Indian Fairy Tales
by
Collected by Joseph Jacobs
Part 4 out of 4
for their own land; for he was sure that the king would now receive
them. The night before they left the viziers and others, whom the king
intended to have executed as soon as his visitors had left, came and
besought the vizier's son to plead for them, and promised that they
each would give him a daughter in marriage. He agreed to do so, and
succeeded in obtaining their pardon.
Then the prince, with his beautiful bride Gulizar, and the vizier's
son, attended by a troop of soldiers, and a large number of camels and
horses bearing very much treasure, left for their own land. In the
midst of the way they passed the tower of the robbers, and with the
help of the soldiers they razed it to the ground, slew all its inmates,
and seized the treasure which they had been amassing there for several
years.
At length they reached their own country, and when the king saw his
son's beautiful wife and his magnificent retinue he was at once
reconciled, and ordered him to enter the city and take up his abode
there.
Henceforth all was sunshine on the path of the prince. He became a
great favourite, and in due time succeeded to the throne, and ruled the
country for many, many years in peace and happiness.
HOW SUN, MOON, AND WIND WENT OUT TO DINNER
One day Sun, Moon, and Wind went out to dine with their uncle and aunts
Thunder and Lightning. Their mother (one of the most distant Stars you
see far up in the sky) waited alone for her children's return.
Now both Sun and Wind were greedy and selfish. They enjoyed the great
feast that had been prepared for them, without a thought of saving any
of it to take home to their mother--but the gentle Moon did not forget
her. Of every dainty dish that was brought round, she placed a small
portion under one of her beautiful long finger-nails, that Star might
also have a share in the treat.
On their return, their mother, who had kept watch for them all night
long with her little bright eye, said, "Well, children, what have you
brought home for me?" Then Sun (who was eldest) said, "I have brought
nothing home for you. I went out to enjoy myself with my friends--not
to fetch a dinner for my mother!" And Wind said, "Neither have I
brought anything home for you, mother. You could hardly expect me to
bring a collection of good things for you, when I merely went out for
my own pleasure." But Moon said, "Mother, fetch a plate, see what I
have brought you." And shaking her hands she showered down such a
choice dinner as never was seen before.
Then Star turned to Sun and spoke thus, "Because you went out to amuse
yourself with your friends, and feasted and enjoyed yourself, without
any thought of your mother at home--you shall be cursed. Henceforth,
your rays shall ever be hot and scorching, and shall burn all that they
touch. And men shall hate you, and cover their heads when you appear."
(And that is why the Sun is so hot to this day.)
Then she turned to Wind and said, "You also who forgot your mother in
the midst of your selfish pleasures--hear your doom. You shall always
blow in the hot dry weather, and shall parch and shrivel all living
things. And men shall detest and avoid you from this very time."
(And that is why the Wind in the hot weather is still so disagreeable.)
But to Moon she said, "Daughter, because you remembered your mother,
and kept for her a share in your own enjoyment, from henceforth you
shall be ever cool, and calm, and bright. No noxious glare shall
accompany your pure rays, and men shall always call you 'blessed."'
(And that is why the moon's light is so soft, and cool, and beautiful
even to this day.)
HOW THE WICKED SONS WERE DUPED
A very wealthy old man, imagining that he was on the point of death,
sent for his sons and divided his property among them. However, he did
not die for several years afterwards; and miserable years many of them
were. Besides the weariness of old age, the old fellow had to bear with
much abuse and cruelty from his sons. Wretched, selfish ingrates!
Previously they vied with one another in trying to please their father,
hoping thus to receive more money, but now they had received their
patrimony, they cared not how soon he left them--nay, the sooner the
better, because he was only a needless trouble and expense. And they
let the poor old man know what they felt.
One day he met a friend and related to him all his troubles. The friend
sympathised very much with him, and promised to think over the matter,
and call in a little while and tell him what to do. He did so; in a
few days he visited the old man and put down four bags full of stones
and gravel before him.
"Look here, friend," said he. "Your sons will get to know of my coming
here to-day, and will inquire about it. You must pretend that I came to
discharge a long-standing debt with you, and that you are several
thousands of rupees richer than you thought you were. Keep these bags
in your own hands, and on no account let your sons get to them as long
as you are alive. You will soon find them change their conduct towards
you. Salaam. I will come again soon to see how you are getting on."
When the young men got to hear of this further increase of wealth they
began to be more attentive and pleasing to their father than ever
before. And thus they continued to the day of the old man's demise,
when the bags were greedily opened, and found to contain only stones
and gravel!
THE PIGEON AND THE CROW
Once upon a time the Bodhisatta was a Pigeon, and lived in a nest-
basket which a rich man's cook had hung up in the kitchen, in order to
earn merit by it. A greedy Crow, flying near, saw all sorts of delicate
food lying about in the kitchen, and fell a-hungering after it. "How in
the world can I get some?" thought he? At last he hit upon a plan.
When the Pigeon went to search for food, behind him, following,
following, came the Crow.
"What do you want, Mr. Crow? You and I don't feed alike."
"Ah, but I like you and your ways! Let me be your chum, and let us feed
together."
The Pigeon agreed, and they went on in company. The Crow pretended to
feed along with the Pigeon, but ever and anon he would turn back, peck
to bits some heap of cow-dung, and eat a fat worm. When he had got a
bellyful of them, up he flies, as pert as you like:
"Hullo, Mr. Pigeon, what a time you take over your meal! One ought to
draw the line somewhere. Let's be going home before it is too late."
And so they did.
The cook saw that his Pigeon had brought a friend, and hung up another
basket for him.
A few days afterwards there was a great purchase of fish which came to
the rich man's kitchen. How the Crow longed for some! So there he lay,
from early morn, groaning and making a great noise. Says the Pigeon to
the Crow:
"Come, Sir Crow, and get your breakfast!"'
"Oh dear! oh dear! I have such a fit of indigestion!" says he.
"Nonsense! Crows never have indigestion," said the Pigeon. "If you eat
a lamp-wick, that stays in your stomach a little while; but anything
else is digested in a trice, as soon as you eat it. Now do what I tell
you; don't behave in this way just for seeing a little fish."
"Why do you say that, master? I have indigestion."
"Well, be careful," said the Pigeon, and flew away.
The cook prepared all the dishes, and then stood at the kitchen door,
wiping the sweat off his body. "Now's my time!" thought Mr. Crow, and
alighted on a dish containing some dainty food. Click! The cook heard
it, and looked round. Ah! he caught the Crow, and plucked all the
feathers out of his head, all but one tuft; he powdered ginger and
cummin, mixed it up with butter-milk, and rubbed it well all over the
bird's body.
"That's for spoiling my master's dinner and making me throw it away!"
said he, and threw him into his basket. Oh, how it hurt!
