Chapter XIV: Day Dreaming

I have given the story of the barber's fifth brother from the _Arabian Nights_ as another example of the rare instances of tales that have become current among the folk, but which can be definitely traced to literary sources, though possibly, in the far-off past, it was a folk tale arising in the East. The various stages by which the story came into Europe have been traced by Benfey in the introduction to his edition of _Pantschatantra_, Sec. 209, and after him by Max Mueller in his essay "On the Migration of Fables" (_Chips from a German Workshop_, iv., 145-209; it was thus a chip from another German's workshop). It came to Europe before the _Arabian Nights_ and became popular in La Fontaine's fable of Perrette who counted her chickens before they were hatched, as the popular phrase puts it. In such a case one can only give a reproduction of the literary _source_, and it is a problem which of the various forms which appear in the folk books should be chosen. I have selected that from the _Thousand and One Nights_ because I have given elsewhere the story of Perrette (Jacobs, _AEsop's Fables_, No. 45), and did not care to repeat it in this place. I have made my version a sort of composite from those of Mr. Payne and Sir Richard Burton, and have made the few changes necessary to fit the tale to youthful minds. It is from the quasi-literary spread of stories like this that the claim for an Oriental origin of all folk tales has received its chief strength, and it was necessary, therefore, to include one or two of them in _Europa's Fairy Book_ (Androcles is another). But the mode of transmission is quite different and definitely traceable and, for the most part, the tales remain entirely unchanged; whereas, in the true folk tale, the popular story-tellers exercised their choice, modifying incidents and giving local colour.