Download to read offline
![The girl went to see and when she came back she said, "She has
eaten the cooked rice and covered the cooking pots, and has gone."
Next day the prince said, "I am going to cut the rice-crop. Remain at
home and, when evening comes, put the utensils for cooking near
the hearth." So the servant obeyed him and in the evening the
mouse came and cooked. She placed the food ready and again ran
and hid behind the pots.
This went on for several days, and when the whole rice-crop was
garnered in, the prince went near to the place where the mouse was
hidden and said, "Having pounded the rice and removed the husks,
let us go to your village and present it to your parents as first-fruits."
But the mouse said, "I will not go. You go!" So the prince made the
servant get the package of cooked rice ready, and he went to the
village of the queen and gave the package to her.
And the queen said, "Where is my daughter?" The prince answered,
"She refused to come."
Then the queen said, "Go back to your city, and having placed the
cooking utensils near the hearth, hide yourself and stay in the
house."
After the prince returned to the city, he did as she had told him. The
mouse, having come out, took off her mouse-jacket, and, assuming
the shape of a girl, put on other clothes. While she was preparing to
cook, the prince took the mouse-jacket and burnt it.
Afterwards when the girl went to the place where the mouse-jacket
had been and looked for it, it was not there. Then she looked in the
hearth, and saw that there was one sleeve of the skin-dress among
the embers. While she was there weeping and weeping, the prince
came out of his hiding-place and said, "Your mother told me to burn
the mouse-jacket. Now you are really mine!"
So the mouse became a princess again and married the prince.[80]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-34-2048.jpg)
![The same idea is contained in the story of the king who, putting on
a jackal-skin, turns into a jackal, only resuming human form
permanently when the skin is burnt.[81] In "Indian Fairy Tales" there
is a prince who has a monkey-skin which he can put on and off at
pleasure.[82] A king's daughter in another story also has a monkey-
skin and when a prince burns it she takes fire and flies away all
ablaze to her father's palace.[83] Four fairy doves in feather-dresses
appear in "Romantic Tales from the Panjab with Indian Night's
Entertainment."[84] When they take off their feathers to bathe, a
prince conceals one dress and the fairy is unable to resume bird
form. The story of the feather-vest of the dove-maiden in "The
Arabian Nights"[85] is similar in style.
The swan-maidens or cloud-maidens, as they are sometimes called,
have a shirt made of swan's feathers which acts much in the same
manner as the wolf-skin to the wer-wolf. The swan-maiden retains
human shape as long as she is kept away from her feather tunic.
The commonest form of this legend is that of a man who passes by
a lake and sees several beautiful maidens bathing, their feather-
dresses lying on the bank. He approaches quietly and steals one of
the dresses. In due course the bathers come to the shore, don their
dresses and swim off in the shape of swans, all but one, who is left
lamenting on the shore. Then the thief appears, tells her what he
has done and bids the maiden marry him. They live happily together
until one day when the husband, by accident, leaves the wardrobe
door unlocked and the swan-maiden puts on her feather-shirt and
flies off, never to return.[86]
In a similar story the maiden is wearing a gold chain round her neck
which her huntsman lover seizes, thus gaining the power over her
which makes it possible to woo and wed her. She gives birth in due
course to seven sons, each one of whom wears a gold chain about
his neck and can transform himself into a swan at will.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-35-2048.jpg)
![aviary, she loses him, and cannot regain her husband until the aviary
is restored.
In the well-known story of "The Brahman Girl who marries a Tiger,"
the tiger assumes human shape and makes a beautiful girl fall in
love with him. Soon after their marriage he threatens her, saying,
"Be quiet or I shall show you my original shape."[87] When she
urges him to do so he changes and behold, "four legs, a striped skin,
a long tail, and a tiger's face come on him suddenly, and, horror of
horrors, a tiger, and not a man stands before her!"
She has to obey all his orders and finally gives birth to a son, who
also turns out "to be only a tiger."
She gets her brothers to help her, murders her child and runs off
home. In the end the tiger is killed by her relatives, and the
Brahman girl, in memory of him, raises a pillar over the well and
plants a fragrant shrub on the top of it.[88]
The Chinese have a curious idea about "making animals,"[89] and a
story is told about a man who arrived at an inn in Yang-Chow
leading five donkeys. He asks the landlord whether he may put the
animals in the stable, and while he goes off for a short time, he
leaves instructions that they are not to be given water to drink. They
become so restless, however, that the landlord takes the
responsibility of setting them loose, and they make a rush to a
neighbouring pond. But no sooner has water touched their lips than
they roll on the ground and change into women. The landlord,
frightened at what has occurred, hides them in his house and
presently the man returns leading five sheep. But now the landlord's
suspicions are aroused and, persuading his guest to take wine
indoors, he goes out and waters the sheep. They turn into young
men and their temporary owner is put under arrest and executed for
a sorcerer.
In a Basque story, seven brothers forbid their sister to go near a
certain house. She disobeys them and a witch in the house gives her](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-38-2048.jpg)
![certain herbs, telling her to put them in her brothers' foot-bath. She
does so and the brothers are changed into cows. The ideas
contained in these examples are similar in character to those
contained in Grimm's "Household Tales." The following is more like
the Japanese wer-fox episodes:—
A certain prince royal of India has a lovely mistress who bewitches
him, and who falls asleep one day in a bed of chrysanthemums
where her lover shoots and wounds a fox in the forehead. The girl is
found to be bleeding from a wound in her temple and is thus
exposed. She is an evil animal.
In many stories women give birth to animals.
A widow who lives near a palace and makes a livelihood by pounding
rice, bears a frog which becomes a good-looking prince, but he ends
as a frog.
In the story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri) a queen bears a
tortoise prince who has the power of leaving his shell, and assuming
human form. One day his mother is present at the transformation
and smashes the shell, after which her son has to remain a man.
Another queen gives birth to a tortoise which is reared by her, and
goes in search of divine flowers, which he obtains by the aid of a
nymph.
A raja has two wives and the first has six sons, the second only one,
who is a mongoose. His name is Lelsing, and he speaks like a man,
but grows no bigger than an ordinary mongoose. In this story the six
brothers do everything they can to ill-treat the mongoose boy, but all
their tricks turn to his advantage, and in the end he grows rich while
they grow poor, and finally they all get drowned, while he goes
home rejoicing at his revenge upon them for their unkindness.[90]
The Bards at Jaisalmer claimed one of the raja's sons for a ruler, so
he gave them one of his seven ranis, who was expecting to become
a mother, and they took her to Nahan and near the Sarmor tank she
gave birth first to a lion and four monsters, and then to a son. After](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-39-2048.jpg)
![the monsters were exorcised they took the child to Medni and he
became the first raja of Nahan (Sarmor).[91]
Another raja's child was born with the ears of an ox. Only the raja's
barber knew, but he blurted it out to the dom and the dom went to
the raja's palace and sang
"The son of the raja
Has the ears of an ox."
Then the raja was very angry, and only forgave the dom when he
said he had not been told about the misfortune, but that a drum had
sung the words to him.[92]
"The Two Brothers" is a typical and classical story in which one
brother assumes the form of a great bull with all the sacred marks.
In another story of German origin, the hero, who has been hacked
to pieces and stuffed in a bag, is restored to life by a master
sorcerer, who endows him with the power of assuming whatever
shape he pleases. He turns into a fine horse, and the king's
daughter, believing she is being deceived, has the animal
decapitated.
A similar Russian tale is about a horse which has a golden mane
and, when it is killed, a bull with golden hair arises from the blood
spilt.
So numerous are the stories of this description, dealing with
transformation, that it is practically impossible to divide them into
their various types, although many attempts to classify them have
been made by authoritative writers on folk-lore; nor is it possible to
give them due occult significance. They are interesting chiefly on
account of the details which may be gathered from them concerning
methods and reasons of transformation.
The Indian Rakshasa (Bengalese Raqhosh) are beings of a
malevolent nature which haunt cemeteries, harass the devout,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-40-2048.jpg)
![animate dead bodies, and afflict mankind in various ways. They can
assume any form they please, animal or other. Females appear as
beautiful women for the purpose of luring men to their doom. When
in their natural state they have upstanding hair, yellow as the flames
which they vomit forth from mouths which are provided with huge
tusks. They have large, black, hairy bodies. The Nagas, on the other
hand, are semi-divine snake-beings with good impulses.
In "Bengali Household Tales," by William McCulloch,[93] a Raqhosh
performs a transformation in the following manner: He removes a
stone from an underground passage and descending brings forth a
monkey. He then plucks a few leaves from a tree, draws water from
a well close by, throws the leaves into it and pours it over the body
of the monkey. The monkey is immediately transformed into a
beautiful young woman with whom the Raqhosh descends by the
underground passage. Towards dawn the two come up again. This
time the Raqhosh plucks some leaves from another tree and throws
them into some water from another well, and then pours it over the
young woman. Instantaneously she is changed into a monkey again.
This is not the most usual way for such transformations and
retransformations to occur in Indian folk-tales; sometimes they are
achieved by magic rods. In Grimm's "Household Tale," "Donkey
Cabbages," one kind of cabbage transforms a man into an ass and
the other reverses the process.
Magicians, however, have other methods. Mercurius, the most skilful
of sorcerers, was supposed to have discovered the secret of
"fascinating" men's eyes in such a way as to make people invisible to
their sight, or perhaps to give them the appearance of an animal.
This may be compared to modern hypnotism and has an important
bearing on the subject.
Pomponius Mela attributes to the Druidical priestesses of Sena the
knowledge of transforming themselves into animals at will.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-41-2048.jpg)
![Proteus, according to Homer's account, becomes a dragon, a lion, or
a boar. Eustathius, the commentator, adds, "not really changing but
only appearing to do so." Proteus was an adroit worker of miracles,
and was well acquainted with the secrets of Egyptian philosophy. He
assumed animal shape in order to escape the necessity of foretelling
the future when asked to do so but, whenever he saw his
endeavours were of no avail, he resumed his natural appearance.
Towards the end of the sixteenth century Joseph Acosta, who
resided in Peru, asserts that sorcerers existed there at that time who
were capable of assuming any form they pleased. He tells of a ruler
of a city in Mexico who was sent for by the predecessor of
Montezuma and who transformed himself successively before the
eyes of men who tried to seize his person, into a tiger, an eagle, and
a serpent. At length he gave in, and being taken before the emperor
was condemned to death.
The same kind of power was ascribed, in 1702, by the Bishop of
Chiapa (a province of Guatemala) to the Naguals, the national
priests who endeavoured to win back the children brought up as
Christians by the Government, to the religion of their ancestors.
After various ceremonies, the child he was teaching was told to
advance and embrace the Nagual. At that moment he assumed a
hideous animal form, and as a lion, tiger, or other wild beast, threw
the young convert to Christianity into a state of abject terror by
appearing chained to him.[94] There, no doubt, hypnotism became a
weapon of religious fanaticism.
At the appearance of the monster Ravanas, the gods, becoming
alarmed, transform themselves into animals: Indras changes into a
peacock, Yamas into a crow, Kuveras into a chameleon, and Varunas
into a swan in order to escape the ire of the enemy.
These transformations, says de Gubernatis,[95] instead of being
capricious, were necessary and natural to the several gods, for the
animal is the shadow that follows the hero and is so closely
identified with him that it may often be said to be the hero himself.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-42-2048.jpg)
![Nash, in "Christ's Tears over Jerusalem," 1613, has the following
remarkable passage. "They talk of an ox that tolled the bell at
Woolwich, and how from an ox he transformed himself into an old
man, and from an old man to an infant and into a young man
again."
The Egyptians were the first to broach the opinion that the soul of
man is immortal and that, when the body dies, it enters into the
form of an animal which is born at the moment, thence passing on
from one animal to another, until it has circled through the forms of
all the creatures which tenant the earth, the water, and the air, after
which it enters again into a human frame and is born anew. The
whole period of transmigration is (they say) three thousand years.
[96]
According to Egyptian beliefs only the souls of wicked men suffered
the disgrace of entering the body of an animal when, "weighed in
the balance" before the tribunal of Osiris, they were pronounced
unworthy to enter the abode of the blessed. The soul was then sent
back to the body of a pig.
The doctrine of metempsychosis was borrowed from Egypt by
Pythagoras and classical allusions are so numerous that it is
impossible to mention more than a few instances.
Empedocles believed he had passed through many forms, a bird and
a fish among others. Lucian's story was of a Pythagorian cock which
had been a man, a woman, a fish, a horse, and a frog, and of all
states he thought that man was the most deplorably wretched of the
animals. After anointing himself with enchanted salve from Thessaly,
Lucian was transformed into an ass and worked for seven years
under a "gardiner, a tyle man, a corier, and suchlike." At the end of
the period he was restored to human shape by nibbling rose leaves.
Dionysius was believed to assume the form of a goat or of a bull,
and Cronius was said to take the form of a horse. Epona was a
horse-goddess, and Callisto in an Arcadian myth was changed into a](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-43-2048.jpg)
![Many modern writers have used the mystic idea of animal
transformation, especially as gleaned from Celtic legendary sources;
for instance, in the tales by Fiona McLeod and the poems by W. B.
