Animal nurse. Animal nourishes abandoned child.
Animals. · Friendly animals. · Services of helpful animals. · Animals nourish men. · view the constellation · filed as B535
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Attested across traditions
On our shelf — the index’s citations, resolved to served chapters
- GreekThe Library (Bibliotheca), BOOK III, ch. IXThompson cites: Fox 22 (doe), 56 (bear), 118, 155 (goat, crow, sow), 280, Frazer Apollodorus I 397, II 47 n. 2, Roscher s. v. "Achilleus"
The motif on our shelf
— written from the served texts; every claim cited receiptOne Arcadian chapter carries the motif twice, in the same grammar: parent exposes, beast nurses, hunters or herdsmen finish the job. Auge's baby, "being exposed on Mount Parthenius", "was suckled by a doe and hence called Telephus" — the animal nurse is fossilized in his name [The Library (Bibliotheca), BOOK III, ch. IX]. A few genealogical lines later: "This Atalanta was exposed by her father" for the offence of being a daughter, "and a she-bear came often and gave her suck, till hunters found her" [ibid.]. Frazer's note flags "The suckling of Atalanta by the bear" among Aelian's picturesque set-pieces [ibid., editor's note]. What the wild milk produces is not tame: Atalanta grows into the armed virgin who "remained always under arms" and shoots down the two centaurs who try to force her [ibid.]. Thompson's shelf for the animal nurse is enormous — the wolf of Romulus, Persian, Icelandic, English, and Basuto rows — and none of it is wired; our single page nonetheless supplies the core transaction in duplicate: the family withdraws its milk, the wild extends credit, and the fosterling returns to human history armed.
Witnesses: The Library (Bibliotheca), BOOK III, ch. IX