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Elevated watch-houses are placed near to the mountain fields, and it is possible that in times of great danger people might have had similar places of refuge in or near to their villages, but the old men emphatically deny that they were ever tree-dwellers, and there is nothing in the folk-tales to justify such a belief; on the contrary, the tales-indicate that the type of dwelling found to-day, was that of former times.
+640+. Many such personages, originators or introducers of the arts of life and the distribution of territory, are described in the folk-tales and myths of the North American tribes. The conception, it may be concluded, existed all over the world, though for many communities the details have not yet been brought to light.
Arthur A. Perera, "Glimpses of Singhalese Social Life," Indian Antiquary xxxi, p. 380. The incident of the bone occurs in other folk-tales. No. 15; L. Gonzenbach, op. cit. From this we should infer that it is a rule with savages not to let women handle the bones of animals during their monthly seclusions.
At the same time the story as a whole is found spread from America to Samoa, from India to Scotland, with indubitable signs of being the same story dressed up according to local requirements. The Master-Maid is, accordingly, one of the most instructive of all folk-tales, from the point of view of the problem of diffusion.
John Sampson, University Librarian at Liverpool, the scholar who did so much to aid Groome in his last volume on Romany subjects, called ‘Gypsy Folk-Tales.’ It therefore gives me the greatest pleasure to end these very inadequate words of mine with a beautiful little poem in Welsh Romany by Mr.
These stories which may be said to be as old as the race itself certainly their germs are to be found in the oldest literature and among the oldest folk-tales in the world were orally current in France and the neighboring countries in nearly the form in which Perrault wrote them for very many years; and an interesting account of the various forms in which they are found in the literature and folklore of other nations before Perrault's time is given in Les Contes de ma mère l'Oie avant Perrault, by Charles Deulin, Paris, E. Dentu, 1878.
A survey of the foregoing list brings out a noticeable lack of nature-spirits; of trees, rocks, and natural formations considered as animate; and of guardian spirits of families and industries. There is a strong suggestion, however, in the folk-tales to the effect that this has not always been the case; and even to-day there are some conflicts regarding the status of certain spirits.
But, to prove that the folk-tales were not derived directly or solely from the classical romance they, in almost every case, had a series of adventures not found there, including the incidents, Obstacles to Pursuit, False Bride, and Sale of Bed.
The earliest folk-tales of every nation happen "once upon a time," and without any definite localization. In the "Gesta Romanorum," that medieval repository of accumulated narratives, the element of setting is nearly as non-existent as the element of background in the frescoes of Pompeii.
It accordingly occurs in most of the German books of Drolls as those by Bebel and Pauli, and it is possible that the folk versions were derived from this, though they stretch as far as Cairo and North India. In some of the folk-tales, there is an introduction in which the Foolish Wife sells three cows, but keeps one of the three as a pledge.
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