Soils and national characters differ, but fairy tales are often the same in plot and incidents, if not in style. Most of the 27 tales in this volume of Indian fairy tales are known in the West in some form or other; how can we account for their simultaneous existence in both Europe and Asia? Some have declared that India is the home of the fairy tale, and that all European fairy tales have been brought from thence by crusaders, Mongol missionaries, Gipsies, Jews, traders, and travellers. After all, India is on one branch of the fabled Silk and Spice Routes, over which Europeans and Asians have been travelling for several millennia. We should be prepared, within certain limits, to hold a brief for India. The common fairy stories of the children of Europe, which form a greater part of their stories as a whole, are derived from Indian tales. In particular, the majority of the Drolls, or comic tales and jingles, can be traced without much difficulty back to the Indian peninsula. To...