Page:Tales of the Punjab.pdf/11



MANY of the tales in this collection appeared either in the India Antiquary, the Calcutta Review, or the Legends of the Punjab. They were then in the form of literal translations, in many cases uncouth or even unpresentable to ears polite, in all scarcely intelligible to the untravelled English reader; for it must be remembered that, with the exception of the Adventures of Raja Rasâlu, all these stories are strictly folk-tales passing current among a people who can neither read nor write, and whose diction is full of colloquialisms, and, if we choose to call them so, vulgarisms. It would be manifestly unfair for instance, to compare the literary standard of such tales with that of the Arabian Nights, the Tales of a Parrot, or similar works. The manner in which these stories were collected is in itself sufﬁcient to show how misleading it would be, if, with the intention of giving the conventional Eastern ﬂavour to the text, it were to be manipulated into a ﬂowery dignity; and as a description of the procedure will serve the double purpose of credential and excuse, the authors give it.