西曆2017年11月16日(木) 印度の釋尊の前世物語とGrimm童話

>インドに釈尊の前世物語というのがあるのです。釈尊が現世に釈迦として生まれたのは前世に自分の身を犠牲にしてまで他者を救った菩薩の行いがあったからだ、という話で全部で547話あると言われています。そこでお訊きしたいのは、この前世物語（梵 जातक; 英 Jātaka）がグリム童話やイソップ物語、はたまた『千夜一夜物語』（Arabian Nights）にも影響を与えているとインド側の研究資料に書かれているのです。ところが、実際にグリムのどの話と Jātaka のどの話が影響しているのか、書いてあるものが見つかりません。グリム童話からの何か資料がないかと思いまして、ちょっと考えて頂けないでしょうか。

グリム兄弟に関しては、英文よりも独文で探すのが手っ取り早いと思われます。

まず、グーグルブックス（Google Books）に使えそうな資料（ https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=wh228bd8KNQC&pg=PR374&dq=Bruder+Grimm+Einfluss+Buddha+Indien?&hl=ja&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWhInY88DXAhWLTrwKHfPfBqoQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=Bruder%20Grimm%20Einfluss%20Buddha%20Indien%3F&f=false ）を見つけました。著作権（Copyright）の奥付は、2005/2006/2007となっています。著者名は、Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen （英訳 Academy of Sciences, Göttingen; 和訳 ゲッティンゲン学術アカデミー）で、本の題名は Schinden, Schinder—Sublimierung （英訳 Flaying, Slave Driver—Sublimation; 和訳 『酷使、奴隷監督 — 昇華』）ですが、ドイツ語の言葉遊びが英訳や和訳では生きてきません。該当する章の名は、Singhalesisches Erzählgut （英訳 Sinhalese narrative material; 和訳 シンハラ語の語りの素材）となっています。

次にウィキソース（Wikisource）のドイツ語版から使えそうな資料（ https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Leitfaden_der_vergleichenden_M%C3%A4rchenforschung/Ursprung_der_M%C3%A4rchen ）を見つけました。1913年にフィンランド人のアンッティ・アールネ（Antti Aarne, 1867-1925）がフィンランド（帝政ロシア支配下のフィンランド公国）で刊行した著書 『比較メルヘン研究への手引き』ですが、中身はフィンランド語ではなくドイツ語です。著者の歿年から考えると、既に1996年元旦から著作権フリーです。

グーグル翻訳（Google Translate）で機械的に英訳してみましたが、誤訳だらけです。取り敢えず「パッと見」で明らかに可笑しな箇所は手で直しましたが、それでもまだまだ誤訳が多々あります。

とは言え、全体的なイメージを摑んでいただくために、その間違いだらけの英文を敢えて下記に全文引用します。暇な時に訳の改良を試みる積りです。[追記] ドイツ語原文を参照しながら本文全42段落及び脚注の英語を手で直しました。

独文（Original German） Leitfaden der vergleichenden Märchenforschung/Ursprung der Märchen

英訳（Mechanical translation by Google Translate） Guide of Comparative Fairy-Tale Research / Origin of Fairy-Tales

https://translate.google.com/#de/en/Leitfaden%20der%20vergleichenden%20M%C3%A4rchenforschung%2FUrsprung%20der%20M%C3%A4rchen

英訳（Mechanical translation by Google Translate）

第1段落

The question of the origin of the fairy-tales has given the fairy-tale explorers plenty of reason to think. What are the fairy-tales? Where and when did they come from? Where does the occurrence of similar fairy-tales in different countries come from?

第2段落

The answers to these questions seemed particularly difficult for the one who tried first to scientifically investigate the fairy-tales, namely the Grimm Brothers from Germany. Their detailed knowledge of literature and their profound and far-sighted view gave them entirely different ideas about the fairy-tales from those that were commonplace at the time and still predominated in the public, which does not follow the development of scientific research far away from her results. The fairy-tales were thought to be “strange narratives, as conceived by mothers and attendants, to entertain the children. They are light, random creations of a gambling imagination. Anyone can do the same who has this power. But if they are well told, adults can enjoy it, too.” With these words in 1864, the Austrian, J. G. von Hahn[1] described the popular conception.

