FABLE AND FOLKLORE 67 



times said to be a god. It is probable that our fairy tale of 

 the goose that laid the golden egg is a relic of this very ancient 

 mythology. 



These notions in India probably were the seed of a 

 Buddhist legend that comes a little nearer to our quest. 

 According to this legend the Buddha (to be) was born 

 a Brahmin, and after growing up was married and his 

 wife bore him three daughters. After his death he was 

 born again as a golden mallard (which is a duck), and 

 determined to give his golden feathers one by one for the 

 support of his former family. This beneficence went on, 

 the mallard-Bodhisat helping at intervals by a gift of a 

 feather. Then one day the mother proposed to pluck the 

 bird clean, and, despite the protests of the daughters, did 

 so. But at that instant the golden feathers ceased to be 

 golden. His wings grew again, but they were plain white. 

 It may be added that the Pali word for golden goose 

 is hansa, whence the Latin anser, goose, German gans, 

 the root, gan appearing in our words gander and gannet ; 

 so that it appears that the "mallard" was a goose, after 

 all — and so was the woman! 



This may not explain iEsop, for that fabulist told or 

 wrote his moral anecdotes a thousand years before Bud- 

 dhism was heard of; but it is permissible to suppose that 

 so simple a lesson in bad management might have been 

 taught in India ages before y£sop (several of whose 

 fables have been found in early Egyptian papyri), and 

 was only repeated, in a new dressing, by good Buddhists, 

 as often happens with stories having a universal appeal 

 to our sense of practical philosophy or of humor. 



We have had occasion to speak of the eagle in many 

 different aspects, as the elected king of the birds, as an 

 emblem of empire, and so on, but there remain for use 



