Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/400

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CORRESPONDENCE.


A Solution of the Gorgon Myth.

(Vol. xiv., 1903, p. 212 sq.)

I have recently had an opportunity of making a sketch of the fresco from Pompeii at the Naples Museum numbered 9688, and mentioned on p. 235 of the article above referred to. From the print herewith it will be seen that the description given in the text is fully borne out, and, as I think, it conclusively establishes my solution of the myth. Upon the same fresco, alongside the Perseo-lobster, is a sea cow with a long fish tail, of a greenish colour, completing the picture. The remarkable feature of the whole is that the lobster is rather larger than the cow swimming by its side.

Naples Museum, 9688.

Quite recently the papers have recorded the capture of an enormous lobster, so that there is no reason to reject the Pompeian fancy as anything more than poetic or artistic license.

I am also able to complete my illustrations by a sketch of the