Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/149

Rh appeared some years ago in the Graphic, with illustrations by Mr. J. R. Weguelin. Others, such as the Sindbad-like tale of the "Shipwrecked Sailor," who was so kindly entertained by a noble serpent who ruled an island in the Red Sea, and the "Sorcerer of King Cheops," who cut off ducks' heads and joined them on again, are perhaps not generally so well known. One, the "Story of Setna," with its weird adventures with ghosts in the tomb, is probably characteristically Egyptian: we should doubtless find, did we possess other manuscripts of this kind, that this sort of story was very common in the land of mummies and ghosts. There is a later story of a Christian bishop, Pisentios, who fled before the invading Persian heathens of Khusrau in the seventh century, and found a hiding-place in a tomb full of mummies, with one of which he held long conversations respecting the condition of himself and the other mummies (or rather, we may suppose, their spirits) in hell. Prof. Wiedemann does not include this very Egyptian tale in his collection. One story which he does include, and quite rightly, is not known to us from any actual Egyptian document. This is the story of "King Rhampsinitus and the Thief," which we owe to Herodotus. It also is characteristically Egyptian, and we can see that Herodotus tells it to us very much as he heard it in Egypt. Another story which is not very well known is that of the "Wonderful Taking of the Town of Joppa," which is very well known as an echo of a historical incident, and because a historical personage is its hero. This is Thutia, a general of King Thothmes HI. (about 1500 ), who no doubt was the actual taker of Joppa, though he can hardly have taken it in the wonderful way attributed to him in the folk-tale which grew out of his achievement. With this tale Prof Wiedemann groups the "History of Uenamen," who went to Phoenicia to fetch wood for the sacred boat of Amen at Thebes in the time of the Priest-Kings (about 1000 ), and was cast away on an island, probably Cyprus. Prof. Wiedemann regards this history as a mere folk-tale like that of Thutia. But here we must join issue with him. There are in it no marvellous incidents, such as those of the magic staff of King Thothmes in the Thutia story; there is nothing wonderful