all nations." These chronicles have an interest all their own, but they
lack literary beauty, and not being, in themselves, Armenian literature,
have not been included in the selections made as being purely
representative of the race and land.

The examples of Armenian proverbs and folk-lore included in this volume
show, as is usual, the ethnological relationship that is so easily
traced between the fables of _Aesop_, of Bidpai, of Vartan, and of
Loqman. It may be said with truth that in the folk-lore and fables of
all nations can be traced kinship of imagination, with a variety of
application that differs with the customs and climate of the people. But
the Armenian is especially rich in a variety of elements. We meet
enchantments, faculties, superstitions, and abstract ideas personified,
which are supposed to attach miraculous meanings to the most ordinary
events. Dreams, riddles, and the like--all are there. The one strange
personification is the Dew. The Dew is a monster, half demon, half
human; sometimes harmless, sometimes malevolent; mortal, indeed, but
reaching a good or, shall we say, an evil old age. The Dew figures in
nearly all Armenian fairy-tales.

The Armenian proverbs exhibit the persistent capacity of the Armenians
during a time of _Sturm und Drang_ to embody, in pithy, wise, and
sometimes cynical form, the wisdom drawn from their own experience and
from that of the ages. It is possible that the cynical vein discernible
in some of these proverbs is a result of the intense and continued
national trials. Take, for instance, this proverb, "If a brother were a
good thing, God would have provided himself with one." Can anything be
more cynical?

The poems are of later origin. Since the twelfth century, when