wound, and the dead snake was alive again. The prince applying CHAP.
the leaves to his wife's body restores her also to life. The following
are the words of Apollodoros ^ in relating the story, also told by
yElian, of Glaukos and Polyidos : — " When Minos said that he must
bring Glaukos to life, Polyidos was shut up with the dead body ;
and, being sorely perplexed, he saw a dragon approach the corpse.
This he killed with a stone, and another dragon came, and, seeing
the first one dead, went away, and brought some grass, which it
placed on the body of the other, which immediately rose up. Polyidos,
having beheld this with astonishment, put the same grass on the body
of Glaukos, and restored him to life."^
These magic leaves become a root in the German story of the The Two Two Brothers, a tale in which a vast number of solar myths have been rolled together. The two brothers, "as like one another as two drops of water," are the Dioskouroi and the Asvins, or the other twin deities which run through so large a portion of the Aryan mythology. They are also the Babes in the Wood, although it is their father himself who, at the bidding of his rich brother, thrusts them forth from their home, because a piece of gold falls from the mouth of each every morning. They are saved by a huntsman, who makes them marksmen as expert as Kastor and Polydeukes. When at length they set out on their adventures, the huntsman gives them a knife, telling them that if, in case of separation, they would stick it into a tree by the wayside, he who came back to it might learn from the brightness or the rusting of the blade whether the other is alive and well. If the tale thus leads us to the innumerable stories which turn on sympathetic trees, gems, and stones, it is not less noteworthy
' iii. 3, I. See further Professor is the same with the story of the Master Max MUller's "Essay on the Migration Thief, who has his familiar title in the of Fables," Selected Essays, vol. i. p. so-called Homeric Hymn — a hymn, 500. In this essay the strange and whatever its date, older than the days unexpected ramifications of stories are of Thucydides, traced with wonderful skill ; and the * Apollodoros, iii. 3, I. Mr. Gould, presence of a story in Iceland and Italy, referring to this story as introduced in without its being found in other parts Fouque's " Sir Elidoc," places these of Europe, is shown to be not neces- flowers or leaves in the large class of sarily conclusive proof of their inde- things which have the power of restor- pendent origin. But the chronological ing life, or splitting rocks, or opening test, wherever it can be applied, dis- the earth and revealing hidden trca- penses with this inquiry. The presence sures. The snake leaves represent in of the story of the Snake Leaves in short the worms or stones which shatter India and in Germany in our own day rocks, the sesame which opens the rob- leaves it barely possible that it may bers' cave, and finally the vulgar hand have been taken straight from Germany of glory, which, when set on fire, aids to India, or from India to Germany ; the treasure-seeker in his search. All but when we find it in the pages of these fables Mr. Gould refers to one .nml Apollodoros, the fact of its having been the same object — lightning. — Curious known in Europe two thousand years Myths of the Middle Ages, second ago is established beyond dispute. It series, p. 145, &c.
