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creation tales of animals is an additional support of the view that the fairy tales have not been "edited" or adapted to cosmogonic purposes to explain the origin of beast and bird.

Fairy tales are, as a rule, taken out of the range of the survival theory. The similarity of fairy tales, so striking among a large number of nations, precludes the possibility of seeing in them local survivals, and yet it appears unscientific to separate one section of oral literature from the other. The line of demarcation between creation legend and creation fairy tale is so thin that it is often indistinguishable. Both spring from the same root, and the theory that endeavours to explain the origin of the one must also be applicable to the other.

In the theory of survivals, however, no attempt is made to deal at the same time with the question of origins. It has not yet been made clear, by any of the more prominent representatives of the theory of survivals, how the similarity in customs and ceremonies is to be explained, in tales and fables, between the most diverse nations living separated from one another. If these survivals represent local tradition, which has persisted throughout the ages, how, then, does it come to pass that they should resemble so closely other ceremonies and customs observed by different nations also as local traditions? Is it to be inferred that at some distant time, far back in the prehistoric ages, some such ceremonies were used, that, in spite of evolution and separation, they have survived everywhere almost unchanged, in spite of the profound modifications of the nations in their ethnical, political and religious status? Either they are local inventions, in which case they could not resemble any other, or they all go back to one common stock, and have survived in such a miraculous manner contrary to every law of human nature. The only explanation feasible and satisfactory is, I believe, the theory of transmission from nation to nation; those resembling one another closely in modern Europe are not of so early an age as has hitherto been assumed, but have come at a certain time from one definite centre, and were propagated among the nations, and disseminated by means of a great religious movement at a time when the political and national consolidation of the peoples of Europe had already assumed a definite shape.

To this conclusion we are forced by the examination of these Rumanian animal tales in their manifold aspect, "creation" tales, fables, fairy tales. They are all more or less of comparatively recent origin. They owe their actual shape to the dualistic teaching of the Manichaeans and Bogomils. They have come by these intermediaries of the religious sects from Syria and the Balkans. These tales stopped first among the nations in the Near East, and then by the same agency were carried to the extreme West. Only in such wise can we explain the appearance of these tales--whatever their archaic character may be--among nations of comparatively recent origin like those now under consideration, Rumanians, Bulgars, Russians and even Saxons and Hungarians. This is the only possible explanation of the very remarkable dualistic character, and of the peculiar teachings embodied in these tales. For, whatever these nations have in common, there cannot be any question of survivals, for the reasons advanced above. All the nations are comparatively modern. It is impossible to assume that what might be a Latin survival among the Rumanians could be so closely connected with what might be a Turanian survival among the Bulgars or a Pelasgian survival among the Albanians. There might be found among these tales traces of more ancient beliefs, myths and customs, just as it is possible to find similar traces among the folk-lore of the nations of the West. But what I contend is that these are not local survivals--that, whatever their primitive character may be, they need not originally belong to the nations among whom they are found now. They were brought by the same movement that brought the tales and legends, customs and ceremonies. The new and the old were carried along by the same stream of tradition and religious influence. An adjustment and readjustment of materials, the placing of layer upon layer, localisation and assimilation then took place. But these are rocks swept along by the stream and deposited far away from the place of origin, or, to take another simile, that of the insect and the amber. The amber has been carried from the North Sea many centuries ago, nay, thousands of years ago, along the trade routes from North to South, and has found its way also to ancient Egypt. Embedded in the amber we have here and there a North European insect which was caught at the time when the amber was still a liquid, and, imprisoned in it, became fossilised, and was carried a long distance. If found, then, among the beads in the tombs of the ancient Pharaohs, no one could say that that insect was of Egyptian origin, or that fly a remnant of the local fauna. It had come thither together with the amber that carried it, and may have remained there if the amber had decayed.

In the same manner ancient customs, ancient beliefs and ancient tradition have been caught in the liquid tales, apologues and legends, like the fly in the amber, and carried along with them from East to West. In this manner they may perhaps be termed survivals, but survivals of a different kind than has been assumed hitherto. They have survived only as long as they were tolerated in the lore of the people.

Hand in hand with dissemination go the assimilation and localisation of these diverse elements. It is impossible to do more within the compass of this introduction than merely touch the fringe of a far-reaching problem which arises from the examination of these peculiar beast and bird tales. One of the most instructive examples of this religious syncretism, of the manner in which it has influenced the people, and the form in which it has been preserved, localised, and assimilated, among them, is shown to advantage in the stories of the origin of the Glow-worm and in the stories of the Bee. Some of the cosmogonic legends of the Rumanians are also found among the Balkan people. They are a fragmentary reflex of a great conception of the world. If I may use the mystical and symbolical language of the legends, they are also sparks from a great light that had fallen down from heaven. The creation of man, the fall of the angels, are here curiously blended together. They represent part of the teaching that went under many names but, in essence, was one. That is, of course, the belief in the dualism of the creative powers, the good God and the wicked one, styled Satan.

