I 



BELIEFS ABOUT THE SOUL. 205 



Sir John Lubbock * has traced this belief in the jiower of the soul 

 to leave and return to the body to the inhabitants of Madagascar, 

 the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Mangaujas of South and the Yoru- 

 bans of West Africa, the Tongans, the Peruvians, and other tribes. 



Frequently the soul in its mundane journeyings took the visi- 

 ble guise of some animal. Grimm f tells us how King Gun- 

 thram's soul, while he slept on his faithful follower's laj), came 

 out of his mouth in the form of a snake, and attempted to cross a 

 stream. To aid the snake, the henchman bridges the stream with 

 his sword, when it passes over, goes up a hill, and, after a little, 

 returns and enters the king's mouth. Presently the king wakes, 

 and relates how in a dream he had crossed an iron bridge, and 

 entered a mountain filled with gold. Claud Paradin, J in his 

 " Symbola Heroica," has a variant of this wonderful dream, ac- 

 companying the legend with an engraving of a sword with a small 

 animal — possibly a mouse — standing on the blade, and the motto 

 " Sic sopor irrupit." In this variant the king returns to his palace 

 and summons all the wise men of his kingdom to interpret the 

 dream, and for once in the world's history the opinions of the 

 savants were unanimous. A large treasure was concealed in the 

 hill, and its existence was thus revealed by a miracle. 



Hugh Miller * illustrates the Celtic theory of dreams by a simi- 

 lar legend. Two young men sitting on a mossy bank overhang- 

 ing a small cascade, one of them, overcome by the heat of the day, 

 falls asleep, when his companion is surprised to see issue from his 

 mouth a little indistinct form scarcely larger than a humble-bee, 

 which disappears over the cascade. The watcher in alarm tries to 

 waken his companion, but, before he succeeds, the cloud-like creat- 

 ure returns and enters the sleeper's mouth. Then he opens his 

 eyes and relates a wonderful dream; how he crossed a broad 

 river on a bridge of silver, and found on the further shore heaps 

 of gold and jewels. It is more frequently the guise of a mouse 

 that the wandering soul delights to masquerade in, though ac- 

 cording to Grimm || it is the devil's brides out of whose mouths 

 the soul runs in the shape of a red mouse. Thus we are told that 

 in Thuringia a servant-girl fell asleep while her companions were 

 shelling nuts, when they observed a little red mouse creep out 

 from her parted lips and run out of the window. One of those 

 present then shook the sleeper, but, not succeeding in waking her, 

 moved her to another place. Presently the mouse ran back to 

 the former place, and dashed about, seeking the girl, but, not find- 

 ing her, it vanished, when the girl instantly died.^ A miller, cut- 

 ting fire- wood in the Black Forest, fell asleep over his work, when 



* " Origin of Civilization," p. 214 et seq. * " Schools and Schoolmasters." 



f " Teutonic Mythology," vol. iii, p. 1082. | Grimm, loc. cit. 



X Chambers's " Cock of Days," vol. i, p. 276. ^ Baring-Gould, " Curious My th^,'' p. 424. 



