very likely did go. It is clear that the presence of a large number of
foreign elements in the language denotes a peaceful intercourse between
these nations, long enough and intimate enough to make them borrow
freely from one another and to become fixed into one spiritual unity.
If a language contains a large number of foreign elements, no one
can deny the direct influence which the latter has exercised upon the
former. Words, then, are not a mere combination of sounds, they are
the outward expression of the mind. They are the materialised spirit
of the nation, and whither they go that spirit also goes. Spirit
communes thus with spirit. There is and there has always been such
a give and take. And it is for us to follow up this constant barter,
in which the richer unhesitatingly parted with their treasures to the
poor, for the more they gave the more was left with them, as is meet
in the charmed realm of folk-lore.
These nations learn from one another not only words, but the thoughts
and ideas expressed in words. The proportion of these linguistic
elements in the vocabulary connotes the proportion of influence upon
the other people. It must not be forgotten that we are dealing with
illiterate nations, and with "oral" literature. It takes less time and
it requires less influence to disseminate a tale than to disseminate
a language and cause it to be acquired. The difficulty of borrowing
is thus obviously eliminated. We have the fact that even the language
had been borrowed and thoroughly assimilated. No archaic linguistic
element has been found in these languages. And it is therefore not
possible to postulate for the tales and apologues survivals of such
antiquity as is now so often assumed.
Two more points stand out clearly from this investigation into the
history of the language: First, the existence of numerous layers in the
modern languages, some elements being older, others of a more recent
origin. There is no uniformity either in language or in literature,
no contemporary unity of all the elements, but as far as can be seen
none are very old, except a few stray elements of an older period which
may have survived, always subject to the two fundamental conditions,
ethnical and geographical continuity.
The second point is the principle of concentric investigation. If tales
and apologues are borrowed, then those nearest the centre will preserve
the original form less changed; and the further a tale travels--always
by word of mouth--the more it will lose of its original character and
the more it will become mixed up and contaminated with other tales
which have undergone a similar emaciating and attenuating process.
Following up, then, this line of investigation, our first endeavour
is to find out whether there are parallels to these Rumanian animal
tales among the nations round about, and if so, how far they agree
with the Rumanian, and how far they differ. The fact itself that
parallels exist would be an additional proof that we are dealing
here with matter introduced from elsewhere, matter that has been
transmitted from nation to nation and possibly may have also reached
the west of Europe, although very few traces have been preserved to
this day. This is not yet a question of origin, but the next step
towards the solution of the problem. For obviously, if these tales
had been imported, their origin must be sought elsewhere. If we then
compare Rumanian tales with those of the ancient Byzantine Empire
and especially with those of the modern Greeks, then, in our case,
it might be argued that the Greeks were the repositories of ancient
folk-lore. The logical conclusion would be that these tales must be
found most profusely and in a more archaic form in the folk-lore
of modern Greece, and that the variants and parallels among the
other nations must show a distinct falling away from the original
types. Literary tradition or written folk-lore is, of course, excluded
from this investigation, for once folk-lore becomes fixed by being
written in a book it is no longer subject to any appreciable change.
