Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/456

440 Among the Arabs we have an addition to our sacred account of Adam—the legend of the black stone of the Caaba at Mecca, into which the angel was changed who was charged by the Almighty to keep Adam away from the forbidden fruit, and who neglected his duty.

Similar old transformation legends are abundant among the Indians of America, the negroes of Africa, and the natives of Australia and the Pacific islands.

Nor has this making of myths to account for remarkable appearances yet ceased, even in civilized countries.

About the beginning of this century the Grand Duke of Weimar, smitten with the classical mania of his time, placed in the public park near his palace a little altar, and upon this was carved, after the manner so frequent in classical antiquity, a serpent taking a cake from it.

And shortly there appeared, in the town and the country around about, a legend to explain this altar and its decoration. It was commonly said that a huge serpent had laid waste that region in the olden time, until a wise and benevolent baker had rid the world of the monster by means of a poisoned biscuit.

So, too, but a few years since, in the heart of the State of New York, a swindler of genius having made and buried a "petrified giant," one theologian explained it by declaring it a Phœnician idol, and published the Phœnician inscription which he thought he had found upon it; others saw in it proofs that "there were giants in those days," and within a week after its discovery myths were afloat that the neighboring remnant of the Onondaga Indians had traditions of giants who frequently roamed through that region.