elty.

To these European tales a very interesting parallel is afforded by
the Indian story of "Punchkin,"[134] whose life depends on that of a
parrot, which is in a cage placed beneath the lowest of six jars of
water, piled one on the other, and standing in the midst of a desolate
country covered with thick jungle. When the parrot's legs and wings
are pulled off, Punchkin loses his legs and arms; and when its neck is
wrung, his head twists round and he dies.

One of the strangest of the stories which turn on this idea of an
external heart is the Samoyed tale,[135] in which seven brothers are
in the habit, every night, of taking out their hearts and sleeping
without them. A captive damsel whose mother they have killed, receives
the extracted hearts and hangs them on the tent-pole, where they
remain till the following morning. One night her brother contrives to
get the hearts into his possession. Next morning he takes them into
the tent, where he finds the brothers at the point of death. In vain
do they beg for their hearts, which he flings on the floor. "And as he
flings down the hearts the brothers die."

The legend to which I am now about to refer will serve as a proof of
the venerable antiquity of the myth from which the folk-tales, which
have just been quoted, appear to have sprung. A papyrus, which is
supposed to be "of the age of the nineteenth dynasty, about B.C.
1300," has preserved an Egyptian tale about two brothers. The younger
of these, Satou, leaves the elder, Anepou (Anubis) and retires to the
Valley of the Acacia. But, before setting off, Satou states that he
shall take his heart and place it "in the flowers of the acacia-tree,"
so that, if the tree is cut down, his heart will fall to the ground
and he will die. Having given Anepou instructions what to do in such a
case, he seeks the valley. There he hunts wild animals by day, and at
night he sleeps under the acacia-tree on which his heart rests. But at
length Noum, the Creator, forms a wife for him, and all the other gods
endow her with gifts. To this Egyptian Pandora Satou confides the
secret of his heart. One day a tress of her perfumed hair floats down
the river, and is taken to the King of Egypt. He determines to make
its owner his queen, and she, like Rhodope or Cinderella, is sought
for far and wide. When she has been found and brought to the king, she
recommends him to have the acacia cut down, so as to get rid of her
lawful husband. Accordingly