The truth certainly is that before the several branches of the race separated from their common home, perhaps on the table-lands of Bactria, they had many legends, nursery tales and peculiar stories in common. As they moved to the colder North, or to the warmer South, they carried these tales with them. In course of time these came to be somewhat altered. This change was in the dressing rather than in the tales themselves. Hence we find among the Egyptians, Hindoos, Greeks, Germans, Spaniards, Norsemen, stories which are so much alike that it is certain that they had a common origin. Take, for instance, the story of the Master Thief of the Norsemen, and compare it with the same story as told by other nations, and we are led to the conclusion that it is part of a stock of nursery tales which were told before the dispersion. Let us remember that many collections of stories were not originated by the men whose names they bear, but that these men simply gathered together legends and tales which they found already existing among the people. Thus “Grimm’s Household Tales” is a collection of old German fireside stories. “The Arabian Night’s Entertainment,” the “Hindoo Hitopadesa,” “Dasent’s Popular Tales of the Norse,” and “Old Deccan Days,” are collections of the same sort. It will repay us to attend at some length to the various versions of one of these stories, which will serve to illustrate many others of more momentous character. THE STORY OF THE MASTER THIEF.