VI._THE RENEWAL OF YOUTH VI.—Tue Renewar or Yourn (Apollodorus 1. ix. 27) Stories like that of Medea and Pelias have been re- corded among European peasantry in Scandinavia, Germany, Russia, and Italy. They tell how Christ, or St. Peter, or the Devil, going about on earth in disguise, restored an old person to youth or a dead person to life by boiling him in a kettle or burning him in o smith’s forge, and how a bungler (generally ith) tried to perform the same feat but failed.’ A similar story is told of a certain mythical king of Cambodia, named Pra Thong Rat Koma, who in his later years was afflicted with leprosy. “A learned Brahmin offered to cure him of his malady; but first it was necessary that he should be killed, and thrown into e cauldron of Boiling medicine, from which he would emerge alive and clean. The King refused to believe in the Brahmin’s power, but the Brahmin took a dog, which he killed and threw into ey heer ee when aan mediately jumped out and frisked abont. Still the Kin, doubted. Theren n the Brahmin offered to sla: himeelt” and he gave the Bing three drugs which were to be thrown successively into the cauldron. The first would give form to the dead body; the second, beauty; the third, life. Then the Brahmin flung himself into the boiling medicine, but the King, forgetful of his instructions, threw in all the drugs at once, and the Brahmin was changed to a stone statue.” ? The Shans of Lakon tell a similar story of one of 1 (Sir) G. W. Dasent, Popular Tales from the Norse (Edinburgh, 1859), pp. 106 agg, ‘‘The Master-Smith” ; Grimm, Household , No. 81, “Brother Lustig,” vol. i. RP: 312 eqq., 440 ag. (English translation by M. Hunt); . BR. 8 Ralston, Russian Folk-tales (London, 1873), pp. 57 egq., ‘The Smith and the Demon”; T. F. Crane, Tialian Popular Tales (London, 1885), pp. 188 sg., “The Lord, St. Peter and the Blacksmith.” 2p. A. Thompson, Lotus Land (London, 1906), pp. 300 eg. The story ia told, with some unimportant variations, by Adolf Bastian, who calls the king Krung Phala. See A. Bastian, Die Voelker des oestlichen Asien, I (Leipsic, 1866), pp. 444 2qq. 359APPENDIX their early kings, who lived in the time of Buddha. The say that ‘Komema Rattsce, ‘a famous magician, demigod, and doctor, visited Lakon, and informed the princes a people that by his medicines and charms he could add beauty and restore youth and life to anyone, however he might have been dismembered and mangled. A decrepit old prince, who was verging on dotage, and longed for a renewal of his youth, begged the magician to experiment upon him. The doctor, after mincing him up, prepared a magic broth, and, throwing the fragments into it, placed it over the fire. After performing the necessary incantations, the prince, re- juvenated and a perfect beau, was handed out of the pot. He wos 80 pleased with his new appearance, and the new spirit of youth and joy pervading him, that he entreated the magician to re-perform the operation, as he thought the first chopping up having been so successful, still greater benefits would accrue from its repetition. On the magician refusing, he clamorously persisted in his request. The demigod, an- noyed at. his persistence and his covetousness, accordingly minced him up and put him into the pot, where he remains tothisday. ‘The hill where the Phya, or prince, was dipped, is called Loi Phya Cheh (the hill of the dipped Phya); and a hill near it is known as Loi Rattsee (Russi), after the ma- gician.”? The Papuans of Geelvink Bay, on the northern coast of Dutch New Guinea, tell of an old man who used to earn his living by selling the intoxicating juice of the sago-palm. But to his vexation he often found that the vessels, which he had set overnight to catch the dripping juice of the tapped palms, were drained dry in the morning, As the people in his village denied all knowledge of the theft, he resolved to watch, and was lucky enough to catch the thief in the very act, and who should the thief be but the Morning Star? To ransom herself from his clutches she bestowed on him a magical stick or wand, the possession of which ensured to its owner the fulfilment of every wish. In time the old man married a wife, but she was not pleased that her husband was so old and so covered with scal 80 one day he resolved to give her a joyful surprise by renewing 1 Holt 8. Hallett, A Thousand Miles on an $n the Shan States (Edinburgh and London, 1890), pp. 269 ag. 360VI—THE RENEWAL OF YOUTH his youth with the help of his magic wand. For this purpose he retired into the forest and