Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/85

Rh courage to reject all these fashionable forms of Windbeutelei and to advocate a simple Positivist treatment of the subject, confining himself avowedly to the abstract endeavour to trace the European tale, through its variants and parallel versions current among the different natives of the world, as definitively as possible back to its Indian prototype, without wandering aside into sterile attempts to fasten upon the simple lineaments of the popular legend any precise cosmological significance, mythical or mystical,—sterile because founded upon necessarily incomplete data. It seems to us that, in taking this course, M. Cosquin has rendered a great service to the science of folk-lore and has pointed out the path of practical utility to be followed by future writers who occupy themselves with the examination of other sections of European popular fiction.

It should be mentioned that the book under review is composed. of articles contributed to the well-known folk-lore journal The Romania, and considerably augmented and retouched for the purpose of the present reprint. We regret that, in his references to the Thousand and One Nights, M. Cosquin should have had access to no better version of the great Arabian collection of popular fiction than that of Dr. Habicht, an utterly worthless compilation, which has long been supplanted by more scholarly renderings, notably that published by the Villon Society.

This is a translation of one of the versions of perhaps the most widely popular collections of tales which the world has ever seen. The Society's edition of the Book of Sindibad, by Professor Comparetti, will be known to all our Members, and the present volume is a companion to that. It is derived from a printed but undated text procured a few years ago at Constantinople. The author has collated his version with a manuscript in the library of the India Office, with two purchased from Mr. Quaritch, and other authorities.