From these tales and legends, which are derived from well-known apocryphal writings, we can see how deeply the latter have entered the life of nations which have not yet fallen under the unifying sway of strict dogmatism, and how unable the people are to grasp the higher spiritual interpretations of the dogmas and practices of the Church.

From a purely dogmatic point of view, all these tales are rank heresy; but who among the simple folk knows the distinction between orthodox and heretical teaching? The people are more easily disposed towards a simple philosophy which explains satisfactorily the phenomena of life. They listen with pleasure to tales of imagination. One of the fundamental theories of Gnosticism or, rather later, of dualism, is this peculiar conception of the creation. The world is divided between the power of light and the power of darkness. The latter is anxious to participate in the possession of light, and for that reason steals some, which it breaks up into sparks and covers over with thick matter so that it may not escape. These sparks are the human soul deeply embedded in human clay, anxious always to be reunited with the ancient glory.

In this Gnostic teaching we have the very source of the legend of these angelic sparks now relegated to glow-worms, originally placed in other "earthly worms"--the human race. We hear, moreover, the faint echo of the fall of the angels and of the angels of a lower rank inhabiting the planets and the stars. We even have the legend, found in the Book of Enoch, of the angels who fell in love with a woman and remain upon earth as evil spirits, whilst she is translated to heaven and becomes a star. The interest lies not only in the fact that these ancient religious conceptions have been so faithfully preserved among the people, but also in the manner of their preservation. They have been adapted to the understanding of the folk, and, from dogmatic teachings, they have become beautiful popular legends. But the inner meaning has been entirely lost. The old sparks have been embedded in very thick clay indeed, as can be seen in the treatment meted out to God, Christ, the Virgin, the Apostles and Saints. They are greeted with an apparent lack of reverence and respect that must disturb the equanimity of people of a Puritanic mind. The gods could not have been put on a footing of greater familiarity; it almost borders on the burlesque. Primitive nations show the same apparent want of respect to their gods, idols or fetishes, and we are inclined to put them on a lower scale of faith and reverence than the peoples of Europe.

A better knowledge of the life and religion of the peoples in the East and of the Eastern part of Europe would soon change such a view. In fact, I believe, that if we could descend to the lower depths of the masses of Western Europe, and especially of those in Catholic countries, and get a peep into their innermost soul, we should not find it very different from that of the Slav and the Rumanian. The Saints are not treated differently in Spain and in Italy on the one hand, or in Rumania and in Bulgaria, or even Russia, on the other. They have all the same essential conditions in common, viz. all have a Pantheon of Saints of various degrees and of both sexes. In Protestant countries the people have been impoverished. All the saints have been driven away; a cold abstract spirituality has taken their place, and yet depth of fervour and strength of belief cannot be denied to these Eastern peoples. There is, moreover, a sufficient fund of humour and innate rectitude to keep them at a certain level of morality and albeit free from the hypocrisy of the so-called higher civilization. So that, if the Rumanians take liberties with God and the Church and the Saints, and pay homage to the Devil by mocking and laughing at the jokes which God performs for his confusion, it is all done more in the spirit of good-natured banter, not in that of polemical or fanatical intolerance. Why should the poor Devil not also occasionally have a good time? He is always sure to be outwitted in the long run.

I am fully aware of the objection that may be raised against attributing so much influence to the activity and propaganda of the heretical sects. It may be argued, that their influence was not in any way commensurate with the results ascribed to them, that they did not carry the masses with them to such an extent as to leave indelible traces on their religious life and popular imagery. Some may go so far as to look upon their activity as similar to that of some of the mendicant friars during the Middle Ages. Yet the mendicant friars were able to exercise a tremendous influence upon the people and, helped by other political powers, they were able to create a movement which led up to the Crusades. It seized upon the masses of Europe with an irresistible force. In a minor, yet no less effective manner, the same agencies were able to arm the Kings of France against the Albigenses in Provence. Church history, however, shows very clearly that the power of the Manichaeans was so great that it has taken the Church many centuries to bring the fight to a satisfactory close.--The Cathars have given the name Ketzer to the German heretics, and every language in Europe shows traces of this heretic nomenclature.--The struggle was a terrible and a long one, and if it had not been for the secular arm which placed itself at the service of the Church for political reasons, who knows whether the Romish Church would have come out victorious in the struggle?

