the rain-clouds (Gubernatis,
_ib._ vol. I. pp. 9, 17), and also to lightning (see _ib._ vol. II. p.
10, where the sun under the form of a bull is spoken of as the fire
which sends forth lightning).

First there is Samson, whose name, according to Gesenius, means
"solar," "like the sun." Of the hero Firud, it is told "that a single
hair of his head has more strength in it than many warriors"
(Gubernatis, _Zoological Mythology_, vol. I. p. 117). Conan was the
weakest man of the Feinn, because they used to keep him cropped. "He
had but the strength of a man; but if the hair should get leave to
grow, there was the strength of a man in him for every hair that was
in his head; but he was so cross that if the hair should grow he would
kill them all" (Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, vol.
III. p. 396). At p. 91 of Schmidt's _Griechische Maerchen, Sagen und
Volkslieder_, is the story of a king, "Der Capitaen Dreizehn," who is
"the strongest of his time," and who has three long hairs, so long
that they could be twisted twice round the hand on his breast. When
these are cut off he becomes the weakest of men. When these grow again
he regains his strength. The sun's rays have most power when they are
longest, _i.e._ when the sun is in apogee.

Possibly from this old forgotten myth about the solar hero's hair came
some superstition to which was due the Merovingian decree that only
princes of the blood-royal should wear their hair long; cutting their
long hair made them incapable of becoming kings. Their slaves were
shaved. The barbarians ruled that only their free men should wear long
hair, and that the slaves should be shaved. Professor Monier Williams,
in the _Contemporary Review_ for January 1879, p. 265, says that
Govind, the 10th Guru and founder of the Sikh nationality, ordered the
Sikhs to wear their hair long to distinguish themselves from other
nations.

In the Slavonic story, "Leben, Abenteuer und Schwaenke des kleinen
Kerza," is a dwarf magician with a long white beard. With a hair from
this beard Kerza binds the magician's wicked wife, who has taken the
form of a wooden pillar the better to carry out her evil ends. From
that moment it was impossible for her to take again her own shape or
to use her former magic powers (Vogl's _Volksmaerchen_, p. 227). One
of the tasks set by Yspaddaden Penkawr to Kilhwch before he will give
him his daughter Olwen to wife, is to get him "a leash made from the
beard of