Myths, Fairytales and Legends
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Myths, Fairytales and Legends’
In this fable from India, a sly little insect teaches a jackdaw that all that glisters is not necessarily edible.
William Cowper’s ‘The Nightingale and the Glow-Worm’ told how a glow-worm persuaded a hungry bird to spare his life because light and song complement each other so beautifully. In the following Indian fable by Ramaswami Raju (playwright, London barrister and Oxford professor of Telugu), the hard-pressed glow-worm does not have such dainty material to work with.
Back in the days of the prophet Samuel, so the story goes, a grandson of Trojan hero Aeneas brought civilisation to the British Isles.
Geoffrey of Monmouth (?-1155) was residing in Oxford when, in the 1130s, he wrote his majestic History of the Kings of Britain, in which he entrances us with tales of Merlin and Arthur. He also seized on a throwaway remark in the ninth-century chronicle History of the Britons, that ‘The island of Britain derives its name from Brutus, a Roman consul’, to romance the following tale.
The Old English epic ‘Beowulf’ tells how Scyld, beloved King of the Danes, was committed to the ocean at his death — just as he had been at his birth.
The poem Beowulf opens with the death of Scyld, King of the Danes. Scyld had not been born to the crown: the Danes had found him lying in a boat, a helpless infant bedded upon wheat-sheaves. Yet he had risen to govern the people like a beloved father, and when he died in great age his mourning subjects, knowing his mind, with reverence cast Scyld adrift once more upon the retreating tide.
Simonides always believed that a man with a trade was wealthier than a man with a full purse.
The following Fable, from the collection of first-century Roman poet Phaedrus, concerns Simonides (?556-468 BC), a Greek lyric poet remembered among the ancients for his miraculous escapes, his long career composing songs flattering the rich and celebrated, and his eager love of money.
A sophisticated City Mouse went to see his Country cousin, and pitied his simple fare.
Horace, a former military officer who was given a roving brief in the government of Emperor Augustus, chafed under the anxious bustle and empty chatter of life in Rome, and yearned for a quiet talk over beans, greens and streaky bacon in his rural bolt-hole. A sympathetic neighbour was apt to launch into the following tale to humour him.
Some panicky Pigeons agree to let the Kite rule their dovecote, so long as he promises not to take advantage of his position.
This little Fable should hardly require explanation, yet the lesson it teaches is repeatedly forgotten. When we are bullied and badgered, it is easy to appease our tormentor in the hope that ready compliance will be rewarded with peace; but bullies don’t stop bullying, it’s what they do.