Page:Myth, Ritual, and Religion (Volume 2).djvu/323

Rh (14.) The son of tliepersea tree was Bitiou, born of his own faithless wife; and when he grew up he had her put to death.

Even a hasty examination of these incidents from old Egypt proves that before India was heard of in history the people of the Pharaohs possessed a large store of incidents perfectly familiar in modern märchen. Now, if one single Egyptian tale yields this rich supply, it is an obvious presumption that the collection of an Egyptian Grimm might, and probably would, have furnished us with the majority of the situations common in popular tales. M. Cosquin himself remarks that these ideas cannot be invented more than once (I. lxvii.) The other Egyptian contes, as that of Le Prince Prédestiné (twentieth dynasty), and the noted Master Thief of Herodotus (ii. 121), are merely familiar märchen of the common type, and have numerous well-known analogues.

From all these facts M. Cosquin draws no certain conclusions. He asks, Did Egypt borrow these tales from India, or India from Egypt? And were there Aryans in India in the time of Rameses II.?

These questions are beyond conjecture. We know nothing of Egyptian relations with prehistoric India. We know not how many æons the tale of The Two Brothers may have existed in Egypt before Ennànà, the head librarian, wrote it out for Pharaoh's treasurer, Qagabou.

What we do know is, that if we find a large share of the whole stock of incident of popular tale fully developed in one single story long before India was