trace of the bean stalk remains in the dish of scarlet runners, and as the scarlet runner is a symbol-of the moon, this proves that the castle of the wind and the castle of lead really do, as was before inferred, represent the dark moon. The dumplings of the Slovenian legend have been transformed, the lead ones into a chestnut, the silver ones into a walnut, and the gold ones into an apple, the invariable high latitude symbol of the sun. It is, therefore, an absolutely unavoidable conclusion that the legend was transferred from Slovenia to Venice, and not the other way. Veronese gnocchi, a diminutive sort of dumplings, are indeed found in the restaurants of Venice, but they do not play the semi-comic rôle the dumpling has in Germany and Slavonia, nor are they, as there, to anything like the same extent popular national dishes; on the other hand, chestnuts, walnuts, and roast apples are sold everywhere in Venice, and form a substantial part of the common people’s bill of fare.
As an instance of this, and of the large part plays upon words have in the formation of popular superstitions, I may cite the popular Venetian remedy for hœmorrhoids, viz.: to put a chestnut in your pocket; as it shrinks so, it is said, will the hœmorrhoids. This superstition is due to the similarity between the Venetian for hœmorrhoids, ‘marroide, and the word for the larger chestnus, marroni: the remedy, however, is not recommended to be applied, because, according to popular Venetian superstition, the malady carries with it the promise of longevity. Again, what else can the three pairs of iron shoes be but skates?—another indication of the northern origin of the legend, just as Mercury’s, the mirk-god’s, winged feet are most likely only another southern form of the Norsemen’s ice-runners. But most significant of all is the prominence given to the raven element, that pre-eminently Scandinavian and anything but Venetian bird.
Still more important perhaps are the time elements of the story. It was shewn that, in Father Know-All, by assuming the twenty years of Plavachek to be twenty dark and light moons, that is, ten months, we brought the king’s thirst after his hot summer ride to somewhere about the middle of September, and that the rest of the story would complete itself within the limits of a year and three months, as indicated by the Dead Man, the Three Citrons, etc. Now making the same assumption for King Raven, and supposing him to be born at the end of November—for his flight out of the window with the consequent gap or blank in the story is a faint palimpsest or inertia-print of the six weeks’ Arctic winter night—his marriage with the first baker’s daughter (i.e., the successor to the baker or summer), will fall at the beginning of October. Now as there is an interval of a year, that is, a fortnight (light or dark moon) between each wedding, the second wedding will fall on the 15th October (about), and the third at the beginning of November. No straining of the imagination, therefore, is required to place the flight of King Raven at the end of November, and the journey of his bride through the dark world at the 1st of December. Thus the uniformity
