Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/19

Rh to the purpose by such an one from the myth of Œdipus and Antigone; whether that of "St. Peter's Three Loaves" was really a traditional incident of our Lord's wanderings on earth too insignificant to find place in the pages of Holy Writ, or adapted from the myth of Baucis and Philemon; or whether all were adaptations according to the special convictions of various narrators of great primeval traditions, mattered very little, as each had an intrinsic purpose and an interest of its own quite distinct from that accruing to it through ascertaining its place in the history of the world's beliefs. In telling them, it needed not to point a moral, for the moral—i.e. some more or less remote application of the sacred and civilizing teaching of the Gospel—was of the very essence of each.

With the Tales given in the following pages, however, it is quite different. They come direct from the far East, and in most of them nothing further has been aimed at than the amusement of the weary hours of disoccupation, whether forced or voluntary, of a people indisposed by climate, natural temperament, or want of cultivation from finding recreation in the healthy exercise of mental effort.

To me it seems that before we can take pleasure in giving our time to the perusal of such stories, we must invest them with, or discover in them some sort of purpose. Nor is this so far to seek, perhaps, as might appear at first sight.