The question may be asked, How did it come about, that the teaching of an obscure sect could be propagated from the Black Sea to the Atlantic and could win the support of so many peoples? The answer lies in a fact which has hitherto been entirely ignored. The connection between Arianism and Manichaeism in Europe has to my mind not yet been even hinted at; yet there must have been a very close and intimate one. Arianism, in fact, prepared the ground for the new wave of heretical teaching which, a few centuries after the former's official extinction, followed in its wake. No one has, as yet, endeavoured to trace the effect which the Arian teaching has had in Europe when it became the national faith of the Goths. In them we have a nation which, from the third century to the end of the sixth, practically dominated central Europe. It established more than one kingdom between the Black Sea and the Atlantic, in Illyricum, in Northern Italy, one of might and strength in the South of France in Provence, with its headquarters in Toulouse. It had overflowed into Spain, and broke down only after the invasion of the Arabs. These Goths are described as rude barbarians, because they differed in their life, and probably in their original forms of faith, from the Greeks and the Romans. The modern idea is that their original home was somewhere in the North-West of Europe, that they came along the Vistula, and then migrated to the country between the Don and the Ural.

This is not the place to discuss the question of their original home, yet the whole history of the migration of the nations shows that the movement came also from the same direction as that of the other nations which followed upon one another from east to west, and that these migrations were prompted by tremendous political changes among the nations of Central Asia. It is therefore probable that the Goths migrated from the western shore of the Caspian Sea, somewhere near Lake Ascanius--hence the confusion--then to the countries between the Ural and Don, and thence by slow degrees southwards and westwards. This would explain many obscure points in the migration of the Goths. Be it as it may, we find them in the second century settled in those very countries in which we now find the Ruthenians and the Rumanians, and stretching further into Pannonia. The Goths are said to have adopted Christianity towards the end of the third century, as it is alleged, by priests and lay Christians brought as captives from Cappadocia and other parts of Asia Minor. As early as the Council of Nicaea, 325, a Gothic bishop is mentioned among the signatories to the decrees. An outstanding figure of the Gothic Christians was Ulfilas, who, owing to pressure from the non-converted section of the Goths, crossed the Danube and settled at the foot of Mount Haemus in the middle of the fourth century. He had become converted to the Arian doctrine, and took part in the Council under the Emperor Valens, which was held in Constantinople in 358.

Theodosius, who became the Great after his recantation of Arianism, towards the end of the fourth century, promulgated decree after decree, one more drastic than the other, for the persecution and extirpation of this heresy; in fact, he was the very first to establish an inquisition of faith. The example set by Theodosius was followed afterwards by the Catholic Emperors and Kings of the West, even down to the Holy Office, as the Inquisition was afterwards called. But, in spite of this, Arianism spread among the Goths, and, whatever were their political vicissitudes, they kept staunch to this peculiar form of Christianity, the greatest and most powerful enemy of the orthodox and Catholic Church. They spread eastwards and westwards, partly as vassals of the Huns and partly acting quite independently under their own kings and rulers. They overran the Balkan peninsula, destroying every heathen temple, and not sparing Catholic churches. They then sacked Rome, entered Gaul, and occupied the South of France, with Toulouse as the capital. They spread into Burgundy and conquered Spain. It took many battles and many centuries to break the political power of the Goths. It was rather the subtle influences of the Catholic women than religious conviction that brought about the conversion to Catholicism of the Gothic rulers in Spain and Italy. The Catholic Church, in the year 507, armed the Frankish King Clovis--who adopted Catholicism--against the Gothic Arian King Alaric, and thus brought about the first "crusade" between Catholics and heretics in the country north of the Pyrenees. A crusade was to be renewed hereafter for a second time against the Albigenses in the very same country and against the very same cities. Unfortunately very little is known of the beliefs and practices of the half-heathen, half-Christian Goths. The fact, however, remains that they held on to their faith for many centuries in spite of the official conversion of the leaders. In Burgundy, Arianism persisted down to the sixth century, and among the Lombards in Northern Italy, it persisted to the eighth century.

Meanwhile, other nations poured into the Balkans. Whether they entirely annihilated the Goths, or whether they assimilated with them, will remain a problem unsolved. Very few Gothic words can, however, be traced among the nations of the Balkans. The Slavs, probably coming from Pannonia, are first noticed in large numbers in the fifth and the sixth centuries. The Bulgars from the old haunts of the Goths near the Volga came in the seventh century. The last heathen king was Boris, who was converted to Christianity in the middle of the ninth century. No sooner has Christianity an official status among the Bulgars than we hear of the heresy of the Bogomils and Cathars spreading among them to such an extent that they almost overthrew the orthodox Church. The break between the eastern and western Churches--between Constantinople and Rome--at the end of the ninth century also contributed, in a way, to weaken the allegiance of the faithful to the orthodox Church, and the manner in which the Orthodox vilified the Catholics must have been quite sufficient to reconcile the people to heterodox doctrines. Manichaeans and Bogomils took advantage of the schism and the violence of the two parties to win the people over to their tenets. Bogomilism in a slightly varied form, as Cathars and Albigenses, etc., spread henceforth from east to west, following exactly the same course as that taken by the Goths in their migration from east to west. The ground had been prepared for them, the seed had been sown, and the work was made easy for them by the preceding Arians.

