This page has been validated.
252
Notes and References
France: Mélusine, 1877, col. 424; Sebillot, Contes pop. de la Haute Bretagne, No. 55; Littérature orale, p. 232; Magasin piitoresque, 1869, p. 82; Cosquin. Contes pop. de Lorraine, Nos. 18 and 74.
Italy: Pitrè, Novelline popolari siciliane. No. 134 (translated in Crane, Ital. Pop. Tales, p. 257); Imbriani, La novellaja Fiorentina, p. 244; Bernoni, Tradizione popolari veneziane, punt. iii., p. 81; Gianandrea, Biblioteca delle tradizioni popolart marchigiane, p. 11; Papanti, Novelline popolari livornesi, p. 19 ("Vezzino e Madonna Salciccia"); Finamore, Trad. pop. abruzzesi, p. 244; Morosi, Studi sui Dialetti Greci della Terra d'Otranto, p. 75; Giamb. Basile, 1884, p. 37.
Germany: Grimm, Kinder-und-Haus-Märchen, No. 30; Kuhn und Schwarz, Nord-deutsche Sagen, No. 16.
Norway: Asbjörnsen, No. 103, translated in Fairy Tales from the far North (H. L. Braekstad), p. 183 ("The Cock who Fell into the Brewing Vat").
Spain: Maspons, Cuentos populars Catalans, p. 12; Fernan Caballero, Cuentos y refrañes populares, p. 3 ("La Hormiguita").
Portugal: Coelho, Contos popolares portuguezes. No. 1.
Roumania: Kremnitz, Rumänische Mährchen, No. 15.
Asia Minor: Vohn Hahn, Griechische und Albanesische Märchen, No. 56.
India: Steele and Temple, Wide Awake Stories, p. 157 ("The Death and Burial of Poor Hen-Sparrow").

Remarks.—These twenty-five variants of the same jingle scattered over the world from India to Spain present the problem of the diffusion of folk-tales in its simplest form. No one is likely to contend, with Prof. Müller and Sir George Cox, that we have here the detritus of archaic Aryan mythology, a parody of a sun-myth. There is little that is savage and archaic to attract the school of Dr. Tylor, beyond the speaking powers of animals and inanimates. Yet even Mr. Lang is not likely to hold that these variants arose by coincidence and independently in the different parts of the world where they have been found. The only solution is that the curious succession of incidents was invented once for all at some definite place and time by some definite entertainer for children, and spread thence through all the Old World