am Ibn Ezra doubted
the common belief in demons, while Maimonides described astrology as
"that error called a science." These subjects, however, are too
technical for fuller treatment in the present book. More will be found
in the works cited below.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

IBN TIBBON FAMILY.

Graetz.--III, p. 397 [409].

JACOB ANATOLI.

Graetz.--III, p. 566 [584].

Karpeles.--_Sketch of Jewish History_ (Jewish Publication Society
of America, 1897), pp. 49, 57.

JEWISH TRANSLATORS.

Steinschneider, _Jewish Literature_, p. 62 _seq._

SCIENCE AND MEDICINE.

Steinschneider.--_Ibid._, pp. 179 _seq._, 260 _seq._

Also, A. Friedenwald.--_Jewish Physicians and the Contributions of
the Jews to the Science of Medicine_ (_Publications of the
Gratz College_, Vol. I).

CHAPTER XV

THE DIFFUSION OF FOLK-TALES

Barlaam and Joshaphat.--The Fables of Bidpai.--Abraham Ibn
Chisdai.--Berachya ha-Nakdan.--Joseph Zabara.

The folk-tales of India were communicated to Europe in two ways. First,
there was an oral diffusion. In friendly conversation round the family
hearth, in the convivial intercourse of the tavern and divan, the wit
and wisdom of the East found a home in the West. Having few
opportunities of coming into close relations with Christian society, the
Jews had only a small share in the oral diffusion of folk-tales. But
there was another means of diffusion, namely, by books. By their
writings the Jews were able to leave some impress on the popular
literature of Europe.

This they did by their translations. Sometimes the Jews translated
fables and folk-tales solely for their own use, and in such cases the
translations did not leave the Hebrew form into which they were cast. A
good example of this was Abraham Ibn Chisdai's "Prince and Nazirite,"
compiled in the beginning of the thirteenth century. It was a Hebrew
version of the legend of Buddha, known as "Barlaam and Joshaphat." In
this the story is told of a prince's conversion to the ascetic life. His
father had vainly sought to hold him firm to a life of pleasure by
isolating him in a beautiful palace, far from the haunts of man, so that
he might never know that such things as evil, misery, and death existed.
Of course the plan failed, the prince discovered the things hidden from
him, and he became converted to the life of self-denial and renunciation
associated with the saintly teaching of Buddha. This story is the frame
into which a number