Page:The Fables of Bidpai (Panchatantra).djvu/42

xxxii which distinguish between b, t, and th had been omitted, and the Rabbi who had also translated the far-famed book of Sindibad, jumped to the conclusion that these fables were also due to that sage, and thought the reading to be Thindiba, which he took the liberty of changing into Sindibad. But revenge soon overtook him, for in Hebrew there is a similar resemblance between the letters d and r, and his translator, John of Capua, read Sindibad as Sendebar, Q.E.D. A similar misunderstanding of the Hebrew, according to Derenbourg, has changed the Shah Nurshirvan into Anestres Castri (p. 34). So much at present for the external history of the work before us, which lends it so much of its interest. But its contents claim our attention in equal degree, for it has been claimed for them that in them, or rather in their Indian original, is to be found the fons et origo of all folk-tales, or at any rate of all tales about beasts. No one now-a-days would perhaps go so far as to hold that we can trace every folk-tale back to India, and to this particular collection, but the temptation is often very strong to do so, with M. Cosquin, for example (Contes populaires