oots_ in
India. For in the Indian _Puss in Boots_, just as in Perrault's, _there
is no moral at all_, and the notion of gratitude, on either the man's
side or the beast's, is not even suggested.

There could scarcely be a more disappointing discovery than this for the
school of Benfey which derives our fairy tales from Buddhism and India.
First, the tale which we are discussing certainly did not find a place
in the _Pantschatantra_, the _Hitopadesa_, or any other of the early
Indian literary collections of _Maerchen_ which were translated into so
many Western languages. Next, the story does not present itself, for
long, to European students of living Indian folklore. Finally, when puss
_is_ found in India, where the moral element (if it was the original
element, and if its origin was in Buddhist fancy) should be particularly
well preserved, there is not any moral whatever.

The Indian _Puss in Boots_ is called _The Match-making Jackal_, and was
published, seven years after M. Cosquin had failed to find it, in the
Rev. Lal Behari Day's _Folk Tales of Bengal_ (Macmillan). Mr. Day, of
the Hooghly College, is a native gentleman well acquainted with European
folklore. Some of the stories in his collection were told by a Bengali
Christian woman, two by an old Brahman, three by an old barber, two by a
servant of Mr. Day's, and the rest by another old Brahman. Unluckily,
the editor does not say which tales he got from each contributor. It
might therefore be argued that _The Match-making Jackal_ was perhaps
told by the Christian woman, and that she adapted it from _Puss in
Boots_, which she might have heard told by Christians. Mr. Day will be
able to settle this question; but it must be plain to any reader of _The
Match-making Jackal_ that the story, as reported, is too essentially
Hindoo to have been 'adapted' in one generation. It is not impossible
that a literary Scandinavian might have introduced the typically Norse
touches into the Norse _Puss in Boots_, but no illiterate woman of
Bengal could have made Perrault's puss such a thoroughly Oriental jackal
as the beast in the story we are about to relate.

There was once a poor weaver whose ancestors had been wealthy men. The
weaver was all alone in the world, but a neighbouring jackal,
'remembering the grandeur of the weaver's forefathers, had compassion on
him.' This was pure sentiment on the jackal's part; his life had not
been spared, as in some European versions, by the