latter number is less constant than the other. In a copy of "The Seven Wise Masters,"[1] in a dialect of Italian, dating back to the end of the fourteenth century, the story of The Ravens is given with but few variations from the text just cited. Here the number of the prophetic birds is given as two, and they are not described as ravens. The father is a merchant who is taking his son with him on a voyage. The cause assigned for the parents' removal after the father's crime against his son is a famine. If we could venture to use this it would supply a striking analogy with the Mosaic narrative; but to do so would perhaps involve assumptions we are not warranted in making, since it is at least possible that the famine may have been more or less consciously transferred from the story in Genesis. No argument for the identity in origin of the two tales can, therefore, be founded upon it.[2] In this variant the final scene is wrought somewhat more impressively, and apparently with more artistic purpose, than in the type. After his parents have waited on the hero he seats them at table and himself between them, at which all present marvel. When dinner is over he turns to his father and asks, "What punishment shall he have who has slain his own son in the sea?" The father replies, "Death." "Against thyself thou hast spoken!" exclaims his son; but taking pity upon him he reveals himself and pardons the crime.
A similar story, but elaborated in some respects, is given by Afanasief among his Russian stories.[3] The hero's name, itself an omen, is Basil. His father's curiosity is one day excited by the tones of a pet nightingale in its song. Basil, then six years of age, interprets the song as in The Ravens. This irritates both his father and
- ↑ Libro de 'Sette Savi di Roma, originally published in 1832 at Venice; republished in Scelta di curiosità letterarie in 1862 at Bologna, and again by F. Roediger in a series of Operette inedite o rare in 1883 at Florence. Its genuineness, though at first disputed, appears now to be established.
- ↑ In a French version cited by Luzel, Lègendes Chrétiennes de la Basse Bretagne, vol. i. p. 307, the prophet-bird is a nightingale, the country into which the youth is taken is Egypt, and after his father-in-law's death he mounts the throne, and fulfils the prediction by sending for his parents to his court. There is more than one suggestion of Joseph here. M. Luzel also cites another version in which the prophecy is uttered by two crows.
- ↑ Leger, Recueil de Contes Populaires Slaves traduits sur les textes originaux, p. 235.
