In _The Old Men of the Twilight_, W. B. Yeats describes the enchantment inflicted on the old men of learning, the ancient Druids, who were cursed by being turned into gray herons that must stand in useless meditation in pools or flit in solitary flight cross the world, like passing sighs. Lady Gregory tells of magic by which Lugh of the Long Hand puts his soul into the body of a mayfly that drops into the cup that Dechtire drinks from, so that she drinks his soul and must follow him to the dwelling-place of the Sidhe, or fairy people. Her fifty maidens must go with her under a like spell that turns them into birds, that fly in nine flocks, linked together two by two with silver chains, save those that lead who have golden chains. These beautiful birds live in the enchanted land far away from their loved ones. J. H. Pearce tells a touching story of the Little Crow of Paradise, of the bird that was cursed and sent to hell because it mocked Christ on the cross, but because it had pity on a mortal sufferer in hell and brought some cooling drops of water in its bill to cool his parching tongue, it was allowed to fly up and light on the walls of Paradise where it remains forever. Oscar Wilde's story _The Nightingale and the Rose_ is symbolic of tragic genius, of vain sacrifice, where the tender-hearted bird gives his life-blood to stain a white rose red because a careless girl has told the poet who loves her that she must wear a red rose to the ball. But at the last she casts the rose aside and wears the jewels that a richer lover has sent, while the nightingale lies dead under the rose-tree. So we see everywhere in folk-fiction the supernatural power given to animals, which acts as an aid to man, as a shield and protection for him, or for his undoing. We see human beings turned into beasts as a curse from the gods for sin or as expressing the kinship between man and nature. In the different cycles of beast-tales we find a large element of humor, the keener-witted animals possessing a rare sense of the comical and relishing a joke on each other as on man. The _Uncle Remus_ stories are often laughable in the extreme, and Bre'er Rabbit, who, we might at first thought decide, would be stupid, is no mean wit. We see a tragic symbolism in the stories of unhappy beasts who must lure mortals to their damnation, yet feel a sense of human sorrow and remorse. In these animal stories we find most of the significant qualities of literature, humor, romance, tragedy, mysticism, and symbolic poetry, with a deep underlying philosophy of life pervading them all.