Archibald Henry Sayce

“ As yet the “readers” for whom, we are told, the cuneiform books were copied out and edited, had no idea that there was anything worthy of regard in the popular stories of their uneducated countrymen; no Folk-Lore Societies had been thought of, much less founded. It is only by accident, therefore, that a stray folk-tale has here and there found its way into the Babylonian and Assyrian literature which has come down to us. ”

“ The story, it will be seen, is the oft-told one, how the hero of noble birth is born in secret and exposed to death, but rescued and brought up in obscurity until the time comes when his true origin and character are revealed, and he becomes a mighty prince and conqueror. ”

“ The lady dressed herself like a man and went to the sultan; no one recognised that she was a lady. And the sultan said to her: ‘What do you want, my clever fellow?’ She replied: ‘My business is with the vizier.’ The vizier was brought to him: when the vizier was come, he said to him, namely, to the vizier: ‘Some one hired from me a garden: when he hired the garden of me ought he not to have given it water to drink, otherwise it would have died?’ The vizier answered: ‘Certainly: I hired the garden, but I heard that a lion had entered the garden ”

“ So he said to her: ‘There are plenty of things, but they all taste of fish.’ She replied: ‘O sultan, we also, we women, are all just the same.’ He answered: ‘I have never done anything in the world at all naughty.’ Then when the vizier is come, he heard that the sultan has come to (his) house ”

“ The mutilation of the tablet prevents our knowing whether the story was continued. Its preservation at all is due to a curious accident. It is found in an Accadian reading-book, intended to teach the elements of the extinct Accadian language of primitive Chaldea to Babylonian boys of a later date. Easy passages in Accadian have been selected for the purpose, and provided with Assyrian translations, while the text is interspersed with exercises upon the principal words occuring in them. ”

“ Against thy foes
Be hard and firm.
2.⁠“The corn is high
And flourishing;
We know why.
The corn is bearded
And flourishing;
We know why.
3.⁠“The fruit of death
Tho’ I eat.
The fruit of life
May I make it. ”

“ These are the only examples I have yet come across of what can properly be called Babylonian folk-lore. The beast-fables of which we possess several fragments translated in George Smith’s Chaldean Genesis can hardly be reckoned to belong to it. The Accadian proverbs, again, of which I have given translations in the Records of the Past (vol. xi.) , must be classed apart, though they throw a good deal of light upon the native wit and daily life of the illiterate country population. Such proverbs as “Once and yet again twice has he made gains ”

“ Like other heroes, Sargon’s father was unknown, though the legend did not go so far as to suggest that he had not an earthly one. Equally, too, like other heroes, his mother was a princess, though there was a reason for this in the folk-lore of Accad which did not exist in the folk-lore of Greece, or Rome, or Persia. Among the Accadians the wife and not the husband was the head of the family; descent was counted through her; and it was only through the mother, therefore, that the hero could claim a royal ancestry. As the folk-lore of Accad thus supplies an explanation of a fact which, Mr. ”

“ They were by no means good samples of the rest, as they were short and somewhat feeble in character, though like most Cairene tales they were provided with a moral at the end. Such as they are, however, I lay them before the readers of the Folklore Journal and hope that another year I may return to England with a larger supply.
No. 1. Fî kân wâhid sultân fellâti: ubâdên howa yeshûf wâhid sitt; yekhallî gôzah, râhh beled tâni: ubâdên howa râhh fïl bêt. Fî wâhid wezîr: ’ando wâhid sitt kwaiyîs ”