Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/137

Rh in his day, though the dragon-cult probably then existed as well as the city named from the dragon. But even if we admit this, and further call to mind Alexander's expedition and the intercourse between East and West that followed it—all between the date of Herodotus and that of Pausanias—yet so different is the form of the legend from any known Indian variant, and so curious are the details which link it to Ophitea, that it would require M. Cosquin's powerful spectacles to induce us to see the mint-mark of the Buddhist workshop upon it. I conclude, therefore, that whether or not the story issued in all its forms from a single factory, there were versions known in Europe—at least there was one version—independent of the literary current through which the apologue is generally traced; and before the inquiries on the subject are closed some consideration must be given to the spread of this traditional version and to its possible influence on the literary versions.

The chief feature of Dr. Murko's essay on the History of the Seven Wise Masters among the Slavs is his full account of a newly discovered Bohemian version and of the various Russian texts.

The edition of Basile's work, of which the first volume has appeared during the past year, is a careful and beautiful reprint, with foot-notes explaining the most difficult words in dialect, of the editions of 1634-6, which were printed from his own manuscripts. Some historical notes are added; and an Introduction is prefixed, containing a biography, accompanied by illustrative documents, and a discussion of The Tale of Tales as a literary work, and of its relation to comparative storiology.