There is one feature in this schismatic movement, the importance of which cannot be appraised too highly. The Word of God was taught in the vernacular, the Bible and, along with it, uncanonical writings, were translated into the vernacular. While the Orthodox and Catholic Churches kept strictly to Greek and Latin as the language of Scripture and Service, the Arians no doubt, on the contrary, allowed the people to pray and to learn in their own language. It was the outstanding merit of Ulfilas that he translated the Bible into Gothic. This practice of translating the word of God into the vernacular remained a distinctive characteristic of the schismatic Arians and other sectaries. They were thus able to reach the heart of the people much more easily than the Catholic and Greek clergy, and to exercise a lasting influence upon the masses, far deeper than that of the representatives of a creed taught in a foreign tongue. This also continued to keep the Arian-Goths away from the Catholic Church for many centuries. The change, which came later on, was due to two causes--the conversion of the kings and rulers, and, to a far larger degree than has hitherto been recognised, the loss of the Teutonic language. The Goths slowly forgot their own language and adopted that of the nations in whose midst they lived as a minority.

This explains much more satisfactorily than has hitherto been attempted the mysterious disappearance of the Goths after the official conversion of Recared in Spain, and the overthrow of Alaric by Clovis in the beginning of the sixth century in the South of France. In Italy they kept to their Arianism under the name of Lombards, down to the eighth century. It must not, however, be assumed that with the public disappearance of Arianism and that of the Goths as a ruling nation, the Arian heresy and all that it brought to the people had also disappeared. That teaching could not easily be uprooted. It was merely driven underground. The Catholic Church was satisfied with having obtained an official public victory. Then followed a slow process of extirpation. The writings of the schismatics were hunted up and destroyed, and thus the wells of heresy were dried up. The people were weaned from their errors by the convincing power of sword and faggot. But so long as these sinners did not belong to the higher classes, the Church winked at their aberrations, especially when they kept quiet and were not aggressive in their action.

Thus the fire of heresy smouldered on under the ashes of the autos-da-f? until it was fanned again into a mighty blaze through the Cathars and Albigenses. The ground was prepared for their reception by the Arianism of the Goths, and by the Manichaean propaganda, which had penetrated into Europe from the West as early as the fourth century.

It is important in this connection to refer, however briefly, to the Priscillianites in Spain, who flourished from the middle of the fourth to the second half of the sixth century, close upon two hundred years. The founder was Priscillianus a man of noble birth and great achievement. He was a great scholar, and had become acquainted with Gnostic and Manichaean doctrines. He was accused of heresy, and was the first Christian who was executed by Christians for preaching a different form of creed. The accusations made against him and his followers were precisely the same which were raised centuries afterwards against the Cathars and Albigenses, and no doubt just as false. From them we learn, however, that he had apocryphal books and mystical oriental legends, which he used for his teaching, and which were believed by his followers. It took two, or close upon three centuries, before the public traces of Priscillianism disappeared from Spain and Gaul. The followers, probably, shared the fate of the Gothic Arians settled in these countries. Then the conquest of Spain by the Arabs or Moors prevented the Catholic Church from further sifting the chaff from the grain. No doubt a good number of so-called heretics, who could not enter the bosom of the Catholic Church, embraced Islam, just as a good number of prominent Cathars in Dalmatia and Bosnia preferred to become Mohammedans after the conquest of the country by the Turks rather than become united with the Orthodox Church. When the Cathars started their propaganda, they followed, as it were, in the track of the Goths. They occupy exactly the same tracts of land as those held for so many centuries by the former, and without a doubt they found there remnants of the old heresy, popular legends and beliefs, even tales and mystical as well as mythical songs, all so many welcome pegs on which to hang their own teaching. It may in a way have been a kind of revival, in which what had been preserved by the descendants from the Goths of old was blended with the new matter brought afresh from the East. Unfortunately--as already remarked--too little is known of the beliefs and practices of the Goths in their pagan state and afterwards as Arian Christians. That they, in spite of being "rude barbarians," had also some theological treatises is evident from Anathema No. 16 of the Council of Toledo , when Recared forswore his Arianism and became a fervent Catholic. The anathema runs against "the abominable treatises which we composed to seduce the provincials into the Arian heresy." Many such compositions, especially in the vernacular, must be meant here; they all fell under the ban.

The Cathars followed the same practice and were zealous propagators and translators of the Bible and Apocrypha into the vernacular. They knew the Bible so well that in disputations with the Catholic clergy the latter were easily beaten. Almost every one of the "forbidden" books, i.e. forbidden by the Orthodox and Catholic Church, was preserved in old Slavonian translations, and some are to be found this very day among the holy books of the Russian schismatics. Nay, even the oldest French translation of the Bible was the work of Albigenses. So much did this affect the Catholic Church that she excommunicated it, and forbade the people to read the Bible at the Council of Toulouse in 1229; the Bible in the vernacular having before been ordered to be burned publicly by the decree of the Church.