Yeats.
"Do you not hear me calling white deer with no horns!
I have been changed to a hound with one red ear;"
"A man with a hazel wand came without sound,
And changed me suddenly, while I was looking
another way;
And now my calling is but the calling of a hound."
In another poem the salmon caught by a young fisherman is no
sooner under his roof, than it changes into a shimmering maiden—
which makes one think of the Indian story of a shining man who
casts his ugly skin and is so bright that no one can see him without
being blinded.
A pretty little story of a shining lady who becomes a butterfly, is told
by Mr. H. A. Giles in "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio."[97] Mr.
Wang of Chang-shang, the District Magistrate, had a habit of
commuting the fines and penalties of the Penal Code inflicted on
prisoners in exchange for a corresponding number of butterflies. He
rejoiced in seeing the insects flutter hither and thither like "tinsel
snippings" borne on the breeze. One night he dreamt that a
beautiful girl in shimmering clothes stood before him who said sadly,
"Your cruel practice has brought many of my sisters to an untimely
end; now you must pay the penalty for what you have done." Then
she transformed herself into a butterfly and flew away.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-45-2048.jpg)
![predominates in the period of sinless infancy—are difficulties the
solution of which might afford some probable insight into our ante-
mundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadowland of pre-
existence."[98]
Prentice Mulford firmly believed that the supposed fables in the
ancient mythologies concerning beings half-men, half-beasts (such
as centaurs or mermaids) had had their origin in spiritual truths.
"Our race," he says, "has been so developed out of the animal or
coarser forms of life. Countless ages ago all forms of life were
coarser than now. As these grew finer, man attracted and absorbed
the spirit of the finer."
"The history of animals such as the ancients have transmitted to us,"
says Eusebe Salverte,[99] "is filled with details apparently chimerical:
but which are sometimes only the consequence of a defective
nomenclature. The name, Onocentaur, which seems to designate a
monster, uniting the form of a man and an ass, was given to a
quadrumanus which runs sometimes on four paws, but at other
times uses its forepaws only as hands: merely an immense monkey
covered with grey hair, particularly on the lower part of the body...."
M. Geoffroy de St. Hillaire described a polydactyle horse as having
hairy fingers separated by membranes: yet when ancient authors
have spoken of horses, the feet of which bore some resemblance to
the hands and feet of a man, they have been accused of imposture.
[100]
The Centaurs were mythical creatures which inhabited Thessaly.
They were said to have sprung from a union of Ixion and a Cloud,
or, according to other authorities, to be the offspring of Centaurus,
son of Apollo, by Stilbia, daughter of Peneus. The famous battle of
the Centaurs with the Lapithæ was occasioned by a quarrel at the
marriage of Hippodamia with Pirithous. The Centaurs having come to
a state of intoxication, offered violence to the women present, an
insult for which they received due punishment.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-49-2048.jpg)
![A vivid presentment of what changing shape from man to horse
would mean is to be found in Mr. Algernon Blackwood's "The
Centaur,"[101] in which story the Irish hero, Mally, watches his own
transformation into the figure of the Urwelt, with amazement.
"All white and shining lay the sunlight over his own extended form.
Power was in his limbs; he rose above the ground in some new way;
the usual little stream of breath became a river of rushing air he
drew into stronger, more capacious lungs; likewise his bust grew
strangely deepened, pushed the wind before it; and the sunshine
glowed on shaggy flanks agleam with dew that powerfully drove the
ground behind him while he ran.
"He ran yet only partly as a man runs; he found himself shot
forwards through the air, upright, yet at the same time upon all fours
... it was his own feet now that made that trampling as of hoofs
upon the turf."
In "Gulliver's Travels" the men-horses or Houyhnhnms are fine
horses gifted with human intelligence, but the Yahoos are described
by Swift as having a very peculiar shape. Their heads and breasts
were covered with a thick hair, some frizzled and others lank, they
had beards like goats and a long ridge of hair down their backs, and
the foreparts of their legs and feet, but the rest of their bodies was
bare, so that their skins, which were of a brown-buff colour, could be
seen. They had no tails, and they sat on the ground as well as laid
down, and often stood on their hind feet. They climbed high trees as
nimbly as a squirrel, for they had strong extended claws before and
behind, terminating in sharp points and hooked. They would often
spring and bound and leap with prodigious agility.[102]
In speaking, the Houyhnhnms pronounced through the nose and
throat, and their language approached nearest to High-Dutch or
German, but was more graceful and significant.
Swift no doubt took his idea of the men-horses from centaurs.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-50-2048.jpg)
![North, and, seeing that all sorts of sins were gaining ground in his
kingdom, he, in honour of and in gratitude to God who had so
blessed him, should wholly extirpate such sins, lest God should visit
him with anger and punishment thereafter."[103]
In the Shetland Isles mermaids are said to dwell among the fishes,
in the depths of the ocean, in mansions of pearl and coral. They
resemble human beings, but greatly excel them in beauty. When
they wish to visit the earth they put on the ham or garb of some
fish, but if they lose this garment, all hopes of return are annihilated
and they must stay where they are.
A mermaid was found by a fisherman called Pergrin at St. Dognael's,
near Cardigan, and he took her prisoner, but she wept bitterly and
said to him, "If you will let me go, Pergrin, I will call to you three
times at the moment of your greatest need." Moved by her distress,
he obeyed and almost forgot the incident, but some weeks later he
was fishing on a hot, calm day, when he heard distinctly, the call,
thrice repeated, "Pergrin, take up thy nets." This he did in great
haste, and by the time he reached the harbour a terrible storm had
come up, and all the other fishermen who had not been warned
were drowned. This story, it is claimed, belongs to other parts of
Wales also.
There is said to be a castle in Finland, on the borders of a small lake,
out of which, previously to the death of the Governor, an apparition
in the form of a mermaid arises and makes sweet melody.
One of the most charming descriptions of a Sea-maiden is found in
Hans Andersen's well-known story of "The Little Mermaid." Her skin
is as soft and delicate as a rose-leaf, her eyes are as deep a blue as
the sea, but like all other mermaids, she has no feet; her body ends
in a tail like that of a fish. For many years she plays happily in the
enchanted palace of the Mer-king, her father, but when she reaches
years of discretion she visits the earth and falls in love with a
handsome prince, forsaking her home and family and giving away
her beautiful voice for love of him. But she does more even than](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-54-2048.jpg)
![burning pain, I say, this time I will burn out all the animal, this time I
will make a rational creature of my own. After all, what is ten years?
Man has been a hundred thousand in the making."[104]
"There were swine-men and swine-women," says Pendrick later,
describing the beast-folk, "a mare rhinoceros creature, and several
other females I did not ascertain. There were several Wolf creatures,
a Bear-bull, and a Saint Bernard Dog Man. I have already described
the Ape Man, and there was a particularly hateful (and evil-smelling)
old woman made of Vixen and Bear, whom I hated from the
beginning."[105]
"First to arrive was the Satyr, strangely unreal, for all that he cast a
shadow, and tossed the dust with his hoofs: after him, from the
brake, came a monstrous lout, a thing of horse and rhinoceros,
chewing a straw as it came: and then appeared the Swine Woman
and two Wolf Women: then the Fox-Bear-Witch, with her red eyes in
her peaked red face, and then others all hurrying eagerly."[106]
In another imaginative work dealing with the twenty-ninth century
A.D., the brute creation has been humanised in a way never before
dreamt of.
"... a levy of 40,000 naturalists were engaged for years in forming a
hundred different zoological armies. Each of these was, by an
admirable system of drill, brought to such a high state of discipline
that a brigade, consisting of a thousand elephants, a thousand
rhinoceroses, 180,000 monkeys and 15,000 other beasts of draught
and burden could be officered with perfect ease by as few as one
thousand naturalists. Birds of burden and fish of burden were in like
manner drafted into the ranks of the zoological army, and, being
subjected to similar training, were brought to a similar degree of
efficiency."[107]
Giraldus Cambrensis wrote of many curious monsters and strange
things that happened in connection with them. He believed that
occult powers came through them in some manner, and told the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-58-2048.jpg)
![Like the enormous serpent with seven heads, the
weapon with seven heads I hold it.
Like the serpent which beats the waves of the sea
attacking the enemy in front,
Devastator in the shock of battle, extending his power
over heaven and earth, the weapon with
(seven) heads (I hold it).[108]
The story of Crishna is very similar to that of Hercules in Grecian
mythology, the serpent forming a prominent feature in both. Crishna
conquers a dragon, into which the Assoor Aghe had transformed
himself to swallow him up. He defeats also Kalli Naga (the black or
evil spirit with a thousand heads) who, placing himself in the bed of
the river Jumna, poisoned the stream, so that all the companions of
Crishna and his cattle, who tasted of it, perished. He overcame Kalli
Naga, without arms, and in the form of a child. The serpent twisted
himself about the body of Crishna, but the god tore off his heads,
one after the other, and trampled them under his feet. Before he had
completely destroyed Kalli Naga, the wife and children of the
monster (serpents also) came and besought him to release their
relative. Crishna took pity on them, and releasing Kalli Naga, said to
him, "Begone quickly into the abyss: this place is not proper for thee
since I have engaged with thee, thy name shall remain through all
the period of time and devatars and men shall henceforth remember
thee without dismay." So the serpent with his wife and children went
into the abyss, and the water which had been affected by his poison
became pure and wholesome.[109]
Crishna also destroyed the serpent-king of Egypt and his army of
snakes.
Lamia was an evil spirit having the semblance of a serpent, with the
head, or at least the mouth, of a beautiful woman, whose whole
figure the demon assumed for the purpose of securing the love of
some man whom, it was supposed, she desired to tear to pieces and
devour. Lycius is said to have fallen in love with one of these spirits,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-62-2048.jpg)
![but was delivered by his master, Apollonius, who, "by some probable
conjectures," found her out to be a serpent, a lamia.[110]
Keats made use of this idea in his poem, "Lamia." Later the word
was used to mean a witch or enchantress. Melusina was another
beautiful serpent-woman who disappeared from her husband's
presence every Saturday, and turned into a human fish or serpent.
A modern version of the legend of Melusina is found in Wales. To
assume the shape of a snake, witches prepared special charms, and
sometimes a ban was placed upon enemies by which they turned
into snakes for a time.
A young farmer in Anglesea went to South Wales and there he met a
handsome girl whose eyes were "sometimes blue, sometimes grey,
and sometimes like emeralds," but they always sparkled and
glittered. He fell in love with her at first sight, and she agreed to
become his wife if he would allow her to disappear twice a year for a
fortnight without questioning her as to where she went. To this
arrangement the young husband agreed.
For some years he did not trouble himself about his wife's absence,
but his mother began nagging at him, saying that he ought to find
out where she went and what she did. Taking his mother's advice,
he disguised himself and followed his wife to a lonely part of a forest
not far from their home. Hiding himself behind a huge rock, he
noticed from this point of vantage that his wife took off her girdle
and threw it down in the deep grass near a dark pool. Then she
vanished, and the next moment he saw a large and handsome snake
glide through the grass, just where she had been standing. He
chased the reptile, but the snake disappeared into a hole near the
pool. The husband went home and waited patiently for his wife's
return, and when she came, he requested her to tell him where she
had been. This she refused to do, and when he asked her what she
did with her girdle, she blushed painfully.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-63-2048.jpg)
![The next time when she was intending to go away, he seized and hid
the girdle, and thus deferred her departure. She was taken ill, and
he, hoping to rid her of a baneful charm, threw the girdle in the fire.
Then his wife writhed in agony, and when the girdle was burnt up
she died. The neighbours called her the Snake-Woman of the South
on account of this strange story of her doings.[111]
A shoemaker in the Vale of Taff married a widow for her money and,
as love seemed lacking on both sides, it was not long before serious
quarrels occurred between the couple. Although it was said that
hard blows were struck on both sides, the neighbours remarked that
it was strange the shoemaker's wife appeared amongst them
without a trace of a bruise on her person. At night loud cries and
deep groans arose from the shoemaker's dwelling, and a certain
gentleman of an inquisitive turn of mind decided to discover what
took place and hid himself in a loft over the kitchen, to spy on the
couple. Whatever he may have learnt during the proceedings, he
said nothing, and a report was spread that he had been "paid to
hold his tongue and not divulge the family secret." At last, however,
his discretion failed him, and anger against the shoemaker, with
whom he fell into a dispute, made him reveal what he knew. He said
that as soon as angry words passed between husband and wife, the
latter "assumed from the shoulders upwards, the shape of a snake,
and deliberately and maliciously sucked her partner's blood and
pierced him with her venomous fangs."