By-and-by the Pigeon came in, and saw the Crow lying there, making a
great noise. He made great game of him, and repeated a verse of poetry:
"Who is this tufted crane I see
Lying where he's no right to be?
Come out! my friend, the crow is near,
And he may do you harm, I fear!"
To this the Crow answered with another:
"No tufted crane am I--no, no!
I'm nothing but a greedy crow.
I would not do as I was told,
So now I'm plucked, as you behold."
And the Pigeon rejoined with a third verse:
"You'll come to grief again, I know--
It is your nature to do so;
If people make a dish of meat,
'Tis not for little birds to eat."
Then the Pigeon flew away, saying: "I can't live with this creature any
longer." And the Crow lay there groaning till he died.
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. Fausböll.
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._, Trübner's Oriental
Library, 1880), Prof. Fausböll (_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, "Bibliothèque 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,
"Bibliothèque 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 _Mélusine_, 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,
1883). The Panjab and the Kashmir then had their turn: Mrs. Steel
collected, and Captain (now Major) Temple edited and annotated, their
_Wideawake Stories_ (London, Trübner, 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_ (Trübner'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
_mährchen_. 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
630 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
Asbjörnsen'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_.
I. THE LION AND THE CRANE.
_Source_.--V. Fausböll, _Five Jatakas_; Copenhagen, 1861, pp.
35-8, text and translation of the _Javasakuna Jataka_. I have
ventured to English Prof. Fausböll's version, which was only intended as
a "crib" to the Pali. For the omitted Introduction, see _supra_.
_Parallels_.--I have given a rather full collection of parallels,
running to about a hundred numbers, in my _Aesop_, pp. 232-4. The
chief of these are: (i) for the East, the Midrashic version ("Lion and
Egyptian Partridge"), in the great Rabbinic commentary on Genesis
(_Bereshith-rabba_, c. 64); (2) in classical antiquity, Phaedrus,
i. 8 ("Wolf and Crane"), and Babrius, 94 ("Wolf and Heron"), and the
Greek proverb Suidas, ii. 248 ("Out of the Wolf's Mouth"); (3) in the
Middle Ages, the so-called Greek Aesop, ed. Halm, 276 _b_, really
prose versions of Babrius and "Romulus," or prose of Phaedrus, i. 8,
also the Romulus of Ademar (fl. 1030), 64; it occurs also on the Bayeux
Tapestry, in Marie de France, 7, and in Benedict of Oxford's _Mishle
Shualim_ (Heb.), 8; (4) Stainhöwel took it from the "Romulus" into
his German Aesop (1480), whence all the modern European Aesops are
derived.
_Remarks_.--I have selected _The Wolf and the Crane_ as my
typical example in my "History of the Aesopic Fable," and can only give
here a rough summary of the results I there arrived at concerning the
fable, merely premising that these results are at present no more than
hypotheses. The similarity of the Jataka form with that familiar to us,
and derived by us in the last resort from Phaedrus, is so striking that
few will deny some historical relation between them. I conjecture that
the Fable originated in India, and came West by two different routes.
First, it came by oral tradition to Egypt, as one of the Libyan Fables
which the ancients themselves distinguished from the Aesopic Fables. It
was, however, included by Demetrius Phalereus, tyrant of Athens, and
founder of the Alexandrian library c. 300 B.C., in his _Assemblies of
Aesopic Fables_, which I have shown to be the source of Phaedrus'
Fables c. 30 A.D. Besides this, it came from Ceylon in the Fables of
Kybises--i.e., Kasyapa the Buddha--c. 50 A.D., was adapted into Hebrew,
and used for political purposes, by Rabbi Joshua ben Chananyah in a
harangue to the Jews c. 120 A.D., begging them to be patient while
within the jaws of Rome. The Hebrew form uses the lion, not the wolf,
as the ingrate, which enables us to decide on the Indian _provenance_
of the Midrashic version. It may be remarked that the use of the lion
in this and other Jatakas is indirectly a testimony to their great age,
as the lion has become rarer and rarer in India during historic times,
and is now confined to the Gir forest of Kathiáwar, where only a dozen
specimens exist, and are strictly preserved.
The verses at the end are the earliest parts of the Jataka, being in
more archaic Pali than the rest: the story is told by the commentator
(c. 400 A.D.) to illustrate them. It is probable that they were brought
over on the first introduction of Buddhism into Ceylon, c. 241 B.C.
This would give them an age of over two thousand years, nearly three
hundred years earlier than Phaedrus, from whom comes our _Wolf and
Crane_.
II. PRINCESS LABAM.
_Source_.--Miss Stokes, _Indian Fairy Tales_, No. xxii. pp.
153-63, told by Múniyá, one of the ayahs. I have left it unaltered,
except that I have replaced "God" by "Khuda," the word originally used
(see Notes _l. c._, p 237).
_Parallels_.--The tabu, as to a particular direction, occurs in
other Indian stories as well as in European folk-tales (see notes on
Stokes, p. 286). The _grateful animals_ theme occurs in "The
Soothsayer's Son" (_infra_, No. x.), and frequently in Indian
folk-tales (see Temple's Analysis, III. i. 5-7; _Wideawake
Stories_, pp. 412-3). The thorn in the tiger's foot is especially
common (Temple, _l. c._, 6, 9), and recalls the story of Androclus,
which occurs in the derivates of Phaedrus, and may thus be
Indian in origin (see Benfey, _Panschatantra_, i. 211, and the
parallels given in my _Aesop_, Ro. iii. 1. p. 243). The theme is,
however, equally frequent in European folk-tales: see my List of
Incidents, _Proc. Folk-Lore Congress_, p. 91, s.v. "Grateful
Animals" and "Gifts by Grateful Animals." Similarly, the "Bride Wager"
incident at the end is common to a large number of Indian and European
folk-tales (Temple, Analysis, p. 430; my List, _l. c. sub voce_).
The tasks are also equally common (_cf._ "Battle of the Birds" in
_Celtic Fairy Tales_), though the exact forms as given in
"Princess Labam" are not known in Europe.
_Remarks_.--We have here a concrete instance of the relation of
Indian and European fairy-tales. The human mind may be the same
everywhere, but it is not likely to hit upon the sequence of incidents,
_Direction tabu_--_Grateful Animals_--_Bride-wager_--_Tasks_, by
accident, or independently: Europe must have borrowed from India, or
India from Europe. As this must have occurred within historic times,
indeed within the last thousand years, when even European peasants
are not likely to have _invented_, even if they believed, in the incident
of the grateful animals, the probability is in favour of borrowing from
India, possibly through the intermediation of Arabs at the time of the
Crusades. It is only a probability, but we cannot in any case reach more
than probability in this matter, just at present.