No wonder, therefore, at the popularity of these sectaries and the immense influence they wielded upon the popular mind and imagination. And if it be true that Arius set forth his religious views in doggerel rhymes to be sung to popular tunes by the sailors and labourers, then he initiated a movement which has continued ever since in religious minstrelsy, and is practised amongst others, by the Russian blind beggar-minstrels and other popular ballad singers on festive occasions among the Rumanians and southern Slavs. Nothing, in fact, could better serve the purpose of propaganda than such songs. They would appeal at once to the primitive, unlettered nations, specially amongst those who had such mythological epics of their own. The rude barbarians would be deeply impressed, and they would very easily adopt such songs and the teaching they contained. We can then easily understand a Volsunga Saga or a similar saga originating under such influences, or moulded in accordance with such new models. Neither the Orthodox nor the Catholic Church knows of such popular religious songs of an epic character, filled with the mysteries of the Holy Writ, much less of any filled with mysteries from the apocryphal and legendary writings. They have no more than Church hymns sung in the Church, only on special occasions, together with a certain psalmody chanted by the officiating clergy. And when these Greek hymns were translated into Slavonic or Rumanian, they practically lost their tune and their inspiration, and they were recited with a peculiar monotonous cantilation. Quite otherwise were the popular carols, and the popular epic ballads with a distinctive religious background and full of wonderful incidents from the life of the saints. Unlike the former, they are not congregational litanies, but purely popular songs and ballads, devoid of any official or liturgical character. This may also explain the origin of the so-called Ambrosian chant as an attempt on the part of St. Ambrose of Milan to counteract the other popular chants by introducing, as it were, congregational singing into the Church. But there it remained, whilst the other spread and has retained its original popular character. Thus, through Gothic Arianism, a certain continuity of the dualistic and peculiar schismatic form of religious teaching has been established.

Moreover, an historic explanation has been found for the origin and spread of these doctrines, tales and fables. Put to the test, these beast tales yield a dogmatic system which approximates in many points to such heterodox teaching. The old Ebionite conception of Jesus, taken up by Arius and afterwards adopted by the Manichaeans, sees in him only a deified human being, and very little more can be found in these tales. Jesus is seldom mentioned, and even then is more like a deified all-powerful human being. God Himself is often treated as a simple human being, almost like the Ialdabaoth of the Gnostics or the inferior God of the Manichaean doctrine. With this, agrees also the notion of the dualism in the creation of the world, i.e. that the evil creatures, wolves, poisonous snakes, etc., are the work of the Evil One. This was also the view held by the Priscillianites. There seem to be, also, reminiscences of such myths as "the world tree," the wolf, etc., which are found in Teutonic mythology and which may also be of an Oriental origin. The Rumanian tales are almost a running commentary on Grimm's German Mythology , which ought to be read in conjunction with the present volume. The legend of the Cuckoo, the hoopoe referred to by Grimm, can be read here under No. 43.

It is significant that there is not a trace of Mariolatry in these tales and fables. If anything, St. Mary appears in a character far from loveable. She is easily offended, she does not spare her curses, she takes umbrage easily at the slightest mishap. She is altogether very disagreeable, just as in the apocryphal literature, where there is not much room for her. Her intercession is invoked only in some Rumanian charms and spells in a peculiar stereotyped form. But of real worship there is scarcely any trace. Quite different is the position which the Catholic Church assigned afterwards to St. Mary. She has become there second to none outside the Trinity.

More prominently almost than any of these points, stands out the fact that, underlying these creation and other tales, is the belief in the transmigration of the human soul into an animal body--the well-known belief in Metempsychosis, or change of human beings into animals, so important a feature of Manichaean teaching, in which all the heretical sects seem to have shared.

It is impossible now to follow this question further. I am satisfied to have indicated the r?le which the Goths may have played in the preparation for the dissemination of special myths and legends, branded as heretical, which other sectaries had brought from the East and propagated in the West of Europe.

As to possible ethnical and geographical continuity, it may be remarked that the places where these tales are found were also the homesteads of the Goths, in which they dwelt for at least two or three hundred years. They were then after a short interval almost supplanted by the Slavs. It is a moot point how long the Rumanians have dwelt there, and when they were converted to Christianity. Not a single old Teutonic word has hitherto been found in the Rumanian language. Any direct contact or convivium of any length of time is thus excluded. The tales may have been remnants carried along from Illyricum across the Danube by the new missionaries of the dualistic doctrine. The problem would be less intricate if we only knew anything definite about Gothic heathen and Christian mythology.

With the Cathars and Bogomils we are on more solid ground. This new stream of similar traditions was brought by a similar religious movement and was propagated by identical means--viz. writings and songs in the language of the people, legends and tales and a simple creed understood by all.

