CHAPTER XIV 

 LEGENDS IN A HISTORICAL SETTING 



IT is not easy in preparing a book devoted mainly to 

 fable and folklore to sort out material for a separate 

 chapter on "legends/ ' A legend may be defined 

 as a narrative of something thought of as having 

 actually happened in connection with some real purpose 

 or place, but which is unsupported by historical evi- 

 dence. In many cases such narratives are quite in- 

 credible, but even so they may have a historically illus- 

 trative, a literary, or at least an amusing interest. 

 Stories of a considerable number of well-known kinds 

 of birds are in this way connected with actual persons, 

 or with verifiable incidents of the past, and hence may 

 be said to be "legends in an historical setting." A fair 

 example of them is the incident of the Capitoline geese. 

 Early in the third century before the Christian era 

 a horde of Gaulish invaders under Brennus over-ran 

 central Italy, and in 388 B. C. captured all of Rome it- 

 self except the lofty citadel called the Capitol, where a 

 Roman general officer, Marcus Manlius, held out with 

 a small garrison on the point of starvation. One night 

 the besieging Gauls, having discovered an unguarded 

 by-path, crept up the rocky steep, intending the surprise 

 and capture of the almost worn-out defenders. "But," 

 says Plutarch, 94 in Dryden's translation, "there were 

 sacred Geese kept near the Temple of Juno, which at 

 other times were plentifully fed, but at this time, by 



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