[506] Cfr. the Sanskṛit roots, _kar_, _kur_, _gur_, _gûr_.
[508] Savitâ vâi prasavânâmiço.--_Âit. Br._ The story of Cunaḥçepas; he appears evidently as a form of Praǵâpatis.
[509] The Koribantes remind us of the Salii of the Latins, to whom Numa gives the arms and the words, to be sung leaping. According to Ovid's distich--
"Jam dederat Salii (a saltu nomina ducunt) Armaque et ad certos verba canenda modos." --_Fasti_, iii. 389.
[510] It is interesting in this connection to find in the translation of Lane a passage from the _Aǵáïb-el-Makhlooḳát_ (_Marvels of Creation_), a work of the thirteenth century: "The tortoise is a sea and land animal. As to the sea tortoise it is very enormous, so that the people of the ship imagine it to be an island. One of the merchants relates as follows regarding it: 'We found in the sea an island elevated above the water, having upon it green plants, and we went forth to it, and dug [holes for fire] to cook; whereupon the island moved, and the sailors said, "Come ye to your place, for it is a tortoise, and the heat of the fire hath hurt it, lest it carry you away." By reason of the enormity of its body,' said he [_i.e._, the narrator above mentioned], 'it was as though it were an island, and earth collected upon its back in the length of time, so that it became like land, and produced plants.'" Evidently here the tortoise occupies the same place as, in popular tradition, the lunar whale recorded by us in the chapter on the Fishes. Cfr. Lane, _The Thousand and One Nights_, London, 1841, vol. iii. chap. xx. n. 1 and 8, p. 80 _seq._--Grein, _Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie_, Göttingen, 1857, 1, 235, the Celtic legend of St Brandan and the _Pseudo-Callisthenes_.
THE FROG, THE LACERTA VIRIDIS, AND THE TOAD.
The mâṇḍukâs or frogs as clouds in the _Ṛigvedas_.--Bhekas.--The frog announces the summer; the _canta-rana_ announces Christ.--The serpent, the hero, and the frog.--The frog and the ox.--Dionysos and the frogs.--Indras and the frogs.--The dumb frogs.--Proserpina and the frog.--Rana cum gryllo.--The frog finds the sultan's ring.--The frog and the rook.--The frog as the serpent's daughter.--The demoniacal frog.--The yellow and the green frog.--The beautiful maiden as a frog.--The demoniacal toad.--The sacred toad.--The beautiful maiden as a toad.--The toad in Tuscany, in Sicily, and in Germany.--The handsome youth as a toad.--Women who gave birth to toads.--The venomous and the alexipharmic toad.--Kröte and Schildkröte.--The toad swallows the dew.--The stone of the frog.--The horned lizard.--Eidechse, hagedisse.--Apollo as sauroktanos.--The lizard on St Agnes's Day.--The little lizards must not be killed in Sicily, being intercessors before the Lord.--The amphisbhæna.--The _lacerta viridis_.--The _couleuvre_ as a good fairy.