The best we leant from a course on World Mythology that Bombay University offered a few years ago was how various cultures have uncannily similar stories – take for example stories of the Flood. A large percentage of the world's cultures have stories of a "great flood" that devastated a previous civilization.Claims are sometimes made about one culture being older than another, and the actual source, but while some ‘traveling’ of story and borrowing or appropriating has been established, in other cases researchers have not established any clear possibility of migration. Really fascinating are the similarities in stories from distinct cultures which may or may not owe any influence to each other. Some who study this feel that these similarities often attest to our common human imagination, and ways of explaining events, concepts or moral values.
Most people in the West, and those of us from Christian families in the East, are quite familiar with the Noah story. I loved it, and loved my children’s illustrated version of all the animals lining up to enter, never doubting they all would fit and that the ark would float.
My course introduced me to the ancient Sumerian myth of Ziusudra (around 17th century BC) which told of how the god Enki warned Ziusudra of the gods' decision to destroy mankind in a flood. Enki instructed him to build a large boat, which he did, and after a flood of seven days, Ziusudra made appropriate sacrifices and prostrations to the sky god An, and Enlil, the chief of the gods, and was given eternal life.
India has ‘Legend of The Fish’ as its key Flood story. The first record is in Satapatha Brahmana, an important prose treatise on sacred ritual, which is believed to have been written not long before the rise of Buddhism, and therefore around the sixth century BC. But even here, the versions that followed in the Mahabharata, the Agni Purana and the Bhagvata Purana differ from each other - in one, Manu, the main character, is an ordinary man, in another he is a sage, another stresses his royal birth.
I have recently explored the delightful variations of this tale and used it in many tellings. A popular version goes this way: Manu, while one day while washing his hands in the waters of the Chirini river found a tiny fish swim into his cupped palms. It begged him to save it from being attacked and eaten by the bigger fish, saying, “I beg you … I am a small fish; you must save me. The stronger fish devour the weaker; I know that from earliest times this has been ordained as our means of subsistence. Still, save me from this, and I will pay you back well for your good deed”.
Manu, smiled at this unlikely proposal, yet compassionately took the fish and placed him in a jar. The fish grew, and in time it became too large to be contained in the jar. Manu shifted him to a pond, and as he continued to grow and get too large for his environment, at the fish’s request, he moved him in turn to a river and then to the wide sea.
The fish now spoke to Manu: “For your kindness to me, I will tell you that the time for the purification of the worlds has now arrived. Soon the world will be submerged by a great flood, and everything will perish. You must build yourself a strong ship, and take a long rope on board. You must also take with you the Seven Sages, who have existed since the Beginning of Time, and also make sure you have the Seeds of All Things. When I am ready, I will come to you, and I will have a horn on my head. Do not forget my words, for without me you cannot escape from the flood.”
Manu, realizing this was no ordinary fish, did as he was told, and as the floods began, he saw the horned fish come towards him, and cast one end of the rope over its horns. The fish began to tow them through the rising waves.
For many years the fish towed the ship through the water, and at last it came to the highest mountain peak. At its command, they tied the ship to the mountain peak and then the fish said: “O men of wisdom, now know this - I am the Creator of everything. I took on the shape of a fish, and I have saved you from this flood. With my blessings Manu will once again fill the world with life.”
With these words the fish disappeared, and as the floods abated, Manu and all in the ship slowly made their way down the slopes of the mountain and Manu became the father of a new race of living things.
In all of these stories people sought to explain the destruction of an old way of living, preparation for the new and ‘purified’ way of being. Many would ‘go under’ with all the changes, but some could ride it through. Whether people borrowed the Tellings from somewhere else hardly matters; they sought to make meaning and explain Life to the best of their ability.
Aarne-Thompson lists 179 tales from different countries with a similar theme to Beauty and the Beast. There various versions usually three daughters, the youngest being the most kind and pure, her older sisters displaying self-centeredness or selfishness.
Beast, who appears in the different versions in many forms - as a beast-like human, as a serpent, wolf, or pig, is always unappealing, sometimes scary in appearance, but seems to be rich and powerful. At one point the Beauty is separated from her Beast and at that time some tragedy visits him. It is Beauty’s remorse, sometimes shown in the simple act of shedding a tear and sometimes as tedious a task like going to the ends of the earth, that releases the Beast from an evil spell and transforms him to handsome, loving man.
Lon Po Po, a Chinese version of the Red Riding Hood story features three daughters left at home when their mother goes to visit their grandmother. Lon Po Po, the Granny Wolf, pretends to be the girls' grandmother, until the eldest daughter suspects the greedy wolf's real identity. Tempting him with ginkgo nuts, the girls pull him in a basket to the top of the tree in which they are hiding, then let go of the rope, killing the big, bad wolf.
In his introduction to his collection, World Tales, Idries Shah that wonderful collector and teacher of Story, marveled at the extraordinary connections between different cultures held together by similar stories. How did these stories get around as widely as they did? People did travel along routes like the Silk Route and others, and no doubt there were story-tellers among them. Or perhaps there is some innate connection between all human beings that allows them to make up similar tales. Whatever the way, we are all the richer for it.
May we feel the incredible human connection and linkage that similar stories the world over point us to.
Marguerite Theophil
Traditional stories, told orally, contained within them
the history, social laws, spiritual truths, and cultural values
of families and their communities.
We continue to pass stories along year after year,
generation after generation, because their timeless elements
possess an intrigue, a power, and an ability to transform our lives.
~ Robert Atkinson
