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By Root 5446 0

is in all those stories where, to reach the goal, the hero or heroine has to pass precisely between two equally deadly opposites, representing a'double negative'. We saw this in all those Quest stories where a passage between the opposites was one of the ordeals the hero and his companions have to undergo, from Jason's Argo navigating between the clashing rocks to the `straight and narrow' path to which Christian must keep to survive his perilous journey through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. In the version faced by Odysseus, when he has to sail exactly between Scylla and Charybdis, this emerges as more like a 'dialectical three', where each opposite poses a different threat, which is why Odysseus has to run the gauntlet twice. First he steers too near the monster Scylla, the second time too near the whirlpool Charybdis, so that he suffers the ill effects of both. But at least in the end he comes through; unlike Icarus who, ignoring his father's instruction to keep to the middle position, errs too far in one wrong direction, by flying too high, with the result that he is plunged into the opposite direction and is destroyed. Another explicit echo of the `dialectical three' is the instruction given by his father to Robinson Crusoe that he must pursue a 'middle station' in life, not aspiring too high or sinking too low; which is where, after learning all the profound lessons his adventures have taught him, he finally reaches the happy ending of his story.

What all these different forms of the rule of three have in common is that they convey the gradual working out of a process, which will eventually lead to some kind of transformation. This can just as well be a transformation downwards as upwards. But most often we see it related to that essential theme of so many stories, the process of growth. It symbolises the slow process whereby the hero or heroine are striving towards some hugely important goal which, when it is finally achieved, we can see represents full maturity, the realisation of a state of fulfilment and wholeness. And this is why, as a story moves towards its ending, we are usually made aware of that which is needed for all the developments which we have seen taking place in the story to reach a state of completion: a word we use in two senses. Firstly it can mean that a process is complete, as when a sequence has unfolded to its conclusion. But secondly it can mean the putting together of all the component parts of something to make a complete whole.

A story which in very simple form presents this need to integrate all the parts in order to make a whole is a little tale from the Grimm brothers collection called The Three Languages. The hero is an apparently stupid boy who is sent off by his father for three successive years to be educated. After the first year he comes back having learned nothing but to understand what dogs are saying when they bark. In the second he learns nothing but the language of frogs. In the third he learns nothing but the language of birds. His father is enraged that the boy has so wasted his time. But together these skills have made a whole. The hero has learned the language of animals in all three elements, the dogs of land, the frogs of water, the birds of the air - and we recognise that somehow each of these skills will eventually have to be used in turn, to complete his transformation. Sure enough, after a while, the hero goes on a journey. His first skill enables him to win a great treasure, guarded by fierce dogs. The second enables him to interpret a prophecy by frogs that he will become the Pope, so he heads for the city of Rome, where he discovers the existing Pope has just died. The third, as the assembled cardinals are looking for a sign as to whom to choose to succeed, causes two snow-white doves to alight on the hero's shoulder (making a three) and whisper into his ear the words of the Mass. The hero is chosen. He has developed and integrated three elements in himself to make a'whole', and the result is that he becomes a 'supreme ruler'.

`Four': The number of completion