of probability to the account in the Gretla.

In the first place, the phenomenon of the edges of the great glacier region of Lang J?kull rising above the centre, makes it possible that towards that centre there may be a considerable depression. Next, the stone asserted to have been set up by Grettir on Skjaldbreid still stands, but has fallen out of the perpendicular, so that the hole in it does not point to any opening in the glaciers; but a little to the right appears a small ravine between piles of ice, through which runs a small river, which shortly after enters a lake, and, after having fed two other lakes, finally enters the Tungafljot, and flows past the geysers. And once more, throughout Iceland, the junction of the trap and trachyte is marked by boiling jetters; so that the mention of the hot-springs in the Gretla is quite in accordance with what the geological structure of Thorir's Head would lead us to expect.

The suspicious portion of the account is the mention of Thorir and his daughters; but in all probability this Troll was nothing more than an outlaw, like Grettir himself, and, indeed, Hallmund, who is alluded to as having given Grettir his direction to the valley, and who was a personal friend of Grettir's, and an outlaw, is called a Troll in the Barda Saga, which speaks of him and the Thorir of the mysterious vale.

It is a curious fact that, in the south-east of the island, in the Vatna J?kull, a tract very similar in character to Lang J?kull, but on a far larger scale, is a valley full of grass and flowers and glistening birch, completely enclosed by glaciers, which sweep down on this little fairy dell from all sides, leaving only one narrow rift for the escape of the water, and as a portal to the glen.

The expedition of Messrs. Olafsen and Povelsen is given in their own words. "On the 9th of August we started from Reykholtsdal on our way to the glacier of Geitland; our object was not so much to discover a region and inhabitants different from those we had quitted, as to observe the glacier with the most scrupulous accuracy, and thus to procure new intelligence relative to the construction of this wonderful natural edifice. The weather was fine and the sky clear, so that we had reason to expect that we should accomplish our object according to our wish, but it is necessary to state that in a short time the J?kulls attract the fogs and clouds that are near. On the 10th of August in the morning the air was calm, but the atmosphere was so loaded with mist that at times the glacier was not visible. About eleven o'clock, however, it cleared up, and we continued our journey from Kalmanstúnga.

"The high mountains of Iceland rise in gradations, so that on approaching them you discover only the nearest elevation, or that whose summit forms the first projection. On reaching this you perceive a similar height, and so pass over successive terraces till you reach the summit. In the glaciers these projections generally commence in the highest parts, and may be discovered at a distance, because they overtop the mountains that are not themselves glacier-clad. We found that it was much farther to the J?kull than we had imagined, and at length we reached a pile of rocks which, without forming steps and gradation at the point where we ascended, were of considerable height and very steep: these rocks extend to a great distance, and appear to surround the glacier, for we perceived their continuance as far as the eye could reach.[20] Between this pile of rocks and the glacier there is a small plain, about a quarter of a mile in width, the soil of which is clay without pebbles and flakes of ice, because the waters which continually flow from the glacier carry them off. On ascending farther, we discovered, to the right, a lake situated at one of the angles of the glacier, the banks of which were formed of ice, and the bed received a portion of the waters that flowed from the mountains. The water was perfectly green, a colour it acquired by the rays of light that broke against the ice.[21]

"After many turnings and windings we found a path by which we could descend with our horses into the valley. On arriving there we met with another embarrassment, as well in crossing a rivulet discharged from the lake, as in passing the muddy soil, in which our horses often sank up to the chest. In some parts this soil is very dangerous to travellers, many of whom have been engulphed and have perished in it.

"Our object was so far attained, that we were now on Geitland, but we found it a very disagreeable place. We observed a mountain peak rising above the ice, and which, as well as the other peaks, had been formed by subterranean fires. We led our horses over the masses of ice, after which we left them, and travelled the remainder of the way on foot. We had taken the precaution of providing ourselves with sticks armed with strong points, and with a strong rope in case of either of the party falling into a crevasse, or sinking in the snow. Thus prepared we began to escalade the glacier at two o'clock in the afternoon; the air was charged with dense fog covering all the mountain, but, hoping it would disperse, we continued our difficult and dangerous route, though at every instant we had to pass deep crevasses, one of which was an ell and a half in width, and the greatest precaution was required in crossing it.

"As we mounted higher the wind blew much stronger, and drove larger flakes of snow before it: fortunately we had the wind in our backs, which facilitated our ascent; but we met at the same time with so much loose snow that our progress was but slow. Hoping, however, that the weather would change, we agreed not to return till we had gained the summit, from which arose a black rock.

"At length, after two hours' longer tramp, we found that we could discover nothing in the distance. A rampart of burnt rock of no considerable height rose above the ice, and at this we paused to rest. The snowflakes now obscured the air so much that we hardly knew how we should get back: we examined the compass, but without observing any change; and we were prevented by our guides from going towards the north-west, where the mountain is highest and least accessible. The weather continued the same, so that we found it impossible to resist the cold much longer, and deemed it prudent to return.

"Although the sky was very heavy and dark, we discovered, on our return, the entrance to a valley; if the weather had been more favourable we should doubtless have had the pleasure of investigating it; but we doubt whether we should have found Thorir's dale. As we descended we found the wind in our face, which threw the snow so much against us that we could not discover the traces of our ascent."

This expedition was frustrated by the inclemency of the weather. Messrs. Olafsen and Povelsen made the mistake of starting in the morning. In Iceland vapours form over the mountain tops directly that the evening sun loses its power, and although there is no night, the air is sensibly colder after 6 P.M. They had the fine part of the day for the ascent from Kalmanstúnga to the snow, and their journey over the glacier was at a time when they might almost have calculated on cloud and snow.

Probably they had not seen the description of the discovery made by Bj?rn and Helgi in 1654. They allude to the expedition of these clergymen, but give one of them a wrong name, and speak of their journal as vague and confused, which it is not.

The account of the expedition of the two clergymen, Bj?rn and Helgi, written in the same year that it was undertaken, is now, in Icelandic, in the British Museum. It is full of interest, and sufficiently curious to deserve attention. Bj?rn and Helgi were brothers-in-law. In the summer of 1654, they met at Nes, where they had some conversation about Thorir's dale, and Helgi told his brother-in-law that he was convinced that either the valley itself, or some traces of it, could be seen by any one who would ascend the highest ridge of Geitlands J?kull. In consequence of this conversation, Bj?rn, attended by two men, rode to Húsafell, where lived his sister and brother-in-law, and persuaded Helgi to accompany him on the glacier. Húsafell lies just under Ok. They started at an extremely early hour on St. Olaf's Day (28th July), without mentioning their intention to any one. This was on Thursday. They soon turned from the highway, following the west side of a cleft that enters a trunk-ravine near Húsafell,[22] and then, reaching the north side of Ok glacier, they halted. There was a young man, Bj?rn Jónsson by name, with the two clergymen, a well-educated man; to him they now, for the first time, told their purpose, and they positively declared that they were determined to go at once across Kaldidalr, and thence ascend Geitlands J?kull, striking due east. His curiosity was aroused, and he agreed to go with them. They took with them, also, a little boy, intending, if they reached a precipice commanding the valley which they could not descend themselves, to let the boy down by a rope, that he might examine the place. They had with them a tent, and provisions for several days.

"They now struck due east, and kept their eyes fixed on a point where they thought they could discern a black ridge of mountains on the north side of the J?kull, and a hollow on the south. Till they reached the glacier, they met with no obstacle except a stony ridge of hills, which stretches all the way from the glaciers in the east, and crosses Kaldidalr in a northern direction. On the north side of this ridge was a heap of snow, and a small lake, formed by the water from the glaciers. Apparently, the horses could not descend; but Bj?rn pushed his horse down a narrow pass, into a small river, flowing below the rocks. The river is very deep, but is full of soft mud, and sluggish. From the eastern bank of it, towards the glacier, is a sandy, muddy plain; here they saw a raven flying from the north side of the glacier towards Ok. It did not make any noise, but seemed to be rather startled by the sight of human beings in that solitude. After a while they lost sight of it and saw it no more. They crossed the sandy plain towards the glacier, and scrambled up a spur of loose shingle, till they reached a river that burst out from beneath the ice. There the glacier became very steep, and they did not see how to take their horses farther, as on all sides were seracs of ice, and fissures and crevasses of immense depth. Then Bj?rn made a vow that he would take his horse, named Skoli, over the glacier, and not leave the ice-mountain except on the eastern side, provided this was not contrary to the will of God. Then Helgi made a vow that if he met with any human beings, male or female, in Thorir's dale, he would endeavour to Christianise them; and Bj?rn promised to assist him in this to the best of his power. And they agreed to baptize immediately all the people in the valley who might be willing to embrace Christianity. They thought it prudent to leave behind them one of their horses, their baggage and the tent, at a rock near the river. On this rock they piled up three cairns as evidence that they had been there; and there, also, they left the boy in charge of the horse, with strict orders not to stir till their return, which would be in the night or on the following day. They took with them a bottle of corn-brandy, remarking that the men of Aradalr would probably be quite ignorant of its properties. They took no weapons, except small knives, and each had a spiked staff, to assist him in climbing the ice. Both the clergymen and Bj?rn Jónsson rode all the way over the glacier, and on its northern side ascended a strip of rubble as far as they could. Then they pushed the horses down on a snowdrift, above the course of the river and the ravine through which it flowed. This snow-bed extended over the glacier an almost interminable way due south, or perhaps a little south-west. The crust was sufficiently hard to bear up the horses. Where the glacier began to rise again, it was entirely free from snow and ice, full of drifts and chasms in a direction from north to south, and as they were bearing to the east they had to cross every one of them. Most were filled with water which overflowed the glacier, and disappeared in the snowdrift, and in some places they rode through the water on the ice. None of these rifts were too broad to be crossed in one place or another, either higher up the glacier towards the south, or at its lower and north end. If they had met with a rift which they could not pass, they intended to have made a snow-bridge over it, rather than return. In this way they crossed the ice of the glacier. Next came another bed of snow, over which they rode for some while; but it was very heavy, as the day was exceedingly warm and mild.

"When they were within a short distance of what seemed to them to be the highest point of the glacier on the east, a mist set in on both sides from the north and south, leaving a clear space towards the east, so that they could see the bright sky exactly opposite their faces; and the reason of this was that the mountains rose on either side, leaving a sort of depression between them, along which they were going as they held on due east. This was not discouraging, as it showed that the mountain peaks caught the mist, and left the lower ground clear. At the same time, they heard the rush of water beneath their feet without being able to see the stream. The noise indicated a volume much larger than that which they had seen pouring through the ravine, and they conjectured that the sub-glacial river divided into several streams before discharging itself.

"They now passed from the snow to a gravelly soil, devoid of grass. It was a smooth ridge of sandstone, like the bank of a mountain torrent. The glaciers now sloped towards the north-east, whilst some tended towards the east; but right across the glaciers there lay a hollow trough, and in many places along the edge black rocks shot out of the snow. On the north side were lofty and craggy fells, connected by snowdrifts and strips of shale; and the glacier range rose considerably on the north side.

