Indian Fairy Tales (Contes De Fées Indiens‪)‬

Bilingual English/French Book (Livre bilingue anglais/français)

This book is a representative collection of the Fairy Tales of India. The majority of the tales in this book have been known in the West in some form or other, and the problem arises how to account for their simultaneous existence in farthest West and East. 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, by Mongol missionaries, by Gipsies, by Jews, by traders, by travellers. The question is still before the courts, and one can only deal with it as an advocate. So far as the children of Europe have their fairy stories in common, these—and they form more than a third of the whole—are derived from India. In particular, the majority of the Drolls or comic tales and jingles can be traced, without much difficulty, back to the Indian peninsula.