BOOK I. The story and Gata. have learnt from their father the secret of entering the treasure-house is caught in a trap, placed there by the king when he found his gold and jewels dwindling away. At his own request the elder brother cuts off his head, and the king, astounded at finding a headless body, bids his guards to impale it on a wall, with strict charge to bring before him any one whom they might hear mourning for the dead man. The mother, seeing her son's body thus exposed, threatens to tell the king everything unless the body is brought safely home to her. Loading some asses with skins full of wine, the elder son, as he approaches the guard, loosens the string of two or three wineskins, and the soldiers, rushing up at the sight of wine trickling on the ground, try to soothe the seemingly distracted owner, while they solace themselves by the liquor which they catch in their cups, until at length, overcoming the young man's reluctance, they sit down with him, and drink themselves to sleep. The dead body is then taken away by the brother, who, hearing of the new device by which the king proposed to catch him, crowns his exploits by cheating the king's daughter, and leaving a dead man's hand in hers. His marriage with the princess follows, and he is held in honour as the cleverest man of the cleverest people in the world.1 The Hindu version of the story of Rhampsinitos is in every way of Karpara inferior to the well-pointed legend of Herodotos. It is related by Somadeva Bhatta of Cashmir in his "Ocean of the Streams of Narrative," a professed abridgement of the still older collection called the Vrihat Kathâ. In this tale the elder of the two thieves simply makes a hole through the wall (which would at once betray their mode of entrance) in order to reach the chamber in which the king has placed not only his treasures but his daughter. He remains with her too long, and being caught in the morning, is hanged, but not before he has by signs bidden his brother Gata to carry off and save the princess. Gata therefore on the next night enters the chamber of the princess, who readily agrees to fly with him. The body of Karpara is then exposed, in order to catch the surviving malefactor, who tricks them much after the fashion of the Egyptian story, the chief difference being that Gata burns the body of his plexed than Rhampsinitos when they the action of lightning.-Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, second series, "Schamir." The story of Rhampsinitos becomes in the Seven Wise Masters the tale of the "Man who threw his father's head in a muck-heap." 1 Herodotos, ii. 121, &c.; Tales of Ancient Greece, 385. KARPARA AND GATA. V. brother Karpara, for whom he contrives to perform the necessary CHAP. amount of mourning by dashing on the ground a karpara, or pot of rice, and then bewailing his loss by the words, "Alas for my precious Karpara,"-words which the guards of course apply to the broken pipkin, and not to the dead thief. The story winds up with a proclamation from the king, promising half his realm to the magician who has done all this: but the princess bids him beware, and Gata goes away with her to another country.1 of Tro mêdês. 61 The mason's secret is much more closely reproduced in the story The story which Pausanias tells of Trophonios and Agamêdês, the builders of phonios the temple of Phoibos, after he had slain the dragon at Delphoi. and AgaThese two builders also raise the treasury of Hyrieus, placing one of the stones so that they could remove it from the outside. Hyrieus, astonished at the lessening of his wealth, sets a snare, in which Agamêdês is caught, and Trophonios cuts off his head to save him from torture and himself from discovery. The latter precaution seems unnecessary, since Pausanias adds that the earth opened and received Trophonios as in the myth of Amphiaraos. Shifty Lad. In the Scottish story the Shifty Lad goes through his apprentice- The ship not among a company of thieves, but under the sole charge of the Black Rogue, of whom he rids himself by getting him to try the pleasant sensation of being hung by the neck. The trick answers to that of the Norse thief, but the mode of effecting it differs widely. Having disposed of his master, he engages himself to a carpenter whom he persuades to break into the king's storehouse. The advice of the Seanagal whom the king consults is that a hogshead of soft pitch should be placed near the entrance. The wright, again making the venture, sinks into the pitch, and the Shifty Lad, stepping in on his shoulders, takes as much as he can carry, and then sweeping off his master's head, leaves the body in the hogshead. Again the Seanagal is consulted, and his answer is "that they should set the trunk aloft on the points of the spears of the soldiers, to be carried from town to town, to see if they could find any one at all that would take sorrow for it." As they pass by the wright's house, his wife screams, but the Shifty Lad cutting himself with an adze leads the captain of the guard to think that the cry was caused by sorrow at 1 See Mr. Cowell's Paper "On the Hindu Version of the Story of Rhampsinitos," in the Journal of Philosophy, No. I. p. 66. The imprisonment of the king's daughter in the treasure-chamber can scarcely fail to remind us of Brynhild within her flaming walls; and thus the myth seems to exhibit an affinity to the legends which tell of unsuccessful BOOK his own hurt. I. Point and drift of these stories. The body is then by the king's order hung on a tree, the guard being ordered to seize any one who should venture to take it down. The lad, driving before him a horse loaded with two kegs of whisky, approaches the soldiers as though he wished to pass them stealthily, and when they catch the horse's bridle, he runs off, leaving the men to drink themselves to sleep, and then returning takes away the wright's body. This exploit is followed by others which occur in no other version: but the final scene is a feast, at which, according to the Seanagal's prediction, the Shifty Lad asks the king's daughter to dance. The Seanagal upon this puts a black mark upon him; but the lad, like Morgiana in the story of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," discovering the mark, puts another on the Seanagal, and on twenty other men besides him. The king is then advised to say that the man who had done every trick that had been done must be exceedingly clever, and that if he would come forward and give himself up, he should have the princess for his wife. All the marked men accordingly claim the prize; and the craft of the Shifty Lad is once more called into practice, to secure the maiden for himself.1 Mr. Campbell, who relates this story, gives full weight to the suggestion that the incidents in which it resembles the version of Herodotos may "have been spread amongst the people by those members of their families who study the classics at the Scotch Universities;" but he adds with good reason, that if the resemblances to other stories not classical are to be accounted for in the same way, it must be supposed "that these books have all been read at some time so widely in Scotland as to have become known to the labouring population who speak Gaelic, and so long ago as to have been forgotten by the instructed who speak English and study foreign languages." 