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
(M94) Amongst peoples of the Teutonic stock stories of the external soul
are not wanting. In a tale told by the Saxons of Transylvania it is said
that a young man shot at a witch again and again. The bullets went clean
through her but did her no harm, and she only laughed and mocked at him.
“Silly earthworm,” she cried, “shoot as much as you like. It does me no
harm. For know that my life resides not in me but far, far away. In a
mountain is a pond, on the pond swims a duck, in the duck is an egg, in
the egg burns a light, that light is my life. If you could put out that
light, my life would be at an end. But that can never, never be.” However,
the young man got hold of the egg, smashed it, and put out the light, and
with it the witch’s life went out also.(360) In this last story, as in
many other stories of the same type, the hero achieves his adventure by
the help of certain grateful animals whom he had met and done a service to
on his travels. The same incident occurs in another German tale of this
class which runs thus. Once upon a time there was a young fellow called
Body-without-Soul, or, for short, Soulless, and he was a cannibal who
would eat nothing but young girls. Now it was a custom in that country
that the girls drew lots every year, and the one on whom the lot fell was
handed over to Soulless. In time it happened that the lot fell on the
king’s daughter. The king was exceedingly sorry, but what could he do? Law
was law, and had to be obeyed. So they took the princess to the castle
where Soulless resided; and he shut her up in the larder and fattened her
for his dinner. But a brave soldier undertook to rescue her, and off he
set for the cannibal’s castle. Well, as he trudged along, what should he
see but a fly, an eagle, a bear, and a lion sitting in a field by the side
of the road, and quarrelling about their shares in a dead horse. So he
divided the carcase fairly between them, and as a reward the fly and the
eagle bestowed on him the power of changing himself at will into either of
their shapes. That evening he made himself into an eagle, and flew up a
high tree; there he looked about, but could see nothing but trees. Next
morning he flew on till he came to a great castle, and at the gate was a
big black board with these words chalked up on it: “Mr. Soulless lives
here.” When the soldier read that he was glad, and changed himself into a
fly, and flew buzzing from window to window, looking in at every one till
he came to the one where the fair princess sat a prisoner. He introduced
himself at once and said, “I am come to free you, but first you must learn
where the soul of Soulless really is.” “I don’t know,” replied the
princess, “but I will ask.” So after much coaxing and entreaty she learned
that the soul of Soulless was in a box, and that the box was on a rock in
the middle of the Red Sea. When the soldier heard that, he turned himself
into an eagle again, flew to the Red Sea, and came back with the soul of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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