_Source._--Steel-Temple, _Wideawake Stories_, pp. 116-20; first
published in _Indian Antiquary_, xii. p. 170 _seq._
_Parallels._--No less than 94 parallels are given by Prof. K. Krohn in
his elaborate discussion of this fable in his dissertation, _Mann und
Fuchs_, (Helsingfors, 1891), pp. 38-60; to which may be added three
Indian variants, omitted by him, but mentioned by Capt. Temple, _l.
c._, p. 324, in the _Bhâgavata Purâna_, the _Gul Bakâolî_ and _Ind.
Ant._ xii. 177; and a couple more in my _Æsop_, p. 253: add Smeaton,
_Karens_, p. 126.
_Remarks._--Prof. Krohn comes to the conclusion that the majority of
the oral forms of the tale come from literary versions (p. 47),
whereas the _Reynard_ form has only had influence on a single variant.
He reduces the century of variants to three type forms. The first
occurs in two Egyptian versions collected in the present day, as well
as in Petrus Alphonsi in the twelfth century, and the _Fabulæ
Extravagantes_ of the thirteenth or fourteenth: here the ingrate
animal is a crocodile, which asks to be carried away from a river
about to dry up, and there is only one judge. The second is that
current in India and represented by the story in the present
collection: here the judges are three. The third is that current among
Western Europeans, which has spread to S. Africa and N. and S.
America: also three judges. Prof. K. Krohn counts the first the
original form, owing to the single judge and the naturalness of the
opening, by which the critical situation is brought about. The further
question arises, whether this form, though found in Egypt now, is
indigenous there, and if so, how it got to the East. Prof. Krohn
grants the possibility of the Egyptian form having been invented in
India and carried to Egypt, and he allows that the European forms have
been influenced by the Indian. The "Egyptian" form is found in Burmah
(Smeaton, _l. c._, p. 128), as well as the Indian, a fact of which
Prof. K. Krohn was unaware though it turns his whole argument. The
evidence we have of other folk-tales of the beast-epic emanating from
India improves the chances of this also coming from that source. One
thing at least is certain: all these hundred variants come ultimately
from one source. The incident "Inside again" of the _Arabian Nights_
(the Djinn and the bottle) and European tales is also a secondary
derivate.