FABLE AND FOLKLORE 249 



brought the schamir from its hiding-place, and was 

 about to lay it on the glass, which it would break; but 

 Benaiah, Solomon's agent, who lay in wait, shouted, 

 and so frightened the bird that she dropped the schamir, 

 whereupon Benaiah picked it up, as he had planned to 

 do. It was by aid of this "worm," which shaped the 

 stone-work for him, that Solomon was able to build 

 his Temple without sound of hammer or saw. Other 

 versions assert that a raven or an eagle was the bird, 

 and that the magic glass-breaker was a stone brought 

 from the uttermost East. 



The story travelled to Greece, and there became at- 

 tached to the hoopoe, a small crested bird that figures 

 largely in south-European and African wonder-tales. 

 A hoopoe, runs the Greek story, had a nest in an old 

 wall in which was a crevice. The proprietor, noticing 

 the rent in his wall, plastered it over; thus when the 

 hoopoe returned to feed her young she found that the 

 nest had been covered so that she was unable to enter it. 



Forthwith she flew away in quest of a plant called poa 

 (the springwort?), and having found a spray returned and 

 applied it to the plaster, which at once fell off from the crack 

 and gave her free access to her nest. Then she went forth 

 to seek food, but during her absence the master again plas- 

 tered up the hole. The object was again removed by means 

 of the magic poa, and a third time the hole was stopped and 

 opened in the same way. 



The springwort and several other flowering plants were 

 credited in old times with a magical property in opening locks. 

 "Pliny records the superstition concerning it almost in the 

 same form in which it is now found in Germany. If any- 

 one touches a lock with it the lock, however strong, must 

 yield. . . . One cannot easily find it oneself, but generally the 

 woodpecker [according to Pliny, also the raven; in Switzer- 

 land and Swabia the hoopoe; in the Tyrol the swallow] will 

 bring it under the following circumstances: When the bird 



