Aryan Jackal, the Mediaeval
Reynard, the Southern Brer Rabbit, and the Weasel of Africa, are near
relations. Dasent said, "In all mythology and tradition there are
natural resemblances, parallelisms, suggested to the senses of each
race by natural objects and everyday events; and these might spring up
spontaneously all over the earth as home-growths, neither derived by
imitation from other tribes, nor from the tradition of a common
stock."

It is probable that all four theories of the origin of fairy tales are
correct and that fairy tales owe their origin not to any one cause but
to all four.

II. THE TRANSMISSION OF FAIRY TALES

Oral transmission. The tale, having originated, may have been
transmitted in many ways: by women compelled to marry into alien
tribes; by slaves from Africa to America; by soldiers returning from
the Crusades; by pilgrims returning from the Holy Land or from Mecca;
by knights gathering at tournaments; by sailors and travelers; and by
commercial exchange between southern Europe and the East--Venice
trading with Egypt and Spain with Syria. Ancient tales of Persia
spread along the Mediterranean shores. In this way the Moors of Spain
learned many a tale which they transmitted to the French. _Jack the
Giant-Killer_ and _Thomas Thumb_, according to Sir Walter Scott,
landed in England from the very same keels and warships which conveyed
Hengist and Horsa and Ebba the Saxon. A recent report of the Bureau of
Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution of the United States
expressed the opinion that the _Uncle Remus Tales_ have an Indian
origin. Slaves had associated with Indian tribes such as the
Cherokees, and had heard the story of the Rabbit who was so clever
that no one could fool him. Gradually the Southern negroes had adopted
the Indian tales and changed them. Joseph Jacobs claims to have found
the original of the "Tar Baby" in the _Jataka Tales_. A tale, once
having originated, could travel as easily as the wind. Certainly a
good type when once hit upon was diffused widely. Sir Walter Scott has
said: "A work of great interest might be compiled from the origin of
popular fiction and the transmission of similar tales from age to age
and from country to country. The mythology of one period would then
appear to pass into the romance of the next century, and that into the
nursery tales of subsequent ages. Such an investigation would show
that these fictions, however wild and childish, possess