Page:Researches respecting the Book of Sindibad and Portuguese Folk-Tales.djvu/153

 PREFACE.

is well known what a prominent place belongs to the Book of Sindibâd (or, in its European name, Book of the Seven Sages) in the history of popular literature. During a certain time the best authority on this book was Loiseleur Deslongchamps's Essai sur les Fables Indiennes, published in 1838. Our knowledge of mediæval and Oriental literature and folk-lore is now so much increased and improved that Loiseleur's work has become almost useless, especially after Benfey's work on the Pancatantra and Comparetti's Ricerche intorno al Libro di Sindibâd, whose conclusions are commonly approved and accepted. Professor Comparetti's work having been published in the Transactions of the Istituto Lombardo for 1869, and only a few separate copies given to the trade, a wish was expressed by several scholars in France and Germany as well as in England that it should be rendered more accessible to the general body of folk-lore students; and the Folk-Lore Society willingly accepted Mr. Coote's proposal to publish an English translation of it. This labour was undertaken by Mr. Coote himself with the help of the author, who revised it, and wrote a few additional notes to his text. The early Spanish language not being known to all folk-lore students, it was thought useful to give a translation of the important old Spanish text published by Professor Comparetti for the first time.