ir
progenitors having never been the aborigines of Europe prior to the
first Aryan emigration, as supposed). Frightened by the frequent
earthquakes and the visible approach of the cataclysm, this tribe is
said to have filled a flotilla of arks, to have sailed from beyond the
Pillars of Hercules, and, sailing along the coasts, after several years
of travel to have landed on the shores of the Aegean Sea in the land of
Pyrrha (now Thessaly), to which they gave the name of Aeolia. Thence
they proceeded on business with the gods to Mount Olympus. It may be
stated here, at the risk of creating a "geographical difficulty," that
in that mythical age Greece, Crete, Sicily, Sardinia, and many other
islands of the Mediterranean, were simply the far-away possessions, or
colonies, of Atlantis. Hence, the "fable" proceeds to state that all
along the coasts of Spain, France, and Italy the Aeolians often halted,
and the memory of their "magical feats" still survives among the
descendants of the old Massilians, of the tribes of the later
Carthago-Nova, and the seaports of Etruria and Syracuse. And here
again it would not be a bad idea, perchance, even at this late hour, for
the archeologists to trace, with the permission of the anthropological
societies, the origin of the various autochthones through their
folk-lore and fables, as they may prove both more suggestive and
reliable than their "undecipherable" monuments. History catches a misty
glimpse of these particular autochthones thousands of years only after
they had been settled in old Greece--namely, at the moment when the
Epireans cross the Pindus bent on expelling the black magicians from
their home to Boeotia. But history never listened to the popular
legends which speak of the "accursed sorcerers" who departed, leaving as
an inheritance behind them more than one secret of their infernal arts,
the fame of which crossing the ages has now passed into history--or,
classical Greek and Roman fable, if so preferred. To this day a popular
tradition narrates how the ancient forefathers of the Thessalonians, so
renowned for their magicians, had come from behind the Pillars, asking
for help and refuge from the great Zeus, and imploring the father of the
gods to save them from the deluge. But the "Father" expelled them from
the Olympus, allowing their tribe to settle only at the foot of the
mountain, in the valleys, and by the shores of the Aegean Sea.

Such is the oldest fable of