The novelty of the next tale is so great, that notwithstanding its fragmentary appearance and unsatisfactory conclusion, we shall quote it unabridged "Of the Maiden that is Nimbler than the Horse." There was once a maiden that had not been engendered of father and mother, but the Vilas had formed her out of snow which they had drawn up in midsummer, on St. Elias's day, out of a bottomless defile. The wind had quickened her, and the dews had nurtured her; the wood had clothed her with its leaves, and the meadow had adorned her with its fairest flowers. She was whiter than snow, rosier than the rosebuds, more radiant than the sun; so beautiful, that no maiden like her hath ever come into the world, nor will one like her ever be born upon it. riding along a road. The righteous brother im- All this was soon known throughout the kingmediately called out to the unrighteous. "God dom, and it came also to the ears of the brother, help thee, my brother!" But the other answer- who had said that unrighteousness was better ed, God give thee nought but sorrow! Why than righteousness. He now thought, "My art thou ever making mention of God? Un- brother must have found his luck under the firrighteousness is worth more than righteousness." tree." So he went off to seek it for himself. Then answered the good brother: "Come, I will First of all he took water in a vessel, then he wager that unrighteousness is not better than went under the fir-tree, and there he drew forth a righteousness." And they staked 100 pieces of knife and put out his eyes. When it was night gold, and agreed that the first man they met and the appointed hour, the Vilas came again to should decide the wager. And as they went on bathe, and they talked of the healing of the printhe Devil met them; he was on horseback, and cess. "Some one," they said, "must have overhad changed himself into a monk. So they ask- heard us saying that she might be cured by this ed him which was the best, righteousness or un- water. Some one, mayhap, is even now listening righteousness? The Devil said, "Unrighteous- to us: come and see." So they searched around, ness," and the good brother lost a hundred pieces and came under the fir-tree, and discovered him of gold. Then they bet a second hundred, and who had come to seek his fortune, and had prealso a third, and according to the decision of the viously always said that unrighteousness was devil, who met them under different forms, the better than righteousness. Then they seized him, good brother lost the whole of his 300 pieces of and tore him asunder, into four pieces. And so gold, and his horse besides. Then he said, did unrighteousness assist the accursed." "Praise be to God! though I have no more pieces of gold, I still have my eyes, and these I will stake against thee." So he wagered his eyes that righteousness was better than unrighteousness. Then did his brother, seeking a judge no longer, draw forth a knife, and therewith he put out both the other's eyes; and said, "Now thou art eyeless, may righteousness help thee." The pitiable one, however, praised God notwithstanding, and said, "For God's righteousness have I given mine eyes; and now, my brother, I only pray thee to give me a little water in a vessel, that I may moisten my lips and wash my wounds, and then to lead me on, and leave me by the well near to the fir-tree." His brother hearkened unto him, and gave him water in a vessel, and led him on, and left him by the well near to the fir-tree. And as the unhappy one was standing there, suddenly he heard, one night at a certain hour, the Vilas coming to the Spring and bathing themselves, while they said to one This damsel now caused proclamation to be another," Know ye, companions, that the king's made throughout the world, that on such and daughter is languishing in leprosy? And though such a day, at such and such a place, a race the king hath summoned all the leeches, not one should be run, and that she would belong to of them can heal her. If only some one knew whatsoever youth should overtake her on horseit, and took of this water immediately after we back in the running. In a few days these tidings leave it and caused the king's daughter to bathe were noised abroad over the whole world, and therein, in four-and-twenty hours she would be thousands of wooers straightway came together, whole, even as any one who is dumb, blind, or all riding horses so splendid that you could never lame, will be cured by this water." Then the have said that one was better than another. The cock crowed, and the Vilas vanished. Then did emperor's son himself came upon the race-course. the unhappy one drag himself forward, creeping The wooers now stationed themselves on horseon all fours, down from the fir-tree even to the back, one after another, in due order: the damwater, and he washed his eyes with it, and heal-sel, however, took her place in the midst, upon ed his face instantly. Then he filled the vessel with the water, and hastened to the king whose daughter lay sick in leprosy, and said to him, "I have come to heal the daughter; if she admits me, she shall be whole in four-and-twenty hours." So as soon as the king heard this, the new leech was brought into the maiden's cham-earth." ber, and he directed her to be bathed in the water. And when a day and a night had passed away, the maiden was whole, and pure of all leprosy. So the king was greatly rejoiced thereat, and gave him half his kingdom and his daughter to wife; and so he became the king's son-in-law, and, next to the king, the first in the country. her own feet, without a horse, and then she said to them-"There, at the winning post, I have fixed a golden apple; whichever of you getteth there first and taketh it, to him will I belong; but