It may be asked, if this theory is correct, if these tales and legends were brought first into Thrace and then spread from that country to the other nations, how does it come to pass that so few traces of them can be found in Greek folk-lore? Paradoxical as it may sound, the absence of such creation and other legends and tales from the Greek folk-lore is, if anything, a further proof of the accuracy of the theory advanced. It must be remembered that there was no more ruthless persecution of ancient paganism, idolatry, ceremonies and legends than that carried out by the Greek Church against anything that reminded them of the Hellenic or pagan past. Nothing was spared, neither shrines nor books. The Greek's subtle mind devised the first thorough system of heresy-hunting and persecution. It ranged from polemical and harmless dialogues to the handing over of the so-called heretics to fire and sword. The secular power was there more than anywhere else the representative of the religious power, and justified its existence, as it were, only as the executor of the Church's mandate.

One has only to read about the innumerable decrees of councils and synods, to see the way in which Manichaeism, Arianism and Gnosticism in every shape and form were mercilessly uprooted, and to understand that this fight did not stop at Bogomilism. The polemics were carried out even down to the time of Eutemios Zygabenos and even the Emperors on the throne of Byzance did not consider it below their dignity to combat heretical teaching, the followers of which were given no pardon. There was also another factor which militated against the success of the Gnostic teaching--the literary past of the Greeks. To the circulation of apocryphal books and legendary tales, the Greeks were able to oppose a vast literary array. In Greece the Bogomils did not deal with simple-minded, illiterate folk at the beginning of whose literature they stood; on the contrary, they had to fight against an ancient influential literature, and against minds trained in the subtlest dialectics. They could not, therefore, succeed so easily, if at all.

Quite different were the conditions of the other nations with which they came in contact. None of these had yet more than the very beginnings of a literature. They were rude, simple-minded folk, and wherever the Greek Church or Greek Emperors did not wield any influence at all, as it happened in the Bulgaro-Vallachian kingdom established by Peter and Asan , the Bogomils had an easy task. For centuries, then, the Rumanians formed with the Bulgarians not only a religious, but also a political unity. The Bulgaro-Vallachian kingdom stretched from the Haemus to the Carpathians, and down to the end of the seventeenth century Slavonic was the official language of State and Church in Rumania. There could not have been a more close intimacy than between these two nations, despite the difference of the language which each of them spoke. They had their literature in common, and no doubt shared the same traditions. Bogomilism was just as rife in Vallachia as it was in Bulgaria. Even the written literature of Rumania shows how profound its influence has been: still more so does the oral literature of tales and legends, of fables and beliefs. Though the Bogomils did not bring Christianity to these peoples, for they were Christians, they brought at any rate a kind of religion to the mass of the folk. It was one of their own making and in their own image. It was clothed in beautiful tales, and answered the expectations of the rank and file, satisfied their curiosity, and gave them a glimpse of the moral beauty underlying the work of creation. In a way, it tended to purify the heart and to elevate the soul by allegories, parables and apologues, and thus it found ready acceptance, and struck deep root in the heart of the people, unaffected by decrees of Councils and by the fanatical intolerance of the established Church.

Not so successful, therefore, if successful at all, was the fight of the Greek Church against the heretical sects even in the Balkan Peninsula, where they were so numerous and so powerful. They persisted down to the time of the capture of Constantinople and the Turkish rule. A large number of the aristocracy in Bosnia and Dalmatia still adhered to the teaching of the Cathars, and when the Turks occupied the country in the sixteenth century, the majority of them embraced Islam, instead of entering either the Catholic or the Greek Church. A whole mass of apocryphal and spurious literature placed on the Index, has been preserved in Slavonic and Rumanian texts with outspoken dualistic views. Many of them have found their way into the Lucidaria, or "Questions and Answers," a kind of catechism, very popular among the nations of the Balkans, the Rumanians and the Russians. Similar Lucidaria were known in the West, but there they have been thoroughly expurgated, whilst, in the above-mentioned "questions," many an answer is found to which no orthodox Church would subscribe, but which form now a popular living belief among these nations. The political lethargy which settled upon most of these nations after the Turkish conquest created a happy brooding-place for such tales, and thus it can easily be understood why they have lived to this very day practically undisturbed and little changed.

To those who have followed the history of the religious development of the Russians, it will therefore not be surprising to find among their popular tales a number of variants closely allied to the Rumanian animal tales, and, what is of the utmost importance in this connection, not a few of the "creation" tales. No country perhaps has been so much torn by religious discussions and sects as Russia. The number of sects is legion. The most extraordinary notions, extreme views on dogma and practice, heterodox principles expressed in worship, belief and popular song or tale are all found in Russia: unadulterated Dualism, Bogomilism, Manichaean teaching are openly professed by a number of the sects persecuted and condemned by the Orthodox Church. Almost all the books condemned as heretical in the early Indices Expurgatoria put forth by Councils and Church Assemblies, have been preserved almost intact in the old Slavonic and Russian language, and the religious and epic songs of the "blind" minstrels of Russia are full of the legendary lore of those heterodox sects. This fact has been established beyond doubt by the researches of Russian scholars, and notably by Wesselofsky. Among the Russians, then, we find the nearest parallels to the Rumanian "creation" stories; a clear evidence of common origin, both drawing upon the same source of information; the religious in the form of apologues, legends and tales, so prominent a feature of heterodox propaganda.