No marks were found on the husband's body, but he grew ever
thinner and weaker, and after ailing for many months he died. The
doctor who tended him in his last illness declared that he had died
from the poisonous sting of a serpent. After this verdict the spy was
given the credit of his story, which, however, had a gruesome
sequel. He and the doctor were found lying helpless in the
churchyard one morning. When roused from what seemed a fatal
slumber, they said they had been invited by the shoemaker's widow
to drink with her in memory of her late dear second husband. Then
she sprang upon them in the shape of a snake and stung them](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-64-2048.jpg)
![severely. They had only strength enough left to crawl to the
churchyard, where they would probably have died from torpor had
not the neighbours roused them. The widow was never seen again,
but a snake constantly appeared in the neighbourhood and could not
be killed by any means, so that it earned the name of "the old
snake-woman."[112]
Oliver Wendell Holmes, who was interested in the subject of prenatal
influences, depicted the heroine of his well-known novel, "Elsie
Venner," as a girl who had received the taint of a serpent before
birth, from a snakebite suffered by her mother.
Elsie's friend, Helen Darley, knew the secret of the fascination which
looked out of the cold, glittering eyes. She knew the significance of
the strange repulsion which she felt in her own intimate
consciousness underlying the inexplicable attraction which drew her
towards the young girl in spite of her repugnance.
When Elsie was taken ill her doctor said that she had lived a double
being, as it were, the consequence of the blight which fell upon her
in the dim period before consciousness.
"Elsie Venner" is an American story, but India, where the snake is
even more familiar, is the home of many human-serpent stories, and
legends of serpent descent.
Near Jait in the Mathura district is a tank with the broken statue of a
hooded serpent on it. Once upon a time a Raja married a princess
from a distant country and, after a short stay there, decided to take
his wife home, but she refused to go until he had declared his
lineage. The Raja told her she would regret her curiosity, but she
persisted. Finally he took her to the river and there warned her
again. She would not take heed and he entreated her not to be
alarmed at whatever she saw, adding that if she did she would lose
him. Saying this, he began slowly to descend into the water, all the
time trying to dissuade her from her purpose, till it became too late
and the water rose to his neck. Then, after a last attempt to induce](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-65-2048.jpg)
![her to give up her curiosity, he dived and reappeared in the form of
a Naga (serpent). Raising his hood over the water he said, "This is
my lineage! I am a Nagbansi."
His wife could not suppress an exclamation of grief, on which the
Naga was turned into stone, where he lies to this day.[113]
A member of the family of Buddha fell in love with the daughter of a
serpent-king. He was married to her and presently became the
sovereign of the country. His wife had obtained possession of a
human body, but a nine-headed snake occasionally appeared at the
back of her neck. While she slept one night her husband chopped
the serpent in two at a single blow, and this caused her to become
blind.
Another curious legend is told of a Buddha priest who had become a
serpent because he had killed the tree Elapatra, and he then resided
in a beautiful lake near Taxila. In the days of Hiuen-Tsiang, when the
people of the country wanted fine weather or rain they went to the
spring accompanied by a priest, and, "snapping their fingers,
invoked the serpent," and immediately obtained their wishes.
The snake tribe is common enough in the Punjaub. Snake families
go through many ceremonies, saying that in olden days the serpent
was a great king. If they find a dead snake they put clothes on it
and give it a regular funeral. The snake changes its form every
hundred years, when it becomes either a man or a bull. Snake-
charmers have the power of recognising these transformed snakes,
and follow them stealthily until they return to their holes and then
ask them where treasure is hidden. This they will do on
consideration of a drop of blood from the little finger of a first-born
son.[114]
Among fairy tales the favourite story is that of a human being who
dons a snake-skin, and when it is burnt he resumes human form.
The snake-bridegroom is an exceedingly popular version of this idea.
[115]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/77528-250501143539-ba188614/75/Programming-iOS-14-11th-Edition-Matt-Neuburg-66-2048.jpg)
Programming iOS 14 11th Edition Matt Neuburg
- 1. Programming iOS 1411th Edition Matt Neuburg download https://textbookfull.com/product/programming-ios-14-11th-edition- matt-neuburg/ Download more ebook from https://textbookfull.com
- 2. We believe theseproducts will be a great fit for you. Click the link to download now, or visit textbookfull.com to discover even more! iOS 14 Programming Fundamentals with Swift Covers iOS 14 Xcode 12 and Swift 5 3 7th Edition Matt Neuburg https://textbookfull.com/product/ios-14-programming-fundamentals- with-swift-covers-ios-14-xcode-12-and-swift-5-3-7th-edition-matt- neuburg/ iOS 10 Programming Fundamentals with Swift Swift Xcode and Cocoa Basics 3rd Edition Matt Neuburg https://textbookfull.com/product/ios-10-programming-fundamentals- with-swift-swift-xcode-and-cocoa-basics-3rd-edition-matt-neuburg/ Programming IOS 12 Dive Deep Into Views View Controllers and Frameworks 1st Edition Matt Neuburg https://textbookfull.com/product/programming-ios-12-dive-deep- into-views-view-controllers-and-frameworks-1st-edition-matt- neuburg/ iOS 12 Programming Fundamentals with Swift Swift Xcode and Cocoa Basics 5th Edition Matt Neuburg https://textbookfull.com/product/ios-12-programming-fundamentals- with-swift-swift-xcode-and-cocoa-basics-5th-edition-matt-neuburg/
- 3. iOS 11 ProgrammingFundamentals with Swift Swift Xcode and Cocoa Basics 4th Edition Matt Neuburg https://textbookfull.com/product/ios-11-programming-fundamentals- with-swift-swift-xcode-and-cocoa-basics-4th-edition-matt-neuburg/ iOS 13 Programming Fundamentals with Swift Swift Xcode and Cocoa Basics 1st Edition Matt Neuburg https://textbookfull.com/product/ios-13-programming-fundamentals- with-swift-swift-xcode-and-cocoa-basics-1st-edition-matt-neuburg/ Programming iOS 13 Dive Deep into Views View Controllers and Frameworks 1st Edition Matt Neuburg https://textbookfull.com/product/programming-ios-13-dive-deep- into-views-view-controllers-and-frameworks-1st-edition-matt- neuburg/ iOS 12 Programming Fundamentals with Swift Swift Xcode and Cocoa Basics 5th Edition Matt Neuburg https://textbookfull.com/product/ios-12-programming-fundamentals- with-swift-swift-xcode-and-cocoa-basics-5th-edition-matt- neuburg-2/ Programming iOS 10 Dive Deep into Views View Controllers and Frameworks Seventh Edition Matt Neuburg https://textbookfull.com/product/programming-ios-10-dive-deep- into-views-view-controllers-and-frameworks-seventh-edition-matt- neuburg/
- 5. 1. Preface 1. TheScope of This Book 2. What’s Not in This Book 3. From the Preface to the First Edition (Programming iOS 4) 4. Versions 5. Acknowledgments 6. Conventions Used in This Book 7. Using Code Examples 8. O’Reilly Online Learning 9. How to Contact Us 2. I. Views 1. 1. Views 1. Window and Root View 1. Window Scene Architecture 2. How an App Launches 3. App Without a Storyboard 4. Referring to the Window 2. Experimenting with Views 3. Subview and Superview 4. Color 5. Visibility and Opacity 6. Frame
- 6. 7. Bounds andCenter 8. Transform 9. Transform3D 10. Window Coordinates and Screen Coordinates 11. Trait Collections 1. Interface Style 2. Size Classes 3. Overriding Trait Collections 12. Layout 1. Autoresizing 2. Autolayout and Constraints 3. Implicit Autoresizing Constraints 4. Creating Constraints in Code 5. Constraints as Objects 6. Margins and Guides 7. Intrinsic Content Size 8. Self-Sizing Views 9. Stack Views 10. Internationalization 11. Mistakes with Constraints 13. Configuring Layout in the Nib 1. Autoresizing in the Nib 2. Creating a Constraint 3. Viewing and Editing Constraints
- 7. 4. Problems withNib Constraints 5. Varying the Screen Size 6. Conditional Interface Design 14. Xcode View Features 1. View Debugger 2. Previewing Your Interface 3. Designable Views and Inspectable Properties 15. Layout Events 2. 2. Drawing 1. Images and Image Views 1. Image Files 2. Image Views 3. Resizable Images 4. Transparency Masks 5. Reversible Images 2. Graphics Contexts 1. Drawing on Demand 2. Drawing a UIImage 3. UIImage Drawing 4. CGImage Drawing 5. Snapshots 6. CIFilter and CIImage 7. Blur and Vibrancy Views
- 8. 8. Drawing aUIView 9. Graphics Context Commands 1. Graphics Context Settings 2. Paths and Shapes 3. Clipping 4. Gradients 5. Colors and Patterns 6. Graphics Context Transforms 7. Shadows 8. Erasing 10. Points and Pixels 11. Content Mode 3. 3. Layers 1. View and Layer 2. Layers and Sublayers 1. Manipulating the Layer Hierarchy 2. Positioning a Sublayer 3. CAScrollLayer 3. Layer and Delegate 4. Layout of Layers 5. Drawing in a Layer 1. Drawing-Related Layer Properties 2. Content Resizing and Positioning 3. Layers that Draw Themselves
- 9. 6. Transforms 1. AffineTransforms 2. 3D Transforms 3. Depth 7. Further Layer Features 1. Shadows 2. Borders and Rounded Corners 3. Masks 8. Layer Efficiency 9. Layers and Key–Value Coding 4. 4. Animation 1. Drawing, Animation, and Threading 2. Image View and Image Animation 3. View Animation 1. A Brief History of View Animation 2. Property Animator Basics 3. View Animation Basics 4. View Animation Configuration 5. Timing Curves 6. Cancelling a View Animation 7. Frozen View Animation 8. Custom Animatable View Properties 9. Keyframe View Animation 10. Transitions
- 10. 4. Implicit LayerAnimation 1. Animatable Layer Properties 2. Animating a Custom Layer Subclass 3. Animation Transactions 4. Media Timing Functions 5. Core Animation 1. CABasicAnimation and Its Inheritance 2. Using a CABasicAnimation 3. Springing Animation 4. Keyframe Animation 5. Making a Property Animatable 6. Grouped Animations 7. Animating Multiple Layers 8. Freezing an Animation 9. Transitions 10. Animations List 6. Actions 1. What an Action Is 2. Action Search 3. Hooking Into the Action Search 4. Making a Custom Property Implicitly Animatable 5. Nonproperty Actions 7. Emitter Layers
- 11. 8. CIFilter Transitions 9.UIKit Dynamics 1. The Dynamics Stack 2. Custom Behaviors 3. Animator and Behaviors 10. Motion Effects 11. Animation and Layout 5. 5. Touches 1. Touch Events and Views 2. Receiving Touches 3. Restricting Touches 4. Interpreting Touches 5. Gesture Recognizers 1. Gesture Recognizer Classes 2. Gesture Recognizer States 3. Gesture Recognizer Examples 4. Gesture Recognizer Conflicts 5. Gesture Recognizer Delegate 6. Subclassing Gesture Recognizers 7. Gesture Recognizers in the Nib 6. Touch Delivery 7. Hit-Testing 1. Performing Hit-Testing 2. Hit-Test Munging
- 12. 3. Hit-Testing forLayers 4. Hit-Testing for Drawings 5. Hit-Testing During Animation 8. Initial Touch Event Delivery 9. Gesture Recognizer and View 10. Touch Exclusion Logic 11. Gesture Recognition Logic 3. II. Interface 1. 6. View Controllers 1. View Controller Responsibilities 2. View Controller Hierarchy 1. Automatic Child View Placement 2. Manual Child View Placement 3. Presented View Placement 4. Ensuring a Coherent Hierarchy 3. View Controller Creation 4. How a View Controller Obtains Its View 1. Manual View 2. Generic Automatic View 3. View in a Separate Nib 4. Summary 5. How Storyboards Work 1. How a Storyboard View Controller Nib is Loaded
- 13. 2. How aStoryboard View Nib is Loaded 6. View Resizing 1. View Size in the Nib Editor 2. Bars and Underlapping 3. Resizing and Layout Events 7. Rotation 1. Uses of Rotation 2. Permitting Compensatory Rotation 3. Initial Orientation 4. Detecting Rotation 8. View Controller Manual Layout 1. Initial Manual Layout 2. Manual Layout During Rotation 9. Presented View Controller 1. Presentation and Dismissal 2. Configuring a Presentation 3. Communication with a Presented View Controller 4. Adaptive Presentation 5. Presentation, Rotation, and the Status Bar 10. Tab Bar Controller 1. Tab Bar Items 2. Configuring a Tab Bar Controller 11. Navigation Controller
- 14. 1. Bar ButtonItems 2. Navigation Items and Toolbar Items 3. Configuring a Navigation Controller 12. Custom Transition 1. Noninteractive Custom Transition Animation 2. Interactive Custom Transition Animation 3. Custom Presented View Controller Transition 4. Transition Coordinator 13. Page View Controller 1. Preparing a Page View Controller 2. Page View Controller Navigation 3. Other Page View Controller Configurations 14. Container View Controllers 1. Adding and Removing Children 2. Status Bar, Traits, and Resizing 15. Previews and Context Menus 1. Context Menu Interaction and Configuration 2. Configuring the Preview 3. Configuring the Menu 16. Storyboards 1. Triggered Segues
- 15. 2. Container Viewsand Embed Segues 3. Storyboard References 4. Unwind Segues 17. View Controller Lifetime Events 1. Order of Events 2. Appear and Disappear Events 3. Event Forwarding to a Child View Controller 18. View Controller Memory Management 1. Lazy Loading 2. NSCache, NSPurgeableData, and Memory- Mapping 3. Background Memory Usage 2. 7. Scroll Views 1. Content Size 2. Creating a Scroll View in Code 1. Manual Content Size 2. Automatic Content Size with Autolayout 3. Scroll View Layout Guides 4. Using a Content View 5. Scroll View in a Nib 6. Content Inset 7. Scrolling 1. Scrolling in Code
