3. Plutarch, Theseus. All kinds of stories (μῦθοι) were told at the festival Oschophoria, as the mothers related such things to their children before their departure (to Crete, and decided by lot), to give them courage.
4 Quinctilianus (Instit. 1. 9).
Igitur Aesopi fabellas quae fabulis nutricularum proximo succedunt, narrare sermone puro et nihil se supra modum extollente . . condiscant.
5. Apuleius (Metamorph. iv.).
Sed ego te narrationibus lepidis anilibusque fabulis protinus evocabo.
6. Tertullianus (adversus Valentinianos liber. Paris, 1566, 1. 644). Jam etsi in totam fabulam initietur, nonne tale aliquid dabitur te in infantia inter somni difficultates a nutricula audisse, lamiae turres et pectines solis?
The story of the maiden who is imprisoned in a tower by a witch, and who lets her golden-yellow hair hang down that the sun may shine on it (bestrahlen, i.e., strählen, comb it), as in the story of Rapunzel, No. 12.
Ibid. p. 589: fabulae pueriles apud Carthaginem.
7. Odofredus (Summa codicis, Lugd. 1519, fol. 134 c). In lege ista ponitur quaedam fabula quae esset dicenda apud ignem cum familia sua de sero.
8. Aniles veteranarum fabula, Perz, Monim. 6, 452.
9. Gudrun, 1126, 3-1130 (4515-24).
The Hegelings arm themselves to liberate Gudrun, the daughter of their Queen Hilda, from her captivity in Normandy. Horand of Denmark is their leader, old Wate and Frut are guides. When they are on the voyage, winds arise which drive the ships northward into the Dark Sea to Givers, near the lode-stone rock. The people bemoan themselves, but Wate says encouragingly:
ich hôrte ie sagen von kinden für ein wazzermaere[1]
daz ze Gîvers in dem berge ein wîtez künîcriche erbûwen waere.
Dâ leben die liute schône, sô rîche sî ir lant:
dâ diu wazzer verliesen (l. verloufen,) dâ sî silberîn der sant;
- ↑ From childhood have I heard a sailor's story that at Givers, in the mountain a great kingdom is established, where the people live splendidly for their country is so rich; there the sand beneath the waves is silver, and they use it as lime for their fortifications, and the material they use for building their walls, and call stone, is the finest gold; there they have very little poverty. Furthermore I have heard—God's works are manifold—that he whom the magnet brings to the mountain, if he will but wait for the winds (that blows from the shore), he and his shall be rich forever.
