| Sir James George Frazer (1854–1941). The Golden
Bough. 1922. |
LXVI. The External Soul in
Folk-Tales |
| |
| IN A FORMER part of
this work we saw that, in the opinion of primitive people, the soul
may temporarily absent itself from the body without causing death.
Such temporary absences of the soul are often believed to involve
considerable risk, since the wandering soul is liable to a variety
of mishaps at the hands of enemies, and so forth. But there is
another aspect to this power of disengaging the soul from the body.
If only the safety of the soul can be ensured during its absence,
there is no reason why the soul should not continue absent for an
indefinite time; indeed a man may, on a pure calculation of personal
safety, desire that his soul should never
return to his body. Unable to conceive of life abstractly as a
“permanent possibility of sensation” or a “continuous adjustment of
internal arrangements to external relations,” the savage thinks of
it as a concrete material thing of a definite bulk, capable of being
seen and handled, kept in a box or jar, and liable to be bruised,
fractured, or smashed in pieces. It is not needful that the life, so
conceived, should be in the man; it may be absent from his body and
still continue to animate him by virtue of a sort of sympathy or
action at a distance. So long as this object which he calls his life
or soul remains unharmed, the man is well; if it is injured, he
suffers; if it is destroyed, he dies. Or, to put it otherwise, when
a man is ill or dies, the fact is explained by saying that the
material object called his life or soul, whether it be in his body
or out of it, has either sustained injury or been destroyed. But
there may be circumstances in which, if the life or soul remains in
the man, it stands a greater chance of sustaining injury than if it
were stowed away in some safe and secret place. Accordingly, in such
circumstances, primitive man takes his soul out of his body and
deposits it for security in some snug spot, intending to replace it
in his body when the danger is past. Or if he should discover some
place of absolute security, he may be content to leave his soul
there permanently. The advantage of this is that, so long as the
soul remains unharmed in the place where he has deposited it, the
man himself is immortal; nothing can kill his body, since his life
is not in it. |
1 |
| Evidence of this primitive belief is furnished by a
class of folk-tales of which the Norse story of “The giant who had
no heart in his body” is perhaps the best-known example. Stories of
this kind are widely diffused over the world, and from their number
and the variety of incident and of details in which the leading idea
is embodied, we may infer that the conception of an external soul is
one which has had a powerful hold on the minds of men at an early
stage of history. For folk-tales are a faithful reflection of the
world as it appeared to the primitive mind; and we may be sure that
any idea which commonly occurs in them, however absurd it may seem
to us, must once have been an ordinary article of belief. This
assurance, so far as it concerns the supposed power of disengaging
the soul from the body for a longer or shorter time, is amply
corroborated by a comparison of the folk-tales in question with the
actual beliefs and practices of savages. To this we shall return
after some specimens of the tales have been given. The specimens
will be selected with a view of illustrating both the characteristic
features and the wide diffusion of this class of tales. |
2 |
| In the first place, the story of the external soul
is told, in various forms, by all Aryan peoples from Hindoostan to
the Hebrides. A very common form of it is this: A warlock, giant, or
other fairyland being is invulnerable and immortal because he keeps
his soul hidden far away in some secret place; but a fair princess,
whom he holds enthralled in his enchanted castle, wiles his secret
from him and reveals it to the hero, who seeks out the warlock’s
soul, heart, life, or death (as it is
variously called), and by destroying it, simultaneously kills the
warlock. Thus a Hindoo story tells how a magician called Punchkin
held a queen captive for twelve years, and would fain marry her, but
she would not have him. At last the queen’s son came to rescue her,
and the two plotted together to kill Punchkin. So the queen spoke
the magician fair, and pretended that she had at last made up her
mind to marry him. “And do tell me,” she said, “are you quite
immortal? Can death never touch you? And are you too great an
enchanter ever to feel human suffering?” “It is true,” he said,
“that I am not as others. Far, far away, hundreds of thousands of
miles from this, there lies a desolate country covered with thick
jungle. In the midst of the jungle grows a circle of palm trees, and
in the centre of the circle stand six chattees full of water, piled
one above another: below the sixth chattee is a small cage, which
contains a little green parrot;—on the life of the parrot depends my
life;—and if the parrot is killed I must die. It is, however,” he
added, “impossible that the parrot should sustain any injury, both
on account of the inaccessibility of the country, and because, by my
appointment, many thousand genii surround the palm trees, and kill
all who approach the place.” But the queen’s young son overcame all
difficulties, and got possession of the parrot. He brought it to the
door of the magician’s palace, and began playing with it. Punchkin,
the magician, saw him, and, coming out, tried to persuade the boy to
give him the parrot. “Give me my parrot!” cried Punchkin. Then the
boy took hold of the parrot and tore off one of his wings; and as he
did so the magician’s right arm fell off. Punchkin then stretched
out his left arm, crying, “Give me my parrot!” The prince pulled off
the parrot’s second wing, and the magician’s left arm tumbled off.
