μῦθοι Mythoi
Motif
The motif on our shelf — written from the served texts; every claim cited  receipt

The Greek face of this address is Ganymede, and our shelf carries his abduction in two stages: Homer has no bird — “Him the gods caught up to be cupbearer to Zeus” [The Iliad, Book XX] — while Apollodorus supplies the carrier, “Zeus caught up on an eagle” [The Library (Bibliotheca), BOOK III, ch. XII], Frazer’s note marking the eagle as later furniture: early versions “do not mention the eagle as the agent” [ibid., editor’s note]. The Arabian shelf makes the motif a survival technique, twice in one chapter. Marooned Sindbad “tied myself by it to one of the feet of that bird” — the rukh that “feedeth its young ones with elephants” — which “uttered a great cry, and drew me up into the sky”; later, bound to a carcass in the diamond valley, he rises when a vulture “seized it with its talons, and flew up with it into the air”, “with me attached to it” [The Thousand and One Nights, commonly called, in England, The Arabian Nights' Entertainments, Chapter 20]. Lane’s own note domesticates the wonder, taking “the bearded vulture as the archetype of the rukh'” [ibid., editor’s note]. Four further candidates — Ovid, a second Nights chapter, a Bella Coola feather-flight, Frazer’s bird-procession — dissolved on reading: being carried by the bird is not becoming one.

Witnesses: The Library (Bibliotheca), BOOK III, ch. XII · The Iliad, Book XX · The Thousand and One Nights, commonly called, in England, The Arabian Nights' Entertainments, Chapter 20

In our texts — keyword-matched, unreviewed
Scholars’ trail — 8references

The index’s own references — the collections where scholars sighted this story-shape, tradition by tradition. Titles on our shelf are live links; the rest is the frontier, not yet shelved.

  • JewishNeuman*, Bin Gorion Born Judas 2d ed. I 228
  • BretonSébillot Incidents s. v. "nid"
  • Irish mythCross, Saints' legend (Irish): Plummer cxlvi. – Missouri-French: Carrière. – German New Guinea: Dixon 141f. India: *Thompson-Balys
  • JapaneseIkeda
  • ChineseEberhard FFC CXX 38f.
  • AfricaStanley 83, (Boloki): Weeks 202f., (Upoto): Einstein 138, (Pangwe): Tessman 370, (Fang): ibid. 160.
  • general See all references in B542.1. and B542.1.1. Chauvin V 230 No. 130, VII 12
  • general *Reinhard PMLA XXXVIII 433 nn. 24, 26. – Greek: Frazer Apollodorus II 37 n. 4 (Ganymede) → on our shelf: The Library (Bibliotheca), BOOK III, ch. XII
Within the index

Filed under Animals carry men.

3 finer motifs beneath it
Alexander carried by two birds with meat held in front of themMan carried by peacockIndra carried by cock
Filed beside it
Animal carries man across waterAnimals serve as bridge across streamSea-beast allows voyager to land upon his backUnusual animal as riding-horseUnusual draft-animalAnimals carry men – miscellaneous
Keeps company with — shares receipted episodes
Cupbearer of the godsCreation of diver (bird)Transformation: ant to personFuture revealed in dream. (Cf. D1810.8, D1812.5.1.2, D1813.1.)Rain produced by prayer. (Cf. D1391.1, D2141.0.7.1.)Mortal's attempt to defile goddess punishedDeath by thunderbolt as punishmentAbandonment on an island. (Marooning.)
Carried in tale types

wander