CRANE— MEDIEVAL SERMON-BOOKS AND STORIES. 371 



these features were contained in the popular tales of the other na- 

 tions of Europe. The Grimms were essentially philologists and ap- 

 plied to their mdrchcn the methods of comparative philology which 

 had grown out of the revival of Sanscrit studies by Sir William 

 Jones, Franz Bopp and Theodor Benfey. 



The theory that the popular tales of Europe were related as 

 were the languages in which they were narrated, both going back 

 to a period in which the Aryan peoples were supposed to have had 

 a common language and mythology, broke down, so far as the popu- 

 lar tales were concerned, when they were found to be essentially the 

 same as those of non-Aryan peoples, and the favorite theory of dif- 

 fusion from India in historic times was weakened by the discovery 

 of popular tales in the tombs of ancient Egypt. 



The question of the origin of popular tales has from the first 

 been connected with that of mythology, and the further question of 

 their diffusion has depended largely upon the view of their origin. 

 If the popular tales were part of the mythology of the Aryan na- 

 tions, then their diffusion could be explained by the dispersion of 

 those nations into the different parts of Europe. 



If, on the other hand, popular tales were merely a branch of 

 entertaining literature, largely of Oriental origin, then in order to 

 explain their extraordinary diffusion in Europe and elsewhere, it 

 was necessary to discover the channels of transmission, literary or 

 oral, which conveyed these tales over such an amazing expanse of 

 territory. 



The theory of the origin of popular tales in India and their trans- 

 mission, largely through literary works, in historic times, has always 

 been a favorite one in Germany, owing chiefly to the epoch-making 

 translation of the " Pantschatantra " by Theodor Benfey, the intro- 

 duction to which connected the tales of India with those of Europe. 



In England, at a later date, the theory of the origin of popular 

 tales has been connected with the anthropological studies of Tylor, 

 Frazer and Lang, and again become a part of the mythology of 

 primitive races. Before, however, this latter explanation came into 

 vogue, the interest in the subject was almost wholly confined to the 

 question of the means of transmission. These means, it was 

 claimed, were largely literary and consisted of collections of Indian 