III. LAMBIKIN.
_Source_.--Steel-Temple, _Wideawake Stories_, pp. 69-72,
originally published in _Indian Antiquary_, xii. 175. The droll is
common throughout the Panjab.
_Parallels_.--The similarity of the concluding episode with the
finish of the "Three Little Pigs" (Eng. Fairy Tales, No. xiv.) In my
notes on that droll I have pointed out that the pigs were once goats or
kids with "hair on their chinny chin chin." This brings the tale a
stage nearer to the Lambikin.
_Remarks_.--The similarity of Pig No. 3 rolling down hill in the
churn and the Lambikin in the Drumikin can scarcely be accidental,
though, it must be confessed, the tale has undergone considerable
modification before it reached England.
IV. PUNCHKIN.
_Source_.--Miss Frere, _Old Deccan Days_, pp. 1-16, from her
ayah, Anna de Souza, of a Lingaet family settled and Christianised at
Goa for three generations. I should perhaps add that a Prudhan is a
Prime Minister, or Vizier; Punts are the same, and Sirdars, nobles.
_Parallels_.--The son of seven mothers is a characteristic Indian
conception, for which see Notes on "The Son of Seven Queens" in this
collection, No. xvi. The mother transformed, envious stepmother, ring
recognition, are all incidents common to East and West; bibliographical
references for parallels may be found under these titles in my List of
Incidents. The external soul of the ogre has been studied by Mr. E.
Clodd in _Folk-Lore Journal_, vol. ii., "The Philosophy of
Punchkin," and still more elaborately in the section, "The External
Soul in Folk-tales," in Mr. Frazer's _Golden Bough_, ii. pp. 296-
326. See also Major Temple's Analysis, II. iii., _Wideawake
Stories_, pp. 404-5, who there gives the Indian parallels.
_Remarks_.--Both Mr. Clodd and Mr. Frazer regard the essence of
the tale to consist in the conception of an external soul or "life-
index," and they both trace in this a "survival" of savage philosophy,
which they consider occurs among all men at a certain stage of culture.
But the most cursory examination of the sets of tales containing these
incidents in Mr. Frazer's analyses shows that many, indeed the
majority, of these tales cannot be independent of one another; for they
contain not alone the incident of an external materialised soul, but
the further point that this is contained in something else, which is
enclosed in another thing, which is again surrounded by a wrapper. This
Chinese ball arrangement is found in the Deccan ("Punchkin"); in Bengal
(Day, _Folk-Tales of Bengal_); in Russia (Ralston, p. 103
_seq._, "Koschkei the Deathless," also in Mr. Lang's _Red Fairy
Book_); in Servia (Mijatovics, _Servian Folk-Lore,_ p. 172); in
South Slavonia (Wratislaw, p. 225); in Rome (Miss Busk, p. 164); in
Albania (Dozon, p. 132 _seq._); in Transylvania (Haltrich, No.
34); in Schleswig-Holstein (Müllenhoff, p. 404); in Norway
(Asbjörnsen, No. 36, _ap._ Dasent, _Pop. Tales_, p. 55, "The
Giant who had no Heart in his Body"); and finally, in the Hebrides
(Campbell, _Pop. Tales_, p. 10, _cf. Celtic Fairy Tales_, No.
xvii., "Sea Maiden"). Here we have the track of this remarkable idea of
an external soul enclosed in a succession of wrappings, which we can
trace from Hindostan to the Hebrides.
It is difficult to imagine that we have not here the actual migration
of the tale from East to West. In Bengal we have the soul "in a
necklace, in a box, in the heart of a _boal_ fish, in a tank"; in
Albania "it is in a pigeon, in a hare, in the silver tusk of a wild
boar"; in Rome it is "in a stone, in the head of a bird, in the head of
a leveret, in the middle head of a seven-headed hydra"; in Russia "it
is in an egg, in a duck, in a hare, in a casket, in an oak"; in Servia
it is "in a board, in the heart of a fox, in a mountain"; in
Transylvania "it is in a light, in an egg, in a duck, in a pond, in a
mountain;" in Norway it is "in an egg, in a duck, in a well, in a
church, on an island, in a lake"; in the Hebrides it is "in an egg, in
the belly of a duck, in the belly of a wether, under a flagstone on the
threshold." It is impossible to imagine the human mind independently
imagining such bizarre convolutions. They were borrowed from one nation
to the other, and till we have reason shown to the contrary, the
original lender was a Hindu. I should add that the mere conception of
an external soul occurs in the oldest Egyptian tale of "The Two
Brothers," but the wrappings are absent.
V. THE BROKEN POT.
_Source.--Pantschatantra_, V. ix., tr. Benfey, ii. 345-6.
_Parallels._--Benfey, in § 209 of his _Einleitung_, gives
bibliographical references to most of those which are given at length in
Prof. M. Müller's brilliant essay on "The Migration of Fables"
(_Selected Essays_, i. 500-76), which is entirely devoted to the
travels of the fable from India to La Fontaine. See also Mr. Clouston,
_Pop. Tales_, ii. 432 _seq._ I have translated the Hebrew version
in my essay, "Jewish Influence on the Diffusion of Folk-Tales," pp. 6-7.
Our proverb, "Do not count your chickens before they are hatched," is
ultimately to be derived from India.
_Remarks--The stories of Alnaschar, the Barber's fifth brother in the
_Arabian Nights_, and of La Perette, who counted her chickens
before they were hatched, in La Fontaine, are demonstrably derived from
the same Indian original from which our story was obtained. The travels
of the "Fables of Bidpai" from India to Europe are well known and
distinctly traceable. I have given a rough summary of the chief
critical results in the introduction to my edition of the earliest
English version of the _Fables of Bidpai_, by Sir Thomas North, of
Plutarch fame (London, D. Nutt, "Bibliothèque de Carabas," 1888), where
I have given an elaborate genealogical table of the multitudinous
versions. La Fontaine's version, which has rendered the fable so
familiar to us all, comes from Bonaventure des Periers, _Contes et
Nouvelles_, who got it from the _Dialogus Creaturarum_ of Nicholaus
Pergamenus, who derived it from the _Sermones_ of Jacques de Vitry
(see Prof. Crane's edition, No. li.), who probably derived it from the
_Directorium Humanae Vitae_ of John of Capua, a converted Jew,
who translated it from the Hebrew version of the Arabic _Kalilah wa
Dimnah,_ which was itself derived from the old Syriac version of a
Pehlevi translation of the original Indian work, probably called after
Karataka and Damanaka, the names of two jackals who figure in the
earlier stories of the book. Prof. Rhys-Davids informs me that these names
are more akin to Pali than to Sanskrit, which makes it still more probable
that the whole literature is ultimately to be derived from a Buddhist
source.
