diffused the stories; gipsies and Jews have passed them about; Roman
soldiers of many different races, moved here and there about the
Empire, have trafficked in them. From the remotest days men have been
wanderers, and wherever they went their stories accompanied them. The
slave trade might take a Greek to Persia, a Persian to Greece; an
Egyptian woman to Phoenicia; a Babylonian to Egypt; a Scandinavian
child might be carried with the amber from the Baltic to the Adriatic;
or a Sidonian to Ophir, wherever Ophir may have been; while the
Portuguese may have borne their tales to South Africa, or to Asia, and
thence brought back other tales to Egypt. The stories wandered
wherever the Buddhist missionaries went, and the earliest French
voyageurs told them to the Red Indians. These facts help to account
for the sameness of the stories everywhere; and the uniformity of
human fancy in early societies must be the cause of many other
resemblances.

In this volume there are stories from the natives of Rhodesia,
collected by Mr. Fairbridge, who speaks the native language, and one is
brought by Mr. Cripps from another part of Africa, Uganda. Three tales
from the Punjaub were collected and translated by Major Campbell.
Various savage tales, which needed a good deal of editing, are derived
from the learned pages of the 'Journal of the Anthropological
Institute.' With these exceptions, and 'The Magic Book,' translated by
Mrs. Pedersen, from 'Eventyr fra Jylland,' by Mr. Ewald Tang Kristensen
(Stories from Jutland), all the tales have been done, from various
sources, by Mrs. Lang, who has modified, where it seemed desirable, all
the narratives.