第3段落

The reason for the fairy-tale research laid the Grimm Brothers by their well-known fairy-tale collection, Children’s and House Fairy-Tales,[2] which appeared in the second decade of the 19th century. Their thoughts on the origin of the fairy-tales have been presented partly in the Notes, which are linked to the collection and elsewhere.

第4段落

The Grimms’ fairy-tale collection differs from the earlier similar collections in that the folk tales should be kept there without deliberate changes in the same form as they came from the mouth of the people. The efforts of the Grimm Brothers to preserve fairy-tales in their folk form derive from the conception they had of fairy-tales. They put the fairy-tales in connection with the old myths. They are, the Brothers said, the last echo of the ancient Aryan myths, thus deriving their first beginnings from the common ancestral home of the Aryan peoples. When the myths changed and transformed over time among the various peoples, and finally fell to pieces, the folktales arose from their remains. So the Grimm Brothers ascribed the fairy-tales first to the Aryan peoples as their property, which is why one can call the line of thought represented by them the Aryan theory. On the common outer limits of the fairy-tales and their relationship Wilhelm Grimm[2] amongst others expresses thus: “The border is marked by the great tribe which is customary to call the Indo-European, and the kinship stretches in ever closer struggles for the dwelling areas of the Germans, for instance, in the same proportion in which we share in the languages of the individual peoples belonging to them and discover something special.” The Grimm Brothers, however, do not entirely deny the migration of the fairy-tales from one country to another; in some cases they even consider it probable that a fairy-tale passed from one people to another and then on the foreign soil firmly rooted.[3]

第5段落

In order to increase the value of the folktales in the eyes of those who did not want to recognize their scientific importance, Jacob Grimm claims to defend the scientific treatment of fairy-tales. In the introduction to Felix Liebrecht’s German translation of Pentamerone,[4] he states: “At present there is no need to apologise for turning to these strange traditions all the seriousness and precision of research and investigation that we have of the language and songs of the people finally let it go again. They may continue to amuse and entertain, as they have for a long time unnoticed, silent; but now they can at the same time claim scientific value, which gives them much more and more general recognition.”

第6段落

The Grimm Brothers’ views on the origin of the fairy-tales gained general recognition. One of their followers was the Austrian, J. G. v. Hahn, who, according to Grimms’ conception, formed the first fairy-tale type system.[5] There were also the well-known orientalist, Max Müller, and Angelo de Gubernatis from Italy, and many others who attempted to explain the emergence of myths and fairy-tales from the point of view of natural phenomena. The following interpretation by André Lefèvre’s about the fairy-tale, “Little Red Riding Hood” gives an idea of ​​the nature of the aforementioned thought:[6] [4] “The red cap is the red of the dawn, and Little Red Riding Hood is the dawn itself. The cake and the pot of butter she brings may point to the sacrificial breads and sacrificed butter. The grandmother is a personification of the old dawn, which is followed by each new one. The Wolf is either the consuming sun or the cloud and the night.” In such an imaginary game, one went so far that scientific gravity began to disappear altogether.

第7段落

It took a long time before Grimms’ views met with more serious resistance. In 1859 in the introduction to the German translation of the Panchatantra on the origin of fairy tales, the researcher of the sacred Sanskrit, Theodor Benfey established a new conception, which liberated the fairy-tales from the mysterious mythical shell given to them by the Grimm Brothers and connected them with literature. According to Benfey, almost all fair- tales come from India, where Buddhism created them—the name being Indian theory—and from there they travelled mainly through the mediation of literature all over the world. Only the animal fairy-tales, which have older representatives in Aesop’s fables than in the Indian ones, have moved in the opposite direction, from Greece to India. In their own way, the Indian fairy tales were so exquisite that they soon supplanted the similar narratives possibly known to the various peoples, and were easily nationalized. Benfey says that the spread of the fairy-tales started in the 10th century, when the Islamic peoples started to get more and more familiar with India, and the Indian collections of narrations began to translate into the Islamic realms of Asia, Africa and Europe, and through them spread to the Christian Occident. After the areas in the east and north, the Indian fairy-tales had begun to wander earlier with the Buddhist[5] literature. The literary distribution conveyed primarily the Persian Tuti-Nameh and the Arabic and most likely the Jewish scriptures.[7]

第8段落

Similar views seem to have been previously known among researchers. This is proved by the following words expressed by Jacob Grimm in the introduction to Felix Liebrecht’s translation of Pentamerone in 1846:[8] “Let the delusion be that the fairy-tales grew up in some favoured place, and thence be carried on an externally demonstrable way or path into the distance. This has already been refuted by careful collections.”

