[250] For a similar reason, perhaps, ancient Hindoo ritual prescribed
that when the hair of a child's head was shorn in the third year, the
clippings should be buried in a cow-stable, or near an _udumbara_ tree,
or in a clump of _darbha_ grass, with the words, "Where Pushan,
Brihaspati, Savitri, Soma, Agni dwell, they have in many ways searched
where they should deposit it, between heaven and earth, the waters and
heaven." See _The Grihya-Sutras_, translated by H. Oldenberg, Part ii.
(Oxford, 1892) p. 218 (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xxx.).

[251] Petronius, _Sat._ 48; Pausanias, x. 12: 8; Justin Martyr, _Cohort
ad Graecos_, 37, p. 34 c (ed. 1742). According to another account, the
remains of the Sibyl were enclosed in an iron cage which hung from a
pillar in an ancient temple of Hercules at Argyrus (Ampelius, _Liber
Memorialis_, viii. 16).

[252] A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Nord-deutsche Sagen, Maerchen und
Gebraeuche_ (Leipsic, 1848), p. 70, No. 72. i. This and the following
German parallels to the story of the Sibyl's wish were first indicated
by Dr. M.R. James (_Classical Review_, vi. (1892) p. 74). I have already
given the stories at length in a note on Pausanias, x. 12. 8 (vol. v.
pp. 292 _sq._).

[253] A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _op. cit._ pp. 70 _sq._, No. 72. 2.

[254] A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _op. cit._ p. 71, No. 72. 3.

[255] Karl Muellenhoff, _Sagen, Maerchen und Lieder der Herzogthuemer
Holstein und Lauenburg_ (Kiel, 1845), pp. 158 _sg._, No. 217.

CHAPTER III

THE MYTH OF BALDER

[How Balder, the good and beautiful god, was done to death by a stroke
of the mistletoe.]

A deity whose life might in a sense be said to be neither in heaven nor
on earth but between the two, was the Norse Balder, the good and
beautiful god, the son of the great god Odin, and himself the wisest,
mildest, best beloved of all the immortals. The story of his death, as
it is told in the younger or prose _Edda_, runs thus. Once on a time
Balder dreamed heavy dreams which seemed to forebode his death.
Thereupon the gods held a council and resolved to make him secure
against every danger. So the goddess Frigg took an oath from fire and
water, iron and all metals, stones and earth, from trees, sicknesses and
poisons, and from all four-footed beasts, birds, and creeping things,
that they would not hurt Balder. When this was done Balder was deemed
invulnerable; so the gods amused themselves by setting him in their