“In the Egyptian judgment scenes the baboon or cynocephalus sits upon the scales as the tongue of the balance and a primitive determinative of even-handed justice. “In a Namaqualand fable the baboon sits in judgment on the other animals. The mouse had torn the tailor's clothes and laid it to the cat, the cat lays it to the dog, the dog to the wood, the wood to the fire, the fire to the water, the water to the elephant, and the elephant to the ant; whereupon the wise judge orders the ant to bite the elephant, the elephant to drink the water, the water to quench the fire, the fire to burn the wood, the wood to beat the dog, the dog to bite the cat, and the cat to bite the mouse; and thus the tailor gets satisfaction from the judgment of the wise baboon, whose name is Yan in Namaqua, whilst that of the cynocephalus is Aan in Egyptian” This in the European folk-tales is the well-known nursery legend of “the pig that wouldn't go” How then did this Bushman or Hottentot fable get into the lowermost stratum of the folk-tales in England ? We answer, the same way that “Tom Thumb” did, and “Jack the Giant-killer”, the “House that Jack Built”, and many more which are the poor relations reduced from the mythology of Egypt to become the märchen of the world. G. H. Massey
