BOOK
is employed by the African magician, when he has kindled a fire
from which rises a dense smoke and vapour, and the instantaneous
effect, as of the Hghtning, is the discovery of a way into the depths of
the earth. In the tale of Ahmed and the Peri Banou, the Schamir
or Sassafras is again an arrow which, when shot by the hand of the
prince, travels so far as to become invisible, as the lightnings shine
from the east and give light to the uttermost west Following its
course, he comes to a great mountain, and finds the arrow just where
an opening in the rocks shows him a door by which he descends into
a place of unimaginable splendour. Here he is greeted by the queen
of this magnificent domain, who calls him by his name, and having
convinced him of her knowledge of all his actions by recounting
incidents of his past life, offers herself to him as his bride. With her
he dwells in happiness and luxury, until, driven by a yearning to see
his home and his father once more, he beseeches the benignant being
to suffer him to go, and at length obtains his wish after promising,
like true Thomas in the myth of Ercildoune, that he will soon return.
This beautiful Peri with her vast treasures and her marvellous wisdom
is but a reflexion of the wise Kirke and Medeia, or of the more
tender Kalypso, who woos the brave Odysseus in her glistening cave,
until she is compelled to let the man of many sorrows go on his way
to his vdfe Penelope. She is, in short, the Venus of the Horselberg
or Ercildoune (the hill of Ursula and her eleven thousand Virgins),
for the names are the same, and the prince Ahmed is Tanhaiiser, or
Thomas the Rimer, wooed and won by the Elfland queen.
The greedy It is obvious that for the name of the flower which is to open the cave or the treasure-house might be substituted any magical formula, while the lightning-flash might be represented by the lighting of a miraculous taper, the extinguishing of which is followed by a loud crashing noise. With these modifications the myth at once assumes the form of the Spanish legend of the Moor's Legacy, as related by Washington Irving. In this delightful tale we have all the usual incidents of features — the buried treasures — the incantation which has " such virtue that the strongest bolts and bars, nay, the adaman- tine rock itself, will yield before it " — the wonderful taper by whose light alone the incantation can be read — the opening of the secret places of the earth while the taper continues to burn — the crash with which the gates close when the light is gone. All these features are
so skilfully fitted into the modern Alhambra legend, as fairly to hide Vcey, with which he unlocks the earth, oflight." — TLahion, So»o-so/(Ae/iussian brings to light "its hidden treasures, /"t'l'/A-, 96. its restrained waters, its captive founts
