Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 18.djvu/60

50

But besides the more ancient myths concerning crows and ravens, a volume might be filled with those degraded myths which, under the names of fairy-tales, or folk-lore (Mährchen), are found in all the languages of Europe; and though we can not follow each one, step by step, in its downward career, or trace all its varying phases with the same certainty that we can the metamorphosis of Odin into the wild huntsman of the Hartz, or the dethronement of Jupiter and his decretion into Jack the Giant-Killer, yet there are always preserved sufficient distinctive features by which their parentage can be traced.

In the Mecklenburg story of "The Three Crows," in the Grimms' collection, after Conrad had been beaten by his knavish companions until he was blind, and then robbed and tied to the gallows-tree, the three crows that perched over his head at night informed him how he could regain his sight, cure the sick princess, obtain a supply of water for the famishing town, and by so doing obtain the king's consent to marry the princess whom he had saved.

We rarely discover in any one story so many of the mythological characteristics of the crow as are associated together here; the ill-omened gallows, the black night, the more than human wisdom of the crows, their knowledge of prophecy, and the healing art befitting Apollo's birds, their power of obtaining water, and lastly their malignant nature; for when Conrad's wicked companions sat under the gallows-tree, hoping to hear the crows tell something for their advantage also, the crows fell upon them with wings, beaks, and talons, and buffeted them until they were nearly dead.

In the story of "Faithful John," given in the same collection, we find the crows here also possessed of more than human wisdom in