XCII. The Sibyl’s Wish.—

The author of the Exhortation to the Greeks was shown at Cumae a bronze bottle in which the remains of the Sibyl were said to be preserved. Trimalchio in Petronius says: “At Cumae I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl hanging in a jar, and when the children said to her, ‘Sibyl, what do you wish?’ she used to answer, 'I wish to die.'” Ampelius tells us that the Sibyl was said to be shut up in an iron cage which hung from a pillar in an ancient temple of Hercules at Argyrus. It has been pointed out by Dr. M. R. James that parallels to the story of the Sibyl’s wish are to be found in German folk-tales. One of these tales runs as follows: “Once upon a time there was a girl in London who wished to live for ever, so they say:

‘London, London is a fine town.

A maiden prayed to live for ever.’

And still she lives and hangs in a basket in a church, and every St. John’s Day about noon she eats a roll of bread.” Another story tells of a lady who resided at Danzig and was so rich and so blest with all that life can give that she wished to live always. So when she came to her latter end, she did not really die but only looked like dead, and very soon they found her in a hollow of a pillar in the church, half standing and half sitting, motionless. She stirred never a limb, but they saw quite plainly that she was alive, and she sits there down to this blessed day. Every New Year’s Day the sacristan comes and puts a morsel of the holy bread in her mouth, and that is all she has to live on. Long, long has she rued her fatal wish who set this transient life above the eternal joys of heaven. A third story relates how a noble damsel cherished the same foolish wish for immortality. So they put her in a basket and hung her up in a church, and there she hangs and never dies, though many, many a year has come and gone since they put her there. But every year on a certain day they give her a roll and she eats it and cries out “For ever! for ever! for ever!” And when she has so cried she falls silent again till the same time next year, and so it will go on for ever and for ever. A fourth story, taken down, near Oldenburg in Holstein, tells of a jolly dame that ate and drank and lived right merrily and had all that heart could desire, and she wished to live always. For the first hundred years all went well, but after that she began to shrink and shrivel up till at last she could neither walk nor stand nor eat nor drink. But die she could not. At first they fed her as if she were a little child, but when she grew smaller and smaller they put her in a glass bottle and hung her up in the church. And there she still hangs, in the church of St. Mary at Lübeck. She is as small as a mouse, but once a year she stirs.