Page:Chapters on Jewish literature (IA chaptersonjewish00abra).pdf/163

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THE DIFFUSION OF FOLK-TALES
159

mon. We have the highest authority that ‘out of the mouths of babes and sucklings has the Lord established strength,’ and surely of all the influences for good in the world, none is comparable to the lily souls of little children. That Jews, by their diffusion of folk-tales, have furnished so large an amount of material to the childish imagination of the civilized world is, to my mind, no slight thing for Jews to be proud of. It is one of the conceptions that make real to us the idea of the Brotherhood of Man, which, in Jewish minds, is forever associated with the Fatherhood of God.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY

J. Jacobs.—The Diffusion of Folk Tales (in Jewish Ideals, p. 135); The Fables of Bidpai (London, 1888) and Barluam and Joshaphat (Introductions).

Steinschneider.—Jewish Literature, p. 174.

Berachya ha-Nakdan.

J. Jacobs.—Jews of Angevin England, pp. 165 seq., 278.
A. Neubauer.—J. Q. R., II, p. 520.

Zabara.

I. Abrahams.—J. Q. R., VI, p. 502 (with English translation of the Book of Delight).