to ask supporters of the Indian theory for traces of Indian traits and ideas in European märchen. Again, apart from special yet non-essential matters of etiquette (such as the ceremonies with which certain kinsfolk are treated, or the initiation of girls at the marriageable age), the ideas and customs found in märchen are practically universal. As has been shown, the supernatural stuff—metamorphosis, equality of man, beasts, and things, magic, and the like—is universal. Thus little remains that could be fixed on as especially the custom or idea of any one given people. For instance, in certain variants of Puss in Boots, Swahili, Avar, Neapolitan, the beast-hero makes it a great point that, when he dies, he is to be honourably buried. Now what peoples give beasts honourable burial? We know the cases of ancient Egyptians, Samoans, Arabs, and Athenians (in the case, at least, of the wolf), and probably there are many more. Thus even so peculiar an idea or incident as this cannot be proved to belong to a definite region, or to come from any one original centre.[1]
By the very nature of the case, therefore, it is difficult for M. Cosquin and other supporters of the Indian theory to prove the existence of Indian ideas in European märchen. Nor do they establish this point. They urge that charity to beasts and the gratitude of beasts, as contrasted with human lack of gratitude, are Indian, and perhaps Buddhist ideas. Thus the Buddha gave his own living body to a
- ↑ See Deulin, Contes de ma Mère l'Oye, and Reinhold Köhler in Gonzenbach's Sicilianische Märchen, No. 65.
