ke, and that it spread, losing its moral (as the rat lost his tail),
to Europe and South Africa? Or are we to suppose that originally the
narrative was a mere _Schwank_, or popular piece of humour, and that the
mild, reflective Hindoo moralised it into a parable or fable? The
question may be argued either way; but the school of Benfey and M.
Cosquin, holding that almost all our stories were invented in India,
should prefer the former alternative.

Now _Puss in Boots_ has this peculiarity, that out of France, or rather
out of the region influenced by Perrault's version of the history, a
moral usually does inform the legend of the Master-Cat, or master-fox,
or master-gazelle, or master-jackal, or master-dog, for each of these
animals is the hero in different countries. Possibly, then, the story
had originally what it sadly lacks in its best-known shape, a moral; and
possibly _Puss in Boots_ was in its primitive shape (like _Toads and
Diamonds_) a novel with a purpose. But where was the novel first
invented?

We are not likely to discover for certain the cradle of the race of the
Master-Cat--the 'cat's cradle' of _Puss in Boots_. But the record of his
achievements is so well worth studying, because the possible area from
which it may have arisen is comparatively limited.

There are many stories known all the world over, such as the major part
of the adventures of _Hop o' My Thumb_, which might have been invented
anywhere, and might have been invented by men in a low state of
savagery. The central idea in _Hop o' My Thumb_, for example, is the
conception of a hero who falls into the hands of cannibals, and by a
trick makes the cannibal slay, and sometimes eat, his own kinsfolk,
mother, or wife, or child, while the hero escapes. This legend is well
known in South Africa, in South Siberia, and in Aberdeenshire; and in
Greece it made part of the Minyan legend of Athamas and Ino, murder
being substituted for cannibalism. Namaquas, in Southern Africa; Eskimo,
in Northern America, and Athenians (as Aeschylus shows in the
_Eumenides_, 244), are as familiar as Maoris, or any of us, with the
ogre's favourite remark, 'I smell the smell of a mortal man.'

Now it is obvious that these ideas--the trick played by the hero on the
cannibal, and the turning of the tables--might occur to the human mind
wherever cannibalism was a customary peril: that is, among any low
savages. It does not matter whether the cannibal is called a _rakshasa_