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The Assistant District Attorney rubbed his forehead and wondered who in thunder all these people were. Who, for example, to begin at the beginning, was Charles A. Clark, and why should he be deeding away Ebbe Petersen's property? And who were Keilly and O'Rourke, and all the rest Colliton, Garretson, Bolte and Freeman? And who, for that matter, was Hubert?
Only two volumes have as yet appeared dealing with the first 120 numbers of the Grimm collection in over a thousand pages crammed with references and filled with details as to variants. The book has obviously been planned and worked out by Dr. Bolte, who had previously edited the collected works of his chief predecessor, R. Koehler. Dr.
Quite by chance the Assistant District Attorney located the former of these, who proved to be one of Browne's clients, and who stated that he had taken title to the property at the lawyer's request and as a favor to him, did not remember from whom he had received it, had paid nothing for it, received nothing for it, and had finally deeded it to Herman Bolte at the direction of Browne.
Bolte finds several instances where the full formula still exists in popular tradition. It is surely easiest to assume that they were once brought together by a folk artist whose bright little tale has spread among various folks, with the alterations suggested by the divergent fancy of the different folk minds.
I had gone through three-quarters of the tales and notes contained in the present book before I became acquainted with the modestly named Anmerkungen zu Grimm's Mährchen, 2 vols., 1913-15, by J. Bolte and E. Polivka. This is one of those works of colossal erudition of which German savants alone seem to have the secret.
But wandryng vp and doune the wilde fieldes and driuyng their catteile afore theim, their wiues and their children ridyng in wagons by them. Thei obserued iustice, without constraint of lawe. Thei compted none offence more heinous, then thefte. As folke that had nothyng vndre locke nor keye, barre, nor bolte: but altogether in the open fielde. Thei nether occupied golde ne siluer.
So Sigurd understands the language of birds, after eating the blood of Fafnir the Worm. But all this throws little light upon the story itself. Bolte gives, i., 323-4, many folk-tales in which the hero becomes not a pope but a king and compares the story of Joseph in the Bible as possibly a source of the Prophetic Dream of the father and mother waiting upon the son.
Herman Bolte, an ex-judge of the Municipal Court, who had been removed for misconduct in office, admitted grumblingly that, while at, one time he had considered purchasing the property in question, he had never actually done so, that the deed from Garretson to himself had been recorded without his knowledge or his authority, that he had paid nothing for the property and had received nothing for it, and had, at the instruction of Browne, conveyed it to Benjamin Freeman.
A score of detectives were sent out to hunt up these elusive persons, but, although the directories of twenty years were searched, no Charles A. Clark, John J. Keilly or I. F. X. O'Rourke could be discovered. Nor could any one named Colliton, Freeman or Hubert be found. The only persons who did appear to exist were Garretson and Bolte.
Bolte has not as yet expounded any theory of the origin of the Folk Tale, but, with true scientific caution, judges each case on its merits. But his whole treatment assumes the organic unity of each particular formula, and one cannot conceive him regarding the similarities of the tales as due to similar mental workings of the folk mind at a particular stage of social development.
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