INDIAN FAIRY TALES (1890)
Selected and edited by
JOSEPH JACOBS
Illustrated by
JOHN D. BATTEN
TO MY DEAR LITTLE PHIL
PREFACE
From the extreme West of the Indo-European world, we go this year to
the extreme East. From the soft rain and green turf of Gaeldom, we seek
the garish sun and arid soil of the Hindoo. In the Land of Ire, the
belief in fairies, gnomes, ogres and monsters is all but dead; in the
Land of Ind it still flourishes in all the vigour of animism.
Soils and national characters differ; but fairy tales are the same in
plot and incidents, if not in treatment. The majority of the tales in
this volume have been known in the West in some form or other, and the
problem arises how to account for their simultaneous existence in
farthest West and East. Some--as Benfey in Germany, M. Cosquin in
France, and Mr. Clouston in England--have declared that India is the
Home of the Fairy Tale, and that all European fairy tales have been
brought from thence by Crusaders, by Mongol missionaries, by Gipsies,
by Jews, by traders, by travellers.
The question is still before the
courts, and one can only deal with it as an advocate. So far as my
instructions go, I should be prepared, within certain limits, to hold a
brief for India. So far as the children of Europe have their fairy
stories in common, these--and they form more than a third of the whole are derived from India. In particular, the majority of the Drolls or
comic tales and jingles can be traced, without much difficulty, back to
the Indian peninsula.
Certainly there is abundant evidence of the early transmission by
literary means of a considerable number of drolls and folk-tales from
India about the time of the Crusaders. The collections known in Europe
by the titles of The Fables of Bidpai, The Seven Wise Masters, Gesia
Romanorum, and Barlaam and Josaphat, were extremely popular
during the Middle Ages, and their contents passed on the one hand into
the Exempla of the monkish preachers, and on the other into the
Novelle of Italy, thence, after many days, to contribute their
quota to the Elizabethan Drama. Perhaps nearly one-tenth of the main
incidents of European folktales can be traced to this source.
There are even indications of an earlier literary contact between
Europe and India, in the case of one branch of the folk-tale, the Fable
or Beast Droll. In a somewhat elaborate discussion Footnote: "History
of the Aesopic Fable," the introductory volume to my edition of Caxton's
Fables of Esope (London, Nutt, 1889). I have come to the
conclusion that a goodly number of the fables that pass under the name
of the Samian slave, Aesop, were derived from India, probably from the
same source whence the same tales were utilised in the Jatakas, or
Birth-stories of Buddha. These Jatakas contain a large quantity of
genuine early Indian folk-tales, and form the earliest collection of
folk-tales in the world, a sort of Indian Grimm, collected more than
two thousand years before the good German brothers went on their quest
among the folk with such delightful results. For this reason I have
included a considerable number of them in this volume; and shall be
surprised if tales that have roused the laughter and wonder of pious
Buddhists for the last two thousand years, cannot produce the same
effect on English children. The Jatakas have been fortunate in their
English translators, who render with vigour and point; and I rejoice
in being able to publish the translation of two new Jatakas, kindly
done into English for this volume by Mr. W. H. D. Rouse, of Christ's
College, Cambridge. In one of these I think I have traced the source
of the Tar Baby incident in "Uncle Remus."
Though Indian fairy tales are the earliest in existence, yet they are
also from another point of view the youngest. For it is only about
twenty-five years ago that Miss Frere began the modern collection of
Indian folk-tales with her charming "Old Deccan Days" (London, John
Murray, 1868; fourth edition, 1889). Her example has been followed by
Miss Stokes, by Mrs. Steel, and Captain (now Major) Temple, by the
Pandit Natesa Sastri, by Mr. Knowles and Mr. Campbell, as well as
others who have published folk-tales in such periodicals as the
Indian Antiquary and The Orientalist. The story-store of
modern India has been well dipped into during the last quarter of a
century, though the immense range of the country leaves room for any
number of additional workers and collections. Even so far as the
materials already collected go, a large number of the commonest
incidents in European folk-tales have been found in India. Whether
brought there or born there, we have scarcely any criterion for
judging; but as some of those still current among the folk in India can
be traced back more than a millennium, the presumption is in favour of
an Indian origin.
