he wish-rod, with its kindred talismans,
from Aladdin's lamp and the purse of Bedreddin Hassan, to the Sangreal,
the philosopher's stone, and the goblets of Oberon and Tristram. These
symbols of the reproductive energies of nature, which give to the
possessor every good and perfect gift, illustrate the uncurbed belief in
the power of wish which the ancient man shared with modern children. In
the Norse story of Frodi's quern, the myth assumes a whimsical shape.
The prose Edda tells of a primeval age of gold, when everybody had
whatever he wanted. This was because the giant Frodi had a mill which
ground out peace and plenty and abundance of gold withal, so that it lay
about the roads like pebbles. Through the inexcusable avarice of
Frodi, this wonderful implement was lost to the world. For he kept his
maid-servants working at the mill until they got out of patience, and
began to make it grind out hatred and war. Then came a mighty sea-rover
by night and slew Frodi and carried away the maids and the quern. When
he got well out to sea, he told them to grind out salt, and so they did
with a vengeance. They ground the ship full of salt and sank it, and so
the quern was lost forever, but the sea remains salt unto this day.

Mr. Kelly rightly identifies Frodi with the sun-god Fro or Freyr, and
observes that the magic mill is only another form of the fire-churn, or
chark. According to another version the quern is still grinding away
and keeping the sea salt, and over the place where it lies there is a
prodigious whirlpool or maelstrom which sucks down ships.

In its completed shape, the lightning-wand is the caduceus, or rod of
Hermes. I observed, in the preceding paper, that in the Greek conception
of Hermes there have been fused together the attributes of two deities
who were originally distinct. The Hermes of the Homeric Hymn is a
wind-god; but the later Hermes Agoraios, the patron of gymnasia, the
mutilation of whose statues caused such terrible excitement in Athens
during the Peloponnesian War, is a very different personage. He is
a fire-god, invested with many solar attributes, and represents the
quickening forces of nature. In this capacity the invention of fire was
ascribed to him as well as to Prometheus; he was said to be the friend
of mankind, and was surnamed Ploutodotes, or "the giver of wealth."

The Norse wind-god Odin has in like manner acquired several of the
attributes of Freyr and Thor. [63] His lightning-spe