ming, they let Ivan fall back into the pit."[90] But this
apology for their behavior seems to be due to the story-teller's
imagination. In some instances their unfraternal conduct may be
explained in the following manner. In oriental tales the hero is often
the son of a king's youngest wife, and he is not unnaturally hated by
his half-brothers, the sons of an older queen, whom the hero's mother
has supplanted in their royal father's affections. Accordingly they do
their best to get rid of him. Thus, in one of the Indian stories which
correspond to that of Norka, the hero's success at court "excited the
envy and jealousy of his brothers [doubtless half-brothers], and they
were not satisfied until they had devised a plan to effect his
removal, and, as they hoped, accomplish his destruction."[91] We know
also that "Israel loved Joseph more than all his children," because he
was the son "of his old age," and the result was that "when his
brethren [who were only his half-brothers] saw that their father loved
him more than all his brethren, they hated him."[92] When such tales
as these came west in Christian times, their references to polygamy
were constantly suppressed, and their distinctions between brothers
and half-brothers disappeared. In the same way the elder and jealous
wife, who had behaved with cruelty in the original stories to the
offspring of her rival, often became turned, under Christian
influences, into a stepmother who hated her husband's children by a
previous marriage.

There may, however, be a mythological explanation of the behavior of
the two elder brothers. Professor de Gubernatis is of opinion that "in
the Vedic hymns, Tritas, the third brother, and the ablest as well as
best, is persecuted by his brothers," who, "in a fit of jealousy, on
account of his wife, the aurora, and the riches she brings with her
from the realm of darkness, the cistern or well [into which he has
been lowered], detain their brother in the well,"[93] and he compares
this form of the myth with that which it assumes in the following
Hindoo tradition. "Three brothers, _Ekata_ (_i.e._ the first), _Dwita_
(_i.e._ the second) and _Trita_ (_i.e._ the third) were travelling in
a desert, and being distressed with thirst, came to a well, from which
the youngest, Trita, drew water and gave it to his brothers; in
requital, they drew him into the well, in order to appropriate his
property and having covered the top with a cart-wheel, left hi