Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/417

Rh such stories, and in particular the myth of Periphas, furnish an important clue to a problem left unsolved by Dr. Frazer, viz. the question—How precisely was the soul of the slain king transmitted to his successor? We have seen more than once that the man-god, instead of dying, was changed by Zeus into a bird (Ceyx the sea-fowl, Polytechnus the wood-pecker, Periphas the eagle); and other analogous cases could be quoted. For instance, the tomb of Zeus, alias Minos, in Crete was, according to Suidas, inscribed—

But indeed it would be tedious to collect all the examples of Zeus transforming kings and heroes into birds of one sort or another. A hexameter poem called, which dealt expressly with such transformations, was written in Alexandrine times and falsely ascribed to Boio an