FABLE AND BOLKLORE 99 



tives have been deciphered, agreeing in the facts of a 

 vast destruction by water in Mesopotamia, and of a 

 relatively huge house-boat built by a chosen family for 

 the preservation of themselves and an extensive collection 

 of livestock. After floating about for seven days this 

 Babylonian ship grounded on a submerged hill-top, and 

 seven days later the patriarchal shipmaster sent out as ex- 

 plorers a dove, a swallow, and a raven. The dove and the 

 swallow returned, the raven did not. 



The close similarity between this and the Biblical ac- 

 count of Noah's voyage on a world of waters (which 

 account appears to be a combination of two separate 

 legends) leads to the opinion that the whole narrative is 

 derived from some more ancient and widespread Oriental 

 tradition ; and there seems fair evidence that it does not 

 describe any physical happening at all, but is a symbolical 

 sun-myth, a hint of which is given, even in the Bible, by 

 the incident of the rainbow. Let me quote the history in 

 Genesis so far as it relates to our purpose : 



"And it came to pass at the end of forty days that Noah 

 opened the window of the ark which he had made: and he sent 

 forth a raven which went forth to and fro until the waters 

 were dried up from off the earth. Also he sent forth a dove 

 from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of 

 the ground. But the dove found no rest for the sole of her 

 foot, and she returned unto him into the ark; for the waters 

 were on the face of the whole earth. Then he put forth his 

 hand and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. 

 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth 

 the dove out of the ark. And the dove came in unto him in 

 the evening, and, lo, in her mouth was an olive-leaf plucked off: 

 so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. 

 And he stayed yet other seven days, and sent forth the dove, 

 which returned not again unto him any more. 



As to the choice of these particular birds out of Noah's 