"The party followed the sandstone ridge till it terminated abruptly in a precipice with ledges. Then they climbed a height, and looked about them. On the east of the glaciers they saw distinctly a desert track, not covered with snow, which they conjectured lay in a straight line north of Biskupstungur sands. East of the glacier were two brown fells; that which was most to the south was not large, and it had a castellated appearance, whilst the other was oblong, stretching from north to south, and full of snowdrifts. From the same height they saw a great valley, long and narrow, running in a semicircle. At the end were heaps of shingle, precipices, and ravines. The valley began about the middle of the glacier, and ran north-east; then bent towards the east, and finally turned south. Towards the east the glacier became lower, and in the same proportion as the mountain ranges fell, did the valley become shallower; but it seemed nowhere to dive to the very bottom of the mountains. Towards the higher end of the valley, the glacier hemmed it in with steep sides. Where the valley was deepest, the mountain slopes were bare and weather-beaten, consisting of swarthy or brown terraces and hollows, having a colour like that of the fell close to the southern extremity of Geitland.[23]

"In some places there were dry watercourses. It was so far to the bottom of the valley that the explorers could not discover exactly whether there was not grass on one of the slopes; but possibly the hue was the peculiar colour of the sandstone. Anyhow, they could not discover green pasturage. At the bottom of the valley were sandy flats, and in some places avalanches had fallen from the glaciers, and strewn the ground with blocks of ice and other débris. The slopes were very uneven. No water or waterfalls were to be seen, except two pools glittering towards the south, where the valley became shallow, and where it spread into gravelly plains, with the glacier sliding almost to the bottom of the vale on both sides. At the north-east bend of the valley were two small bare hills, beneath which the explorers thought they perceived two grassy plains on both sides of a watercourse. Neither hot spring, wood, heather, nor grass, beside these patches, were visible anywhere." In one point the account of these men differs from that in the Gretla, for there it is stated that the valley was narrow, and covered with grass; but possibly the ice has encroached on the turf and destroyed it.

"The clergymen having erected a pile of stones in memorial of their visit, they went towards an immense rifted rock at the higher extremity of the valley, and there discovered a cave, with an opening towards the north, and looking down the valley. There was another opening, like a window, into the cavern, commanding the east. The door was exactly square, and just opposite it was a big square stone. This, as well as the cave, was of sandstone. This was the only block of stone thereabouts. The clergymen found that they were half the height of the cave; so that it must have been from ten to twelve feet high. The window on the east was oblong, and they conjectured that it had been made by the wind and rain, though it had possibly been the work of former inhabitants of the cave. The explorers supposed that the slab opposite the door had been thrown down from above, and that there had originally existed no door, except the rift they first discovered. The rift faces the west, and to enter the cave one must climb several ledges in the rock. This cavern is sufficiently extensive to hold a couple of hundred persons. Its floor is of sand, and it is well lighted through the window. They did not find any antiquities; but they supposed this to have been the cave occupied by Thorir and his daughters.

"The men cut their initials on the rocks; Bj?rn cut B. S. on that opposite the door, and Helgi cut a single H. on the eastern wall of the cave, just below the window. Bj?rn Jónsson cut his opposite, but Helgi's was the deepest engraved, and will stand longest. When they had finished this, they sat down and took some refreshments, and remarked, as they drank their brandy, that this was in all probability the first time that the smell of brandy had been snuffed in that place.

"It was now getting late; however, they ascended a mountain peak, on the west side of the cave, and separate from it by a sweep of snow, and this peak they believed to be visible from Kaldidalr; it was very steep and difficult to climb, so they rested twice on their way. They went up on different sides as the clink-stone rolled away beneath their feet on those behind. Bj?rn, the priest, was the first to attack the peak, but Helgi reached the summit first, and found it so sharp at the top as to afford hardly enough standing-ground for the three. They heaped a cairn on the top and put in it a flat stone, which they placed in a vertical position, and made fast with other stones. In it is a small rift; and they arranged it so that, by placing the eye at this rift, it looks eastward, through the door of the cave.

"The party then returned the same way that they had come, and parted in the morning in the middle of Kaldidalr, Bj?rn going southward, and Helgi towards the north."

We think that the clergymen were mistaken in supposing that this clink-stone cone is visible from Kaldidalr, for we saw no appearance of it. From Skjaldbreid a peak is distinguishable, however, but more to the south-west than that described by the priests.

Apparently, three ways of entering the mysterious vale present themselves, that which we ourselves intended being impracticable. One is to follow the route of the bold explorers, Bj?rn and Helgi; a second is to camp the horses at Hlitharvellir, grassy plains between Skjaldbreid and Hlothufell, and to follow the stream that issues from the glacier ravine into the recesses of the J?kull. A third course, and that which we expect would prove the easiest, though the least interesting, would be to encamp on the grass-land round the lake Hvitarvatn, to the east of the J?kull, where the mountains are lower, and the existence of a large sheet of water, from which issues a considerable river-the Hvitá-points to this being a place to which the drainage of a very considerable portion of the glacier converges.

It is not a little remarkable that the huge extent of Lang J?kull feeds scarcely any other rivers. It is true that the Nordlinga fljot, another Hvitá and Asbrandsá, have their sources under the Lang J?kull, but they are only small streams, whereas the Hvitá bursts out of its lake a wide and deep river; and we think that this is accounted for by the presence of a depression towards the interior of the range which gathers the drainage from the surrounding glaciers, and then pours the flood in a sub-glacial torrent into the lake. The opening to this valley we suppose to be blocked above the lake by the glaciers from Hrutafell and Blàfell's J?kull, which meet and overlap.

* * *

KING ROBERT OF SICILY

Next to the Saga of King Olaf, without doubt the most beautiful and successful of the Tales of a Wayside Inn, is that of King Robert of Sicily. The legend is of a remote antiquity, has passed through various modifications and recastings, and, after having lain by in forgotten tomes, has been vivified once more by the poetic breath of Longfellow, and popularised again. It is singular to trace the history of certain favourite tales; they seem to be endowed with an inherent vitality, which cannot be stamped out. Born far back in the early history of man, they have asserted at once a sway over the imagination and feelings; have been translated from their original birth-soil to foreign climes, and have undergone changes and adaptations to suit the habits and requirements of the new people amongst whom they have taken root. Political disturbances cannot obliterate them; war sweeps over the land they have adopted, famine devastates it, pestilence decimates its inhabitants, and for a while the ancient tales hide their heads, only to crop up again green and fresh when the springtide of prosperity returns.

Sometimes a venerable myth disappears for an exceptionally long period, and its vitality is, we suppose, extinguished. But though ages roll by, if it have in it the real essential power of development and assimilation, it is only waiting for its time to start a fresh career, full of concentrated vigour. Like the ear of wheat in the hand of the mummy, it has lain by, wrapped in cere-cloths, without giving token of germ, till the moment of its liberation has arrived, when, falling on good ground, it brings forth a hundredfold.

Such was the history of Fouque's exquisite romance, Undine. It was a very ancient tale, but it had been forgotten. The German poet found it in the dead hand of the whimsical pedant, Theophrastus Paracelsus, swathed in barbarous Latin. He writes:-"I ceased not to study an old edition of my speechmonger, which fell to me at an auction, and that carefully. Even his receipts I read through in order, just as they had been showered into the text, still continuing in the firm expectation that from every line something wonderfully magical might float up to me, and strike the understanding. Single sparks, here and there darting up, confirmed my hopes, and drew me deeper into the mines beneath ... then, at last, as a pearl of soft radiance, there sparkled towards me, from out its rough-edged shell-Undine." And he tells us how that his story has been translated into French, Italian, English, Russian, and Polish. The mummy wheat was soon multiplied.

The legend of King Robert of Sicily, which the American poet has rescued from oblivion, is one of those few which can be traced with rare precision through its various changes, and tracked to the country where it originated. It is instructive to note how in one form, it did service in the cause of one religion, and how, in another form, it pointed a striking moral in behalf of an entirely different creed.

Two methods of procedure lie open to us in the examination of this story, analysis and synthesis. We might trace the legend back from the form in which it is known to the modern public, by sure stages, to the ultimate atoms out of which it is developed, or we might take the original germ, and follow it in its expanding and varying forms, till it has assumed its present shape in the pages of the Tales of a Wayside Inn.

We shall adopt the latter method, as the most suitable in this peculiar instance.

In the Pantschatantra, a Sanscrit collection of popular tales, the date of the compilation of which is uncertain, but that of the tales is unquestionably earlier than the Christian era, is the following story:

"In the town of Liavati, lived a king, called Mukunda. One day he saw a hunchback performing such comical actions that he invited him to become an inmate of his palace, and, as his court fool, to divert him in his hours of idleness and depression. The king was so taken up with this droll rascal, that his prime minister was seriously displeased, and he said, in reproof, to his master-

'Far flies rumour with three pairs of ears.'

To which the king laughingly replied-

'The man is an idiot, so have no fears.'

"Grumbling still, the old and prudent minister said-

'The beggar may rise to royal degree,

The monarch descend to beggary.'

"One day a Brahmin came to the palace, and offered to teach the king various magical arts. The monarch agreed with delight, and for a small sum of money acquired power to send his soul from his own body into any disengaged carcass that he wished to vivify. The hunchback was in the room when the king learned his lesson.

"A few days after, Mukunda and his fool were riding in the forest, when they lit on the corpse of a Brahmin who had died of thirst. Here was an opportunity for the king to practise what he had learned. But first he asked the hunchback if he had given attention to the instruction of the Brahmin. The fool replied that he never bothered his head with the pedantry of professors. The king, satisfied with the answer, pronounced the magical words. Down fell his body, senseless, and his soul animating the corpse, the dead Brahmin sat up and opened his eyes. Instantly the crafty hunchback repeated the incantation, and took possession of the carcass of his majesty, mounted the king's horse, and rode off to Liavati, where he was received by the courtiers, the servants, the ministers, and the queen as if he were the true Mukunda, whilst the real monarch, in the shape of a begging Brahmin, roved the forests and the villages, cursing his folly, half starved on the scanty charity of the faithful.

"Suspicions that all was not right forced their way into the queen's mind, and she mentioned her doubts to the minister.

'Far flies rumour with three pairs of ears,'

said he, addressing the false king, who shrugged his shoulders, and laughed. Again the minister tried him with-

'The beggar may rise to royal degree,'

and received a peremptory order to be silent as he valued his head.

"'He is not the king,' said the minister to the queen. 'We must find the true Mukunda, wherever he may be.'

"In order to effect this, to every one whom the vizier addressed he uttered the two half-verses-

'Far flies rumour with three pairs of ears,'

and

'The beggar may rise to royal degree,'

but with no results. One evening, however, as he was walking home, deep in thought, a poor Brahmin clamoured for alms. The minister made no answer; but when the pauper continued his importunities, he said, sharply,-

'Far flies rumour with three pairs of ears';

to which the Brahmin promptly answered-

'The man is an idiot, so have no fears.'

"Hearing this, the old man was arrested by his interest. He hastily continued-

'The beggar may rise to royal degree';

and the Brahmin responded without hesitation-

'The monarch descend to beggary.'

"The minister caught him at once by the hand, and insisted on hearing his story. No sooner was he made aware of what had been done by the hunchback, than he hastened to the palace, where he found the queen bathed in tears over a favourite parrot, which lay dead on her lap. The old man concerted with her a plan for the destruction of the hunchback and the restoration of the true king; then he secretly introduced the transformed Mukunda into the chamber, and summoned the false king.

"'O sire,' said the queen, 'if you love me restore my pretty parrot to life.'

"'That is easily effected,' answered the fool.

"In an instant his body fell rigid, and his soul entered the bird, which sat up, plumed its feathers, and began to chatter. At the same moment the true Mukunda pronounced the magic words, dropped his adopted body, and darted into that which had originally been his. At the sight of the reviving monarch, the queen wrung the parrot's neck, and thus destroyed the impostor."

