GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MYTHS. 353 



Polombe. And above the Cytee is a grete Mountayne, that 

 also is clept Polombe ; and of that Mount the Cytee hathe his 

 name. And at the Foot of that Mount, is a fayr Welle and a 

 gret, that hathe odour and savour of alle Spices ; and at every 

 hour of the day^ he chaungethe his odour and his savour 

 dyversely. And whoso drynkethe 3 tynies fasting of that 

 Watre of that Welle, he is hool of alle maner sykenesse, that 

 he hathe. And thei that dwellen there and drynken often of 

 that Welle, thei nevere han Sekenesse, and thei semen alle ways 

 5onge. I have dronken there of 3 or 4 sithes ; and 5it, me- 

 thinkethe, I fare the better. Sum men clepen it the Welle of 

 5outhe : for thei that often drynken there of, semen alle weys 

 5ongly, and lyven with outen Sykenesse. And men seyn, that 

 that Welle cometh out of Paradijs : and therfore it is so ver- 

 tuous." ' 



When Cambyses sent the Fish-Eaters to spy out the condi- 

 tion of the long-lived Ethiopians, and the messengers won- 

 dered to hear that they lived a hundred and twenty years or 

 more, the Ethiopians took them to a fountain, where, when 

 they had bathed, their bodies shone as if they had been oiled, 

 and smelt like the scent of violets.^ In Europe, too, stories of 

 miraculously healing fountains have long been current.^ The 

 Moslem geographer Ibn-el-Wardi places the Fountam of Life 

 in the dark south-western regions of the earth. El-Khidr 

 drank of it, and will live till the day of judgment; and Ilyas or 

 Elias, whom popular belief mixes not only with El-Khidr, but 

 also with St. George, the Dragon-slayer, has drunk of it like- 

 wise.* Farther east, the idea is to be found in the Malay 

 islands. Batara Guru drinks from a poisonous spring, but 

 • saves himself and the rest of the gods by finding a well of life ; 

 and again, Nurtjaja compels the pandit Kabib, the guardian of 

 the caverns below the earth, where flows the spring of immor- 

 tality, to let him drink of its waters, and even to take some for 

 his descendants.* In the Hawaiian legend, Kamapiikai, " the 

 child who runs over the sea," goes with forty companions to 



1 ' The Voiageand Travaile of Sir JoLn Maundevile, Kt. ;' London, 1725, p. 204. 



2 Herod., iii. c. 23. ^ Grimm, D. M., p. 554. Perty, p. 149. 



* Lane, ' Thousand and One Nights,' vol. i. p. 20. * Schirren, p. 124. 



2 A 