From all these sources--from the Jatakas, from the Bidpai, and from the
more recent collections--I have selected those stories which throw most
light on the origin of Fable and Folk-tales, and at the same time are
most likely to attract English children. I have not, however, included
too many stories of the Grimm types, lest I should repeat the contents
of the two preceding volumes of this series. This has to some degree
weakened the case for India as represented by this book. The need of
catering for the young ones has restricted my selection from the well-
named "Ocean of the Streams of Story," Katha-Sarit Sagara of
Somadeva. The stories existing in Pali and Sanskrit I have taken from
translations, mostly from the German of Benfey or the vigorous English
of Professor Rhys-Davids, whom I have to thank for permission to use
his versions of the Jatakas.
I have been enabled to make this book a representative collection of
the Fairy Tales of Ind by the kindness of the original collectors or
their publishers. I have especially to thank Miss Frere, who kindly
made an exception in my favour, and granted me the use of that fine
story, "Punchkin," and that quaint myth, "How Sun, Moon, and Wind went
out to Dinner." Miss Stokes has been equally gracious in granting me
the use of characteristic specimens from her "Indian Fairy Tales." To
Major Temple I owe the advantage of selecting from his admirable
Wideawake Stories, and Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. have
allowed me to use Mr. Knowles' "Folk-tales of Kashmir," in their
Oriental Library; and Messrs. W. H. Allen have been equally obliging
with regard to Mrs. Kingscote's "Tales of the Sun." Mr. M. L. Dames has
enabled me add to the published story-store of India by granting me the
use of one from his inedited collection of Baluchi folk-tales.
I have again to congratulate myself an the co-operation of my friend
Mr. J. D. Batten in giving beautiful or amusing form to the creations
of the folk fancy of the Hindoos. It is no slight thing to embody, as
he has done, the glamour and the humour both of the Celt and of the
Hindoo. It is only a further proof that Fairy Tales are something more
than Celtic or Hindoo. They are human.
JOSEPH JACOBS.
CONTENTS
I. THE LION AND THE CRANE
II. HOW THE RAJA'S SON WON THE PRINCESS LABAM
III. THE LAMBIKIN
IV. PUNCHKIN
V. THE BROKEN POT
VI. THE MAGIC FIDDLE
VII. THE CRUEL CRANE OUTWITTED
VIII. LOVING LAILI
IX. THE TIGER, THE BRAHMAN, AND THE JACKAL
X. THE SOOTHSAYER'S SON
XI. HARISARMAN
XII. THE CHARMED RING
XIII. THE TALKATIVE TORTOISE
XIV. A LAC OF RUPEES FOR A PIECE OF ADVICE
XV. THE GOLD-GIVING SERPENT
XVI. THE SON OF SEVEN QUEENS
XVII. A LESSON FOR KINGS
XVIII. PRIDE GOETH BEFORE A FALL
Temporary note from the noder: As these are completed I will put them in bold, if someone would like to help holler, I'll give you the formatting scheme I plan to use. Thanks.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
The story literature of India is in a large measure the outcome of the
moral revolution of the peninsula connected with the name of Gautama
Buddha. As the influence of his life and doctrines grew, a tendency
arose to connect all the popular stories of India round the great
teacher. This could be easily effected owing to the wide spread of the
belief in metempsychosis. All that was told of the sages of the past
could be interpreted of the Buddha by representing them as pre-
incarnations of him. Even with Fables, or beast-tales, this could be
done, for the Hindoos were Darwinists long before Darwin, and regarded
beasts as cousins of men and stages of development in the progress of
the soul through the ages. Thus, by identifying the Buddha with the
heroes of all folk-tales and the chief characters in the beast-drolls,
the Buddhists were enabled to incorporate the whole of the story-store
of Hindostan in their sacred books, and enlist on their side the tale-
telling instincts of men.