This story is based on the great Buddhist doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and was evidently a very popular illustration of that fundamental dogma, for variations of it are common in most ancient Sanscrit collections. Thus in the Katha Sarit Sagara, a work of Soma Deva, written between A.D. 1113-1125, the story reappears considerably altered, but still told with the design of insisting on the doctrine of transmigration of souls. Soma Deva's tale is this in brief:-

Vararutschi, Vyadi, and Indradatta desired to learn the new lessons of Varscha, but could not pay the stipulated fee-a million pieces of gold. They determined to ask King Nanda-a contemporary of Alexander the Great, by the way-to pay it for them, and they visited his capital. They are too late: Nanda is just dead. However, determined to obtain the requisite sum, Indradatta leaves his body in a wood, guarded by his companions, and sends his soul into the dead king. Then Vararutschi goes to him, asks, and receives the gold, whilst Vyadi sits beside the deserted body.

But the prime minister suspected that the revived master was not quite identical with the deceased master. Indeed, King Nanda now exhibited an intelligence and vigour which had been sadly deficient before. The minister knew that the heir to the throne was but a child, and that he had powerful enemies. He therefore formed the resolution of keeping the false king on the throne till the heir was of age to govern. To effect his purpose, he issued orders that every corpse in the kingdom should be burnt. Amongst the rest was consumed that of Indradatta, and the Brahmin found himself, with horror, obliged to remain in the body of a Sudra, though that Sudra was a king.

There is another story, similar to that in the Pantschatantra, told of Tschandragupta, the founder of the Maurya dynasty, and one of the most renowned of the ancient Indian kings. But, indeed, the variations occurring in the ancient Sanscrit Buddhist tales are very numerous.

From India the story travelled into Persia-when, is not known; but it was probably there long before A.D. 540 when the Persian translation of the Pantschatantra was made. In Persian it occurs in the Bahar Danush, and in the version of the ?ukasaptati. It is in the Turkish T?t?nameh. It is in the famous Arabian Nights, as the story of the Prince Fadl-Allah. It is also in the Mongolian Vikramacarita. But, though it was translated with small variations from the Sanscrit in these works, popularly the story had gone through great adaptations and alterations to suit creeds which did not believe in the transmigration of souls.

When it was made known to the Jews is not certain; probably at the captivity. Yet there are passages in the Psalms, and especially in the song of Hannah, which bear a striking resemblance to the verses of the prime minister, and seem almost like an allusion to the fable. Thus, "The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory." This may be a reference or it may not. The sentiment is not unlikely to have been uttered without knowledge of the Indian fable; but if Hannah had been acquainted with it, no doubt to it allusion was made.

It is certain, however, that the story did popularise itself among the Jews, and when it did so, it was in a form adapted to their belief, which had nothing in common with metempsychosis. And it is exceedingly probable that they derived it from Persia, for one of the actors in the tale, Asmodeus, is the Zoroastrian Aêshma. The story is found in the Talmud and is as follows:-

"King Solomon, having completed the temple and his house, was lifted up with pride of heart, and regarded himself as the greatest of kings. Every day he was wont to bathe, and before entering the water, he entrusted his ring, wherein lay his power, to one of his wives. One day the evil spirit, Asmodeus, stole the ring, and, assuming Solomon's form, drove the naked king from the bath into the streets of Jerusalem. The wretched man wandered about his city scorned by all; then he fled into distant lands, none recognising in him the great and wise monarch. In the meanwhile the evil spirit reigned in his stead, but unable to bear on his finger the ring graven with the Incommunicable Name, he cast it into the sea. Solomon, returning from his wanderings, became scullion in the palace. One day a fisher brought him a fish for the king. On opening it, he found in its belly the ring he had lost. At once regaining his power, he drove Asmodeus into banishment, and, a humbled and better man, reigned gloriously on the throne of his father David" (Talmud, Gittim, fol. 68).

The Arabs have a similar legend, taken from the Jews:-

"One day Solomon asked an indiscreet question of an evil Jinn subject to him. The spirit replied that he could not obtain the information required without the aid of Solomon's seal. The king thoughtlessly lent it, and immediately found himself supplanted by the Jinn. Reduced to beggary, he wandered through the world repeating, 'I, the preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.' The constant repetition of this sentence attracted attention; the disguised demon took alarm and fled, and Solomon regained his throne."

Finally the Jews or Arabs introduced the story to Western Europe, where it soon became popular. In the Gesta Romanorum, a collection of moral tales made by the monks in the fourteenth century, the Emperor Jovinian takes the place of Solomon, and the story is thus told:-

"When Jovinian was emperor, he possessed very great powers; and as he lay in bed reflecting upon the extent of his dominions, his heart was elated to an extraordinary degree. 'Is there,' he impiously asked, 'any other god than me?' Amid such thoughts he fell asleep.

"In the morning he reviewed his troops, and said, 'My friends, after breakfast we will hunt.' Preparations being made accordingly, he set out with a large retinue. During the chase the emperor felt such extreme oppression from the heat, that he believed his very existence depended upon a cold bath. As he anxiously looked round, he discovered a sheet of water at no great distance. 'Remain here,' said he to his guard, 'until I have refreshed myself in yonder stream.' Then, spurring his steed, he rode hastily to the edge of the water. Alighting, he divested himself of his apparel, and experienced the greatest pleasure from its invigorating freshness and coolness. But whilst he was thus employed a person similar to him in every respect arrayed himself unperceived in the emperor's dress, and then mounting his horse, rode to the attendants. The resemblance to the sovereign was such, that no doubt was entertained of the reality; and straightway command was issued for their return to the palace.

"Jovinian, however, having quitted the water sought in every possible direction for his clothes, but could find neither them nor the horse. Vexed beyond measure at the circumstance, for he was completely naked, he began to reflect upon what course he should pursue. 'There is, I remember, a knight residing close by; I will go to him and command his attendance and service. I will then ride to the palace, and strictly investigate the cause of this extraordinary conduct. Some shall smart for it.'

"Jovinian proceeded naked and ashamed to the castle of the aforesaid knight, and beat loudly at the gate. 'Open the gate,' shouted the enraged emperor, as the porter inquired leisurely the cause of the knocking, 'you will soon see who I am.' The gate was opened, and the porter, struck with the strange appearance of the man before him, exclaimed, 'In the name of all that is marvellous, what are you?' 'I am,' replied he, 'Jovinian, your emperor. Go to your lord and command him to supply the wants of his sovereign. I have lost both horse and clothes.'

"'Infamous ribald!' shouted the porter, 'just before thy approach, the emperor, accompanied by his suite, entered the palace. My lord both went and returned with him. But he shall hear of thy presumption.' And he hurried off to communicate with his master. The knight came and inspected the naked man. 'What is your name?' he asked roughly.

"'I am Jovinian, who promoted thee to a military command.'

"'Audacious scoundrel!' said the knight, 'dost thou dare to call thyself the emperor? I have but just returned from the palace, whither I have accompanied him. Flog the rascal,' he ordered, turning to his servants: 'flog him soundly, and drive him away.'

"The sentence was immediately executed, and Jovinian, bruised and furious, rushed away to the castle of a duke whom he had loaded with favours. 'He will remember me,' was his hope. Arrived at the castle, he made the same assertion.

"'Poor mad wretch!' said the duke, 'a short time since, I returned from the palace, where I left the very emperor thou assumest to be. But, ignorant whether thou art more fool or knave, we will administer such a remedy as will suit both. Carry him to prison, and feed him with bread and water.' The command was no sooner delivered than obeyed; and the following day Jovinian's naked body was submitted to the lash, and again cast into the dungeon. In the agony of his heart, the poor king said, 'What shall I do? I am exposed to the coarsest contumely, and the mockery of the people. I will hasten to the palace and discover myself to my wife,-she will surely know me.'

"Escaping therefore from his confinement, he approached the imperial residence. 'Who art thou?' asked the porter.

"'It is strange,' replied the aggrieved emperor, 'that thou shouldest forget one thou hast served so long.'

"'Served thee!' returned the porter indignantly; 'I have served none but the emperor.'

"'Why!' said the other, 'though thou recognisest me not, yet I am he. Go to the empress; communicate what I shall tell thee, and by these signs, bid her send the imperial robes, of which some rogue has deprived me.' After some demur, the porter obeyed; and orders were issued for the admission of the mad fellow without.

"The false emperor and the empress were seated in the midst of their nobles. As the true Jovinian entered, a large dog, which crouched on the hearth, and had been much cherished by him, flew at his throat, and but for timely intervention would have killed him. A falcon also, seated on her perch, no sooner saw him than she broke her jesses, and flew out of the hall. Then the pretended emperor, addressing those who stood about him, said: 'My friends, hear what I will ask of yon ribald. Who are you? And what do you want?'

"'These questions,' said the suffering man, 'are very strange. You know I am the emperor, and master of this place.'

"The other, turning to the nobles who stood by, continued, 'Tell me, on your allegiance, which of us two is your lord?'

"They drew their swords in reply, and asked leave to punish the impostor with death.

"Then, turning to the empress, he asked, 'Tell me, my lady, on the faith you have sworn, do you know this man who calls himself thy lord and emperor?'

"She answered, 'How can you ask such a question? Have I not known thee more than thirty years, and borne thee many children?'

"Hearing this the unfortunate monarch rushed, full of despair, from the court. 'Why was I born?' he exclaimed. 'My friends shun me; my wife and children will not acknowledge me. I will seek my confessor. He may remember me.' To him he went accordingly, and knocked at the window of his cell.

"'Who is there?' asked the priest.

"'The Emperor Jovinian,' was the reply; 'open the window that I may speak with thee.' The window was opened; but no sooner had the confessor looked out than he closed it again in great haste.

"'Depart,' said he, 'accursed creature! Thou art not the emperor, but the devil incarnate.'

"This completed the miseries of the persecuted man. 'Woe is me,' he cried, 'for what strange doom am I reserved?'

"At this crisis, the impious words which in the arrogance of his heart he had uttered, crossed his recollection. Immediately he beat again at the window of the confessor.

"'Who is there?' asked the priest.

"'A penitent,' answered the emperor.

"The window was opened. 'What is your majesty pleased to require?' asked the confessor, recognising him at once. Then he made his confession, and received of the old father a few clothes to cover his nakedness, and by the priest's advice returned to the palace. The soldiers presented arms to him, the porter opened immediately, the dog fawned on him, the falcon flew to him, and his wife rushed to embrace him. Then the feigned emperor spoke:-'My friends, hearken! That man is your king. He exalted himself, to the disparagement of his Maker, and God has punished him. But repentance has removed the rod.' So saying, he disappeared. The emperor gave thanks to God, and lived happily, and finished his days in peace."

The same story, with some alterations, is told of Robert of Sicily. An old poem or metrical romance on the subject is given by Warton; and on it Longfellow has founded his poem.

Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane

And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine,

Apparelled in magnificent attire,

With retinue of many a knight and squire,

On St. John's eve, at vespers, proudly sat

And heard the priests chant the Magnificat.

And, as he listened, o'er and o'er again

Repeated, like a burden or refrain,

He caught the words: 'Deposuit potentes

De sede, et exaltavit humiles.'

He inquired of a clerk the meaning of these words; and, having heard the explanation, was mightily offended:-

''Tis well that such seditious words are sung

Only by priests, and in the Latin tongue;

For, unto priests and people be it known,

There is no power can push me from my throne.'

And, leaning back, he yawned, and fell asleep,

Lulled by the chant monotonous and deep.