“Give me my parrot!” cried he, and fell on his knees. The prince
pulled off the parrot’s right leg, the magician’s right leg fell
off; the prince pulled off the parrot’s left leg, down fell the
magician’s left. Nothing remained of him except the trunk and the
head; but still he rolled his eyes, and cried, “Give me my parrot!”
“Take your parrot, then,” cried the boy; and with that he wrung the
bird’s neck, and threw it at the magician; and, as he did so,
Punchkin’s head twisted round, and, with a fearful groan, he died!
In another Hindoo tale an ogre is asked by his daughter, “Papa,
where do you keep your soul?” “Sixteen miles away from this place,”
he said, “is a tree. Round the tree are tigers, and bears, and
scorpions, and snakes; on the top of the tree is a very great fat
snake; on his head is a little cage; in the cage is a bird; and my
soul is in that bird.” The end of the ogre is like that of the
magician in the previous tale. As the bird’s wings and legs are torn
off, the ogre’s arms and legs drop off; and when its neck is wrung
he falls down dead. In a Bengalee story it is said that all the
ogres dwell in Ceylon, and that all their lives are in a single
lemon. A boy cuts the lemon in pieces, and all the ogres die. |
3 |
| In a Siamese or Cambodian story, probably derived
from India, we are told that Thossakan or Ravana, the King of
Ceylon, was able by magic art to take his
soul out of his body and leave it in a box at home, while he went to
the wars. Thus he was invulnerable in battle. When he was about to
give battle to Rama, he deposited his soul with a hermit called
Fire-eye, who was to keep it safe for him. So in the fight Rama was
astounded to see that his arrows struck the king without wounding
him. But one of Rama’s allies, knowing the secret of the king’s
invulnerability, transformed himself by magic into the likeness of
the king, and going to the hermit asked back his soul. On receiving
it he soared up into the air and flew to Rama, brandishing the box
and squeezing it so hard that all the breath left the King of
Ceylon’s body, and he died. In a Bengalee story a prince going into
a far country planted with his own hands a tree in the courtyard of
his father’s palace, and said to his parents, “This tree is my life.
When you see the tree green and fresh, then know that it is well
with me; when you see the tree fade in some parts, then know that I
am in an ill case; and when you see the whole tree fade, then know
that I am dead and gone.” In another Indian tale a prince, setting
forth on his travels, left behind him a barley plant, with
instructions that it should be carefully tended and watched; for if
it flourished, he would be alive and well, but if it drooped, then
some mischance was about to happen to him. And so it fell out. For
the prince was beheaded, and as his head rolled off, the barley
plant snapped in two and the ear of barley fell to the ground. |
4 |
| In Greek tales, ancient and modern, the idea of an
external soul is not uncommon. When Meleager was seven days old, the
Fates appeared to his mother and told her that Meleager would die
when the brand which was blazing on the hearth had burnt down. So
his mother snatched the brand from the fire and kept it in a box.
