Indian Fairy Tales

the effect that a father who gives up his wealth to his children in his own lifetime deserves to be put to death with the mallet. Mr. Gomme gives evidence that it was an archaic custom to put oldsters to death after they had become helpless. He also points out that it was customary for estates to be divided and surrendered during the owners’ lifetime, and generally he connects a good deal of primitive custom with our story. I have already pointed out in Folklore, p. 403, that the existence of the tale in Kashmir without any reference to the mallet makes it impossible for the rhymes on the mallet to be the source of the story. As a matter of fact, it is a very embarrassing addition to it, since the rhyme tells against the parent, and the story is intended to tell against the ungrateful children. The existence of the tale in India renders it likely enough that it is not indigenous to the British Isles, but an Oriental importation. It is obvious, therefore, that it cannot be used as anthropological evidence of the existence of the primitive customs to be found in it. The whole incident, indeed, is a striking example of the dangers of the anthropological method of dealing with folktales before some attempt is made to settle the questions of origin and diffusion.

XXIX

The Pigeon and the Crow

Source.⁠—The “Lola Jātaka,” Fausböll, No. 274, kindly translated and slightly abridged for this book by Mr. W. H. D. Rouse.

Remarks.⁠—We began with an animal Jataka, and may appropriately finish with one which shows how effectively the writers of the Jatakas could represent animal folk, and how terribly moral they invariably were in their tales. I should perhaps add that the Bodhisat is not precisely the Buddha himself but a character which is on its way to becoming perfectly enlightened, and so may be called a future Buddha.

Endnotes

1. “History of the Aesopic Fable,” the introductory volume to my edition of Caxton’s Fables of Esope (London, Nutt, 1889). ↩

2. An admirable and full account of this literature was given by M. A. Barth in Mélusine, t. IV No. 12, and t. V No. 1. See also Table I of Prof. Rhys-Davids’ Birth Stories. ↩

3. Finland boasts of 12,000, but most of these lie unprinted among the archives of the Helsingfors Literary Society. ↩

Colophon

Indian Fairy Tales
was published in 1892 by
Joseph Jacobs.

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