When he awoke he was alone in the church. An angel had assumed his likeness, and had swept out of the minster with the court. The story then runs in the same line as that of Jovinian. Robert is unrecognised, and is at last received into the palace as court fool. At the end of three years there arrived an embassy from Valmond, the emperor, requesting Robert to join him on Maundy Thursday, at Rome, whither he proposed to go on a visit to his brother Urban. The angel welcomed the ambassadors, and departed in their company to the Holy City. We place side by side the Old English metrical description of Robert's appearance, as he accompanied the false emperor, with the modern poet's rendering:

Old English

The fool Robert also went,

Clothed in loathly garnement,

With fox-tails riven all about:

Men might him knowen in the rout.

An ape rode of his clothing;

So foul rode never king.

Longfellow

And lo! among the menials, in mock state,

Upon a piebald steed, with shambling gait;

His cloak of fox-tails flapping in the wind,

The solemn ape demurely perched behind,

King Robert rode, making huge merriment

In all the country towns through which they went.

Robert witnessed in sullen silence the demonstrations of affectionate regard with which the pope and emperor welcomed their supposed brother; but, at length, rushing forward, he bitterly reproached them for thus joining in an unnatural conspiracy with an usurper. This violent sally, however, was received by his brothers, and by the whole papal court, as an undoubted proof of his madness; and he now learnt for the first time the real extent of his misfortune. His stubbornness and pride gave way, and were succeeded by remorse and penitence.

After five weeks in Rome, the emperor, and the supposed king of Sicily, returned to their respective dominions, Robert being still accoutred in his fox-tails, and accompanied by his ape, whom he now ceased to consider as his inferior. When the angel was again at the capital of Sicily, he felt that his mission was accomplished.

And when once more within Palermo's wall,

And, seated on the throne in his great hall,

He heard the Angelus from the convent towers,

As if a better world conversed with ours,

He beckoned to King Robert to draw nigher,

And, with a gesture, bade the rest retire;

And when they were alone, the Angel said,

'Art thou the king?' Then, bowing down his head,

King Robert crossed both hands upon his breast,

And meekly answered him: 'Thou knowest best!

My sins as scarlet are; let me go hence,

And in some cloister's school of penitence,

Across those stones that pave the way to heaven

Walk barefoot, till my guilty soul is shriven!'

The Angel smiled, and from his radiant face

A holy light illumined all the place,

And through the open window, loud and clear,

They heard the monks chant in the chapel near,

Above the stir and tumult of the street:

'He has put down the mighty from their seat,

And has exalted them of low degree!'

And through the chant a second melody

Rose like the throbbing of a single string,

'I am an angel, and thou art the king!'

King Robert, who was standing near the throne,

Lifted his eyes, and lo! he was alone!

But all apparelled as in days of old,

With ermined mantle, and with cloth of gold;

And when his courtiers came they found him there,

Kneeling upon the floor, absorbed in silent prayer.

We think it would be scarcely possible to find a more pointed illustration of the purifying, humanising, and refining nature of Christianity, than to observe the course pursued by this story. Among Buddhists the false king is vivified by a crafty rogue's infused soul; among Jews he is a transformed devil; but among Christians he is an angel of light.

* * *

SORTES SACR?

It is not an uncommon case, nowadays, for pious persons at times of great perplexity to seek a solution to their difficulties in their Bibles, opening the book at random and taking the first passage which occurs as a direct message to them from the Almighty.

The manner in which this questioning of the sacred oracles is performed is serious. A considerable time is previously devoted to prayer, after which the inquirer rises from his knees and consults the family Bible in the way described. Whether such a manner of dealing with the Word of God be under any circumstances justifiable, I do not pretend to judge. St. Augustine in his 119th letter to Januarius seems not to disapprove of this custom, so long as it be not applied to things of this world.

Gregory of Tours tells us what was his practice. He spent several days in fasting and prayer, and in strict retirement, after which he resorted to the tomb of St. Martin, and taking any book of Scripture which he chose, he opened it, and took as answer from God the first passage that met his eye. Should this passage prove inappropriate, he opened another book of Scripture.

The eleventh chapter of Proverbs, which contains thirty-one verses, is often taken to give omen of the character of a life. The manner of consulting it is simple; it is but to look for the verse answering to the day of the month on which the questioner was born. The answer will be found in most cases to be exceedingly ambiguous.

The practice of consulting certain books for purposes of augury is of high antiquity. Herodotus speaks of the custom, and of the fraud of Oxomacritus, a celebrated diviner, who made use of Mus?us for reference, and who was driven out of Athens by Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus, because he had been detected inserting in the verses of Mus?us an oracle predicting the disappearance in the waves of the islands near Lemnos. Homer, and afterwards Virgil, were the poets most frequently consulted, but Euripides was also regarded as divinely inspired to foretell the future.

Two hundred years after the death of Virgil, his poems were laid up in the temple at Pr?neste, for consultations. Alexander Severus sought the oracle in the reign of Heliogabalus, who feared and hated him; and the line of Virgil he read told him that "if he could surmount opposing fates, he would be Marcellus." The Emperor Heraclius, when deliberating where to fix his winter quarters, was determined by an oracle of this sort. He purified his army during three days, and then opened the Gospels. The passage he found was understood by him to indicate that he should winter in Albania.

Nicephorus Gregoras relates how Andronicus the Elder was reconciled to his nephew Andronicus in consequence of lighting on the verse of the Psalm (lxviii. 14), "When the Almighty scattered kings for their sake, then were they as white as snow in Salmon." Whereby he concluded that all the troubles that had been undergone by him had been decreed by God for his purification.

With the same intent during the consecration of a bishop, at the moment when the book of the Gospels was placed on his head, it was customary to open the volume and gather from the verse at the head of the page an augury of the prelate's reign. This is illustrated in a curious ancient painting of the consecration of St. Thomas à Becket by Van Eyck, shown in the Leeds Fine Art Exhibition of 1868.

Chroniclers and biographers have not failed to mention several prognostications given in this manner which were verified in the event.

At the consecration of Athanasius, nominated to the patriarchate of Constantinople by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, a patriarchate which he stained with his crimes, "Caracalla, bishop of Nicomedia, having brought the Gospel," says the historian Pachymerus, "the congregation prepared to take note of the oracle which would be manifest on the opening of the book, though this oracle is not infallibly true. The bishop of Nic?a, noticing that he had lighted on the words, 'Prepared for the devil and his angels,' groaned in the depth of his heart, and putting up his hand to hide the words, turned over the leaves of the book, and disclosed the other words, 'The birds of the air come, and lodge in the branches': words which seemed far removed from the ceremony which was being celebrated. All that could be done to hide these oracles was done, but it was found impossible to conceal the truth. It was said that they did not forbid the consecration, but that, nevertheless, they were not the effect of chance, for there is no such a thing as chance in the celebration of the Sacred Mysteries."

"Landri, elected bishop of Laon," says Guibert de Nogent, "received episcopal unction in the Church of St. Ruffinus; but it was of sad portent to him, that the text of the Gospel for the day was, 'A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also.'" After many crimes he was assassinated. He was succeeded by the Dean of Orleans, whose name is not known. "The new prelate having presented himself for consecration, people looked to see what the Gospel would prognosticate; but it was opened at a blank page, as though God had said, 'I have nothing to foretell of this man, because he will be, and will do, nothing.' And in fact he died at the end of a very few months."

Guibert tells a story of himself, which shows that the same practice was in vogue at the installation of an abbot. "On the day of my entry into the monastery," he writes, "a monk who had studied the sacred books desired, I presume, to read my future; at the moment when he was preparing to leave with the procession to meet me, he placed designedly on the altar the book of the Gospels, intending to draw an omen from the direction taken by my eyes towards this or that chapter. Now the book was written, not in pages, but in columns. The monk's eyes rested on the middle of the second column, where he read the following passage, 'The light of the body is the eye.' Then he bade the deacon, who was to present the Gospel to me, to take care, after I had kissed the cross on the cover, to hold his hand on the passage he indicated to him, and then attentively to observe, as soon as he had opened the book before me, on what part of the pages my eyes rested. The deacon accordingly opened the book, after I had, as custom required, pressed my lips upon the cover. Whilst he observed, with curious eyes, the direction taken by my glance, my eye and spirit together turned neither above nor below, but precisely towards the verse which had been indicated before. The monk who had sought to form conjectures by this, seeing that my action had accorded, without premeditation, with his intentions, came to me a few days after, and told me what he had done, and how wondrously my first movement had coincided with his own."

Thomas Cantipratensis relates how that Cardinal Conrad, Archbishop of Paris, was in doubt as to what reception he should give to the Order of Preachers, some members of which had lately entered the city. He hesitated as to their having been legitimately constituted, and questioned their value. Whereupon he betook himself to prayer; and then going to the altar opened the Missal at the words, "Laudare, benedicere, et predicare," whereupon his scruples vanished, and he extended to them the right hand of fellowship.

"I know a religious man who had designed to serve God in the secular life," writes Paciuchelli (In Jonam, vol. i. p. 9); "he once poured forth his prayers to God, and asked that he might be permitted, if it were His will, to fulfil some desire or other that he had. Having asked the opinion of certain persons of authority, he was recommended, after the most sacred service, to open the Missal and to take note of what should first arrest his attention. He followed this advice, and lo! the first words which presented themselves to him were those of our Lord to the sons of Zebedee, in St. Matt. xx. 23, 'Ye know not what ye ask'; from which he gathered clearly that were his wishes to be gratified, his eternal welfare would be imperilled."

I have heard of a young man in doubt as to his vocation for holy orders, when he found his desire strongly opposed by his parents, inquiring of his Bible in a similar spirit and manner, and reading, "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." I have been told of another man in somewhat parallel circumstances, having lately awakened to religious convictions after a life of great laxity, who sought guidance in the same manner, and read, "Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee."

A story of the baleful effects of this practice among Scotch Presbyterians appeared in a collection of Legends of Edinburgh by a recent writer. The story related how a designing mother persuaded her reluctant daughter into a marriage with a wealthy but dissipated youth, the son of their employer, towards whom the girl felt great repugnance, by manipulating the Sortes Sacr? so as to make the girl read, "Behold, Rebekah is before thee, take her, and go, and let her be thy master's son's wife, as the Lord hath spoken." As the name of the young woman was Rebekah, the sentence seemed to her to be a message from heaven.

Gregory of Tours mentions a couple of instances of omens taken from Scripture. The one was that of Chramm, who had revolted against his father Clothaire, and who marched to Dijon, where he consulted the Sacred Oracles, by placing on the altar three books, the Prophets, the Acts, and the Evangelists. In like manner, according to Gregory, Merovius, flying from the wrath of his father Chilperic, and Fredigunda, placed on the tomb of St. Martin three books, to wit, the Psalter, the Kings, and the Gospels, and kept vigil through the night, praying the blessed confessor to discover to him what was to happen to him. He fasted three days and continued incessantly in prayer; then he opened the books, one after another, and was so dismayed at the replies which he found, that he wept bitterly beside the tomb, and then sadly left the basilica.

In 1115, differences having arisen touching the elevation of Hugh de Montaigu to the Bishopric of Auxerre, the case was brought before Pope Pascal II., who decided in favour of his consecration, and ordained him himself. It was urged by his friends in his favour, that on the opening of the book above his head, during the ceremony, these words stood out at the head of the page, "Ave Maria! gracia plena!" and this was regarded as a token of his chastity, humility, and exemplary piety, and of the favour in which he was held by the Blessed Virgin.

