old Cuman tongue is the only other language of which we know anything.[1]
Having, we hope, somewhat cleared the way as to people amongst whom the stories have been collected, we may now proceed to say a few words about the tales themselves. Of course, the stories will be found to bear a strong resemblance to other collections, as indeed they must do; the very fact of the striking way in which not only tales, but even little superstitions, reappear in all manner of strange places,[2] is of itself a fact which is of the deepest interest to those who study the history of man. We have attempted to give some few variants to the tales in this work, chiefly confining ourselves to Lapp and Finnish tales, which are but little known in England, and of which, as of the Magyar, there is a rich store. The more one considers comparative folk-lore, the more one is convinced that many of these tales were the common property of mankind before they migrated from their Asiatic
- ↑ There is a passage in the writings of Nicolaus Oláh Hungaria et Attila, cap. xix. 3) which at first sight seems to ascribe a separate language to each of the peoples named in the text. According to him, "the whole of Hungary in our days (xvith century) contains various nations, viz., Magyars, Germans, Czechs, Slováks, Croats, Saxons, Székelys, Wallachs, Servians, Cumans, Jazyges, Ruthens, and finally Turks, and all these (nations) "differenti inter se utuntur lingua," except that some of the words may appear somewhat similar and identical in sound in consequence of (their) protracted use and (the continuous) contact (of the said nations with each other)." Against this, we may urge, that if the language of the Székelys, for example, differed no more from the Magyar than the German speech from that of the Saxons, they can scarcely be described as two different languages. Moreover, another writer says, that the "Hungari nobiles ejusdem regionis (Transylvaniæ) passim intermixti Saxonibus, cum Ciculis propemodum tam sermone, quam vestitu et armis conveniunt." See Respublica Hungarica, 1634. We have good reasons for believing that the passage has been copied by the Elzevirian compiler from the Chronigraphica Transylvania) of George Reijchersdorffer, 1550.
- ↑ Cf. Simpleton stories and lying stories, many of which as told in Hungary, Finland, and Flanders, and even amongst the Lapps, are identical with those we hear in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Northumberland, and Norfolk.
