and, secondly, because a Kashmir story (Knowles' _Folk-tales of
Kashmir_, 241), based on the same main incident, omits the minor
incident of the mallet altogether. The answer to the first objection is
that the Latin rhyme has been attached, in historic times, to the
ancient folk-tale; and to the second objection, that the Kashmir story
preserves the main incident of surrender of property upon reaching old
age, and omits the more savage incident of killing, because the Kashmir
people are in a stage of culture which still allowed of the surrender
of property, but, like the Scandinavians, did not allow of the killing
of the aged. Similarly, an English parallel to this form of the variant
is preserved by De la Pryme in his _Diary_ (Surtees Society), 162. It
must be remembered that the Kashmiris occupy a land which is referred
to by Herodotos (iii. 99-105) as in the possession of people who killed
their aged (_cf._ Latham, _Ethnology of India_, 199); and if my reading
of the evidence is correct, this is also the case of the Highland
peasant.

[109] Dr. Pearson advocates statistical methods in his _Chances of
Death_, ii. 58, 75-77, and shows by examples the value of them.

[110] MacCulloch, _Childhood of Fiction_: "Some of the things which in
these old-world stories form their fascination, have had their origin
in sordid fact and reality" (p. vii).

[111] Buehler, _Laws of Manu_, i.: "In Vedic mythology Manu is the heros
eponymos of the human race and by his nature belongs both to gods and
to men" (p. 57). _Cf._ Burnell and Hopkins, _Ordinances of Manu_, p.
25.

[112] _Early Law and Custom_, 5.

[113] Pausanias, iii. 2(4).

[114] Maine, _Ancient Law_, 4; Grote, _Hist. of Greece_, iii. 101.

[115] Ortolan, _Hist. Roman Law_, 50; Maine, _Early Law and Custom_, 6.

[116] Morris, _Saga Library_, i. p. xxx; Dasent, _Burnt Njal_, i. xlvi.

[117] _Early Law and Custom_, 162.

[118] Manx Society Publications, xviii. 21-22.

[119] Strabo, lib. xv. cap. 1, pp. 709, 717; J. D. Mayne, _Hindu Law
and Usage_, 4, 13.

[120] Mackenzie, _Roman Law_, 11; _cf._ Pais, _Anc. Legends of Roman
Hist._, 139.

[121] Dasent, _Burnt Njal_, i. p. lvii, and Vigfusson and Powell,
_Origines Islandicae_, i. 348.

[122] _Anc. Laws of Ireland_, iv. p. vii.

[123] This appears very strongly in the famous twelfth-century law case
which Longchamp pleaded so successfully. _Rotuli curia Regis_, i. p.
lxii.

[124] _Early Law and Custom_, 9; _cf.