O the gods; how the cow afterwards took the place of the horse; the sheep, of the cow; the goat, of the sheep;…
- Date of account
- English edition published 1872
- Source
- Zoological Mythology; or, The Legends of Animals, Volume 1 (of 2)
- Reference
- Zoological Mythology; or, The Legends of Animals, Volume 1 (of 2) · selected passage 16
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-25
Record summary
o the gods; how the cow afterwards took the place of the horse; the sheep, of the cow; the goat, of the sheep; and, at last, vegetable products were substituted for animals;--a substitution or cheating of the gods in the sacrifice, which, perhaps, serves to explain even more the fraud of which, in popular stories, the …
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyo the gods; how the cow afterwards took the place of the horse; the sheep, of the cow; the goat, of the sheep; and, at last, vegetable products were substituted for animals;--a substitution or cheating of the gods in the sacrifice, which, perhaps, serves to explain even more the fraud of which, in popular stories, the simpleton is always the victim; the simpleton here being the god himself, and the cheater man, who changes, under a sacred pretext, the noblest and most valued animals for common and less valuable ones, and finally for vegetables apparently of no value whatever. In the Hindoo codes of law we have the same fraudulent substitution of animals under a legal pretext.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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