PROFESSOR E. B. Cowell, of Cambridge, in an interesting paper contributed to the Welsh Society's journal (Y Cymmrodor), October, 1882, has adduced a number of variants of this tale, together with its oldest (Buddhistic) form, from which, with his kind permission, I make the following extracts:

“Readers of the Mabinogion will remember the curious legend of the oldest known animals, which is found in the story of Kilhwch and Olwen. We read there how Arthur's ambassadors went successively in search of tidings about Mabon the son of Modron, to the ousel of Cilgwri, the stag of Redynvre, the owl of Cwm Cawlwyd, the eagle of Gwern Abwy, and, finally, the salmon of Llyn Llyw, and each in turn gave some fresh proof of its greater age than its predecessors, but still referred the ques­tion to some animal of still more venerable antiquity than itself. Ap Gwilym, however, alludes to another version of the story, which, I am inclined to think, preserves an older form of this wide-spread piece of folk-lore. In his poem, Yr Oed, where he describes himself as waiting and waiting under the thorn for his faithless mistress, he says:

A thousand persons and more liken me
To him who dwelt in Gwernabwy;
In truth I should not be an eagle at all,
Except for my waiting for my fair lady three generations of men;
I am exactly like the stag
In Cilgwri, for my beloved;
Of the same colour, gray to my thinking,
As my bedfellow (the owl) in Cwm Cawlwyd.

Here we have only three animals instead of the five in the Mabinogi; and, as far as I can trace the story in Eastern litera­ture, three is the usual number given, however the species of the animals themselves may vary. The legend itself, like so many other popular stories, came to Europe originally from India, and probably passed, together with Buddhism, into other countries. Its oldest known form is found in the Culla Vagga portion of the Vinayapitaka, one of the oldest parts of the Buddhist sacred books; and another version of it is given in the first volume of the fátakas, lately translated by Mr. T. W. Rhys Davids. The former version, a translation of which I subjoin, can hardly be later than the third century B.C.

Long ago there was a great banyan tree on the slope of the Himálaya mountains, and three friends dwelt near it—a par­tridge, a monkey, and an elephant. They were disrespectful and discourteous to one another, and did not live harmoniously together. Then it occurred to them: “Oh, if we could but know which of us is the eldest, we could honour him and respect him, and show him duty and reverence, and abide by his exhortations.” Then the partridge and the monkey asked the elephant: “What is the oldest thing, friend, that you re­member?” “Friends,” he replied, “when I was a child I used to walk over this banyan tree, keeping it between my thighs, and its topmost shoot touched my belly. This is the oldest thing that I remember.” Then the partridge and the ele­phant asked the monkey: “What is the oldest thing, friend, that you remember?” “Friends, when I was a child I used to sit on the ground and eat the topmost shoot of this banyan. This is the oldest thing that I remember.” Then the monkey and the elephant asked the partridge: “What is the oldest thing, friend, that you remember?” “Friends, in yonder place there was once a certain great banyan tree; I ate a fruit from it and voided it in this spot, and from it sprang this banyan. There­fore, friends, I am older than either of you.” Then the monkey and the elephant thus addressed the partridge: “You, friend, are the oldest of us all; we will honour and respect you, and will show you duty and reverence, and will abide by your exhortations.” Then the partridge stirred them up in the five moral duties, and also took those duties upon himself. They were respectful and courteous to one another, and lived har­moniously together, and after the dissolution of their bodies they were reborn happily in heaven.

“The same apologue occurs in the seventeenth of the Avadánas, or Indian apologues, translated by Julien from the Chinese.—A curiously distorted version of the Buddhist legend is found in the Uttara-kanda of the Sanskrit Rámáyana, the later book which was added to the Rámáyana to explain and amplify the brief allusions to earlier events which had been left obscure in the original poem. There we read that a vulture and an owl, who had lived in a certain wood from time im­memorial, quarrelled about the possession of a certain cave, each claiming it to be his by ancient right. They eventually agreed to bring the matter before Ráma for his decision. On his asking them how long each claimed to have had the cave as a dwelling, the vulture replied: ‘It has been my home ever since this earth was first filled with men newly come into being;’ while the owl rejoined: ‘It has been my home ever since this earth was first adorned with trees.’ Ráma then decided that the cave properly belonged to the owl, as trees and plants were originally produced before the creation of man­kind from the marrow of two demons slain by Vishnu, whence the earth was called Mediní (from meda, marrow). Here we have only two animals introduced; Ráma, however, as the umpire, occupies the place of the third. But,” adds Professor Cowell, “we find the triad of interlocutors reappearing in the version of the story given in the Sindibād Nāma. This story reproduces the old dialogue, but the animals are changed, and a new point is added at the end.”

But there is another form of the legend, current in Europe since the 12th century, in which men are substituted for animals, and which in one particular closely resembles the version in our text, namely, the well-known story of the Three Dreamers and the Loaf. In this form it seems to have been derived from the Arabian fabulists by Peter Alphonsus, who has related it, in his Disciplina Clericalis (fab. 17), as follows:

It is related of two citizens and a countryman, going to Mecca, that they shared provisions till they reached there, and then their food failed, so that nothing remained save so much flour as would make a single loaf, and that a small one. The citizens seeing this said to each other: “We have too little bread, and our companion eats a great deal. Wherefore we ought to have a plan to take away from him part of the loaf, and eat it by ourselves alone.” Accordingly a plan of this sort proved accept­able: to make and bake the loaf, and while it was being baked to sleep, and whoever of them saw the most wonderful things in a dream should eat the loaf alone. These words they spoke artfully, as they thought the rustic too simple for inventions of this sort. They made the loaf and baked it, and at length lay down to sleep. But the rustic, more crafty than they thought, whilst his companions were asleep, took the half-baked loaf, ate it up, and again lay down. One of the citizens, as if terrified out of his sleep, awoke, and called his companion, who inquired: “What is the matter?” He said: “I have seen a wondrous vision; for it seemed to me that two angels opened the gates of Paradise, and led me within.” Then his companion said to him: “That is a wondrous vision you have seen; but I dreamed that two angels took me, and, cleaving the earth, led me to the lower regions.” All this the countryman heard, and pretended to be asleep; but the citizens, being deceived and wishing to deceive, called on him to awake. But the rustic replied cunningly, and as though he were terrified: “Who are they that call me?” Then they said: “We are your companions.” But he replied: “Have you returned already?” To this they rejoined: “Where did we go, that we should return?” Then the rustic said: “Now it seemed to me that two angels took one of you, and opened the gates of heaven and led him within; then two others took the other and opened the earth and took him to hell; and seeing this, I thought that neither of you would return any more, and I rose and ate the loaf.”

From Alphonsus—who may have obtained it from the Historia feshuae Nazareni, a scurrilous life of the Saviour, of Jewish in­vention, where it also occurs—this version was taken into the Gesta Romanorum, and at a later period Cinthio, the Italian novelist, introduced it into his Hecatommithi, where the charac­ters are a philosopher, an astrologer, and a soldier. The tale has long been popular in our own country—a well-worn “Joe Miller,” of an Englishman, a Scotchman, and an Irishman who travelled in company; the conventional Irishman “dreamt he was hungry, and got up and ate the loaf.”