- 16. 2. Paging 3. Tiling 8.Zooming 1. Zooming Programmatically 2. Zooming with Detail 9. Scroll View Delegate 10. Scroll View Touches 11. Floating Scroll View Subviews 12. Scroll View Performance 3. 8. Table Views 1. Table View Controller 2. Table View Cells 1. Built-In Cell Styles 2. Registering a Cell Class 3. Custom Cells 3. Table View Data 1. The Three Big Questions 2. Reusing Cells 3. Self-Configuring Cells 4. Apple’s Cell Configuration Architecture 4. Table View Sections 1. Section Headers and Footers 2. Table View Section Example 3. Section Index
- 17. 5. Variable RowHeights 1. Manual Row Height Measurement 2. Measurement and Layout with Constraints 3. Estimated Height 4. Automatic Row Height 6. Table View Selection 1. Managing Cell Selection 2. Responding to Cell Selection 3. Navigation from a Table View 7. Table View Scrolling and Layout 8. Refreshing a Table View 1. Cell Choice and Static Tables 2. Direct Access to Cells 3. Refresh Control 9. Editing a Table View 1. Toggling a Table View’s Edit Mode 2. Edit Mode and Selection 3. Changing a Table View’s Structure 4. Deleting a Cell 5. Deleting Multiple Cells 10. Table View Diffable Data Source 1. Populating a Diffable Data Source 2. Subclassing a Diffable Data Source 3. Changing a Diffable Data Source
- 18. 4. Pros andCons of the Diffable Data Source 11. More Table View Editing 1. Rearranging Cells 2. Editable Content in Cells 3. Expandable Cell 12. Table View Swipe Action Buttons 13. Table View Menus 14. Table View Searching 1. Basic Configuration of a Search Controller 2. More Search Controller Configuration 3. Using a Search Controller 4. 9. Collection Views 1. Collection View Classes 2. Flow Layout 3. Compositional Layout 1. Size, Count, Spacing, and Insets 2. Supplementary Items 3. Multiple Section Layouts 4. Other Compositional Layout Features 4. Collection View Diffable Data Source 1. Diffable Data Source Construction 2. Registration Objects 3. Section Snapshots 5. Collection View Lists
- 19. 6. Hierarchical Items 7.Basic Cell Manipulation 1. Selecting Cells 2. Deleting Cells 3. Menu Handling 4. Rearranging Cells 8. Custom Collection View Layouts 1. Tweaking a Layout 2. Collection View Layout Subclass 3. Decoration Views 9. Switching Layouts 10. Collection Views and UIKit Dynamics 5. 10. iPad Interface 1. Popovers 1. Arrow Source and Direction 2. Popover Size 3. Popover Appearance 4. Passthrough Views 5. Popover Presentation, Dismissal, and Delegate 6. Adaptive Popovers 7. Popover Segues 8. Popover Presenting a View Controller 2. Split Views
- 20. 1. Expanded SplitView Controller 2. Collapsed Split View Controller 3. Collapsing and Expanding Split View Controller 4. Customizing a Split View Controller 5. Split View Controller Delegate Methods 6. Expanding a Split View Controller 7. View Controller Message Percolation 3. iPad Multitasking 4. Drag and Drop 1. Drag and Drop Architecture 2. Basic Drag and Drop 3. Item Providers 4. Slow Data Delivery 5. Additional Delegate Methods 6. Table Views and Collection Views 7. Spring Loading 8. iPhone and Local Drag and Drop 5. Pointer and Keyboard 6. Multiple Windows 1. The Window Architecture 2. Scene Creation 3. Window Creation and Closing 4. State Saving and Restoration
- 21. 5. Further MultipleWindow Considerations 6. 11. Text 1. Fonts and Font Descriptors 1. Fonts 2. Symbol Images and Text 3. Font Descriptors 4. Choosing a Font 5. Adding Fonts 2. Attributed Strings 1. Attributed String Attributes 2. Making an Attributed String 3. Modifying and Querying an Attributed String 4. Custom Attributes 5. Drawing and Measuring an Attributed String 3. Labels 1. Number of Lines 2. Wrapping and Truncation 3. Fitting Label to Text 4. Customized Label Drawing 4. Text Fields 1. Summoning and Dismissing the Keyboard 2. Keyboard Covers Text Field
- 22. 3. Text FieldDelegate and Control Event Messages 4. Text Field Menu 5. Drag and Drop 6. Keyboard and Input Configuration 5. Text Views 1. Links, Text Attachments, and Data 2. Self-Sizing Text View 3. Text View and Keyboard 6. Text Kit 1. Text View and Text Kit 2. Text Container 3. Alternative Text Kit Stack Architectures 4. Layout Manager 5. Text Kit Without a Text View 7. 12. Web Views 1. WKWebView 1. Web View Content 2. Tracking Changes in a Web View 3. Web View Navigation 4. Communicating with a Web Page 5. Custom Schemes 6. Web View Previews and Context Menus 2. Safari View Controller
- 23. 3. Developing WebView Content 8. 13. Controls and Other Views 1. UIActivityIndicatorView 2. UIProgressView 1. Progress View Alternatives 2. The Progress Class 3. UIPickerView 4. UIColorPickerViewController 5. UISearchBar 6. UIControl 1. Control States 2. Control Events 3. Control Actions 4. Control Menus 5. UISwitch 6. UIColorWell 7. UIStepper 8. UIPageControl 9. UIDatePicker 10. UISlider 11. UISegmentedControl 12. UIButton 13. Custom Controls 7. Bars
- 24. 1. Bar Position 2.Bar Metrics 3. Bar and Item Appearance 4. Bar Background and Shadow 5. Bar Button Items 6. Navigation Bar 7. Toolbar 8. Tab Bar 8. Tint Color 9. Appearance Proxy 9. 14. Modal Dialogs 1. Alerts and Action Sheets 1. Alerts 2. Action Sheets 3. Alert Alternatives 2. Quick Actions 3. Local Notifications 1. Authorization for Local Notifications 2. Notification Categories 3. Scheduling a Local Notification 4. Hearing About a Local Notification 5. Grouped Notifications 6. Managing Notifications 7. Notification Content Extensions
- 25. 4. Activity Views 1.Presenting an Activity View 2. Custom Activities 3. Action Extensions 4. Share Extensions 4. III. Some Frameworks 1. 15. Audio 1. System Sounds 2. Audio Session 1. Category 2. Activation and Deactivation 3. Ducking 4. Interruptions 5. Secondary Audio 6. Routing Changes 3. Audio Player 4. Remote Control of Your Sound 5. Playing Sound in the Background 6. AVAudioRecorder 7. AVAudioEngine 8. MIDI Playback 9. Text to Speech 10. Speech to Text 11. Further Topics in Sound
- 26. 2. 16. Video 1.AVPlayerViewController 1. AVPlayerViewController Configuration 2. Picture-in-Picture 2. Introducing AV Foundation 1. Some AV Foundation Classes 2. Things Take Time 3. Time Is Measured Oddly 4. Constructing Media 5. AVPlayerLayer 6. Further Exploration of AV Foundation 3. UIVideoEditorController 3. 17. Music Library 1. Music Library Authorization 2. Exploring the Music Library 1. Querying the Music Library 2. Persistence and Change in the Music Library 3. Music Player 1. Setting the Queue 2. Modifying the Queue 3. Player State 4. MPVolumeView 5. Playing Songs with AV Foundation
- 27. 6. Media Picker 4.18. Photo Library and Camera 1. Browsing the Photo Library 1. PHPickerViewController Presentation 2. PHPickerViewController Delegate 3. Dealing with PHPickerViewController Results 2. Photos Framework 1. Querying the Photo Library 2. Modifying the Library 3. Being Notified of Changes 4. Fetching Images 5. Editing Images 6. Photo Editing Extension 3. Using the Camera 1. Capture with UIImagePickerController 2. Capture with AV Foundation 5. 19. Contacts 1. Contact Classes 2. Fetching Contact Information 1. Fetching a Contact 2. Repopulating a Contact 3. Labeled Values 4. Contact Formatters
- 28. 3. Saving ContactInformation 4. Contact Sorting, Groups, and Containers 5. Contacts Interface 1. CNContactPickerViewController 2. CNContactViewController 6. 20. Calendar 1. Calendar Database Contents 1. Calendars 2. Calendar Items 3. Calendar Database Changes 2. Creating Calendars, Events, and Reminders 1. Events 2. Alarms 3. Recurrence 4. Reminders 5. Proximity Alarms 3. Fetching Events and Reminders 4. Calendar Interface 1. EKEventViewController 2. EKEventEditViewController 3. EKCalendarChooser 7. 21. Maps 1. Map Views
- 29. 1. Displaying aRegion 2. Scrolling and Zooming 3. Other Map View Customizations 4. Map Images 2. Annotations 1. Customizing an MKMarkerAnnotationView 2. Changing the Annotation View Class 3. Custom Annotation View Class 4. Custom Annotation Class 5. Annotation View Hiding and Clustering 6. Other Annotation Features 3. Overlays 1. Custom Overlay Class 2. Custom Overlay Renderer 3. Other Overlay Features 4. Map Kit and Current Location 5. Communicating with the Maps App 6. Geocoding, Searching, and Directions 1. Geocoding 2. Searching 3. Directions 8. 22. Sensors 1. Core Location
- 30. 1. Location Managerand Delegate 2. Location Services Authorization 3. Location Tracking 4. Where Am I? 5. Continuous Background Location 6. Location Monitoring 7. Heading 2. Acceleration, Attitude, and Activity 1. Shake Events 2. Using Core Motion 3. Raw Acceleration 4. Gyroscope 5. Other Core Motion Data 5. IV. Final Topics 1. 23. Persistent Storage 1. The Sandbox 1. Standard Directories 2. Inspecting the Sandbox 3. Basic File Operations 4. Saving and Reading Files 5. File Coordinators 6. File Wrappers 2. User Defaults 3. Simple Sharing and Previewing of Files
- 31. 1. File Sharing 2.Document Types and Receiving a Document 3. Handing Over a Document 4. Previewing a Document 5. Quick Look Previews 4. Document Architecture 1. A Basic Document Example 2. iCloud 3. Document Browser 4. Custom Thumbnails 5. Custom Previews 6. Document Picker 5. XML 6. JSON 1. Coding Keys 2. Custom Decoding 7. SQLite 8. Core Data 9. PDFs 10. Image Files 2. 24. Basic Networking 1. HTTP Requests 1. Obtaining a Session
- 32. 2. Session Configuration 3.Session Tasks 4. Session Delegate 5. HTTP Request with Task Completion Function 6. HTTP Request with Session Delegate 7. One Session, One Delegate 8. Delegate Memory Management 9. Session and Delegate Encapsulation 10. Downloading Table View Data 11. Background Session 2. Universal Links 3. On-Demand Resources 4. In-App Purchases 3. 25. Threads 1. Main Thread 2. Background Threads 3. Why Threading Is Hard 4. Blocking the Main Thread 5. Manual Threading 6. Operation 7. Grand Central Dispatch 1. Commonly Used GCD Methods 2. Synchronous Execution
- 33. Another Random ScribdDocument with Unrelated Content
- 34. The girl wentto see and when she came back she said, "She has eaten the cooked rice and covered the cooking pots, and has gone." Next day the prince said, "I am going to cut the rice-crop. Remain at home and, when evening comes, put the utensils for cooking near the hearth." So the servant obeyed him and in the evening the mouse came and cooked. She placed the food ready and again ran and hid behind the pots. This went on for several days, and when the whole rice-crop was garnered in, the prince went near to the place where the mouse was hidden and said, "Having pounded the rice and removed the husks, let us go to your village and present it to your parents as first-fruits." But the mouse said, "I will not go. You go!" So the prince made the servant get the package of cooked rice ready, and he went to the village of the queen and gave the package to her. And the queen said, "Where is my daughter?" The prince answered, "She refused to come." Then the queen said, "Go back to your city, and having placed the cooking utensils near the hearth, hide yourself and stay in the house." After the prince returned to the city, he did as she had told him. The mouse, having come out, took off her mouse-jacket, and, assuming the shape of a girl, put on other clothes. While she was preparing to cook, the prince took the mouse-jacket and burnt it. Afterwards when the girl went to the place where the mouse-jacket had been and looked for it, it was not there. Then she looked in the hearth, and saw that there was one sleeve of the skin-dress among the embers. While she was there weeping and weeping, the prince came out of his hiding-place and said, "Your mother told me to burn the mouse-jacket. Now you are really mine!" So the mouse became a princess again and married the prince.[80]
- 35. The same ideais contained in the story of the king who, putting on a jackal-skin, turns into a jackal, only resuming human form permanently when the skin is burnt.[81] In "Indian Fairy Tales" there is a prince who has a monkey-skin which he can put on and off at pleasure.[82] A king's daughter in another story also has a monkey- skin and when a prince burns it she takes fire and flies away all ablaze to her father's palace.[83] Four fairy doves in feather-dresses appear in "Romantic Tales from the Panjab with Indian Night's Entertainment."[84] When they take off their feathers to bathe, a prince conceals one dress and the fairy is unable to resume bird form. The story of the feather-vest of the dove-maiden in "The Arabian Nights"[85] is similar in style. The swan-maidens or cloud-maidens, as they are sometimes called, have a shirt made of swan's feathers which acts much in the same manner as the wolf-skin to the wer-wolf. The swan-maiden retains human shape as long as she is kept away from her feather tunic. The commonest form of this legend is that of a man who passes by a lake and sees several beautiful maidens bathing, their feather- dresses lying on the bank. He approaches quietly and steals one of the dresses. In due course the bathers come to the shore, don their dresses and swim off in the shape of swans, all but one, who is left lamenting on the shore. Then the thief appears, tells her what he has done and bids the maiden marry him. They live happily together until one day when the husband, by accident, leaves the wardrobe door unlocked and the swan-maiden puts on her feather-shirt and flies off, never to return.[86] In a similar story the maiden is wearing a gold chain round her neck which her huntsman lover seizes, thus gaining the power over her which makes it possible to woo and wed her. She gives birth in due course to seven sons, each one of whom wears a gold chain about his neck and can transform himself into a swan at will.
