Note 110.3 — Chapter XIX · THE MEDUSA-WITCH IN MÄRCHEN.

A different example of the power of a hair is found in the Arabian Nights, where the king’s daughter in defence of the Second Calendar draws a hair from her head, and waving it in the air mutters over it for a while, until it becomes a trenchant sword-blade, with which to cut in twain the Ifrit.110.3 The Princess Labám in a Hindu tale pulls out a hair from her head and gives it to the hero. Her father has imposed on him the task of dividing a thick tree-trunk with a waxen hatchet. “To-morrow,” she said, “when no one is near you, you must say to the tree-trunk, ‘The Princess Labám commands you to let yourself be cut in two by this hair.’ Then stretch the hair down the edge of the wax hatchet’s blade.” And we are told that “the minute the hair that was stretched down the edge of the hatchet blade touched the tree-trunk, it split into two pieces.”111.1 A similar quality is that of the hair of the Giant of the Mountain, as related on the island of Zante. By its means, on touching the mountain it opens and admits the Giant into his own kingdom.111.2