Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets. S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

woman, he would be supreme in the world God had made. But the Almighty rescued Adam and Eve, and drave Satan from them.

      To punish themselves for their involuntary fault, Adam and Eve separated, so as not to see one another, and resolve to spend forty days up to their necks in the sea.

       Before parting, Adam said to his wife, “Remain in the water here, and do not quit it till I return, and spend your time in praying the Lord to pardon us.”

      Now, whilst they were undergoing this penance, Satan cast about how he might bring to naught our first parents, and he sought them but could not find them, till on the thirty-fifth day of their penance he perceived the two heads above the water; then he knew at once what was their intention, and he resolved to frustrate it. So he took upon him the form of an angel of Heaven, and flew over the sea singing praises to God; and when he came to the place where Eve was, he cried, “Joy, joy to thee! God is with thee, and he has sent me to bring thee to Adam to announce to him that he has found favor with the Most High.”

      Eve instantly scrambled out of the water, and followed Satan to Adam, and the Evil One placed her before her husband, and vanished. When Adam saw his wife, he was filled with dismay, and beat his breast and wept. When she told him why she was there, he knew that the great Enemy had been again at his work of deception, and he fell into despair. But a voice from Heaven bade him return with Eve to the Treasure-cave.

      Hunger, thirst, cold, and prayer had completely exhausted the pair, and Adam cried to the Lord, “O God, my Creator! Thou hast given me reason and an enlightened heart. When Thou didst forbid me to eat of the fruit of the Tree, Eve was not yet made, and she did not hear Thy command; in Eden we hungered not, nor felt thirst or pain or fatigue. All this have we lost. And now we dare not touch the fruit of the trees or drink of water without Thy command. Our bodies are exhausted, our strength is gone; grant us wherewith to satisfy our hunger, and to quench our thirst.”

      God ordered the Cherubim who kept the gate of Eden, to carry to Adam two figs from the tree under which our first parents had concealed themselves after the Fall.

      “Take,” said the Cherubim, presenting the figs to them, “take the fruit of the tree whose leaves covered your shame.”

      “Oh!” cried Adam, “may God grant us some of the fruit of the Tree of Life.”

      But God answered, “I will give unto you this fruit and living water, to you and to your descendants, on that day that I shall descend into the abode of death and shall break the gates of iron in sunder, to bring you forth into my garden of pleasures. That which you ask of Me shall take place at the expiration of five long days and a half (i.e. 5,500 years), after that my blood has flowed upon thy head, O Adam, upon Golgotha.”

      Adam and Eve took the figs, which were very heavy, for the fruits of the earthly paradise were much larger than the fruit of this outer world in which we live. And when they were about to enter into the Cave of Treasures, they saw there a great fire; this mightily astonished them, for as yet they had not seen fire except in the flaming sword of the Cherub. Now this fire which surprised them was the work of Satan; he had collected branches and had fired them in the hope of burning down the cavern and driving Adam to despair.

      The fire lasted till the morrow; Satan, without showing himself, keeping it supplied with fresh fuel. Adam and Eve did not venture to approach, but recommended themselves to God; and the Evil One, finding that his plan had failed, let the fire die out and departed.

      Adam and Eve slept the following night at the foot of a mountain near their lost Eden. Satan beholding them, said, “God has made a compact with Adam, whom he desires to save, but I will slay him, and the earth shall be mine.”

      He therefore summoned his attendant angels, and they dislodged a huge rock from the mountain and hurled it upon the sleepers. But as this mass was bounding down the flank of the mountain, and was in mid-air in one of its leaps, God arrested it above the heads of the sleepers, and it sheltered them from the dews of night.

      Adam and Eve awoke greatly troubled by their dreams, and they asked of God garments to cover their naked bodies, for they suffered from the scorching sun by day, and the frost by night. God replied, “Go to the shore of the sea; you will there find the skins of sheep which have been devoured by lions: of them make to yourselves raiment.”

      Satan heard the words of God, and he outran our first parents, that he might secure the skins and destroyed them, in the hopes that Adam and Eve, finding no hides, would doubt God and think that he had failed in His word. But God fastened Satan in his naked hideousness beside the skins, immovable, till Adam and Eve arrived, when he addressed them in these terms: “Behold him who has seduced you; see what has become of his beauty. After having made you such promises, he was about to rob you of these hides.” Adam and Eve took the skins and made of them garments. A few days after, God said to them, “Go to the west till you arrive at a black land; there you will find food.” They obeyed, and they saw corn full ripe, and God inspired Adam with knowledge how to make bread. But not having sickles they tore the corn up by the roots, and having made a rick of it, they slept, expecting to thrash it out and grind it on the morrow. But Satan fired this rick and reduced their harvest to ashes.

      Whilst they wept and lamented, Satan came to them as an angel, and said, “This is the work of your Enemy the Fiend, but God has sent me to bring you into a field where you will find better corn.”

      They followed him, nothing doubting, and he led them for eight days, and they fainted with exhaustion and were foot-sore. Then he left them in an unknown land; but God was their protector, He brought them back to their harvest and restored their rick of corn, and they made bread and offered to God the first sacrifice.89

      But enough of this apocryphal work, which contains a string of absurd tricks played by Satan on our first parents, which are invariably defeated by God; of these the specimens given above are sufficient.

      A curious legend exists among the Sclavonic nations by which the existence of elves is accounted for. It is said that Adam had by his wife Eve, thirty sons and thirty daughters. God asked him, one day, the number of his children. Adam was ashamed of having so many girls, so he answered, “Thirty sons and twenty-seven daughters.” But from the eye of God nothing can be concealed, and He took from among Adam’s daughters the three fairest, and He made them Willis, or elves; they were good and holy, and therefore did not perish in the Deluge, but entered with Noah into the ark and were saved.

      The story of Adam’s penitence, as told by Tabari, is as follows:—

      The moment that Adam fell out of Paradise and touched the ground on the mountains in the centre of Ceylon, he understood in all its magnitude the greatness of his loss and his sin. He remained stupefied with his face on the earth, and did not raise it, but allowed his tears to flow upon and soak into the soil. For a hundred years he remained in this position, and his tears formed a stream which rolled down the mountain, which still flows from Adam’s Peak in the island of Ceylon, and gives their virtue to the healing plants and fragrant trees which there flourish, and are exported for medicinal purposes.

      When a hundred years had elapsed, God had compassion on Adam, and sent Gabriel to him, who said, “God salutes thee, O Adam! and He bids me say to thee, Did I not create thee out of the earth by My will? Did I not give thee Paradise to be thine abode? Why these tears and sighs?”

      Adam replied, “How shall I not weep, and how shall I abstain from sighing? Have I not lost the protection of God, and have I not disobeyed His will?”

      Gabriel said, “Do not afflict thyself. Recite the words I shall teach thee, and God will grant thee repentance which He will accept,” as it is written in the Koran, “Adam learnt of His Lord words; and the Lord returned to Him, for He is merciful, and He returns.” Adam recited these words, and in the joy he felt at the prospect of finding mercy, he wept, and his joyous tears watered the earth, and from them sprang up the narcissus and the ox-eye.

      Then said Adam to Gabriel, “What shall I now do?”

      And Gabriel gave to Adam wheat-grains from out of Paradise, the fruit of the Forbidden Tree, and he bade him sow