Note 1 — Chapter IV · ANIMAL-WORSHIP.

The incident of animal metamorphosis is also familiar. Thus, in one of Somadeva’s tales his mistress turns a man into an ox; in another his wife transforms him into a buffalo; in a third the angry hermit turns the king into an elephant.1 Everyone remembers the terrific scene of transformation into various animals which makes up the tale of the second Qalandar in the Arabian Nights. Animals, too, constantly assume other shapes. In one of the Bengal stories the mouse becomes a cat. In other Indian tales the golden deer becomes the mannikin demon, the white hind becomes the white witch, the hero’s mother becomes a black bitch, the hero himself a parrot, and so on.2 In fact a large part of the incidents of Indian stories turns on various forms of metamorphosis, and every English child knows how the lover of Earl Mar’s daughter took the shape of a dove.