Mythology & Folklore Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for enthusiasts and scholars of mythology and folklore. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I am interested in the theme of human children nursed and/or raised out of human society (e.g. Mowgli or Romulus and Remus), whether by animals, gods, flowers, aliens, etc.
Are there any myths in other cultures where such a theme appears previous to Romulus and Remus?
Ideally, I would like to know which is the oldest myth where such a theme appears (to the best of our knowledge) but that might be impossible to know for certain.
Essentially, he is a wild man that is tricked into losing his kinship with the wild beasts by laying with a woman.
Enkidu would likely be the oldest, as Gilgamesh is one of the oldest surviving mythical texts.
In Greek mythology Atalanta the virgin huntress was abandoned by her father in the wild and was cared for by a bear:
Lycurgus had sons, Ancaeus, Epochus, Amphidamas, and Iasus, by Cleophyle or Eurynome. And Amphidamas had a son Melanion and a daughter Antimache, whom Eurystheus married. And Iasus had a daughter Atalanta by Clymene, daughter of Minyas. This Atalanta was exposed by her father, because he desired male children; and a she bear came often and gave her suck, till hunters found her and brought her up among themselves.
Source: Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.
Enkidu's story is certainly older, however, I would assert that Enkidu was not abandoned as a child - in fact, was never a child - and thus does not quite fit the feral child motif. In any case, even if Atalanta's story isn't the earliest, it's certainly unique in that it is about a female child and not a male one.