According to the use of the ancient church of Terouanne, on the reception of a new canon, it was customary to open at random the Psalter, after that the volume had been sprinkled by the dean with holy water, and the paragraph at the head of the page was transcribed in the letters patent of the new canon. The same custom was in force, as late as last century, in the cathedral of Boulogne, and the bishop, De Langle, tried in vain in 1722 to abolish it.

The Bollandists relate that St. Petrock of Cornwall, when in doubt whether to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land or not, was decided by opening his Bible at the passage in Isaiah, "Et erit sepulchrum ejus gloriosum." A similar story is told of St. Poppo, a Belgian saint of the eleventh century.

The anecdote is well known of King Charles and Lord Falkland consulting the Sortes Virgilian? in the library at Oxford. The lines they met with and which were so singularly verified afterwards, are marked with their initials in the book, which is still preserved.

Rabelais refers to the Sortes Virgilian? when he makes Panurge consult them on the subject of his marriage.

Gregory of Tours, sad at heart because of the desolation produced by the ravages of Count Leudaste in and around the city, entered his oratory; "and," as he tells us himself, "full of trouble, I took up the Psalms of David, in hopes of finding, when I opened the book, some verse which might bring me consolation. And I found this: 'He brought them out safely, that they should not fear; and overwhelmed their enemies with the sea.'"

Gregory relates another story akin to the subject. Clovis, at the moment when he was marching against Alaric, king of the Visigoths, sent his deputies to the Church of St. Martin, at Tours, saying to them, "Go, and maybe, in the holy temple you will find some presage of victory." After having given them presents for the sacred place, he added: "O Lord God! if Thou art on my side, if Thou art determined to deliver into my hands this unbelieving nation, hostile to Thy name, grant that I may see Thy favour, or the entry of my servants into the basilica of St. Martin, that I may know if Thou deignest to be favourable to Thy suppliant."

The envoys having hastened to Tours, entered the cathedral at the moment when the Precentor gave out the Antiphon: "Thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: thou shalt throw down mine enemies under me. Thou hast made mine enemies also to turn their backs upon me: and I shall destroy them that hate me" (Ps. xviii. 37, 40).

Hearing this, they gave thanks to God, presented their offerings, and returned with joy to announce the omen to their king.

Divination by Scripture has been forbidden by several national councils, probably on account of the superstitious use made of it. The sixteenth canon of the Council of Vannes, held in 465, forbids clerks under pain of excommunication, consulting the Sortes Sacr?. This prohibition was extended to the laity by the forty-second canon of the Council of Agde, in 506. "Aliquanti clerici sive laici student auguriis, et sub nomine fict? religionis, per eas, quas sanctorum sortes vocant, diviniationis scientiam profitentur, aut quarumcunque scripturorum inspectione futura promittunt." It was also forbidden by the Council of Orleans in 511; again by that of Auxerre in 595; by that of Selingstadt in 1022; by that of Enham, in 1009; and by a capitulary of Charlemagne, in 789.

Related to Sortes Sacr? are those messages which are supposed to be conveyed by the chance hearing or reading of a passage of Scripture. These are not, however, to be regarded in the light of superstition, and it is quite possible, and indeed probable, that certain texts accidentally met with may influence for good or bad those who are in a disposition of mind to be so affected.

The well-known story of St. Augustine's conversion is to the point. He relates himself how sitting in a garden-house, in great trouble of mind, he heard a voice say, "Tolle, lege"; whereupon he took up the sacred Scriptures and read, "Not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof" (Rom. xiii. 13, 14).

St. Anthony was moved to the assumption of the religious life by accidentally hearing-"If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me" (St. Matt, xix. 21).

St. Louis when trying a murderer was much inclined by his natural tenderness of disposition to pardon the man; but his resolution to let justice take her course was strengthened by opening his Psalter at the words, "Feci judicium et justitiam."

But, to conclude, the true use of Holy Scripture is best learned from our English Collect, which asks that we may read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest its glorious lessons, taken as a whole, and not wring disjointed directions for conduct from stray passages.

* * *

CHIAPA CHOCOLATE

Gage, the Dominican, a great admirer of chocolate, a man who combated with all his energy the objections which medical men of the seventeenth century made to its use, derived its name from atte, the Mexican word for water, and the sound it makes when poured out,-choco, choco, choco, choco!

O Professor Max Müller! what do you say to this? Whatever the derivation of the name may be, the composition of the beverage is well known. Cacao, sugar, long-pepper, vanilla, cinnamon, cloves, almonds, mace, aniseed, are the main constituents, and the cake-chocolate used in Britain is believed to be made of about one-half genuine cacao, the remainder of flour or Castile soap.

We are not going any further into the mysteries of its composition, which may be ascertained from any encyclop?dia, for our business is with a circumstance in connection with its history probably known to few.

And first for our authority-the afore-mentioned Dominican. Thomas Gage was born of a good family in England; his elder brother was Governor of Oxford in 1645, when King Charles retreated thither during the Great Rebellion. Whilst still young, Thomas had been sent to Spain for education, and had entered the Dominican order, and having been, like so many Spanish ecclesiastics, fired with missionary zeal, he embarked at Cadiz for Vera Cruz, whence he betook himself to Mexico, near which town he made a retreat, previous to devoting himself to a life of toil in the Philippines.

However, the accounts he received of these islands were so discouraging, and the monastic life in Mexico was so inviting, that he postponed his expedition indefinitely. But Gage had no intention of spending his life in ease: he hurried over the different districts of Mexico and Guatemala, making himself acquainted with the languages spoken wherever he went, and he laboured indefatigably as priest to several parishes of great extent.

Gage's account of the cultivation of the cacao and the manufacture of chocolate is interesting, his treatise on its medical properties-conceived in the taste and spirit of his day-curious, and his personal narrative lively and amusing.

One little statement must not be passed over. Chocolate, it seems, is useful as a cosmetic; Creole ladies eat it to deepen their skin tint, just on the same principle, observes Gage, as English ladies devour whitewash from the walls to clarify their complexion.

Chiapa was a central point for Gage's labours during a considerable period. At that time it was a small cathedral town, containing 400 Spanish families, and 100 Mexican houses in a faubourg by itself.

The cathedral served as parish church to the inhabitants: one Dominican and one Franciscan monastery, besides a poverty-stricken nunnery, supplied the religious requirements of the diocesan city. No Jesuits there! quoth Gage, with a little rancour. Those good men seldom leave rich and opulent towns; and when you learn the fact that there are no Jesuits at Chiapa, you may draw the immediate inference that the town is poor, and the inhabitants not liberally disposed.

Liberally disposed! The high and stately Creole Dons, who claimed descent from half the noble families of Spain; the grand representatives of the De Solis, Cortez, De Velasco, De Toledo, De Zerna, De Mendoza, who lived by cattle-jobbing and by pasturing droves of mules on their farms, and who gave themselves the airs of dukes, and were as ignorant and not so well behaved as the donkeys they reared; who ate a dinner of salt and kidney-beans in five minutes, and spent an hour at their doors picking their teeth, wiping their moustaches, and boasting of the fricasees and fricandoes they had been tasting-these men liberally disposed!

They contributed nothing to the treasury of the Church, but gave the clergy considerable trouble. These Creoles particularly disliked and resented any allusion to their duty of almsgiving, and a request for charity was by them regarded as a personal affront.

Gage was soon intimate with the bishop, Dom Bernard de Salazar, a very worthy prelate, perhaps a little wee bit too fond of the good things of this present life, but otherwise most exemplary, very energetic, and as bold as a saint in reforming abuses which had crept into the Church.

Talk of abuses, and you may be sure that woman is at the bottom of them! A certain czar, whenever he heard of a misfortune, at once asked, "Who was she?" knowing that some woman had originated it. The same view may perhaps be taken of abuses and corruptions in the Church.

Dom Bernard de Salazar had the misfortune to live in a perpetual state of contest with the ladies of his flock, and the subject of dispute was chocolate. It was a brave struggle-bravely fought on both sides.

The prelate fulminated all the censures at his disposal in his ecclesiastical armoury; the ladies, on their side, made use of all the devices and intrigues stored in their little heads, and gained the day-of course.

Now the great subject of altercation was as follows. The ladies of Chiapa were so addicted to the use of chocolate, that they would neither hear Low Mass, much less High Mass, or a sermon, without drinking cups of steaming chocolate, and eating preserves, brought in on trays by servants, during the performance of divine service; so that the voice of the preacher, or the chant of the priest, was drowned in the continual clatter of cups and clink of spoons; besides, the floor, after service, was strewn with bon-bon papers, and stained with splashes of the spilled beverage.

How could that be devotion which was broken in upon by the tray of delicacies? How could a preacher warm with his subject whilst his audience were passing to each other sponge-cake and cracknels?

Bishop Salazar's predecessor had seen this abuse grow to a head without attempting to correct it, believing such a task to be hopeless. The new prelate was of better metal. He commenced by recommending his clergy, in their private ministrations, to urge its abandonment. The priests entreated in vain. "Very well," said the bishop, "then I shall preach about it." And so he did. At first his discourse was tender and persuasive, but his voice was drowned in the clicker of cups and saucers. Then he waxed indignant. "What! have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you?" The ladies looked up at the pulpit with unimpassioned eyes, while sipping their chocolate, then wiped their lips, and put out their hands for some comfits.

The bishop's voice thrilled shriller and louder-he looked like an apostle in his godly indignation. Crash!-down went a tray at the cathedral door, and every one looked round to see whose cups were broken.

"What was the subject of the sermon?" asked masters of their apprentices every Sunday for the next month, and the ready answer came, "Oh! chocolate again!"

After a course on the guilt of church desecration, the bishop found that the ladies were only confirmed in their evil habits.

Reluctantly, the bishop had recourse to the only method open to him, an excommunication, which was accordingly affixed to the cathedral gates. By this he decreed that all persons showing wilful disobedience to his injunctions, by drinking or eating during the celebration of divine service, whether of Mass (high or low), litanies, benediction, or vespers, should be ipso facto excommunicate, be deprived of participation in the sacraments of the Church, and should be denied the rite of burial, if dying in a state of impenitence. This was felt to be a severe stroke, and the ladies sent a deputation to Gage and the prior of the Dominican monastery of St. James, entreating them to use their utmost endeavours to bring about a reconciliation, and effect a compromise, a compromise which was to consist in Monseignor's revoking his interdict, and in their-continuing to drink chocolate.

Gage and the prior undertook the delicate office, and sought the bishop.

Salazar received them with dignity, and listened calmly to their entreaties. They urged that this was an established custom, that ladies required humouring, that they were obstinate-the prelate nodded his head-that their digestions were delicate, and required that they should continually be imbibing nourishment; that they had taken a violent prejudice against him, which could only be overcome by his yielding to their whims; that if he persisted, seditions would arise which would endanger the cause of true religion; and, finally, the prelate's life was menaced in a way rather hinted at than expressed.

"Enough, my sons!" said the bishop, with composure; "the souls under my jurisdiction must be in a perilous condition when they have forgotten that there must be obedience in little matters as well as in great. Whether I am assaulting an established custom, or a new abuse, matters little. It is a bad habit; it is sapping the foundations of reverence and morality. God's house was built for worship, and for that alone. My children must come to His temple either to learn or to pray. Learn they will not, for they have forgotten how to pray: prayer they are unused to, for the highest act of adoration the Church can offer is only regarded by them as an opportunity for the gratification of their appetites. You recommend me to yield to their vagaries. A strange shepherd would he be, who let his sheep lead him; a wondrous captain, who was dictated to by his soldiers! As for the cause of true religion being endangered, I judge differently. Religion is endangered; but it is by children's disobedience to their spiritual legislators, and by their own perversity. I am sorry for you, my sons, that you should have undertaken a fruitless office; but you may believe me, that nothing shall induce me to swerve from the course which I deem advisable. My personal safety, you hint, is endangered; my life, I answer, is in my Master's hands, and I value it but as it may advance His glory."

