arrival was an agreeable diversion from the painful thoughts aroused by the prophet's visit, and Alexander greeted him with royal effusion :

"Welcome, O precious head," said he, throwing his arms round the philosopher's neck and kissing him affectionately, "who shinest like the sun among all the Hellenes!"

A friendly interchange of news and narratives followed, and there was much feasting. But the shadow of death already darkened the glory-crowned head.

In the King's household there were two brothers Leucadouses and Bryonouses, by name: one of them was master of the horse, the other cup-bearer to the King. Their mother, who had seen neither of them for years, wrote to them repeatedly urging them to return home. But the King always refused to grant permission. This circumstance, added to the fact that Alexander had knocked the cup-bearer a few days before "with a stick on the head" for breaking a valuable goblet, aroused much disaffection in the brothers' breasts. The arrival of a fresh letter from home added the spark to the fuel. "The crafty devil entered into the cup-bearer's heart," and he resolved to poison his master. The plot found supporters among many of the courtiers-all of them being among the King's dearest friends. Some of the conspirators were actuated by nostalgia, others by wicked ambition. During a banquet a poisoned cup was offered to the King. He quaffed it unsuspectingly and died.

The Romance, which has been much condensed in the above synopsis, ends with the King's will and testament, his death, the death of his murderer, the death of his steed Bucephalus, the wailings and demise of his wife Rhoxandra,' their joint funeral, a sermon, and the moral: "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!"

1 This is the form under which the name appears in the Romance.

A. F.

19

CHAPTER XVI.

BIRD LEGENDS.

CLASSICAL Scholars are familar with the beautiful old myths in which the origin of certain birds is traced to a transfiguration brought about by the direct agency of the gods. The fables of Philomela and Procne, of Itys and Tereus, and of lynx are fresh in every student's memory. Still more so is perhaps the metamorphosis of Halcyon, wife of Ceyx, King of Thessaly, who, in the words of the poet, "flitting along the rocky ridges on the shore of the sea sings her plaintive lay, ever lamenting the loss of her spouse." ""1

Several more or less close parallels to this legend-due either to survival or to revival-exist at the present day in Macedonia.

First among them ranks the widely-known story of the gyon (ykva̸v), a bird, which, so far as I could identify it, seems to be a species of plover.

I. The Gyon.

(From Salonica and Serres.)

There lived once two brothers, who were very jealous of each other and were constantly quarrelling. They had a mother who was wont to say to them:

'Do not wrangle,2 my boys, do not wrangle and quarrel, or Heaven will be wroth against you, and you shall be parted."

But the youths would not listen to their parent's wise counsels, and at last Heaven waxed wroth and carried off one of them. Then the other wept bitterly, and in his grief and remorse prayed to God to give him wings, that he might fly in quest of his brother. God in His mercy heard the prayer and transformed the penitent youth into a gyon.

The peasants interpret the bird's mournful note gyon! gyon! as Anton! Anton! or Gion! Gion! (Albanian form of John) the departed brother's name-and maintain that it lets fall three drops of blood from its beak every time it calls. Whether the alleged bleeding is a reminiscence of Philomela's tongue cut off by Tereus, it is impossible to say with certainty.

Bernhard Schmidt1 compares the name of the bird (ó yêɩóv, or ykɩóvns) with the Albanian form (yjovvé or yjov) and refers to Hahn's Tales for an Albanian parallel, in which the gyon and the cuckoo are described as brother and sister. He also quotes Carnarvon's account of a Southern Greek legend about a bird called κυρά.

'That bird had once been a woman, who, deprived of all her kindred by some great calamity, retired to a solitary mountain to bewail her loss, and continued on the summit forty days, repeating in the sad monotony of grief the lamentation of the country Ah me! ah me!' till at the expiration of that period she was changed by pitying Providence into a bird."

