Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/107

Rh CHAP. V the sack heavier to carry. The stick, however, was endowed with the power of jumping out of the sack and belabouring any one against whom its owner had a grudge. Thus armed, the youth went cheerfully to the house of the innkeeper, who, thinking that the sack must certainly contain treasure, tried to take it from the young man's pillow while he slept. But he had reckoned without his host. The stick hears the fatal word, and at once falls without mercy on the thief, who roars out that he will surrender the table and the ass. Thus the three gifts reach the tailor's house. ^ As for the goat, whose head the tailor had shaven, it ran into a fox's house, where a bee stung its bald pate, and it rushed out, never to be heard of agam.

In the Deccan tale we have a jackal and a barber in the place of The the goat and the tailor : and the mischief is done, not by leading the the lackai, barber to expel his children, but by cheating him of the fruits of his ' / Barber. garden. The parallel, however, is not confined to the fact of the false pretences ; the barber retaliates, like the tailor, and inflicts a severe Avound on the jackal. As before, in the German story, the goat is a goat ; but the jackal is a transformed raja, none other in short than the Beast who is wedded to Beauty and the monster who becomes the husband of Psyche, and thus even this story lies within the magic circle of strictly mythical tradition. But before he wins his bride, the jackal-raja is reduced to sore straits, and his adventures give occasion for some sharp satire on Hindu popular theology. Coming across a bullock's carcass, the jackal eats his way into it, while the sun so contracts the hide that the jackal finds himself unable to get out. Fearing to be killed if discovered, or to be buried alive if he escaped notice, the jackal, on the approach of the scavengers, cries out, "Take care, good people, how you touch me, for I am a great saint." The mahars in terror ask him who he is, and what he wants. "I," answered the jackal, " am a very holy saint. I am also the god of your village, and I am very angry with you, because you never worship me nor bring me offerings." "O my lord," they cried, " what offerings will please you? Ttll us only, and we will bring you whatever you like." "Good," said the jackal;" then you must fetch hither plenty of rice, plenty of flowers, and a nice fat chicken : place them as an offering beside me, and pour a great deal of water over them, as you do at your most solemn feasts, and then I will forgive you your sins." The wetting, of course, splits the dry bullock's skin, and the jackal, jumping out, runs with the chicken in his mouth to

' The Norse story of "The Lad who went to the North Wind " turns on the same machinery.