PARALLELS IN FOLK-LORE

By P. LE Page Renouf {President)

[Extracted from PSBA, 11, pp. 177-89.]

At the end of his admirable Grammar of the modern Arabic language as spoken in Egypt, the late Spitta-Bey published a series of popular tales, and two or three years later he published a second series of these interesting stories. Four other tales in the same dialect have been published by M. Dulac.

To some persons the chief interest in these publications is philological. To the true student of the Science of Language these authentic specimens of a branch of speech actually in use present the same kind of interest as rare plants do to the botanist.

Others will take more pleasure in the matter than in the form of the stories. They will rejoice in these additions to the existing stock of Folk-lore, they will note the many points of coincidence with the popular tales of other lands, and perhaps look for 'survivals' of ancient ideas. Spitta-Bey himself considered the stories as evidence of the preservation of very ancient conceptions. He specially noted the Egyptian idea of the Scarabaeus as signifying life, as appearing in one of these tales, and in another tale he recognised "a pretty solar myth" as not having yet disappeared from among the descendants of the worshippers of Ra.

It will not, I believe, be uninstructive to examine somewhat closely into the accuracy of this view. I shall therefore select some of the most conspicuous features in Spitta's collection which admit in any way of identification with others in the tales which have come down to us from the Egypt of ancient days.

The Scarabaeus was not, as Spitta-Bey says, a symbol of Life in ancient Egypt, but of going round, turning and Becoming. But it is quite true that the beetle mentioned in the second story of the "Contes Arabes" reminds one of an incident in the 'Tale of the Two Brothers.' So, however, do other things in the same story. The wily Mohammed being in the chamber of the slave, asked her what were he objects suspended under the ceiling. One of them, she told him, was a flask containing the soul or "spirit" of her mistress, the [p.178] female Jinn who had become the wife of Mohammed's father the king, and who had put out his mother's eyes and reduced her to slavery: di'l qizaizi elly fyha 'rruh beta sitty elly 'and elmelik. He afterwards saw a beetle crawling on the wall, and having no doubt very good reasons to suspect the nature of the insect, expressed his intention to kill it, but the slave said, "Stop! do not kill it, for it is my spirit," erga ma-tmaiiihas, ahsan di ruhy. "All right, cousin," he said, but he continued looking at the insect till he saw it get into a crevice in the wall. And when the girl had fallen asleep, he killed it, and the girl died. And this was only the beginning of a series of successful feats. He finally came to the king, and said, "I am thy son, ... the son of the queen whose eyes the Jinn whom thou hast taken to thee has put out." They went up to the Jinn, and showing her the bottle he told her, 'thy life is here in my hand, but 1 shall not kill thee till thou hast restored the eyes of all those thou hast blinded." When she had accomplished this he presented the bottle to her, saying, "take this, here is your soul," ruluk ahyje. In her fright she let the bottle fall from her hand. It broke, her soul escaped and she died.

Here we have the notion which in fiction first meets us in the Tale of the Two Brothers, of a person's life or soul being detached from the body and hidden away at a distance. The person does not appear to suffer in the least from the absence of so essential a part of himself. He becomes, in fact, invulnerable until that vital part be destroyed whilst out of his body.

We shall presently see that this notion was by no means peculiarly Egyptian.

It is not necessary to specify all the places in Spitta's collection where this notion occurs, and in some cases it is impossible to distinguish between it and the notion of a simple transformation, as when in the first tale the wily Mohammed's life (ruh) was first in the bridle of a camel, and afterwards in the grain of a pomegranate.¹

About eighteen years ago² I called the attention of Egyptologists to the coincidence in idea between certain portions of one of the [p.179] Arabian Tales of the Thousand and One Nights and of the Tale of the Two Brothers. In the former story the younger brother Batau conceals his heart in the flower of a tree, and afterwards confides the secret to a woman by whom it is betrayed to her royal lover. On the tree being cut down the heart is thrown upon the ground, and Batau falls dead at the same moment. In the Arabian (or perhaps Persian) tale, Seifelmoluk, the hero of the story, offers to destroy a Jinn who had carried off a lady and detained her in captivity. But the lady says, "You cannot kill him unless you destroy his spirit or soul,"' ruh. She had many times asked him to tell her where it was deposited, till at last prevailed upon by her treacherous assurances of interest, he told her that in consequence of sinister predictions he had taken his spirit and placed it in the crop of a sparrow. This sparrow he put into a little box, and this again into another box, which was put into seven other small boxes, and these were shut up in seven chests enclosed within an alabaster vase sunk by the shore of a sea inaccessible to man. But these precautions were, of course, useless. By the help of the seal of Solomon's ring Seifelmoluk evoked the spirit of the Jinn, the sea was violently agitated, the alabaster vase came forth and was shattered by the prince upon the rocks. The chests and boxes were broken, each in its turn, and when the sparrow was strangled, the Jinn fell to the earth, a heap of ashes.