We are dealing here exclusively with the oral folk-lore of illiterate
peoples. The relation between written and oral folk-lore and the
mutual influence of one upon another will be incidentally touched
upon in connection with the tales themselves. But, curiously enough,
a comparison of these stories with the known and published tales
of modern Greece is thoroughly disappointing. Only very few bird
tales--no insect or beast tales--seem to have been preserved, and
these mostly in Macedonia, the population of which is overwhelmingly
Slavonic, but scarcely any from among the Greeks proper inhabiting
European Greece. On the other hand, those few tales, which have been
mentioned by Abbott and Hahn, are very significant. They show the
profound difference which separates these modern bird tales from the
"Metamorphoses" known in ancient Greek mythology. A goodly number of
changes into animals are recorded in ancient Greek literature.--The
story of Philomela and Halcyon is sufficiently well known.--All these
are, with perhaps a few exceptions, the results of the wrath of an
offended god, rewards for acts of personal kindness or for steps
taken to assuage physical pain. They are all strictly individual in
character, and while none of them is intended to explain the origin
of bird, beast or insect, still less are they of the "creation" type,
in which each animal stands as the beginning of its species. And even
in those few tales in which supernatural beings are mentioned, very
little of the "Moirai" or goddesses of fate appears in the Greek form,
though the belief in them is now very strong among modern Greeks. Even
then these "Moirai" differ considerably from those of ancient Greek
mythology. Their attributes differ and their appearance and shape have
nothing in common with those of classical antiquity. The name also
has assumed a peculiar significance, different from that of ancient
times. This, then, is all which the modern Greeks have retained of
the ancient goddesses of fate; none of the other neighbouring nations
knows the "Moirai" by name. They have other goddesses of fate, Vilas or
Zanas, etc. Charon, who is now the angel of death among modern Greeks,
is remembered by them also as the boatman who carries the souls over
the waters of forgetfulness. The boatman alone may still be found in
one tale or another retaining something of the Greek local colour. But
no other direct parallels are found among the animal tales of modern
Greece. Much greater, on the contrary, is the approximation with the
Slavonic nations south and north of Rumania.
Turning, then, from the Greek to the Slavonic tales, we shall find
a much larger number of parallels between them and the Rumanian. In
the collection of South Slavonic tales and fables published by Krauss
only one or two real "creation" tales are found, and others are pure
and simple animal tales of the type of the "Gnat and the Lion,"
"The Wedding Feast of Tom," etc., agreeing more or less with the
Rumanian versions. They prove thereby the popular character of the
Rumanian tales; yet they differ sufficiently from them--as is shown
later on,--when they are quoted in connection with the above. One
of the creation stories is that of the sheep which, according to the
South Slavonic tale, was made by the Evil One, when he boasted that
he could improve on God's creation.
Incidentally I may mention the collection of tales from the Saxon
colony in Transylvania, collected by Haltrich. There is not one single
"creation" tale among them. Only two of the Rumanian animal fables
find their parallels in that collection. Turning to the Russian
tales, notably the great collection of Afanasiev, we shall find a
large number of animal tales, including also a number of "creation"
tales. In the former the central figures are, as in the South
Slavonic, Rumanian, Saxon, etc., the fox, the bear, the wolf, the
hedgehog and sometimes domestic animals, the dog, the cock, the hen,
the duck, etc. The same can be said also of tales collected from the
Lithuanians, Letts and Ruthenians, and to a smaller degree of those
from the Poles and Czechs. All, however, have retained definite
traces of such animal tales and legends. The animal character has
been thoroughly preserved. The fox is generally the "clever" animal,
but is, as often as not, outwitted by smaller animals or by man. The
general trend of these animal tales is to pit the cunning of the
smaller and weaker against that of the more powerful animal and to
secure the victory for the former. It is so natural for the people,
who live under the despotism of the mighty and powerful, to rejoice
in seeing the discomfiture of the great and stupid brought about by
the wit and cunning of the small and despised, and answers so aptly
to their feelings.
In these tales, which belong to the group of animal fables, we are
in a different atmosphere, far removed from that of the creation
legend. We are approaching that phase in the evolution in which the
animal stands for a disguised human being, which, in spite of its
appellation, speaks and acts entirely in accordance with human ways
and notions. These have not yet been found among the Rumanians and
those nations whose folk-lore shows close affinity with theirs.
Having thus far established that these animal tales, fables and
creation legends are neither of a local nor an indigenous origin,
nor survivals from a remote past, and also that the Rumanian tales
do not stand isolated, but form part of a group of tales and legends
common to most of the nations surrounding Rumania in a more or less
complete degree, it behoves us to endeavour to trace these tales to
their probable origin, and also to account for the shape which they
have assumed, as shown in the course of this investigation. These tales
among the Eastern nations of Europe are so much akin to one another
that they must have reached these nations almost simultaneously. All
must have stood under the same influence, which must have been powerful
and lasting enough to leave such indelible traces in the belief and
in the imagination of the people.
