Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/514

 472 Reviews.

daction. The introduction of fables into the schools as a subject of study favoured in a marked degree their popularisation among the Armenians. By the end of the twelfth century the fables of ^sop held undisputed sway, as products of allegory, both in the schools and in literature. Their popularity was only — and that in a partial way — shared by one other monument, the Physiologus.

" The Physiologus, ascribed in some Armenian copies to a certain Filatos, was translated, it may be, somewhat earlier than the fables of ^sop. The version in the copies known to us was made from the Greek. The text of the Physiologus which has come down to us is relatively in a better state of preservation, because the work has a definite physiognomy of its own, thanks to the typical inventory of contents which has kept it from being curtailed or added to. Nevertheless in course of time foreign elements began to make their way even into it in the form of paragraphs from other bestiaries as well as ^sopic fables. More than this, the main chapters of the Physiologus were subjected to alteration, though hardly before the thirteenth century, and in all probability owing to the influence, direct or indirect, of Wardan's allegories.

" Wardan of Aigek, who began as a priest and was afterwards a hermit, was a famous Armenian preacher at the beginning of the thirteenth century. His lessons had great vogue by reason of his simple and clear style. He created a special form of sermon, using fables as illustrations of his ideas.

" The preacher of Aigek did not compose the stories for his allegories, but only worked up fable-subjects which he took out of existing books. His main sources can be easily traced. They were the ^sopic fables and the sections of the Physiologus. These the preacher used as suited his moralist's ends, borrowing entire the fable-part, into which he only introduced here and there insignificant details. The practical morals of yEsop's fables and the symbolic interpretations of the paragraphs of the Physiologus he replaced by salutary precepts or moralisings.

" Being a new sort of allegory, the fables of Wardan pleased the public. They were disseminated orally and in books, owing to the preaching of the distinguished moralist. Small collections began to be made of them. He himself in all probability com- posed one or two such collections, and these were therefore Wardan's own ; but many more were composed on the model of