and orders him to be hanged. On the
scaffold he tells his story, and while the king humbles himself in an
agony of remorse, his noble friend is turned into stone.

In the South Indian tale Luxman accompanies Rama, who is carrying home
his bride. Luxman overhears two owls talking about the perils that await
his master and mistress. First he saves them from being crushed by the
falling limb of a banyan-tree, and then he drags them away from an arch
which immediately after gives way. By and by, as they rest under a tree,
the king falls asleep. A cobra creeps up to the queen, and Luxman kills
it with his sword; but, as the owls had foretold, a drop of the cobra's
blood falls on the queen's forehead. As Luxman licks off the blood,
the king starts up, and, thinking that his vizier is kissing his wife,
upbraids him with his ingratitude, whereupon Luxman, through grief at
this unkind interpretation of his conduct, is turned into stone. [5]

For further illustration we may refer to the Norse tale of the "Giant
who had no Heart in his Body," as related by Dr. Dasent. This burly
magician having turned six brothers with their wives into stone, the
seventh brother--the crafty Boots or many-witted Odysseus of European
folk-lore--sets out to obtain vengeance if not reparation for the evil
done to his kith and kin. On the way he shows the kindness of his nature
by rescuing from destruction a raven, a salmon, and a wolf. The grateful
wolf carries him on his back to the giant's castle, where the lovely
princess whom the monster keeps in irksome bondage promises to act,
in behalf of Boots, the part of Delilah, and to find out, if possible,
where her lord keeps his heart. The giant, like the Jewish hero, finally
succumbs to feminine blandishments. "Far, far away in a lake lies an
island; on that island stands a church; in that church is a well; in
that well swims a duck; in that duck there is an egg; and in that egg
there lies my heart, you darling." Boots, thus instructed, rides on the
wolf's back to the island; the raven flies to the top of the steeple and
gets the church-keys; the salmon dives to the bottom of the well, and
brings up the egg from the place where the duck had dropped it; and
so Boots becomes master of the situation. As he squeezes the egg,
the giant, in mortal terror, begs and prays for his life, which Boots
promises to spare on condition that his brothers and their brides should
be released from their enchantment. But