A great difficulty arises, when we attempt to define the influence
which brought these stories and fables to the nations of the near
East and thence to the West. Some have connected them with the
invasion of the Mongols. If similar tales could be found among them,
such a date might fit also the introduction of the animal tales
into Eastern Europe, especially if they had originally a Buddhist
background. Nothing, in fact, could apparently harmonise better with
the Buddhist teaching of Metempsychosis and the principle of man's
transformation into beast in order to expiate for sins committed
than some of these tales.--Of course, Egyptian influences cannot be
overlooked in this connection. I may refer to them later on.--The
burden of the majority is indeed that the birds and insects are,
in fact, nothing else than human beings transformed into ungainly
shapes for some wrong which they have done.
Many theories have been put forward on the mediation, among them also
the theory of transmission by the Gipsies. These came first to Thrace,
and lived long enough among the nations of the Balkans, in Rumania
and Russia, to have exercised a possible influence upon them. But this
theory can be dismissed briefly. The Gipsies are not likely carriers
of folk-tales. They came too late, and their march through Europe is
nothing if not a long-drawn agony of suspicion, hatred, persecution.
Some occult practices may have been taken over by some adepts of
the lower forms of magic, and possibly Playing Cards, originally an
oracle of divining the future, may have been brought by the Gipsies
to Europe, but popular tales, though they possess a good number, have
certainly not been communicated to Europe by them. They never had the
favourable occasion for meeting the people on a footing of equality,
or of entering with them into any intimate intercourse.
The Gipsy of the Rumanian fairy tale is mostly a villain, and is
merely the local substitute for the Arab or Negro of the Eastern
parallels. In the Rumanian popular jests the Gipsy is always the
fool. From such as these the people would have nothing to learn.
Next the Mongolian theory has long been put forward as a plausible
explanation, for it has been believed that Russia formed one of the
channels of transmission. This latter assumption, however, rests
on a geographical misconception, and also on a want of historical
knowledge. Up to comparatively modern times, the whole of the South
of Russia was inhabited by Tartars, and the Mongolian influence upon
Russia could not pass the border of the so-called White Russia. Nor
can a temporary invasion of Europe by the Mongolians, who left ruin
and desolation behind them, have been the means by which such tales
could be introduced. They are told at the peaceful fireside or in the
spinning-rooms, and are not carried by the wings of the arrow sped
from the enemy's bow, nor are they accepted if presented on the point
of the sword. They are frightened away by the din of battle. Years
must pass ere the blood is staunched, the wounds healed, and only
after peaceable concord and social harmony have been established,
can a spiritual interchange take place; this was impossible between
Russians or Mongols. We must look elsewhere, then, for a possible
channel of transmission, always subject to the theory of "migration."
Besides, to Kieff, the centre of Russian inspiration, the place
hallowed by the minstrels and poets, the Mongols never came. The only
influence which prevailed there was that of Byzance, and to that we
shall have to look as the channel of transmission and the centre of
dissemination of these tales and legends. These had come from Asia,
carried on the crest of the wave of that religious movement known
as Manichaeism and Bogomilism, and from there they started their
triumphant course throughout Europe. They came along with other
religious legends, carried by the current of thought which also taught
the doctrine of Dualism and Metempsychosis. This is the only possible
source for most of the legends and tales found among the Rumanians
and Slavs, and, as will be seen, it must have been the primary source
for such tales in the West of Europe.
A dualistic heterodox teaching with such a background reached from
the confines of India far into the South of France across central
Europe. It was probably the same agency which transformed the life
of Buddha into the legends of the saints Barlaam and Josaphat.
