Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/13



so called is undoubtedly one of the most curious of those collections of tales which are found in the popular literature of most peoples. Such tales, indeed, appear to have been the means by which man communicated his sentiments and opinions to, and impressed them upon, his fellow men, from the earliest ages of human existence. They seem to have formed, if we may so express it, a natural accompaniment of the human mind. We find them thus existing among most of the peoples of the civilized world, among the Orientals especially, among the Greek and Latin