The weapons used by the Catholic Church in its persecution of heretical sects are, almost every one of them, borrowed from the Greek armoury. One learns to know this fact more and more from a closer enquiry into the inner history of Byzance, its laws, decrees, administration and practice. And, precisely the same influence destroyed later the heretical teaching in the West as it destroyed it among the Greeks. The power of the Church and the secular arm were both used ruthlessly for exterminating any idea or any belief that ran counter to the doctrines taught by the established Church. The Cathars had also a much more difficult task in converting the East of Europe, inasmuch as they were also confronted there by some amount of literary tradition. Illiterate as were the masses, there were still among them and among their clerics, men of ability, men of learning, men trained in the scholastic schools, able, if not to refute, at any rate to confuse, the strange doctrine.

All these forces combined, produced in the East the same result as they have produced among the Greeks. We are thus on the track of one of the most important sources of Western European folk-lore, always remembering that the medium in which this propaganda flourished differed considerably in the West from that in the East. In the former such propaganda met with a more ancient layer of well-established literary tradition. The Catholic Church, as mentioned above, was first in possession. It was not a tabula rasa on which the new teaching could be written, but yet that which existed was profoundly modified and a new fund of highly poetic yet popular material was added to the small store of knowledge possessed by the common people. But in time the Church took up the challenge, and remorselessly hunted down the apostles of popular heterodox teaching, just as the Greeks had done, going even further. It punished with sword and fire the followers of unauthorised practices, and branded every deviation from the strait path as rank heresy. The books containing legends and tales were burnt, and their possessors were often treated in like fashion.

Heresy-hunting becomes a popular distraction only when the official clergy find it profitable to make it so, and when the people are made to trace their own ills and troubles, their losses in field and stable, to the evil machinations of these tools of the devil. So long as they are not suffering in body or purse, the folk are absolutely indifferent to dogmas, and they will eagerly accept anything that pleases them. It will therefore not come as a surprise, in view of what has been stated, if we find some weird conceptions among the Rumanian peasantry.

Studied from the point of view of heresiology or rather of popular psychology, some of these tales will appear to us as so many living records of the great spiritual movement, which for centuries dominated Europe, and which has since died out.

Too little attention has been given hitherto to the influence of those numerous sects, which stretched from Asia Minor to the south of France, and overflowed even into England. Their dualism, the strong belief in the Power of Evil, Satan and his host, the consequent duty of the faithful to banish him or to subdue him, thus developed into belief in sorcery and witchcraft, with the attending horrors of the Inquisition.

Then came a period of wider education still less tolerant of old women's superstition and nursery tales. What was left still standing has been, and is being, finally destroyed by our modern schools and schoolmasters. From this dire fate, the folk-lore of the nearer East has as yet been preserved. The importance of the study of folk-lore has happily been recognised in those countries, early enough to stop the blight which had set in and which threatened to destroy it more ruthlessly than even in the West. The modern "man of science" is a more relentless iconoclast than the religious fanatic. He starts from the mind in his attempt to destroy folk-lore, using to this end cold reasoning, logical conclusions, spiritual prepossession and intolerance. The religious fanatic starts from the heart, with overwhelming passion, fiery zeal, unreasoning hatred, from which there is a possible escape for mysticism and mythical lore, whilst from the former there is none. Happily, our science of folk-lore with its deep sympathy and profound appreciation of these manifestations of the popular psyche has come in the nick of time to rescue from total extinction what the schoolmaster and the heresy-hunter have not yet annihilated.

I turn now to another aspect of these bird and beast tales. If, as I believe, they show us what is at the back of the mind of the people, they are of invaluable service to the student of anthropology, above all to him who seeks enlightenment in the grave problems of education and civilization; and they are not without importance for the solution of political problems.

Attempts are made--well meant, no doubt--to foist that state of culture which the West calls "modern civilization," or "civilization" pure and simple, upon the reluctant people of the Near and Far East. We are forgetful of the fact that these nations have had a civilization of their own, and that something more important is included in this forcible change than the change of a dress.

As the outcome of a long-drawn battle between feudalism and modern society, as a result of political and economic evolutions, the civilization of the West, when introduced among nations that have not gone through the same experience, acts like the Juggernaut car, which crushes under its wheels the worshippers of this new god and destroys at the same time the foundations of the old order of things. Only students of folk-lore, those who try to reach the hidden depths, nay, to penetrate the inner soul of the people, are in a position to judge of the results of these civilizing attempts. They can compare the past with the present, and draw a proper balance between gain and loss. Are the people happier, more contented, more moral, and even more religious after the change, than they were before it? Surely not. And if not, why not? The answer is very simple: because in this violent change no tenderness is shown to those beliefs and practices which are dear to the people and which help to lighten the burden of life by innocent mirth and the wholesome play of fancy. Wire brooms may sweep well; but they may do it too well, and they can sweep everything away, leaving the home bare and the gardens stripped of every leaf and flower.

