Note 29 — Chapter X · The Mother-goddess of China and Japan
Reading edition
The friendly animals figure in the folk-tales of many lands. Momotaro’s fight for the treasure, including the cloak of invisibility, bears a close resemblance to Siegfried’s fight for the treasure of the Nibelungs.29 In western European, as in Far Eastern lore, the treasure is guarded by dragons as well as by dwarfs and giants and other demons. When the dragon-slayer is not accompanied by friendly animals, he receives help and advice from birds whose language he acquires by eating a part of the dragon, or, as in the Egyptian tale, after getting possession of the book of spells, guarded by the “Deathless Snake”. When the Egyptian hero reads the spells he understands the language of birds, beasts, and fishes. The treasure-guarding dragon appears, as has been suggested, to have had origin in the belief that sharks were the guardians of pearl-beds and preyed upon the divers who stole their treasure.