2 In the Norse and Teutonic versions it seems impossible not to see the most striking incident of the Egyptian tale in a connexion and under forms which force on us the conclusion that they are not related to each other in any other way than by their growth from a 1 The theft of treasure by a clever rogue occurs in the story of the Travels of Dummling, who is Boots under another name. Compare also Grimm's stories of "The Four Accomplished Brothers," "The Rogue and his Master," and of the " Young Giant." In the latter tale Hermes takes more the form of the Maruts, or Crushers; and the myth of the Molionids is reenacted with singular exactness. The young giant brings up from the water a huge mill-stone which he places round his neck, and so keeps watch all night. He is assailed by evil demons, but he returns every blow with interest-a description which reminds us of the Hesiodic narrative of the toil of Hermes the whole night through. The only reward which he asks is the pleasure of kicking his master, who is sent spinning into the air and is never more seen. 352. 2 Tales of the West Highlands, i. common root. THE THEFTS OF HERMES. V. 63 In these versions the king is represented by a good- CHAP. humoured squire who makes himself merry over the successful devices of the Master Thief, as he accomplishes the several tasks imposed upon him. These tasks taken separately are much the same in each, but the difference of order indicates that no one was regarded at the first as essentially more difficult than another. In none of them, however, does the humour of the story turn on the force of public opinion. The whole point lies in the utter inability of any one to guard against the thief, even when they know that they are going to be robbed and have themselves pointed out the object to be stolen. Here, as in the stories of Rhampsinitos and the Shifty Lad, the means for achieving one of the tasks is wine: but the thief has to take away not the dead body of a man, but a living horse, on which sits a groom, or, as in the Norse tale, twelve horses, each with a rider guarding them. The disguise assumed by the thief is the dress of a beggar-woman, and her wine, which in the German story is powerfully drugged, soon puts the guards to sleep as soundly as the soldiers of the Egyptian king. In this version the thief swings the rider, saddle and all, in the air by ropes tied to the rafters of the stable; in the Norse tale, the twelve grooms find themselves astride the beams in the morning. The theft of the sheet and ring from the persons of the squire and his wife is an incident not found in either the Egyptian or the Scottish stories; but the trick practised on the priest occurs again in the Hindu tale of the nautch-girl Champa Ranee, under a disguise which cannot hide the common source from which the stories have come down to us, while it leaves no room for the notion that the one version has been suggested by the other. Hellenic But in truth the supposition is in this case wholly uncalled for. The The story of the Master Thief was told in Europe, probably ages Master before the Homeric poems were put together, certainly ages before Thief. Herodotos heard the story of the Egyptian treasure-house. In all the versions of the tale the thief is a young and slender youth, despised sometimes for his seeming weakness, never credited with his full craft and strength. No power can withhold him from doing aught on which he has set his mind: no human eye can trace the path by which he conveys away his booty. It is the story of the child Hermes, and even under the most uncouth disguise it has lost but little either of its truthfulness or its humour. Bolts and bars are no defence against him; yet the babe whom Phoibos can shake in his arms is the mighty marauder who has driven off all his oxen from Pieria. When his work is done, he looks not much like one who needs to be dreaded; and the soft whistling sound which closes his I. The origin of the story of Thief. defence wakes a smile on the face of Phoibos, as the Teutonic squire laughs on finding himself tricked in the northern story. In each case the robber is exalted to the same high dignity. "Well, friend," said Apollôn with a smile, "thou wilt break into many a house, I see, and thy followers after thee; and thy fancy for beef will set many a herdsman grieving. But come down from the cradle, or this sleep will be thy last. Only this honour can I promise thee, to be called the Master Thief for ever." 2 The thief in the northern stories marries the squire's daughter, as the architect's son marries the daughter of Rhampsinitos. The the Master marriage represents the compact made between Phoibos the allseeing and Hermes the sweet singer. In this peaceful alliance with the squire the Teutonic tale leaves him; but there are other sides to the character of the Master Thief, and each of these describes with singular fidelity the action and power of air in motion. He is the child breathing softly in the cradle, he is the giant rooting up trees in his fury. No living thing can resist the witchery of his harping. As he draws nigh, life is wakened where before he came there had been stillness as of the dead. With him comes joy or sorrow, health or the pestilence. His lyre is the harp of Orpheus, and it discourses the music of the Vedic Ribhus, or of the Finnic Wäinämöinen, the son of Ilmatar, the daughter of the Air, whose singing draws the sun and moon from heaven. The beasts of the field come to hear him, like the clouds which gather in the sky when the wind blows; the trees move along his track when he comes in his sterner moods. Nothing can remain still when he pipes. The leaf must wave on the hill-side, the Jew must dance in the thorn-bush, while the music lasts. He is the Erlking, whose mysterious harmony is heard by one literature into another being secondary or inorganic. The number of stories belonging to the latter class is probably much smaller than is generally supposed. 3 As Hermes is one of the firemaking or fire-bringing gods, so Wainämöinen catches the fish that has swallowed the fire, which, struck by Ukko, the lord of the air, from the new sun and moon, has fallen into the sea. For an examination of the Finnic epic, see Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, i. 147, et seq. As the Finnish thundergod, Ukko has his hammer, like the Slavonic Perkunos and the Teutonic Thor. This story of "The Jew among the Thorns," in Grimm's Household Tales, is reproduced under a hundred forms; |