m uninjured to
the light of day. In its original form the tale may have been a nature
myth, illustrating the apparent annihilation brought about by the
darkness of night or the cold of winter, and the revival which
accompanies the return of the day or of spring; or, perhaps, a moral
apologue, intended to suggest that death may not be a lasting
annihilation. In its modern forms, whether in the east or the west, it
often assumes a grotesque air. A good illustration of this fact is
afforded by the well-known Norse tale of "The Greedy Cat," of which
"The Voracious Frog" (No. 6) is an Indian counterpart. The cat, after
devouring all that comes in its way, is at last split in half by a
goat, whereupon all its victims come forth unhurt. The frog, after
similar feats of gluttony, is cut open by a barber, who, while shaving
it, thinks that it looks very fat; and its victims also emerge
uninjured.

There are many tales now current in different parts of Europe, but
chiefly in the south and east, which turn upon the relations existing
between human beings and their fates: each person being supposed to
have a special fate or fortune, a species of guardian demon, upon
whose good will all his or her success in life depends. It is very
doubtful whether such stories are products of European fancy, their
leading ideas seeming to be little in keeping with the religious
beliefs--whether of classic times, or of Teutonic, Slavic, or Celtic
antiquity--respecting either an overruling destiny, or a triad of
Fates or Norns. But in India a belief in a personal "luck" has
prevailed from very early times; and such stories as "The Man who went
to seek his Fate" (No. 12), appear there to be as indigenous as in
Europe they seem to be exotic. The Servian story, for instance, of the
man who sets out to look for his fate, and the Sicilian account of how
the unfortunate Caterina is persecuted by hers until she discovers its
hiding-place, and propitiates it by cakes (see Notes, p. 263), have a
foreign air about them, which does not manifest itself in the Indian
tale. The likeness between the Servian and the Indian variants of the
narrative, especially as regards the questions which the fate-seeker
is requested by the beings he meets on the way to ask when he arrives
at his destination, is too great to allow it to be supposed that they
have been independently developed from a common germ. They are
manifestly, so far as the journey is concerned, copies of t