The Siddhi-kur is a strange and mysterious creature! He is so old that
we cannot even guess at his age, and he has traveled so many leagues
from the land that originally produced him that we really do not know
how much of him is as he was, and how much of him has been changed by
time and place. Dusky little boys and girls in faraway India, long,
long ago, were the first to listen to the stories that gathered around
the figure of the Siddhi-kur, tales of wonder and magic which always
ended with the hint of another, even better one to follow. Then from
India, still in the unknown long ago, wandering tribes, or perhaps
occasional single travelers, carried the stories into the highlands of
Tibet. There they grew and flourished, till the Siddhi-kur in his mango
tree, with his clever wit and quaint sense of humor, and the ever
persevering Khan’s Son, became as familiar to Kalmuck and Mongolian
children as St. George and his dragon are to us. Some European
travelers, hearing the tales from the people and realizing their
unusual qualities, their picturesqueness, their fun and adventure,
collected them and brought them home. They were first published in 1866
by a German scholar, Bernhardt Jülg, and it is from his pamphlet,
“Kalmükische Märchen,” and an English translation of the same (“Sagas
from the Far East,” by R. H. Busk, 1873), that I have drawn the
following stories, changing and adapting them freely to suit Occidental
ethics and taste.
I was first moved to put them into book form because of the interest
they aroused in a certain small group of boys and girls to whom I told
them, one hot, happy summer not so very long ago. The element of
repetition, the distinctly human characters, the atmosphere of another
land and strange people, and the romance of quest—these things give to
the Wonder Tales from Tibet the appeal to the childhood of all times
and all races, which is their reason for having lived so long and
traveled so far, and reason, too, for believing they will hold the
interest of our modern American girls and boys.
Eleanore Myers Jewett.