IMAGES AND NAMES. 115 



until the waves flowed over her shoulders, when he repeated a 

 charm, which converted her into a rock that still bears her 

 name. Then he went joyfully on his way.^ 



So the figure of the weeping Niobe turned into a rock, might 

 be seen on Mount Sipylus.^ So the circles of upright stones, 

 set up long ago, on downs and hilltops in England and else- 

 where, we cannot tell certainly for what purpose, have sug- 

 gested the idea of a ring-dance, and the story has shaped itself, 

 perhaps in Puritan times, that such a ring was a party of girls 

 who were turned into stone for dancing carols on a Sunday. 



There is a tradition, probably stiU current in Palestine, of a 

 city between Petra and Hebron, whose inhabitants were turned 

 into stone for their wickedness. This tradition may have been 

 embodied in the Arabian Nights story of the city of fire-wor- 

 shippers, who refused to embrace Islam, and were turned into 

 stone. Seetzen, the traveller, visited the spot where the re- 

 mains of the petrified inhabitants of the wicked city are still 

 to be seen, and he found their heads, a number of stony con- 

 cretions, lying scattered on the ground.^ 



The myths of footprints stamped into the rock by gods or 

 mighty men are not the least curious of this class, not only 

 from the power of imagination required to see footprints in 

 mere round or long cavities, but also from the unanimity with 

 which Egyptians, Greeks, Brahmans, Buddhists, Christians, 

 and Moslems have adopted them as relics, each from their 

 own point of view. The typical case is the sacred footprint of 

 Ceylon, which is a cavity in the rock, 5 feet long by 2 J feet 

 wide, at the top of Adam's Peak, made into something like 

 a huge footstep by mortar divisions for the toes. Brahmans, 

 Buddhists, and Moslems still climb the mountain to do re- 

 verence to it ; but to the Brahman it is the footstep of Siva, to 

 the Buddhist of the great founder of his religion, Gautama 

 Buddha, and to the Moslem it is the spot where Adam stood 

 when he was driven from Paradise ; while the Gnostics have 



1 W. B. Baker, On Maori Popular Poetry, Trans. Eth. Soc. ; London, 1861, 

 p. 49. 



^ Pausanias, i. 21. 



2 Eenrick, ' Essay on Primeeyal History ; ' London, 1846, p. 41, 



i2 