if I reach the goal before you, and take the apple, know that ye shall all fall dead upon the The riders, however, were as if dazzled, each of them hoping in his heart to win the maiden ; and they said to one another-"We are well assured beforehand, that the maiden on foot can never outrun any of us, but one from among us, he in sooth to whom God and fortune wish well to-day, shall take her home as his bride." Then the maiden clapped her hands, and they all sprang away along the race course. When they had he might listen to what the man might begin gone half way the maiden had sped far before As soon as the man was on dry ground, he alightthem, for under her shoulders she had unfolded ed from his horse, and took a long flute, coiled little wings. Then did one rider reproach the and checkered to behold, like one of the greatest other, and they spurred and lashed their horses, serpents, and began to play thereon, so beautifuland came up with the maiden; she perceiving ly that the like cannot be heard beside the dear this, quickly plucked a hair from the crown of GOD himself; and at the sound the rocks and her head and flung it from her, and suddenly the trees began to move. The Emperor was terarose a mighty forest, so that the wooers knew rified, and he bent his bow against the man, and not whither they were going nor how to get out. sore wounded him through both his wings. At last wandering here and there, they came Then the man fell down wailing for pain and upon her track. The maiden soon again was far sorrow, so that he could be heard even in heavin advance; but the riders spurred and lashed en: and he cried, "Render thanks to God, O their horses, so that they overtook her a second mortal, for that thou sawest me before I saw time. And when the maiden saw herself pressed thee." Scarce had the Emperor seen that the still more closely, she let fall a tear, which soon man was wounded, when he hastened towards turned into roaring torrents, wherein all were him with his naked sabre. But the man, sore well nigh drowned: the emperor's son alone, wounded as he was, evanished into the lake. swimming with his horse, followed the maiden. Then the Emperor caught the man's horse, and But when he saw that the maiden had far out-mounted him, and galloped homewards. Scarce stripped him, he adjured her thrice in the name had he mounted when wings began to grow from of GOD to stand still. Then she remained stand-him also; he then dismounted in terror, and led ing on the place where she was. So he took the horse on by the rein; and when he had thus her, and lifted her up on his horse behind him, gone for a while, the wings which had grown from and swam back to the dry land, and wended him disappeared, and thus he reached home. homewards through a chain of mountains. But Here he now related all that had come to pass when he reached the highest peak he turned with him; and the winged horse was by his or round-and the maiden had disappeared. der led into the stable among the other horses. The Emperor's son, who had listened heedfully The two preceding tales may be considered himself privily one morning from his father, and to the whole story concerning the lake, withdrew as exhibiting some peculiar features of Ser-arrived at the lake he had described. Not on vian fiction. But we find therein numerous his tiptoes did he steal thither, but he strode other novel and wild or beautiful motiven. along with bended bow. Before he got there he Maidens, for instance, carried off by amorous descried on the bank a lady of middle age, weepdragons to castles floating in the air: enchanting and with dishevelled hair, and as soon as she ed serpents coiled in the midst of flames: saw him she sank down in a deep swoon. The meadows gleaming with pearls amid the forest very moment that this mischance befell him that of the Vilas: princesses in the plumage of moment the winged horse in the imperial stable be golden pea-fowl flying below trees, the ra- wings, that the imperial castle trembled. The Emgan so vehemently to neigh and to beat with his diance of whose fruit illumines castles: an en-peror hastened to see what it was: then said the closure of pales, all, save one, topped with hu- horse to the Emperor, "If thou wishest to see thy man heads-that one eagerly crying for its son while he is yet alive, bring me quickly back to completion: an emperor, who every night be- that place whence thou leddest me away." comes a vampyre, and strangles the suitors of king, in terror, mounted the unsaddled horse; his only daughter: a mystic hand white as the and scarce was he in the open field when, like a mountain snow, unaccompanied by aught save lightning-flash, he flew to the lake. There ar the voice of a spirit, drawing forth the magi- in death, and over him was bending a woman rived, the Emperor beheld his son stretched forth cal bird's heart from the frame of a dying who wept, and with a hair drew both his eyes murderer: a father restoring life to a suicidal from his head. Then the Emperor brake forth daughter by playing a flute beside her corpse, in loud lamentation on account of his son, and "from the earliest sunbeam till the latest twilight." The the horse in piercing neighs on account of the There was once an Emperor named Duklyan (Diocletian?) One day as he was hunting and forcing his way through deep clefts and thick brushwood, he beheld a lake, whereunto he stole and will doubtless obtain a conspicuous place The following legend is highly remarkable, softly to see if there was not somewhat to hunt beside it. As he was thus approaching the lake, in the next edition of the "Dictionnaire Infer he was suddenly aware of a winged horse rising nal." We do not know, however, whether from the lake, whereon sat a