two thousand years before the good German brothers went on their quest
among the folk with such delightful results. For this reason I have
included a considerable number of them in this volume; and shall be
surprised if tales that have roused the laughter and wonder of pious
Buddhists for the last two thousand years, cannot produce the same
effect on English children. The Jatakas have been fortunate in their
English translators, who render with vigour and point; and I rejoice
in being able to publish the translation of two new Jatakas, kindly
done into English for this volume by Mr. W. H. D. Rouse, of Christ's
College, Cambridge. In one of these I think I have traced the source
of the Tar Baby incident in "Uncle Remus."

Though Indian fairy tales are the earliest in existence, yet they are
also from another point of view the youngest. For it is only about
twenty-five years ago that Miss Frere began the modern collection of
Indian folk-tales with her charming "Old Deccan Days" (London, John
Murray, 1868; fourth edition, 1889). Her example has been followed by
Miss Stokes, by Mrs. Steel, and Captain (now Major) Temple, by the
Pandit Natesa Sastri, by Mr. Knowles and Mr. Campbell, as well as
others who have published folk-tales in such periodicals as the
_Indian Antiquary_ and _The Orientalist_. The story-store of
modern India has been well dipped into during the last quarter of a
century, though the immense range of the country leaves room for any
number of additional workers and collections. Even so far as the
materials already collected go, a large number of the commonest
incidents in European folk-tales have been found in India. Whether
brought there or born there, we have scarcely any criterion for
judging; but as some of those still current among the folk in India can
be traced back more than a millennium, the presumption is in favour of
an Indian origin.