English Fairy Tales

PORTUGAL
: Coelho, Contes popolares portuguezes, No. 1.
ROUMANIA:
Kremnitz, Rumänische Mährchen, No. 15.
ASIA MINOR
: Von Hahn, Griechische und Albanesische
Märchen, No. 56.
INDIA
: Steel and Temple, Wide-awake Stories, p. 157 (“The
Death and Burial of Poor Hen-Sparrow”).
Remarks.—These 25 variants of the same jingle scattered over
the world from India to Spain, present the problem of the
diffusion of folk-tales in its simplest form. No one is likely
to contend with Prof. Müller and Sir George Cox, that we

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English Fairy Tales
have here the detritus of archaic Aryan mythology, a parody
of a sun-myth. There is little that is savage and archaic to
attract the school of Dr. Tylor, beyond the speaking powers
of animals and inanimates. Yet even Mr. Lang is not likely to
hold that these variants arose by coincidence and indepen-
dently in the various parts of the world where they have
been found. The only solution is that the curious succession
of incidents was invented once for all at some definite place
and time by some definite entertainer for children, and spread
thence through all the Old World. In a few instances we can
actually trace the passage-e.g., the Shetland version was cer-
tainly brought over from Hamburg. Whether the centre of
dispersion was India or not, it is impossible to say, as it might
have spread east from Smyrna (Hahn, No. 56). Benfey
(Einleitung zu Pantschatantra, i. 190-91) suggests that this
class of accumulative story may be a sort of parody on the
Indian stories, illustrating the moral, “what great events from
small occasions rise.” Thus, a drop of honey falls on the
ground; a fly goes after it, a bird snaps at the fly, a dog goes
for the bird, another dog goes for the first, the masters of the
two dogs—who happen to be kings—quarrel and go to war,
whole provinces are devastated, and all for a drop of honey!
“Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse” also ends in a universal ca-
lamity which seems to arise from a cause of no great impor-
tance. Benfey’s suggestion is certainly ingenious, but per-
haps too ingenious to be true.