That the telling of tales is a constant activity everywhere seems clear enough. But this activity is by no means uniform in the various parts of the world, and as one moves over the continents, he finds extraordinary variability within the uniformity of the general practice. At first view this variety may seem merely kaleidoscopic and lawless. But only a little careful study is needed to show that, like all other elements of human culture, folktales are not mere creatures of chance. They exist in time and space, and they are affected by the nature of the land where they are current, by the linguistic and social contacts of its people, and by the lapse of the years and their accompanying historic changes. An approach to the understanding of the folktales of the world demands, therefore, that use be made of all possible resources furnished by the labors of historians, geographers, ethnographers, and psychologists.

This ideal for the study of the folktale is, of course, not easily reached. But it serves as a goal toward which all the efforts of folktale scholars are ultimately directed. Generations must perhaps pass before an adequate history of the world's folk narrative can be written, and many false starts will certainly be made and much time wasted in futile endeavors. Even so, with full appreciation of how fragmentary our present knowledge is and consequently of how fallible any conclusions will be, the folklorist must occasionally seek to obtain a view of the whole activity of folktales, and to chart, so far as possible, whatever may be certainly known, and even to suggest whatever may be plausibly hazarded about their history, their distribution, and their place in society. Such is the general purpose of the two [p.14] first major divisions of our study: "The Folktale from Ireland to India" and "The Folktale among a Primitive People."

Since there is an unmistakable historical connection among the traditional narratives of all the peoples extending from Ireland to India and of their descendants in newer lands, and an obvious common store of narrative motifs and even of formal elements, it will be convenient as our first task to bring together for special consideration the tales of this vast area – an area coextensive in its general boundaries with what we know as western civilization. [2]

Few of the stories characteristic of this territory extend over its extreme limit, but a sufficient number of them do so extend that it is possible to define the area rather sharply. Normally, the tales characteristic of this European and west Asiatic region fade out in central Siberia and are not found farther east than India. Insofar as stories belonging to this tradition appear in China, Japan, or the Malayan countries, they are nearly always obvious borrowings from India. Buddhistic writings are largely responsible, for these Indic tales in China and Japan, and further south this Buddhistic influence has been abetted by the carriers of Mohammedanism.

Eastern and southeastern Asia, then, lie quite outside this area we are discussing. There exist, quite certainly, very ancient strata of folk narrative in these countries, and much of it has become a part of the classical literature, especially of Japan and China. From neither of these far eastern lands have there been adequate attempts to recover the non-literary traditions. [3] For the lands farther south, Indo-China, Siam, the Malay peninsula, and the islands of Indonesia, a considerable amount of native story is now available. It is an interesting mixture of themes original in that region with obvious importations from India. [4] As one reaches the Philippines, the importations seem to increase, doubtless because of the Spanish occupation.

As we move westward from these countries and reach the eastern confines of India, we find ourselves unmistakably within that area of tradition which extends westward to the Atlantic and southward to the Sahara. Tales originating in any part of this area have been known to travel through the rest of it and become generally accepted. Throughout it all there is a free give and take of theme and motif that binds all these lands together by a multitude of common traditions.

This vast area is by no means uniform, and the peoples at its farthest extremes display the greatest of differences, not only in modes of life but even in their attitudes toward identical folk narratives. Any study of the tales [p. 15] of this large region must recognize the existence of many sub-areas which are necessary to distinguish if one is to understand the movements of tradition from one to the other.

Subdivision of Europe and eastern Asia from this point of view is neither easy nor exact. Some scholars would proceed almost exclusively on the principle of linguistic affinities, and would be interested in differentiating among Semitic, Indo-European, and Finno-Ugric, for example. Others are much more impressed by purely geographical considerations and are likely to use such terms as Baltic, Mediterranean, East European, etc., without regard to language or to ethnic classification. For the purpose of the folklorist, no such exclusive principle is possible, for affinities in language, consciousness of a common historic past as a recognized tribe or nation, religious unity, and association in a definite geographic territory, all have tended to produce within peoples of certain regions a psychological unity very important for its influence on their traditional lore.

