_Source._--Knowles, _Folk-Tales of Kashmir_, pp. 20-8.
_Parallels._--The incident of the Aiding Animals is frequent in
folk-tales: see bibliographical references, _sub voce_, in my List of
Incidents, _Trans. Folk-Lore Congress_, p. 88; also Knowles, 21,
_n._; and Temple, _Wideawake Stories_, pp. 401, 412. The Magic Ring
is also "common form" in folk-tales; _cf._ Köhler _ap._ Marie de
France, _Lais_, ed. Warncke, p. lxxxiv. And the whole story is to be
found very widely spread from India (_Wideawake Stories_, pp. 196-206)
to England (_Eng. Fairy Tales_, No. xvii, "Jack and his Golden
Snuff-box," _cf._ Notes, _ibid._), the most familiar form of it being
"Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp."
_Remarks._--M. Cosquin has pointed out (_Contes de Lorraine_, p. xi.
_seq._) that the incident of the rat's-tail-up-nose to recover the
ring from the stomach of an ogress, is found among Arabs, Albanians,
Bretons, and Russians. It is impossible to imagine that
incident--occurring in the same series of incidents--to have been
invented more than once, and if that part of the story has been
borrowed from India, there is no reason why the whole of it should not
have arisen in India, and have been spread to the West. The English
variant was derived from an English Gipsy, and suggests the
possibility that for this particular story the medium of transmission
has been the Gipsies. This contains the incident of the loss of the
ring by the faithful animal, which again could not have been
independently invented.