The Laughable Stories collected by Mâr Gregory John Bar-Hebræus, Maphrian of the East, from A.D. 1264 to 1286

Abstract

THE laughable stories collected in the thirteenth century by Bar-Hebræus, the Syriac text of which, together with an English translation, has just been published by Dr. Wallis Budge, is a remarkable book in many ways. It has been the custom with many writers who have concerned themselves with the legends and history of the East, to laugh at the Syrians as a purely ecclesiastical people whose writings consisted solely of religious commentaries and pious disquisitions; Syriac literature, in fact, has been left to the theologian, and the student of folk-lore has looked elsewhere for his materials. That this was to some extent a prejudiced view to take, was evident after the publication in 1885 of “Ka-lîlah and Dimnah,” by the late Mr. Keith-Falconer, and from the Syriac version of the “History of Alexander the Great,” published four years later by Dr. Wallis Budge; both of these books abundantly proved, if proof were needed, that Syriac writers took an intelligent interest in the literatures of other nations, and that from the translations they made for the use of their own countrymen, much valuable evidence was to-be obtained with regard to the growth and development of Eastern legends and myths. From such works as these, however, to the book before us is a far cry, for no one has hitherto suspected that in the most learned Maphrian of the East, the Jacobite Church possessed a veritable Joe Miller.

The Laughable Stories collected by Mâr Gregory John Bar-Hebræus, Maphrian of the East, from A.D. 1264. to 1286.

The Syriac text, edited with an English translation. By E. A. Wallis Budge Pp. xxvii + iv + 204 + 166. (Luzac's Semitic Text and Translation Series. Vol. i., 1897.)