wife, 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]

[5] See Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, Vol. I. pp.
145-149.

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.