— 
1883, } tf (Crane. 
We have performed our task in a very bungling manner if we have not 
enabled the reader to form some idea of the wealth of material buried in 
these long unused volumes, material of great value for the historian of 
manners and customs, and for one engaged in tracing the affiliation of the 
popular tales of Europe. As itis in the latter direction that our own interest 
chiefly lies, we may be pardoned for concluding this already lengthy 
article with some reference to the light thrown upon the diffusion of popu- 
lar tales by the collections just examined. In these we find every class of 
Popular tales except fairy stories—legends, jests, fables, etc. The exten- 
sive currency given to these stories by their reception into these collections 
can hardly be imagined. They were used by numberless preachers in 
their sermons to the people, and by them in turn rep sated to others. We 
must bear in mind that down to the Reformation Europe constituted a 
homogeneous whole, and that there existed a Weltliteratur in Goethe’s 
Sense of the word. A legend or story that appealed to the imagination or 
taste had free circulation from Iceland to Sicily, and from Italy to Portu- 
gal. One or two examples will perhaps best illustrate the part played by 
the sermon-books in this diffusion. We have already mentioned La Fon- 
taine’s fable (vii, 10), La Laitiére et le pot aw lait, and have shown that be- 
fore the version in the Dialogus Oreaturarum, the fable was widely diffused 
by Jacques de Vitry and Etienne de Bourbon. A still more striking in- 
Stance of another Oriental apologue introduced into Europe by the same 
channel is the fable which Goedeke entitles Asinus vulg? (La Font. iii, 1° 
Le Meunier, son Fils et V Ane), first found in an Occidental version in 
Jacques de Vitry, and copied. from him by Etienne de Bourbon.* The 
former of the two stories just mentioned has become popular in the tech- 
nical sense, and is found in Grimm’s Ainder-und Hausmarchen, No. 164, 
Der faule Heine, but in a version pointing to the Oriental original in the 
Pantschatantra and Hitopadesa. It would, however, not be difficult to find 
Stories still existing among the people, and which were originally commu- 
nicated to them by the sermon-books. An interesting instance of this is 
the story found in Grimm No, 145. The ungrateful son (Der Undankbare 
Sohn), which is so short that we may give it in full: ‘‘Once upon a time a 
man and his wife were sitting before their house-door, with a roast fowl on 
a table between them, which they were going to eat together, Presently the 
man saw his old father coming, and he quickly snatched up the fowl and 
Concealed it, because he grudged sharing it, even with his own parent. 
The old man came, had a draught of water, and then went away again. 
As soon as he was gone, his son went to fetch the roast fowl again ; but 
will begin publication immediately of ‘ The Clerical Library,’ or helps to ser- 
Monizing as the series might be called. Three of the proposed twelve volumes, 
each of which will be complete, are entitled, ‘Three Hundred Outlines of Ser- 
mons on the N. T.,’ and again on the O. T., and ‘Outline Sermons to Children 
With Numerous Anecdotes.’ ” 
*8ee Gadeke’s article already mentioned in Orient wnd Occident, i, pp. 531, 733; 
Pauli, 577, to the references given in these articles may be added, San Bernar- 
dino, Novelletie, p. 5. 