In making Buddha the centre figure of the popular literature of India,
his followers also invented the Frame as a method of literary art. The
idea of connecting a number of disconnected stories familiar to us from
The Arabian Nights, Boccaccio's Decamerone, Chaucer's Canterbury
Tales, or even Pickwick, is directly traceable to the plan of
making Buddha the central figure of India folk-literature. Curiously
enough, the earliest instance of this in Buddhist literature was intended
to be a Decameron, ten tales of Buddha's previous births, told of each
of the ten Perfections. Asvagosha, the earlier Boccaccio, died when he
had completed thirty-four of the Birth-Tales. But other collections were
made, and at last a corpus of the JATAKAS, or Birth-Tales of the Buddha,
was carried over to Ceylon, possibly as early as the first introduction of
Buddhism, 241 B.C. There they have remained till the present day, and
have at last been made accessible in a complete edition in the original
Pali by Prof. Fausboll.
These JATAKAS, as we now have them, are enshrined in a commentary on
the gathas, or moral verses, written in Ceylon by one of
Buddhaghosa's school in the fifth century A.D. They invariably begin
with a "Story of the Present," an incident in Buddha's life which
calls up to him a "Story of the Past," a folk-tale in which he had
played a part during one of his former incarnations. Thus the fable of
the Lion and the Crane, which opens the present collection, is
introduced by a "Story of the Present" in the following words:--
"A service have we done thee" the opening words of the gatha or
moral verse. "This the Master told while living at Jetavana concerning
Devadatta's treachery. Not only now, O Bhickkus, but in a former
existence was Devadatta ungrateful. And having said this he told a
tale" Then follows the tale as given above, and the commentary
concludes: "The Master, having given the lesson, summed up the Jataka
thus: 'At that time, the Lion was Devadatta, and the Crane was I
myself.'" Similarly, with each story of the past the Buddha identifies
himself, or is mentioned as identical with, the virtuous hero of the
folk-tale. These Jatakas are 550 in number, and have been reckoned to
include some 2000 tales. Some of these had been translated by Mr.
Rhys-Davids (Buddhist Birth Stories, I., Trubner's Oriental
Library, 1880), Prof. Fausboll (Five Jatakas, Copenhagen), and Dr.
R. Morris (Folk-Lore Journal, vols. ii.-v.). A few exist sculptured
on the earliest Buddhist Stupas. Thus several of the circular figure
designs on the reliefs from Amaravati, now on the grand staircase of the
British Museum, represent Jatakas, or previous births of the Buddha.
Some of the Jatakas bear a remarkable resemblance to some of the most
familiar FABLES OF AESOP. So close is the resemblance, indeed, that it
is impossible not to surmise an historical relation between the two.
What this relation is I have discussed at considerable length in the
"History of the Aesopic Fable," which forms the introductory volume to
my edition of Caxton's Esope (London, D. Nutt, "Bibliotheque de
Carabas," 1889). In this place I can only roughly summarise my results.
I conjecture that a collection of fables existed in India before Buddha
and independently of the Jatakas, and connected with the name of
Kasyapa, who was afterwards made by the Buddhists into the latest of
the twenty-seven pre-incarnations of the Buddha. This collection of the
Fables of Kasyapa was brought to Europe with a deputation from the
Cingalese King Chandra Muka Siwa (obiit 52 A.D.) to the Emperor
Claudius about 50 A.D., and was done into Greek as the Greek: Logoi
Lubikoi of "Kybises." These were utilised by Babrius (from whom the
Greek Aesop is derived) and Avian, and so came into the European Aesop.
I have discussed all those that are to be found in the Jatakas in the
"History" before mentioned, i. pp. 54-72 (see Notes i. xv. xx.). In
these Notes henceforth I refer to this "History" as my Aesop.
