



Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project
Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously
made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)








                    RUMANIAN BIRD AND BEAST STORIES
                         RENDERED INTO ENGLISH

                                   BY

                            M. GASTER, Ph.D.

     VICE-PRESIDENT AND SOMETIME PRESIDENT OF THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY
              VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY
 VICE-PRESIDENT AND SOMETIME PRESIDENT OF THE JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY
                               ETC., ETC.



                 "But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee;
                And the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee."

                                                             Job xii. 7.


                                 LONDON
                 Published for the Folk-Lore Society by
          SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD., 3 ADAM ST., ADELPHI, W.C.
                                  1915








                                   To
                 HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELISABETH OF RUMANIA
                             "Carmen Sylva"
       To Whom the Soul of the Rumanian People is as an Open Book
                          A Page of that Book
                                   Is
                         By Gracious Permission
                               Dedicated








PREFACE.


"Neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the
heavens and the beast are fled, they are gone." The forests are silent,
over hill and dale hangs a black pall; beast and bird are in hiding;
the voices are hushed. But before they have disappeared, following
in the track of others, I have endeavoured to catch the hum of the
bee, the twitter of the