Nor is this the only legend invented, manipulated and circulated by
the numerous Gnostic sects. Those who have studied the history of the
apocryphal literature are fully aware of the apocryphal Gospels, Acts
of the Apostles and of the rest of the apocryphal tales which were
already put on the "Index," in the first centuries of the common era.
Some of the cosmogonic tales of the dualistic origin of the world,
of the influence of the Evil Spirit, of the origin of the Bee, the
Glow-worm, the Wolf and others show unmistakably such a Gnostic origin.
It is therefore not too much to assume that they have been brought to
Europe and disseminated by the same agency. These sectaries alone came
into direct contact with the masses of the people. They preached their
doctrines to the lowly and the poor. They were known themselves as
the pure (Cathars) and the poor (Pobres). They alone reached the heart
of the people, and were able to influence them to a far higher degree
than the murderous Mongols, or other nations that ravaged the country.
The dualistic tales connected with the story of the Creation are found
also among other nations, especially among those in Russia and in the
countries which belonged to the ancient Persian Empire. Dähnhardt,
who has made the investigation of such legends and tales the object
of special study (Natursagen, i.; Berlin 1907), comes to the same
conclusion that they rest ultimately on the Iranian dualism of the
Avesta. He believes that Zoroastrian teaching has penetrated far
into the North and West, and has produced these peculiar dualistic
cosmogonic legends.
The point to bear in mind in this investigation of the origin of the
Rumanian tales and legends is not so much to trace the remote possible
source of dualism, but the immediate influences which have been
brought to bear upon the shape which these legends have taken. This
is the salient problem. Dähnhardt, of course, discusses the further
development of the dualistic conception, through Manichaeism and
Bogomilism, and thus far is helpful in establishing the connection
between Iran and Thrace, and in strengthening the argument that we
must trace a number of these "creation" legends to the propaganda of
these sects.
It must be remembered that these tales in the European versions have
a thoroughly Christian aspect. They presuppose the existence of God
and His saints; nay, they show a close acquaintance with apocryphal
narratives, which have gathered round the canonical biblical stories
and episodes. The Evil Spirit is a clearly-defined personality, and
his antagonism to God is not of the pronounced acute controversial
type as is the Angromainya who, in the teaching of the Avesta, is
the direct opponent and almost negative of God.
A complete transformation had taken place ere these tales became
the property of the Rumanian peasants, and for that, also, of the
Russian and other North-Eastern peoples, who also have similar
tales akin to certain of the cosmogonic legends--to which reference
will be made at the proper place in the short notes to the stories
themselves. It will not be disputed that some of them are imported,
i.e. belong to the circulating stock of popular literature. Mongolian
influence--as already remarked above--is entirely excluded, in spite
of Dähnhardt. The Mongols never came in direct contact either with
the Rumanians or with the nations of the Balkans, who also possess
a number of similar tales, and must have derived them from another
source, more direct and, as will be seen, more complete than the
versions published by Dähnhardt from Russia, Lithuania, Finland and
Esthonia, not to speak of Northern Asiatic nations. Of real animal
tales there are only a few among those studied by Dähnhardt, such as
a peculiar version of "the Bee and Creation," very much shorter than
the Rumanian version; then a version of the creation of the Wolf and
the Lamb, and of the Goat's knees. These are all taken by Dähnhardt
from South-Slavonic and Albanian collections, again corroborating the
view that we have to look to the Balkans as the immediate centre of
this class of "creation" tales, and then further back to Asia Minor.
The appearance of the "Creation" legends in a compilation of the
seventh or eighth century is not to be taken as the date of their
origin. They may be very much older, and no doubt are, and may
have formed part of a primitive Physiologus in which the origin
as well as the peculiarities of the various birds and beasts were
described. This is not the place to discuss the remarkable history of
the Physiologus. The only point to be noted is that the symbolical and
allegorical interpretation of the tales contained in the Physiologus
is of a strictly religious Christian character.
