INTRODUCTION. 11 



to the Arabian Nights/ and I am not sure that the simpler 

 Hottentot version is not the neater of the two. Again, the 

 name of Eeynard in South Africa, given by Dr. Bleek to his 

 Hottentot tales, is amply justified by their containing famiHar 

 episodes belonging to the mediaeval " Reynard the Fox."^ The 

 Jackal shams death and lies in the road till the fish-waggon 

 comes by, and the waggoner throws him in to make a kaross 

 of his skin, but the cunning beast throws a lot of fish out into 

 the road, and then jumps out himself. In another place, the 

 Lion is sick, and all the beasts go to see him but the Jackal. 

 His enemy the Hyena fetches him to give his advice, so he 

 comes before the Lion, and says he has been to ask the witch 

 what was to be done for his sick uncle, and the remedy is for 

 the Lion to pull the Hyena's skin off" over his ears, and put it 

 on himself while it is warm. Again, the trick by which Chan- 

 ticleer gets his head out of Reynard^s mouth by making him 

 answer the farmer, reminds one of the way in which, in the 

 Hottentot ta]e, the Cock makes the Jackal say his prayers, and 

 when the outwitted beast folds his hands and shuts his eyes, 

 flies off" and makes his escape. Of course these tales, though 

 adapted to native circumstances and with very clever native 

 turns, may be all of very recent introduction. Such a story as 

 that which introduces a fish-waggon, would be naturally referred 

 to the Dutch boers, from whom indeed all the Reynard stories 

 are likely to have come. One curious passage tends to show 

 that the stories are taken, not from the ancient versions of 

 Reynard, but from some interpolated modern rendering. A 

 proof that Jacob Grimm brings forward of the independent, 

 secluded course of the old German Beast- Saga, is, that it did 

 not take up into itself stories long current elsewhere, which would 

 have fitted admirably into it, — thus, for instance, Jdlsop's story 

 of the Fox who will not go into the Lion's den because he only 

 sees the footsteps going in, but none coming out, is nowhere to 

 be found in the medigeval Reynard. But we find in the Hot- 

 tentot tales that this very episode has found its way in, and 



' Lane, ' The Thousand and One Nights,' new edit., London, 1859, vol. i. 

 pp. 84, 114. 



2 Jacob Grimm, ' Keinhart Fuchs ;' Berlin, 1834, pp. cxxii. 1. 30, cclxxii. 