But in after-years, being enraged at her son for slaying her
brothers, she burnt the brand in the fire and Meleager expired in
agonies, as if flames were preying on his vitals. Again, Nisus King
of Megara had a purple or golden hair on the middle of his head, and
it was fated that whenever the hair was pulled out the king should
die. When Megara was besieged by the Cretans, the king’s daughter
Scylla fell in love with Minos, their king, and pulled out the fatal
hair from her father’s head. So he died. In a modern Greek folk-tale
a man’s strength lies in three golden hairs on his head. When his
mother pulls them out, he grows weak and timid and is slain by his
enemies. In another modern Greek story the life of an enchanter is
bound up with three doves which are in the belly of a wild boar.
When the first dove is killed, the magician grows sick; when the
second is killed, he grows very sick; and when the third is killed,
he dies. In another Greek story of the same sort an ogre’s strength
is in three singing birds which are in a wild boar. The hero kills
two of the birds, and then coming to the ogre’s house finds him
lying on the ground in great pain. He shows the third bird to the
ogre, who begs that the hero will either let it fly away or give it
to him to eat. But the hero wrings the bird’s neck, and the ogre
dies on the spot. |
5 |
| In a modern Roman version of “Aladdin and the
Wonderful Lamp,” the magician tells the princess, whom he holds
captive in a floating rock in mid-ocean, that he will never die. The
princess reports this to the prince her husband, who has come to
rescue her. The prince replies, “It is impossible but that there
should be some one thing or other that is fatal to him; ask him what
that one fatal thing is.” So the princess asked the magician, and he
told her that in the wood was a hydra with seven heads; in the
middle head of the hydra was a leveret, in the head of the leveret
was a bird, in the bird’s head was a precious stone, and if this
stone were put under his pillow he would die. The prince procured
the stone, and the princess laid it under the magician’s pillow. No
sooner did the enchanter lay his head on the pillow than he gave
three terrible yells, turned himself round and round three times,
and died. |
6 |
| Stories of the same sort are current among Slavonic
peoples. Thus a Russian story tells how a warlock called Koshchei
the Deathless carried off a princess and kept her prisoner in his
golden castle. However, a prince made up to her one day as she was
walking alone and disconsolate in the castle garden, and cheered by
the prospect of escaping with him she went to the warlock and coaxed
him with false and flattering words, saying, “My dearest friend,
tell me, I pray you, will you never die?” “Certainly not,” says he.
“Well,” says she, “and where is your death? is it in your dwelling?”
“To be sure it is,” says he, “it is in the broom under the
threshold.” Thereupon the princess seized the broom and threw it on
the fire, but although the broom burned, the deathless Koshchei
remained alive; indeed not so much as a hair of him was singed.