There were probably other Buddhist collections of a similar nature to
the Jatakas with a framework. When the Hindu reaction against Buddhism
came, the Brahmins adapted these, with the omission of Buddha as the
central figure. There is scarcely any doubt that the so-called FABLES
OF BIDPAI were thus derived from Buddhistic sources. In its Indian form
this is now extant as a Panchatantra or Pentateuch, five books
of tales connected by a Frame. This collection is of special interest
to us in the present connection, as it has come to Europe in various
forms and shapes. I have edited Sir Thomas North's English version of
an Italian adaptation of a Spanish translation of a Latin version of a
Hebrew translation of an Arabic adaptation of the Pehlevi version of
the Indian original (Fables of Bidpai, London, D. Nutt,
"Bibliotheque de Carabas," 1888). In this I give a genealogical table
of the various versions, from which I calculate that the tales have
been translated into thirty-eight languages in 112 different versions,
twenty different ones in English alone. Their influence on European
folk-tales has been very great: it is probable that nearly one-tenth of
these can be traced to the Bidpai literature. (See Notes v. ix. x.
xiii. xv.)
Other collections of a similar character, arranged in a frame, and
derived ultimately from Buddhistic sources, also reached Europe and
formed popular reading in the Middle Ages. Among these may be mentioned
THE TALES OF SINDIBAD, known to Europe as The Seven Sages of
Rome: from this we get the Gellert story (cf. Celtic Fairy
Tales), though it also occurs in the Bidpai. Another popular
collection was that associated with the life of St. Buddha, who has
been canonised as St. Josaphat: BARLAAM AND JOSAPHAT tells of his
conversion and much else besides, including the tale of the Three
Caskets, used by Shakespeare in the Merchant of Venice.
Some of the Indian tales reached Europe at the time of the Crusades,
either orally or in collections no longer extant. The earliest
selection of these was the Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus
Alphonsi, a Spanish Jew converted about 1106: his tales were to be used
as seasoning for sermons, and strong seasoning they must have proved.
Another Spanish collection of considerably later date was entitled
El Conde Lucanor (Eng. trans. by W. York): this contains the
fable of The Man, his Son, and their Ass, which they ride or
carry as the popular voice decides. But the most famous collection of
this kind was that known as GESTA ROMANORUM, much of which was
certainly derived from Oriental and ultimately Indian sources, and so
might more appropriately be termed Gesta Indorum.
All these collections, which reached Europe in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, became very popular, and were used by monks and
friars to enliven their sermons as EXEMPLA. Prof. Crane has given a
full account of this very curious phenomenon in his erudite edition of
the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry (Folk Lore Society, 1890). The
Indian stories were also used by the Italian Novellieri, much of
Boccaccio and his school being derived from this source. As these again
gave material for the Elizabethan Drama, chiefly in W. Painter's
Palace of Pleasure, a collection of translated Novelle which
I have edited (Lond., 3 vols. 1890), it is not surprising that we can at
times trace portions of Shakespeare back to India. It should also be
mentioned that one-half of La Fontaine's Fables (Bks. vii.-xii.) are
derived from Indian sources. (See Note on No. v.)
In India itself the collection of stories in frames went on and still
goes on. Besides those already mentioned there are the stories of
Vikram and the Vampire (Vetala), translated among others by the
late Sir Richard Burton, and the seventy stories of a parrot (Suka
Saptati.) The whole of this literature was summed up by Somnadeva,
c. 1200 A.D. in a huge compilation entitled Katha Sarit Sagara
("Ocean of the Stream of Stories"). Of this work, written in very
florid style, Mr. Tawney has produced a translation in two volumes in
the Bibliotheca Indica. Unfortunately, there is a Divorce Court
atmosphere about the whole book, and my selections from it have been
accordingly restricted. (Notes, No. xi.)
So much for a short sketch of Indian folk-tales so far as they have
been reduced to writing in the native literature. [Footnote: An
admirable and full account of this literature was given by M. A. Barth
in Melusine, t. iv. No. 12, and t. v. No. 1. See also Table i.
of Prof. Rhys-Davids' Birth Stories.] The Jatakas are probably
the oldest collection of such tales in literature, and the greater part
of the rest are demonstrably more than a thousand years old. It is
certain that much (perhaps one-fifth) of the popular literature of
modern Europe is derived from those portions of this large bulk which
came west with the Crusades through the medium of Arabs and Jews. In
his elaborate Einleitung to the Pantschatantra, the Indian
version of the Fables of Bidpai, Prof. Benfey contended with enormous
erudition that the majority of folk-tale incidents were to be found in the
Bidpai literature. His introduction consisted of over 200 monographs on
the spread of Indian tales to Europe. He wrote in 1859, before the great
outburst of folk-tale collection in Europe, and he had not thus adequate
materials to go about in determining the extent of Indian influence on
the popular mind of Europe. But he made it clear that for beast-tales and
for drolls, the majority of those current in the mouths of occidental
people were derived from Eastern and mainly Indian sources. He was
not successful, in my opinion, in tracing the serious fairy tale to India.