When the ladies heard that their request had been refused, they treated the excommunication with the greatest contempt, scoffing at it publicly, and imbibing chocolate in church, "on principle," more than ever; "Just," says Gage, "drinking in church as a fish drinks in water."

Some of the canons and priests were then stationed at the cathedral doors to stop the ingress of the servants with cups and chocolate-pots. They had received injunctions to remove the drinking and eating vessels, and suffer the servants to come empty-handed to church. A violent struggle ensued in the porch, and all the ladies within rushed in a body to the doors, to assist their domestics. The poor clerks were utterly routed and thrown in confusion down the steps, whilst, with that odious well-known clink, clink, the trays came in as before.

Another move was requisite, and, on the following Sunday, when the ladies came to church, they found a band of soldiers drawn up outside, ready to barricade the way against any inroad of chocolate; a stern determination was depicted on the faces of the military-that if cups and saucers did enter the sacred edifice, it should be over their corpses.

The foremost damsels halted, the matrons stood still, the crowd thickened, but not one of the pretty angels would set foot within the cathedral precincts: a busy whisper circulated, then a hush ensued, and with one accord the ladies trooped off to the monastery churches, and there was no congregation that day at the minster.

The brethren of St. Dominic and of St. Francis were nothing loath to see their chapels crowded with all the rank and fashion of Chiapa; for, with the ladies came money-offerings, and they blinked at the chocolate cups for-a consideration. This was allowed to continue a few Sundays only. Our friend the bishop was not going to be shelved thus, and a new manifesto appeared, inhibiting the friars from admitting parishioners to their chapels, and ordering the latter to frequent their cathedral.

The regulars were forced to obey; not so the ladies-they would go when they pleased, quotha! and for a month and more, not one of them went to church at all. The prelate was in sore trouble: he hoped that his froward charge would eventually return to the path of duty, but he hoped on from Sunday to Sunday in vain.

Would that the story ended as stories of strife and bitterness always should end; so that we might tell how the ladies yielded at length, how that rejoicings were held and a general reconciliation effected:-but the historian may not pervert facts, to suit his or his readers' gratification.

On Saturday evening the old bishop was more than usually anxious; he paced up and down his library, meditating on the sermon he purposed preaching on the following morning-a fruitless task, for he knew that no one would be there but a few poor Mexicans. Sick at heart, he all but wished that he had yielded for peace sake, but conscience told him that such a course would have been wrong; and the great feature in Salazar's character was his rigid sense of duty. He leaned on his elbows and looked out of a window which opened on a lane between the palace and the cathedral.

"Silly boy!" muttered the prelate. "Luis is always prattling with that girl. I thought better of the fair sex till of late." He spoke these words as his eyes caught his page, chattering at the door with a dark-eyed Creole servant-maid of the De Solis family. Presently the bishop clapped his hands, and a domestic entered. "Send Luis to me."

When the page came up, the old man greeted him with a half-smile.

"Well, my son, I wish my chocolate to be brought me; I could not think of breaking off that long tête-à-tête with Dolores, but this is past the proper time."

"Your Holiness will pardon me," said the lad; "Dolores brought you a present from the Donna de Solis; the lady sends her humble respects to your Holiness, and requests your acceptance of a large packet of very beautiful chocolate."

"I am much obliged to her," said the bishop; "did you express to the maiden my thanks?"

Luis bowed.

"Then, child, you may prepare me a cup of this chocolate, and bring it me at once."

"The Donna de Solis's chocolate?"

"Yes, my son, yes!"

When the boy had left the room, the old man clasped his hands with an expression of thankfulness.

"They are going to yield! This is a sign that they are desiring reconciliation."

Next day the cathedral was thronged with ladies. The service proceeded as usual, but the bishop was not present.

"How is the bishop?" was whispered from one lady to another, with conscious glances; till the query reached the ears of one of the canons who was at the door.

"His Holiness is very ill," he answered. "He has retired to the monastery of St. James."

"What is the matter with him?"

"He is suffering from severe pains internally."

"Has he seen a doctor?"

"Physicians have been sent for."

For eight days the good old prelate lingered in great suffering.

"Tell me," he asked very feebly; "tell me truly, what is my complaint?"

"Your Holiness has been poisoned," replied the physician.

The bishop turned his face to the wall. Some one whispered that he was dead, when he had been thus for some while. The dying man turned his face round, and said:

"Hush! I am praying for my poor sheep! May God pardon them." Then, after a pause: "I forgive them for having caused my death, most heartily. Poor sheep!"

And he died.

Since then there has been a proverb prevalent in Mexico: "Beware of tasting Chiapa chocolate."

Gage, the Dominican, did not remain long in Chiapa after the death of his patron: he seldom touched chocolate in that town unless quite certain of the friendship of those who offered it to him; and when he did leave, it was from fear of a fate like the bishop's,-he having incurred the anger of some of the ladies.

The cathedral presented the same scene as before; the prelate had laboured in vain, and chocolate was copiously drunk at his funeral.

* * *

THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE

"There are many ways," says Del Rio, "in which the Philosopher's Stone is made. Writers contest with each other which is the right way. Pauladamus opposes the opinion of Brachescus; Villanosanus will have none of the mode of Trevisanus. So one assails another, and all call each other foolish and ignorant." But however they may have disputed how to make it, no one succeeded in finding the right way, for no one knew where to look for it; and yet the Philosopher's Stone was before all their eyes to be enjoyed by all alike, but to be appropriated by none. This precious stone, which went by various names, the "Universal Elixir," the "Elixir of Life," the "Water of the Sun," was thought to procure to its happy discoverer and possessor riches innumerable, perpetual health, a life exempt from all maladies and cares and pains, and even in the opinion of some-immortality. It transmuted lead into gold, glass into diamonds, it opened locks, it penetrated everywhere; it was the sovereign remedy to all disease, it was luminous in the darkest night. To fashion it-so the alchemists said-gold and lead, iron, antimony, vitriol, sulphur, mercury, arsenic, water, fire, earth, and air were needed; to these must be added the egg of a cock, and the spittle of doves. Really, said one shrewd and satiric writer, it only wanted oil, vinegar, and salt, to make of it a salad.

Now the curious thing is-as we shall see in the sequel-the alchemists were not far out in their opinion. All these ingredients, or rather most of them-the cock's egg and the dove's spittle only excepted-are to be found combined in the Philosopher's Stone, and only recent science has established this fact.

As the possessor of this stone was sure to be the most glorious, powerful, rich, and happy of mortals, as he could at will convert anything into gold, and enjoy all the pleasures of life, it is not surprising that the Philosopher's Stone was sought with eagerness. It was sought, but, as already said, never found, because the alchemists looked for it in just the place where it was not to be found, in their crucibles. Medals were struck on which were inscribed "Per Sal, Sulphur, Mercurium, Fit Lapis Philosophorum," which was a simplification of the receipt. On the reverse stood, "Thou Alpha and Omega of Life, Hope and Resurrection after Death." It was identified with Solomon's seal; it was called Orphanus, the One and Only. It was thought at one time that the Emperor had it in his crown, this Orphanus, and that it blazed like the sun at night; but the German emperors enjoyed so little prosperity that philosophers came to the conclusion that the stone in the imperial crown was something quite different; it brought ill-luck rather than good-fortune.

Zosimus, who lived in the beginning of the fifth century, is one of the first in Europe to describe the powers of this stone, and its capacity for making gold and silver. The alchemists pretended to derive their science from Shem, or Chem, the son of Noah, and that thence came the name alchemy, and chemistry. All writers upon alchemy triumphantly cite the story of the golden calf in the thirty-second chapter of Exodus, to prove that Moses was an adept, and could make or unmake gold at his pleasure. It is recorded that Moses was so wroth with the Israelites for their idolatry, "that he took the calf which they had made and burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it." This, say the alchemists, he never could have done had he not been in possession of the Philosopher's Stone; by no other means could he have made the powder of gold float upon the water.

At Constantinople, in the fourth century, the transmutation of metals was very generally believed in, and many treatises upon the subject appeared. Langlet du Fresnoy, in his History of Hermetic Philosophy, gives some account of these works. The notion of the Greek writers seems to have been that all metals were composed of two ingredients, the one metallic matter, the other a red inflammable matter which they called sulphur. The pure union of these substances formed gold; but other metals were mixed with and contaminated by various foreign ingredients. The object of the Philosopher's Stone was to dissolve and expel these base ingredients, and so to liberate the two original constituents whose marriage produced gold.

For several centuries after this the pursuit flagged or slept in Europe, but it reappeared in the eighth century among the Arabians, and from them re-extended to Europe. We are not going to trace the history of alchemy downwards, and see one student after another wreck his genius and time on this rock, nor see what use was made of the belief in it by impostors to enrich themselves at the expense of the credulous-we will follow the superstition upwards, and track the stone to the spring of the belief in its supernatural powers. The search for the stone will take us through strange country, give us many scrambles; but, if the reader will condescend to accompany me, I believe I shall be able to bring him to the very real and original stone itself.

The following story I give as it was told to me by some Yorkshire mill lasses, in their own delightful vernacular. I forewarn the reader that the golden ball in the story is the same as the Philosopher's Stone, as we shall hear presently:

"There were two lasses, daughters of one mother, and as they came home from t' fair, they saw a right bonny young man stand i' t' house-door before them. He had gold on t' cap, gold on t' finger, gold on t' neck, a red gold watch-chain-eh! but he had brass. He had a golden ball in each hand.[24] He gave a ball to each lass, and she was to keep it, and if she lost it, she was to be hanged. One o' t' lasses, 'twas t' youngest, lost her ball. She was by a park-paling, and she tossed the ball, and it went up, up, and up, till it went over t' paling, and when she climbed to look, t' ball ran along green grass, and it went raite forward to t' door of t' house, and t' ball went in, and she saw 't no more.

"So she was taken away to be hanged by t' neck till she were dead, acause she'd lost her ball.

["But she had a sweetheart, and he said he would get the ball. So he went to t' park-gate, but 'twas shut; so he climbed hedge, and when he got to t' top of hedge, an old woman rose up out o' t' dyke afore him, and said, if he would get ball, he must sleep three nights i' t' house. He said he would.

"Then he went into t' house, and looked for t' ball, but couldna find it. Night came on, and he heard spirits move i' t' courtyard; so he looked out o' t' window, and t' yard was full of them, like maggots i' rotten meat.

"Presently he heard steps coming upstairs. He hid behind t' door, and was still as a mouse. Then in came a big giant five times as tall as he, and t' giant looked round, but did not see t' lad, so he went to t' window and bowed to look out; and as he bowed on his elbows to see spirits i' t' yard, t' lad stepped behind him, and wi' one blow of his sword he cut him in twain, so that the top part of him fell in t' yard, and t' bottom part stood looking out o' t' window.

"There was a great cry from t' spirits when they saw half t' giant tumbling down to them, and they called out, 'There comes half our master, give us t' other half.'

"So the lad said, 'It's no use of thee, thou pair o' legs, standing aloan at window, so go join thy brother'; and he cast the bottom part of t' giant after top part. Now when t' spirits had gotten all t' giant they was quiet.

