Page:Transactions of the Second International Folk-Congress.djvu/102

66 the same tale and published it independently. Again, there has been a story lately published of a ghost, whom somebody endeavoured to envelope in plaster-of-Paris to take a mould of him. That, you would think, would not occur to two people. And it did not. The American author had heard it mentioned as an anecdote without knowing that it had been published. But there are other cases which really illustrate the possibility of unintentional plagiarism. A subterranean cave with two rows of kings turned into stones seems an abnormal imagination, but the man who had it received an indignant letter from another author who had the same idea. I myself once was a victim of a similar occurrence: I dreamt of a tale, but somebody else had written the story and stolen my idea before I invented it.

I agree with Mr. Hartland that the invention of the same coincidences by two different people is possible, but the difficulty is to account for their being woven into the same plot, although it should be mentioned that the same incidents also occur in dissimilar plots. Reverting to Mr. Newell's opinion that the stories spread from the civilised to the uncivilised, I may here repeat, what I have often pointed out, that most of the popular children's tales are excessively ferocious. Thus, instead of making children dance in iron shoes, I would rather let them stand in the comer. Civilisation would never invent such a savage punishment, and can only retain it as a survival. I am anxious to be converted, but would rather wait till the end of the Congress to see whether I can change my mind, but it is not very likely.