ssor, R. Koehler. Dr. Polivka's contribution mainly consists in
the collection and collation of the Slavonic variants, which are here
made accessible for the first time. I therefore refer to the volume
henceforth by Dr. Bolte's name. The book is indispensable for the
serious students of the folk-tale, and would have saved me an immense
amount of trouble if I had become acquainted with it earlier.

In thirty-eight or nearly a third of the tales Dr. Bolte gives a
formula, or radicle, summing up the "common form" of the story, and I
am happy to find that in those cases, which occur in the early part of
the present volume, my own formulae, agree with his, though of course
for the purposes of this book I have had to go into more detail. Dr.
Bolte has not as yet expounded any theory of the origin of the Folk
Tale, but, with true scientific caution, judges each case on its
merits. But his whole treatment assumes the organic unity of each
particular formula, and one cannot conceive him regarding the
similarities of the tales as due to similar mental workings of the
folk mind at a particular stage of social development.

Finally, I should perhaps explain that in my selection of typical
folk-tales for the present volume, I have included not only those
which could possibly be traced back to real primitive times and mental
conditions, like the "Cupid and Psyche" formula, but others of more
recent date and composition, provided they have spread throughout
Europe, which is my criterion. For instance "Beauty and the Beast" in
its current shape was composed in the eighteenth century, but has
found its place in the story-store of European children. A couple,
like "Androcles and the Lion" and "Day Dreaming," owe a similar spread
to literary communication even though in the latter case it is the
popular literature of the _Arabian Nights_. These must be regarded as
specimens only of a large class of stories that are found among the
folk and can be traced in the popular mediaeval collections like
Alfonsi's _Disciplina-Clericalis_ or Jacques de Vitry's _Exempla_, not
to speak of the _Fables of Bidpai_ or _The Seven Wise Masters of
Rome_. These form quite a class by themselves and though they have
come to be in many cases Folk-Lore of European spread, they differ in
quality from the ordinary folk-tale which is characterized by its
tendency to variation as it passes from mouth to mouth. Still one has
to recognize that they are now European an