Note 68 — Chapter I · (continued 2)

In another story bearing the same title (v. 39) the spider lies on its back awaiting its prey. Up comes “the honorable widow,” the wasp, and falls straight into the trap. The spider beheads her. Then the gnats and flies assemble, perform a funeral service over her remains, and carry them off on their shoulders to the village of Komarovo (komar = gnat). For specimens of the Russian “Beast-Epos” the reader is referred (as I have stated in the preface) to Professor de Gubernatis’s “Zoological Mythology.”