I pointed out at the time that the Arabic [Arabic], which etymologically signifies wind, breath, and has the derived meanings of spirit, soul and self might be taken as a fair equivalent of the Egyptian [glyphs] which was considered as the receptacle and organ of the breaths of life, as the seat of sense and thought, and in certain contexts as the personal self.

It must not, however, be supposed that the Arabic story is more closely connected with the ancient Egyptian one than are numberless tales in all parts of the world. I begin with the neighbourhood of the White Sea.

In one of the tales translated by Castren³ from the Samoyede, seven brothers are in the habit of putting away their hearts before retiring to rest. Their sister used to take a dish and each brother in turn placed his heart upon it. The sister then hung each heart upon a pole, where it remained during the night. The man whose [p.180] mother they had slain obtains possession of the seven hearts, and by dashing them upon the ground kills the seven brothers.

The Heldensagen of the Tatars, also translated by Castren and versified by Schiefner,⁴ are full of the same idea. The soul of Bulat dwells as a little bird with nine others in a box, the brothers Molab Djurek, and Timir Djurek change their souls into a white plant with six stalks, the soul of Alten Kok's son is kept in a golden box. Ai-kyn's soul was not in his body,⁵ but concealed in a serpent of twelve heads, which remained in a sack on the back of his horse, and it was only through the destruction of the serpent that Ai-kyn could lose his life.

In the Norse story of the "Giant who had no heart,"⁶ the Princess is held captive by a monster from whom she extracted the secret about his heart. He had repeatedly mis-informed her on the subject, but at last in a moment of misplaced confidence he told her, "Far, far aw^ay in a lake lies an island, on that island stands a church, in that church there is a well, in that well swims a duck, and in the egg—well there is my heart." The hero of the story, of course, succeeds in obtaining possession of the egg, and when it was squeezed flat between his hands the giant burst.

The same story occurs in various forms in the Russian tales about Koshchei the Deathless.⁷ "My death" he said to the mother of Prince Ivan, "is in such and such a place. There stands an oak, and under the oak is a casket, and in the casket is a hare, and in the hare is a duck, and in the duck is an egg, and in the egg is my death." Prince Ivan went forth to look for Koshchei's death, and having at last secured the egg, smashed it, and Koshchei the Deathless died.

"In another variant," Mr. Ralston⁸ says, " Koshchei attempts to deceive his fair captive, pretending that his 'death' resides in a besom, or in a fence, both of which she adorns with gold in token of her love. Then he confesses that his 'death' really lies in an egg, inside a duck, inside a log which is floating on the sea. Prince Ivan gets hold of the egg and shifts it from one hand to the other. Koshchei rushes wildly from side to side of the room. At last the Prince breaks the egg, Koshchei falls on the floor and dies."

[p181]

"Witch!" cried the hero of a Transylvanian tale,⁹ "give me back my eleven brothers, or I will shoot you!" But the witch laughed loud and said to him, "Shoot away, you silly earth-worm, as long as you like, that can do me no harm; for know that my life dwells not in me, but far, far away in a mountain is a pond, and on that pond there swims a duck, and in that duck there is an egg, and in that egg there burneth a light, which is my life; if you could extinguish that light my life would be at an end."

"Six miles away from this place," said the Rakshas, in the Indian tale of the Brave Heralalbasa,¹⁰ "is a tree. Round the tree are tigers and bears and scorpions and snakes; on the top of the tree is a very great fat snake; on his head is a little cage; in the cage is a bird; and my soul is in that bird."

"No one can kill my father," the demon's daughter said to the hero of another Indian story.¹¹ "Why not?" said the boy. " Listen," she answered; "on the other side of the sea there is a great tree, in that tree is a nest, in the nest is a maina. If any one kills that maina, then only will my father die."

