In regard to this theory, "It is well to remember," says Tylor in his
_Primitive Culture_, "that rash inferences which, on the strength of
mere resemblances, derive episodes of myth from episodes of nature,
must be regarded with utter distrust; for the student who has no more
stringent criterion than this for his myths of sun and sky and dawn
will find them wherever it pleases him to seek them." There is a
danger of being carried away by false analogies. But all scholars
agree that some tales are evidently myths of sun and dawn. If we
examine the natural history of savages, we do find summer feasts,
winter feasts, rituals of sorrow for the going of summer and of
rejoicing for its return, anxious interest in the sun, interest in the
motion of the heavenly bodies, the custom of naming men and women from
the phenomena of nature, and interest in making love, making war,
making fun, and making dinner.
III. Fairy tales all arose in India, they are part of the common Aryan
heritage and are to be traced by the remains of their language.
They were first written in the _Vedas_, the sacred Sanskrit books of
Buddhism. This theory is somewhat allied to the Sun-Myth Theory. This
theory was followed by Max Müller and by Sir George Cox.
The theory of a common source in India will not answer entirely for
the origin of tales because many similar tales have existed in
non-Aryan countries. Old tales were current in Egypt, 2000 B.C., and
were brought from there by Crusaders, Mongol missionaries, the
Hebrews, and Gypsies.
The idea of connecting a number of disconnected stories, as we find in
_Arabian Nights_, _The Canterbury Tales_, and the _Decameron_, is
traced to the idea of making Buddha the central figure in the
folk-literature of India. And Jacobs says that at least one-third of
all the stories common to the children of Europe are derived from
India, and by far the majority of the drolls. He also says that
generally, so far as incidents are marvelous and of true fairy-like
character, India is the probable source, because of the vitality of
animism and transformation in India in all time. Moreover, as a
people, the Hindus had spread among their numbers enough literary
training and mental grip to invent plots.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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