Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/257

Rh importance of which this fact may prove to be for the history of fairy tales in the lands of the West. Not that these have been borrowed directly from our MSS.; but the way one came, others could and probably have come too. Whence those tales may have come originally, and where they may have been told for the first time, is a question that I consider still premature to answer. The versions which I have read here to-night do not look like the very first attempts in telling tales. They show unmistakable signs of the reason of their existence and the cause of their dissemination. The ethical-religious principle is prevalent in all, and finds its counterpart in those parallels which by their geographical position lie nearer to the country where, close upon 1,000 years ago, we find them delighting the listeners and carrying them away from the stern reality of the temporary victory of cunning and wrong, to the poetical justice of the fairy tale in the reward of the hero.

I. The Heathen and the Jew.

Once a heathen and a Jew were walking along together, when the heathen remarked to the Jew: "My religion is better than thine." "Not so," replied the Jew; "on the contrary, mine is better than thine, as it is said, 'what nation is there so great that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law.'" The heathen then said: "Supposing it is decided my religion is better than thine, then I will take thy money; but if it be decided that thy religion is better than mine, then shalt thou take my money." The Jew replied: "I agree to accept this condition." As they were walking along, Satan appeared to them in the form of an old man. They thereupon asked him the question as to whose religion was the better; and he replied: "That of the heathen is the better." After they had proceeded a little farther, Satan appeared to them again, in the form of a young man. They put the same question, and they received the same reply. When they had walked a little farther, he appeared to them again in the form of another old man. On asking the same question again, the identical reply was once more given. The heathen therefore took the Israelite's money. The Israelite then journeyed on in fear of his life, and lodged in the open. When a third of the night had gone by, he heard some spirits speaking to each other. Two of them asked a third: "Where hast thou been to-day?" to which he replied: "I met a Jew and an Aramean, I laughed at them and gave evidence in favour of the heathen." They then asked another: "Where hast thou been to-day?" To which he