Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

THE SOUL A BIRD. MEADOW. 829
soul of his father, whose murder he had suppressed ; when at
length he owned that heinous crime, the last apple changed into
a gray dove, and flew after the rest (ibid. 1, 180). This agrees
with the unresting birds of the Boh. legend. In a Podolian folk
song, on the grave-mound there shoots up a little oak, and on it
1
sits a snow-white dove ,
(ibid. 1, 209)
Instances of transformation into birds were given above,
(pp. 673-6. 680), under woodpecker and cuckoo. Greek mythology
has plenty of others (see Suppl.).
The popular opinion of Greece also regarded the soul as a
winged being (^^xn Trvevfjua KOI ^covjfriov TTTIJVOV 3
chius),
says Hesy-
not bird, but butterfly, which is even more apt,
for the
insect is developed out of the chrysalis,
as the soul is
body;
out of the
hence ^rv^ij is also the word for butterfly. A Roman
epitaph found in Spain
has the words : M. Porcius M. haeredibus
mando etiam cinere ut meo volitet ebrius papilio? In Basque,
arima is soul (conf. arme, alma, p. 826), and
(ass
astoaren arirna
s soul) butterfly. We shall conae across these butterflies
again as will o the wisps (ziebold, vezha), and in the Chap, on
Witches as elvish beings (see Suppl.).
When men are in a trance, or asleep, the soul runs out of them
in the shape of a snake,weasel or mouse (chap. XXXIV and Suppl.) .
Of will o the wisps a subsequent chapter will treat ; synony
mous with them I find wiesenhupfer, wiesenhupfer in f meadow-
hopper, e.g. in the Magdelob (printed 1683) p. 46; its explana
tion, from their dancing on marshy meadows, is right enough,
but perhaps
too limited. Hans Sachs is not thinking of ignes
: mit im
fatui, when he more than once employs the set phrase
schirmen, dass die seel in dem gras umbhupfen, fence with him
till their souls hop about in the grass iii. 3, 13 a . iv. 3, 28 a . und
schmitz ihn in ein fiderling, dass sein seel muss im gras umbhupfen
iv. 3, 51 b ; he simply means that the soul flies out of him, he
dies. Therefore the same superstition again, that the soul of
the dying flutters (as bird or butterfly) in the meadow,
i.e. the
1 Na tej mogile wyrost ci dajbeczek,
na ni6j bieluchny siada gotajbeczek.
2 5 ^ IK (rcfiMttrof fimfc jfew out of the body, Batrach. 207. * ^ fteirT-n 211. K ueAeui 6vfj.bs TTTO.TO, II. 23, 880.
3 First in Ambr. de Morales s Antiguidades de las ciudades de Espana, Alcala
1575, fol. 31b thence in ; Grater, and in Spon s Miscell. erud. antiq. p. S.