FISHES IN FABLE AND FAIRY-TALE. 57 



three grateful fish bring to the servant, in a mussel-shell, 

 the ring that brings every one joy ; in the Russian the 

 crayfish recovers the merchant's magic snuff-box. Nor are 

 these, probably, a half of the fairy legends that have all 

 grown out of Kalidasa's beautiful creation. 



Specially noteworthy among these jewel-restoring, and 

 so (by a not unreasonable extension) treasure-defending, 

 fishes is the pike. It is, says Afanassieff, a fish of great 

 repute in northern mythology. One of the old Russian 

 songs, still sung at Christmas, tells how the pike comes 

 from Novogorod, its scales of silver and gold, its back 

 woven with pearls, and costly diamonds gleaming in its 

 head instead of eyes. And this song is one which promises 

 wealth, a fact connecting the Russian fish with that Scandi- 

 navian pike which was a shape assumed by Andvarri, the 

 dwarf-guardian of the famous treasure, from which sprang 

 the woes recounted in the Volsunga Saga and the Nibe- 

 lungenlied. According to a Lithuanian tradition there is 

 a certain lake which is ruled by the monstrous pike 

 Strukis. It sleeps only once a year, and then only for 

 a single hour. It used always to sleep on St. John's night, 

 but a fisherman once took advantage of its slumber to 

 catch a quantity of its scaly subjects. Strukis awoke in 

 time to upset the fisherman's boat, but fearing a repetition 

 of the attempt, it now changes every year the hour of its 

 annual sleep.* 



Apart from any special characteristic in the nature of their 

 service to man, fish play in the folk-tale a most important 

 part. In every country the cultus of the water-spirit has 

 more or less obtained, and the aqueous feature of local 

 myth being thus popularly accepted, the prominence of 

 water-things is a natural result, just as among tribes to 



* Ralston's ' Russian Folk-tales,' chapter iv. 



