Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/249

 Correspondence. 2 1 3

Greeks of to-day. The passages in which popular beliefs appear to be contained, and on which information is particularly wanted, are as follows, the text employed being Schneider's Leipzig edition, 181 1 :

(i) "The Sponge also seems to have some sense of feeling,

an indication being that it is torn away from its support

with greater difficulty, so they say, unless its removal is

effected stealthily" (I. c. i, s. 8).

Aristotle decided, apparently on evidence such as this, that

the Sponge is an animal. Is the Sponge popularly believed, in

the Greek area, to be a plant or an animal ?

(2) "... sneezing, the only breathing considered to be an

omen and sacred " (I. c. 9, s. 4).

(3) " Milk is also produced in men" (I. c. 10, s. i). Again,

" Milk is not produced, as a rule, in men and other male animals, still, it is produced in some, for a he- goat, in Lemnos, yielded from the two teats, near its external generative organs, so much milk that small cheeses were made from it" (III. c. 16, s. 4).

(4) " There are a few animals with one horn and solid hoofs, as, for instance, the Indian Ass. The 'Oryx' has one horn and is cloven-footed " (II. c. 2, s. 9).

With respect to this passage, which seems to be an origin of the fabulous Unicorn, it is commonly asserted that the apparently one-horned aspect of some Antelopes, when seen in side view, probably originated the idea of the existence of animals such as the one-horned Indian Ass and the one- homed " Oryx." I have endeavoured to find an ancient sculpture or painting representing a one-horned animal, which could be reasonably identified with Aristotle's " Oryx," or his " Indian Ass," but have not succeeded. The only representation of an animal with, apparently, one horn, which I have seen, is in the 4th Egyptian Room, Case 185, Exhibit No. 1698, at the British Museum, This is a figure of an Ibex, forming the top of a wooden comb belonging to the i8th Dynasty. In this instance, the wood-carver probably knew that the Ibex has two horns, but has either carved out one only, or has carved them so close together that, as seen from the outside of the