The theme of La Perette is of interest as showing the _literary_
transmission of tales from Orient to Occident. It also shows the
possibility of an influence of literary on oral tradition, as is shown
by our proverb, and by the fact, which Benfey mentions, that La
Fontaine's story has had influence on two of Grimm's tales, Nos. 164,
168.
VI. THE MAGIC FIDDLE.
_Source_.--A. Campbell, _Santal Folk-Tales_, 1892, pp. 52-6,
with some verbal alterations. A Bonga is the presiding spirit of a
certain kind of rice land; Doms and Hadis are low-caste aborigines,
whose touch is considered polluting. The Santals are a forest tribe,
who live in the Santal Parganas, 140 miles N. W. of Calcutta (Sir W. W.
Hunter, _The Indian Empire_, 57-60).
_Parallels_.--Another version occurs in Campbell, p. 106
_seq._, which shows that the story is popular among the Santals.
It is obvious, however, that neither version contains the real finish
of the story, which must have contained the denunciation of the magic
fiddle of the murderous sisters. This would bring it under the formula
of _The Singing Bone_, which M. Monseur has recently been studying
with a remarkable collection of European variants in the Bulletin of
the Wallon Folk-Lore Society of Liège (_cf. Eng. Fairy Tales_, No.
ix.). There is a singing bone in Steel-Temple's _Wideawake
Stories_, pp. 127 _seq._ ("Little Anklebone").
_Remarks_.--Here we have another theme of the common store of
European folk-tales found in India. Unfortunately, the form in which it
occurs is mutilated, and we cannot draw any definite conclusion from
it.
VII. THE CRUEL CRANE OUTWITTED.
_Source_.--The Baka-Jataka, Fausböll, No. 38, tr. Rhys-Davids, pp.
315-21. The Buddha this time is the Genius of the Tree.
_Parallels_.--This Jataka got into the Bidpai literature, and
occurs in all its multitudinous offshoots (_see_ Benfey, _Einleitung_,
§ 60) among others in the earliest English translation by North (my
edition, pp. 118-22), where the crane becomes "a great Paragone of
India (of those that live a hundredth yeares and never mue their
feathers)." The crab, on hearing the ill news "called to Parliament all the
Fishes of the Lake," and before all are devoured destroys the Paragon,
as in the Jataka, and returned to the remaining fishes, who "all with one
consent gave hir many a thanke."
_Remarks_.--An interesting point, to which I have drawn attention
in my Introduction to North's Bidpai, is the probability that the
illustrations of the tales as well as the tales themselves, were
translated, so to speak, from one country to another. We can trace them
in Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic MSS., and a few are extant on Buddhist
Stupas. Under these circumstances, it may be of interest to compare
with Mr. Batten's conception of the Crane and the Crab (_supra_,
p. 50) that of the German artist who illustrated the first edition of
the Latin Bidpai, probably following the traditional representations of
the MS., which itself could probably trace back to India.
VIII. LOVING LAILI
_Source_.--Miss Stokes, _Indian Fairy Tales_, pp. 73-84.
Majnun and Laili are conventional names for lovers, the Romeo and
Juliet of Hindostan.
_Parallels_.--Living in animals' bellies occurs elsewhere in Miss
Stokes' book, pp. 66, 124; also in Miss Frere's, 188. The restoration
of beauty by fire occurs as a frequent theme (Temple, Analysis, III.
vi. f. p. 418). Readers will be reminded of the _dénouement_ of
Mr. Rider Haggard's _She_. Resuscitation from ashes has been used
very effectively by Mr. Lang in his delightful _Prince Prigio_.
_Remarks_.--The white skin and blue eyes of Prince Majnun deserve
attention. They are possibly a relic of the days of Aryan conquest,
when the fair-skinned, fair-haired Aryan conquered the swarthier
aboriginals. The name for caste in Sanskrit is _varna_, "colour";
and one Hindu cannot insult another more effectually than by calling
him a black man. _Cf._ Stokes, pp. 238-9, who suggests that the
red hair is something solar, and derived from myths of the solar hero.
IX. THE TIGER, THE BRAHMAN, AND THE JACKAL.
_Source_.--Steel-Temple, _Wideawake Stories_, pp. 116-20;
first published in _Indian Antiquary_, xii. p. 170 _seq._
_Parallels_.--No less than 94 parallels are given by Prof. K.
Krohn in his elaborate discussion of this fable in his dissertation,
_Mann und Fuchs_, (Helsingfors, 1891), pp. 38-60; to which may be
added three Indian variants, omitted by him, but mentioned by Capt.
Temple, _l. c._, p. 324, in the _Bhâgavata Purâna_, the _Gul
Bakâoli_ and _Ind. Ant._ xii. 177; and a couple more in my _Aesop_,
p. 253: add Smeaton, _Karens_, p. 126.
_Remarks_.--Prof. Krohn comes to the conclusion that the majority
of the oral forms of the tale come from literary versions (p. 47),
whereas the _Reynard_ form has only had influence on a single
variant. He reduces the century of variants to three type forms. The
first occurs in two Egyptian versions collected in the present day, as
well as in Petrus Alphonsi in the twelfth century, and the _Fabulae
Extravagantes_ of the thirteenth or fourteenth: here the ingrate
animal is a crocodile, which asks to be carried away from a river about
to dry up, and there is only one judge. The second is that current in
India and represented by the story in the present collection: here the
judges are three. The third is that current among Western Europeans,
which has spread to S. Africa and N. and S. America: also three judges.
Prof. K. Krohn counts the first the original form, owing to the single
judge and the naturalness of the opening, by which the critical
situation is brought about. The further question arises, whether this
form, though found in Egypt now, is indigenous there, and if so, how it
got to the East. Prof. Krohn grants the possibility of the Egyptian
form having been invented in India and carried to Egypt, and he allows
that the European forms have been influenced by the Indian. The
"Egyptian" form is found in Burmah (Smeaton, _l. c._, p. 128), as
well as the Indian, a fact of which Prof. K. Krohn was unaware though
it turns his whole argument. The evidence we have of other folk-tales
of the beast-epic emanating from India improves the chances of this
also coming from that source. One thing at least is certain: all these
hundred variants come ultimately from one source. The incident "Inside
again" of the _Arabian Nights_ (the Djinn and the bottle) and
European tales is also a secondary derivate.
X. THE SOOTHSAYER'S SON.
_Source_.--Mrs. Kingscote, _Tales of the Sun_ (p. 11
_seq._), from Pandit Natesa Sastri's _Folk-Lore of Southern
India_, pt. ii., originally from _Ind. Antiquary_. I have considerably
condensed and modified the somewhat Babu English of the original.
_Parallels_.--See Benfey, _Pantschatantra_, § 71, i. pp. 193-
222, who quotes the _Karma Jataka_ as the ultimate source: it
also occurs in the _Saccankira Jataka_ (Fausböll, No. 73), trans.