Few of the tales in the Indian literary collections could be dignified by
the name of fairy tales, and it was clear that if these were to be traced
to India, an examination of the contemporary folk-tales of the peninsula
would have to be attempted.
The collection of current Indian folk-tales has been the work of the
last quarter of a century, a work, even after what has been achieved,
still in its initial stages. The credit of having begun the process is
due to Miss Frere, who, while her father was Governor of the Bombay
Presidency, took down from the lips of her ayah, Anna de Souza,
one of a Lingaet family from Goa who had been Christian for three
generations, the tales she afterwards published with Mr. Murray in
1868, under the title, "Old Deccan Days, or, Indian Fairy Legends
current in Southern India, collected from oral tradition by M. Frere,
with an introduction and notes by Sir Bartle Frere." Her example
was followed by Miss Stokes in her Indian Fairy Tales (London,
Ellis & White, 1880), who took down her tales from two ayahs and
a Khitmatgar, all of them Bengalese -- the ayahs Hindus, and
the man a Mohammedan. Mr. Ralston introduced the volume with some
remarks which dealt too much with sun-myths for present-day taste.
Another collection from Bengal was that of Lal Behari Day, a Hindu
gentleman, in his Folk-Tales of Bengal (London, Macmillan. The Panjab and the Kashmir then had their turn: Mrs. Steel
collected, and Captain (now Major) Temple edited and annotated, their
Wideawake Stories (London, Trubner, 1884), stories capitally
told and admirably annotated. Captain Temple increased the value of
this collection by a remarkable analysis of all the incidents contained
in the two hundred Indian folk-tales collected up to this date. It is
not too much to say that this analysis marks an onward step in the
scientific study of the folk-tale: there is such a thing, derided as it
may be. I have throughout the Notes been able to draw attention to
Indian parallels by a simple reference to Major Temple's Analysis.
Major Temple has not alone himself collected: he has been the cause
that many others have collected. In the pages of the Indian
Antiquary, edited by him, there have appeared from time to time
folk-tales collected from all parts of India. Some of these have been
issued separately. Sets of tales from Southern India, collected by the
Pandit Natesa Sastri, have been issued under the title Folk-Lore of
Southern India, three fascicules of which have been recently re-
issued by Mrs. Kingscote under the title, Tales of the Sun (W.
H. Allen, 1891): it would have been well if the identity of the two
works had been clearly explained. The largest addition to our knowledge
of the Indian folk-tale that has been made since Wideawake
Stories is that contained in Mr. Knowles' Folk-Tales of
Kashmir (Trubner's Oriental Library, 1887), sixty-three stories,
some of great length. These, with Mr. Campbell's Santal Tales
(1892); Ramaswami Raju's Indian Fables (London, Sonnenschein,
n. d.); M. Thornhill, Indian Fairy Tales (London, 1889); and E.
J. Robinson, Tales of S. India (1885), together with those
contained in books of travel like Thornton's Bannu or Smeaton's
Karens of Burmah bring up the list of printed Indian folk-tales
to over 350--a respectable total indeed, but a mere drop in the
ocean of the stream of stories that must exist in such a huge
population as that of India: the Central Provinces in particular are
practically unexplored. There are doubtless many collections still
unpublished. Col. Lewin has large numbers, besides the few published in
his Lushai Grammar; and Mr. M. L. Dames has a number of Baluchi
tales which I have been privileged to use. Altogether, India now ranks
among the best represented countries for printed folk-tales, coming
only after Russia (1500), Germany (1200), Italy and France (1000 each.)
