All the chief stories that we know so well are to be found in
all times, and in almost all countries. Cinderella, for one, is
told in the language of every country in Europe, and the same
legend is found in the fanciful tales related by the Greek
poets; and still further back, it appears in very ancient Hindu
legends. So, again, does Beauty and the Beast, so does our own
familiar tale of Jack the Giant Killer, so also do a great
number of other fairy stories, each being told in different
countries and in different periods, with so much likeness as to
show that all the versions came from the same source, and yet
with so much difference as to show that none of the versions are
directly copied from each other. Indeed, when we compare the
myths and legends of one country with another, and of one period
with another, we find out how they have come to be so much
alike, and yet in some things so different. We see that there
must have been one origin for all these stories, that they must
have been invented by one people, that this people must have
been afterwards divided, and that each part or division of it
must have brought into its new home the legends once common to
them all, and must have shaped and altered these according, to
the kind of places in which they came to live: those of the
North being sterner and more terrible, those of the South softer
and fuller of light and colour, and adorned with touches of more
delicate fancy. And this, indeed, is really the case. All the
chief stories and legends are alike, because they were first
made by one people; and all the nations in which they are now
told in one form or another tell them because they are all
descended from this one common stock. If you travel amongst
them, or talk to them, or read their history, and learn their
languages, the nations of Europe seem to be altogether unlike