Research source

Berta, like the cow of the fairy tales, spins silver and gold

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 92
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-25

Record summary

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 only

Berta, like the cow of the fairy tales, spins silver and gold. Therefore, when we say in Italy that the time when Berta spun is past,[470] this expression means, that the golden age, the age in which gold abounded is past. And instead of this expression we also use another in Italy to denote an incident which took place in a very ancient era, at a time very remote from the memory of men; we say, in the times of King Pipino (Pepin). Queen Berta having been the wife of Pepin, it was natural that the times of the husband should correspond to the fabled era of his wife, who was, tradition alleges, mother of Charlemagne, the hero so-named of the legends, of whom it is said, in Turpin's Chronicle, that he had long feet, and his _alter ego_ Orlando (a new and splendid mediæval form of the twin heroes), rather than of the King Charlemagne of history.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This 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 only

Lattice 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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