1, India.—At the very eastern edge of the area is the immense subcontinent of India. It has had a long and varied history, and its peoples are of most diverse origins. Many of them are of Aryan stock and ethnically related to the Europeans. They have behind them a written literature going back centuries before Homer and an unbroken religious tradition changing but little in three thousand years. Superimposed upon the original religious pattern are many others, sometimes in conflict and sometimes supplementing one another—Buddhism, Jainism, Parseeism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity, to name but a few. Populations are found in all gradations from the fabulously wealthy princes to the abjectly poor peasants and the primitive hill tribes.

As might be expected, the folklore of India reflects this diversity of history and population. There are, first of all, a number of old literary collections of tales, some of them Brahmin, some Buddhistic, and some belonging to other cults. Much of the best folklore of India is imbedded in these collections. They have been known to the populace for centuries, and many of them have entered into the repertories of popular taletellers, so that it is not unusual to hear from an ignorant peasant a story which appeared two thousand years ago in the Panchatantra or in some of the Jātakas. In addition to this well-assimilated literary tradition, there exists in nearly all tribes of| India a large store of purely oral tales. Just what the folklore repertory of a particular region may be depends upon many obscure historical and social facts. There is thus a vast difference among collections appearing in various parts of India. But in nearly all of them occur a considerable number of folktales already familiar to the student of European folklore.

The presence of these parallels with European tales in most parts of India and of still other parallels in the old literary collections caused a whole generation of older scholars to conclude that India is the great homeland of most [p. 16] of the European folk stories. [5] While this conclusion does not any longer seem convincing in its entirety, there can be little doubt that India has furnished rather more than its share to the great common stock of tales known in Europe and the Near East.

Whatever the relation of the tales of India to those of Europe, it is easy to see many important differences between the stories of these two great regions. With due regard for many exceptions, it is safe to say that the ordinary involved wonder tale is given as a piece of pure fiction in Europe but is expected to be believed in India. Such tales are nearly always definitely localized in India, so that the distinction between place legends and folktales breaks down entirely. There is a greater luxuriance in the supernatural trappings of the tales. They often depart so far from the realistic that it is hard for the western mind to follow them. But an almost opposite trait also appears in these stories from India, for these people are very fond of anecdotes based upon sharpness of wits. Tales of cleverness, as well as the fables with their lessons in wisdom and the cumulative tales with their joy in formulas, have come down, for the most part, from the older literature, but they are enjoyed by the people and have become an essential part of their folklore.

Stylistically there is considerable variation in the tales of different parts of India. Two general tendencies, however, can be noticed. The structure of the complicated tale is very loose, so that the plot is often very difficult to fit into the patterns determined by European analogues. Sometimes the story-teller seems to have a repertory consisting merely of single motifs which he strings together almost at will. Another characteristic observable among such tribes as the Kota is the extreme elaboration of psychological analysis. The reasons for every movement of the characters are discussed—sometimes ad nauseam—so that the story drags out interminably. Recent collections of these tales, carefully made in native text, show us how much we still have to learn about the tales of India and how desirable it is that they be conscientiously collected.

2. The Moslem Countries.—Though there is a large variety in the folklore of the Moslem peoples as they extend from Morocco to Persia, and even beyond, the folklorist frequently finds it illuminating to consider these populations as a unit. For tradition has moved with more than usual ease through out this whole territory. Not only a common religion but the Arabic language has served to cement these people together. At the eastern and northern ends of the area, of course, there are large Turkish and Persian-speaking groups, and these differ somewhat both in the theme and style of their folktales from their Arabic co-religionists. Over the whole of these lands the work of the professional story-teller is of great importance. He is to be found in villages, but he flourishes principally in large cities and markets. Such great collections [p. 17] as the Thousand and One Nights certainly go back in last resort to these humble authors. And these same tales continue to entertain the unlearned throughout the Moslem world. The task of separating literary from genuine popular tradition is extraordinarily difficult in these countries, and sometimes quite impossible.

3. Jewish Tradition from Asia Minor.—There still exist in various parts of Asia Minor and Syria Jewish traditions which come down in many instances from antiquity. These Jewish peoples played an important part in the transmission of tales between Europe and Asia. Many of their stories certainly became known to Jewish communities scattered throughout Europe, but an accurate understanding of their role in the dissemination of folktales has never been reached.