Rev. R. Morris, _Folk-Lore Jour._ iii. 348 _seq._ The story
of the ingratitude of man compared with the gratitude of beasts came
early to the West, where it occurs in the _Gesta Romanorum_, c.
119. It was possibly from an early form of this collection that Richard
Coeur de Lion got the story, and used it to rebuke the ingratitude of
the English nobles on his return in 1195. Matthew Paris tells the
story, _sub anno_ (it is an addition of his to Ralph Disset),
_Hist. Major_, ed. Luard, ii. 413-6, how a lion and a serpent and
a Venetian named Vitalis were saved from a pit by a woodman, Vitalis
promising him half his fortune, fifty talents. The lion brings his
benefactor a leveret, the serpent "gemmam pretiosam," probably "the
precious jewel in his head" to which Shakespeare alludes (_As You
Like It_, ii. 1., cf. Benfey, _l.c._, p. 214, _n._), but Vitalis
refuses to have anything to do with him, and altogether repudiates the
fifty talents. "Haec referebat Rex Richardus munificus, ingratos
redarguendo."
_Remarks_.--Apart from the interest of its wide travels, and its
appearance in the standard mediaeval History of England by Matthew
Paris, the modern story shows the remarkable persistence of folk-tales
in the popular mind. Here we have collected from the Hindu peasant of
to-day a tale which was probably told before Buddha, over two thousand
years ago, and certainly included among the Jatakas before the
Christian era. The same thing has occurred with _The Tiger, Brahman,
and Jackal_ (No. ix. _supra_).
XI. HARISARMAN.
_Source_.--Somadeva, _Katha-Sarit-Sagara_, trans. Tawney
(Calcutta, 1880), i. pp. 272-4. I have slightly toned down the inflated
style of the original.
_Parallels_.--Benfey has collected and discussed a number in
_Orient and Occident_, i. 371 _seq._; see also Tawney, _ad loc._
The most remarkable of the parallels is that afforded by the Grimms'
"Doctor Allwissend" (No. 98), which extends even to such a minute point
as his exclamation, "Ach, ich armer Krebs," whereupon a crab is
discovered under a dish. The usual form of discovery of the thieves is for
the Dr. Knowall to have so many days given him to discover the thieves,
and at the end of the first day he calls out, "There's one of them,"
meaning the days, just as one of the thieves peeps through at him.
Hence the title and the plot of C. Lever's _One of Them_.
XII. THE CHARMED RING.
_Source_.--Knowles, _Folk-Tales of Kashmir_, pp. 20-8.
_Parallels_.--The incident of the Aiding Animals is frequent in
folk-tales: see bibliographical references, _sub voce_, in my List
of Incidents, _Trans. Folk-Lore Congress_, p. 88; also Knowles,
21, _n._; and Temple, _Wideawake Stories_, pp. 401, 412. The
Magic Ring is also "common form" in folk-tales; _cf._ Köhler
_ap._ Marie de France, _Lais_, ed. Warncke, p. lxxxiv. And the
whole story is to be found very widely spread from India (_Wideawake
Stories_, pp. 196-206) to England (_Eng. Fairy Tales_, No. xvii, "Jack
and his Golden Snuff-box," _cf._ Notes, _ibid._), the most familiar
form of it being "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp."
_Remarks_.--M. Cosquin has pointed out (_Contes de Lorraine_,
p. xi. _seq._) that the incident of the rat's-tail-up-nose to recover
the ring from the stomach of an ogress, is found among Arabs,
Albanians, Bretons, and Russians. It is impossible to imagine that
incident--occurring in the same series of incidents--to have been
invented more than once, and if that part of the story has been
borrowed from India, there is no reason why the whole of it should not
have arisen in India, and have been spread to the West. The English
variant was derived from an English Gipsy, and suggests the possibility
that for this particular story the medium of transmission has been the
Gipsies. This contains the incident of the loss of the ring by the
faithful animal, which again could not have been independently
invented.
XIII. THE TALKATIVE TORTOISE.
_Source_.---The _Kacchapa Jataka_, Fausböll, No. 215; also in
his _Five Jatakas_, pp. 16, 41, tr. Rhys-Davids, pp. viii-x.
_Parallels_.--It occurs also in the Bidpai literature, in nearly
all its multitudinous offshoots. See Benfey, _Einleitung_, § 84;
also my _Bidpai_, E, 4 _a_; and North's text, pp. 170-5, where it
is the taunts of the other birds that cause the catastrophe: "O here is a
brave sight, looke, here is a goodly ieast, what bugge haue we here,"
said some. "See, see, she hangeth by the throte, and therefor she
speaketh not," saide others; "and the beast flieth not like a beast;" so
she opened her mouth and "pashte hir all to pieces."
_Remarks_.-I have reproduced in my edition the original
illustration of the first English Bidpai, itself derived from the
Italian block. A replica of it here may serve to show that it could be
used equally well to illustrate the Pali original as its English great-
great-great-great-great-great grand-child.
XIV. LAC OF RUPEES.
_Source_.--Knowles, _Folk-Tales of Kashmir_, pp. 32-41. I
have reduced the pieces of advice to three, and curtailed somewhat.
_Parallels_.--See _Celtic Fairy Tales_, No. xxii., _"Tale
of Ivan,"_ from the old Cornish, now extinct, and notes _ibid._
Mr. Clouston points out (_Pop. Tales_, ii. 319) that it occurs in
Buddhist literature, in "Buddaghoshas Parables," as "The Story of Kulla
Pauthaka."
_Remarks_.--It is indeed curious to find the story better told in
Cornwall than in the land of its birth, but there can be little doubt
that the Buddhist version is the earliest and original form of the
story. The piece of advice was originally a charm, in which a youth was
to say to himself, "Why are you busy? Why are you busy?" He does so
when thieves are about, and so saves the king's treasures, of which he
gets an appropriate share. It would perhaps be as well if many of us
should say to ourselves "_Ghatesa, ghatesa, kim kárana?_"
XV. THE GOLD-GIVING SERPENT.
_Source_.--_Pantschatantra_, III. v., tr. Benfey, ii. 244-7.
_Parallels_ given in my Aesop, Ro. ii. 10, p. 40. The chief points
about them are--(1) though the tale does not exist in either Phaedrus or
Babrius, it occurs in prose derivates from the Latin by Ademar, 65, and
"Romulus," ii. 10, and from Greek, in Gabrias, 45, and the prose _Aesop_,
ed. Halm, 96; Gitlbauer has restored the Babrian form in his edition of
Babrius, No. 160. (2) The fable occurs among folk-tales, Grimm, 105;
Woycicki, _Poln. Mähr._ 105; Gering, _Islensk. Aevent_ 59, possibly
derived from La Fontaine, x. 12.
