PAGE

165

. 171

. 179

INTRODUCTION.

. 184

. 187

. 190

.194

. 202

S 210

N

.

.230

248

.257

. 262

. 267

274

. 280

R 285

. 290

IT

T has often struck all lovers of Folklore andNational Legends with wonder, that so manycountries should have reproduced in different imageryand language the same tales. Persia, Arabia, andIndia give us the same fables as Italy, France,Norway, and Iceland, except for slight variationsprincipally arising from difference of custom, distanceof time, idiom and nationality.

Able writers have explained this to us by a theoryworthy of consideration, and admirable in its origin,but nevertheless wholly their own.vn. They wouldhave us believe that a certain group of tales belongedto a certain nation, and that through emigration andimmigration, through wars and dispersions, thesesame tales have been carried backwards and forwardsand dragged from country to country borrowing thelanguage and peculiarities of the lands they passedthrough, just as the seed of some rare plant is borne