Balked in her first attempt, the artful hussy pouted and said, “You
do not love me true, for you have not told me where your death is;
yet I am not angry, but love you with all my heart.” With these
fawning words she besought the warlock to tell her truly where his
death was. So he laughed and said, “Why do you wish to know? Well
then, out of love I will tell you where it lies. In a certain field
there stand three green oaks, and under the roots of the largest oak
is a worm, and if ever this worm is found and crushed, that instant
I shall die.” When the princess heard these words, she went straight
to her lover and told him all; and he searched till he found the
oaks and dug up the worm and crushed it. Then he hurried to the
warlock’s castle, but only to learn from the princess that the
warlock was still alive. Then she fell to wheedling and coaxing
Koshchei once more, and this time, overcome by her wiles, he opened
his heart to her and told her the truth. “My death,” said he, “is
far from here and hard to find, on the wide ocean. In that sea is an
island, and on the island there grows a green oak, and beneath the
oak is an iron chest, and in the chest is a small basket, and in the
basket is a hare, and in the hare is a duck, and in the duck is an
egg; and he who finds the egg and breaks it, kills me at the same
time.” The prince naturally procured the fateful egg and with it in
his hands he confronted the deathless warlock. The monster would have killed him, but the prince began
to squeeze the egg. At that the warlock shrieked with pain, and
turning to the false princess, who stood by smirking and smiling,
“Was it not out of love for you,” said he, “that I told you where my
death was? And is this the return you make to me?” With that he
grabbed at his sword, which hung from a peg on the wall; but before
he could reach it, the prince had crushed the egg, and sure enough
the deathless warlock found his death at the same moment. “In one of
the descriptions of Koshchei’s death, he is said to be killed by a
blow on the forehead inflicted by the mysterious egg—that last link
in the magic chain by which his life is darkly bound. In another
version of the same story, but told of a snake, the fatal blow is
struck by a small stone found in the yolk of an egg, which is inside
a duck, which is inside a hare, which is inside a stone, which is on
an island.” |
7 |
| Amongst peoples of the Teutonic stock stories of the
external soul are not wanting. In a tale told by the Saxons of
Transylvania it is said that a young man shot at a witch again and
again. The bullets went clean through her but did her no harm, and
she only laughed and mocked at him. “Silly earthworm,” she cried,
“shoot as much as you like. It does me no harm. For know that my
life resides not in me but far, far away. In a mountain is a pond,
on the pond swims a duck, in the duck is an egg, in the egg burns a
light, that light is my life. If you could put out that light, my
life would be at an end. But that can never, never be.” However, the
young man got hold of the egg, smashed it, and put out the light,
and with it the witch’s life went out also. In a German story a
cannibal called Body without Soul or Soulless keeps his soul in a
box, which stands on a rock in the middle of the Red Sea. A soldier
gets possession of the box and goes with it to Soulless, who begs
the soldier to give him back his soul. But the soldier opens the
box, takes out the soul, and flings it backward over his head. At
the same moment the cannibal drops dead to the ground. |
8 |
| In another German story and old warlock lives with a
damsel all alone in the midst of a vast and gloomy wood. She fears
that being old he may die and leave her alone in the forest. But he
reassures her. “Dear child,” he said, “I cannot die, and I have no
heart in my breast.” But she importuned him to tell her where his
heart was. So he said, “Far, far from here in an unknown and
lonesome land stands a great church. The church is well secured with
iron doors, and round about it flows a broad deep moat. In the
church flies a bird and in the bird is my heart. So long as the bird
lives, I live. It cannot die of itself, and no one can catch it;
therefore I cannot die, and you need have no anxiety.” However the
young man, whose bride the damsel was to have been before the
warlock spirited her away, contrived to reach the church and catch
the bird. He brought it to the damsel, who stowed him and it away
under the warlock’s bed. Soon the old warlock came home. He was
ailing, and said so. The girl wept and said, “Alas, daddy is dying;
he has a heart in his breast after all.”
“Child,” replied the warlock, “hold your tongue. I can’t die.