A Lapland Giant, in a tale published by M. V. Palumbo,¹² confides to a lady the fact that in the midst of a sea of flame there is an island, in that island there is a barrel, in that barrel there is a sheep, in the sheep there is a hen, in the hen an egg, "and in that egg is my life." The hero obtained possession of the egg, and threw it into the fire, and as it was consumed so was the giant's life. His last words were, "What folly was mine to entrust the secret of my life to a woman!"

Stories like this abound in Hungarian, Servian, German, Greek, Italian, and Sicilian.¹³ In the Gaelic tale of the Sea Maiden, the great beast with three heads which haunts the loch cannot be killed until an egg is broken, which is in the mouth of a trout, which springs out of a crow, which flies out of a bird living on an island in the middle of a loch. But this is not the only tale of the kind in Mr. Campbell's collection. In the very first, 'The Young King of [p.182] Ensaidh Ruadh,' "the queen caught the egg, and she crushed it between her two hands. The giant was coming in the lateness, and when she crushed the egg, he fell down dead."¹⁴

In all these stories, and numberless others, the fundamental notion is the same—a person's life depends upon something external to his body. In the oldest narratives, such as the Tale of the Two Brothers, or the Greek tale of Meleager, the sufferer excites interest. In the more recent narratives the victim is generally the fiendish obstacle to the hero's happiness. And round the fundamental notion others have accumulated. The object upon which the life depends is concealed in a series of objects, one within the other. And the hero is assisted in his search by various animals, to each of which he has rendered some service. There is no trace in antiquity, as far as I am aware, of the latter feature of these stories. But the Egyptian Tale of Setna contains the first specimen of the complicated system of concealment. The object concealed is a magic book.

Neferkaptah in this tale fought with a serpent and killed it over and over again, with as little success as Herakles in his first encounter with the heads of the Hydra, but at last he cut it in two, and prevented the reunion of the parts by putting sand between them. He then looked after the box, which was of iron. He opened it and found a coffer of bronze. This contained a coffer of sycamore wood, in which was a coffer of ebon and ivory. This contained a coffer of silver, and in this a coffer of gold containing the magic book.

The tale in which Spitta Bey see a solar myth, which has come from ancient times, is that of Arab-Zandyq.

A king and his Wezyr once went out by night and heard the conversation of some females, each of whom said what she would do in case the king married her. The king sent for them next day, and married them. In due time, the youngest was brought to bed of a boy and a girl exactly corresponding to the predictions she had uttered, and which the king had overheard, before her marriage. But the midwife was bribed by the king's other wife to substitute for the babes a couple of blind puppies, and to declare that the young queen had given birth to them. The babes were put into a box and thrown into the river, from which they were rescued and adopted by [p.183] a fisherman and his wife. Their mother was disgraced, daubed with tar and fastened to the staircase, where she was spat upon by every one who went up or came down.

It is hardly necessary to say that the innocent queen and her two children triumph in the end, and are recognised by the king, whilst the wicked queen and the midwife are punished as they deserved.

The readers of the "Contes des Fees" of Madame d'Aulnoy will at once recognize some of the incidents which occur in the story of La Princesse Belle Etoile. They will also be found in several German stories of Grimm's collection,¹⁵ and in the household tales of many other lands. Of these tales two are particularly noteworthy. The first is Wallachian.¹⁶

A woman gave birth to a couple of 'golden' twins. Her maid, who desired to become the mistress, killed the children, gave out that a pup was the offspring of the unfortunate lady, and thus caused her to be put away. But from the grave of the murdered children two trees sprung which produced golden apples. The wicked woman had the trees cut down, but a sheep which had fed upon the fruit produced golden lambs. The lambs were slaughtered, but out of their entrails, carried off by the stream, the children once more appeared, who sought out their mother, brought her to their father's house, and unmasked the murderess.

But for the Egyptologists the Transylvanian form of the story¹⁷ is far more striking.

The king as he passed heard two girls talking. One said what she would do if he took her to wife, and the other what she would do if he took her as a cook. He took them at their word, married the younger and made a cook of the elder. All went on smoothly for a time, but envy at last took possession of the cook. The queen was brought to bed of two lovely babes, a boy and a girl with golden hair. The wicked cook, who had succeeded in removing every one out of the way, buried the babes, and substituted for them a new born pup and a kitten. These were drowned by the king's order, and his wife was buried alive. And he afterwards married the cook.

