Page:Transactions of the Second International Folk-Congress.djvu/97

 seem likely that such a suppression of the latter part of the story has taken place.

Returning to European versions, it is to be remarked that the older form of the folk-tale, that in which the heroine is carried home and afterwards returns to her native heaven, is also represented in Europe; while some versions exhibiting the modified form of the märchen—to which, for example, "Lady Featherflight" belongs—appear also to have incorporated incidents properly belonging to the more ancient type. Such intermixture, in which a later variant takes up some features of an earlier form of the story, might be expected as a natural consequence of the complications arising from continual diffusion and alteration.

If all the versions belonging to our folk-tale in its different types, and all the confused and modernised forms founded upon it were enumerated, the number of variants would run up to many hundreds, and would be found to form no inconsiderable part of the whole volume of modern märchen in Europe.

It remains to be inquired whether anything can be affirmed respecting the date and method of composition of the Hindu tale, which appears to have obtained so wide a circulation.

An early example of a story of bride-winning, having many analogies to that now considered, is supplied by the tale of Medea and Jason. The hero journeys to a far country, probably originally conceived as a giant-land beyond the limits of the world of