Page:Indian fairy tales (1892).djvu/286

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246
Notes and References

Parallels.—It occurs also in the Bidpai literature, in nearly all its multitudinous offshoots. See Benfey, Einleitung, §84; also my Bidpai, E, 4 a; and North's text, pp. 170-5, where it is the taunts of the other birds that cause the catastrophe: "O here is a brave sight, looke, here is a goodly ieast, what bugge haue we here," said some. "See, see, she hangeth by the throte, and therefor she speaketh not," saide others; "and the beast flieth not like a beast;" so she opened her mouth and "pashte hir all to pieces."

Remarks.—I have reproduced in my edition the original illustration of the first English Bidpai, itself derived from the Italian block. A replica of it here may serve to show that it could be used equally well to illustrate the Pali original as its English great-great-great-great-great-great grand-child.


Source.—Knowles, Folk-Tales of Kashmir, pp. 32-41. I have reduced the pieces of advice to three, and curtailed somewhat.

Parallels.—See Celtic Fairy Tales, No. xxii., "Tale of Ivan," from the old Cornish, now extinct, and notes ibid. Mr. Clouston points out (Pop. Tales, ii. 319) that it occurs in Buddhist literature, in "Buddaghoshas Parables," as "The Story of Kulla Pauthaka."

Remarks.—It is indeed curious to find the story better told in Cornwall than in the land of its birth, but there can be little doubt that the Buddhist version is the earliest and original form of the story. The piece of advice was originally a charm, in which a youth was to say to himself, "Why are you busy? Why are you busy?" He does so when thieves are about, and so saves the king's treasures, of which he gets an appropriate share. It would perhaps be as well if many of us should say to ourselves "Ghatesa, ghatesa, kim kárana?"


Source.—Pantschatantra, III. v., tr. Benfey, ii. 244-7.

Parallels given in my Æsop, Ro. ii. 10, p. 40. The chief points about them are—(1) though the tale dqes not exist in either Phædrus or Babrius, it occurs in prose derivates from the Latin by Ademar, 65, and "Romulus," ii. 10, and from Greek, in Gabrias, 45, and the prose Æsop, ed. Halm, 96; Gitlbauer has restored the Babrian form in his edition of Babrius, No. 160. (2) The fable occurs among folk-tales,