poisoned biscuit.

So, too, but a few years since, in the heart of the State of New York,
a swindler of genius having made and buried a "petrified giant," one
theologian explained it by declaring it a Phoenician idol, and published
the Phoenician inscription which he thought he had found upon it; others
saw in it proofs that "there were giants in those days," and within a
week after its discovery myths were afloat that the neighbouring remnant
of the Onondaga Indians had traditions of giants who frequently roamed
through that region.(425)

(425) For transformation myths and legends, identifying rocks and stones
with gods and heroes, see Welcker, Gotterlehre, vol. i, p. 220. For
recent and more accessible statements for the general reader, see
Robertson Smith's admirable Lectures on the Religion of the Semites,
Edinburgh, 1889, pp. 86 et seq. For some thoughtful remarks on the
ancient adoration of stones rather than statues, with refernce to
the anointing of stones at Bethel by Jacob, see Dodwell, Tour through
Greece, vol. ii, p. 172; also Robertson Smith, as above, Lecture V. For
Chinese transformation legends, see Denny's Folklore of China, pp. 96,
128. For Hindu and other ancient legends of transformations, see
Dawson, Dictionary of Hindu Mythology; also Coleman, as above; also Cox,
Mythology of the Aryan Nations, pp. 81-97, etc. For such transformations
in Greece, see the Iliad, and Ovid, as above; also Stark, Niobe und die
Niobiden, p. 444 and elsewhere; also Preller, Griechische Mythologie,
passim; also Baumeister, Denkmaler des classischen Alterthums, article
Niobe; also Botticher, as above; also Curtius, Griechische Geschichte,
vol i, pp. 71, 72. For Pausanius's naive confession regarding the
Sipylos rock, see book i, p. 215. See also Texier, Asie Mineure, pp. 265
et seq.; also Chandler, Travels in Greece, vol. ii, p. 80, who seems to
hold to the later origin of the statue. At the end of Baumeister there
is an engraving copied from Stuart which seems to show that, as to the
Niobe legend, at a later period, Art was allowed to help Nature. For the
general subject, see Scheiffle, Programm des K. Gymnasiums in
Ellwangen: Mythologische Parallelen, 1865. For Scandinavian and Teutonic
transformation legends, see Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, vierte Ausg.,
vol. i, p. 457; also Thorpe, Northern Antiquities; also Friedrich,
passim, especially p. 116 et seq.; also, for a mass of very curious
ones, Karl Bartsch, Sagen,