The same industrious collector refers to Newton for a similar story: "The other day we heard a bird uttering a plaintive note, to which another bird responded. When Mehemet Chiaoux (sic) heard this note, he told us with simple earnestness that once upon a time a brother and sister tended their flocks together. The sheep strayed, the shepherdess wandered on in search of them, till at last, exhausted by fatigue and sorrow, she and her brother were changed into a pair of birds, who go repeating the same sad notes. The female bird says: Quzumlari gheurdunmu-Have you seen my sheep?'

1 Griech. Märchen, Sagen und Volkslieder, 11. 3. Der Vogel Gkión, pp. 241-3.

2 Märchen, No. 104.

3 Carnarvon, Reminiscences of Athens and the Morea, p. 111.

to which her mate replies: Gheurmedum—I have not seen them'."1

The "brother and sister" version is characteristically Mohammedan. But with the quest for lost sheep may be compared the following Macedonian legend.

II. The Pee-wit and the Screech-owl.
(From Serres.)

There were once two brothers, the elder called Metro (short for Demetrius), and the younger Georgo. They were horsedealers by trade. One day there came to them a stranger who wished to purchase eight horses. Metro sent his younger

brother to fetch them. Georgo came back with seven horses, besides the one on which he was riding. Metro, who was not remarkable for cleverness, counted only seven, without taking into account the one on which his brother rode. So he said to him:

"Go back and find the horse you've lost."

Georgo, who apparently was as clever as his brother, went away and spent the whole day looking for the missing horse, without for a moment reflecting that he was sitting on its back. In the evening he returned home empty-handed.

brother called to him from afar :

His

Thereupon Metro lost his temper and slew his brother.

In his despair
He was trans-

He did not realize his mistake until the latter had fallen off the horse's back and lay still upon the ground. Metro called on God to change him into a bird. formed into a pee-wit, and ever since cries: Poot? poot? that is Where is it? where is it?' (TOû TO; TOû Tо;). To which his brother, who was turned into a screech-owl, replies in anguish Ah! ah !'2

1 Newton, Travels and Discoveries in the Levant, 11. p. 263.

2 Cp. Le chat-huant, le coucou et la huppe,' G. Georgeakis et Léon Pineau Le Folk-Lore de Lesbos, pp. 337-8.

A third story embodying a similar idea, but possessing a more romantic interest, is the one told about the ring-dove (δεκοχτούρα)

III. The Ring-dove.1

(From Serres.)

It is said that this gentle and affectionate bird was once a young married woman, who was passionately fond of knitting. She had a wicked old woman for a mother-in-law, who always sought or invented pretexts for scolding and beating her. One day, after having maltreated her as usual, she went out to pay calls, and left her daughter-in-law to make bread. The latter kneaded and baked the bread-eighteen loaves in all-and then sat down to her favourite occupation. The old woman on her return home found her knitting and began to upbraid her, saying that there were only seventeen loaves and that she had stolen one. The poor girl protested that there were eighteen. But the other, who could not bear contradiction, grew angry and began to beat her ruthlessly. The girl, no longer able to submit to this injustice, besought God that she might be transformed into a bird and thus escape from her cruel tyrant's clutches. Her prayer was answered and she suddenly became a ring-dove. She still protests sadly that the loaves were eighteen by crying Decochto! decochto! (SEKоxTÓ), whence her name decochtura, and to this day retains the circular dark marking left on her neck by the thread which she had round it, while knitting, at the moment of her change.

These quaint tales, so full of simple sympathy with the feathered creatures to which human passions and human feelings are naïvely ascribed, find their counterparts in several Slavonic folk-stories, which, however, are mostly conceived in a religious spirit. The piteous cry of the pee-wit has suggested to the Russian peasant the notion that it is begging for water

1 This story was told to me by M. Horologas, the theological master at the Gymnasium of Serres, who is a native of Asia Minor. But, as I heard it in Macedonia and have no evidence that it is not known in that province, I venture to include it in the present collection.