第9段落

Benfey’s opinion gained ground slightly, especially among the fairy-tale explorers who were beginning to emerge. The most notable of his followers are Reinhold Köhler and Em. Cosquin. The former emphasized the importance of the method of treatment that each story sought to trace as far as possible over time, and thought that in this way one would always come to India. The latter went so far that he already considered the existence of the modern Indian parallels sufficient to prove the Indian origin.

第10段落

Against the Benfey’s concept of the emergence of fairy-tales in historical times, among the anthropologists arose another, which had its origins in the earliest times of the peoples. The main representatives of this so-called anthropological theory are the English scholars, E. B. Tylor and especially Andrew Lang. Tylor’s research in the field of human custom and belief had led to the experience that the earliest religious principles, such as the conceptions of the mutual relationship of the body and the soul, of the spirits and the like were the same among all the peoples without being able to speak of the influence of one people on the other. For these reasons, anthropologists conclude: since the primordial way of thinking, belief, and imagination is very similar amongst all the peoples, one can conclude that similar fairy-tales have sprung up independently in different areas. The same mental conditions produce the same products. The coincidence of the fairy-tales amongst various peoples does not necessarily indicate a mutual dependence or borrowing, but it is a result of the repeated emergence of fairy tales.

第11段落

It testifies to the distant view of the Grimm Brothers that even in their time they noticed the possibility of such views. Let us compare with the preceding words the following words taken from the third volume of Children’s and House Fairy-Tales:[9] “But there are conditions so simple and natural that they recur everywhere, as there are thoughts that are like. Therefore, the same or very similar fairy tales could be produced independently of each other in the most different countries: they are comparable to the single words, which also produce unrelated languages ​​by imitation of the natural sounds with little deviation or quite consistent.” However, in the main conception of the Brothers Grimm, their thoughts were less respected.

第12段落

Of these three main directions which have arisen to explain the origin of the fairy-tales, the Grimm Brothers today no longer have much significance to followers of Benfey. Although the one-sided nature of Benfey’s views had to be greatly mitigated,[7] still quite many researchers profess themselves supporters of the latest opposing view from England.

第13段落

Objections have been raised against all these theories.

第14段落

As for Grimm’s views at first, the derivation of the fairy tales from their first origin from the primitive homeland of the Aryan peoples, which they depicted, is in no way sufficient to explain the agreement that exists between the fairy-tales of the various countries. If this correspondence had arisen in this way, it would in no case extend beyond the basic idea or main features of the narrative. Now, however, one often notices similarities even in the most minor circumstances, and the compilation of long, complicated narratives is the same in different countries.

第15段落

Grimm’s views that the fairy-tales belong especially to the Indo-European peoples can no longer be believed in our time. The enormously grown popular folktale supplies and the advanced research have proven irrefutably that the fairy tales belong not only to the Indo-European peoples, but that one can find the same fairy-tales amongst the most diverse peoples. If the Grimm Brothers had had the research resources of our time, their idea of ​​the Indo-Germanism of the fairy-tales would never have arisen. They also partly doubted the permanence of this view, as we can deduce from Wilhelm Grimm’s words:[10] “As certainly as the limit given above now holds, it may be that, if there are other sources, the need for enlargement, for it is with astonishment that one sees in the fairy-tales, which have been made known to the negroes in Borneo and the Tswana tribe,[8] a traveling people in South Africa, an undeniable connection with Germans, while their peculiar conception separates the latter from the former.”

第16段落

The Benfey followers’ theory shows a great progress in that it reduces the conformity of the fairy-tales in different countries on mutual borrowing. According to them, the fairy-tales have a specific birthplace from which they have spread elsewhere. But one obvious mistake is to relocate the homeland of almost all fairy-tales to India. The fact that in ancient times many fairy-tales were known and loved in India does not justify this assumption. Why should we deny the ability of fairy-tale creation in other peoples? The matter became all the more alarming when Benfey gave the animal fairy-tales an exceptional position by deducing them from Greece. Against this it has been rightly noted that it is absurd to attribute to the Greeks the creation of one fairy-tale, but to deny them in other fields. Benfey’s view of the Indian origin of fairy-tales has lost all meaning after research has shown that many fairy-tales have arisen elsewhere apart from India.

第17段落

What was wrong with Benfey once again was the overestimation of literature in spreading the fairy-tales. He was probably led by the wealth of ancient Indian fairy-tale literature, whose counterbalance the folklore fairy-tale material was scarcely known at the time. It is a very natural observation that the older literary existence of Indian fairy-tales does not yet mean that these written arrangements would be the primary source of fairy-tales known in other countries as folktales. The latter have, who knows how long, lived in the mouth of the people.[9] Besides, the research on the individual fairy-tales has established that the popular fairy-tale usually represents an older fairy-tale form other than the Indian or any other literary edits and that the researcher therefore has to pay particular attention to the folktale fairy-tale.

第18段落

Again, as far as anthropological theory is concerned, there is undoubtedly much excitement and theoretical thought, and in certain fields of research it undoubtedly has great significance, but the question of the origins of the fairy-tales can only be elucidated to a very limited degree. It is possible that among the peoples who live in the natural state, similar thoughts and fantasy images arise. The feeling of the difference between the human and the animal, for example, is so indeterminate that one can put man independently in different regions into a closer relationship with the animal, or even with a lifeless object. He chooses an animal to his wife, one imagines the transition of the soul out of man somewhere, and so on, but from here it is still a long way to the fairy-tales. The fairy-tales are not primitive ideas and phantasies, and the correspondences between the fairy-tales of the different countries are not confined to such a general trait, but extend, as has been said in the discussion of Grimm’s views, on the one hand to details of the narrative, sometimes even on the expression and on the other hand on the whole of the narrative. Such a correspondence cannot have come about as explained by the anthropological view. Let us take a few examples. How could it be that it followed from the similar primitive thinking and imagination of primitive peoples that, for example, in the magic fairy-tales in India as well as in Finland the animals to be killed, cat and dog,[10] are ransomed with money, the rescued serpent escorts her savior to her father to receive the reward, the stone (ring) in that the mouse (rat), as a helper of the cat and the dog, sticks its tail into the mouth of the discounter of the ring, to let it spit out the ring on the ground so that the cat sits on the dog when the water overflows, etc. And how could the compilation of such a complicated narrative be formed several times in the same way? And just as hard to imagine that even shorter stories such as the bear’s fishing with the tail or the catching of the fish by the fox, with all their consistent details, would have been more than once created.

第19段落

In addition to these main directions, I particularly mention the views of Kaarle Krohn, to which he has come through his animal fairy-tale researches. Krohn’s point of view is that fairy-tales are the results of historical times, but he opposes the idea of their diffusion mainly through the mediation of literature, while stressing the great importance of popular folktales and their older existence alongside literary arrangements. As far as the creation of fairy-tales is concerned, he grants their share to the various peoples. “Just as little as our culture”, he says in the preface to the work Man and Fox[12], “is owed solely to one nation and one race, the folktales have arisen from the ingenious activity of a single people. Rather, they are the common property of the whole more or less civilized world[11] acquired through united labour and thus an object of international science.”

第20段落

Krohn’s research based on a rich material and the research method developed by him have substantially clarified the correct understanding of fairy-tales.

第21段落

Many other thoughts have been raised about the origin of the fairy tales and the insoluble question of how to grasp the correspondence between the fairy-tales of the different countries. Especially in later times, when fairy-tale research received more attention, these questions have often been touched. In my opinion, however, the researchers have rarely put forward anything new, for the most part they have only developed and completed different sides of the main views already mentioned. For this reason, I do without a detailed reproduction of the views here and will only focus my attention on a number of more frequently thought-out thoughts.

第22段落

In determining the origin of the fairy-tales, one sometimes assumes that the fairy-tales have not always been as they are today, but that in ancient times only a few fairy-tale trains, so-called fairy-tale motifs, existed arbitrary mixture and connection to the whole, to fairy-tales. This view is reflected in the survey by A. Rittershaus in her introduction to the collection, The New Icelandic Folktales.

第23段落

Such views are derived from inadequate familiarity with the fairy tales. If one started from the premise that at first only narrative motives existed which were then arbitrarily linked, what confusion would be the result? To the fairy-tales, as we know them now, we did not get that way. Superficially, the fairy-tales may seem like a strand of confused yarn, through which it is impossible to penetrate, but the serious researcher soon recognizes them as standing narratives living side by side in the mouth of the people. Although they influence one another, mix and become involved, they soon narrow down the full form, sometimes they expand again, and so on, but one peculiarity of the fairy-tales is that they fluctuate in their individual features and parts, while the stem of the narrative the same remains. This is because from the beginning they have been certain narratives in their composition, whose original form one can locate. And that this is the case, the comparative research based on numerous popular and older literary variants has established irrefutably.

第24段落

Examples of this, as in fairy-tales, apart from the changes of form taking place in their individual parts, the stem of the narrative preserves, gives us all comparative fairy-tale research. The fairy-tale lives one century after another in its main features unchanged. It comes to that, for example, no one can doubt the magic bird fairy-tale derived from popular tradition in the Persian Tutinama (Ṭūṭī-nāmeh, or The Tales of a Parrot) by Nakhshabi (? - 1350) is the same fairy-tale that is present in the various parts of Europe and Asia. Nakhshabi’s Tutinama dates back to the beginning of the 14th century AD. So the 600-year-old life in the mouth of the people has not changed the fairy-tale in its basic parts.

第25段落

Every fairy-tale is thus originally a fixed narrative, which has been written only once at a specific place and time. This thought is one of the basic ideas of fairy-tale research. With those who deny it, one has sometimes come to doubt the possibility[13] of all fairy-tale research, at least where it endeavours to determine the course of the origin of fairy-tales. To this point, A. Rittershaus amongst others emerges. In the aforementioned investigation on the origin of the fairy-tales she expresses here and elsewhere:[13] “When and where these fairy-tales were created is a question we probably will never be able to answer, since their time of origin often goes back to a time when the human spirit cannot penetrate. Especially the fairy-tales with all their wonderful happenings may still be enough in the time when the young humanity was still in the first childhood condition and all nature objects were conceived as animated and animated beings and where the fairy-tales were, as for our children still today, the first form of the stories.”

第26段落

As far as the return of the fairy-tales to the most primitive times of the peoples is concerned, it is obviously wrong. The whole construction of the fairy-tales proves that they have not formed in the most primitive conditions, but are products of the historical period. There are, for example, many occurrences where later terms, cultural animals, etc. are noticed. I mean, of course, the features that originally belonged to the narrative, and not the later additions or the modernisations of an old concept or object which have no meaning here. The later origin of the fairy-tales is proved by the fact that they are not considered to be autochthon amongst the peoples who are at a lower point of view, but come from somewhere else. The Finno-Ugric peoples in Russia, for example, have their fairy-tales from the Russians. The fairy-tales differ in this respect from the sagas. The legends are older[14] than the fairy-tales and all, even the lowest peoples, have created them. “The sagas are altogether much more ancient than the fairy-tales; the legends are artless and simple”, says Friedrich v. d. Leyen.[14]

第27段落

But if the fairy-tales originally derive from historical times, then what are the ways of thinking that point to the primitive times of the peoples, whose occurrence in the fairy-tales nobody can deny?

第28段落

Friedrich v. d. Leyen uttered the following words:[15] “We must strictly distinguish between fairy-tale motifs and fairy-tales in our investigation. Strange as that sounds, the researchers forget and forget this simplest of facts more than any. If one had always remembered them, a whole series of theories and scientific feuds would not have arisen, because these were based largely on the confusion of fairy-tale motifs and fairy-tales.”

第29段落

It is undeniable that those ancient “fairy-tale motifs” made the proper understanding of fairy-tales much more difficult. From the fact that they are remnants from very old times, it does not follow that it is the same with the fairy-tales. Only a few of the fairy-tales belong to these ancient motifs; many others, and most of them, point to later times. The matter is simply that the fairy-tales themselves date from the historical period, but in their composition, inherited concepts and customs were also used from ancient times. It is hardly credible that the author of the fairy-tale even considered these ancient ideas as true, or always meant them seriously in his narrative. The fairy-tales have probably been composed from the very beginning for the most part with the intention of making pleasure, and the view is wrong that in the old days they were taken seriously at first, as is the case among children today and that they would have started to be told later for the sake of pleasure.

第30段落

Some of the friends of the anthropological conception, who, while assigning greater importance to the migration of fairy-tales from one people to another than the founders of the school, try to lessen the value of borrowing by claiming that there are many similarities in which the researchers borrowed have owed their emergence to coincidence. In this sense, A. Forke amongst others in his work The Indian Fairy-Tales (1911) explains that there are many similarities in life which are based on coincidence. There are cases where the thinkers, without knowing each other, have had the same conceptions; a Chinese philosopher and an Indian sage, for example, have had similar conceptions. For example, human lives are expressed in such a way that most of life is filled with childhood, old age, and sleep, and the rest disturbs pain, illness, and anxiety. Accordingly, many similarities have arisen in the fairy-tales; for example, the correspondence in Aesop’s fox fable, wherein the fox, having eaten the heart of the dead stag, tells the lion that the stag had no heart at all, and the tale of the dragon slayer, where the Marshal rescuing as the savior of the King’s daughter asserted that the dragons have no tongue at all—he has cut out the tongues and taken them away—comes from coincidence. It is true that fairy-tales sometimes coincide with random similarities, and Forke's implications may seem correct in theory, but in reality their meaning almost disappears altogether. It is noteworthy that the experienced researcher quite easily[16] distinguishes the coincidental similarities from those derived from borrowings. Individual cases in which the researcher is unaware of the nature of the similarity have very little influence on the main point. And, moreover, it has always to be remembered what has already been made clear that the fairy tales are whole narratives, and when we talk about similarities, they are to be treated as narratives and not as single features or episodes. Every move and every episode originally has its place in a certain fairy-tale, from which they may have occasionally come off, and in that sense they speak of them. And of the similarity that can be felt in all the stories, Forke also says: “Then there is hardly any doubt about a connection.”

第31段落

Where and when the fairy-tales have arisen has to be determined in each case the special investigation. As a critique of Benfey’s views, we saw that India cannot be the home of all fairy-tales, nor is it any other single country. Fairy-tales evidently originated in different regions. That some of them come from India, even the most zealous opponents of Indian theory do not want to deny. A proven thing is also that fairy-tales originated in Europe. The place of origin of fairy-tales, which are found only in Europe, for example, the fairy-tales, “The Animals in the Night Quarter”, “The Three Magic Objects and the Wonderful Fruits”, “Christmas Calendar” (Mt. 500) and others are certainly to be found in our continents. The individuals outside Europe, in America for example, encounter variants, have come across clearly in later times from Europe. Some adventures of the stupid bear and the cunning fox, for example, fishing with the tail have been proven to be northern European in origin.

第32段落

Although fairy-tales have been written in different areas,[17] it is not likely that they have sprung up everywhere. I believe that for the most part they were made in certain places. Some peoples and regions have had special conditions for creating fairy-tales. Such a favourable soil for the creation of fairy-tales has been the Orient, and especially the much-discussed India. My view is that India, to which some have attached almost all importance for the creation of fairy-tales, has a remarkable share in their creation. The richness of ancient Indian fairy-tale literature shows that the fairy-tales were very popular in India. In this regard, it seems very natural that the Indians also wrote fairy-tales. It is wrong to deduce them from Buddhist literature in Benfey’s style, but the popular models on which the written arrangements are based can represent the original forms of the narratives. It should be emphasised, however, that such a question cannot be definitely decided at once. The proportion of different peoples in the fairy-tale creation will only be cleared up when the destinations and the place of origin of each individual fairy-tale have first been determined by special investigations. Reinhold Köhler and others who emphasized together the treatment of individual fairy-tales have pointed the way forward for future research.

第33段落

The excellence of the Eastern fairy-tales is also evident from the fact that, according to them, and through borrowings from the same ones in Europe, it seems that new fairy-tales have been put together which better correspond to the local conditions. One such is the fairy-tale, “The Animals in the Night Quarter”, whose model was the oriental fairy-tale of the household utensils on the journey, as well as the European[18] Fortunatus fairy-tales. Both the main plot and some of the latter’s own features appear in the ancient Eastern folktales.[16]

第34段落

Just as some peoples have had greater requirements for the creation of fairy-tales, so it has apparently behaved with some time epochs. In India, there have probably been special fairy-tale epochs in ancient times. In Europe, the Middle Ages seems to have been one. Future research is likely to prove many of Europe’s fairy tales to be medieval in origin. The superstitious spirit of the Middle Ages, the mystery and the mysticism of the time have been apt to favour the emergence of fairy-tales blending into reality.

第35段落

The individual fairy-tales can therefore be very different according to their age. An Egyptian papyrus finding proves that the fairy-tale of two brothers and their adventures (Mt. 303) in Egypt dates back to 1300 BC. Herodotus from Greece tells the well-known Rhampsinit (Ῥαμψίνιτος = Rhampsínitos) fairy-tales (Mt. 950) as early as the fifth century BC. Other fairy-tales again date from relatively later times. Most of the new fairy-tales are slapstick comedies.

第36段落

The further dissemination of a fairy-tale from its place of origin could take place through the oral narrative and the mediation of the literature. The fact that the fairy-tales spread orally proves undeniably the fact that the fairy-tale stocks of two neighbouring peoples are more similar to each other than those of peoples who live further from each other. Hardly anyone denies the oral spread of the fairy-tales anymore. It is easy to notice the influence of literature in their dissemination.[19] Thus, such well-known books published in various languages, such as Thousand and One Nights and Children’s and Household Tales by the Grimm Brothers have evidently promoted the dissemination and generalization of some fairy-tales. However, the literature did not have a greater significance for the distribution of fairy-tales. Before the invention of the art of printing, their influence must have been utterly insignificant. Recall that the books were very rare in the older days, and that even after the invention of printing, the art of reading was not widespread until long afterwards. In relation to individual fairy tales, research has shown that in the folktale fairy-tale, little or nothing is known about the influence of older literary variants. In recent times, the conditions for the literary distribution of fairy-tales have been much greater, and such has been done to a greater extent than before, though not to the degree that some would expect. A. Ahlström from Sweden has come to the conclusion by his research that in the Swedish fairy-tales until the last century hardly the slightest literary influence is noticeable. When Hyltén-Cavallius and George Stephens performed their great fairy-tale collecting work around 1840, there was almost no trace of Swedish folk literature in the popular folktale treasure. Since the very latest times Ahlström has often noticed records that derive directly or indirectly from books.[17] Mainly to the same result, I believe, the research comes elsewhere.

第37段落

The dissemination of the fairy-tales has taken place through the centuries and still happens primarily through oral communication. Fairy-tales are so easily passed on[20] people, and they do not depend on the diversity of languages. The linguistic boundary stops or at least hinders the migration of the metric products of the national spirit, but it does not hinder the migration of the untied fairy-tale. For the spreading of the fairy-tales only the mutual traffic of the individuals and the peoples is necessary. Just as they pass from one personality to another in one and the same people, so does the closer intercourse between peoples from one people to another. As far as the different occurrences of individual fairy-tales and their wider or narrower circulation area are concerned, this depends in part on the age of the fairy-tale, on its migration time, as well as on its own quality. Because the fairy-tales are used as a means of amusement, it is natural that the entertaining fairy-tales, from which the listeners are more attracted, spread faster than the boring ones. The fairy-tale, “The Animals in the Night Quarter” has evidently become so general through its joyous tone in the various European countries, while the related fairy-tale of the household utensils on the journey had to content itself with a much less significant spread. The attraction of the content also has made the tales of the man who said he came from Paradise (Paris) (Mt. 1540), from the three magic objects and the wonderful fruits and the like the most well-known fairy-tales in Europe.

第38段落

Against the oral distribution of the fairy-tales, it has sometimes been suggested that the same fairy-tale occurs amongst two peoples who live further apart, whereas the people living between them cannot. However, this phenomenon proves nothing in terms of the distribution of fairy-tales, because it is almost always based on the lack of collections and has become increasingly rare[21] with the progress of the collective work. It is also possible in individual cases that the fairy-tale has been forgotten by the intervening people.

第39段落

When one speaks of the spread of fairy-tales, the historical migrations are often taken as testimonies. A great importance is maintained, for example, attributed to the well-known Mongol invasion of Russia, where they stayed for a long time. It is natural that such events could convey the transmission of fairy-tales from people to people. On the other hand, if one takes into account the great ease in the journey of the fairy-tales, I believe that the migrations of the peoples should be used with caution as testimonies. This is particularly true when they have been going on in the old days, for the fairy-tales have had time to wander by themselves long distances from mouth to mouth over the centuries, and besides, it is usually difficult for the researcher to determine what kind of fairy-tales the migrating people knew at the beginning of their wandering in each case in question, but what is necessary can have evidential value before the relocation. More important are the later similar phenomena. Thus, with reference to the Finnish fairy-tales, time provisions were obtained through the relocation of Savonians to Sweden around 1600, especially to the Värmland countryside, where they settled.

第40段落

The fairy-tales form a layer of narratives, wandering from one place to another, surviving in the memory of the people. It is formed by the individual narratives which have arisen in different places and at different times, and are comparable to literature in their style. Originally, the fairy-tales evidently all belonged to the Old World,[22] although they could be known partly through transference outside of it. Their easy migration derives from their timeless nature, which makes them adaptable and welcomed everywhere. New fairy-tales may still arise, though the imagination of the people is generally limited; it very seldom creates anything completely new in our time.[ここまで英文を手で修正]

第41段落

The fairy-tales have their own content, which is quite different from that of the other folk poetry. Rarely have they and the other products of folk poetry mixed together. There are individual cases in which a fairy-tale motif appears as a local and time-bound legend or as a song in a bound form. A storyteller can sometimes beautify his story with a spell. It is also not impossible to encounter a puzzle associated with the fairy-tale. In some fairy-tales, guessing the riddle forms an essential part of the narrative. All these are exceptions. In the study of fairy-tales, more attention only deserves the occurrence of fairy-tale motives in the old folk epics.

第42段落

One has often wanted to unite fairy-tale research as a minor matter with any other field of research. This has been done from the very beginning of research and still does today. The friends of the Grimm school are mostly mythologists and linguists who have been literary historians of the Benfey school and anthropologists of the English school. Therefore, many have derived from the one-sidedness and errors that have occurred in the research of fairy-tales. The fairy-tales are a special field of research with their own content and research methods, and they have to be studied independently, taking into account, of course, the relationship of the research field to some other related sciences.

Footnotes

1. Hahn v., J. G., Greek and Albanian Tales I (1864), Introduction p.1.

2. Grimm, KHM (Reclam) III p.435.

3. Grimm, KHM (Reklam) III p.428.

4. Liebrecht, Pent. (1846) I page VIII; in H. Floerke’s New Adaptation (1909) page IX.

5. Hahn v., J. G., Greek and Albanian Tales I (1864), Introduction.

6. Martens, Charles, The Origin of Popular Tales (1894) p.27 & Forke, A., The Indian Fairy-Tales (1911) p.24.

7. Benfey, Th., Panchatantra I (1859), Preface XXI ff.

8. Liebrecht, Pent. (1846) I page IX; in H. Floerke’s New Adaptation (1909) page X.

9. Grimm, KHM (Reclam) III p.427.

10. Grimm, KHM (Reclam) III p.435.

11. Krohn, K., Bear (Wolf) & Fox, A Nordic Animal Fairy-Tale Chain (Journal of the Finno-Ugric Society VI 1889), & Man and Fox (1891).

12. Krohn, K., Man and Fox p.10.

13. Rittershaus, A., The New Icelandic Folktales (1902) page XLIII.

14. Leyen, F. v. d., The Fairy-Tale (1911) p.75.

15. Ders. p.27.

16. Memoirs of the Finno-Ugric Society XXV pp.140–142.

17. Ahlström, A., On the Folk Songs (1895) pp.32-33.