kindled a great: fire of iron-wood. When the flames blazed up he flung himself among the glowing embers, and immediately his shrivelled skin peeled off, and all the scabs were turned into copper trinkets, beautiful corals, and gold and silver bracelets. Ete himself came forth from the fire a handsome young man, decked himself with some of the ornaments and returned to his house. But there neither his wife nor her sister recog- nised him ; and only his little son cried out, ‘‘ There comes father!” However, when he explained to the women how he had been made young again, and convinced them of the truth of his story by conducting them to the place in the wood where the remains of the fire were still to be seen, with the rest of ‘the trinkets lying about, their joy knew no bounds.? ' We may conjecture that these stories reflect a real belief in the possibility of renewing youth and prolonging life by means of the genial influence of fire. The conjecture de- rives some support from a custom observed by the Wajagga of Mount Kilimandjaro in East Africa. Among them “the wizards boast of possessing the power to protect people against sickness and death. A peculiar custom may be quoted as an example. It is called ndumo woika ndu nniné: ‘custom of boiling a nobleman.’ When a great man desires to make himself a name, and also to prolong his life, he has this ceremony performed over him. He invites all his relations to come who desire to take part in it. The wizard arrives early in the morning, and first of all causes a trench to be dug large enough to allow # man to lie on one side of it with his legs drawn up ; and his wife or a girl of the family lies down beside him. The wizard usually says to him, “Step in with your favourite wife.’ Only in case she refuses does he ask a girl to do him this service. When the man with his female companion has laid himeelf down in the 1 J, B. van Hasselt, ‘Die Noeforezen,” Zeitschrift fir Ethnologie, viii. (1876), pp. 176-178; J. L. van Hasselt ‘Die Papuastimme an der Geelvinkbai (Neuguinea),” Mst- tl der iechen Gesellechaft zu Jena, ix. (Jena, 1891), pp. 103-105. The story is told more briefly by A. Goudswaard, Die Papoewa’s van de Geelvinksbaat (Schiedam, 1863), pp. 84-87. 361APPENDIX trench, poles are placed over it, and on the poles banana- bark and earth. After the trench has thus been covered in, the man’s three hearthstones are set over them at the heads (of the pair), a fire is kindled between them, a pot is placed on the fire, and food is boiled in it. This fire is kept up till evening, and the boiled food is eaten by those who take part in the ceremony, while the two who lie in the trench get none of it. Not till gvening are they liberated from their confinement. In the heat they have been obliged to sweat profusely. The wizard now spits on them and says more- over, ‘Long life! Even in war thou shalt not be slain, even a musket-ball will not hit thee.’”* Here the process of boiling a pot on & man’s own hearthetones over his, own head, while he sweats at ever: re below, is perhaps the nearest approach that can safely be made to boiling him in person, and the beneficial effect of it is supposed to be a prolongation of the ‘‘ boiled nobleman’s” life. But we have seen that the process of roasting, applied to babies, was believed by the ancient Greeks to be equally effectual in prolonging the lives of the infants, or rather in render- ing them immortal, by stripping off their mortal flesh and leaving only the immortal element.? Thus the Greeks apparently reposed a robust faith in the renovating virtue both of roasting and boiling, but they drew a delicate distinction between the two, for while they roasted babies, they boiled old people, at least theoretically, like the Wajagga of Mount Kilimandjaro. Nor are these the only modes in which the primitive natural philosopher has at- tempted to repair the decaying energies of human and animal life by a judicious application of what we may call thermodynamics: for this purpose he has often either leaped over fire or walked deliberately over glowing stones and has driven his flocks and herds through the smoke and the flames. These experiments in the art of prolonging life, by cauterising, so to say, the germs that Sireaten its con- tinuation, have been descrihed by me elsewhere.® 1 Bruno Gutman, Dichien und Denken der Dechaggans (Leipsic, 1906), p. 162. | 2 Above, Pp. 311 8qq. 3 Balder Beautiful, vol. ii. pp. 1 8qq., ‘“ The-Fire- walk.” Compare Adonis, Attis, Ostris, vol. i. pp. 179 89q., ‘Purification by Fire.”