We shall never know just what tales were told around the campfires by the hosts drawn up before Troy or by the sailors who brought the Queen of Sheba to Solomon's court. The slaves who built the Pyramids doubtless stole time from their tasks to listen to stories, and priests and wise men of that age certainly entertained nobles and kings with real or imagined adventures. This we have a right to assume if the ancients were like other men. But nearly all direct account of this activity has vanished with the centuries.

And yet we are not utterly ignorant of the folktales of antiquity. In two ways we learn not only of their existence, but something of their place in the life of the age, and often have a clear enough indication of the action of the stories themselves. Frequently in ancient literature mention is made of tales which were current among the people of the time. Moreover, in a large number of the literary monuments of the ancient world appear stories undoubtedly based on current tradition.

Johannes Bolte has assembled about thirty-five passages from the literature of Greece and Rome which show the use of the folktale among those peoples. References begin with Aristophanes' Wasps of 422 B.C. In a number of these we see clearly enough that these tales resembled in many ways the folktales current today in Europe. They told of fairies and monsters and marvels. A frequent term used for them is "old women's stories," and authors keep referring to the telling of these tales to children.

Many of these oral folktales we find embedded in some literary classic to which it has been adapted both in form and spirit. Where oral tales are thus found we always have two possibilities. (1) The ancient classic is the original [p. 273] from which the present day oral forms have been borrowed, or (2) the story in the ancient classic is merely one version (perhaps with literary elaboration) of a widespread oral tale already in existence.

Though there can be no doubt that some ancient stories—particularly the Aesopic fables—are purely literary in origin, the probability of an oral tradition back of many of the best known of the classic tales is very strong. Such of these as have been subjected to comparative study show that the literary retelling by the ancient author is chiefly valuable not for furnishing the original of the story but for showing the way in which traditional material has been adapted to different religious or literary patterns. Particularly interesting is the elaboration of such tales or motifs under the influence of

religious cults and their assimilation into a well-integrated system of mythology.