Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/172

160 jewels doing in such places? They must have some meaning that is essential to the story, for otherwise they would not occur so constantly or so emphatically.

Anyone familiar with the study of alchemy will know that gold, pearls, and other precious substances have been for many centuries and among many peoples looked upon as potent in magic. They have always stood high among the "givers of life" for which men have so long sought, and the countries which have these tales of the Isles of the Blest, Egypt, Babylonia, China, India, Japan, are those which have been most prominent in this connection. In these countries we find a well-developed system of alchemy centred round these and other "givers of life." It would appear, indeed, as if alchemy was elaborated among these peoples of advanced culture. For many peoples of the lower culture pay no attention whatever to gold. Paleolithic man seems to have settled where he found flint for his implements or caverns that he could live in. He must have traversed on innumerable occasions, in France and elsewhere, regions where the rivers contained vast stores of gold that were subsequently used by men of later days. And the less advanced peoples of later date, such as those