winged man, whose Professor Owen will set his imprimatur upon golden hair flowed down to his heels. The Em- the explanation which it furnishes of one of peror, when he saw this, concealed himself that our anatomical peculiarities : — "Why is the Sole of your Foot Uneven? "When the devils revolted from God and fled to the Earth, they took the sun along with them, and the Emperor of the Devils stuck it upon a lance, and carried it over his shoulder. But when the Earth complained to God that she would be quite burnt up by the sun, He sent the holy archangel Michael to endeavor in some wise to take the sun away from the Devil. So when the holy archangel descended upon earth, he made friends with the Emperor of the Devils, who, however, saw what the other was aiming at, and kept on his guard. เ a foal for certain cakes of earth which Reynard had baked and covered enticingly with honey, and how the wolf contrived to devour this foal in the fox's absence, and how the fox, with an instructive regard for his commissariat, ingeniously appropriated three cheeses, the tale thus proceeds : "When he had got a good way off, he ate two of the cheeses, hung the third round his neck, and then set forward on his journey. As he was going along, he met the wolf who had devoured "Once upon a time, as they were both taking his foal; and scarcely had the wolf seen the a.walk together on the earth, they came to the cheese hanging from the fox when he asked sea, and made ready to take a bath, and the whence he had it. I lapped it out of the water,' Devil thrust his spear (with the sun on it) into said the Fox. And where is this water?' again the ground. After they had bathed for a little, demanded the wolf. The fox replied, 'Come, the holy archangel said. Now let us dive and and I will show thee.' It was just full moon, see who can go deepest.' And the Devil an- about midnight, and the sky was cloudless. The swered, Well, come on!' Then the holy fox then brought the wolf to a river, and showarchangel dived down, and brought up some sand ing him the moon which was mirrored therein, with his teeth. It was now the Devil's turn; he said, 'Only look at that splendid cheese in the feared, however, that the holy archangel might in water! But you must lap hard to lap it out as the mean time purloin the sun from him. AI did mine.' Then the unlucky wolf began to thought struck him; he spat upon the earth, and lap and lap until the water streamed out, etc. out of his spittle sprang a magpie to guard the The fox, however, neatly stopped up the outlet, sun for him until he had dived and brought sand saying, 'Now then lap on, my wolfkin, thou wilt with his teeth up from the bottom. But as soon have it immediately. Then the wolf_lapped as the Devil dived below. the holy archangel again, and lapped so that the water oozed out of made the sign of the cross with his hand, and his ears. The fox, however, stopped up his ears covered the sea immediately with ice nine ells also, saying again to him, 'Lap, my little wolf, thick. Quickly then he grasped the sun, and lap, thou wilt soon have lapped it out.' And the flew away with it to heaven, the magpie chatter-poor wolf lapped and lapped again, until the ing with all her might. When the Devil heard water streamed from his mouth and nose. Then the voice of the magpie, he guessed what had the fox stopped up his mouth and nose also, and happened, and turned round as quickly as he mounted him astraddle, saying, I am ill and unamight. When he came towards the surface he ble to walk, thou must really carry me.' The unfound the sea frozen over, and saw that he could lucky wolf actually attempted to carry the fox, not get out. So he speedily turned once more who began singing, The sick carries the sound to the bottom, and got a stone, and broke a hole the sick carries the sound!' As he was going through the ice, and pursued the holy archangel. on repeating this, the wolf at length asked him, Already had the holy archangel set one foot in What sayest thou, gossip?' He answered, heaven, when the Devil caught him by the other, Nothing, my wolf. I'm only talking nonsense. and with his claws tore a great piece of flesh out Whereupon he continued singing, 'The sick carof it. And when the holy archangel, thus ries the sound-the sick carries the sound!' and wounded, came with the sun before God the so on, until they came to a house where there Lord, he wept and lamented, saying, 'What shall was a wedding. When the wedding guests heard I do now, O Lord, so disfigured as I am?' Then the fox singing thus, they came out and began said the Lord to him: Be calm and fear not. I to praise his song. But he told them he could will ordain that henceforward all men shall have like thee a little hollow in the sole.' And so, as God ordained amongst all men, a little hollow was formed in the soles of both feet, and thus it remained even unto the present day. After that the sing much more beautifully if they let him into The tale of How the Fox avenged himself on the Wolf (p. 264), is one of the most singular and original beast-fables (as the Germans say) we have ever met with; and, like the legend of Ulysses and Polyphemus, exemplifies the universal belief of the people in the ultimate triumph of talent, cunning, if you and asked one another how they had escaped, will), courage, and quickness, over mere brute and the wolf said that he had been nearly beaten force and mindless enormity. After relating to death, and had great difficulty in getting off. how the fox induced a horseherd to give him The fox made a similar protestation. He then "A short time afterwards the fox and wolf met, · challenged the wolf to jump against him over a section of the Slavonian family. Ranke has pole which was standing near