THE COLLECTOR'S APOLOGY.
THE collection of these legends was commenced with the object alluded to in the Dedication. It was continued, as they appeared in themselves curious illustrations of Indian popular tradition, and in the hope that something might thus be done to rescue them from the danger of oral transmission.
Though varied in their imagery, the changes between the different legends are rung upon very few themes, as if purposely confined to what was most familiar to the people. The similarity between the incidents in some of these and in favourite European stories is curious; and the leading characteristics peculiar to all orthodox fairy tales are here preserved intact. Step-mothers are always cruel, and step-sisters their willing instruments; giants and ogres always stupid; youngest daughters more clever than their elder sisters; and the Jackal (like his European cousin the Fox) usually overcomes every difficulty, and proves a bright moral example of the success of wit against brute force—the triumph of mind over matter.
It is remarkable that in the romances of a country where women are generally supposed by us to be regarded as mere slaves or intriguers, their influence (albeit most frequently put to proof behind the scenes) should be made to appear so great, and, as a rule, exerted wholly for good; and that, in a land where despotism has such a firm hold on the hearts of the people, the liberties of the subject should be so boldly asserted as by the old Milkwoman to the Rajah in 'Little Surya Bai,' or the Malee to the Rajah in 'Truth's Triumph'; and few, probably, would have expected to find the Hindoos owning such a romance as 'Brave Seventee Bai';[1] or to meet with such stories as 'The Valiant Chattee-maker,'and 'The Blind Man, the Deaf Man, and the Donkey,' among a nation which, it has been constantly asserted, possesses no humour, no sense of the ridiculous, and cannot understand a joke.
- ↑ Was this narrative of feminine sagacity invented by some old woman, who felt aggrieved at the general contempt entertained for her sex?
xviii
