Note 120.2 — Chapter XX · THE MEDUSA-WITCH IN SAGA AND SUPERSTITION.

But neither the form of the malediction nor the accurate performance of a ceremony is an invariable requirement. A few illustrations of the petrifying potency of curses, oftentimes the more awful because uttered in mere carelessness or wantonness, may be given from peoples on different levels of civilisation. An Altaic tale relates that Sartaktai was building a stone bridge over the Katunya; and in order to complete it by the following day it was necessary that his son should preserve continence. The young man, however, disregarded his father’s taboo, and frustrated the work. Wherefore the old man cursed his daughter-in-law, so that she stands, a white rock on one side of the river, and cursed and spat upon his son, so that he remained on the other side, the mountain called to-day Täldäkpän.120.2 A local legend concerning the fort of Jangada, in India, attributes its erection to Râjâ Kesari, who built it of lac, or sealing-wax, in order that missiles discharged against it should be held by its natural tenacity. The secret was betrayed to a besieging army by an old woman; and the walls began to melt under the power of the fire and bellows she advised the soldiers to use. The râjâ, as he died in the trench with sword in hand, cursed the traitress to be turned into stone. The curse was immediately fulfilled, as witness the satti pillar outside the fort, regarded as her image to this day.121.1 At a certain farmhouse in Iceland it befell that several years successively the inmates who were left to take care of the house while their fellows went to church on Christmas Eve were found the next morning either stark mad or dead. Naturally nobody cared to stay in the place; but at last a young girl was found brave enough to do so. During the night something came to the window, and began to praise her hands. She was ready at once with a spirited retort. Her eyes and her feet were then made the subject of eulogy by the mysterious visitor, who got from the maiden each time a proper answer. By-and-bye the creature mentioned the dawn standing ready to appear. “Stand thou, too, and become stone, and hurt no one!” exclaimed the girl. And when the people returned from church in the morning they were astounded to see a big stone standing before the window; and there it remains ever since.121.2 There is a hill on the boundary of the manor of Bagdad near Wirsitz, in the province of Posen, surmounted by a great stone of a reddish colour, somewhat in the form of a gravestone. This was formerly a girl who went out with her mother to gather wild strawberries in the pine-wood which then covered the height. The mother wandered off in another direction, and lost her daughter. Not being able to find her, she angrily shouted: “As you are not coming, turn to stone!” Her prayer was instantly answered, as in a similar case at Strelno, in the same province, where a lazy slut going with her pitcher to the spring, and being unconscionably long on the errand, was cursed by a fellow-servant, under whose orders she was, and transformed into stone. The block is shown at the village of Mlyny, near the town; and at a distance it is said to bear some resemblance to a girl with a pitcher. Nor is this the only tale of the kind current in Posen. A great stone, whose top was not unlike a roof, lay several years ago on the boundary between Czempin and Piechanin, and was held to be the roof of a castle, enchanted by a wizard who had begged a night’s lodging there in vain. His curses buried the castle in the earth, and turned its inhabitants and dependants into a number of smaller stones which lay around the large one.122.1 Near Gbel, in Bohemia, is a stone called The Enchanted Huntsman. A luckless hunter, we learn, pursued and shot at a roe, which thereupon changed into an old hag, and cried out: “How dare you shoot at me? I am the witch Nera! But you with your pack shall be turned into stone and guarded for ever with invisible flames!” Since that hour none dares to go near the stone at midnight, lest he be consumed by the flames.122.2 A witch is likewise the agent of evil in the Rollright legends. The King-stone at Rollright was once a king indeed, who was bent on the conquest of all England. He had got as far as the hill on which Rollright stands when the witch appeared. From the crest of the hill the village of Long Compton is visible in the combe below. The king was approaching the top when the witch addressed him: “Seven long strides shalt thou take, and—