So, too, in Celtic countries; typical of this mode of thought in Brittany and in Ireland is the popular belief that such features in the landscape were dropped by the devil or by fairies.
Even at a much later period such myths have grown and bloomed; Marco Polo gives a long and circumstantial legend of a mountain in Asia Minor which, not long before his visit, was removed by a Christian who had "faith as a grain of mustard-seed," and, remembering the Saviour's promise, transferred the mountain to its present place by prayer, "at which marvel many Saracens became Christians."[1]
Similar mythical explanations are also found, in all the older religions of the world, for curiously marked meteoric stones, fossils, and the like.
Typical examples are found in the imprint of Buddha's feet on stones in Siam and Ceylon; in the imprint of the body of Moses, which down to the middle of the last century was shown near Mount Sinai; in the imprint of Poseidon's trident on the Acropolis at Athens; in the imprint of the hands or feet of Christ on stones in France, Italy, and Palestine; in the imprint of the Virgin's tears on stones at Jerusalem; in the imprint of the feet of Abraham at Jerusalem and of Mohammed on a stone in the Mosque of Khait Bey at Cairo; in the imprint of the fingers of giants on stones in the Scandinavian Peninsula, in north Germany, and in western France; in the imprint of the devil's thighs on a rock in Brittany, and of his claws on stones which he threw at churches in Cologne and Saint Pol-de-Léon; in the imprint of the shoulder of the devil's grandmother on the "elbow-stone" at the Mohrinersee; in the imprint of St. Otho's feet on a stone formerly preserved in the castle church at Stettin; in the imprint of the little finger of Christ and the head of Satan at Ehrenberg; and in the imprint of the feet of St. Agatha at Catania, in Sicily. To account for these appearances and myriads of others, long and interesting legends were developed, and out of this mass we may take one or two as typical.
- ↑ For Maxime Du Camp, see "Le Nil, Egypte et Nubie," Paris, 1877, chapter v. For India, see Düncker, "Geschichte des Alterthums," iii, 366; also Coleman, "Mythology of the Hindus," p. 90. For Greece, as to the Lycabettus myth, see Leake, "Topography of Athens," vol. i, sec. 3; also Burnouf, "La Légende Athénienne," p. 152. For the rock at Ægina, see Charton, vol. i, p. 310. For Scandinavia, see Thorpe, "Northern Antiquities," passim. For Teutonic countries, see Grimm, "Deutsche Mythologie"; Panzer, "Beitragzur deutschen Mythologie," vol. ii; and especially J. B. Friedrich, "Symbolik und Mythologie der Natur," pp. 116 et seq. For Celtic examples I am indebted to that learned and genial scholar, Prof. J. F. Mahaffy, of Trinity College, Dublin. See also story of the devil dropping a rock when forced by the archangel Michael to aid him in building Mont Saint-Michel on the west coast of France, in Sébillot's "Traditions de la Haute-Bretagne," vol. i, p. 22; also multitudes of other examples in the same work. For Marco Polo, see in Grynæus, p. 337; also Charton, "Voyageurs anciens et modernes," pp. 274 et seq., where the long and circumstantial legend is given.
