[Footnote 2: An admirable and full account of this literature was given by M. A. Barth in _Mélusine_, t. iv. No. 12, and t. v. No. 1. See also Table i. of Prof. Rhys-Davids' _Birth Stories_.]
The collection of current Indian folk-tales has been the work of the last quarter of a century, a work, even after what has been achieved, still in its initial stages. The credit of having begun the process is due to Miss Frere, who, while her father was Governor of the Bombay Presidency, took down from the lips of her _ayah_, Anna de Souza, one of a Lingaet family from Goa who had been Christian for three generations, the tales she afterwards published with Mr. Murray in 1868, under the title, "_Old Deccan Days, or, Indian Fairy Legends current in Southern India, collected from oral tradition by M. Frere, with an introduction and notes by Sir Bartle Frere_." Her example was followed by Miss Stokes in her _Indian Fairy Tales_ (London, Ellis & White, 1880), who took down her tales from two _ayahs_ and a _Khitmatgar_, all of them Bengalese--the _ayahs_ Hindus, and the man a Mohammedan. Mr. Ralston introduced the volume with some remarks which dealt too much with sun-myths for present-day taste. Another collection from Bengal was that of Lal Behari Day, a Hindu gentleman, in his _Folk-Tales of Bengal_ (London, Macmillan, 1883). The Panjab and the Kashmir then had their turn: Mrs. Steel collected, and Captain (now Major) Temple edited and annotated, their _Wideawake Stories_ (London, Trübner, 1884), stories capitally told and admirably annotated. Captain Temple increased the value of this collection by a remarkable analysis of all the incidents contained in the two hundred Indian folk-tales collected up to this date. It is not too much to say that this analysis marks an onward step in the scientific study of the folk-tale: there is such a thing, derided as it may be. I have throughout the Notes been able to draw attention to Indian parallels by a simple reference to Major Temple's Analysis.
Major Temple has not alone himself collected: he has been the cause that many others have collected. In the pages of the _Indian Antiquary_, edited by him, there have appeared from time to time folk-tales collected from all parts of India. Some of these have been issued separately. Sets of tales from Southern India, collected by the Pandit Natesa Sastri, have been issued under the title _Folk-Lore of Southern India_, three fascicules of which have been recently re-issued by Mrs. Kingscote under the title, _Tales of the Sun_ (W. H. Allen, 1891): it would have been well if the identity of the two works had been clearly explained. The largest addition to our knowledge of the Indian folk-tale that has been made since _Wideawake Stories_ is that contained in Mr. Knowles' _Folk-Tales of Kashmir_ (Trübner's Oriental Library, 1887), sixty-three stories, some of great length. These, with Mr. Campbell's _Santal Tales_ (1892); Ramaswami Raju's _Indian Fables_ (London, Sonnenschein, n.d.); M. Thornhill, _Indian Fairy Tales_ (London, 1889); and E. J. Robinson, _Tales of S. India_ (1885), together with those contained in books of travel like Thornton's _Bannu_ or Smeaton's _Karens of Burmah_ bring up the list of printed Indian folk-tales to over 350--a respectable total indeed, but a mere drop in the ocean of the stream of stories that must exist in such a huge population as that of India: the Central Provinces in particular are practically unexplored. There are doubtless many collections still unpublished. Col. Lewin has large numbers, besides the few published in his _Lushai Grammar_; and Mr. M. L. Dames has a number of Baluchi tales which I have been privileged to use. Altogether, India now ranks among the best represented countries for printed folk-tales, coming only after Russia (1500), Germany (1200), Italy and France (1000 each.)[3] Counting the ancient with the modern, India has probably some 600 to 700 folk-tales printed and translated in accessible form. There should be enough material to determine the vexed question of the relations between the European and the Indian collections.