Page:The tale of two travellers.djvu/4

4 obvious result of this, is that the traditions, i. e. the number of variants, has increased to a degree never suspected. The greater material gives greater work, but on the other hand it adds to the chances of gettting the real main-lines in the life of the tales.

It often has been said as an objection against the comparative tale-researches that the material on which it is founded is too uncertain and frail to draw any conclusions from, and to a certain point these objections are justified. The fact is that every single version of a tale is the result of an individual development. All of them have been treated in a more or less, conscious individual, I dare say artistic manner, and hereby is opened the possibility [sic]posibility of the influence of a great number of accidental and spontaneous factors, which by their nature avoid nearer investigation. But on the other hand if we find a tale, as for instance this now before us, appearing again and again in more than three hundred records from all ends of the world, and we see how curiously constant the tradition is, then just this wonderful tenacity of tradition gives us the right of regarding the material so reliable that we may venture to build a research on them. Surely we cannot expect a firm decision in all details, but on a large scale we can learn from the traditions the development and the ways of the type. The problem we meet is always the same: what is the explanation of this coincidence? We have no adequate reason for not believing in wandering and transfer. Complicated novels as most of the tales are, would not grow up spontaneously in different places, and it is their wanderings the tale-researches in single examinations will endeavour to follow. Among these investigations this work takes its place as a contribution to the history of tales.

The unity of this research then, is not, as will be seen, the single archaic motive, as for instance here animals appearing and acting as human beings, a motive which