The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought: Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-DayChamberlain, Alexander Francis
Science
The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought: Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day
Chamberlain, Alexander Francis
Child rearing; Children -- Folklore; Folklore and children
Akin to these practices are many of the forms of exposure and
abandonment all over the world. Shakespeare, in _The Winter's
Tale_, makes Antigonus say:--
"Come on (poor Babe).
Some powerful Spirit instruct the Kites and Ravens
To be thy Nurses. Wolves and Bears, they say
(Casting their savageness aside), have done
Like offices of pity."
An old Egyptian painting represents a child and a calf being suckled by
the same cow, and in Palestine and the Canary Islands, goats are used to
suckle children, especially if the mother of the little one has died
(125. II. 393). The story of Psammetichus and the legend of Romulus and
Remus find parallels in many lands. Gods, heroes, saints, are suckled
and cared for in their infancy by grateful beasts.
_Wild Children._
Doctor Tylor has discussed at some length the subject of "wild men and
beast children" (376), citing examples from many different parts of the
globe. Procopius, the chronicler of the Gothic invasion of Italy, states
(with the additional information that he saw the child in question
himself), that, after the barbarians had ravaged the country, "an
infant, left by its mother, was found by a she-goat, which suckled and
took care of it. When the survivors came back to their deserted homes,
they found the child living with its adopted mother, and called it
Aegisthus." Doctor Tylor calls attention to the prevalence of similar
stories in Germany after the destruction and devastation of the
Napoleonic wars; there appears to be record of several children wild or
animal-reared having, during this period, been received into Count von
Recke's asylum at Overdyke. Many of these tales we need not hesitate to
dismiss as purely fabulous, though there may be truth in some of the
rest. Among the best-known cases (some of which are evidently nothing
more than idiots, or poor wandering children) are: Peter, the "Wild Boy"
of Hameln (in 1724); the child reported in the Hessian Chronicle as
having been found by some hunters living with wolves in 1341; the child
reported by Bernard Connor as living with she-bears, and the child found
with bears at Grodno in Poland; the wolf-child of the Ardennes,
mentioned by Koenig, in his treatise on the subject; the Irish boy said
to feed on grass and hay, found living among the wild sheep; the girl
found living wild in Holland in 1717; the two goat-like boys of the
Pyrenees (in 1719); the amphibious wild girl of Châlons sur Marne (in
1731); the wild boy of Bamberg, who lowed like an ox; and, the most
renowned of all, Kaspar Hauser. This celebrated "wild boy" has recently
been made the subject of a monograph by the Duchess of Cleveland (208),
of which the first words are these: "The story of Kaspar Hauser is both
curious and instructive. It shows on how commonplace and unpromising a
foundation a myth of European celebrity may rest." Sir William Sleeman
has something to say of "beast-children" in the Kingdom of Oude (183),
and Mr.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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