temple, in Baring-Gould, Legends of the Patriarchs and
Prophets, pp. 337, 338. And see the story of Diocletian's
ostrich, Swan, Gesta Romanorum, ed. Wright, Vol I. p. lxiv.
See also the pretty story of the knight unjustly imprisoned,
id. p. cii.

In these traditions, which may possibly be of Aryan descent,
due to the prolonged intercourse between the Jews and the
Persians, a new feature is added to those before enumerated:
the rock-splitting talisman is always found 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 magri-cian gave to
Aladdin, to enable him to descend into the cavern where stood
the wonderful lamp.