Chapter X: Munachar and Manachar

_Source_.--I have combined the Irish version given by Dr. Hyde in his _Leabhar Sgeul._, and translated by him for Mr. Yeats' _Irish Folk and Fairy Tales_, and the Scotch version given in Gaelic and English by Campbell, No. viii.

_Parallels_.--Two English versions are given in my _Eng. Fairy Tales_, No. iv., "The Old Woman and her Pig," and xxxiv., "The Cat and the Mouse," where see notes for other variants in these isles. M. Cosquin, in his notes to No. xxxiv., of his _Contes de Lorraine_, t. ii. pp. 35-41, has drawn attention to an astonishing number of parallels scattered through all Europe and the East (_cf._, too, Crane, _Ital. Pop. Tales_, notes, 372-5). One of the earliest allusions to the jingle is in _Don Quixote_, pt. 1, c. xvi.: "Y asi como suele decirse _el gato al rato, et rato a la cuerda, la cuerda al palo_, daba el arriero a Sancho, Sancho a la moza, la moza a el, el ventero a la moza." As I have pointed out, it is used to this day by Bengali women at the end of each folk-tale they recite (L. B. Day, _Folk-Tales of Bengal_, Pref.).

_Remarks_.--Two ingenious suggestions have been made as to the origin of this curious jingle, both connecting it with religious ceremonies: (1) Something very similar occurs in Chaldaic at the end of the Jewish _Hagada_, or domestic ritual for the Passover night. It has, however, been shown that this does not occur in early MSS. or editions, and was only added at the end to amuse the children after the service, and was therefore only a translation or adaptation of a current German form of the jingle; (2) M. Basset, in the _Revue des Traditions populaires_, 1890, t. v. p. 549, has suggested that it is a survival of the old Greek custom at the sacrifice of the Bouphonia for the priest to contend that _he_ had not slain the sacred beast, the axe declares that the handle did it, the handle transfers the guilt further, and so on. This is ingenious, but fails to give any reasonable account of the diffusion of the jingle in countries which have had no historic connection with classical Greece.