Transylvanian Story of a Great Flood

From Studies in Comparative Religion, Legend and Law

The gipsies of Transylvania are reported to tell the following legend of a deluge There was a time, they say, when men lived for ever, and knew neither trouble nor cold, neither sickness nor sorrow The earth brought forth the finest fruits: flesh grew on many trees, and milk and wine flowed in many rivers Men and animals lived happily with each other, and they had no fear of death.

But one day it happened that an old man came into the country and begged a cottager to give him a night's lodging He slept in the cottage and was well entertained by the cottager's wife. Next day, on taking his leave, the old man gave his host a small fish in a little vessel, and said, "Keep this fish and do not eat it. In nine days I will return, and if you give me the fish back, I will reward you." Then away he went. The housewife looked at the little fish and said to her husband, "Goodman, how would it be if we roasted the fish?" Her husband answered, "I promised the old man to give him back the fish. You must swear to me to spare the fish and to keep it till the old man returns." The wife swore, saying, "I will not kill the fish, I will keep it, so help me God!"

After two days the woman thought, "The little fish must taste uncommonly well, since the old man sets such store on it, and will not let it be roasted, but carries it with him about the world." She thought about it a long time, till at last she took the little fish out of the vessel, and threw it on the hot coals. Hardly had she done so than the first flash of lightning came down from heaven and struck the woman dead. Then it began to rain. The rivers overflowed their beds and swamped the country. On the ninth day the old man appeared to his host and said, "Thou hast kept thine oath and not killed the fish. Take thee a wife, gather thy kinsfolk together, and build thee a boat in which ye can save yourselves. All men and all living things must be drowned, but ye shall be saved. Take with thee also animals and seeds of trees and herbs, that ye may afterwards people the earth again." Then the old man disappeared, and the man did as he was bidden It rained for a whole year, and nothing was to be seen but water and sky.

After a year the water sank, and the man, with his wife and kinsfolk, and the animals, disembarked They had now to work, tilling and sowing the earth, to gain a living. Their life was now labour and sorrow, and worse than all came sickness and death. So they multiplied but slowly, and many, many thousands of years passed before mankind was as numerous as they had been before the flood, and as they are now The incident of the fish in this story reminds us of the fish which figures prominently in the ancient Indian legend of a great flood; and accordingly it seems possible that, as Dr. H. von Wlislocki believes, the ancestors of the gipsies brought the legend with them to Transylvania from their old home in India.