“Thus, on the last night, the wife prepared a sumptuous meal for the two of them, and, amidst much merriment and laughter, she filled and refilled her husband’s goblet with sparkling wine. Under its influence, he fell into a heavy sleep, and while in this condition, he was carried by his wife’s orders to her father’s abode, where he continued to sleep till the following morning. When he awoke, and was wondering at his strange surroundings, his cunning wife came smilingly into the room, and said: ‘Of, my dear husband, I have actually carried out the Rabbi’s suggestion, inasmuch as I have taken away from home a most precious keepsake. This is your own dear self, without whom it would be impossible for me to live.’ “The husband, moved to tears, embraced her most affectionately, and promised that they should live together to the end. Thereupon they joyfully returned home, and, going again to the Rabbi, they told him what had happened, and asked him for his forgiveness and blessing, which he readily accorded them. And, indeed, the Rabbi’s blessing had an excellent result. For after the lapse of some time, they both enjoyed the happiness of fondling a bright little child of their own.” Arabian and Turkish thought and speech seem to be tinged with the sense of the bizarre and strange rather than the grotesque. Their earliest folk tales and pleasant stories, from which later grew the _Arabian Nights_, form a cumulative, though broken chain from ancient to modern times. Persian humor leans toward the romantic and sentimental, but no ancient fragments are available. From the later writers, as Omar and Sadi, we feel convinced there was an early literature but we can find none to quote. India shows the oldest and most definite signs of early folk lore and retold tales. Buddha’s _Jatakas_ produced the stories that later proved the germs of merry tales by Boccaccio and Chaucer. That these later writers put in all the fun is not entirely probable. Some antiquarians claim to find humor in the hymns of the Rig Vedas, whose date is indefinitely put at between 2,000 and 1,500 B.C. while others of different temperament deny it. From this example the reader may judge for himself. _THE HYMN OF THE FROGS_ “When the first shower of the rainy season Has fallen on them, parched with thirst and longing, In glee each wet and dripping frog jumps upward; The green one and the speckled join their voices. “They shout aloud like Brahmans drunk with soma, When they perform their annual devotions: Like priests at service sweating o’er the kettle, They issue forth; not one remains in hiding. “The frogs that bleat like goats, that low like cattle, The green one and the speckled give us riches; Whole herds of cows may they bestow upon us, And grant us length of days through sacrificing.”