Note 126.2 — Chapter XX · THE MEDUSA-WITCH IN SAGA AND SUPERSTITION.

Often, however, the Deity himself, or some holy man endowed with a portion of divine power, by curses or prayers effects the metamorphosis. Thus, it is believed in Bombay that the moon once became enamoured of Ahalyá, the wife of the Rishi Gautama, and visited her in her husband’s absence. Unluckily the Rishi returned and found the guilty pair together. His wife was turned into stone as the effect of his curses; and the moon bears, and will bear for ever, the black mark of the blow he received from the Rishi’s well-aimed shoe.126.2 So, too, when Ino fleeing from Juno’s wrath flung herself into the sea, and was made immortal by Neptune at the prayer of Venus, her attendants, as Ovid tells us, reproaching the vengeful goddess, were metamorphosed. Juno exclaimed: “I will make you terrible monuments of my displeasure.” As she uttered the words, some of the women, attempting to follow their mistress into the water, were stiffened in the various attitudes of the moment into rocks on the shore, while others were transformed into seabirds that now stretch their wings over every wave of the Ionian sea.126.3 The kind of superstition here portrayed has of course survived into Christianity. It is partly the superhuman might of the priest as such, and partly the strength of his incantations, which nobody but he knows so well how to perform that gives effect to his words when, like the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims, and other priests before and since, he calls for his candle, his bell, and his book. It was the superhuman might of the shaman that was acknowledged by Balak in the Hebrew saga, when he sent for Balaam to come and curse Israel; “for I know that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed.” Balaam, indeed, performed his function with due solemnity and order; yet the ceremonies, however valuable in themselves, would hardly have been effectual if performed by a lesser man. This belief has constantly tended, in all religions alike, to invest the lightest word of a saint with efficacy graduated according to his sanctity. Take the following Christian examples out of many. Saint Constant, pursued by a party of heathen up a hill in the neighbourhood of Deonero, in the Italian province of Cuneo, launched his maledictions upon them with such effect that they were changed into stones, many of which are still to be seen on the spot. His potency must have been exhausted by the effort; for he had scarcely reached the top when another band of persecutors seized and put him to death. But the night fell murky and wet; and a labourer, going home after an evening’s enjoyment, beheld the saint toiling up the steep laden with stones. In the morning the Church of Villar San Costanzo stood on the place of the martyrdom, built by the saint’s own hands out of some of the very men whom he had conveniently petrified; and there it is to be seen at the present day. Strangely enough, his holiness did not avail to procure him mortar. Nor was it needful, for the stones, whether naturally or supernaturally fitted together, stand perfectly well without it. When his work was done, his body, which had been left by his murderers where it fell, disappeared. Some say that it was transported by angels into heaven; and there can be no more difficulty in crediting this than the rest of the story.128.1 In the Isle of Man Saint Patrick cursed a sea-monster, which was following to devour him, and turned it into a solid rock at the foot of Peel Hill.128.2 According to Sardinian belief a greater than Saint Constant, or even Saint Patrick, inflicted the same vengeance for a smaller crime. One day Our Lord and Saint Peter presented themselves at a threshing-floor near Mores, and prayed for alms, but were denied. Thereupon Jesus Christ uttered an imprecation; and in a moment the corn became sand, while the guilty farmer and his innocent workmen were alike transformed into stones.128.3 Judging doubtless by their own unhappy experience, the greater the personage the more trifling is the occasion to which the peasants ascribe his wrath. On the right-hand side of the road from Flatow to Lobsens, in the province of Posen, about half a German mile from the latter place, is a great stone, formerly a landed proprietor, who, being out hunting, put his horse to jump a ditch at that spot. The horse refused, perhaps for some similar reason to that which animated Balaam’s talking donkey, since we are told that the Lord flew into a passion and cried, “Become stone!” Forthwith horse and rider were turned into a stone which is alive at this day to testify to the truth of the story, though many have been the attempts to destroy it.128.4