Myths and myth-makers : old tales and superstitions interpreted by comparative mythology / by John Fiske.

Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Myths and myth-makers : old tales and superstitions interpreted by comparative mythology / by John Fiske. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    cruel fate I confess to having shed more tears than I should regard as well bestowed upon the misfortunes of many a human hero of romance. Every one knows how the dear old brute Idlled the wolf which had come to devour Llewellyn's child, and how the prince, returning home and finding the cradle upset and the dog's mouth dripping blood, hastily slew his benefactor, before the cry of the child from behind the cradle and the sight of the wolf's body had rectified his eri-or. To this day the vis- itor to Snowdon is told the touching story, and shown the place, called Beth-Gellert,* where the dog's grave is stiU to be seen. ISTevertheless, the story occurs in the fireside lore of nearly every Aryan people. Under the GeUert-form it started in the Panchatantra, a collection of Sanskrit fables ; and it has even been discovered in a Chinese work which dates from A. D. 668. Usually the hero is a dog, but sometimes a falcon, an ichneumon, an insect, or even a man. In Egypt it takes the following comical shape: A Wall once smashed a pot full of herbs which a cook had prepared. The exasperated cook thrashed the well-intentioned but unfortunate Wall within an inch of his life, and when he returned, exliausted with his efforts at belabouring the man, to examine the broken pot, he discovered amongst the herbs a poisonous snake.-]* Now this story of the Wall is as manifestly identical with the legend of Gellert as the Enghsh word father is with the Latin pater; but as no one would maintain ♦ According to Mr. Isaac Taylor, the name is really derived from St. Celert, a Welsh saint of the fifth centiiry, to whom the church of Llan- geller is consecrated. (Words and Places, p. 339.) t Compare Krilof's story of the Gnat and the Shepherd, in Mr. Rals- ton's excellent version, Krilof and his Fables, p. 170. Many parallel examples are cited by Mr. Baring-Gould, Curious Myths, Vol. I. pp. 126 -136. See also the story of Folliculus, — Swan, Gesta Romauorum, ed. Wright, Vol. I. p. btxxii.