Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/175

Rh regarding his age, sex, and general character, even mentioning the names of other persons present when the story was being taken down.

These two entertaining volumes consist of a series of papers on a great variety of folk-tales. The author does not write in support of any definite theory, though he expressly disclaims at the outset the "solar myth" theory, and appears to sympathise generally with the conclusions of Benfey. That learned man held that the origin of our western stories must be sought in India, whence they were diffused, chiefly through the medium of Buddhistic teachings, over the whole east, and found their way ultimately to Europe. Mr. Clouston's wide knowledge of this department of oriental literature has enabled him to bring together a vast collection of variants of our best-known stories; and his book is a most welcome and timely contribution to the science of folk-lore. Its special service consists in the forcible manner in which it recalls the attention of students to the wealth of tales, not only in the modern tongues of India, but also in the ancient Sanskrit, and derived thence either immediately and avowedly, or remotely,—and in doing this at a time when we are perhaps in danger of forgetting these elements in the problem of origins. This is no small service to render, and it is one for which every one who is interested in the subject will be grateful.

It is beyond doubt that Europe owes many of its stories to the East. Their lineage is known: they can be traced in literary form during historical times from land to land, and from tongue to tongue, until their primitive type is discovered at last in Buddhistic or earlier Sanskrit works. More than this, some of these stories can even be shown to have been current, usually in still more archaic shape, thousands of years ago, on the banks of the Nile, when the wandering gods of that antique civilisation were sought, "disguised in brutish forms, rather than human." Hence Sir Richard Burton, as cited in the work before us, is inclined to ascribe the origin of folk-tales to the