Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/364

 358 who went into the calf and spoke (see Tanchuma to Exod. xxxii, 1, and the Targum of Jerusalem to the same verse. Riddle 16 reminds us very much of the 2nd Riddle in the version of the Second Targum, which has been translated and fully treated by P. Cassel in his Commentary on Esther, pp. 283 and 284. This fact may, perhaps, suggest that our version once contained all the Riddles of the Second Targum, as it has all the Riddles of the Midrash, which will prove that none of all these versions is complete in its present form. The MSS. contain here an Arabic gloss, the translations of which I owe to the kindness of Dr. Neubauer. It runs thus: “Men plait the wick and then light it, for if it had not been plaited it would not burn evenly. Therefore it is considered as if men had created it, i.e., made it.” Riddle 19 was probably suggested by I Kings, v, 33. (See the excellent remarks of Dr. Jellinek on this point, in his introduction to the fifth volume of his Beth Hammidrash, p. lv.)

We think that the foregoing remarks, as well as the few words which we have interpolated in round brackets here and there in the translation, will suffice to make the text intelligible to the reader. The parallels from non-Jewish sources we leave to others, and we have no doubt that they also will furnish the folk-lorist with interesting matter. See, for instance, the Dialogue of Solomon and Saturnus, by Kemble, p. 199, Riddle 5 and Riddle 6, in our version. There are also many points in the introduction to Kemble’s book which will have to be corrected. after the researches of Steinschneider and others on the subject. The story of a Man from Jerusalem, which is attributed to R. Abraham Maimun, must also not be neglected by the student. We can only hope that Mr. Jacobs, who has equal mastery both of Jewish and non-Jewish sources, will soon find the leisure to favour us with a new edition of the Dialogue.

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