4. The Slavic Countries.—Intermediate between east and west stretch the enormous spaces of Russia. The folklorist finds enough distinction in the tales characteristic of Russia and, to a lesser extent, of neighboring Slavic peoples to justify their consideration as a single area. To the east, folktales of this general style extend to central Siberia, and with its opening up, ever farther and farther. Within European Russia appear the tales not only of the Great Russians, but also of the White Russians, near the Polish border and in Poland itself, and of the Little Russians or Ukrainians to the southwest. The South and West Slavic peoples—the Bulgarians, the Serbo-Croatians, the Czechs, Slovaks, and Poles—have tales resembling in many ways those of Russia, but also greatly influenced by their neighbors farther to the south and west. Bulgaria is thus marginal between Russia and Greece, and one finds plentiful Italian influence in Serbia, and many German elements in the tales of Bohemia and Poland.

5. The East Baltic States.—The four East Baltic states of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are extremely important and interesting to the student of the tale. In the first place, their folklore has been collected with extraordinary thoroughness. For more than a century the Finns have been systematically recording their traditions, and the other Baltic countries have been busy building up their archives in recent years. In these countries the telling of folktales is not yet obsolete. This circumstance has made it possible to study certain of the tales current in these countries with a great wealth of documentation, so that we know a good deal about the movement of tradition in this whole area. To a greater or less degree, all these countries show in their folklore that they have been subjected to centuries of influence, now from the east and now from the west. Swedes and Russians have brought tales to Finland and taken others away, and in the small countries on the south shore of the Baltic Russians and Germans and Poles have been continual borrowers and lenders of folktales.

6. Scandinavia.—Occupying the whole of the Scandinavian peninsula, many of the islands in the Baltic, and the peninsula of Jutland are the Swedes, [p. 18] Norwegians, and Danes. And on to the west peoples of this same Scandinavian stock are found in the Faroe Islands and in Iceland. These latter colonies are only about a thousand years old, but the Scandinavians in the homeland have been settled in their present positions since prehistoric times. In spite of important differences, both material and psychological, there is a strong community of tradition throughout this whole area. Essentially a common language, a common pagan religious background, and a marked resemblance in customs and beliefs—all these things are immediately apparent to the student of the folktale, and he is not surprised to find that he can usually recognize a Scandinavian tale wherever he finds it. Many folk stories show unmistakable signs of Scandinavian origin and many of such tales have not proceeded beyond Scandinavian borders. In all three of the countries the material has been well collected, and is systematically arranged in .archives. Some of the best folktale texts have come from remote places in the north. Here the Scandinavians are in contact with the nomadic Lapps, whose stories they have profoundly influenced.

7. German-Speaking Peoples.—The prestige of the Brothers Grimm has been so great that many people are likely to think of the folktale as essentially a German product, but anyone realizing the international character of the popular tale will know that this is a mistake. In spite of the excellent collecting done in all parts of Germany and the German-speaking parts of Bohemia, Austria, and Switzerland it seems to be true that Germany has served primarily as transmitter rather than originator of folktales. It has touched the Slavic countries in the east, and the Low Germanic and Romance to the west and south. This has given it a wealth of tradition, and on this it has put its characteristic stamp. As we have already pointed out, the Baltic countries, Bohemia and Yugoslavia, and Hungary as well, show many unmistakably German traits in their folktales. To the west this is also true for Belgium and Holland.

8. France.—The importance of France in the general cultural life of Europe can hardly be overestimated. A great power of inventiveness seems to be characteristic even of unlettered story-tellers, for available evidence points to the development in France of some of our most important and widely accepted folktales. And where they have taken over stories from other cultures, they have imbued them with an unmistakably French style and spirit. The liking for popular tales persists with Frenchmen even after they have migrated, so that some of the best collections of such material have been made along the Saint Lawrence and in scattered settlements in Missouri and Louisiana. Unfortunately, the excellent scholarly work of the French folklorists of the nineteenth century has not been followed out in France itself in recent decades, and the good beginning recently made by a new group of folklorists was stopped by the Second World War. [p. 19]

9. The Hispanic Peninsula.—From the point of view of their traditional lore, the peoples of Spain and Portugal form a rather distinct unit. The domination during seven hundred years of a good part of Spain by the Moors and the consequent introduction of many elements of Moslem culture have left a permanent mark. The rigid orthodoxy of Spanish and Portuguese Catholicism is reflected in the great interest of the people in pietistic stories of all kinds, as well as in tales of miraculous manifestations. Nowhere does the ordinary folktale and the saint's legend approach each other as in these countries.

