Among these there was one who was like the moon among the stars. Cuckoo fell in love with her, and they became inseparable. Cuckoo thought he could not live without her. Mugur, who was of a more retiring nature, restrained his love and kept aloof from the women.
When the two weeks had elapsed which Alexander had appointed for him to stay there, he broke up his camp and journeyed onward until the army reached the gates of Paradise. These were guarded by angels with flaming swords, who would allow access only to those who were pure and sinless. When the soldiers beheld the beauty of Paradise they wondered greatly at it, and some of them were desirous of entering it, and went to the angel to ask his permission. Amongst these were Mugur and his brother Cuckoo. Mugur went in front, Cuckoo followed with his beautiful wife at his side. When Mugur drew near, the gate of Paradise was flung open and he entered without hindrance. Cuckoo wanted to follow him, but the door was shut in his face, and for his audacity he and his fair companion were turned into birds, for no man is allowed to enter Paradise with a companion.
Since then Cuckoo is continually calling aloud his name in the hope that his brother may look for him and thus find him.
This story is remarkable for its origin. We have here the popular reflex of the famous Romance of Alexander, which had reached Rumania, as all the other countries of Europe, in a literary form. The book has been read for at least three hundred years, and it is extremely interesting to see how deeply it has influenced the popular imagination. What we have here is not one incident only from the “Romance,” but practically an abridged recital of the famous “Journey to Paradise,” and “Alexander’s Letter to Aristotle.” We have here his wars with the Kynokephaloi, or the people who were believed to be human beings with dog’s heads. The Eastern Church, and no less the Rumanian, even venerates a saint with a dog’s head, Christophorus. In the Rumanian monastery of Neamtz there appeared a “Life” of that saint, in which the woodcut picture of the saint represented him as having a dog’s head. We have, further, Alexander’s war with the Amazons, and even the fact that he reached the gates of Paradise. But what gives to this tale importance is that the “Romance of Alexander” has become the tale accounting for the origin of a bird. No doubt there must be some more detailed account of this immediate fact, explaining a little more clearly the sudden transformation of the cuckoo and his mate into particular birds. Here it is described as a punishment for Cuckoo’s audacity in attempting to bring his female companion into Paradise.
The only point of resemblance between this and the Albanian tale of Hahn (No. 105), is that Cuckoo was originally a man by that name, and he was the brother of Gion.
XCIII.
WHY DOES THE ARMENIAN LOVE THE DIRTY HOOPOE?
The Story of the Armenian, the Cuckoo and the Hoopoe.