The absence from the popular literature of such bird and beast tales
as are found in the Physiologus--the Bestiaires of the West--is not
surprising, for the Physiologus deals mostly with animals and birds
which are of an outlandish character. Very few have any reference to
the animals with which the people are familiar, and in which alone
they take an interest.
Though the book was known also among the Rumanians, only a faint
trace of it could be detected among the popular tales in the
present collection. The oldest Fathers of the Church made use of this
Physiologus in their homilies, and the other sects have no doubt done
the same. Some of the creation legends may have found their way into
the old legendary homiletical interpretation of the creation, like
the Hexameron of Basil, and other kindred compilations. All these
tales form part of a wider cycle of allegorised animal fables. In
Jewish literature a collection of Fox fables is mentioned as early
as the second or third century.
Indian literature is full of such animal tales, approximating often
to some of the Rumanian fables. The collections of Frere, Temple,
Steele, Skeat, and Parker abound in such animal tales, in which
the more nimble and quick-witted, though small and weak, animal
regularly gets the best of the bigger and stronger, yet duller and
slower rival. No moral lesson is squeezed out of the tales, and the
animal is not a thinly-disguised human being. Yet there can be no
greater fallacy than, guided by this similarity, to assume a direct
Indian origin for the Rumanian fables.
None of these animal tales finish with the usual "moral," known to
us from Aesop onward. Nor do the people seem to be influenced by
these artificial fables. In the literary European fable the animal
is merely a disguised human being. The animals are performing acts
which have nothing of the animal in them. The Indian and Oriental
fable differs in this respect from the European, inasmuch as in a
good number of them the animal character of the performing beasts
is faithfully preserved. Exactly the same happens with the Rumanian
animal fables. The cat does not play the rôle of the queen, and the
fox is not a sly courtier. Cat is cat, and fox is fox. And yet they
were not unaware of the fables of Aesop. I have found these fables in
many old Rumanian manuscripts, and one of the first printed popular
books of the country was the Collection of Aesop.
Unquestionably a good many proverbs are intimately connected with
tales. The "moral" in Aesop has often dwindled down to a simple
proverb, or has expanded out of it. These proverbs are, as it were,
succinct conclusions drawn out by the people. Anton Pann (in the
middle of the last century)--to whom the Rumanian popular literature
will for ever remain indebted--therefore calls his Collection of
Proverbs and Tales "Povestea vorbii," i.e. "The tale which hangs by
the Proverb." One and all of the hundred tales found in the second and
last edition of this book are mostly of a purely popular origin. The
process throughout is not to invent a story for the moral, but the
"moral," such as it is, is to flow naturally from the story.
This is not the place to discuss the origin of the animal fable
in general. But one cannot overlook the fact that all the Indian
fables--with the exception of some embodied in the Panchatantra--are
found in modern collections. All that we know of them is that they
live actually in the mouth of the modern people. They may be old,
they may be of more recent date.
Against these modern collections must be set now the story of Ahikar,
which carries us back at least to the fifth century B.C., and is
thus far the oldest record of animal tales. It has become one of the
popular stories which circulated in a written form, and became the
source of many a quaint proverb, as probably also of some animal tales.
The recent discovery among the Papyri of Elephantine in Southern Egypt
of the Story of Ahikar has carried back the knowledge of allegorical
beast fables to at least the fifth century B.C. For not only do we find
in that story the prototype of the life of Aesop, but also a number
of maxims and saws, and not a few beast tales, which are mentioned by
Ahikar in order to teach his ungrateful nephew Nadan. We find there,
e.g. the prototype of "pious" wolf, who appears in the Ahikar story as
an innocent student, but who cannot take in the lesson given to him,
his mind wandering to the sheep. There are other wolf, fox, rat and
bird fables in the Rumanian and, still more so, in the Oriental and
other versions. Ahikar himself relates the beast tales, allowing Nadan
to draw the lesson. By the manner in which these tales are referred
to, it is obvious that they must have been well known tales current
among the people.