Even more interesting than the peninsula for the student of Spanish and Portuguese folklore is the larger Hispanic world in America. Only in recent years have the riches of the traditional lore of these countries begun to be properly explored. But we know even now that the Spanish and Portuguese colonizers brought to the new world not only their romances and folksongs, their beliefs and customs, their costumes and dances, but also a large number of their traditions and tales. We already have a good beginning of collections of this material from Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. And some progress has been made elsewhere. One of the interesting problems connected with this folklore concerns its relation to aboriginal tradition and, at least in some countries, to that of the Negroes. There is sometimes also a good opportunity for the study of a mixture of cultures through the tales of the mestizos.

10. Italy.—The first collections of European folktales appeared in Italy. Writers like Straparola in the sixteenth century and Basile in the seventeenth found the tales of the people of sufficient interest to adapt them to the prevailing literary fashions. We know from the work of these men that even in the early Renaissance a large proportion of the best known of our folktales was current in Italy and that, in spirit and style, they had already taken on those characteristics recognizable in Italian tales in our own day. These distinctly Italian stories are, found not only in Italy itself, but in Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, and, to a degree, on the island of Malta.

11. England.—Folklorists have always remarked on the scarcity of the authentic folktale in England. Popular narrative has had a tendency to take the form of the ballad. But there are plenty of evidences, in literature and elsewhere, that some of our principal folktales have been current there in the past, and the collections made within the last century are not actually so meager as usually thought. Several tales have their most distinctive form in England—Jack and the Bean Stalk, Jack the Giant Killer, Tom-Tit-Tot, and the legend of Dick Whittington. The English seem to be particularly fond of the numskull tale, and have developed an interesting series called The Men of Gotham.

The English populations in America have brought over most of the tales they knew in the old country, and within the last few years these are [p. 20] beginning to be collected. There seems, in America, to have been practically no borrowing and lending of folklore between the British colonists and the Indians. On the other hand, we find a rather free exchange with the Negroes.

12. Celtic Scotland and Ireland.—The original Celtic populations of the British Isles are now found in the highlands and islands of Scotland, in Wales, and in Ireland. If there is any considerable body of folk narrative in Wales, it has never been collected. The highland Scottish tradition of the mid-nineteenth century was very competently reported by one of the world's great folklorists, Campbell of Islay, who published four volumes and left enough manuscript for many more. In Ireland, as has been recognized for at least a century, there still exists a tradition of folk narrative such as is to be seldom found in these days. Fortunately, the collecting and organizing of this material is being carried out with great thoroughness, and we already have available texts of folktales extending to many hundreds of thousands of pages.

A considerable part of material collected in the highlands of Scotland and in Ireland has been taken down in the original language, but much of it has been translated and a large amount is available to the reader who knows no Gaelic.

These twelve areas which we have indicated have been sketched with an extremely rough thumb, and they involve many contradictions. But the folklorist is continually aware that, nevertheless, each of these areas does have about it a certain unity which affects, favorably or unfavorably, the acceptance of folk traditions. From a practical point of view the divisions are useful and are not likely to be too misleading. Several countries, of course, have been left out, since they belong partly to one and partly to another area. This is true, for example, of Greece and Albania.

Other groupings than those proposed may well be valid. It is likely, for example, that the entire Mediterranean area, whether Christian or Moslem, has a sufficient resemblance in at least a large part of its folklore to justify a special study.

In the chapters that follow, covering the various kinds of folktales current in Europe and the Near East, the groupings just suggested—geographical, racial, linguistic, or merely cultural—will of necessity be continually referred to. As the life history of any tale is sketched, this charting of the area will furnish landmarks to clarify the course these tales take as they wander from land to land. [p. 21]