TRANSYLVANIAN GYPSY FLOOD STORY
Men once lived forever and knew no troubles.
The earth brought forth fine fruits, flesh grew on trees, and milk and wine flowed in many rivers.
One day, and old man came to the country and asked for a night's lodging, which a couple gave him in their cottage.
When he departed the next day, he said he would return in nine days.
He gave his host a small fish in a vessel and said he would reward the host if he did not eat the fish but returned it then.
The wife thought the fish must be exceptionally good to eat, but the husband said he had promised the old man to keep it and made the woman swear not to eat it.
After two days of thinking about it, though, the wife yielded to temptation and threw the fish on the hot coals.
Immediately, she was struck dead by lightning, and it began to rain.
The rivers started overflowing the country.
On the ninth day, the old man returned and told his host that all living things would be drowned, but since he had kept his oath, he would be saved.
The old man told the host to take a wife, gather his kinfolk, and build a boat on which to save them, animals, and seeds of trees and herbs.
The man did all this. It rained a year, and the waters covered everything.
After a year, the waters sank, and the people and animals disembarked.
They now had to labor to gain a living, and sickness and death came also.
They multiplied slowly so that many thousands of years passed before people were again as numerous as they were before the flood. [Frazer, pp. 177-178]
Sir James George Frazer OM FRS FRSE FBA (/ˈfreɪzər/; 1 January 1854 – 7 May 1941) was a Scottish social anthropologist and folklorist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion.
Frazer, Sir James G. Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, vol. 1, Macmillan & Co., London, 1919.
Folk-lore in the Old Testament Vol. 1 - Anna’s Archive
TRANSYLVANIAN GYPSY FLOOD STORY
CIVILIZATION: TRANSYLVANIAN GYPSY: FLOOD STORY – Do YOU have the HOLY GHOST?