The bird flies away, and presently returns
with the springwort, which it applies to the plug, causing it
to shoot out with a loud explosion. The same account is given
in German folk-lore. Elsewhere, as in Iceland, Normandy, and
ancient Greece, the bird is an eagle, a swallow, an ostrich,
or a hoopoe.
In the Icelandic and Pomeranian myths the schamir, or
"raven-stone," also renders its possessor invisible,--a
property which it shares with one of the treasure-finding
plants, the fern.[30] In this respect it resembles the ring of
Gyges, as in its divining and rock-splitting qualities it
resembles that other ring which the African magri-cian gave to
Aladdin, to enable him to descend into the cavern where stood
the wonderful lamp.
[30] "We have the receipt of fern-seed. We walk invisible."--
Shakespeare, Henry IV. See Ralston, Songs of the Russian
People, p. 98
According to one North German tradition, the luck-flower also
will make its finder invisible at pleasure. But, as the myth
shrewdly adds, it is absolutely essential that the flower be
found by accident: he who seeks for it never finds it! Thus
all cavils are skilfully forestalled, even if not
satisfactorily disposed of. The same kind of reasoning is
favoured by our modern dealers in mystery: somehow the
"conditions" always are askew whenever a scientific observer
wishes to test their pretensions.
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