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296 St. Angelo. Among a whole group of stories of the pestilence seen in personal shape travelling to and fro in the land, perhaps there is none more vivid than this Slavonic one. 'There sat a Russian under a larch-tree, and the sunshine glared like fire. He saw something coming from afar; he looked again — it was the Pest-maiden, huge of stature, all shrouded in linen, striding towards him. He would have fled in terror, but the form grasped him with her long outstretched hand. "Knowest thou the Pest?" she said; "I am she. Take me on thy shoulders and carry me through all Russia; miss no village, no town, for I must visit all. But fear not for thyself, thou shalt be safe amid the dying." Clinging with her long hands, she clambered on the peasant's back; he stepped onward, saw the form above him as he went, but felt no burden. First he bore her to the towns; they found there joyous dance and song; but the form waved her linen shroud, and joy and mirth were gone. As the wretched man looked round, he saw mourning, he heard the tolling of the bells, there came funeral processions, the graves could not hold the dead. He passed on, and coming near each village heard the shriek of the dying, saw all faces white in the desolate houses. But high on the hill stands his own hamlet: his wife, his little children are there, and the aged parents, and his heart bleeds as he draws near. With strong gripe he holds the maiden fast, and plunges with her beneath the waves. He sank: she rose again, but she quailed before a heart so fearless, and fled far away to the forest and the mountain.'

Yet, if mythology be surveyed in a more comprehensive view, it is seen that its animistic development falls within a broader generalization still. The explanation of the course and change of nature, as caused by life such as the life of the thinking man who gazes on it, is but a part of a far wider mental process. It belongs to that great doctrine of