"Next night t' lad was at the house again, and saw a second giant come in at door, and as he came in, t' lad cut him in twain; but the legs walked on to t' chimney and went up it. 'Go, get thee after thy legs,' said t' lad to t' head, and he cast t' head up chimney too.

"The third night t' lad got into bed, and he heard spirits stirring under t' bed; and they had t' ball there, and they was casting it to and fro.

"Now one of them had his leg thrussen out from under bed, so t' lad brings his sword down and cuts it off. Then another thrusts his arm out at t' other side of t' bed, and t' lad cuts that off. So at last he had maimed them all, and they all went crying and wailing off, and forgot t' ball, and let it lig there, under t' bed; and the lad took it and went to seek his true love.[25]]

"Now t' lass was taken to York to be hanged; she was brought out on t' scaffold, and t' hangman said, 'Now, lass, tha' must hang by thy neck till tha' be'st dead.' But she cried out:

'Stop, stop, I think I see my mother coming!

O mother! hast brought my golden ball

And come to set me free?'

'I've neither brought thy golden ball

Nor come to set thee free,

But I have come to see thee hung

Upon this gallows tree.'

"Then the hangman said, 'Now, lass, say thy prayers, for tha' must dee.' But she said:

'Stop, stop, I think I see my father coming!

O father! hast brought my golden ball

And come to set me free?'

'I've neither brought thy golden ball

Nor come to set thee free,

But I have come to see thee hung

Upon this gallows tree.'

"Then the hangman said, 'Hast thee done thy prayers? Now, lass, put thy head into t' noose.'

"But she answered, 'Stop, stop, I think I see my brother coming,' etc. After which she excused herself because she thought she saw her sister coming, and her uncle, then her aunt, then her cousin, each of which was related in full; after which the hangman said, 'I wee-nt stop no longer, tha's making gam o' me.' But now she saw her sweetheart coming through the crowd, and he held overhead i' t' air her own golden ball; so she said-

'Stop, stop, I see my sweetheart coming!

Sweetheart, hast brought my golden ball

And come to set me free?'

'Ay, I have brought thy golden ball

And come to set thee free;

I have not come to see thee hung

Upon this gallows tree.'"

In this very curious story, the portion within brackets reminds one of the German story of "Fearless John," in Grimm (K. M. 4), of which I remember obtaining an English variant in a chap-book in Exeter when I was a child-alas! now lost. It is also found in Iceland,[26] and is indeed a widely-spread tale. The verses are like others found in Essex in connection with the child's game of "Mary Brown," and those of the Swedish "Fair Gundela." But these points we must pass over. Our interest attaches specially to the golden ball. The story is almost certainly the remains of an old religious myth. The golden ball which one sister has is the sun, the silver ball of the other sister is the moon. The sun is lost; it sets, and the trolls, the spirits of darkness, play with it under the bed, that is, in the house of night, beneath the earth.

But the sun is not only a golden ball, but it is also a shining stone; and here at the outset we tell our secret: the sun is the true Philosopher's Stone, that turns all to gold, that gives health, that fills with joy.

In primeval times, our rude forefathers were puzzled how to explain the nature of sun and moon and stars, and they thought they had hit on the interpretation of the phenomenon when they said that the stars were diamonds stuck in the heavenly vault, and that the sun was a luminous stone, a carbuncle; and the moon a pearl or silver disk. Even the classic writers had not shaken off this notion. Anaxagoras, Democritus, Metrodorus, all speak of the sun as a glowing stone,[27] and Orpheus[28] calls the opal the sunstone, because of its analogy to that shining ball. So Pliny also.[29] The old Norse spoke of the stars as the "gemstones of heaven," so did the Anglo-Saxons.[30]

But perhaps the clearest idea we can have of the old cosmogony is from the pictures preserved to us of the world of the dwarfs. When a superior conception of the universe was general, then the old heathen idea sank, and what had been told of the world of men was referred to the underground world, peopled by the dwarfs, who were the representatives of the early race conquered by the Britons, and by Norse and Teuton, a race probably of Turanian origin. Our British and Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian forefathers knew of the cosmogony of the conquered race, and came to suppose that they inhabited another world to them, a world of which the vault that overarched it was set with precious stones; and as the aboriginal inhabitants were driven to live in caves, or in huts heaped over with turf so as to be like mounds, they regarded them as a subterranean people, and their world to be underground. In a multitude of stories the trolls or dwarfs are said to live in tumuli or cairns. This is nothing more than that their hovels were made of sticks stuck in the ground, gathered together in the middle and turfed over. The Lapp hut, even the Icelandic farmhouse, look like grass mounds. In many tales we hear of human children carried off by the dwarfs, and when these children are recovered they tell of a world in which they have been where the light is given by diamonds and a great carbuncle set in a stony black vault.

William of Newburgh[31] says that at Woolpit (Wolf-pits), near Stowmarket in Suffolk, were some very ancient trenches. Out of these trenches there once came, in harvest-time, two children, a boy and a girl, whose bodies were of a green colour, and who wore dresses of some unknown stuff. They were caught and taken to the village, where for many months they would eat nothing but beans. They gradually lost their green colour. The boy soon died. The girl survived, and was married to a man of Lynn. At first they could speak no English; but when they were able to do so they said that they belonged to the land of St. Martin, an unknown country, where, as they were once watching their father's sheep, they heard a loud noise, like the ringing of the bells of St. Edmund's Monastery. And then, all at once, they found themselves among the reapers at Woolpit. Their country was a Christian land and had churches. There was no sun there, only a faint twilight; but beyond a broad river there lay a land of light. Giraldus Cambrensis in his Itinerary of Wales tells another queer story of the underground world, and notices that some of the words used in it are closely related to the British tongue.[32] But in neither story are the sun and stars spoken of as stones incrusting the vault.

The underground Rose-garden of Laurin the Dwarf, by Botzen, is, however, illumined by one great carbuncle.[33] The same sun-stone-a white, marvellous stone-reappears in the "Grail Story," which is from beginning to end a Christianised Keltic myth. In it the Grail is originally not invariably a basin or goblet, but a stone. It is so in Wolfran von Eschenbach's Parzival. In that there is no thought of it as a chalice: it is a stone which feeds and delights all who surround, cherish, and venerate it.

Whatsoever the earth produces, whatsoever exhales,

Whatever is good, and sweet, in drink and meat,

That yields the precious stone, that never fails.

In the Elder Edda, in the Fi?lvinnsmal, Svipdagr is represented as climbing to the golden halls of heaven, and when he comes there he asks who reigns in that place. The answer given him is:-

Mengl?d is her name ...

She here holds sway,

And has power over

These lands and glorious halls.

Now Mengl?d means she who rejoices in the Men, the Precious Stone,[34] that is, the sun. She is the holder of the sun, as in the Yorkshire story the lass holds the golden ball.

Matthew Paris says that King Richard C?ur de Lion was wont to tell the following story:-"A rich and miserly Venetian, whose name was Vitalis, was wandering in a forest in quest of game for his table, as he was about to give his daughter in marriage. He fell into a pit that had been prepared for wild beasts, and on reaching the bottom found there a lion and a serpent. They did not injure him. By chance a charcoal-burner came that way and heard the lamentations of those in the pit. Moved with pity, he fetched a rope and ladder and released all three. The lion, full of gratitude, brought the collier meat. The serpent brought him a precious stone. The Venetian thanked him and promised him a reward if he would come to his house. The poor man did so, when Vitalis refused to acknowledge any debt, and threw the collier into prison. However, he escaped, and went with the lion and serpent before the magistrates and told them the tale, and showed them the jewel given him by the serpent. The magistrates thereupon ordered Vitalis to pay to the collier a reasonable reward. The poor man also sold the jewel for a very large sum."[35]

Richard must have heard this story in the East; there are no lions in Venetian territory. Moreover the story is incomplete. We have the same story in a fuller form in the Gesta Romanorum.

A seneschal rode through a wood and fell into a pit, in which were an ape, a lion, and a serpent. A woodcutter saved them all. Next day the woodcutter went to the castle for the promised reward, but received instead a cudgelling. The following day the lion drove to him ten laden asses, and he had them and the treasure they bore. Next day, as he was collecting wood and had no axe, the ape brought him boughs with which to lade his ass. On the third day the serpent brought him a stone of three colours, by the virtue of which he won all hearts, and came to such honour that he was appointed general-in-command of the emperor's armies. But when the emperor heard of the stone he bought it of the woodcutter. However, the stone always returned to the original owner, however often he parted with it.

The same story occurs in Gower's Confessio Amantis. The story spread throughout Europe, and is found in most collections of household tales. It occurs in Grimm's Kinder M?rchen (No. 24), and in Basili's book of Neapolitan tales, the Pentamerone (No. 37).

All these were derived from the East, and were brought to Europe by the Crusaders. The story occurs in various Oriental collections. The Pali tale is as follows:-

In a time of drought, a dog, a serpent, and a man fell into a pit together. An inhabitant of Benares draws them up in a basket, and they all promise him tokens of gratitude. The man of Benares falls into great poverty; the dog thereupon steals the king's crown whilst he is bathing, and brings it to his preserver. The man who had been helped by the other betrays him, and the preserver is imprisoned. The poor man is about to be impaled when the serpent bites the queen; and the king learns that she can only be cured by the man who is on his way to execution. So the poor fellow is brought before the prince and the whole story comes out.[36] In this version the stone does not appear; nor does it in the Sanskrit Pantschatantra.[37] But in the Mongol Siddhi-kür (No. 13) we have the stone again. A Brahmin delivers a mouse from children who teased it, then an ape, and lastly a bear. He falls into trouble and is put in a wooden box and thrown into the sea. The mouse comes and nibbles a hole in the box, through which he can breathe, the ape raises the lid, and the bear tears it off. Then the ape gives him a wondrous stone, which gives to him who has it power to do and have all he wishes. With this he wishes himself on land, then builds a palace, and surrounds himself with servants. A caravan passes and the leader is amazed to see the new palace, buys the stone of the man, and at once with it goes all the luck and splendour, and the Brahmin is where he was at first. Again the thankful beasts come to his aid. The mouse creeps into the palace of the new owner of the stone and discovers where he hides it, and with the aid of the bear and ape it is again recovered. Here we have the serpent omitted, which is the principal animal to be considered, for really the serpent is the owner of the stone that grows in its head. This idea is very general-that the carbuncle is to be found in a serpent's head. Pliny has this notion; indeed it is found everywhere.[38] The origin of this myth is that the great serpent is the heaven-god-and on the gnostic seals we have the Demiurge so represented as a crowned or nimbed serpent. In the head of this great heaven-god is the sun, the glorious stone that gives life and light and gladness and plenty. In the West the story was told that the Emperor Theodosius hung in his palace a bell, and all who needed his help were to ring the bell. One day a snake came and pulled the bell. The emperor, who was blind, came out to inquire who needed him; then he learned that a toad had invaded the nest of the serpent. So he ordered the toad to be removed. Next day the grateful serpent brought the emperor a costly stone, and bade him lay it on his eyes. When he did this he recovered his sight.

The same story is told of Charlemagne. He was summoned to judge between a toad and a serpent, and decided for the latter. In gratitude the snake brought the Emperor a precious stone. Charles gave it, set in a ring, to his wife Fastrada. It had the power to attract love. Thenceforth he was inseparable from Fastrada, and when she died he would not leave her body, but carried it about with him for eighteen years. Then a courtier removed the jewel and flung it into a hot spring at Aix-la-Chapelle. Thenceforth the emperor loved Aix above every spot in the world, and would never leave it.

