The History of the Peninsula i in Folk-Tales. 
By R. O. Winstedt. 
Tam no historian either by taste or training ; but as a 
“ picker-up”’ of those ‘ unconsidered trifles ’ Malay folk-tales 
may I venture to adduce a historical as well as a literary 
reason for their preservation and suggest a study of them will 
give additional weight to Mr. Blagden’s contention in the pages 
of this journal that “evidently in the middle of the XIVth 
century there were a number of settlements scattered along the 
coast-line of the Peninsula” ata date before the founding of 
Malacea. Mr. Blagden cites from the Javanese © Nagarak- 
retagama’’ (composed, he tells us, in 1365 A. D.) a passage 
containing apparently indisputable mention of Pahang, 
Langkasuka, Kelantan, Trengganu, Tumasik (Singapore), Kelang 
Kedah, Muar a doubtful allusion to Sungai Ujong and no word 
at all of Malacca. This passage he considers sufficient to 
disprove My. Wilkinson’s view that while the southern por- 
tions of the peninsula were often visited, they were never 
really occupied by a civilized race till the Malays came in A.D. 
~1400”” though it is rather hard to see what proof a_ list of 
names of doubtful etymology constitutes. Some further proof 
of early Malay settlements is needed, and I fancy that the 
folk-tales of the peninsula may supply it. 
Now folk-tales, it must be admitted, require very careful 
sifting. They may be partly based on actual fact; they cer- 
tainly abound in fiction. They may obviously deal with a 
pre-Muhammadan age and yet they always contain many 
anachronisms. They will tell the same story of several places: 
Malim Dewa is prince of Pasai in the Achinese version of the 
tale ; prince of Bandar Muar in the peninsula version. The 
places and persons they refer to may be historical but are 
generally obscure and forgotten. We can only make deductions 
on very broad lines. Rhapsodists will always declare how 
Jour. S, B. R.A. Soc., No. 57, 1910. 
