RHAMPSINITOS AND THE MASTER THIEF.
59
CHAP V.
tions which we find in the Norse Master Thief" and the Shifty Lad of Highland tradition. Professor Max Müller adds that "the case would be different if the same story occurred in Herodotos."
The legend of Rhampsinitos."At the time of Herodotos," he continues, "the translations of the Hitopadesa had not yet reached Europe, and we should be obliged to include the Master Thief within the most primitive stock of Aryan lore. But there is nothing in the story of the two sons of the architect who robbed the treasury of Rhampsinitos which turns on the trick of the Master Thief. There were thieves, more or less clever, in Egypt as well as in India, and some of their stratagems were possibly the same at all times. But there is a keen and well-defined humour in the story of the Brahman and his deference to public opinion. Of this there is no trace in the anecdote told by Herodotos. That anecdote deals with mere matter of fact, whether imaginary or historical. The story of Rhampsinitos did enter into the popular literature of Europe, but through a different channel. We find it in the "Gesta Romanorum," where Octavianus has taken the place of Rhampsinitos, and we can hardly doubt that there it came originally from Herodotos."[1] But what are really the facts of the case? The evidence which proves that the Herodotean story was reproduced in the "Gesta Romanorum" cannot be taken as of itself establishing the same origin for the Norse, the Teutonic, and the Irish legend. The incident of the Brahman and the goat may be left on one side, as only distantly resembling a very subordinate part of the Norse version; but the real story of the Master Thief's career is precisely the story of the architect's son in the legend of Rhampsinitos. The possible affinity of thievish stratagems in all countries can scarcely account for a series of extraordinary incidents and astounding tricks following each other in the same order, although utterly different in their outward garb and colouring. Strangely enough, the Highland version, which agrees with the Norse tale in making the young thief cheat his master, agrees most closely with the Egyptian myth.[2] In the latter, the younger of the two sons who- ↑ Chips from a German Workshop, ii. 231.
- ↑ The groundwork of the Arabian Nights' story of the Forty Thieves is manifestly the same, but the likeness to the legend of Rhampsinitos is not nearly so close. Here, however, as in the Egyptian tale, we have two brothers, who become possessed of the secret of a treasure-house. The king is replaced by the forty thieves; but it may be noted that Herodotos speaks of the wealth of Rhampsinitos as amassed by extortion if not by direct robbery. Here also one of the brothers is unlucky; but although he is found alive in the cave, the thieves are none the wiser, as he is immediately killed. Here too the body is nailed up against the wall, but it is within the cave; and it is taken away by the other brother, who is impelled to this task, not by the mother of the dead man, but by his wife. The thieves are not less per-
