雁と熊

想像世界での系譜と宇宙創成神話

抄録

The goose and the bear form, at first sight, a strange couple. For a zoologist, they don’t belong to the same family. But with regard to the mythical thought, they are kindred. If we compare various stories inherited from popular traditions from Siberia to Europe, we can recognize an interesting pattern showing that the mother (the sister or the wife) of the bear is a migratory bird like the goose. According to popular songs of the Mansi people in territories of Russia along the Ob River, the bear nicknamed “Beast of broad” is practically a son of the grebe. In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo, associated with the swan, possesses a bearish nature through his twin sister Artemis, whose name contains the bear element; what is more interesting, one variant text says that his aunt Asteria was a quail. Concerning the legendary Greek king Odysseus (Ulysses), it isn’t just an accident that the name of his wife Penelope means “ marine duck ”, for this Greek hero is certainly a bear’s son, as R. Carpenter has demonstrated. In the Celtic World, the name King Arthur signifies the bear, and the name of his mother Ygraine is based on an old Irish word “gigren” (Goose). In northern Europe, Völundr’s poem relates the story of the artisan Völundr who lives a life such as a bear, and his wife is one of the three valkyries (swan-maiden). In Finnish mythology, Kalevala explains how the bear was borne by a virgin which lives in the air and looks like a bird. Why has mythical thought positioned the bear and the migratory bird in the same genealogy all over the world? The key to solving this enigma resides in the hibernation of the bear and in the migration of several kinds of birds like the goose. In fact, in ancient civilizations, people considered the bear and the goose not only as rulers of time and seasons but also as mediums capable of linking the earth to the other world.