with their purpose, will not find anything exceptional in
this woman's conduct.[13]

Nor must we overlook the effect of dramatic and pantomimic action. At
first sight action, like that of Messia or the Arab reciter, might seem
to make for freedom in narration. But it may well be questioned if this
be so to any great extent. For in a short time certain attitudes, looks,
and gestures become inseparably wedded, not only in the actor's mind,
but also in the minds of the audience who have grown accustomed to them,
with the passages and the very words to which they are appropriate. The
eye as well as the ear learns what to expect, with results proportioned
to the comparative values of those two senses as avenues of knowledge.
The history of the stage, the observation of our own nurseries, will
show with how much suspicion any innovation on the mode of interpreting
an old favourite is viewed.

To sum up: it would appear that national differences in the manner of
story-telling are for the most part superficial. Whether told by men to
men in the bazaar or the coffee-house of the East, or by old men or
women to children in the sacred recesses of the European home, or by men
to a mixed assembly during the endless nights of the Arctic Circle, or
in the huts of the tropical forest, and notwithstanding the license
often taken by a professional reciter, the endeavour to render to the
audience just that which the speaker has himself received from his
predecessors is paramount. The faithful delivery of the tradition is the
principle underlying all variation of manner; and it is not confined to
any one race or people. It is not denied that changes do take place as
the story passes from one to another. This indeed is the inevitable
result of the play of the two counteracting forces just described--the
conservative tendency and the tendency to variation. It is the condition
of development; it is what makes a science of Folk-tales both necessary
and possible. Nor can it be denied that some changes are voluntary. But
the voluntary changes are rare; and the involuntary changes are only
such as are natural and unavoidable if the story is to continue its
existence in the midst of the ever-shifting social organism of humanity.
The student must, therefore, know something of the habits, the natural
and social surroundings, and the modes of the thought of the people
whose stories he examines. But this known, it is not difficult to
decipher the do