Footnote: Finland boasts of 12,000 but most of these lie unprinted
among the archives of the Helsingfors Literary Society.
Counting the
ancient with the modern, India has probably some 600 to 700 folk-tales
printed and translated in
accessible form. There should be enough
material to determine the vexed question of the relations between the
European and the Indian collections.
This question has taken a new departure with the researches of M.
Emanuel Cosquin in his Contes populaires de Lorraine (Paris,
1886, 2 tirage, 1890), undoubtedly the most important contribution
to the scientific study of the folk-tale since the Grimms. M. Cosquin
gives in the annotations to the eighty-four tales which he has
collected in Lorraine a mass of information as to the various forms
which the tales take in other countries of Europe and in the East. In
my opinion, the work he has done for the European folk-tale is even
more valuable than the conclusions he draws from it as to the relations
with India. He has taken up the work which Wilhelm Grimm dropped in
1859, and shown from the huge accumulations of folk-tales that have
appeared during the last thirty years that there is a common fund of
folk-tales which every country of Europe without exception possesses,
though this does not of course preclude them from possessing others
that are not shared by the rest. M. Cosquin further contends that the
whole of these have come from the East, ultimately from India, not by
literary transmission, as Benfey contended, but by oral transmission.
He has certainly shown that very many of the most striking incidents
common to European folk-tales are also to be found in Eastern
mahrchen. What, however, he has failed to show is that some of
these may not have been carried out to the Eastern world by Europeans.
Borrowing tales is a mutual process, and when Indian meets European,
European meets Indian; which borrowed from which, is a question which
we have very few criteria to decide. It should be added that Mr W. A.
Clouston has in England collected with exemplary industry a large
number of parallels between Indian and European folk-tale incidents in
his Popular Tales and Fictions (Edinburgh, 2 vols., 1887) and
Book of Noodles (London, 1888). Mr Clouston has not openly
expressed his conviction that all folk-tales are Indian in origin: he
prefers to convince us non vi sed saepe cadendo. He has certainly
made out a good case for tracing all European drolls, or comic folk-
tales, from the East.
With the fairy tale strictly so called--i.e., the serious folk-
tale of romantic adventure--I am more doubtful. It is mainly a modern
product in India as in Europe, so far as literary evidence goes. The
vast bulk of the Jatakas does not contain a single example worthy the
name, nor does the Bidpai literature. Some of Somadeva's tales,
however, approach the nature of fairy tales, but there are several
Celtic tales which can be traced to an earlier date than his (1200
A.D.) and are equally near to fairy tales. Yet it is dangerous to trust
to mere non-appearance in literature as proof of non-existence among
the folk. To take our own tales here in England, there is not a single
instance of a reference to Jack and the Beanstalk for the last
three hundred years, yet it is undoubtedly a true folk-tale. And it is
indeed remarkable how many of the formulae of fairy tales have
been found of recent years in India. Thus, the Magic Fiddle,
found among the Santals by Mr. Campbell in two variants (see Notes on
vi.), contains the germ idea of the wide-spread story represented in
Great Britain by the ballad of Binnorie (see English Fairy
Tales, No. ix.). Similarly, Mr. Knowles' collection has added
considerably to the number of Indian variants of European "formulae"
beyond those noted by M. Cosquin.
It is still more striking as regards incidents. In a paper read
before the Folk-Lore Congress of 1891, and reprinted in the
Transactions, pp. 76 seq., I have drawn up a list of some incidents found in common among European folk-tales (including
drolls). Of these, I reckon that about 250 have been already found
among Indian folk-tales, and the number is increased by each new
collection that is made or printed. The moral of this is, that India
belongs to a group of peoples who have a common store of stories; India
belongs to Europe for purposes of comparative folk-tales.
