WOMAN'S CURIOSITY. Merényi.[86]

WOMAN'S CURIOSITY. Merényi.[86]

Cf. S. ja T. ii. p. 73, "Haastelewat Kuuset" (the Talking Pines), which is very like the whole story.

Payne, i. p. 14. Dasent, Tales from the Norse, ii. p. 4. Denton, Serbian Folk-Lore, "The Snake's Gift." Naake, Slavonic Tales, "The Language of Animals" (from the Servian), and Grimm, vol. ii. p. 541. The power to understand the language of animals is often referred to in folk-tales, e.g. Grimm, vol. i. "The White Snake" and note, and ib. vol. ii. p. 541, et seq.

Gubernatis, vol. i. p. 152.

Tales of the Alhambra, "Legend of Prince Ahmed al Kamel."

Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. i. pp. 190, 469.

The power of animals to speak still remains amongst the superstitions of the people. In Neudorf, near Schärsburg, there is a prevalent superstition that on new year's night—at midnight—the cattle speak, but in a language which man may not hear, if he does so he dies. See Boner, Transylvania, p. 372; and I have heard a similar story as to their speaking (or kneeling) on Christmas Eve in Lincolnshire. Curious remnants, too, are to be found in the doggrel rhymes of the people, e.g., a few years ago I heard a woman in North Lincolnshire say,

"What do doves say?

"Croo! pee! croo!

"Gillivirens and Jackdaws lay eight or ten eggs to my poor two."

It is very interesting to compare a Finnish fragment entitled "The Dove's Cooing" with the foregoing. A dove and a hen had each a nest, but the dove had ten eggs and the hen only two. Then the hen began to try and make the dove change with her. At last the dove consented, and gave the hen her ten eggs and took her two. Soon the dove saw she had lost, and began to repent her foolish bargain, and she still laments it, for as soon as you hear her voice you hear her sad song,