nd in the possession of a bird. The same feature in the myth
reappears on Aryan soil. The springwort, whose marvellous powers we have
noticed in the case of the Ilsenstein shepherd, is obtained, according
to Pliny, by stopping up the hole in a tree where a woodpecker keeps its
young. The bird flies away, and presently returns with the springwort,
which it applies to the plug, causing it to shoot out with a loud
explosion. The same account is given in German folk-lore. Elsewhere,
as in Iceland, Normandy, and ancient Greece, the bird is an eagle, a
swallow, an ostrich, or a hoopoe.

In the Icelandic and Pomeranian myths the schamir, or "raven-stone,"
also renders its possessor invisible,--a property which it shares with
one of the treasure-finding plants, the fern. [30] In this respect
it resembles the ring of Gyges, as in its divining and rock-splitting
qualities it resembles that other ring which the African magrician gave
to Aladdin, to enable him to descend into the cavern where stood the
wonderful lamp.

According to one North German tradition, the luck-flower also will make
its finder invisible at pleasure. But, as the myth shrewdly adds, it is
absolutely essential that the flower be found by accident: he who seeks
for it never finds it! Thus all cavils are skilfully forestalled,
even if not satisfactorily disposed of. The same kind of reasoning is
favoured by our modern dealers in mystery: somehow the "conditions"
always are askew whenever a scientific observer wishes to test their
pretensions.

In the North of Europe schamir appears strangely and grotesquely
metamorphosed. The hand of a man that has been hanged, when dried and
prepared with certain weird unguents and set on fire, is known as the
Hand of Glory; and as it not only bursts open all safe-locks, but also
lulls to sleep all persons within the circle of its influence, it is of
course invaluable to thieves and burglars. I quote the following story
from Thorpe's "Northern Mythology": "Two fellows once came to Huy, who
pretended to be exceedingly fatigued, and when they had supped would
not retire to a sleeping-room, but begged their host would allow them
to take a nap on the hearth. But the maid-servant, who did not like the
looks of the two guests, remained by the kitchen door and peeped through
a chink, when she saw that one of them drew a thief's hand from his
pocket, the fingers of which, after having rubbed them with an ointment,
he lighted, and the