Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/352

342 There is a curious group of myths, of which an ancient example is preserved in the Zend-Avesta. The hero, Kereçaspa, cooks his food in a cauldron on the back of the serpent Cruvara, on which the green poison flowed of the thickness of a thumb; the burnt monster dashes away, and returns to the hurrying waters. It is related in the first voyage of Sindbad, that he and his companions came, as they sailed along, to an island like one of the gardens of Paradise, and there they anchored the ship, and went ashore, and lighted fires to cook food. But the island was a great fish, on whose back sand had accumulated, and trees had grown from times of old, and when it felt the fire on its back, it moved and went down to the bottom of the sea. This story, which may be also found in Jewish and mediæval European literature, seems to have become combined with the tortoise-myth. In El-Kazwini's account of the animals of the water, there is a version of the story, which describes the creature as a huge tortoise; "The Tortoise," he says, "is a sea and land animal. As to the sea-tortoise, it is very enormous, so that the people of the ship imagine that it is an island. One of the merchants hath related, saying, 'We found in the sea an island elevated above the water, having upon it green plants; and we went forth to it, and dug [holes for fire] to cook; whereupon the island moved, and the sailors said, Come ye to your place; for it is a tortoise, and the heat of the fire hath hurt it; lest it carry you away!—By reason of the enormity of its body,' saith he (i.e. the narrator above mentioned), 'it was as though it were an island; and earth collected upon its back in the length of time, so that it became like land, and produced plants.'" It is remarkable that a similar story, of a monstrous river-tortoise, has been found among the Zulus.