The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
will be able to achieve the feat? You need not, therefore, darling, be
sad; I am practically immortal.” As usual, the princess reveals the secret
to the hero, who kills the bees, and that same moment all the ogres drop
down dead, each on the spot where he happened to be standing.(329) In
another Bengalee story it is said that all the ogres dwell in Ceylon, and
that all their lives are in a single lemon. A boy cuts the lemon in
pieces, and all the ogres die.(330)
(M85) In a Siamese or Cambodian story, probably derived from India, we are
told that Thossakan or Ravana, the King of Ceylon, was able by magic art
to take his soul out of his body and leave it in a box at home, while he
went to the wars. Thus he was invulnerable in battle. When he was about to
give battle to Rama, he deposited his soul with a hermit called Fire-eye,
who was to keep it safe for him. So in the fight Rama was astounded to see
that his arrows struck the king without wounding him. But one of Rama’s
allies, knowing the secret of the king’s invulnerability, transformed
himself by magic into the likeness of the king, and going to the hermit
asked back his soul. On receiving it he soared up into the air and flew to
Rama, brandishing the box and squeezing it so hard that all the breath
left the King of Ceylon’s body, and he died.(331) In a Bengalee story a
prince going into a far country planted with his own hands a tree in the
courtyard of his father’s palace, and said to his parents, “This tree is
my life. When you see the tree green and fresh, then know that it is well
with me; when you see the tree fade in some parts, then know that I am in
an ill case; and when you see the whole tree fade, then know that I am
dead and gone.”(332) In another Indian tale a prince, setting forth on his
travels, left behind him a barley plant, with instructions that it should
be carefully tended and watched; for if it flourished, he would be alive
and well, but if it drooped, then some mischance was about to happen to
him. And so it fell out. For the prince was beheaded, and as his head
rolled off, the barley plant snapped in two and the ear of barley fell to
the ground.(333) In the legend of the origin of Gilgit there figures a
fairy king whose soul is in the snows and who can only perish by
fire.(334)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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