Page:The folk-tales of the Magyars.djvu/397

 Rh discover that they are followed, Helena spits on the floor, the door-latch, and the hinge of the door, and each expectoration speaks, and so deludes the king's messengers, and allows the fugitives more time (Cf. Ralston's Russian Tales, p. 142; Grimm, i.: "Sweetheart Roland," p. 225, where one change of Roland is to a fiddler, who makes the witch dance till dead.) The king following in the form of a gigantic eagle, the tips of whose wings touch heaven and earth, reminds of such stories as the Lapp "Jaetten og Veslegutten," from Hammerfest, Friis. p. 49, where the giant is heard coming like a gust of wind; and in "Jaetten og Drengen hans," from Tanen, id. p. 58, where the giant and his wife pursue the lad, as he walks away, with his bag of silver coins.

See also Finnish "Oriiksi muutettu poika," ''S. ja. T''. i. 142, and variants there given, in which the devil follows in the form of a storm-cloud.

Wonderful transformations of a like sort occur in Indian stories, e. g., "The Phúlmati Rání's arms and legs grew into four houses, her chest became a tank, and her head a house in the middle of the tank; her eyes turned into two little doves; and these five houses, the tank, and the doves, were transported to the jungle. The little doves lived in the house that stood in the middle of the tank. The other houses stood round the tank." Stokes' Indian Tales, "Phúlmati Rání," p. 5, and "The Bel Princess," p. 148, where we read, " hen the girl took a knife in her own hand, and cut out her two eyes; and one eye became a parrot, and the other a maind (a kind of starling). Then she cut out her heart, and it became a great tank. Her body became a splendid palace and garden; her arms and legs became the pillars that supported the verandah roof; and her head the dome on the top of the palace."

Page 34. For the curse of oblivion see Panch-Phul Ranee, Old Deccan Days, p. 143, where the conjurors throw some powder in the rice and fire, and no sooner did the rajah receive them than he forgot his wife, child, and all that had ever happened to him. In "Chandra's Vengeance," p. 260, forgetfulness is brought about by enchanted drink. Cf. Grimm, ii. "The Drummer," p. 338.