Page:Transactions of the Second International Folk-Congress.djvu/64

 28 the Eastern story of Aladdin. Grimm's tale of Simeliberg, given also by Pröhle, has a suspicious resemblance, too, to that of All Baba and the Forty Robbers. Now, the Arabs conquered Sicily, and may very well have brought their stories and left them behind with their blood. But they never conquered Germany; and, what is still more perplexing, the name of the mountain, Semsi or Semeli (Sesam, Simson, or Simsimseliger, as it is in other variants), which presents the most suspicious point of all, is, so Grimm informs us, a very ancient {uralt) name for a mountain in Germany, where, in fact, it is found more than once; and it appears also in a Swiss traditional song having nothing to do with The Forty Robbers. If, therefore, there has been any borrowing, the East has borrowed from the West, and not vice-versâ. The story is very widespread; and the incident of the opening of the magical door, or rock, is found all over the world. But in most cases the invocation is directly addressed to the door or the rock, as in the German stories. "Rock of Two Holes, open for me, that I may enter", is the formula in the Zulu tale. The genius in the Chinese tale says: "Stone door, open; Mr. Kwei Ku is coming." In the Samoan saga of The Origin of Fire the formula is: "Rock, divide! I am Talanga; I have come to work." In a Tartar story from southern Siberia it is required to pronounce the name of God, the All-merciful, the All-compassionate. In all these it is the name of the rock, or of its lord, which is the powerful word. So far as I know, there is only one instance, besides that of the Arabian Nights, where the name of any unconnected object is pronounced; and the preservation in the tale of Ali Baba of the sound of the word in the German variants, while the sense is obviously lost, points to derivation of the former from the latter or from some allied tale, ^'e do not know whence Galland obtained the tale of Ali Baba. It is not found in the MSS. of The Thousand Nights and a Night. But it is thoroughly Eastern in colouring; and its derivation from one of the German variants, or any congener, must have been remote enough to admit of this colouring, as well as of the addition of the robbers' subsequent attempts against Ali Baba; for these do not appear in the German versions. The other instance where the name of an