FISHES IN ZOOLOGICAL MYTHOLOGY. 17 



against it, spits at the judge and, jumping out of the 

 dock, escapes. He continues his misdemeanours, and fish 

 after fish is sent to bring him again to the bar. He 

 cleverly gets the better of the messengers, but at last 

 comes and demands a judgment from God. This is per- 

 mitted, and the jorsh having got into a net, manages to 

 wriggle out again, and is thereupon acquitted, and straight- 

 way recommences to annoy all his neighbours worse than 

 ever. This myth, from its resemblance to Reineke Fuchs, 

 is obviously an important one in the Thier-epos upon 

 which comparative mythologists work ; while the other, 

 that of Vishnu's fish-incarnation, has a dignity of its own, 

 apart from its possible lunar interpretation, as an episode 

 of one of the great religious epics of Asia. The god 

 had become a small fish, and in this form went to Menu, 

 praying for his protection against the larger creatures of 

 the water. The sage, in pity, put the little thing into a 

 water-jar ; but in a single night it grew large enough to 

 fill the jar, so Menu put it into a pond. Here the same 

 increase was repeated, and so the fish was taken to the 

 Ganges ; but the river soon proved all too restricted for 

 the expanding monster, and it was therefore conveyed to 

 the Sea. Upon this the god made himself known, and 

 warned the sage that in seven days the earth would be 

 overwhelmed by a Flood ; but, said the fish, " You must 

 build a ship, and enter it, with seven sages, with a pair of 

 every kind of living thing, and with the seeds of all kinds of 

 plants ;" and it promised, when the flood subsided, to come 

 and tell the inmates of the ark. In due time, accord- 

 ingly, the god, still in the fish shape, appeared, and Menu, 

 making a rope fast to the horn of the fish, was towed 

 to Naubandha, and there the ark rested upon the moun- 

 tain peak. The Diluvian Legend, therefore, is older than 



C 



