unknown in other branches of literature, the _cante-fable_, of
which "Aucassin et Nicolette" is the most distinguished example. Nor
is the _cante-fable_ confined to France. Many of the heroic
verses of the Arabs contained in the _Hamasa_ would be unintelligible
without accompanying narrative, which is nowadays preserved in the
commentary. The verses imbedded in the _Arabian Nights_ give
them something of the character of a _cante-fable_, and the same
may be said of the Indian and Persian story-books, though the verse is
usually of a sententious and moral kind, as in the _gathas_ of the
Buddhist Jatakas. Even as remote as Zanzibar, Mr. Lang notes, the
folk-tales are told as _cante-fables_. There are even traces in the
Old Testament of such screeds of verse amid the prose narrative, as
in the story of Lamech or that of Balaam. All this suggests that this is a
very early and common form of narrative.

Among folk-tales there are still many traces of the _cante-
fable_. Thus, in Grimm's collection, verses occur in Nos. 1, 5, 11,
12, 13, 15, 19, 21, 24, 28, 30, 36, 38_a_, _b_, 39_a_, 40, 45, 46, 47,
out of the first fifty tales, 36 per cent. Of Chambers' twenty-one
folk-tales, in the _Popular Rhymes of Scotland_ only five are
without interspersed verses. Of the forty-three tales contained in this
volume, three (ix., xxix., xxxiii.) are derived from ballads and do not
therefore count in the present connection. Of the remaining forty, i.,
iii., vii., xvi., xix., xxi., xxiii., xxv., xxxi., xxxv., xxxviii., xli.
(made up from verses), xliii., contain rhymed lines, while
xiv., xxii., xxvi., and xxxvii., contain "survivals" of rhymes ("let
me come in--chinny chin-chin"; "once again ... come to Spain;"
"it is not so--should be so"; "and his lady, him behind"); and x.
and xxxii. are rhythmical if not rhyming. As most of the remainder
are drolls, which have probably a different origin, there seems to