DIFFUSION.
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adopted in preference to an Aryan word, is irresistible on this point; but that, apart from such natural assimilation, all the thousand shades of resemblance and affinity which gleam and flicker through the whole body of popular tradition in the Aryan race, as the Aurora plays and flashes in countless rays athwart the Northern heaven, should be the result of mere servile copying of one tribe's traditions by another, is a supposition as absurd as that of those good country-folk, who, when they see an Aurora, fancy it must be a great fire, the work of some incendiary, and send off the parish engine to put it out. No! when we find in such a story as "The Master Thief" traits which are to be found in the Sanscrit Hitopadesa,[1] and which
- ↑ "A Brahmin, who had vowed a sacrifice, went to the market to buy a goat. Three thieves saw him, and wanted to get hold of the goat. They stationed themselves at intervals on the high-road. When the Brahmin, who carried the goat on his back, approached the first thief, the thief said, 'Brahmin, why do you carry a dog on your back?' The Brahmin replied: 'It is not a dog, it is a goat.' A little while after, he was accosted by the second thief, who said, 'Brahmin, why do you carry a dog on your back?' The Brahmin felt perplexed, put the goat down, examined it, and walked on. Soon after he was stopped by the third thief, who said, 'Brahmin, why do you carry a dog on your back?' Then the Brahmin was frightened, threw down the goat, and walked home to perform his ablutions for having touched an unclean animal. The thieves took the goat and ate it." See the notice of the Norse Tales in the Saturday Review, January 15th. In Max Müller's translation of the Hitopadesa, the story has a different ending. See also Le Piacevoli Notti di
