f some cocoa-nuts
and bread-fruit, which he had reserved against the last extremity. When
all was finished, he said he had eaten his last meal and was about to
die. He ordered his son to cover him with leaves and grass, and return
to the spot in four days. If worms were crawling about, he was to throw
leaves and grass over them and come back four days later. Kationgia did
as he was instructed, and, on his second visit to the grave, found the
whole mass of leaves in commotion. A brood of pigs, black, white and
speckled, had sprung up from the soil; famine was a thing of the past,
and Kationgia became a great chief in the island.(5)

(1) Schoolcraft, ii. 229, 230.

(1) Boeo, quoted by Antoninus Liberalis.

(3) Gill, South Sea Myths, pp. 88-95.

(4) Artemidorus in his Love Elegies, quoted by the Pseud-Eratosthenes.

(5) Gill, Myths and Songs from South Pacific, pp. 135-138.

"The owl was a baker's daughter" is the fragment of Christian mythology
preserved by Ophelia. The baker's daughter behaved rudely to our Lord,
and was changed into the bird that looks not on the sun. The Greeks had
a similar legend of feminine impiety by which they mythically explained
the origin of the owl, the bat and the eagle-owl. Minyas of Orchomenos
had three daughters, Leucippe, Arsippe and Alcathoe, most industrious
women, who declined to join the wild mysteries of Dionysus. The god
took the shape of a maiden, and tried to win them to his worship. They
refused, and he assumed the form of a bull, a lion, and a leopard as
easily as the chiefs of the Abipones become tigers, or as the chiefs
among the African Barotse and Balonda metamorphose themselves into
lions and alligators.(1) The daughters of Minyas, in alarm, drew lots to
determine which of them should sacrifice a victim to the god. Leucippe
drew the lot and offered up her own son. They then rushed to join the
sacred rites of Dionysus, when Hermes transformed them into the bat,
the owl and the eagle-owl, and these three hide from the light of the
sun.(2)

(1) Livingstone, Missionary Travels, pp. 615, 642.

(2) Nicander, quoted by Antoninus Liberalis.

A few examples of Bushman and Australian myths explanatory of the
colours and habits of animals will probably suffice to establish the
resemblance between savage and Hellenic legends of this character. The
Bushman myth about the origin of the eland (a large antelope) is not
printed in full by Dr. Bleek, but he observes that it