Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/138

130 day to ask alms, and the young wife of the merchant, on seeing him, exclaimed, "How came such a handsome man as you to undertake such a severe vow as this? Happy is the woman who is gazed upon with such eyes as yours!" Upon this the begging ascetic tore out one eye and asked her what there was in it to be so attractive. He then told the lady a story of a hermit who conquered his anger, after which she bowed before him; and he, being regardless of his body, lovely though it was, passed on to perfection.

It is well known that Christian hagiology is largely indebted to Indian, and especially to Buddhist, writings. Even before the commencement of our era the mild and benevolent doctrines of the illustrious Siddhartha had found their way into Europe.

Author:William Alexander Clouston

P.S.—In my paper on "The Frog Prince", in the last number of (vol. i), I find two errors which may as well be corrected:

Page 497, top line, for "William of Malmesbury" read "Sir John Mandeville"—the reference to the 1725 ed. is all right.

Page 503, last line, for "German"' read "Scotch".

—The following extracts from letters recently received may be of interest. Dr. Douglas Hyde writes from Fredericton, New Brunswick, where he has been passing the winter:—

"You will be interested to hear that I got many curious parallels to my Irish stories from the Indians. I was out hunting cariboo with three of them for a fortnight at Christmas, and though I could not get a story, good or bad, from them in their own houses, yet I got a number round the camp fire every evening, and told them in return every story in my répertoire, to their great