[p.184] But from the soil in which the babes had been interred, there sprung two golden fir trees, much to the delight of the king, but to the annoyance and terror of the wicked woman. And at her request the king sorrowfully gave orders that planks should be made out of the trees for the royal bridal bed. But during the night the planks begun to talk about their father and their wicked stepmother. The king slept so soundly that he heard nothing, but his wife next morning most earnestly requested him to have the planks burnt. The oven was heated and the planks thrown in and burnt, but two sparks from them fell unmarked into some barley which was given to the sheep. A sheep swallowed the two sparks, and gave birth to two lambs with golden wool. The king was greatly delighted; not so the queen—who fell sick with grief, and declared that nothing could cure her but eating the hearts of the lambs. The lambs were slaughtered, and their hearts brought to the queen. The entrails had been thrown into the river, but two bits were carried to land, and out of them grew two children with golden hair, so lovely that the sun stood still for seven days in admiration. They came at last to the king, and all things were brought to light. The wicked one was punished, and the innocent queen brought back to life and happiness.

Here we are directly reminded of the Tale of the Two Brothers. The wicked wife of Batau asked the king to eat the liver of the splendid bull in whom she recognized the man whose death she had brought about. The animal while dying spurted two drops of blood at the steps of the palace door, and from these drops, during the night, there sprung two noble persea trees, one on each side of the staircase. The wicked woman then asked that these fine trees should be cut down for planks. But whilst she stood looking at the operation a chip flew from one of the trees and entered her mouth. The child of whom she was in due time delivered, and who grew up in time to be his own avenger, was no other than her injured husband Batau.

In the Hungarian story of Eisen Laczi,¹⁸ the hero changes himself into a horse, and the wife of the Twelve-headed Dragon declares that she will die if she does not eat the liver of that horse. The horse was killed, but from two drops of his blood which were thrown into the Dragon's garden there sprung a tree with golden apples.

[p.185] The Dragon's wife insisted that she was sure to die unless her breakfast were cooked with the wood of that tree. The tree was felled, but two chips from it were thrown into the Dragon's pond, in which next day a gold-fish was swimming. This gold-fish was Eisen Laczi, whose further adventures have nothing in common with those of Batau except the final triumph.

I now pass on to another set of parallels. In one of the stories published by Spitta, a girl at the instigation of a wicked old hag sends her three brothers, one after the other, in the perilous search for "the Singing Bulbul." The eldest brother at his departure gave his rosary to the brother next in age to him, saying that in case of his being slain by the bulbul the rosary would contract itself upon the hand; a prediction which was verified by the event. The second brother on starting for the purpose of recovering his elder, gave his ring to the youngest, telling him that it would tighten upon the finger in the event of his death. The youngest brother in his turn gave his mother a rose which would fade if he should die.

In the life of the Coptic saint Shnudi, written by his disciple Visa, Mar Thomas tells Shnudi that his own death would be announced to the latter by the breaking in two of the stone upon which Shnudi used to sit and meditate. M. Amelineau who has edited this biography, sees in this anecdote a proof that Visa knew the Tale of the Two Brothers, and had imitated it in this place with reference to the sign by which the elder brother should know the death of Batau. But was the Tale of the Two Brothers known to those who wrote the legend of St. Elizabeth of Hungary? Was it known in every part of the old and of the new world?

"There is in the popular traditions of Central America the story of two brothers who, starting on their dangerous journey to the land of Xibalba, where their father had perished, plant each a cone in the middle of their grandmother's house; that she may know by its flourishing or withering whether they are alive or dead. Exactly the same conception occurs in Grimm's Märchen. When the two gold-children wish to see the world and to leave their father, and when their father is sad and asks them how he shall have news of them, they tell him, 'We leave you the two golden lilies; from them you can see how we fare. If they are fresh, we are well; if they fade, we are ill; if they fall we are dead.' Grimm traces the same idea in Indian stories."¹⁹

[p.186] Grimm would have found the idea in the Highland tale of the Sea Maiden. Three trees grew behind the fisherman's house, and they were a sign that " when one of the sons dies, one of the trees will wither."

In the Katha Sarit Sagara a jealous lady, Davasmita, and her husband performed a vow together and slept in the temple of Siva. "The god appeared to them in a vision, and giving them each a red lotus he said to them, 'take each of you one of these lotuses in your hand. And if either of you shall be unfaithful during your separation, the lotus in the hand of the other shall fade, but not otherwise.'"

