then our task is done. It will be sooner done, because they may be
left to speak for themselves, and must stand or fall by their own
words and actions. The tales of all races have a character and manner
of their own. Among the Hindoos the straight stem of the story is
overhung with a network of imagery which reminds one of the parasitic
growth of a tropical forest. Among the Arabs the tale is more
elegant, pointed with a moral, and adorned with tropes and episodes.
Among the Italians it is bright, light, dazzling, and swift. Among
the French we have passed from the woods, and fields, and hills, to
my lady's _boudoir_--rose-pink is the prevailing colour, and the
air is loaded with patchouli and _mille fleurs_. We miss the
song of birds, the modest odour of wild-flowers, and the balmy
fragrance of the pine forest. The Swedes are more stiff, and their
style is more like that of a chronicle than a tale. The Germans are
simple, hearty, and rather comic than humorous; and M. Moe [33] has
well said, that as we read them it is as if we sat and listened to
some elderly woman of the middle class, who recites them with a
clear, full, deep voice. In Scotland the few that have been collected
by Mr Robert Chambers [_Popular Rhymes of Scotland_ (Ed. 1847).]
are as good in tone and keeping as anything of the kind in the whole
range of such popular collections. [34] The wonderful likeness which
is shown between such tales as the 'Red Bull of Norway' in Mr
Chambers' collection, and Katie Woodencloak in these Norse Tales, is
to be accounted for by no theory of the importation of this or that
particular tale in later times from Norway, but by the fact that the
Lowland Scots, among whom these tales were told, were lineal
descendants of Norsemen, who had either seized the country in the
Viking times, or had been driven into it across the Border after the
Norman Conquest.