Page:Myth, Ritual, and Religion (Volume 2).djvu/320

306 well remarks, a very singular parallel to the revival of the Egyptian brother's heart in water is the Hottentot tale of a girl eaten by a lion. Her heart is extracted from the lion, is placed in a calabash of milk, and the girl comes to life again.

(5.) The younger brother gives the elder a sign magical, whereby he shall know how it fares with the heart. When a cup of beer suddenly grows turbid, then evil has befallen the heart. This is merely one of the old sympathetic signs of story—the opal that darkens; the comb of Lemminkainen in the Kalewala, that drops blood when its owner is in danger; the stick that the hero erects as he leaves home, and which will fall when he is imperilled. In Australia the natives practise this magic with a stick, round which they bind the hair of the distant person about whose condition they want to be informed. This incident, turning on the belief in sympathies, might perhaps be regarded as "universally human" and capable of being invented anywhere.

M. Cosquin has found in France the trait of the blood that boils in the glass when the person concerned is in danger.

(6.) The elder brother goes home and kills his wife. The gods pity the younger Bitiou in the Valley of Acacias, and make him a wife.

(7.) The three Hathors come to her creation, and prophesy for her a violent death. For this incident compare Perrault's The Sleeping Beauty and Maury's