The literature of ancient Armenia that is still extant is meagre inquantity and to a large extent ecclesiastical in tone. To realize itsoriental color one must resort entirely to that portion which deals withthe home life of the people, with their fasts and festivals, theiremotions, manners, and traditions. The ecclesiastical character of muchof the early Armenian literature is accounted for by the fact thatChristianity was preached there in the first century after Christ, bythe apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew, and that the Armenian Church isthe oldest national Christian Church in the world.
It is no doubt owing to the conversion of the entire Armenian nationunder the passionate preaching of Gregory the Illuminator that most ofthe literary products, of primitive Armenia—the mythological legendsand chants of heroic deeds sung by bards—are lost. The Church wouldhave none of them. Gregory not only destroyed the pagan temples, but hesought to stamp out the pagan literature—the poetry and recordedtraditions that celebrated the deeds of gods and goddesses and ofnational heroes. He would have succeeded, too, had not the romanticspirit of the race clung fondly to their ballads and folk-lore.Ecclesiastical historiographers in referring to those times say quaintlyenough, meaning to censure the people, that in spite of their greatreligious advantages the Armenians persisted in singing some of theirheathen ballads as late as the twelfth century. Curiously enough, we owethe fragments we possess of early Armenian poetry to these sameecclesiastical critics. These fragments suggest a popular poesy,stirring and full of powerful imagery, employed mostly in celebratingroyal marriages, religious feasts, and containing dirges for the dead,and ballads of customs—not a wide field, but one invaluable to thephilologist and to ethnological students.
The Christian chroniclers and critics, however, while preserving butlittle of the verse of early Armenia, have handed down to us manylegends and traditions, though they relate them, unfortunately, withmuch carelessness and with a contempt for detail that is oftenexasperating to one seeking for instructive parallelisms between theheroic legends of different nations. Evidently the only object of theecclesiastical chroniclers in preserving these legends was to investtheir descriptions of the times with a local color. Even Moses ofChorene, who by royal command collected many of these legends, and inhis sympathetic treatment of them evinces poetic genius and keenliterary appreciation, fails to realize the importance of his task.After speaking of the old Armenian kings with enthusiasm, and evencondoning their paganism for the sake of their virility, he leaves hiscollection in the utmost disorder and positively without a note orcomment. In the face of such difficulties, therefore, it has been hardto present specimens of early Armenian folk-lore and legends that shallgive the reader a rightful idea of the race and the time.
As Armenia was the highroad between Asia and Europe, these old storiesand folk-plays show the influence of migrating and invading people. Themythology of the Chaldeans and Persians mingles oddly with traditionspurely Armenian. This is well shown in the story of David of Sassun,given in this volume. David was the local hero of the