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eaks the egg. Koshchei falls on the floor and dies. This heart-breaking episode occurs in the folk-tales of many lands.[125] It may not be amiss to trace it through some of its forms. In a Norse story[126] a Giant's heart lies in an egg, inside a duck, which swims in a well, in a church, on an island. With this may be compared another Norse tale,[127] in which a _Haugebasse_, or Troll, who has carried off a princess, informs her that he and all his companions will burst asunder when above them passes "the grain of sand that lies under the ninth tongue in the ninth head" of a certain dead dragon. The grain of sand is found and brought, and the result is that the whole of the monstrous brood of Trolls or _Haugebasser_ is instantaneously destroyed. In a Transylvanian-Saxon story[128] a Witch's "life" is a light which burns in an egg, inside a duck, which swims on a pond, inside a mountain, and she dies when it is put out. In the Bohemian story of "The Sun-horse"[129] a Warlock's "strength" lies in an egg, which is within a duck, which is within a stag, which is under a tree. A Seer finds the egg and sucks it. Then the Warlock becomes as weak as a child, "for all his strength had passed into the Seer." In the Gaelic story of "The Sea-Maiden,"[130] the "great beast with three heads" which haunts the loch cannot be killed until an egg is broken, which is in the mouth of a trout, which springs out of a crow, which flies out of a hind, which lives on an island in the middle of the loch. In a Modern Greek tale the life of a dragon or other baleful being comes to an end simultaneously with the lives of three pigeons which are shut up in an all but inaccessible chamber,[131] or inclosed within a wild boar.[132] Closely connected with the Greek tale is the Servian story of the dragon[133] whose "strength" (_snaga_) lies in a sparrow, which is inside a dove, inside a hare, inside a boar, inside a dragon (_ajdaya_) which is in a lake, near a royal city. The hero of the story fights the dragon of the lake, and after a long struggle, being invigorated at the critical moment by a kiss which the heroine imprints on his forehead--he flings it high in the air. When it falls to the ground it breaks in pieces, and out comes the boar. Eventually the hero seizes the sparrow and wrings its neck, but not before he has obtained from it the charm necessary for the recovery of his missing brothers and a number of other victims of the dragon's cru
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