Indian Fairy Tales Selected and edited by Joseph Jacobs Illustrated
by JOHN D. BATTEN PREFACE From the extreme West of the
Indo-European world, we go this year to the extreme East. From the
soft rain and green turf of Gaeldom, we seek the garish sun and
arid soil of the Hindoo. In the Land of Ire, the belief in fairies,
gnomes, ogres and monsters is all but dead; in the Land of Ind it
still flourishes in all the vigour of animism. Soils and national
characters differ; but fairy tales are the same in plot and
incidents, if not in treatment. The majority of the tales in this
volume have been known in the West in some form or other, and the
problem arises how to account for their simultaneous existence in
farthest West and East. Some-as Benfey in Germany, M. Cosquin in
France, and Mr. Clouston in England-have declared that India is the
Home of the Fairy Tale, and that all European fairy tales have been
brought from thence by Crusaders, by Mongol missionaries, by
Gipsies, by Jews, by traders, by travellers. The question is still
before the courts, and one can only deal with it as an advocate. So
far as my instructions go, I should be prepared, within certain
limits, to hold a brief for India. So far as the children of Europe
have their fairy stories in common, these-and they form more than a
third of the whole -are derived from India. In particular, the
majority of the Drolls or comic tales and jingles can be traced,
without much difficulty.
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