d by the
ogre and stolen by the hero, doubtless are by the same maker as the
sandals of Hermes; the goodly sandals, golden, that wax never old
(_Odyssey_, v. 45).

In addition to these shoon, and the shoon of Loki, and the slippers of
Poutraka in the _Kathasaritsagara_ (i. 13), we may name the
seven-leagued boots in the very rare old Italian rhymed _Historia
delliombruno_, a black-letter tract, which contains one of the earliest
representations of these famous articles.

While these main incidents of Hop o' my Thumb are so widely current, the
general idea of a small and tricksy being is found frequently, from the
Hermes of the Homeric Hymn to the Namaqua Heitsi Eibib, the other
_Poucet_, or Tom Thumb, and the Zulu Uhlakanyana. Extraordinary
precocity, even from the day of birth, distinguishes these beings (as
Indra and Hermes) in _myth_. In _Maerchen_ it is rather their smallness
and astuteness than their youth that commands admiration, though they
are often very precocious. The general sense of the humour of 'infant
prodigies' is perhaps the origin of these romances.

For a theory of _Hop o' my Thumb_, in which the forest is the night, the
pebbles and crumbs the stars, the ogre the devouring Sun, the ogre's
daughters 'the seven Vedic sisters,' and so forth, the curious may
consult M. Hyacinthe Husson, M. Andre Lefevre, or M. Frederick Dillaye's
_Contes de Charles Perrault_ (Paris, 1880).

[Footnote 93: _Old Deccan Days._]

[Footnote 94: Theal, p. 113.]

[Footnote 95: The remainder of the story in the _Pentamerone_ is
entirely different. There is no ogre, and there are sea-faring
adventures.]

[Footnote 96: _Eumenides_, 244.]

[Footnote 97: Compare _L'Oiseau Vert_. Cosquin, _Contes de Lorraine_, i.
103.]

[Footnote 98: Theal, p. 93.]

CONCLUSION.

The study of Perrault's tales which we have made serves to illustrate
the problems and difficulties of the subject in general. It has been
seen that similar and analogous _contes_ are found among most peoples,
ancient and modern. When the resemblances are only in detached ideas and
incidents, for example, the introduction of rational and loquacious
beasts, or of magical powers, the difficulty of accounting for the
diffusion of such notions is comparatively slight. All the backward
peoples of the world believe in magic, and in the common nature of men,
beasts, and things. The real problem is to explain the coincidence in
_plot_ of stories found in ancient Eg