Besides the märchen telling of the interrelations of human and celestial beings, there are also a number of other sorts. Of them we may here single out, as a particularly characteristic type, those which deal with _devourment_. Obviously, as has already been noticed, it is the setting of the sun that very frequently constitutes the central theme of these tales. These märchen of devourment, however, differ from those that deal with celestial journeys in that they clearly exemplify narratives in which only _one_ of the elements consists of a celestial phenomenon; in addition to it, there are regularly also other elements borrowed from the terrestrial environment. Indeed, the latter may of itself originate märchen, independently of the influence of celestial phenomena. We must distinguish at the outset, therefore, between those märchen of devourment that contain celestial elements and others in which these elements are apparently lacking. A familiar example of märchen of devourment is the Biblical legend of Jonah. In its traditional rendering, this is clearly of a relatively late origin, though it is probably based on much older tales. Many of the tales of devourment, which are common to all parts of the earth, centre about a hero, who is generally a courageous youth seeking adventure. The hero is devoured by a monster; he kindles a fire in the belly of the monster, and, by burning up its entrails, rescues himself. The fact that fire figures so prominently in these tales makes it highly probable that they took shape under the influence of observations of the setting sun. Other tales make no mention of fire, but relate that the belly of the monster is extremely hot, and that the heat singes the hair of the one who has been swallowed. In an old illustrated Bible which was recently discovered, Jonah is pictured as having a luxuriant growth of hair at the moment when he is being swallowed; in a second picture, when he comes forth from the belly of the whale, he is entirely bald. But even though this reference to fire and to heat indicates an influence on the part of the sunset, this type of celestial märchen is none the less entirely different from that which deals with journeys to heaven and the return to earth. In the latter, the heaven is itself the scene of action upon which men and animals play their rôles. In the märchen of devourment, the celestial phenomenon imparts certain characteristics to the terrestrial action that is being described, but the latter continues to preserve its terrestrial nature. The narrator of the märchen or legend, therefore, may be wholly unconscious of any reference to the heavens. The psychological process of assimilation causes elements of a celestial phenomenon to be fused into an action of the terrestrial environment and to communicate to the latter certain characteristics without, however, thereby changing the setting of the action. The shark and the alligator are animals capable of devouring men, though this occurs less frequently in reality than in story. Yet because thoughts of this sort arouse strong emotions, they may of themselves very well come to form themes of märchen of devourment. This has frequently been the case. It seems to have happened, for example, in the Jonah legend. The above-mentioned picture in which the prophet is represented as hairless after having been in the belly of the fish, may very well have its source in some other märchen of devourment. In thus combining numerous elements of different origins, the märchen is truly representative of myth development. It shows clearly that the main theme of the myth is usually taken from man's terrestrial environment. True, celestial elements may enter into its composition and may sometimes give to the mythological conception its characteristic features. Even in such cases, however, a consideration of the tale as a whole will show that the celestial elements are completely absorbed by the terrestrial theme; their very existence may be completely unknown to the narrators of the tale. In a similar manner, celestial elements have probably been involved in the formation of other widely current märchen. Thus, the märchen theme underlying the legends of the Babylonian Sargon, the Israelitic Moses, and the Egyptian Osiris, as well as other tales in which a child, secreted in a chest, is borne away by the waves and lands on a distant shore, is generally regarded as having been suggested by the temporary disappearance and reappearance of the sun in a cloudy sky. In this case, however, the supposition is doubtless much more uncertain than in the case of the märchen of devourment.