n
Hindustani after they were told, and a second time by the annotator
before they were printed. "I never saw people more anxious to have
their tales retold exactly, than are Dunkni and Muniya," the two
story-telling ayahs. Not till each tale was pronounced by them to be
exact was it sent to the press. The stories may be taken then as
faithful transcripts of Indian thought. The merits of the copious
Notes contributed by the late Mrs. Whitley Stokes, bearing witness to
a very wide range of reading, and to a most intelligent use of the
authorities referred to, will be fully acknowledged by all who have
had occasion to explore the regions from which she has gathered so
much valuable information. Throughout the whole of the work thus
conscientiously compiled and intelligently annotated, there will be
found scattered, in addition to its other merits, many a parallel with
our own popular tales, many an illustration or explanation of their
meaning--a ray of light shot here or there which illumines their dark
places, and may enable the explorers of their mystic domains to avoid
stumbles which are often somewhat mortifying. It remains only to point
out a few of the most important passages.

* * * * *

Some of the stories in this volume are so thoroughly oriental, so
little in accordance with western thought or feeling, that they have
not found an echo among ourselves; their counterparts are not to be
found naturalized in European lands. Of such a kind are the legends,
taken from literary sources, of "The Upright King," and of "Raja
Harichand's Punishment," in which the patience of a religious monarch
is tried as was that of Job, and comes out from the trial equally
victorious. The sorrows of Patient Grissel have met with sympathy in
many lands, for meekness has ever been considered a womanly virtue.
But the heroism of a husband and father who sells his wife to a
merchant, and his son to a cowherd, in order that he may be able to
keep his promise to a holy mendicant, and bestow upon him two pounds
and a half of gold, can scarcely be expected to invest itself, to
western eyes, with the air of a manly virtue. In the same way, the
great sitting powers displayed by King Burtal, who never once moves
from his seat in the jungle for twelve whole years, during which space
of time he neither eats nor drinks, and thereby elevates himself to
the dignity of a fakir, are not of a kind to elicit the sympathies o