Svsnska Folksägner, "Mylingen"[1] and Hyltén-Cavallius Värend och Virdarne, ii. p. 1.
Also Grimm, vol. i. "The Juniper Tree" and notes, and ib. "The Brother and Sister" and notes; ib. vol. ii. "The Lambkin and the Little Fish," and notes.
WOMEN'S CURIOSITY. Merényi.[2]
Cf. S. ja T. ii. p. 73, "Haastelewat Kuuset" (the Talking Pines), which is very like the whole story.
Payne, i. p. 14. Dasent, Tales from the Norse, ii. p. 4. Denton, Serbian Folk-Lore, "The Snake's Gift." Naake, Slavonic Tales, "The Language of Animals" (from the Servian), and Grimm, vol. ii. p. 541. The power to understand the language of animals is often referred to in folk-tales, e.g. Grimm, vol. i. "The White Snake" and note, and ib. vol. ii. p. 541, et seq.
Gubernatis, vol. i. p. 152.
Tales of the Alhambra, "Legend of Prince Ahmed al Kamel."
Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. i. pp. 190, 469.
The power of animals to speak still remains amongst the superstitions of the people. In Neudorf, near Schärsburg, there is a prevalent superstition that on new year's night at midnight the cattle speak, but in a language which man may not hear, if he does so he dies. See Boner, Transylvania, p. 372; and I have heard a similar story as to their speaking (or kneeling) on Christmas Eve in Lincolnshire. Curious remnants, too, are to be found in the doggrel rhymes of the people, e. g., a few years ago I heard a woman in North Lincolnshire say,
"What do doves say?
