Many of the tales in this collection appeared either in the _Indian
Antiquary_, the _Calcutta Review_, or the _Legends of the
Punjab_. They were then in the form of literal translations, in
many cases uncouth or even unpresentable to ears polite, in all
scarcely intelligible to the untravelled English reader; for it must
be remembered that, with the exception of the Adventures of Raja
Rasâlu, all these stories are strictly folk-tales passing current
among a people who can neither read nor write, and whose diction is
full of colloquialisms, and, if we choose to call them so,
vulgarisms. It would be manifestly unfair, for instance, to compare
the literary standard of such tales with that of the _Arabian
Nights_, the _Tales of a Parrot_, or similar works. The
manner in which these stories were collected is in itself sufficient
to show how misleading it would be, if, with the intention of giving
the conventional Eastern flavour to the text, it were to be
manipulated into a flowery dignity; and as a description of the
procedure will serve the double purpose of credential and excuse, the
authors give it,--premising that all the stories but three have been
collected by Mrs. F. A. Steel during winter tours through the various
districts of which her husband has been Chief Magistrate.
A carpet is spread under a tree in the vicinity of the spot which the
Magistrate has chosen for his _darbâr_, but far enough away from
bureaucracy to let the village idlers approach it should they feel so
inclined. In a very few minutes, as a rule, some of them begin to
edge up to it, and as they are generally small boys, they commence
nudging each other, whispering, and sniggering. The fancied approach
of a _chuprâsî_, the 'corrupt lictor' of India, who attends at
every _darbâr_, will however cause a sudden stampede; but after a
time these become less and less frequent, the wild beasts, as it were,
becoming tamer. By and by a group of women stop to gaze, and then the
question 'What do you want?' invariably brings the answer 'To see your
honour' (_âp ke darshan âe_). Once the ice is broken, the only
difficulties are, first, to understand your visitors, and secondly, to
get them to go away. When the general conversation is fairly started,
inquiries are made by degrees as to how many witches there are in the
village, or what cures they know for fever and the evil eye,
_etc_. At first these are met by denials expressed in set terms,
but a little patient talk will generally lead to some remarks which
point the villagers' minds in the direction required, till at last,
after many persuasions, some child begins a story, others correct the
details, emulation conquers shyness, and finally the story-teller is
brought to the front with acclamations: for there is always a
story-teller _par excellence_ in every village--generally a boy.
Then comes the need for patience, since in all probability the first
story is one you have heard a hundred times, or else some pointless
and disconnected jumble. At the conclusion of either, however, the
teller must be profusely complimented, in the hopes of eliciting
something more valuable. But it is possible to waste many hours, and
in the end find yourself possessed of nothing save some feeble variant
of a well-known legend, or, what is worse, a compilation of oddments
which have lingered in a faulty memory from half a dozen distinct
stories. After a time, however, the attentive collector is rewarded
by finding that a coherent whole is growing up in his or her mind out
of the shreds and patches heard here and there, and it is delight
indeed when your own dim suspicion that this part of the puzzle fits
into that is confirmed by finding the two incidents preserved side by
side in the mouth of some perfectly unconscious witness. Some of the
tales in this volume have thus been a year or more on the stocks
before they had been heard sufficiently often to make their form
conclusive.
And this accounts for what may be called the greater literary sequence
of these tales over those to be found in many similar collections.
They have been selected carefully with the object of securing a good
story in what appears to be its best form; but they have not been
doctored in any way, not even in the language. That is neither a
transliteration--which would have needed a whole dictionary to be
intelligible--nor a version orientalised to suit English tastes. It
is an attempt to translate one colloquialism by another, and thus to
preserve the aroma of rough ready wit existing side by side with that
perfume of pure poesy which every now and again contrasts so strangely
with the other. Nothing would have been easier than to alter the
style; but to do so would, in the collector's opinion, have robbed the
stories of all human value.
That such has been the deliberate choice may be seen at a glance
through the only story which has a different origin. The Adventures
of Raja Rasâlu was translated from the rough manuscript of a village
accountant; and, being current in a more or less classical form, it
approaches more nearly to the conventional standards of an Indian
tale.
The work has been apportioned between the authors in this way. Mrs.
F. A. Steel is responsible for the text, and Major R. C. Temple for
the annotations.
It is therefore hoped that the form of the book may fulfil the double
intention with which it was written; namely, that the text should
interest children, and at the same time the notes should render it
valuable to those who study Folklore on its scientific side.
F. A. _Steel_
R. C. _Temple_