[67] Cfr. the _Biblioteca delle Tradizioni Popolari Siciliane_, edited by Gius. Pitrè, ii. canto 811.
[68] In Richardus Dinothus, quoted by Aldrovandi.
[71] Cfr. Du Cange, _s. v._ "canem ferre." The ignominy connected with this punishment has perhaps a phallic signification, the dog and the phallos appear in connection with each other in an unpublished legend maliciously narrated at Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, near Florence, and which asserts that woman was not born of a man, but of a dog. Adam was asleep; the dog carried off one of his ribs; Adam ran after the dog to recover it, but brought back nothing save the dog's tail, which came away in his hand. The tail of the ass, horse, or pig, which is left in the peasant's hand in other burlesque traditions, besides serving as an indication, as the most visible part, to find the lost or fallen animal again, or to return into itself, may perhaps have a meaning analogous to that of the tail of Adam's dog.--I hope the reader will pardon me these frequent repugnant allusions to indecent images; but being obliged to go back to an epoch in which idealism was still in its cradle, while physical life was in all its plenitude of vigour, images were taken in preference from the things of a more sensible nature, and which made a deeper and more abiding impression. It is well known that in the production of the Vedic fire by means of the friction of two sticks, the male and the female are alluded to, so that the grandiose and splendid poetical myth of Prometheus had its origin in the lowest of similitudes.
THE CAT, THE WEASEL, THE MOUSE, THE MOLE, THE SNAIL, THE ICHNEUMON, THE SCORPION, THE ANT, THE LOCUST, AND THE GRASSHOPPER.
Mârǵâras, mârgaras, mṛigas, mṛigâris, mṛigarâǵas.--Nakulas.--Mûsh.--Vamras, vamrî, vaprî, valmîkam, _formica_.--The serpent and the ants.--Indras as an ant; the serpent eaten by the ants.--Vamras drinking, assisted by the Açvinâu.--The grateful ant; the hermit-dwarfs.--Ants' milk.--Ants' legs.--The ant dies when its wings grow; the ants and the treasure.--The ants separate the grains.--The locust and the ant; çarabhas as the moon.--Grasshopper and ant.--Avere il grillo, aver la luna; indovinala, grillo.--Wedding between ant and grasshopper.--Locusts destroyed by fire.--Hippomürmêkes.--The Indian locust that guards honey again.--The scorpion, and its poison absorbed.--The ichneumon, enemy of the serpent.--The weasel.--Galanthis.--The cat with ears of butter.--The cat as a judge.--The lynx.--The penitent cat.--The beneficent cat.--The cat with a golden tail.--Cat and dog as friends; the dog carries the cat; they find the lost ring again.--The new-born son changed for a cat.--The cat that sings and tells tales.--The cat created by the moon; Diana as a cat.--The sacred cat.--The funereal and diabolical cat.--Cat and fox.--The cat hangman.--_Le chat botté_.--_Chatte blanche;_ the cat that spins and weaves.--The cat becomes a girl.--The enchanted palace of the cats.--The cats of February; the black cat; the cat dreamed-of.--The cat becomes a witch at seven years of age.--The cat in the sack.--The mewing of the cat.--The cats dispute for souls.--Battle of cats.--The mice that bite their tails or that gnaw the threads of the net.--The mouse in the honey.--The mouse that becomes a maiden; the mouse and the mountain.--The mouse that becomes a tiger.--The souls of the dead pass into mice; funereal and diabolical mice; superstitions relating to this belief.--The mouse that releases the lion and the elephant from the trap.--Ganeças crushes the mouse; Apollo Smyntheus.--When the cat's away the mice can dance.--The mouse plays blind-man's-buff with the bear.--The grateful mouse.--The mouse that foresees the future.--Mouse and sparrow, first friends and then enemies.--The batrachomyomachia.--The mouse, the tooth, and the coin.--Hiraṇyakas; the squirrel.--The monster mole; the mole as a gravedigger; the blind mole.--The snail in the popular song; the snail and the serpent; the snail as a funereal animal.