es have been preserved
in the memories of the common people in many parts of Asia, but
especially in India. And their leading ideas are perfectly in
accordance with the mythology or the moral teaching of the Asiatics
who, age after age, have delighted in telling or hearing them. In such
cases as these it seems to be not very unreasonable to suppose that
the story was originally, if not created, at all events shaped and
trimmed in Asia, and thence was afterwards conveyed from lip to lip
into Europe. Such universal favourites as Beauty and the Beast and
Puss in Boots may be confidently cited as oriental fictions which have
taken possession of European minds. There is a rich store of other
popular fictions, which may be left to be accounted for according to
the two principal methods of interpretation in vogue. They may be
explained as independent developments of mythological germs common to
the ancestors of the various Aryan peoples of Europe. Or they may be
regarded as embodiments of certain ideas common to savages of all
races. It will be sufficient to deal at present with the more
limited, but better known class, to which special attention has been
called.

Among the Asiatic folk-tales which seem likely to assist in their
explanation, none are more copious or more useful than those of India.
There the old religion has maintained itself with which so many of
these stories are linked, and there the moral teaching still prevails
which made its voice heard in other tales of the far-off time when
they first became current. Any collection of genuine Indian Fairy
Tales is therefore certain to be, not only of interest to the general
reader, but also of real value to the specialist who devotes himself
to the comparison of folk-tales. The collection now before us has
great merits of its own. The stories have been told in Hindustani to
the very young collector by two ayahs, who are both Hindus, and by a
Muhammadan man-servant. In this respect Miss Stokes's contribution to
our knowledge of India differs from the very similar, and very
charming, work by Miss Frere, "Old Deccan Days," the stories in which
were told by an ayah who was, as her father and grandfather had been,
a native Christian. The two books ought to be compared with each
other. No possessor of the one ought to be without the other. All the
stories contained in the present volume, as we learn from the notes,
have been read back by the young collector to the tellers i