s been elaborately discussed by
Mr. Baring-Gould (_Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_, p. 134 _seq._),
and Mr. W. A. Clouston (_Popular Tales and Fictions_, ii. 166, _seq._),
the story of the man who rashly slew the dog (ichneumon, weasel, &c.)
that had saved his babe from death, is one of those which have spread
from East to West. It is indeed, as Mr. Clouston points out, still
current in India, the land of its birth. There is little doubt that it
is originally Buddhistic: the late Prof. S. Beal gave the earliest
known version from the Chinese translation of the _Vinaya Pitaka_ in
the _Academy_ of Nov. 4, 1882. The conception of an animal sacrificing
itself for the sake of others is peculiarly Buddhistic; the "hare in
the moon" is an apotheosis of such a piece of self-sacrifice on the
part of Buddha (_Sasa Jataka_). There are two forms that have reached
the West, the first being that of an animal saving men at the cost of
its own life. I pointed out an early instance of this, quoted by a
Rabbi of the second century, in my _Fables of Aesop_, i. 105. This
concludes with a strangely close parallel to Gellert; "They raised a
cairn over his grave, and the place is still called The Dog's Grave."
The _Culex_ attributed to Virgil seems to be another variant of this.
The second form of the legend is always told as a moral apologue
against precipitate action, and originally occurred in _The Fables of
Bidpai_ in its hundred and one forms, all founded on Buddhistic
originals (_cf._ Benfey, _Pantschatantra_, Einleitung, Sec.201).
[Footnote: It occurs in the same chapter as the story of La Perrette,
which has been traced, after Benfey, by Prof. M. Mueller in his
"Migration of Fables" (_Sel. Essays_, i. 500-74): exactly the same
history applies to Gellert.] Thence, according to Benfey, it was
inserted in the _Book of Sindibad_, another collection of Oriental
Apologues framed on what may be called the Mrs. Potiphar formula. This
came to Europe with the Crusades, and is known in its Western versions
as the _Seven Sages of Rome_. The Gellert story occurs in all the
Oriental and Occidental versions; _e.g._, it is the First Master's
story in Wynkyn de Worde's (ed. G. L. Gomme, for the Villon Society.)
From the _Seven Sages_ it was taken into the particular branch of the
_Gesta Romanorum_ current in England and known as the English _Gesta_,
where it occurs as c. xxxii., "Story of Folliculus." We have thus
traced it to England whence it passe