Page:The tale of two travellers.djvu/27



The variants such as they are enumerated here, compose the mass out of which we will try to read the history of the tale. Its life has an enormous extent, and each single record serves as proof of its existence on a certain place, in a certain form. The problem is, from these solitary points, to trace the line combining them and forming the continuity in the life of the tale. The manner of proceeding, now to be followed, is to put asunder the material in its single incidents, examine what really belongs to the original story and separate what turn out to be local formations, borrowed elsewhere, for it is probably so, that single motives lapse from one tale-circle into another, on account of resemblances and points of connection in the stories, but on the other hand, the story, within its varying forms, shows itself constant to an astonishing degree. In the tale now before us, this last feature is directly conspicuous. The course of the narrative with its main features is rather unaltered, probably because this tale forms a distinguished type, to a higher degree, than for instance the tales containing fights with trolls, deliverances of princesses or some such thing. It is less essential features which change, and here in our tale, it is especially those connected with local superstition: the cure for blindness or some illness for instance. Just for this reason we may hope to find, what originally belongs to the story; in other words: its primitive form. But although we posess a big