Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/64

 based are as natural to, and as common among, savages as they seem "unnatural" to the modern civilised student of Aryan dialects. The conclusion appears to follow inevitably, that the incidents of savage stories are derived from the beliefs and ideas of savages, while the identical incidents in civilised tales are an inheritance, a survival from a past of savagery. If we are not to believe this, we must first reject the evidence offered as untrustworthy, and next explain the phenomena as the result of forgetfulness of the meaning of words, and of other linguistic processes for which, as we have shewn, the evidence is neither copious, nor unimpeachable, nor to the point.

At the beginning of this essay we remarked that Household Tales consist of but few incidents, in an immense variety of combinations. To the incidents already enumerated, we may add such as spring from a few simple moral conceptions. Thus, among savages as in Europe, the duty of good temper and courtesy is illustrated by the tale of the good girl, or boy, who succeeded in enterprises where the bad girl or boy failed as a punishment of churlishness or disobedience. Again, in savage as well as civilised tales, curiosity in forbidden matters is punished, as in all the stories of opening a taboo'd door, or tampering with matters taboo' d. Once more the impossibility of avoiding Fate is demonstrated in such tales as "The Sleeping Beauty," the unborn child who is exposed to make of no effect an evil prophecy, and so forth. Again, the folly of hasty words is set forth in stories of the type of Jeptha's foolish vow. By help of such simple moral conceptions as these, and of supernatural incidents which appear natural to the savage, the web of Household Tales is woven.

There remain, however, features in Household Tales, savage or civilised, which we do not even pretend to explain. Why does the supplanted bride, whose place