Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/190

166 library of Edjmiatzin, copied by me in the year 1891. The date of this version is not known, but it may be as old as the twelfth or thirteenth century. It also exists in an old Georgian version.

That the tale was very popular among the Armenians is seen by the great number of MSS. in which it occurs. In the seventeenth century the text was popularised and put into vulgar Armenian; and a Bodleian MS. of that century has it in this form. As early as 1708 it was printed along with the tale of the Brazen City—which usually accompanies it in the MSS.—at Constantinople under this title: "The story of the Brazen City and the Questions of the Damzel and the Youth. And the history of Khikar and of King Phahloul (? Pharaoh) and the rest. Which is a type of the world. In the Metropolis of Constantinople, under the Shadow [of the Church] of the Mother of God." The editor of this first edition was one Sargis. A second edition appeared at Constantinople in 1731 under the title: "The Story of the Brazen City and the instructive and helpful discourse of Khikar the Sage. With other useful discourses. Printed in the year of our era 1106, in the press of the humble Astouatsatour" (Theodotus). A third edition appeared in Constantinople at the press of R. J. Qiurqdshean, 1862.

The older MSS. give a very good text, apparently superior to the Syriac versions, and perhaps translated from a lost Greek text. A feature of special interest about the Armenian version is that in these older MSS. of it, the names of the Babylonian gods to whom Khikar prayed are added. In other versions of the tale Christian feeling has eliminated this archaic text. A critical edition by the present writer, along with an English translation, will shortly be issued by the Cambridge Press, as part of the edition now being prepared by Professor R. Harris and other scholars.

1. In the years of the reign of Seneqarim, the king of Assyria, I, Khikâr, was chief notary in the court of king Seneqarim. Sixty palaces I builded and sixty wives I took, and I was in my sixtieth year. But I had no offspring. Then I took secret counsel, and I entered in before the gods. I lit a fire and cast on it sweet-smelling incense, and I fell down before them, and I prayed and said: