TALES OF THE PUNJAB.*

MRS. STEEL and Mr. Temple have described in the preface to this charming little book how they got the story-tellers of the Punjab,—generally boys,—to give them the various

versions of those popular stories, which in Germany were usually collected by the Brothers Grimm from the mouth of some village grandmother, who was in the habit of relating them to the eager children whom she would assemble round her knee. In India a carpet is spread under a tree not very distant from the place chosen by the visiting Magistrate for

his durbar, but not so near it as to suggest that there is to be

any sort of official authority exerted. Then the village-boys begin to assemble, to nudge each other, and to giggle ; then a few women approach, who always say that they come "to see your honour ; " then you begin to inquire how many witches there are in the village, or what is the best cure for the evil eye ; then conversation gradually begins, and it appears that there is some one present who has the reputation of a story-teller. This is generally a boy, who is brought to the front and begins telling a story. Now a great deal of patience is required, as the story is pretty sure to be a rambling one and of endless length and incoherence. But with patience the best stories of the village are elicited, and by frequent repetitions of the experiment in various places the best versions of these stories are gradually discovered. By enor- mous tact and patience, Mrs. Steel has collected a large number of these popular stories in their most graphic form. She has often been a year or more in arriving at the most effective form which is cm-rent of any of these popular tales, and the patience so displayed has had its effect in making them more coherent and more elaborate than almost any of the older versions.

Mrs. Steel, whose own knowledge of the life of the people is so minute and so vivid, is responsible for the text, and Major R. C. Temple for the notes and comments in this very pretty

and interesting volume of fairy-tales and folk-tales. And the illustrations by Mr. Lockwood Kipling are very lively and vigorous.

One of the characteristics of these tales which will strike the ordinary English reader most, is the great delight felt in

stories of the same general type as "The House that Jack Built" or "Who killed Cock-Robin?" though all of them are more or leas rhythmical, and some of them exhibit a tendency to round off the long string of incidents which are threaded together by a fanciful chain of causation, with a certain gradual change of mood that shows us the • Tales of the Punjab told bu the People. By Flora Annie SteoL With Illus- trations by J. Lockwood Kipling, 0.LE., and Notes by R. 0. Tompla. London Macmillan and 00.

tragi-comic beginning passing into a confessedly comic con- clusion. Such tales are those of "The Sparrow and the Crow," which ends in the victory of the clever but grasping sparrow over the crow after a long series of tenacious but unsuccessful efforts on the crow's part to get righted against the chicanery of the sparrow ; and again, "The Death and Burial of Poor Hen Sparrow," which passes from a mood of mock melancholy into one of jovial merriment at the close of its long series of incidents. This is the most elaborate of the series of this class of tales, and is a very carious illustration of the delight which the people of the Punjab seem to take in such stories as are represented in England by" Who killed Cock-Robin " In the Punjab tales of this class, there is a fancifulness and humour which seems to us to make them a great deal more interesting than our childish strings of incidents of the same class. "The House that Jack Built" and " Cock-Robin " are very inferior in kind to "The Death and Burial of Poor Hen Sparrow."

A still more humorous kind of story is to be found in such tales as "The Jackal and the Iguana," which seems to us almost the best legend of the kind that we have ever read, and as it is short, we may quote it as a very happy specimen of Mrs. Steel's labours. A better and more original satire on the pretensions of an impostor and the tenacious de- termination of one of the weakest of those who see through it, not to be imposed upon, we have never met with in the tales of any country :—

" One moonlight night, a miserable, half-starved jackal, skulking through the village, found a worn-oat pair of shoes in the gutter. They were too tough for him to eat, so, determined to make some use of them, he strung them to his ears like earrings, and, going down to the edge of the pond, gathered all the old bones he could find together, and built a platform with them, plastering it over with mud. Oa this he sat in a dignified attitude, and when any animal came to the pond to drink, he cried out in a loud voice, ' Hi! stop ! You must not taste a drop till you have done homage to me. Se repeat these verses, which I have composed in honour of the occasion

Silver is his dais, plastered o'er with gold;

In his ears are je wels,—some prince I must behold!

