Page:Beside the Fire - Douglas Hyde.djvu/44

xl shoulder, 'You said that if you took the foot down you could jump a hundred miles.' He replied: 'I'll easily do that.' He took the foot down, jumped, and was there; but after this there was only a very little time to spare, and by this he ought to have been back. So George said to the second, 'You said that if you removed the bandage from your eyes you could see a hundred miles; peep, and see what is going on.' 'Ah, sir, goodness gracious! he's fallen asleep.' 'That will be a bad job,' said George; 'the time will be up. You third man, you said if you pulled your thumb out you could squirt a hundred miles. Be quick, and squirt thither, that he may get up; and you, look whether he is moving, or what.' 'Oh, sir, he's getting up now; he's knocking the dust off; he's drawing the water.' He then gave a jump, and was there exactly in time." Now, this Bohemian story seems also to bear traces of a nature myth; for, as Mr. Wratislaw has remarked: "the man who jumps a hundred miles appears to be the rainbow, the man with bandaged eyes the lightning, and the man with the bottle the cloud." The Irish story, while in every other way superior to the Bohemian, has quite obscured this point; and were it not for the striking Sclavonic parallel, people might be found to assert that the story was of recent origin. This discovery of the Czech tale, however, throws it at once three thousand years back; for the similarity of the Irish and Bohemian