The late Professor H. H. Wilson²⁰ in reference to this tale pointed out several parallels in European romance. In Perceforest the lily is replaced by a rose. In Amadis de Gaula a garland blooms on the head of the faithful lover and fades on that of the inconstant one. The fiction also, he shows, occurs in the romances of Tristan, Perceval, and the Morte d'Arthur, besides many others.

The closest resemblance to the ancient Egyptian tale is found in one of the Servian stories.²¹ A fisherman has two boys, twins, and one of them, when on the point of starting on his adventures, after taking leave of his father, turns to his brother, and presents him with a flask full of water which he is always to have with him, and when he perceives that the water becomes troubled, death will have befallen the speaker.²²

It is unnecessary to cite other parallels. It is perfectly true that every incident in the Tale of the Two Brothers has its parallels in one or more of the popular tales current at the present day in Europe or Asia, and such is undoubtedly, the case with the tales published by Spitta Bey and by M. Dulac. But it is not true that any of the modern Egyptian tales or any portion of them can be traced to an [p.187] ancient Egyptian origin. Ancient and modern Egypt have here nothing in common except something which is not specially Egyptian. I can find nothing in Spitta's tales which is not to be traced to stories actually current in Mohammedan lands—Arabia, Persia, and Hindostan. And the evidence of actual borrowing could, if it were worth the while, be easily furnished.

This, however, does not solve the question which is often asked, how the coincidences which are found between the popular tales of the most distant countries are to be accounted for.

I do not believe that the direct solution of the problem is at present possible, but certain considerations may be borne in mind which may prevent us from accepting explanations which are unquestionably erroneous. These considerations are familiar to all who are engaged in historical research.

In what do the coincidences consist? Sometimes a story told in one country is identical in all essential points with a story told elsewhere. But in the great majority of cases the coincidences are limited to one or two striking incidents, and even here the identity is formal rather than material. We recognise the same actors under great differences of costume and scenery. The fisherman or peasant in one story is king or wezir in another. And the combinations in which these personages play a part are innumerable. One story is often really made out of incidents borrowed from ever so many others.

While scientific analysis discovers the separate elements out of which the popular tales are compounded, historical evidence tells of the actual transmission of a large number of them. Sanskrit fables were brought from India to the Persian court of Khosru Nushirwan in the sixth century. These fables were first translated into Pahlavi, and afterwards into Arabic, Greek, Persian, Hebrew, and Latin, and translations of them into the popular languages of Europe were extremely popular in the sixteenth century.

But besides the actual historical evidence of transmission, there is often internal evidence which is not less cogent. The fables of Phaedrus are centuries older than the time of Khosru, and yet are identical with Eastern fables. The eastern and western fables are not independent creations. There has certainly been transmission though we have no historical account of it. When we find the fable of The Head and Members in an Egyptian document anterior to the time of King Solomon, we may wonder how it came to the Romans [p.188] and was ascribed to Menenius Agrippa. But the fable was not twice invented, though it may have been repeated in ever so many forms.

It is a most unwarrantable thing to assume tacitly, as is often done, that these popular tales are all of extreme antiquity. Some of them are demonstrably ancient, but most of them may be only one or two hundred years old, or at all events of so recent a date that their transmission from one country to another is easily explained by the intercourse between all nations since the time of the Crusades. A popular tale, or those portions of it which excite most interest, will travel with speed to the farthest limits of its own country, and every country borders upon some other country. Those who live on the two sides of the border, even when most hostile to each other, are in constant communication, and are just the people who enjoy popular tales.

But, besides this, three well authenticated means of transmission are known to us. The missionaries of Buddhism have carried Indian stories over a great part of Asia. "The legends and fables" we are told, "which the late Professor Schiefner has translated from the Kah-gyur are merely Tibetan versions of Sanskrit writings."²³ The migrations of Jews have for ages carried nursery tales from country to country. And in every part of Europe gypsies have for centuries been actively engaged in propagating folk-lore. It is evident, therefore, that all speculations on the origin of popular tales which take no account of these means of transmission must be hopelessly unscientific.

