found examples of the beast, once human, slain by an enemy, yet potent after death. This beast takes the part given by Perrault to the fairy godmother. The idea is also familiar in Grimm's Machandelboom (47), and was found by Casalis among the Bechuanas.
(11.) The wicked wife obtains the bull Apis's death by virtue of a hasty oath of Pharaoh's (Jephtha, Herodias).
(12.) The blood of the bull grows into two persea trees.
Here M. Cosquin himself supplies parallels of blood turning into trees from Hesse (Wolf, p. 394) and from Russian. We may add the ancient Lydian myth. When the gods slew Agdistis, a drop of his blood became an almond tree, the fruit of which made women pregnant.[1]
(13.) The persea tree is also cut down by the wicked wife of Bitiou. A chip from its boughs is swallowed by the wicked wife, who conceives, like Margata in the Kalewala, and bears a son.
The story of Agdistis, just quoted, is in point, but the topic is of enormous range, and the curious may consult Le Fils de Vierge by M. H. De Charencey. Compare also Surya Bay in Old Deccan Days (6). The final resurrection of Surya Bay is exactly like that in the Hottentot tale already quoted. Surya is drowned by a jealous rival, becomes a golden flower, is burned, becomes a mango; one of the fruits falls into a calabash of milk, and out of the calabash, like the Hottentot girl, comes Surya!
- ↑ Pausanias, vii. 17.
