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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
CHAP. LXI. WEATHER-CONJURING
31I
such is conspicuously introduced in connection with a magical fountain in the
romance of the Chevalier au Lyon
C'
Et s'i pant uns bacins d'or fin A une si longue chaainne Qui dure jusqu'a la fontainne. Lez la fontainne troveras Un perron tel con tu verras
S'au bacin viaus de l'iaue prandre Et dessor le perron espandre,
La verras une tel tanpeste
Qu'an cest bois ne remandra beste,'.
etc. etc.*
The effect foretold in these lines is the subject of a woodcut illustrating a Welsh version of the same tale in the first volume of the Illabinob ion. And the existence of such a fountain is alluded to by Alexander Neckam. (De Naturis Rerum, Bk. II. ch. vii.)
In the Cento Novelly Antiche also certain necromancers exhibit their craft before the Emperor Frederic (Barbarossa apparently) : " The weather began to be overcast,
and to ! of a sudden rain began to fall with continued thunders and lightnings, as if the world were come to an end, and hailstones that looked like steel-caps,' etc. Various other European legends of like character will be found in Liebrecht's Gervasius von Tilbury, pp. 147-148.
Rain-makers there are in many parts of the world ; but it is remarkable that those also of Samoa in the Pacific operate by means of a rain-stone.
Such weather conjurings as we have spoken of are ascribed by Ovid to Circe :
" Concipit illa preces, et verba venefica dicit ; Ignotosque Deos ignoto carmine adorat,
Tune quoque cantato densetur carmine caelum, Et nebulas exhalai humus."-11letamn. XIV. 365.
And to Medea :—
" Quum volui, ripis mirantibus, amnes
In fontes rediere suos . . . . (another feat of the Lamas) . . . . Nutbila pello,
Nubilaque ina'uco ; ventos abigoque, vocoque. "—Ibid. VII. 199.
And by Tibullus to the Saga (Elegy. I. 2, 45) ; whilst Empedocles, in verses ascribed to him by Diogenes Laertius, claims power to communicate like secrets of
potency :-
il " By my spells thou may'st
To timely sunshine turn the purple rains, And parching droughts to fertilising floods."
(See Cathay, p. clxxxvii. ; Erdm. 282 ; Oppert, 182 seqq. ; Eru,ian, I. 153 ; Pallas, Sanzinl. II. 348 seqq. ; Tíînk. I. 402 ; J. R. A. S. VII. 305-306 ; D'Ofisson, II. 614 ; and for many interesting particulars, Q. R. p. 428 seqq., and Hammer's Golden
Horde, 207 and 435 seqq.)
NOTE 9.—It is not clear whether Marco attributes this cannibalism to the Tibetans and Kashmirians, or brings it in as a particular of Tartar custom which he
had forgotten to mention before.
;:
* [See W. Foerster's ed., Halle, i88~, p. 15, 386.—H. C.1
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