the rod, stone,
and pitcher of water of the Norse Troll;[165] or the knife, comb, and
handful of salt which, in the Modern Greek story, save Asterinos and
Pulja from their fiendish mother;[166] or the twig, the stone, and the
bladder of water, found in the ear of the filly, which saves her
master from the Gaelic giant;[167] or the brush, comb, and egg, the
last of which produces a frozen lake with "mirror-smooth" surface,
whereon the pursuing Old Prussian witch slips and breaks her
neck;[168] or the wand which causes a river to flow and a mountain to
rise between the youth who waves it and the "wicked old Rakshasa" who
chases him in the Deccan story;[169] or the handful of earth, cup of
water, and dry sticks and match, which impede and finally destroy the
Rakshasa in the almost identical episode of Somadeva's tale of "The
Prince of Varddhamana."[170]

In each instance they appear to typify the influence which the
supernatural beings to whom they belonged were supposed to exercise
over the elements. It has been thought strange that such stress should
be laid on the employment of certain toilet-articles, to the use of
which the heroes of folk-tales do not appear to have been greatly
addicted. But it is evident that like produces like in the
transformation in question. In the oldest form of the story, the
Sanskrit, a handful of earth turns into a mountain, a cup of water
into a river. Now, metaphorically speaking, a brush may be taken as a
miniature wood; the common use of the term brushwood is a proof of the
general acceptance of the metaphor. A comb does not at first sight
appear to resemble a mountain, but its indented outline may have
struck the fancy of many primitive peoples as being a likeness to a
serrated mountain range. Thence comes it that in German _Kamm_ means
not only a comb but also (like the Spanish _Sierra_) a mountain ridge
or crest.[171]

In one of the numerous stories[172] about the Baba Yaga, four heroes
are wandering about the world together; when they come to a dense
forest in which a small izba, or hut, is twirling round on "a fowl's
leg." Ivan, the youngest of the party, utters the magical formula
"Izbushka, Izbushka! stand with back to the forest and front towards
us," and "the hut faces towards them, its doors and windows open of
their own accord." The heroes enter and find it empty. One of the
party then remains indoors, while the rest go out to the chase. The
hero who is left alone prepares