them, and round described with fulness and accuracy their which people are wont to pile up hay. eventful political career. Carl Haag has vivid"The wolf to his own destruction consented. ly represented the noble forms and picturesque For after they had both jumped once or twice backwards and forwards, the fox told the wolf Costume of a Servian tribe. The popular that he was not jumping quite right, for he kept poetry of the Servians (see' L. G.' for Jan. 15, going more and more to the side, instead of 1853), their legends, and their proverbs, the jumping straight over the pole. The wolf again outcome respectively of their imagination and attempted to jump over the pole, and spitted fancy, their inventive, humorous, and narrahimself on it. When the fox saw this he was tive powers, and their practical wisdom, have immeasurably rejoiced, and he said to the wolf, now been collected and rendered accessible to 'Rest thyself, my little wolf, rest thyself; thou the non-Slavonian reader. To complete our wilt be down presently. But as the wolf strug- knowledge of the Servian people as thinking gled to and fro, the pole pierced him through and sentient beings, it remains only for Dr. and through, so that at last he slipt down it even Wuk and his daughter to continue their labors, to the ground. The fox, having now avenged himself, left him with these words: I have long and, by collecting and publishing the popular since worn out my boots on thy account, since superstitions and melodies of their countrythou didst devour my foal!" men, to supply us with the means of estimating the religious sentiment of the Servians, No one can now complain of much de- the depth and richness of their emotive ficiency in material for the study of this re- faculty. markable Servian people-the most promising THE BOOK. I come from haunts of coot and kern, And sparkle out among the fern, By thirty hills I hurry down, Or slip between the ridges, Till last by Philip's farm I flow, I chatter over stony ways, With many a curve my banks I fret, And many a fairy foreland set I chatter, chatter as I flow To join the brimming river; For men may come and men may go, I wind about, and in and out, And here and there a lively trout, And here and there a foaming flake With many a silvery water-break And draw them all along, and flow To join the brimming river; For men may come, and men may go, I steal by lawns and grassy plots, I move the sweet forget-me-nots LITTELL'S LIVING AGE. - No. 596.-27 OCTOBER 1855. From the Examiner. Watt, acquainted too with other of his heroes, Works of Henry Lord Brougham. Vol. I. Lord Brougham has been able to bring many Lives of Philosophers of the time of George advantages beyond his mere possession of III. Vol. II. Lives of Men of Letters of great intellectual ability to aid him in producthe Reign of George III. Vol. III. Histo- ing these life-like sketches. The result is a rical Sketches of the Statesmen who flourished book full of absolute instruction, and full of in the Reign of George III. Vol. I. Grif-interest. fin & Co. We learn in it how modestly the chemist Black, by much thinking and experimenting, but CHEMISTRY, political economy, and mathe- little trumpeting or printing, achieved in early matics are the three philosophies chiefly illus- manhood the unsealing of many mysteries, and trated by Lord Brougham in the volume of exposed truths (such as the existence of more biography which forms the first part of this gaseous bodies than the atmospheric air, the proposed republication of his writings. How- theory of latent and specific heat, etc.) which ever instructive and important, they are sub-are among the first elements, the fundamental jects we could hardly have expected to find truths, of modern chemistry. And we are treated so pleasantly. The volume contains shown how this great chemist, a precise, calm much new matter of a valuable and interest- bachelor, who "had less nonsense in his head ing kind, and is entertaining throughout. The biographer had selected a theme which gave play to his own tastes, and he has done it admirable justice. than any man living," elegant of mind, and facile of movement, was, as an experimental chemist ought to be, neat handed to a marvellous degree. How he could pour boiling Chemistry, as a science, almost dates its acid from a vessel that had no spout into a existence from the days of Black and Priest- tube held where the thread of the stream ley, Cavendish and Davy. The reign of was small enough, without spilling a drop; George III. was glorified by the dawning how there never was a drop or grain of spilt light, or rather by the very daybreak, of that matter of any kind left on his lecture table, science; and of a king who had Adam Smith even after the most complex experiments; for a subject, it may truly be said that in his and finally how, when he died after a life reign Political Economy became a study wor-lengthened by abstemious diet, he passed from thy to be followed by philosophers. Simson life so quietly and steadily "as not to spill a during the same reign displayed the full per- cup of milk and water which he at the moment fection of the Greek Geometry; nor does the was holding in his hand, and which rested on biographical historian forget what service was his knee. His attendants saw him in this posat the same period rendered to natural history ture, and left the room supposing him still by Sir Joseph Banks, and how the way was alive. On returning soon after, they saw made plain by the mechanical genius of James him sitting exactly as before, and found that Watt for all those changes which have tended he had expired." most to produce, in the present day, something We are reminded also pleasantly of that DXCVI. LIVING AGE. VOL. XI. 13 |