- 36. Lothaire, King ofFrance, married a fairy wife, and his children were born wearing golden collars which gave them the magical power of assuming the form of swans. In the legends which have a Knight of the Swan as hero, like the story of Lohengrin, the swan plays only a secondary part. The primitive idea at the root of all these stories is that the human soul, in passing from one shape to another, has to wear the outer sign or garment of the creature it desires to represent. The symbolic difference between the wer-wolf and the swan-maiden is that the former represents the rough, howling, and destructive night-wind, the latter the fleecy, pure, and enthralling summer cloud. The Valkyries, with their shirts of plumage, who hover over Scandinavian battle-fields to minister to the souls of dying heroes are of the same order of beings as the Hindu Asparas and the Houris of the Mussulman. The Lorelei sirens with their fish-tails, their golden combs and mirrors, who lure fishermen to their doom on the rocks, are not far removed from the same family. All are partly human and allied with more or less fanciful animal forms and characteristics. They are frequently the precursors of evil or at least of danger to mankind, but many of them possess a sweetness and charm which is unsurpassed and unsurpassable. Far more terrible than sirens and swan-maidens were the Berserkers of Scandinavia in the ninth century who, possessed by a strange mania, arrayed themselves in the skins of wolves or bears and went forth to see whom they might devour. The Mara is a more peaceable but nevertheless a more uncanny being, a kind of female demon who comes at night to torment sleepers by crouching on their bodies and checking respiration. Sometimes she is to be seen in animal form, sometimes as a beautiful woman. She has been known to torture people to death, and may perhaps have some distant affinity to the vampire, but is
- 37. far less vindictiveand self-seeking, though gifted with powers of darkness. A pious knight, journeying one day, found a fair lady nude, and bound to a tree, her back streaming with blood from the stripes of lashes. Rescuing her from her unfortunate position, he took her to his palace and made her his wife, her extraordinary loveliness winning her fame throughout the neighbourhood. Her husband, the knight, accompanied her to mass every Sunday, and to his great surprise and regret she always refused to stay in the church while the creed was said. Just beforehand she would deliberately rise from her seat and walk out. Her husband questioned her about this strange habit, but could get no satisfactory explanation, nor would she consent to alter her behaviour. He used entreaties and even threats without avail, and at last he decided to keep her in the church by main force. Seizing upon her with both hands, he held her in her seat, and then he noticed her frame become convulsed and her eyes grow unnaturally large and dark. The service stopped and everyone in the building turned to see what was happening. "In the name of God, speak," cried the pious knight, "and tell me what or who thou art!" and as he said these words his wife melted away and disappeared, while, with a great cry of anguish, a monster of evil shape rose from the spot where she had been sitting and, passing through the air, vanished through the roof of the church. Another legend about the Mara is that if she be wrapped up in the bedclothes and held down tightly, a white dove flies out of the window and the bedclothes will be found to contain nothing. This belief is apparently isolated and unrelated to other phenomena and is probably only a tribute to the elusive character of this she-demon. One of the Calmuc stories concerns three sisters, who, coming across an enchanted castle tenanted by a white bird, are each in turn offered marriage by the owner. The third sister marries the bird, who turns out to be a handsome cavalier, but having burned his
- 38. aviary, she loseshim, and cannot regain her husband until the aviary is restored. In the well-known story of "The Brahman Girl who marries a Tiger," the tiger assumes human shape and makes a beautiful girl fall in love with him. Soon after their marriage he threatens her, saying, "Be quiet or I shall show you my original shape."[87] When she urges him to do so he changes and behold, "four legs, a striped skin, a long tail, and a tiger's face come on him suddenly, and, horror of horrors, a tiger, and not a man stands before her!" She has to obey all his orders and finally gives birth to a son, who also turns out "to be only a tiger." She gets her brothers to help her, murders her child and runs off home. In the end the tiger is killed by her relatives, and the Brahman girl, in memory of him, raises a pillar over the well and plants a fragrant shrub on the top of it.[88] The Chinese have a curious idea about "making animals,"[89] and a story is told about a man who arrived at an inn in Yang-Chow leading five donkeys. He asks the landlord whether he may put the animals in the stable, and while he goes off for a short time, he leaves instructions that they are not to be given water to drink. They become so restless, however, that the landlord takes the responsibility of setting them loose, and they make a rush to a neighbouring pond. But no sooner has water touched their lips than they roll on the ground and change into women. The landlord, frightened at what has occurred, hides them in his house and presently the man returns leading five sheep. But now the landlord's suspicions are aroused and, persuading his guest to take wine indoors, he goes out and waters the sheep. They turn into young men and their temporary owner is put under arrest and executed for a sorcerer. In a Basque story, seven brothers forbid their sister to go near a certain house. She disobeys them and a witch in the house gives her
- 39. certain herbs, tellingher to put them in her brothers' foot-bath. She does so and the brothers are changed into cows. The ideas contained in these examples are similar in character to those contained in Grimm's "Household Tales." The following is more like the Japanese wer-fox episodes:— A certain prince royal of India has a lovely mistress who bewitches him, and who falls asleep one day in a bed of chrysanthemums where her lover shoots and wounds a fox in the forehead. The girl is found to be bleeding from a wound in her temple and is thus exposed. She is an evil animal. In many stories women give birth to animals. A widow who lives near a palace and makes a livelihood by pounding rice, bears a frog which becomes a good-looking prince, but he ends as a frog. In the story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri) a queen bears a tortoise prince who has the power of leaving his shell, and assuming human form. One day his mother is present at the transformation and smashes the shell, after which her son has to remain a man. Another queen gives birth to a tortoise which is reared by her, and goes in search of divine flowers, which he obtains by the aid of a nymph. A raja has two wives and the first has six sons, the second only one, who is a mongoose. His name is Lelsing, and he speaks like a man, but grows no bigger than an ordinary mongoose. In this story the six brothers do everything they can to ill-treat the mongoose boy, but all their tricks turn to his advantage, and in the end he grows rich while they grow poor, and finally they all get drowned, while he goes home rejoicing at his revenge upon them for their unkindness.[90] The Bards at Jaisalmer claimed one of the raja's sons for a ruler, so he gave them one of his seven ranis, who was expecting to become a mother, and they took her to Nahan and near the Sarmor tank she gave birth first to a lion and four monsters, and then to a son. After
- 40. the monsters wereexorcised they took the child to Medni and he became the first raja of Nahan (Sarmor).[91] Another raja's child was born with the ears of an ox. Only the raja's barber knew, but he blurted it out to the dom and the dom went to the raja's palace and sang "The son of the raja Has the ears of an ox." Then the raja was very angry, and only forgave the dom when he said he had not been told about the misfortune, but that a drum had sung the words to him.[92] "The Two Brothers" is a typical and classical story in which one brother assumes the form of a great bull with all the sacred marks. In another story of German origin, the hero, who has been hacked to pieces and stuffed in a bag, is restored to life by a master sorcerer, who endows him with the power of assuming whatever shape he pleases. He turns into a fine horse, and the king's daughter, believing she is being deceived, has the animal decapitated. A similar Russian tale is about a horse which has a golden mane and, when it is killed, a bull with golden hair arises from the blood spilt. So numerous are the stories of this description, dealing with transformation, that it is practically impossible to divide them into their various types, although many attempts to classify them have been made by authoritative writers on folk-lore; nor is it possible to give them due occult significance. They are interesting chiefly on account of the details which may be gathered from them concerning methods and reasons of transformation. The Indian Rakshasa (Bengalese Raqhosh) are beings of a malevolent nature which haunt cemeteries, harass the devout,
- 41. animate dead bodies,and afflict mankind in various ways. They can assume any form they please, animal or other. Females appear as beautiful women for the purpose of luring men to their doom. When in their natural state they have upstanding hair, yellow as the flames which they vomit forth from mouths which are provided with huge tusks. They have large, black, hairy bodies. The Nagas, on the other hand, are semi-divine snake-beings with good impulses. In "Bengali Household Tales," by William McCulloch,[93] a Raqhosh performs a transformation in the following manner: He removes a stone from an underground passage and descending brings forth a monkey. He then plucks a few leaves from a tree, draws water from a well close by, throws the leaves into it and pours it over the body of the monkey. The monkey is immediately transformed into a beautiful young woman with whom the Raqhosh descends by the underground passage. Towards dawn the two come up again. This time the Raqhosh plucks some leaves from another tree and throws them into some water from another well, and then pours it over the young woman. Instantaneously she is changed into a monkey again. This is not the most usual way for such transformations and retransformations to occur in Indian folk-tales; sometimes they are achieved by magic rods. In Grimm's "Household Tale," "Donkey Cabbages," one kind of cabbage transforms a man into an ass and the other reverses the process. Magicians, however, have other methods. Mercurius, the most skilful of sorcerers, was supposed to have discovered the secret of "fascinating" men's eyes in such a way as to make people invisible to their sight, or perhaps to give them the appearance of an animal. This may be compared to modern hypnotism and has an important bearing on the subject. Pomponius Mela attributes to the Druidical priestesses of Sena the knowledge of transforming themselves into animals at will.
- 42. Proteus, according toHomer's account, becomes a dragon, a lion, or a boar. Eustathius, the commentator, adds, "not really changing but only appearing to do so." Proteus was an adroit worker of miracles, and was well acquainted with the secrets of Egyptian philosophy. He assumed animal shape in order to escape the necessity of foretelling the future when asked to do so but, whenever he saw his endeavours were of no avail, he resumed his natural appearance. Towards the end of the sixteenth century Joseph Acosta, who resided in Peru, asserts that sorcerers existed there at that time who were capable of assuming any form they pleased. He tells of a ruler of a city in Mexico who was sent for by the predecessor of Montezuma and who transformed himself successively before the eyes of men who tried to seize his person, into a tiger, an eagle, and a serpent. At length he gave in, and being taken before the emperor was condemned to death. The same kind of power was ascribed, in 1702, by the Bishop of Chiapa (a province of Guatemala) to the Naguals, the national priests who endeavoured to win back the children brought up as Christians by the Government, to the religion of their ancestors. After various ceremonies, the child he was teaching was told to advance and embrace the Nagual. At that moment he assumed a hideous animal form, and as a lion, tiger, or other wild beast, threw the young convert to Christianity into a state of abject terror by appearing chained to him.[94] There, no doubt, hypnotism became a weapon of religious fanaticism. At the appearance of the monster Ravanas, the gods, becoming alarmed, transform themselves into animals: Indras changes into a peacock, Yamas into a crow, Kuveras into a chameleon, and Varunas into a swan in order to escape the ire of the enemy. These transformations, says de Gubernatis,[95] instead of being capricious, were necessary and natural to the several gods, for the animal is the shadow that follows the hero and is so closely identified with him that it may often be said to be the hero himself.
