Page:The Fables of Bidpai (Panchatantra).djvu/43

Rh de Lorraine, Paris, 1882), or with Mr. Clouston (Popular Tales and Fictions, 1887). As regards the origin of folk-tales, the view is too extreme to need much discussion.* Those who hold it overlook the fact that the "tell me a story" instinct is as universal as any craving of mankind Indeed I wonder that some one has not defined Man as a tale-telling animal (with the corollary of "Woman as a tale-bearing one). The only plausibility which is given to the derivation of all folk-tales from the East is given by the amazing erudition of Benfey. At first sight it might seem that all European folk-tales, and more also, had been swept into the net of his Einleitung. But if we take any particular collection and investigate what proportion of it is to be found referred to by Benfey, we get a more sober estimate of the influence of the Orient on folk-tales.

I have not thought it worth while to refer to the further refinement of those who, like Professor de Gubernatis (Storia delle Novellini populari, Milan, 1883), besides tracing all folk-tales back to India (he does this for ten selected examples in the accompanying Florilegio) traces them when there to degradations of meteorological myths about sun, moon, and stars. Even Professor Müller, who applies his "sparrow-grass" theory of things to most things in heaven and earth, would not go this length (Sel. Ess. i. 510).