The stories which are common to many countries are not Germanic or even Indo-Germanic. Every race no doubt had its own stories, and the ancient Indo-European family had stories of its own. But so had other families, and the stories of the different families have been interchanged to such an extent that it is impossible, without the aid of a critical apparatus, which has not yet been discovered, to assign to each story its own origin and date. The local colouring is absolutely delusive. The gods of paganism, the saints of Christendom, the Rakshasas, the Afrites, Jinns and Ghouls, the giants and ogres are in these tales nothing more than dramatic costume. Before these can be cited in evidence, the exact chro- [p.188] nology of certain stories in comparison with all their rivals must be rigorously determined. And those who, before this necessary feat of criticism is performed, would draw inferences about the primitive notions of individual races or mankind in general, would be victims of their own credulity.

To confound Folk-lore with Mythology in the sense which that word has had since K. O. Muller attempted to draw up a scientific theory of it, is nearly as ridiculous as the attempt to derive Religion from Mythology—sunbeams from cucumbers. That popular tales have often made use of materials derived from Mythology or Religion is most certain, but these materials have, through the process to which they have been subjected, become entirely divested of all mythological or religious significance. And those who imagine that their knowledge of Folk-lore entitles them to give authoritative opinions about either Mythology or Religion are ludicrously mistaken.

[It was not till the above paper was completed, that I saw two important and excellent articles, one by the late Dr. Mannhardt, Das altiste Märchen (the Tale of the Two Brothers), in the Zeitschrift fur deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde of 1S59, and the other Un Probleme Historique in the Revue des Questions Historiques of 1877, by M. Emmanuel Cosquin. I ought to have known the latter, because it is referred to and quoted in the introductions to M. Maspero's Contes Egyptiens. But if I had seen it sooner I should hardly have thought of writing my own paper. I have quoted it in one of my notes.]

Remarks were added by Rev. J as. Marshall, Dr. Gaster, Rev. C. J. Ball, Mr. Walter Morrison, M.P., and Mr. Imber.

Thanks were returned for this communication.

NOTES

1 This is really taken from the Tale of the Second Royal Mendicant in the Thousand and One Nights, Vol. I, p. 101. Ed. Calcutta.
2 Zeitschrift. Aegypt. Spr. 1871, f. 136.
3 Ethnologische Vorlesungen uber die Altaischen Volker nebst Samojedischcii Märchen und Tatarischen Heldensagen, p. 174, and following.
4 Heldensagen der Munissinschen Tatarem, p. x.w.
5 Castren, p. 187.
6 Asbjornsen, Round the Yule Log, p. 59.
7 Ralston, Russian Folk-tales, p. 103.
8 Ibid., p. 109
9 Hastrich, Volksmdrchen in Siebenbiirgen, p. 1S8.
10  Indian Fairy Tales, collected and translated by M. Stokes, p. 58.
11 lb., p. 187.
12 Museon I. 414.
13 Majlath, lilagyarische Sagen, Märchen tind Erzdulungeu, II, J45. Karadschitsch, Volksmarchen der Serben, p. 68. Grimm, Kinder- uud Hausmarchen, No. 197. Gonzenbach, Sicilianische Märchen, No. 6.
14 Popular Tales of the West Highlands, vol. I, p. 11.
15 Nos. II, 13, 60, and 96. Roumanian Stories, p. 33 (The Twins with the Golden Star), Gonzenbach, Sicilianische Märchen, No. 5, and the references to Tyrolese and modern Greek sources, Vol. II, p. 206. See also Indian Fairy Tales, No. 20.
16 Schott, Walachische Märchen, p. 332,
17 Haltrich, Volksmarchen ans Sichenhurgen, first story.
18 Majlath, Magyarische Sagen, II, p. 195.
19  M, Muller, Chips, Vol. II, p. 270.
20 Essays on Sanskrit Literature, Vol. I, p. 218.
21 Karadschitcsh, p. 175.
22 M. Cosquin quotes an old French romance, Histoire de Olivier de Castille et d'Artus d'Almrhe, son loyal compagnon. When forced to leave his country, Olivier sends his friend a phial with the following note: "Mon frere pour ce que je ne scay quand je vous reverrai, je vous laisse cette petite fiole de voirre, laquelle est pleine d'eaux clere, comme vous pourrez voir. Si vous pric qu'elle soit tous les jours regardee de vous une fois pour I'amour de moi. Car se j'ai aucune mauvaise adventure, cette eaux qui dedans est se changera et dcviendra couleur noire, qui sera signe de mon despaisir," &c.
23 Mr. Ralston's Introduction (p. viii) to Tibetan Tales, translated from the Tibetan of the Kah-gyur by Y. Anton von Schiefner.