A few words concerning the order and grouping of these tales. They have been arranged in three main groups. The first comprises those tales which I have characterised as creation legends. In them the origin of birds, beasts and insects is explained as the result of some direct act of God, or the Saints, or the Devil. An attempt has been made to follow a certain chronological order. Those tales stand first in which God is acting at the beginning of the creation. Then, following the Biblical order, the legends connected with the persons of sacred history from Adam to the Apostles, including St. Mary and St. Anne. Mystical Christmas carols or rather epic ballads, in which similar subjects are treated, have been inserted between the legends. The second section comprises such legends as are more like fairy tales. The mythical personages are no longer those known through the Scriptures. On the contrary, there are in these tales reminiscences of ancient heathen gods and heroes, chief among them being Alexander the Great.

In the third section the animal fables are grouped together. It is the literature of the apologues without any framework or moral setting. The parallels, as far as could be found, are given briefly at the end of each legend, tale or fable. I have striven to be concise in my references to the best-known collections of tales, such as Grimm, Hahn, Cosquin, and Gonzenbach, where the student of fairy tales can easily find the whole comparative literature.

For the genuine and unadulterated popular origin of these tales I can vouch absolutely. Some I have heard in my early youth, but the majority have been culled from the works of S. Fl. Marian , than whom a more painstaking trustworthy collector could not be imagined. Some have been taken from the Folk-lore reviews, Sezatoarea, ed. by A. Gorovei , and Ion Creanga, published by the Society of that name . Anton Pann has given us a few stories, as well as A. and A. Schott . The Pilgrimage of the Soul is from S. Mangiuca, Calindariu, pe. 1882, Brasiovu 1881 and the Story of Man and his Years, No. 113, from M. Gaster, Chrestomatie Romana, vol. ii., Bucharest 1891. These tales have been collected from every country where Rumanians live, not only in the Kingdom of Rumania, but also from the Rumanians of Transylvania and Bukovina, as well as from the Kutzo-Vlachs of Macedonia.

I have added a few charms and also a few more mystical religious songs and carols, which throw light on some of the beliefs underlying the tales and legends, taken mostly from the great collection of G. Dem. Teodorescu .

In some cases I have given also variants of the same tale.

I have endeavoured to render the stories as faithfully as the spirit of the Rumanian and English languages allows, and I fear that I have on sundry occasions forced the latter in my desire to preserve as far as possible the quaintness and the flavour of the Rumanian original.

There is one characteristic feature in the collection of animal tales and legends given here, upon which I should like to lay great stress, and that is the complete purity which pervades them all. There is no playing with moral principles. No double meaning is attached to any story: and this, to my mind, is the best proof of their popular origin. These tales are not sullied by a morbid imagination, nor contaminated by sexual problems. The people are pure at heart and in the stories their simplicity and purity appear most beautifully.

In these tales and legends we have syncretism in full swing. It is not a picture of the past which we have to piece laboriously together from half-forgotten records, from writing half obliterated by the action of time and by changes which have swept over those nations of the past, whose life and thought we are endeavouring to conjure up and to understand. In our midst, at our door, under our own eyes, this process of mixing and adjusting, of change and evolution, of differentiation, combination and assimilation is still going on. It is a wonderful picture for any one who is able to discover the forces that are at work, who can trace every strand of the webbing, every thread in the woof and warp, to its immediate and to its remoter source. We see the shuttle of human imagination, of human belief, flying busily through the loom, charged at one time with one thread, at another with a different one. Many of the ways of the human mind meet here, cross one another, and new roads are thus created by busy wayfarers. And thus paganism sustains a busy and robust life. The old Pantheon is still peopled with the old gods, or, shall we better say, the Pandaemonium in its highest and best sense is displaying itself with unexpected vigour. The heathen gods, the Christian saints, God and the devil legends, fairy tales, oriental imagery, mystical traditions and astrological lore are all inextricably blended together. The line of demarcation between man and animal has not been clearly drawn, or it has not yet been attempted. These multifarious elements have not yet been combined into one homogeneous structure. The problem arises whether other nations have also passed through a similar mental and psychical process; whether they have had a similar Pandaemonic mixture, out of which their more colourless folk-lore had been distilled in the crucible of "civilization."

Primitive people can often hear the footfall of men by putting the ear to the ground. We may, by putting an ear to the ground, hear the footfalls of the Past, and listen to the echo before it dies away into eternity.

BIRD AND BEAST STORIES

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