It will soon pass over.” At that the young man under the bed gave
the bird a gentle squeeze; and as he did so, the old warlock felt
very unwell and sat down. Then the young man gripped the bird
tighter, and the warlock fell senseless from his chair. “Now squeeze
him dead,” cried the damsel. Her lover obeyed, and when the bird was
dead, the old warlock also lay dead on the floor. |
9 |
| In the Norse tale of “the giant who had no heart in
his body,” the giant tells the captive princess, “Far, far away in a
lake lies an island, on that island stands a church, in that church
is a well, in that well swims a duck, in that duck there is an egg,
and in that egg there lies my heart.” The hero of the tale, with the
help of some animals to whom he had been kind, obtains the egg and
squeezes it, at which the giant screams piteously and begs for his
life. But the hero breaks the egg in pieces and the giant at once
bursts. In another Norse story a hill-ogre tells the captive
princess that she will never be able to return home unless she finds
the grain of sand which lies under the ninth tongue of the ninth
head of a certain dragon; but if that grain of sand were to come
over the rock in which the ogres live, they would all burst “and the
rock itself would become a gilded palace, and the lake green
meadows.” The hero finds the grain of sand and takes it to the top
of the high rock in which the ogres live. So all the ogres burst and
the rest falls out as one of the ogres had foretold. |
10 |
| In a Celtic tale, recorded in the West Highlands of
Scotland, a giant is questioned by a captive queen as to where he
keeps his soul. At last, after deceiving her several times, he
confides to her the fatal secret: “There is a great flagstone under
the threshold. There is a wether under the flag. There is a duck in
the wether’s belly, and an egg in the belly of the duck, and it is
in the egg that my soul is.” On the morrow when the giant was gone,
the queen contrived to get possession of the egg and crushed it in
her hands, and at that very moment the giant, who was coming home in
the dusk, fell down dead. In another Celtic tale, a sea beast has
carried off a king’s daughter, and an old smith declares that there
is no way of killing the beast but one. “In the island that is in
the midst of the loch is Eillid Chaisfhion—the white-footed hind, of
the slenderest legs, and the swiftest step, and though she should be
caught, there would spring a hoodie out of her, and though the
hoodie should be caught, there would spring a trout out of her, but
there is an egg in the mouth of the trout, and the soul of the beast
is in the egg, and if the egg breaks, the beast is dead.” As usual
the egg is broken and the beast dies. |
11 |
| In an Irish story we read how a giant kept a
beautiful damsel a prisoner in his castle on the top of a hill,
which was white with the bones of the champions who had tried in
vain to rescue the fair captive. At last the hero, after hewing and
slashing at the giant all to no purpose, discovered that the only
way to kill him was to rub a mole on the giant’s right breast with a
certain egg, which was in a duck, which was in a chest, which lay
locked and bound at the bottom of the sea.
With the help of some obliging animals, the
hero made himself master of the precious egg and slew the giant by
merely striking it against the mole on his right breast. Similarly
in a Breton story there figures a giant whom neither fire nor water
nor steel can harm. He tells his seventh wife, whom he has just
married after murdering all her predecessors, “I am immortal, and no
one can hurt me unless he crushes on my breast an egg, which is in a
pigeon, which is in the belly of a hare; this hare is in the belly
of a wolf, and this wolf is in the belly of my brother, who dwells a
thousand leagues from here. So I am quite easy on that score.” A
soldier contrived to obtain the egg and crush it on the breast of
the giant, who immediately expired. In another Breton tale the life
of a giant resides in an old box-tree which grows in his castle
garden; and to kill him it is necessary to sever the tap-root of the
tree at a single blow of an axe without injuring any of the lesser
roots. This task the hero, as usual, successfully accomplishes, and
at the same moment the giant drops dead. |
12 |
| The notion of an external soul has now been traced
in folk-tales told by Aryan peoples from India to Ireland. We have
still to show that the same idea occurs commonly in the popular
stories of peoples who do not belong to the Aryan stock. In the
ancient Egyptian tale of “The Two Brothers,” which was written down
in the reign of Rameses II., about 1300 B.C.,
we read how one of the brothers enchanted his heart and placed it in
the flower of an acacia tree, and how, when the flower was cut at
the instigation of his wife, he immediately fell down dead, but
revived when his brother found the lost heart in the berry of the
acacia and threw it into a cup of fresh water. |
13 |
| In the story of Seyf el-Mulook in the Arabian
Nights the jinnee tells the captive daughter of the King of
India, “When I was born, the astrologers declared that the
destruction of my soul would be effected by the hand of one of the
sons of the human kings. I therefore took my soul, and put it into
the crop of a sparrow, and I imprisoned the sparrow in a little box,
and put this into another small box, and this I put within seven
other small boxes, and I put these within seven chests, and the
chests I put into a coffer of marble within the verge of this
circumambient ocean; for this part is remote from the countries of
mankind, and none of mankind can gain access to it.” But Seyf
el-Mulook got possession of the sparrow and strangled it, and the
jinnee fell upon the ground a heap of black ashes. In a Kabyle story
an ogre declares that his fate is far away in an egg, which is in a
pigeon, which is in a camel, which is in the sea. The hero procures
the egg and crushes it between his hands, and the ogre dies. In a
Magyar folk-tale, an old witch detains a young prince called Ambrose
in the bowels of the earth. At last she confided to him that she
kept a wild boar in a silken meadow, and if it were killed, they
would find a hare inside, and inside the hare a pigeon, and inside
the pigeon a small box, and inside the box one black and one shining
beetle: the shining beetle held her life, and the black one held her
power; if these two beetles died, then her life would come to an end
also. When the old hag went out, Ambrose
killed the wild boar, and took out the hare; from the hare he took
the pigeon, from the pigeon the box, and from the box the two
beetles; he killed the black beetle, but kept the shining one alive.