- 43. Nash, in "Christ'sTears over Jerusalem," 1613, has the following remarkable passage. "They talk of an ox that tolled the bell at Woolwich, and how from an ox he transformed himself into an old man, and from an old man to an infant and into a young man again." The Egyptians were the first to broach the opinion that the soul of man is immortal and that, when the body dies, it enters into the form of an animal which is born at the moment, thence passing on from one animal to another, until it has circled through the forms of all the creatures which tenant the earth, the water, and the air, after which it enters again into a human frame and is born anew. The whole period of transmigration is (they say) three thousand years. [96] According to Egyptian beliefs only the souls of wicked men suffered the disgrace of entering the body of an animal when, "weighed in the balance" before the tribunal of Osiris, they were pronounced unworthy to enter the abode of the blessed. The soul was then sent back to the body of a pig. The doctrine of metempsychosis was borrowed from Egypt by Pythagoras and classical allusions are so numerous that it is impossible to mention more than a few instances. Empedocles believed he had passed through many forms, a bird and a fish among others. Lucian's story was of a Pythagorian cock which had been a man, a woman, a fish, a horse, and a frog, and of all states he thought that man was the most deplorably wretched of the animals. After anointing himself with enchanted salve from Thessaly, Lucian was transformed into an ass and worked for seven years under a "gardiner, a tyle man, a corier, and suchlike." At the end of the period he was restored to human shape by nibbling rose leaves. Dionysius was believed to assume the form of a goat or of a bull, and Cronius was said to take the form of a horse. Epona was a horse-goddess, and Callisto in an Arcadian myth was changed into a
- 44. bear. Citeus, sonof Lycaon, laments the transformation of his daughter into a bear. Iphigenia at the moment of sacrifice was changed into a fawn. Osiris was mangled by a boar, or Typhon in the form of a boar;—just as in the tale of Diarmuid and Grainne, the former's foster brother was transformed into a boar. The sorceress Thessala was able to call up strange animal ghosts: "Here in all nature's products unfortunate; Foam of mad dogs, which waters fear and hate; Guts of the lynx; Hyæna's knot unbred; The marrow of a hart with serpents fed Were not wanting; no, nor the sea lamprey Which stops the ships; nor yet the dragon's eye." Lucan. In Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" Puck is gifted with the power of transformation. He says, "Sometimes a horse I'll be, sometimes a hound, A hog, a headless bear, sometimes a fire, And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, Like horse, hound, dog, bear, fire, at every turn." He had also the power to transform others into animals, and seeing Bottom studying the part of Pyramus, plays a trick upon him: "An ass's nole I fixed on his head." "Bless thee, Bottom," says Quin, seeing his companion transformed in this manner, "Bless thee! thou art translated." But Titania, herself under a spell, becomes enamoured of the vision. "So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape," she cries, and she desires to stick musk- roses in his sleek smooth head, and kiss the fair, large ears." Fortunately Oberon orders Puck to restore Bottom to his normal shape before much harm is done.
- 45. Many modern writershave used the mystic idea of animal transformation, especially as gleaned from Celtic legendary sources; for instance, in the tales by Fiona McLeod and the poems by W. B. Yeats. "Do you not hear me calling white deer with no horns! I have been changed to a hound with one red ear;" "A man with a hazel wand came without sound, And changed me suddenly, while I was looking another way; And now my calling is but the calling of a hound." In another poem the salmon caught by a young fisherman is no sooner under his roof, than it changes into a shimmering maiden— which makes one think of the Indian story of a shining man who casts his ugly skin and is so bright that no one can see him without being blinded. A pretty little story of a shining lady who becomes a butterfly, is told by Mr. H. A. Giles in "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio."[97] Mr. Wang of Chang-shang, the District Magistrate, had a habit of commuting the fines and penalties of the Penal Code inflicted on prisoners in exchange for a corresponding number of butterflies. He rejoiced in seeing the insects flutter hither and thither like "tinsel snippings" borne on the breeze. One night he dreamt that a beautiful girl in shimmering clothes stood before him who said sadly, "Your cruel practice has brought many of my sisters to an untimely end; now you must pay the penalty for what you have done." Then she transformed herself into a butterfly and flew away.
- 46. A great featurein folk-tales and fairy stories is, of course, the talking animal. Grimm's "Tales," the "Arabian Nights," and Hans Andersen's "Märchen," have made such semi-human creatures thoroughly familiar. They appear also in the Bible and mythology. Eve and the serpent, Balaam and the ass, Achilles and his horses, Porus and the elephant, Bacchus, Phryxius and many others are notable instances. The idea of words of wisdom coming from the lips of brutes is brought to greater perfection in the fables than elsewhere, and Æsop's animals are gifted with speech, traits, and passions absolutely human. Pilpay, Lokman, Babrius, Phædrus, and La Fontaine, most successfully of all, exploited the same theme, and a wonderful procession of animals stalks through their writings, almost every kind of zoological specimen being represented. There are rats enough to require the services of many Pied Pipers of Hamelin, lions enough to stock the equatorial forests, wolves to crowd the Steppes of Russia, bats and birds, gnats and frogs galore, and to each beast, feathered thing, or fish, a place is given in the social scale which he fills with dignity and grace, or in which he acts with wisdom and judgment, or again in which he is made to look ridiculous and becomes the laughing stock of those about him. "If one is a wolf, one devours," wrote Walpole, referring to the fables of La Fontaine. "If one is a fox, one is cunning. If one is a monkey, one is a coxcomb." The fox always gets the better of everyone else in the fables. He makes use of the goat to climb out of the well, and then leaves him to his fate. He is always taking the advantage of the wolf, for he has more brains, if less strength. He has no difficulty in inventing stratagems which bring the plump turkeys into his larder. He is always diplomatic, he comes smiling out of every difficulty, he is quick and energetic: his personal appearance, heightened by his bright eye and bushy tail, is in his favour. He has two qualities invaluable to the courtier, a certain dash and a certain subtlety, and above all he is bon viveur.
- 47. "Grand Croqueur depoulets, grands preneur de lapins." His worst enemy is the dog, with whom his tricks are frequently wanting in success. When out walking with the cat, and boastful of his own superior resources, he finds himself at a disadvantage the moment an attack is threatened by a pack of hounds. The cat quickly climbs a lofty tree. "The fox his hundred ruses tried, And yet no safety found: A hundred times he falsified The nose of every hound. Was here, and there, and everywhere, Above and underground." In the end they are too clever for him, and he meets his death. The story of Reynard the fox is a novel of adventure in which animals play the part of men and usually bear men's names, and who does not know and love the tale of Brer Rabbit and Brer B'ar and their relations with Uncle Remus, or the equally human animals of Alice's "Adventures." These fictitious beings combine human and animal mental characteristics, but there is another class, the fabulous animals, of which the physical attributes are taken partly from man, partly from animal types. They are no doubt symbolic of occult truths, and much time and labour might be spent in formulating their relationship. CHAPTER XVI
- 48. FABULOUS ANIMALS ANDMONSTERS The most important among fabulous animals which are partly human beings are the centaur, half-man and half-horse; the harpy, half- woman and half-vulture; the sphinx, which has the head of a woman, the body of a lion and the wings of an eagle, and the satyr, an old man with goat's legs and tail. "Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimaeras—dire stories of Celaeno and the Harpies," says Charles Lamb, "may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition—but they were there before. They are transcripts, types—the archetypes are in us, and eternal. How else should the recital of that which we know in a waking sense to be false, come to affect us at all?—or "Names whose sense we see not, Fray us with things that be not? Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such objects, considered in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury?—O, least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyond body—or, without the body, they would have been the same. All the cruel, tormenting, defined devils in Dante—tearing, mangling, choking, stifling, scorching demons—are they one half so fearful to the spirit of a man, as the simple idea of a spirit unembodied following him: "Like one that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, For having once turn'd round, walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread. That the kind of fear here treated of is purely spiritual—that it is strong in proportion as it is objectless upon earth—and that it
- 49. predominates in theperiod of sinless infancy—are difficulties the solution of which might afford some probable insight into our ante- mundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadowland of pre- existence."[98] Prentice Mulford firmly believed that the supposed fables in the ancient mythologies concerning beings half-men, half-beasts (such as centaurs or mermaids) had had their origin in spiritual truths. "Our race," he says, "has been so developed out of the animal or coarser forms of life. Countless ages ago all forms of life were coarser than now. As these grew finer, man attracted and absorbed the spirit of the finer." "The history of animals such as the ancients have transmitted to us," says Eusebe Salverte,[99] "is filled with details apparently chimerical: but which are sometimes only the consequence of a defective nomenclature. The name, Onocentaur, which seems to designate a monster, uniting the form of a man and an ass, was given to a quadrumanus which runs sometimes on four paws, but at other times uses its forepaws only as hands: merely an immense monkey covered with grey hair, particularly on the lower part of the body...." M. Geoffroy de St. Hillaire described a polydactyle horse as having hairy fingers separated by membranes: yet when ancient authors have spoken of horses, the feet of which bore some resemblance to the hands and feet of a man, they have been accused of imposture. [100] The Centaurs were mythical creatures which inhabited Thessaly. They were said to have sprung from a union of Ixion and a Cloud, or, according to other authorities, to be the offspring of Centaurus, son of Apollo, by Stilbia, daughter of Peneus. The famous battle of the Centaurs with the Lapithæ was occasioned by a quarrel at the marriage of Hippodamia with Pirithous. The Centaurs having come to a state of intoxication, offered violence to the women present, an insult for which they received due punishment.
- 50. A vivid presentmentof what changing shape from man to horse would mean is to be found in Mr. Algernon Blackwood's "The Centaur,"[101] in which story the Irish hero, Mally, watches his own transformation into the figure of the Urwelt, with amazement. "All white and shining lay the sunlight over his own extended form. Power was in his limbs; he rose above the ground in some new way; the usual little stream of breath became a river of rushing air he drew into stronger, more capacious lungs; likewise his bust grew strangely deepened, pushed the wind before it; and the sunshine glowed on shaggy flanks agleam with dew that powerfully drove the ground behind him while he ran. "He ran yet only partly as a man runs; he found himself shot forwards through the air, upright, yet at the same time upon all fours ... it was his own feet now that made that trampling as of hoofs upon the turf." In "Gulliver's Travels" the men-horses or Houyhnhnms are fine horses gifted with human intelligence, but the Yahoos are described by Swift as having a very peculiar shape. Their heads and breasts were covered with a thick hair, some frizzled and others lank, they had beards like goats and a long ridge of hair down their backs, and the foreparts of their legs and feet, but the rest of their bodies was bare, so that their skins, which were of a brown-buff colour, could be seen. They had no tails, and they sat on the ground as well as laid down, and often stood on their hind feet. They climbed high trees as nimbly as a squirrel, for they had strong extended claws before and behind, terminating in sharp points and hooked. They would often spring and bound and leap with prodigious agility.[102] In speaking, the Houyhnhnms pronounced through the nose and throat, and their language approached nearest to High-Dutch or German, but was more graceful and significant. Swift no doubt took his idea of the men-horses from centaurs.
