Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 12 (Egyptian and Indo-Chinese).djvu/465

Rh and they built a pagoda at the spot, where multitudes now come from far lands to worship at the shrine raised to commemorate conjugal and brotherly love.

In the great heat of the seventh and eighth months (April-May) Hung Vuong, the King, often came to the cool shade of this fane, where one day the tale of the areca-palm and the betel-vine was told him. He took some of the fruit of the tree and a leaf of the vine to assuage his thirst, and found it most refreshing; it perfumed his mouth, and his saliva was blood-red. To promote the flow of saliva he had some of the limestone roasted and powdered, and from that time on he regularly masticated the three together. Then he planted nuts of the palm and seeds of the vine, finding that they grew luxuriantly wherever they were put in the ground. In a short time all the people in the country adopted the habit of betel-chewing, and the worship of the two brothers and of Lien be came more wide-spread than ever. In memory of the legend the first present in Annam between engaged couples is always betel and areca-nut, and even in Burma, where the tale is not known, a quid of betel wrapped up in the aromatic leaf accompanies every invitation and every friendly message.

What is clear is that there are universal stories, just as there are universal fairy tales. They begin by being anonymous; then they are attached to famous names, or to symbols in the sky; and so we get the same stories among nations who have never had any connexion with one another, but have passed through the same intellectual processes. The folk-lore of civilization corresponds with the savage ideas out of which civilization has slowly grown. The engraved tablets of the Tongkingese shrines and the pages of the Mahā Gītā Medanī find parallels in the mythology even of the Classical countries. The myths of the Indo-Chinese races are far from homogeneous, yet they have many resemblances and suggestions, not only with One another, but with the legends of all other countries.