_Remarks_.--Benfey has proved most ingeniously and conclusively
(_Einl._) that the Indian fable is the source of both Latin and
Greek fables. I may borrow from my _Aesop_, p. 93, parallel abstracts
of the three versions, putting Benfey's results in a graphic form,
series of bars indicating the passages where the classical fables have
failed to preserve the original.
BIDPAI.
A Brahmin once observed a snake in his field, and thinking it the
tutelary spirit of the field, he offered it a libation of milk in a
bowl. Next day he finds a piece of gold in the bowl, and he receives
this each day after offering the libation. One day he had to go
elsewhere, and he sent his son with the libation. The son sees the
gold, and thinking the serpent's hole full of treasure determines to
slay the snake. He strikes at its head with a cudgel, and the enraged
serpent stings him to death. The Brahmin mourns his son's death, but
next morning as usual brings the libation of milk (in the hope of
getting the gold as before). The serpent appears after a long delay at
the mouth of its lair, and declares their friendship at an end, as it
could not forget the blow of the Brahmin's son, nor the Brahmin his
son's death from the bite of the snake.
_Pants_. III. v. (Benf. 244-7).
PHAEDRINE.
----A good man had become friendly with the snake, who came into his
house and brought luck with it, so that the man became rich through
it.----One day he struck the serpent, which disappeared, and with it
the man's riches. The good man tries to make it up, but the serpent
declares their friendship at an end, as it could not forget the blow.----
Phaed. Dressl. VII. 28 (Rom. II. xi.)
BABRIAN.
----------------A serpent stung a farmer's son to death. The father
pursued the serpent with an axe, and struck off part of its tail.
Afterwards fearing its vengeance he brought food and honey to its lair,
and begged reconciliation. The serpent, however, declares friendship
impossible, as it could not forget the blow--nor the farmer his son's
death from the bite of the snake.
Aesop; Halm 96b (Babrius-Gitlb. 160).
In the Indian fable every step of the action is thoroughly justified,
whereas the Latin form does not explain why the snake was friendly in
the first instance, or why the good man was enraged afterwards; and the
Greek form starts abruptly, without explaining why the serpent had
killed the farmer's son. Make a composite of the Phaedrine and Babrian
forms, and you get the Indian one, which is thus shown to be the
original of both.
XVI. THE SON OF SEVEN QUEENS.
_Source_.--Steel Temple, _Wideawake Stories_, pp. 98-110,
originally published in _Ind. Antiq._ x. 147 _seq._
_Parallels_.--A long variant follows in _Ind. Antiq._, _l.
c._ M. Cosquin refers to several Oriental variants, _l. c._ p.
xxx. _n._ For the direction tabu, see Note on Princess Labam,
_supra_, No. ii. The "letter to kill bearer" and "letter substituted"
are frequent in both European (see my List _s. v._) and Indian
Folk-Tales (Temple, Analysis, II. iv. _b_, 6, p. 410). The idea of a
son of seven mothers could only arise in a polygamous country. It occurs
in "Punchkin," _supra_, No. iv.; Day, _Folk-Tales of Bengal_, 117
_seq.; Ind. Antiq._ i. 170 (Temple, _l. c._, 398).
_Remarks._--M. Cosquin (_Contes de Lorraine_, p. xxx.)
points out how, in a Sicilian story, Gonzenbach (_Sizil. Mähr._
No. 80), the seven co-queens are transformed into seven step-daughters
of the envious witch who causes their eyes to be taken out. It is thus
probable, though M. Cosquin does not point this out, that the "envious
step-mother" of folk-tales (see my List, _s. v._) was originally
an envious co-wife. But there can be little doubt of what M. Cosquin
_does_ point out--viz., that the Sicilian story is derived from
the Indian one.
XVII. A LESSON FOR KINGS.
_Source.--Rajovada Jataka_, Fausböll, No. 151, tr. Rhys-Davids,
pp. xxii.-vi.
_Remarks_.--This is one of the earliest of moral allegories in
existence. The moralising tone of the Jatakas must be conspicuous to
all reading them. Why, they can moralise even the Tar Baby (see
_infra_, Note on "Demon with the Matted Hair," No. xxv.).
XVIII. PRIDE GOETH BEFORE A FALL.
_Source_.--Kingscote, _Tales of the Sun_. I have changed the
Indian mercantile numerals into those of English "back-slang," which
make a very good parallel.
XIX. RAJA RASALU.
_Source_.--Steel-Temple, _Wideawake Stories_, pp. 247-80,
omitting "How Raja Rasalu was Born," "How Raja Rasalu's Friends Forsook
Him," "How Raja Rasalu Killed the Giants," and "How Raja Rasalu became
a Jogi." A further version in Temple, _Legends of _Panjab_, vol.
i. _Chaupur_, I should explain, is a game played by two players
with eight men, each on a board in the shape of a cross, four men to
each cross covered with squares. The moves of the men are decided by
the throws of a long form of dice. The object of the game is to see
which of the players can first move all his men into the black centre
square of the cross (Temple, _l. c._, p. 344, and _Legends of
Panjab_, i. 243-5) It is sometimes said to be the origin of chess.
_Parallels_.--Rev. C. Swynnerton, "Four Legends about Raja Rasalu,"
in _Folk-Lore Journal_, p. 158 _seq._, also in separate book
much enlarged, _The Adventures of Raja Rasalu_, Calcutta, 1884.
Curiously enough, the real interest of the story comes after the end of
our part of it, for Kokilan, when she grows up, is married to Raja
Rasalu, and behaves as sometimes youthful wives behave to elderly
husbands. He gives her her lover's heart to eat, _à la_ Decameron,
and she dashes herself over the rocks. For the parallels of this part
of the legend see my edition of Painter's _Palace of Pleasure_,
tom. i. Tale 39, or, better, the _Programm_ of H. Patzig, _Zur
Geschichte der Herzmäre_ (Berlin, 1891). Gambling for life occurs in
Celtic and other folk-tales; _cf._ my List of Incidents, _s.
v._ "Gambling for Magic Objects."
_Remarks_.--Raja Rasalu is possibly a historic personage,
according to Capt. Temple, _Calcutta Review_, 1884, p. 397,
flourishing in the eighth or ninth century. There is a place called
Sirikap ka-kila in the neighbourhood of Sialkot, the traditional seat
of Rasalu on the Indus, not far from Atlock.
Herr Patzig is strongly for the Eastern origin of the romance, and
finds its earliest appearance in the West in the Anglo-Norman
troubadour, Thomas' _Lai Guirun_, where it becomes part of the
Tristan cycle. There is, so far as I know, no proof of the earliest
part of the Rasalu legend (_our_ part) coming to Europe, except
the existence of the gambling incidents of the same kind in Celtic and
other folk-tales.
XX. THE ASS IN THE LION'S SKIN.
_Source_.--The _Siha Camma Jataka_, Fausböll, No. 189,
trans. Rhys-Davids, pp. v. vi.