- 51. The Harpies werethree fabulous winged monsters, offsprings of Neptune and Terra, represented with the features of a woman, the body of a vulture, and human fingers armed with sharp claws. Heraldically the harpy appears as a vulture with the head and breasts of a woman. Neptune's daughters emitted an odious stench and polluted all they touched. The Sphinx was another composite fabled monster, with the head and breasts of a woman, the body of a dog, the tail of a serpent, the wings of a bird, the paws of a lion, and a human voice. According to the Grecian poets the animal infested the city of Thebes, devouring the inhabitants and setting difficult riddles. It was promised, however, that on the solution of one of its enigmas the Sphinx would destroy itself. The puzzle to be solved was, "What animal walked on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?" Many people attempted to find a solution in the hope of winning Jocasta, sister of Creon, King of Thebes, in marriage, but all fell victims to their ambition until the advent of Œdipus, who answered the Sphinx, saying, Man crept on his hands and feet in infancy, at noon he walked erect, and in the evening of life required the support of a staff. On hearing the reply the Sphinx dashed her head against a rock and expired. In Egypt sphinxes with human heads were called Androsphinxes. They had no wings, which were added by the Greek artists. Hecate, the Greek goddess, was described as having three bodies or three heads, one of a horse, the second of a dog, and the third of a lion. She was a spectral being who at night sent from the lower world all kinds of demons and phantoms to teach sorcery. She wandered about with the souls of the dead and her approach was announced by the whining and howling of dogs. Hathor was pictured sometimes as a cow, sometimes as a woman with the head of a cow, bearing the solar disc between her horns. Other animal goddesses of curious shapes are Egyptian, such as the cat-goddess, the bird-goddess, the hippopotamus-goddess, Smet-
- 52. Smet or Rert-Rert,figures of which may be seen at the British Museum. Strange creatures too were the Gorgons, the three sisters, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. Their hairs were entwined with serpents, they had hands of brass, scales on their body, and the tusks of a wild boar. Their frightful appearance caused those who beheld them to turn to stone. They were conquered by Perseus, who was given special weapons for the purpose by the gods. He cut off Medusa's head and gave it to Minerva; as he fled through the air to Ethiopia drops of blood fell to the ground from the severed head and turned to serpents. Pegasus, the winged horse, sprang from Medusa's blood and became the favourite of the Muses. He was given to Bellerophon and helped him to conquer the Chimaera, the celebrated monster with three heads, a lion's, goat's, and dragon's, which continually sent forth flames. The forepart of its body was that of a lion, the middle of a goat, and the hind part that of a dragon. These are the chief mythological monsters, thus rapidly enumerated, but other creatures, half-human, half-animal, are of greater interest psychologically. For instance, the Persians believe firmly in ghouls which wander in lonely and haunted places, lure travellers from their path and devour them. They are hideous in shape and give forth blood-curdling screams. Being able to assume any animal form at will, they often appear as camels or mules, or perhaps even simulate a human being well-known to their intended victim. The charm against them is to utter the name of the Prophet in all sincerity. The Persians also believe in divs or cat-headed men with horns and hoofs. Jinns or Afreets can turn themselves into animals at will and so no Persian likes to kill dogs or cats, lest the angry demons, whose dwelling-place they are, should haunt those responsible for evicting them. The Satyrs were rural demi-gods, in the shape of men but with legs and feet like goats, short horns on the head and the body covered
- 53. with hair. Theyattended on Bacchus and were given to similar excesses. They roamed through woods, dwelt in caves, and endeavoured to gain the loves of the Nymphs. They were identical with Fauns, Panes or Sylvani, the human-goat wood-spirits. They should not be confused with the Nature-Spirits described by Paracelsus, though similar in name. In Russia wood-spirits are believed to appear partly in human shape, but also with horns, ears, and legs of goats. They are called Ljeschi and can change their shape and size, in a forest, being large like trees; in a meadow, merely the height of the grass. The Griffin was half-lion and half-eagle, and apparently had no human characteristics. The Mermaid is a fabulous marine creature, partly woman and partly fish. The Nereides were sea-nymphs, daughters of Nereus, the ancient sea-god and his wife Doris. They were at least fifty in number (Propertius says a hundred), and they had green hair and fishes' tails. The most celebrated of them all were Amphitrite, wife of Neptune, Thetis, mother of Achilles, Galatea, and Doto. They are identical with the Sirens. Many charming stories have been told of Mermaids, and Mermaid- prophetesses. According to the old Danish ballad a mermaid foretold the death of Queen Dagmar, wife of Valdemar II, surnamed the Victorious. "In the year 1576," says the Chronicle of Frederick II of Denmark, "there came late in the autumn a simple old peasant from Samso to the Court then being held at Kalundborg, who related that a beautiful female had more than once come to him while working in his field by the seashore, whose figure, from the waist downwards, resembled that of a fish, and who had solemnly and strictly enjoined him to go over and announce to the king, that as God had blessed his queen so that she was pregnant of a son (afterwards Christian IV), who should be numbered among the greatest princes of the
- 54. North, and, seeingthat all sorts of sins were gaining ground in his kingdom, he, in honour of and in gratitude to God who had so blessed him, should wholly extirpate such sins, lest God should visit him with anger and punishment thereafter."[103] In the Shetland Isles mermaids are said to dwell among the fishes, in the depths of the ocean, in mansions of pearl and coral. They resemble human beings, but greatly excel them in beauty. When they wish to visit the earth they put on the ham or garb of some fish, but if they lose this garment, all hopes of return are annihilated and they must stay where they are. A mermaid was found by a fisherman called Pergrin at St. Dognael's, near Cardigan, and he took her prisoner, but she wept bitterly and said to him, "If you will let me go, Pergrin, I will call to you three times at the moment of your greatest need." Moved by her distress, he obeyed and almost forgot the incident, but some weeks later he was fishing on a hot, calm day, when he heard distinctly, the call, thrice repeated, "Pergrin, take up thy nets." This he did in great haste, and by the time he reached the harbour a terrible storm had come up, and all the other fishermen who had not been warned were drowned. This story, it is claimed, belongs to other parts of Wales also. There is said to be a castle in Finland, on the borders of a small lake, out of which, previously to the death of the Governor, an apparition in the form of a mermaid arises and makes sweet melody. One of the most charming descriptions of a Sea-maiden is found in Hans Andersen's well-known story of "The Little Mermaid." Her skin is as soft and delicate as a rose-leaf, her eyes are as deep a blue as the sea, but like all other mermaids, she has no feet; her body ends in a tail like that of a fish. For many years she plays happily in the enchanted palace of the Mer-king, her father, but when she reaches years of discretion she visits the earth and falls in love with a handsome prince, forsaking her home and family and giving away her beautiful voice for love of him. But she does more even than
- 55. this, for shehas to appeal to a witch to transform her into a maiden like the others who walk on land, and the process is a terribly painful one. The witch prepares a drink she has to take with her on her journey to the unknown country, and she is told that she must sit down on the shore and swallow the draught, and that then her tail will fall and shrink up "to the things which men call legs." When she walks or dances the pain will be as though she were walking on the sharp edge of swords or the edges of ploughshares. But she braves all these terrors and dances more gracefully than ever any earth- maiden could do, hoping that her prince will marry her and so give her the right to an immortal soul. Then the real tragedy occurs, for the prince loves her only as a beautiful child, and he marries a princess of his own kind, so that the mermaid's sacrifice seems to be thrown away. If she wishes to return to her original state she has to kill the prince, but when she holds the knife over him as he sleeps beside his beautiful bride she cannot find it in her heart to harm him, and sooner than think of her own forlorn condition, she throws the knife into the sea and gives up, as she believes, her last hope of happiness. But then her reward comes, for she is borne into the air by the daughters of that element, and the story ends with a promise of a new and a lovelier existence. Mr. H. G. Wells, among recent writers, has used the idea of the mermaid in his quaint story "The Sea Lady." The famous mermaid figures in the coat-of-arms of several well- known families. Sometimes she holds a mirror, sometimes a mirror and comb. A red mermaid with yellow hair on a white field appears in the arms of the family living at Glasfryn in the south of Carnarvonshire. Other marine monsters besides mermaids are sometimes found in the sea, which, without corresponding exactly to man, yet resemble him more than any other animals. However, like the rest of the brutes, they lack mind or soul. They have, says Paracelsus, the same relations to man as the ape and are nothing but the apes of the sea.
- 56. Merovingian princes tracedtheir origin to a sea-monster, and Druid priestesses claimed to be able to assume animal form and to rule wind and wave. Indeed, since men first sought to classify other living organisms, they have credited nature with producing strange and weird monsters, half-human, half-animal, which exist either in their own imaginations or in realms beyond the material plane of everyday cognisance. In the third Calmuc tale, a man who possesses but one cow unites himself to her in order that she may become fruitful, and a tailed monster is born having a man's body and a bull's head. This man- bull, who is Minotaur, goes into the forest and picks up three companions, one black, one green, one white, who accompany him. He overcomes the enchantments of a dwarf witch, and when lowered into a well by his companions, he manages to escape. Presently he meets a beautiful maiden drawing water, at whose every footstep a flower springs, and following her, finds himself in heaven. The classical Minotaurus is said to have been the offspring of Pasiphae and a bull sent from the sea to Minos, who shut the half- human monster in the Cnossian labyrinth and fed him with the bodies of the youths and maidens sent by the Athenians as a tribute. This monster was slain by Theseus. Among modern writers, Mr. H. G. Wells has perhaps been the most daring in describing monsters. In "The Island of Dr. Moreau," Dr. Moreau explains to Pendrick his method of making humanised animals. "These creatures you have seen are animals carven and wrought into new shapes," he says. "To that—to the study of plasticity of living forms—my life has been devoted. I have studied for years, gaining knowledge as I go. I see you look horrified, yet I am telling you nothing new. It all lay in the surface of practical anatomy years ago, but no one had the temerity to touch it. It's not simply the outward form of an animal I can change. The physiology, the chemical rhythm of the creature, may also be made to undergo an enduring modification, of which vaccination and other methods of
- 57. inoculation with livingor dead matter are examples that will, no doubt, be familiar to you. A similar operation is the transfusion of blood, with which subject indeed I began. These are all familiar cases. Less so, and probably far more extensive, were the operations of those mediæval practitioners who made dwarfs and beggar cripples and show-monsters; some vestiges of whose art still remains in the preliminary manipulation of the young mountebank or contortionist. Victor Hugo gives an account of them in L'Homme qui Rit ... but perhaps my meaning grows plain now. You begin to see that it is a possible thing to transplant tissue from one part of an animal to another, or from one animal to another, to alter its chemical reactions and methods of growth, to modify the articulations of its limbs, and indeed to change it in its most intimate structure?..." "So for twenty years altogether—counting nine years in England—I have been going on, and there is still something in everything I do that defeats me, makes me dissatisfied, challenges me to further effort. Sometimes I rise above my level, sometimes I fall below it, but always I fall short of the things I dream. The human shape I can get now almost with ease, so that it is lithe and graceful, or thick and strong; but often there is trouble with the hands and claws— painful things that I dare not shape too freely. But it is in the subtle grafting and reshaping one must needs do to the brain that my trouble lies. The intelligence is often oddly low, with unaccountable blank ends, unexpected gaps. And least satisfactory of all is something that I cannot touch, somewhere—I cannot determine where—in the seat of the emotions. Cravings, instincts, desires that harm humanity, a strange hidden reservoir to burst suddenly and inundate the whole being of the creature with anger, hate, or fear. These creatures of mine seemed strange and uncanny to you as soon as you began to observe them, but to me, just after I make them, they seem to be indisputably human beings. It's afterwards, as I observe them, that the persuasion fades. First one animal trait, then another, creeps to the surface and stares at me.... But I will conquer yet. Each time I dip a living creature into the bath of
- 58. burning pain, Isay, this time I will burn out all the animal, this time I will make a rational creature of my own. After all, what is ten years? Man has been a hundred thousand in the making."[104] "There were swine-men and swine-women," says Pendrick later, describing the beast-folk, "a mare rhinoceros creature, and several other females I did not ascertain. There were several Wolf creatures, a Bear-bull, and a Saint Bernard Dog Man. I have already described the Ape Man, and there was a particularly hateful (and evil-smelling) old woman made of Vixen and Bear, whom I hated from the beginning."[105] "First to arrive was the Satyr, strangely unreal, for all that he cast a shadow, and tossed the dust with his hoofs: after him, from the brake, came a monstrous lout, a thing of horse and rhinoceros, chewing a straw as it came: and then appeared the Swine Woman and two Wolf Women: then the Fox-Bear-Witch, with her red eyes in her peaked red face, and then others all hurrying eagerly."[106] In another imaginative work dealing with the twenty-ninth century A.D., the brute creation has been humanised in a way never before dreamt of. "... a levy of 40,000 naturalists were engaged for years in forming a hundred different zoological armies. Each of these was, by an admirable system of drill, brought to such a high state of discipline that a brigade, consisting of a thousand elephants, a thousand rhinoceroses, 180,000 monkeys and 15,000 other beasts of draught and burden could be officered with perfect ease by as few as one thousand naturalists. Birds of burden and fish of burden were in like manner drafted into the ranks of the zoological army, and, being subjected to similar training, were brought to a similar degree of efficiency."[107] Giraldus Cambrensis wrote of many curious monsters and strange things that happened in connection with them. He believed that occult powers came through them in some manner, and told the
- 59. story of aWelshman called Melerius, who had an odd experience by which he acquired the powers of a seer. One Palm Sunday he met a damsel whom he had long loved and embraced her in the woods, when suddenly, instead of a beautiful girl, he found in his arms a hairy, rough, and hideous creature, the sight of which deprived him of his senses. On his return to sanity, many years later, he discovered that he had wonderful occult gifts of prophecy. Giraldus also believed that people in Ireland, by magical arts, could turn "any substance about them into fat pigs," as they appeared to be, though the colour was always red, and could then sell them in the markets. They disappeared, however, "as soon as they crossed any water," and even if they were looked after carefully they never lasted as pigs for more than three days. He writes of a man-monster whose body was human, except the extremities, which were cloven like those of an ox. This monster had large round eyes like an ox and the only sound he could make was like an ox lowing. He was present at the Court of Maurice Fitzgerald in Wicklow, and took up his food between the fissures of his cloven forefeet. His fate was to be put secretly to death, a fate which might with advantage be shared, metaphorically speaking, by many of the hybrid creatures, or manufactured monstrosities, figments of unwholesome brains. Augustine, in the sixteenth book of his "De Civitate Dei," chapter viii., speaks of monsters of the human race, born in the East, some having heads of dogs, others without heads, and eyes in their breasts. "I myself," he adds, "at the time I was in Italy, heard it said of some district in those parts, that there the stable women who had learnt magical arts, used to give something to travellers in their cheese which transformed them into beasts of burden, and after they had performed the tasks required of them, they were allowed to resume their natural form." One of the most fearsome among the fabulous animals is the dragon, an enormous serpent of abnormal form which is represented in ancient legends as a huge Hydra, watching as sentinel the Garden of the Hesperides. In art the dragon is the symbol of sin, and in the