Can we go further and say that India is the source of all the incidents
that are held in common by European children? I think we may answer
"Yes" as regards droll incidents, the travels of many of which we can
trace, and we have the curious result that European children owe their
earliest laughter to Hindu wags. As regards the serious incidents
further inquiry is needed. Thus, we find the incident of an "external
soul" (Life Index, Captain Temple very appropriately named it) in
Asbjornsen's Norse Tales and in Miss Frere's Old Deccan
Days (see Notes on Punchkin). Yet the latter is a very
suspicious source, since Miss Frere derived her tales from a Christian
ayah whose family had been in Portuguese Goa for a hundred
years. May they not have got the story of the giant with his soul
outside his body from some European sailor touching at Goa? This is to
a certain extent negatived by the fact of the frequent occurrence of
the incident in Indian folk-tales (Captain Temple gave a large number
of instances in Wideawake Stories, pp. 404-5). On the other
hand, Mr. Frazer in his Golden Bough has shown the wide spread
of the idea among all savage or semi-savage tribes. (See Note on No.
iv.)
In this particular case we may be doubtful; but in others, again--as
the incident of the rat's tail up nose (see Notes on The Charmed
Ring)--there can be little doubt of the Indian origin. And
generally, so far as the incidents are marvellous and of true fairy-
tale character, the presumption is in favour of India, because of the
vitality of animism or metempsychosis in India throughout all historic
time. No Hindu would doubt the fact of animals speaking or of men
transformed into plants and animals. The European may once have had
these beliefs, and may still hold them implicitly as "survivals"; but
in the "survival" stage they cannot afford material for artistic
creation, and the fact that the higher minds of Europe for the last
thousand years have discountenanced these beliefs has not been entirely
without influence. Of one thing there is practical certainty: the fairy
tales that are common to the Indo-European world were invented once for
all in a certain locality; and thence spread to all the countries in
culture contact with the original source. The mere fact that contiguous
countries have more similarities in their story store than distant ones
is sufficient to prove this: indeed, the fact that any single country
has spread throughout it a definite set of folk-tales as distinctive as
its flora and fauna, is sufficient to prove it. It is equally certain
that not all folk-tales have come from one source, for each country has
tales peculiar to itself. The question is as to the source of the tales
that are common to all European children, and increasing evidence seems
to show that this common nucleus is derived from India and India alone.
The Hindus have been more successful than others, because of two facts:
they have had the appropriate "atmosphere" of metempsychosis, and they
have also had spread among the people sufficient literary training and
mental grip to invent plots. The Hindu tales have ousted the native
European, which undoubtedly existed independently; indeed, many still
survive, especially in Celtic lands. Exactly in the same way,
Perrault's tales have ousted the older English folk-tales, and it is
with the utmost difficulty that one can get true English fairy tales
because Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Blue Beard, Puss in
Boots and the rest, have survived in the struggle for existence
among English folk-tales. So far as Europe has a common store of fairy
tales, it owes this to India.
I do not wish to be misunderstood. I do not hold with Benfey that all
European folk-tales are derived from the Bidpai literature and similar
literary products, nor with M. Cosquin that they are all derived from
India. The latter scholar has proved that there is a nucleus of stories
in every European land which is common to all. I calculate that this
includes from 30 to 50 per cent. of the whole, and it is this common
stock of Europe that I regard as coming from India mainly at the time
of the Crusades, and chiefly by oral transmission. It includes all the
beast tales and most of the drolls, but evidence is still lacking about
the more serious fairy tales, though it is increasing with every fresh
collection of folk-tales in India, the great importance of which is
obvious from the above considerations.
In the following Notes I give, as on the two previous occasions, the
source whence I derived the tale, then parallels, and finally
remarks. For Indian parallels I have been able to refer to
Major Temple's remarkable Analysis of Indian Folk-tale incidents at the
end of Wide-awake Stories (pp. 386-436), for European ones to
my alphabetical List of Incidents, with bibliographical references, in
Transactions of Folk-Lore Congress, 1892, pp. 87-98. My remarks
have been mainly devoted to tracing the relation between the Indian
and the European tales, with the object of showing that the latter
have been derived from the former. I have, however, to some extent
handicapped myself, as I have avoided giving again the Indian versions
of stories already given in English Fairy Tales or Celtic Fairy Tales.
from Project Gutenberg (public domain)