Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/276

268 literary and the traditionary popular fictions of Indian countries has already been rendered accessible to English readers; but these fields are of vast extent, and much yet remains unexplored. In the former class are: Professor Tawney's complete translation of the Kathá Saint Ságara, "Ocean of the Streams of Story"—composed in Sanskrit verse, in the latter part of the eleventh century, by Somadeva, after a similar work, now apparently lost, entitled Vrihat Káthá, "The Great Story," written, in the sixth century, by Gunadhya; translations from the Buddhist Játakas, or Birth-Stories, by Dr. Rhys Davids (Trübner), the Lord Bishop of Colombo (Transactions of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society), and the Rev. Dr. R. Morris (in this Journal); and one Sanskrit version of the celebrated Fables of Bidpai, the Hitopadesa; but an English translation of the more important text, the Panchatantra, is greatly to be desired. Of the traditionary class of Indian Folk-Tales, we have such useful collections as Miss Frere's Old Deccan Days; Miss Stokes' Indian Fairy Tales; the Rev. Lál Bahári Day's Folk-Tales of Bengal; Steel and Temple's Wide- Awake Stories, from the Panjáb and Kashmír; two volumes of Captain Temple's valuable Legends of the Panjáb, &c.

And now English students of comparative folk-lore will cordially welcome this interesting collection of the popular fictions of Southern India, in which may be found the sources of similar tales current in Ceylon. The first story is of two deaf men and a traveller, and is related with considerable humour: the blunders made by deaf folks in endeavouring to conceal their "infirmity" are favourite subjects of the popular tales of Europe as well as of Asia; thus, for instance, the Norse tale of "Goodman Axeshaft" has its close parallel in a Persian story-book. In the tale of the Soothsayer's Son (pp. 12-34) we find a singular variant of a world-wide apologue, of which well-known versions occur in the Gesta Romanorum, and Gower's Confessio Amantis: a traveller rescues a serpent, a monkey, a tiger, and a man from a deep pit into which they had fallen; the man afterwards attempts to cause the death of his benefactor; but the animals testify their gratitude by gifts, and by extricating him from the ungrateful man's snare. The Buddhist original of this fine story will be found in the Saccankira Játaka, translated by Dr. Morris, Folk-Lore Journal,