Rumanian Bird and Beast Stories Rendered into English

by Unknown

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.