Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/48

 20 Presidential Address.

Herodotus ^ tells us also that Darius, having condemned Intaphernes and all his family to death, offered his wife the life of one of them, and she chose her brother. Being asked why, she answered : " O King, I might get me another husband, if God will, and other children if I should lose these ; but since my father and my mother are dead, there is no means by which I could get a brother." The Indian king in the like case was more generous than Darius, and pleased with her answer, gave back to the woman all three.^ Strange as this com- parative table of value may seem to us, it thus appears to be natural in certain states of feeling ; and I may add that the Greek woman of to-day has the same opinion. I have found it expressed in a modern Greek ballad,^ and have heard often of women saying the like of their brothers, at least as compared with their husbands. I need not further go into detail. Enough to say that there are parallels or illustrations of a host of things : of Indian epic and drama, of Danae and Theseus, of Jonah and Potiphar's wife, of Peter walking on the sea.*

In modern oriental folktales many examples may be found of the survival of those which meet us in the Jdtaka Book. The excellent tale of the Crane and the Crab ^ was found lately in the Malay States.^ How the Monkey outwitted the Crocodile is known in China and Japan.'^ The legend of King Mandhatu has been met with in Tibet ; ^ so has the Gazelle and the Hunter,^ and a number of others. There are also references to a number of legends still current in India, some of which are contained in Swynnerton's Indian Nights Eiiter-

^ Herod, iii. 110-120. 'Jat. i. 165. '^ Folk-Lore, x. 185.


 * See Indices to the various volumes of the translation.

^ Jat. i. 96. ^ Fables and Folktales from an Eastern Forest, p. 18.

' Beal, Romantic Legend, 231; Griffin, Fairy Tales from Japan.

^Jdt. ii. 216; Tib. Tales, pp. 1-20.

'^Jat. No. 33-9; Tib. Tales, No. 41.