So the witch’s power left her immediately, and when she came home,
she had to take to her bed. Having learned from her how to escape
from his prison to the upper air, Ambrose killed the shining beetle,
and the old hag’s spirit left her at once. In a Kalmuck tale we read
how a certain khan challenged a wise man to show his skill by
stealing a precious stone on which the khan’s life depended. The
sage contrived to purloin the talisman while the khan and his guards
slept; but not content with this he gave a further proof of his
dexterity by bonneting the slumbering potentate with a bladder. This
was too much for the khan. Next morning he informed the sage that he
could overlook everything else, but that the indignity of being
bonneted with a bladder was more than he could bear; and he ordered
his facetious friend to instant execution. Pained at this exhibition
of royal ingratitude, the sage dashed to the ground the talisman
which he still held in his hand; and at the same instant blood
flowed from the nostrils of the khan, and he gave up the ghost. |
14 |
| In a Tartar poem two heroes named Ak Molot and Bulat
engage in mortal combat. Ak Molot pierces his foe through and
through with an arrow, grapples with him, and dashes him to the
ground, but all in vain, Bulat could not die. At last when the
combat has lasted three years, a friend of Ak Molot sees a golden
casket hanging by a white thread from the sky, and bethinks him that
perhaps this casket contains Bulat’s soul. So he shot through the
white thread with an arrow, and down fell the casket. He opened it,
and in the casket sat ten white birds, and one of the birds was
Bulat’s soul. Bulat wept when he saw that his soul was found in the
casket. But one after the other the birds were killed, and then Ak
Molot easily slew his foe. In another Tartar poem, two brothers
going to fight two other brothers take out their souls and hide them
in the form of a white herb with six stalks in a deep pit. But one
of their foes sees them doing so and digs up their souls, which he
puts into a golden ram’s horn, and then sticks the ram’s horn in his
quiver. The two warriors whose souls have thus been stolen know that
they have no chance of victory, and accordingly make peace with
their enemies. In another Tartar poem a terrible demon sets all the
gods and heroes at defiance. At last a valiant youth fights the
demon, binds him hand and foot, and slices him with his sword. But
still the demon is not slain. So the youth asked him, “Tell me,
where is your soul hidden? For if your soul had been hidden in your
body, you must have been dead long ago.” The demon replied, “On the
saddle of my horse is a bag. In the bag is a serpent with twelve
heads. In the serpent is my soul. When you have killed the serpent,
you have killed me also.” So the youth took the saddle-bag from the
horse and killed the twelve-headed serpent, whereupon the demon
expired. In another Tartar poem a hero called Kök Chan deposits with
a maiden a golden ring, in which is half
his strength. Afterwards when Kök Chan is wrestling long with a hero
and cannot kill him, a woman drops into his mouth the ring which
contains half his strength. Thus inspired with fresh force he slays
his enemy. |
15 |
| In a Mongolian story the hero Joro gets the better
of his enemy the lama Tschoridong in the following way. The lama,
who is an enchanter, sends out his soul in the form of a wasp to
sting Joro’s eyes. But Joro catches the wasp in his hand, and by
alternately shutting and opening his hand he causes the lama
alternately to lose and recover consciousness. In a Tartar poem two
youths cut open the body of an old witch and tear out her bowels,
but all to no purpose, she still lives. On being asked where her
soul is, she answers that it is in the middle of her shoe-sole in
the form of a seven-headed speckled snake. So one of the youths
slices her shoe-sole with his sword, takes out the speckled snake,
and cuts off its seven heads. Then the witch dies. Another Tartar
poem describes how the hero Kartaga grappled with the Swan-woman.