Now, as most of the animals were very thirsty, and in a great hurry to drink, they did not care to dispute the matter, but gabbled off the words without a second thought. Even the royal tiger, treating it as a jest, repeated the jackal's rhyme, in consequence of which the latter became quite ceck-a-hoop, and really began to believe he was a personage of great importance. By and by an iguana, or big lizard, came waddling and wheezing down to the water, looking far all the world like Cbaby alligator. Hi ! you there ! ' sang out the jackal ; 'you mustn't drink until you have said— "Silver is his dais, plastered o'er wi h gold;

In his ears are jewels,—some prams I mast behold!"

'Pouf ! pouf ! pouf !' gasped the iguana. Mercy on us, how dry my throat is ! Mightn't I have just a wee sip of water first ? and then I could do justice to your admirable lines ; at present I am as hoarse as a crow By all means ! ' replied the jackal, with a gratified smirk. 'I flatter myself the verses are good, especially when well recited.' So the iguana, nose down into the water, drank away, until the jackal began to think he woul I never leave off, and was quite taken aback when he finally cern 3 to an end of his draught, and began to move away. ' Hi ! hi!' cried the jackal, recovering his presence of mind ; stop a bit and say- " silver is his dais, p'astered o'er with geld;

In his s a. c jewels,—some prince I must behold

—‘ Dear me !' replied the iguana, politely, was very nearly

forgetting ! Let me see—I must try my voice first—Do, re, me, fa, sol, la, si,—that is right! Now, how does it run ? '

'Silver is his dais, plastered o'er wirh gold In his cars are jewels,—some prince I must behold '

repeated the jackal, not observing that the lizard was carefully edging farther and farther away.—' Exactly so,' returned the iguana ; 'I think I could say that !' Whereupon he sang out at the top of his voice- . BOWS make up his dais, with mod it's plastered o'er, Old shoes are his eardrops: a jackal, nothing snore!'

And turning round, he bolted for his hole as hard as he could. The jackal could soar...a ly believe his ears, and sat dumb with a.touishment. Then, rage lending him wings, he flew after the lizard, who, despite his short legs and scanty breath, put his best foot foremost, and Belittled away at a great rate. It was a near rice, however, for just as he popped into his hole, the jackal caught him by the tail, and held on. Then it was a case of 'pull butcher, pull baker,' until the lizard made certain his tail must come off, and the jackal felt as if his front teeth would come out. Still not an inch did either budge, one way or the other, and there they might have remained till the present day, had not the Iguana called out, in his sweetest tones, Friend, I give in! Just leave hold of my tail, will you ? then I can turn round and come out: Whereupon the jackal let go, and the tail disappeared up the bole in a twinkling; while all the reward the jackal got for digging away until his nails were nearly worn out, was hearing the iguana sing softly- . II, nes make up his dal., wi h mod it's pl stered o'er. 0.d shoes are his ear-drops a jackal, na jog a,,e !'

Of the genuine fairy-tales, the most quaintly original are perhaps 'The King who was fried "and "Prince Half-a-Son." The former is a very quaint fairy-tale indeed, concerning a king who allowed himself to be fried and eaten every morning in order that he might give away a hundredweight of gold before his own breakfast, which he eat with all the more appetite apparently for having been previously fried and eaten himself. The way in which the king who wants to outdo him has himself carefully devilled before he is fried, by rubbing on pomegranate and spices before be submits himself to the frying-pan, and the success of his experiment in fascinating the greedy fakir who had eaten fried king so long that his appetite was cloyed with it, but who found a special gusto in eating devilled king, is narrated with curious humour. We are told in the notes that some of the characters of this tale are taken out of the Mahabharata, but we are not told whether the evident scorn for the fakirs which pervades it (and several others of these tales) is also to be found in the MahabluIrata. It is a very curious illustration of the popular discredit into which the pro- fession of holiness is apt to fall. The story of " Half-a-Son,"— that is, the young Prince who is born with only one side to his body, and who grows up in that apparently inconvenient, but (as it proves) very fortunately fractional condition, is quite as quaintly original, and we should like to have heard more about it than we are told in the notes. For the most part, however, the fairy-stories of the Punjab do not differ at all widely in their structure from the fairy-stories of Europe as told by the Brothers Grimm. This volume will be found a great favourite with children.