In the Academy for 11th June 1887 Mr. Lang objected: ‘Can M. Cosquin show that South Siberia and Zanzibar got their contes by oral transmission from India within the historical period? This is doubtful; but it seems still more unlikely that tales which originated in India could have reached Barra and Uist in the Hebrides, and Zululand, and the Samoyeds—not to mention America—by oral transmission, and all within the historical period.’ My pp. xv–xviii and xxxv–xlv furnish a fairly good answer to much of this objection, for they show that during the last three centuries recent immigrants from India, possessed of folk-tales, have been passing to and fro between Lorraine and Italy, Scotland and North America, Portugal and Africa and Brazil, Poland and Siberia, Spain and Louisiana, the Basque Country and Africa, Hungary and Italy, Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, and Algeria, the Balkan Peninsula and Scandinavia, Italy and Asia Minor, Corfu and Corsica, the Levant and Liverpool, Hungary and Scotland. But, indeed, Mr. Lang’s objection was, in part at least, answered already, by the discovery in Scandinavia, Orkney, and Lancashire of thousands of Cufic coins of the ninth and tenth centuries. For where coins could journey from Bagdad, so also of course could folk-tales.

I remember once in an English parsonage being shown a ‘cannibal fork.’ I do not think I rushed to the conclusion that the parson’s grandmother had been a ghoul; no, I rather fancy there was talk of [[lxxv]]a son or a brother who was a missionary somewhere, perhaps in the South Sea Islands. And I remember also how a Suffolk vicar unearthed a Romano-British cemetery. One of his most treasured finds was a pair of brass compasses: ‘Marvellous,’ he would point out, ‘how like they are to our own.’ ‘As well they may be,’ old Mrs. C—— remarked to me (she was the daughter of a former vicar), ‘for I can quite well remember my poor brother John losing them.’

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Gypsy Originality.

Sometimes, I scarce know why, the eloquence and the ingenuity of folklorists suggest these reminiscences; anyhow, I doubt if to folklorists my theory is likely to commend itself. From solar myths, savage philosophy, archæan survivals, polyonymy, relics of Druidism, polygamous frameworks, and such-like high-sounding themes, it is a terrible come-down to Gypsies=gipsies=tramps.[31] So I look for most folklorists to scout my theory, and to maintain that the Turkish Gypsies picked up their folk-tales from Turks or Greeks, the Roumanian Gypsies theirs from Roumans, the Hungarian Gypsies theirs from Magyars, the English and Welsh Gypsies theirs from the English and Welsh, the —— Hold! hold! pray where are the English or Welsh originals of our Gypsy versions of ‘The Master Thief,’ ‘The Little Peasant,’ ‘Frederick and Catherine,’ ‘Ferdinand the Faithful,’ ‘The Master Smith,’ ‘The Robber Bridegroom,’ or ‘Strong Hans’? where those of such English and Welsh Gypsy stories as ‘The Black Dog of the Wild Forest,’ ‘De Little Bull-calf,’ ‘Jack and his Golden Snuff-box,’ or ‘An Old King and his Three Sons in England’? It may be answered that the last three are in Mr. Joseph Jacobs’ English Fairy Tales (2 vols. 1890–94). I know those stories are there; they form nearly ten per cent. of Mr. Jacobs’ entire collection; but have they any business to be there? I have John Roberts’ manuscript of ‘An Old King’ before me now; it opens—‘Adoi ses yecker porro koreelish, ta ses les trin chavay.’ You may render that, as I rendered it, into English, ‘There was once an old king, and he had three sons’; but that does not make the story an English one. No; so far as our present information goes, ‘An Old King’ is a Welsh-Gypsy folk-tale.[32] [[lxxvi]]

There is at least one other story in Mr. Jacobs’ collection that may be Gypsy, not English. This is ‘The Three Feathers,’ which, Mrs. Gomme tells me, was collected from some Deptford hop-pickers by a lady now in America. Not all hop-pickers are Gypsies, but a goodly proportion are, as I know from old walks among Kentish and Surrey hop-gardens. ‘The Three Feathers’ is a variant of Laura Gonzenbach’s Sicilian story of ‘Feledico and Epomata’ (No. 55, i. 251), of an incident in Campbell’s Gaelic story of ‘The Battle of the Birds’ (No. 2, i. 36, 50), of one in Kennedy’s Irish story of ‘The Brown Bear of Norway’ (p. 63), and of one in the Norse story of ‘The Master-maid.’

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Gaelic and Welsh-Gypsy Stories.

Now, of ‘The Battle of the Birds’ we have a Welsh-Gypsy version, ‘The Green Man of Noman’s Land’ (No. 62), lacking, it is true, this episode, which may be an interpolation in the Gaelic story, but unmistakably identical with the Gaelic story, of which, however, it forms only a fragment. In the Gaelic version the hero is set four tasks by the heroine’s father, in the Gypsy version five tasks, as follows:—

Gaelic. Welsh-Gypsy.
To cleanse a byre, uncleansed for seven years. Heroine does it. Father taxes him with having been helped. To clean a stable. Heroine does it. Father accuses him of receiving help. He denies it.
Wanting. To fell a forest before mid-day (cf. Polish-Gypsy story of ‘The Witch,’ p. 188). Heroine does it. Same denial.
To thatch byre with birds’ down—birds with no two feathers of one colour. Heroine does it. He denies help. To thatch barn with one feather only of each bird. Heroine does it.
To climb a very lofty fir-tree beside a loch, and fetch down magpie’s five eggs. He climbs it on a ladder of heroine’s fingers, but in his haste her little finger is left on top of tree. To climb glass mountain in middle of lake, and fetch egg of bird that lays one only. He wishes heroine’s shoe a boat, and they reach mountain. He wishes her finger a ladder, but steps over the last rung, and her finger is broken. She warns him to deny help. [[lxxvii]]
To select at the dance the youngest of the three sisters all dressed alike. He knows her by the absence of the little finger. To guess which of the three daughters is which, as they fly three times over castle in form of birds. Forewarned by heroine, he names them correctly.