Long they wrestled. Moons waxed and waned and still they wrestled;
years came and went, and still the struggle went on. But the piebald
horse and the black horse knew that the Swan-woman’s soul was not in
her. Under the black earth flow nine seas; where the seas meet and
form one, the sea comes to the surface of the earth. At the mouth of
the nine seas rises a rock of copper; it rises to the surface of the
ground, it rises up between heaven and earth, this rock of copper.
At the foot of the copper rock is a black chest, in the black chest
is a golden casket, and in the golden casket is the soul of the
Swan-woman. Seven little birds are the soul of the Swan-woman; if
the birds are killed the Swan-woman will die straightway. So the
horses ran to the foot of the copper rock, opened the black chest,
and brought back the golden casket. Then the piebald horse turned
himself into a bald-headed man, opened the golden casket, and cut
off the heads of the seven birds. So the Swan-woman died. In another
Tartar poem the hero, pursuing his sister who has driven away his
cattle, is warned to desist from the pursuit because his sister has
carried away his soul in a golden sword and a golden arrow, and if
he pursues her she will kill him by throwing the golden sword or
shooting the golden arrow at him. |
16 |
| A Malay poem relates how once upon a time in the
city of Indrapoora there was a certain merchant who was rich and
prosperous, but he had no children. One day as he walked with his
wife by the river they found a baby girl, fair as an angel. So they
adopted the child and called her Bidasari. The merchant caused a
golden fish to be made, and into this fish he transferred the soul
of his adopted daughter. Then he put the golden fish in a golden box
full of water, and hid it in a pond in the midst of his garden. In
time the girl grew to be a lovely woman. Now the King of Indrapoora
had a fair young queen, who lived in fear that the king might take
to himself a second wife. So, hearing of the charms of Bidasari, the
queen resolved to put her out of the way. She lured the girl to the
palace and tortured her cruelly; but
Bidasari could not die, because her soul was not in her. At last she
could stand the torture no longer and said to the queen, “If you
wish me to die, you must bring the box which is in the pond in my
father’s garden.” So the box was brought and opened, and there was
the golden fish in the water. The girl said, “My soul is in that
fish. In the morning you must take the fish out of the water, and in
the evening you must put it back into the water. Do not let the fish
lie about, but bind it round your neck. If you do this, I shall soon
die.” So the queen took the fish out of the box and fastened it
round her neck; and no sooner had she done so than Bidasari fell
into a swoon. But in the evening, when the fish was put back into
the water, Bidasari came to herself again. Seeing that she thus had
the girl in her power, the queen sent her home to her adopted
parents. To save her from further persecution her parents resolved
to remove their daughter from the city. So in a lonely and desolate
spot they built a house and brought Bidasari thither. There she
dwelt alone, undergoing vicissitudes that corresponded with the
vicissitudes of the golden fish in which was her soul. All day long,
while the fish was out of the water, she remained unconscious; but
in the evening, when the fish was put into the water, she revived.