_Parallels_.--It also occurs in Somadeva, _Katha Sarit
Sagara_, ed. Tawney, ii. 65, and _n._ For Aesopic parallels _cf._
my _Aesop_, Av. iv. It is in Babrius, ed. Gitlbaur, 218 (from Greek prose
Aesop, ed. Halm, No. 323), and Avian, ed. Ellis, 5, whence it came into
the modern Aesop.
_Remarks_.--Avian wrote towards the end of the third century, and
put into Latin mainly those portions of Babrius which are unparalleled
by Phaedrus. Consequently, as I have shown, he has a much larger
proportion of Eastern elements than Phaedrus. There can be little doubt
that the Ass in the Lion's Skin is from India. As Prof. Rhys-Davids
remarks, the Indian form gives a plausible motive for the masquerade
which is wanting in the ordinary Aesopic version.
XXI. THE FARMER AND THE MONEY-LENDER.
_Source_.--Steel-Temple, _Wideawake Stories_, pp. 215-8.
_Parallels_ enumerated in my _Aesop_, Av. xvii. See also
Jacques de Vitry, _Exempla_, ed. Crane, No. 196 (see notes, p.
212), and Bozon, _Contes moralisés_, No. 112. It occurs in Avian,
ed. Ellis, No. 22. Mr. Kipling has a very similar tale in his _Life's
Handicap_.
_Remarks_.--Here we have collected in modern India what one cannot
help thinking is the Indian original of a fable of Avian. The preceding
number showed one of his fables existing among the Jatakas, probably
before the Christian era. This makes it likely that we shall find an
earlier Indian original of the fable of the Avaricious and Envious,
perhaps among the Jatakas still untranslated.
XXII. THE BOY WITH MOON ON FOREHEAD.
_Source_.--Miss Stokes' _Indian Fairy Tales_, No. 20, pp.
119-137.
_Parallels_ to heroes and heroines in European fairy tales, with
stars on their foreheads, are given with some copiousness in Stokes,
_l. c._, pp. 242-3. This is an essentially Indian trait; almost
all Hindus have some tribal or caste mark on their bodies or faces. The
choice of the hero disguised as a menial is also common property of
Indian and European fairy tales: see Stokes, _l. c._, p. 231, and
my List of Incidents (_s. v._ "Menial Disguise.")
XXIII. THE PRINCE AND THE FAKIR.
_Source_.--Kindly communicated by Mr. M. L. Dames from his
unpublished collection of Baluchi tales.
_Remarks_.--Unholy fakirs are rather rare. See Temple, Analysis,
I. ii. _a_, p. 394.
XXIV. WHY THE FISH LAUGHED.
_Source_.--Knowles, _Folk-Tales of Kashmir_, pp. 484-90.
_Parallels_.--The latter part is the formula of the Clever Lass
who guesses riddles. She has been bibliographised by Prof. Child,
_Eng. and Scotch Ballads_, i. 485; see also Benfey, _Kl. Schr._
ii. 156 _seq._ The sex test at the end is different from any of those
enumerated by Prof. Köhler on Gonzenbach, _Sezil. Mähr._ ii. 216.
_Remarks_.--Here we have a further example of a whole formula, or
series of incidents, common to most European collections, found in
India, and in a quarter, too, where European influence is little likely
to penetrate. Prof. Benfey, in an elaborate dissertation ("Die Kluge
Dirne," in _Ausland_, 1859, Nos. 20-25, now reprinted in _Kl.
Schr._ ii. 156 _seq._), has shown the wide spread of the theme
both in early Indian literature (though probably there derived from the
folk) and in modern European folk literature.
XXV. THE DEMON WITH THE MATTED HAIR.
_Source_.--_The Pancavudha Jataka_, Fausböll, No. 55,
kindly translated for this book by Mr. W. H. D. Rouse, of Christ's
College, Cambridge. There is a brief abstract of the Jataka in Prof.
Estlin Carpenter's sermon, _Three Ways of Salvation_, 1884, p. 27,
where my attention was first called to this Jataka.
_Parallels_.--Most readers of these Notes will remember the
central episode of Mr. J. C. Harris' _Uncle Remus_, in which Brer
Fox, annoyed at Brer Rabbit's depredations, fits up "a contrapshun,
what he calls a Tar Baby." Brer Rabbit, coming along that way, passes
the time of day with Tar Baby, and, annoyed at its obstinate silence,
hits it with right fist and with left, with left fist and with right,
which successively stick to the "contrapshun," till at last he butts
with his head, and that sticks too, whereupon Brer Fox, who all this
time had "lain low," saunters out, and complains of Brer Rabbit that he
is too stuck up. In the sequel Brer Rabbits begs Brer Fox that he may
"drown me as deep ez you please, skin me, scratch out my eyeballs, t'ar
out my years by the roots, en cut off my legs, but do don't fling me in
dat brier patch;" which, of course, Brer Fox does, only to be informed
by the cunning Brer Rabbit that he had been "bred en bawn in a brier
patch." The story is a favourite one with the negroes: it occurs in
Col. Jones' _Negro Myths of the Georgia Coast_ (Uncle Remus is
from S. Carolina), also among those of Brazil (Romero, _Contos do
Brazil_), and in the West Indian Islands (Mr. Lang, "At the Sign of
the Ship," _Longman's Magazine_, Feb. 1889). We can trace it to
Africa, where it occurs in Cape Colony (_South African Folk-Lore
Journal_, vol. i.).
_Remarks_.--The five-fold attack on the Demon and the Tar Baby is
so preposterously ludicrous that it cannot have been independently
invented, and we must therefore assume that they are causally
connected, and the existence of the variant in South Africa clinches
the matter, and gives us a landing-stage between India and America.
There can be little doubt that the Jataka of Prince Five-Weapons came
to Africa, possibly by Buddhist missionaries, spread among the negroes,
and then took ship in the holds of slavers for the New World, where it
is to be found in fuller form than any yet discovered in the home of
its birth. I say Buddhist missionaries, because there is a certain
amount of evidence that the negroes have Buddhistic symbols among them,
and we can only explain the identification of Brer Rabbit with Prince
Five Weapons, and so with Buddha himself, by supposing the change to
have originated among Buddhists, where it would be quite natural. For
one of the most celebrated metempsychoses of Buddha is that detailed in
the _Sasa Jataka_ (Fausböll, No. 316, tr. R. Morris, _Folk-Lore
Journal_, ii. 336), in which the Buddha, as a hare, performs a
sublime piece of self-sacrifice, and as a reward is translated to the
moon, where he can be seen to this day as "the hare in the moon." Every
Buddhist is reminded of the virtue of self-sacrifice whenever the moon
is full, and it is easy to understand how the Buddha became identified
as the Hare or Rabbit. A striking confirmation of this, in connection
with our immediate subject, is offered by Mr. Harris' sequel volume,
_Nights with Uncle Remus_. Here there is a whole chapter (xxx.) on
"Brer Rabbit and his famous Foot," and it is well known how the worship
of Buddha's foot developed in later Buddhism. No wonder Brer Rabbit is
so 'cute: he is nothing less than an incarnation of Buddha. Among the
Karens of Burmah, where Buddhist influence is still active, the Hare
holds exactly the same place in their folk-lore as Brer Rabbit among
the negroes. The sixth chapter of Mr. Smeaton's book on them is devoted
to "Fireside Stories," and is entirely taken up with adventures of the
Hare, all of which can be paralleled from _Uncle Remus_.