In the story of Eraclius, the hero finds a stone that has the power of preserving the bearer from injury by water. Eraclius, armed with this stone, lies at the bottom of the Tiber, as one asleep, and is not drowned. In Barlaam and Josaphat the hermit undertakes to give his pupil a stone which will afford light to the blind, wisdom to fools, hearing to the deaf, and speech to the dumb.

There is a strange story in the Talmud[39] of a serpent that has a stone which gives life. A man goes in quest of it. The serpent tries to swallow the ship in which he sails. Then comes a raven and bites off the serpent's head and the sea is made red with its blood. A dragon catches the falling stone and touches the dead serpent with it; it revives and again attacks the ship. Then another bird kills the creature, and this time the man catches the stone. The power of the stone was so great that it revived salted birds that lay on the table ready to be eaten, and they flew away.

In Buddhist stories, the original signification of the marvellous stone is completely lost, as completely as in the European medi?val stories. The Indian Buddhists remembered that there was a wondrous stone of which strange stories had been told, and which possessed the most surprising powers, and they made use of the idea to illustrate their doctrine-the stone was no other than the secret of Buddha. He who attained to that was rich, happy, serene. It is called the "Tschinta-mani," that is, the Wishing-stone, because he who has it has everything that can be desired.

In the Buddhist collection of stories entitled The Wise Man and the Fool is the tale of the king's son, Gedon, who, grieved at the misery there is in the world, goes in quest of the "Tschinta-mani." He takes with him his brother Digdon. They reach a castle, where he is warned to strike at the door with a diamond bat. Then five hundred goddesses will come forth, each bearing a precious stone, but only one of these is the Wishing-stone. He must select the stone without speaking. He does so, and chooses the right one. On his way home, on board ship, a storm arises, and he is wrecked; but, as he bears the precious stone, he is not drowned, and he saves his brother. Digdon, envious, steals the stone, and puts out his brother's eyes, and goes home. Gedon follows, forgives his brother, recovers the stone and his sight.

Elsewhere the Wishing-stone is described as giving light by night as well as by day, as far as one hundred and twenty voices could be heard calling, the one catching and repeating to another; and by this light could be seen the seven kinds of treasures falling from heaven like a rain, which are offered to all.

The idea of the marvellous, luminous, enriching, health-giving stone remains, its original significance absolutely lost, and is given a new spell of life, in that it is used as a symbol of the teaching of Buddha.

In Europe, also, the idea of the marvellous stone remains; it is not used allegorically, except in the Grail myth, but it haunts men's minds; they believe in it, they suppose it must be found, and they try to manufacture it out of all kinds of ingredients.[40]

Neither Arab nor European alchemist, nor Buddhist recluse, dreamed that the stone that gave light, that nourished, that rejoiced, that enriched, was the sun shining above their heads. The conception of the sun as a stone was so old, so rolled and rubbed down, that they had no notion whence it came. The idea remained, and influenced their minds strangely; but it never occurred to them to ask whence the idea was derived.

There is something pitiful in looking at the wasted lives of those old seekers, bowed over their crucibles, inhaling noxious vapours, wearing out the nights in fruitless experiment; but, like all history, that of the alchemists teaches us a lesson-to look up instead of looking down-a lesson to seek happiness, wealth, contentment, in the simple and not the complex, in light instead of in darkness.

I believe that this is the only one of my articles in which I have drawn a moral, but the moral is so obvious that it would have been inexcusable had I passed it over. But I know that as a child I resented the applications in ?sop's Fables, and perhaps my reader will feel a like objection to having a moral appended to this essay. That I may dismiss him with a smile instead of a frown, I will close with a copy of verses extracted by me some thirty and more years ago, from-I think-a Cambridge University undergraduates' magazine, verses probably new to my readers; but as they enforce the same moral in a perfectly fresh and charming manner, and as they deserve to be rescued from oblivion, I conclude with them:

I was just five years old, that December,

And a fine little promising boy,

So my grandmother said, I remember,

And gave me a strange-looking toy:

In its shape it was lengthy and rounded,

It was papered with yellow and blue,

One end with a glass top was bounded,

At the other, a hole to look through.

'Dear Granny, what's this?' I came, crying,

'A box for my pencils? but see,

I can't open it hard though I'm trying,

O what is it? what can it be?'

'Why, my dear, if you only look through it,

And stand with your face to the light;

Turn it gently (that's just how to do it!),

And you'll see a remarkable sight.'

'O how beautiful!' cried I, delighted,

As I saw each fantastic device,

The bright fragments now closely united,

All falling apart in a trice.

Times have passed, and new years will now find me,

Each birthday, no longer a boy,

Yet methinks that their turns may remind me

Of the turns of my grandmother's toy.

For in all this world, with its beauties,

Its pictures so bright and so fair,

You may vary the pleasures and duties

But still, the same pieces are there.

From the time that the earth was first founded,

There has never been anything new-

The same thoughts, the same things, have redounded

Till the colours have pall'd on the view.

But-though all that is old is returning,

There is yet in this sameness a change;

And new truths are the wise ever learning,

For the patterns must always be strange.

Shall we say that our days are all weary?

All labour, and sorrow, and care,

That its pleasures and joys are but dreary,

Mere phantoms that vanish in air?

Ah, no! there are some darker pieces,

And others transparent and bright;

But this, surely, the beauty increases,-

Only-stand with your face to the light.

And the treasures for which we are yearning,

Those joys, now succeeded by pain-

Are but spangles, just hid in the turning;

They will come to the surface again.

B.

So the old ideas, old myths, are turned and turned about, and form new combinations, and are ever evolving fresh beauties, and teaching fresh truths. Perhaps in the consideration of these ancient myths, and seeing their progressive modifications, their breaking up, their coalitions, we may find the fresh application of the old saw, that there is nothing new under the sun.

THE END

Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.

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Footnotes:

[1] Jones, Trad. N. American Indians (1830), vol. iii. 175.

[2] Original edition in Latin. A translation by John Campbell, LL.D., under the title of Hermippus Redivivus, London, 1743. A second edition much enlarged, under the title Hermippus Redivivus, or the Sage's Triumph over Old Age and the Grave, London, 1749, 8vo. We have seen also an Italian translation. That from which we quote is the German edition.

[3] It is possible that, by the engraver's fault, the L in the last inscription may have been substituted for an X.

[4] ?στρεψεν τ? ταβλ?α τ?ν πλακουνταρ?ων.

[5] Ε?? φουσκ?ριο?.

[6] Ε?? Θε??, ?ββ? Συμε?ν, ε?? τ?ν χε?ρα σου θυμι??.

[7] Τ? ?στιν ?ξηχε, ?δε, ο?κ ε?μ? ?γ? μ?νο? ?π?ργη?.

[8] Θ?λων ο?ν ? ?σιο? ?ναλ?σαι τ?ν ο?κοδομ?ν α?το?, ?να μ? θριαμβε?σ? α?τ?ν, ?ν μι? κοιμωμ?νη? τ?? γυναικ?? α?το? μ?νη?, κ?κε?νου προβ?λλοντο? ο?νον, ?π?βη πρ?? α?τ?ν ? ?ββ?? Συμε?ν, κα? ?χηματ?σατο ?ποδ?εσθαι τ? ?μ?τιον α?το?, κ.τ.λ.

[9] ?στε ?στιν ?τε ?βαλλον τ?? χε?ρα? α?τ?ν τ? ?σεμνα γ?ναια ε?? τ?ν κ?λπον α?το?,κα? ?σ?αινον, κα? ?κ?πταζον, κα? ?γαργ?λιζον α?τ?ν.

[10] ?β?σταζεν α?τ?ν μ?α προ?σταμεν?, κα? ?λλη ?λ?ριζεν α?τ?ν.

[11] Πολλ?κι? δ? προσποιε?σθαι καταφιλε?ν τ?? δο?λα?. No wonder if one of them said, "Ο Σαλ?? Συμε?ν ?βι??ατ? με." The maid's mistress indignantly scolded Symeon, who replied with a smile, "?φε?, ?φε?, ταπειν?, ?ρτι γενν? σοι, κα? ?χει? μικρ?ν Συμε?ν."

[12] Σειρ?ν σαλσικ?ων.

[13] Σιλ?γνια, κα? πλακο?ντα?, κα? σφα?ρια, κα? ?ψ?ρια, κα? ο?ν?ρια δι?φορα, ψαθ?ρια, κα? γλυκ?, κα? ?πλ?? ?σα π?ντα ?χει ? β?ο? λιμβ?.

[14] ?στι γ?ρ ?τε κα? το?το ?λεγε πρ?? μ?αν τ?ν ?ταιρ?δων· θ?λει? ?χο σε φ?λην κα? δ?δω σοι ?κατ?ν ?λοκοτ?να.

[15] Both are published in the Acta Sanctorum for June, T.I., pp. 237-260, with notes by Papebroeck, the Bollandist.

[16] "Monachus aspectu venerabilis, barba prolixa, corpore nudus, capillis canus." This old monk was St. Luke the Stylite, appearing in vision.

[17] "Unus-cum gravi baculo ascendens ad eum, ipsum graviter ac dure c?dens, de ecclesi? trullo descendere fecit, cum multa festinantia et furore."-Fr. Barth.

[18] The biographer thinks a dolphin must have bitten his cords, and thus freed him.

[19] A blending is a changeling, or one who is half troll, half human.

[20] They form a huge ancient moraine.

[21] It much resembles the beautiful Marjelen Sea, familiar to the visitor to Aegischhorn.

[22] The writer has been over this portion of the ground, and knows the course pursued.

[23] It is not easy to make out what fell is meant. Possibly it may be the ridge called Thorir's Head.

[24] In another version one ball was gold, the other silver. I sent this story to Mr. Henderson, and it is included in the first edition of his Folklore of the Northern Counties, but omitted in the second.

[25] The portion within brackets I got from a different informant. The first version was incomplete; the girls had forgotten how the ball was recovered. They forgot also what happened with the second ball.

[26] Powel and Magnusson, Legends of Iceland (1864), p. 161.

[27] Cf. Xenoph. Memor. IV. vii. 7.

[28] The apocryphal Lith. 289.

[29] "Solis gemma candida est, et ad speciem sideris in orbem fulgentes spargit radios" (Hist. Nat. xxxvi. 10, 67.)

[30] Grimm, D. M. p. 665.

[31] Hist. Anglic. i. 27. See also Gervase of Tilbury, cxlv., for an account of the subterranean world reached by the cave in the Peak of Derby.

[32] Itin. Camb. i. 8.

[33] See for account of the gem-lighted underworld, Mannhardt, Germ. Mythol. (1858), p. 447.

[34] Egilson, Lex. poet. lingu? Sept. Men = monile, thesaurus, saxum, lapis.

[35] Roger of Wendover's Flowers of Hist., s.a. 1196. The story is an addition made to the original by Matthew Paris.

[36] Spiegel, Anecdota Palica (1845), p. 53.

[37] Benfy, Pantschatantra (1859), ii. p. 128.

[38] Cf. Benfy, op. cit. i. p. 214.

[39] Bababathra, 74, 6.

[40] I said at the beginning of this article that the alchemists were right in believing the Philosopher's Stone to be complex, made up of many metals. We know now that the germ idea of the stone is the sun, and the spectroscope allows us to analyse the sun's light and discover in the solar atmosphere a multitude of metals and ingredients, in fusion.

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