One day the king was out hunting, and coming to the house where
Bidasari lay unconscious, was smitten with her beauty. He tried to
waken her, but in vain. Next day, towards evening, he repeated his
visit, but still found her unconscious. However, when darkness fell,
she came to herself and told the king the secret of her life. So the
king returned to the palace, took the fish from the queen, and put
it in water. Immediately Bidasari revived, and the king took her to
wife. |
17 |
| Another story of an external soul comes from Nias,
an island to the west of Sumatra. Once on a time a chief was
captured by his enemies, who tried to put him to death but failed.
Water would not drown him nor fire burn him nor steel pierce him. At
last his wife revealed the secret. On his head he had a hair as hard
as a copper wire; and with this wire his life was bound up. So the
hair was plucked out, and with it his spirit fled. |
18 |
| A West African story from Southern Nigeria relates
how a king kept his soul in a little brown bird, which perched on a
tall tree beside the gate of the palace. The king’s life was so
bound up with that of the bird that whoever should kill the bird
would simultaneously kill the king and succeed to the kingdom. The
secret was betrayed by the queen to her lover, who shot the bird
with an arrow and thereby slew the king and ascended the vacant
throne. A tale told by the Ba-Ronga of South Africa sets forth how
the lives of a whole family were contained in one cat. When a girl
of the family, named Titishan, married a husband, she begged her
parents to let her take the precious cat with her to her new home.
But they refused, saying, “You know that our life is attached to
it”; and they offered to give her an antelope or even an elephant
instead of it. But nothing would satisfy
her but the cat. So at last she carried it off with her and shut it
up in a place where nobody saw it; even her husband knew nothing
about it. One day, when she went to work in the fields, the cat
escaped from its place of concealment, entered the hut, put on the
warlike trappings of the husband, and danced and sang. Some
children, attracted by the noise, discovered the cat at its antics,
and when they expressed their astonishment, the animal only capered
the more and insulted them besides. So they went to the owner and
said, “There is somebody dancing in your house, and he insulted us.”
“Hold your tongues,” said he, “I’ll soon put a stop to your lies.”
So he went and hid behind the door and peeped in, and there sure
enough was the cat prancing about and singing. He fired at it, and
the animal dropped down dead. At the same moment his wife fell to
the ground in the field where she was at work; said she, “I have
been killed at home.” But she had strength enough left to ask her
husband to go with her to her parents’ village, taking with him the
dead cat wrapt up in a mat. All her relatives assembled, and
bitterly they reproached her for having insisted on taking the
animal with her to her husband’s village. As soon as the mat was
unrolled and they saw the dead cat, they all fell down lifeless one
after the other. So the Clan of the Cat was destroyed; and the
bereaved husband closed the gate of the village with a branch, and
returned home, and told his friends how in killing the cat he had
killed the whole clan, because their lives depended on the life of
the cat. |
19 |
| Ideas of the same sort meet us in stories told by
the North American Indians. Thus the Navajoes tell of a certain
mythical being called “the Maiden that becomes a Bear,” who learned
the art of turning herself into a bear from the prairie wolf. She
was a great warrior and quite invulnerable; for when she went to war
she took out her vital organs and hid them, so that no one could
kill her; and when the battle was over she put the organs back in
their places again. The Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia tell of
an ogress, who could not be killed because her life was in a hemlock
branch. A brave boy met her in the woods, smashed her head with a
stone, scattered her brains, broke her bones, and threw them into
the water. Then, thinking he had disposed of the ogress, he went
into her house. There he saw a woman rooted to the floor, who warned
him, saying, “Now do not stay long. I know that you have tried to
kill the ogress. It is the fourth time that somebody has tried to
kill her. She never dies; she has nearly come to life. There in that
covered hemlock branch is her life. Go there, and as soon as you see
her enter, shoot her life. Then she will be dead.” Hardly had she
finished speaking when sure enough in came the ogress, singing as
she walked. But the boy shot at her life, and she fell dead to the
floor. |
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