King Solomon's Ring
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King Solomon's Ring is the English name of a book that changed the way people look at animals. In this epoch-making book, Konrad Lorenz completely reinvented the science of ethology. Originally written in German in 1949 and first translated to English in 1952, it has been through at least six printings in English alone and as at 2004 is still in print.
The title is a reference to a legend that King Solomon possessed a magical ring which gave him the power of speaking with animals.
Some of the ideas mooted by Lorenz have become so popular they are now widely regarded as common sense, although the work has also been criticised as using excessive anthropomorphism.
King Solomon's Ring is also the name of a short story by Roger Zelazny which appeared in the pulp magazine "Fantastic Stories of the Imagination" in 1963.