Curiously enough, the negro form of the five-fold attack--"fighting
with _five_ fists," Mr. Barr would call it--is probably nearer to
the original legend than that preserved in the Jataka, though 2000
years older. For we may be sure that the thunderbolt of Knowledge did
not exist in the original, but was introduced by some Buddhist Mr.
Barlow, who, like Alice's Duchess, ended all his tales with: "And the
moral of that is----" For no well-bred demon would have been taken in
by so simple a "sell" as that indulged in by Prince Five-Weapons in our
Jataka, and it is probable, therefore, that _Uncle Remus_ preserves a
reminiscence of the original Indian reading of the tale. On the other
hand, it is probable that Carlyle's Indian god with the fire in his
belly was derived from Prince Five-Weapons.
The negro variant has also suggested to Mr. Batten an explanation of
the whole story which is extremely plausible, though it introduces a
method of folk-lore exegesis which has been overdriven to death. The
_Sasa Jataka_ identifies the Brer Rabbit Buddha with the hare in
the moon. It is well known that Easterns explain an eclipse of the moon
as due to its being swallowed up by a Dragon or Demon. May not, asks
Mr. Batten, the _Pancavudha Jataka_ be an idealised account of an
eclipse of the moon? This suggestion receives strong confirmation from
the Demon's reference to Rahu, who does, in Indian myth swallow the
moon at times of eclipse. The Jataka accordingly contains the Buddhist
explanation why the moon--_i.e._ the hare in the moon, _i.e._
Buddha--is not altogether swallowed up by the Demon of Eclipse, the
Demon with the Matted Hair. Mr. Batten adds that in imagining what kind
of Demon the Eclipse Demon was, the Jataka writer was probably aided by
recollections of some giant octopus, who has saucer eyes and a kind of
hawk's beak, knobs on its "tusks," and a very variegated belly
(gastropod). It is obviously unfair of Mr. Batten both to illustrate
and also to explain so well the Tar Baby Jataka--taking the scientific
bread, so to speak, out of a poor folklorist's mouth--but his
explanations seem to me so convincing that I cannot avoid including
them in these Notes.
I am, however, not so much concerned with the original explanation of
the Jataka as to trace its travels across the continents of Asia,
Africa, and America. I think I have done this satisfactorily, and will
have thereby largely strengthened the case for less extensive travels
of other tales. I have sufficient confidence of the method employed to
venture on that most hazardous of employments, scientific prophecy. I
venture to predict that the Tar Baby story will be found in Madagascar
in a form nearer the Indian than Uncle Remus, and I will go further,
and say that it will _not_ be found in the grand Helsingfors
collection of folk-tales, though this includes 12,000, of which 1000
are beast-tales.
XXVI. THE IVORY PALACE.
_Source_.--Knowles, _Folk-Tales of Kashmir_, pp. 211--25,
with some slight omissions. Gulizar is Persian for rosy-cheeked.
_Parallels_.--Stokes, _Indian Fairy Tales_, No. 27.
"Panwpatti Rani," pp. 208-15, is the same story. Another version in the
collection _Baital Pachisi_, No. 1.
_Remarks_.--The themes of love by mirror, and the faithful friend,
are common European, though the calm attempt at poisoning is perhaps
characteristically Indian, and reads like a page from Mr. Kipling.
XXVII. SUN, MOON, AND WIND.
_Source_.--Miss Frere, _Old Deccan Days_, No. 10 pp. 153-5.
_Remarks_.--Miss Frere observes that she has not altered the
traditional mode of the Moon's conveyance of dinner to her mother the
Star, though it must, she fears, impair the value of the story as a
moral lesson in the eyes of all instructors of youth.
XXVIII. HOW WICKED SONS WERE DUPED.
_Source_.--Knowles, _Folk-Tales of Kashmir_, pp. 241-2.
_Parallels_.--A Gaelic parallel was given by Campbell in _Trans.
Ethnol. Soc._, ii. p. 336; an Anglo-Latin one from the Middle Ages
by T. Wright in _Latin Stories_ (Percy Soc.), No. 26; and for
these and points of anthropological interest in the Celtic variant see
Mr. Gomme's article in _Folk-Lore_, i. pp. 197-206, "A Highland
Folk-Tale and its Origin in Custom."
_Remarks_.--Mr. Gomme is of opinion that the tale arose from
certain rhyming formulae occurring in the Gaelic and Latin tales as
written on a mallet left by the old man in the box opened after his
death. The rhymes are to the effect that a father who gives up his
wealth to his children in his own lifetime deserves to be put to death
with the mallet. Mr. Gomme gives evidence that it was an archaic custom
to put oldsters to death after they had become helpless. He also points
out that it was customary for estates to be divided and surrendered
during the owners' lifetime, and generally he connects a good deal of
primitive custom with our story. I have already pointed out in _Folk-
Lore_, p. 403, that the existence of the tale in Kashmir without any
reference to the mallet makes it impossible for the rhymes on the
mallet to be the source of the story. As a matter of fact, it is a very
embarrassing addition to it, since the rhyme tells against the parent,
and the story is intended to tell against the ungrateful children. The
existence of the tale in India renders it likely enough that it is not
indigenous to the British Isles, but an Oriental importation. It is
obvious, therefore, that it cannot be used as anthropological evidence
of the existence of the primitive customs to be found in it. The whole
incident, indeed, is a striking example of the dangers of the
anthropological method of dealing with folk-tales before some attempt
is made to settle the questions of origin and diffusion.
XXIX. THE PIGEON AND THE CROW.
_Source_.--The _Lola Jataka_, Fausböll, No. 274, kindly
translated and slightly abridged for this book by Mr. W. H. D. Rouse.
_Remarks_.--We began with an animal Jataka, and may appropriately
finish with one which shows how effectively the writers of the Jatakas
could represent animal folk, and how terribly moral they invariably
were in their tales. I should perhaps add that the Bodhisat is not
precisely the Buddha himself but a character which is on its way to
becoming perfectly enlightened, and so may be called a future Buddha.
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