- 60. Bible this monsterappears as the symbol of the King of Egypt and the King of Babylon. The dragon, which is the emblem of the Chinese Empire, like the legendary serpent, can assume human shape. The basilisk is another fabulous animal of the snake tribe, which carries a jewel in its head, and in many French legends possesses human proclivities. It is the king of all the serpents and holds itself erect. Its eyes are red and fiery, the face pointed, and upon its head it wears a crest like a crown. It has, moreover, the terrible gift of killing people by the glare of its eye and other serpents are said to fly from its presence in dread. The cockatrice is identical with the basilisk, but is perhaps not quite so human. It is produced from a "cock's egg hatched by a frog." Lilith is the "night-monster," and according to the Rabbinical idea, she is a spectre in the figure of a woman who, entering houses in the dead of night, seizes upon the little children of the household and bears them away to murder them. According to some accounts she is not unlike Lamia, and has the form of a serpent. CHAPTER XVII HUMAN SERPENTS Since the beginning of the world the serpent has been regarded as the most mystic of reptiles. He was called "more subtil than any beast of the field," from the day on which he spoke to Eve and said that if she ate of the fruit of the Tree of Life, her eyes should be opened and she should surely not die, and he has been endowed with human powers again and again, worshipped as a god in every
- 61. part of theworld and depicted in ancient art as possessed of human form and attributes. In Aztec paintings the mother of the human race is always represented in conversation with a serpent who is erect. This is the serpent, "who once spoke with a human voice." Mythology has numberless legends which tell of human or semi- human serpents. The ancient kings of Thebes and Delphi claimed kingship with the snake, and Cadmus and his wife Harmonia, quitting Thebes, went to reign over a tribe of Eel-men in Illyria and became transformed into snakes, just as now Kaffir kings are said to turn into boa-constrictors or other deadly serpents, and some other African tribes believe that their dead chiefs become crocodiles. Cecrops, the first king of Athens, was supposed to have been half- serpent and half-man, and Cychreus, after slaying a snake which ravaged the island of Salamis, appeared in the form of his victim. When Minerva contended with Neptune for the city of Athens, she created the olive which became sacred to her, and she planted it on the Acropolis and placed it in the charge of the serpent-god, Erechthonios, who is represented as half-serpent, half-man, the lower extremities being serpentine. The story of Alexander's birth, as told by Plutarch, is one of the most curious of the man-serpent traditions. Olympias, his mother, kept tame snakes in the house and one of them was said to have been found in her bed, and was thought to be the real father of Alexander the Great. Lucian adopts this view of Alexander's parentage. The worship of serpent-gods is found amongst many nations. The Chinese god Foki, for instance, is said to have had the form of a man, terminating in the tail of a snake. The same belief in serpent- gods exists among the primitive Turanian tribes. The Accadians made the serpent one of the principal attributes, and one of the forms of Hea, and we find a very important allusion to a mythological serpent in the words from an Accadian dithyrambus uttered by a god, perhaps by Hea:—
- 62. Like the enormousserpent with seven heads, the weapon with seven heads I hold it. Like the serpent which beats the waves of the sea attacking the enemy in front, Devastator in the shock of battle, extending his power over heaven and earth, the weapon with (seven) heads (I hold it).[108] The story of Crishna is very similar to that of Hercules in Grecian mythology, the serpent forming a prominent feature in both. Crishna conquers a dragon, into which the Assoor Aghe had transformed himself to swallow him up. He defeats also Kalli Naga (the black or evil spirit with a thousand heads) who, placing himself in the bed of the river Jumna, poisoned the stream, so that all the companions of Crishna and his cattle, who tasted of it, perished. He overcame Kalli Naga, without arms, and in the form of a child. The serpent twisted himself about the body of Crishna, but the god tore off his heads, one after the other, and trampled them under his feet. Before he had completely destroyed Kalli Naga, the wife and children of the monster (serpents also) came and besought him to release their relative. Crishna took pity on them, and releasing Kalli Naga, said to him, "Begone quickly into the abyss: this place is not proper for thee since I have engaged with thee, thy name shall remain through all the period of time and devatars and men shall henceforth remember thee without dismay." So the serpent with his wife and children went into the abyss, and the water which had been affected by his poison became pure and wholesome.[109] Crishna also destroyed the serpent-king of Egypt and his army of snakes. Lamia was an evil spirit having the semblance of a serpent, with the head, or at least the mouth, of a beautiful woman, whose whole figure the demon assumed for the purpose of securing the love of some man whom, it was supposed, she desired to tear to pieces and devour. Lycius is said to have fallen in love with one of these spirits,
- 63. but was deliveredby his master, Apollonius, who, "by some probable conjectures," found her out to be a serpent, a lamia.[110] Keats made use of this idea in his poem, "Lamia." Later the word was used to mean a witch or enchantress. Melusina was another beautiful serpent-woman who disappeared from her husband's presence every Saturday, and turned into a human fish or serpent. A modern version of the legend of Melusina is found in Wales. To assume the shape of a snake, witches prepared special charms, and sometimes a ban was placed upon enemies by which they turned into snakes for a time. A young farmer in Anglesea went to South Wales and there he met a handsome girl whose eyes were "sometimes blue, sometimes grey, and sometimes like emeralds," but they always sparkled and glittered. He fell in love with her at first sight, and she agreed to become his wife if he would allow her to disappear twice a year for a fortnight without questioning her as to where she went. To this arrangement the young husband agreed. For some years he did not trouble himself about his wife's absence, but his mother began nagging at him, saying that he ought to find out where she went and what she did. Taking his mother's advice, he disguised himself and followed his wife to a lonely part of a forest not far from their home. Hiding himself behind a huge rock, he noticed from this point of vantage that his wife took off her girdle and threw it down in the deep grass near a dark pool. Then she vanished, and the next moment he saw a large and handsome snake glide through the grass, just where she had been standing. He chased the reptile, but the snake disappeared into a hole near the pool. The husband went home and waited patiently for his wife's return, and when she came, he requested her to tell him where she had been. This she refused to do, and when he asked her what she did with her girdle, she blushed painfully.
- 64. The next timewhen she was intending to go away, he seized and hid the girdle, and thus deferred her departure. She was taken ill, and he, hoping to rid her of a baneful charm, threw the girdle in the fire. Then his wife writhed in agony, and when the girdle was burnt up she died. The neighbours called her the Snake-Woman of the South on account of this strange story of her doings.[111] A shoemaker in the Vale of Taff married a widow for her money and, as love seemed lacking on both sides, it was not long before serious quarrels occurred between the couple. Although it was said that hard blows were struck on both sides, the neighbours remarked that it was strange the shoemaker's wife appeared amongst them without a trace of a bruise on her person. At night loud cries and deep groans arose from the shoemaker's dwelling, and a certain gentleman of an inquisitive turn of mind decided to discover what took place and hid himself in a loft over the kitchen, to spy on the couple. Whatever he may have learnt during the proceedings, he said nothing, and a report was spread that he had been "paid to hold his tongue and not divulge the family secret." At last, however, his discretion failed him, and anger against the shoemaker, with whom he fell into a dispute, made him reveal what he knew. He said that as soon as angry words passed between husband and wife, the latter "assumed from the shoulders upwards, the shape of a snake, and deliberately and maliciously sucked her partner's blood and pierced him with her venomous fangs." No marks were found on the husband's body, but he grew ever thinner and weaker, and after ailing for many months he died. The doctor who tended him in his last illness declared that he had died from the poisonous sting of a serpent. After this verdict the spy was given the credit of his story, which, however, had a gruesome sequel. He and the doctor were found lying helpless in the churchyard one morning. When roused from what seemed a fatal slumber, they said they had been invited by the shoemaker's widow to drink with her in memory of her late dear second husband. Then she sprang upon them in the shape of a snake and stung them
- 65. severely. They hadonly strength enough left to crawl to the churchyard, where they would probably have died from torpor had not the neighbours roused them. The widow was never seen again, but a snake constantly appeared in the neighbourhood and could not be killed by any means, so that it earned the name of "the old snake-woman."[112] Oliver Wendell Holmes, who was interested in the subject of prenatal influences, depicted the heroine of his well-known novel, "Elsie Venner," as a girl who had received the taint of a serpent before birth, from a snakebite suffered by her mother. Elsie's friend, Helen Darley, knew the secret of the fascination which looked out of the cold, glittering eyes. She knew the significance of the strange repulsion which she felt in her own intimate consciousness underlying the inexplicable attraction which drew her towards the young girl in spite of her repugnance. When Elsie was taken ill her doctor said that she had lived a double being, as it were, the consequence of the blight which fell upon her in the dim period before consciousness. "Elsie Venner" is an American story, but India, where the snake is even more familiar, is the home of many human-serpent stories, and legends of serpent descent. Near Jait in the Mathura district is a tank with the broken statue of a hooded serpent on it. Once upon a time a Raja married a princess from a distant country and, after a short stay there, decided to take his wife home, but she refused to go until he had declared his lineage. The Raja told her she would regret her curiosity, but she persisted. Finally he took her to the river and there warned her again. She would not take heed and he entreated her not to be alarmed at whatever she saw, adding that if she did she would lose him. Saying this, he began slowly to descend into the water, all the time trying to dissuade her from her purpose, till it became too late and the water rose to his neck. Then, after a last attempt to induce
- 66. her to giveup her curiosity, he dived and reappeared in the form of a Naga (serpent). Raising his hood over the water he said, "This is my lineage! I am a Nagbansi." His wife could not suppress an exclamation of grief, on which the Naga was turned into stone, where he lies to this day.[113] A member of the family of Buddha fell in love with the daughter of a serpent-king. He was married to her and presently became the sovereign of the country. His wife had obtained possession of a human body, but a nine-headed snake occasionally appeared at the back of her neck. While she slept one night her husband chopped the serpent in two at a single blow, and this caused her to become blind. Another curious legend is told of a Buddha priest who had become a serpent because he had killed the tree Elapatra, and he then resided in a beautiful lake near Taxila. In the days of Hiuen-Tsiang, when the people of the country wanted fine weather or rain they went to the spring accompanied by a priest, and, "snapping their fingers, invoked the serpent," and immediately obtained their wishes. The snake tribe is common enough in the Punjaub. Snake families go through many ceremonies, saying that in olden days the serpent was a great king. If they find a dead snake they put clothes on it and give it a regular funeral. The snake changes its form every hundred years, when it becomes either a man or a bull. Snake- charmers have the power of recognising these transformed snakes, and follow them stealthily until they return to their holes and then ask them where treasure is hidden. This they will do on consideration of a drop of blood from the little finger of a first-born son.[114] Among fairy tales the favourite story is that of a human being who dons a snake-skin, and when it is burnt he resumes human form. The snake-bridegroom is an exceedingly popular version of this idea. [115]
- 67. There was oncea poor woman, who had never borne a child and she prayed to God that she might be blessed with one, even though she were to bring forth a snake. And God heard her prayer, and in due course she gave birth to a snake. Directly the reptile saw the light of day it slipped down from her lap into the grass and disappeared. Now the poor woman mourned constantly for the snake, because after God had heard and granted her prayer, it grieved her that the being whom she had conceived should have vanished without leaving a trace as to its whereabouts. Twenty years passed, and then the snake returned and said to its mother, "I am the serpent to which you gave birth, and which fled from you into the grass, and I have come back, mother, so that you may demand the king's daughter for me in marriage." At first the mother rejoiced at the sight of her son, but soon she grew mournful because she did not know how she dare to demand the hand of the king's daughter for a serpent, especially as she was very poor. But the serpent said, "Go along, mother, and do what I ask; even if the king won't give his daughter, he can't cut your head off for the mere asking. But whatever he says to you do not look back until you get home again." The mother allowed herself to be persuaded and went to the king. At first the servants would not let her into the palace, but she went on asking until they admitted her. When she entered the king's presence she said to him, "Most gracious Majesty, there is your sword and here is my head. Strike if you must, but let me tell you first that for a long time I was childless and then I prayed to God to bless me, even though I were to bring forth a serpent, and He blessed me and I brought forth a serpent. As soon as it saw the light it vanished into the grass and after twenty years it has returned to me and has sent me here to ask for the hand of your daughter in marriage." The king burst into laughter and said, "I will give my daughter to your son if he builds me a bridge of pearls and precious stones from my palace to his house."
- 68. Then the motherturned to go home, and never looked back, and when she left the palace a bridge of pearls and diamonds arose all the way behind her till she reached her own house. When the mother told the serpent what the king had said, the serpent remarked to her, "Go again and see whether the king will give me his daughter, but whatever he answers don't look round as you come back." This time the king told the mother that if her son could give his daughter a better palace than his own, he should have her for a wife. The mother went back without looking behind her, and found that her house had changed into a palace, and everything in it was three times as good as in the king's palace. All the furniture was made of pure gold. Then the serpent asked his mother to go back to the palace and fetch the king's daughter, and this time the king told the princess she must marry the serpent. There was a splendid wedding, and in due course the young wife found she was to become a mother. Then her friends grew inquisitive, saying, "If you are living with a serpent how can you hope to have a child?" At first she would not answer, but when her mother-in-law insisted on putting the same question, she replied, "Mother, your son is not really a serpent, but a young man, so handsome that there is none other like him. Every evening he strips off his snake-skin and in the morning he enters it again." When the serpent's mother heard this she rejoiced greatly, and longed to see her son after he had stripped off his snake-skin. Presently the two conspirators arranged that when the young man had gone to bed, they should burn the discarded skin, and while his mother put it in the oven, his wife was to pour cold water on her husband lest he should be destroyed by the heat. No sooner had he laid himself down to sleep, than they carried out their plan, but the smell of the burning skin made him cry out, "What have you done? May God punish you. Where can I go in the condition I now am?" But the women comforted him and said it was better for him to live
- 69. Welcome to ourwebsite – the ideal destination for book lovers and knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to specialized publications, self-development books, and children's literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system, we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading. Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and personal growth! textbookfull.com