THE recording and publishing of folktales, the classifying, and the arranging
of them in archives and surveys have demanded the labor of many men
and women of the most varied interests. It is not therefore to be expected
that they have all worked toward a well-defined goal or that they would
agree even in general terms on the end to be attained by their efforts.
Especially divergent in their attitude toward their work are the collectors of
folktales. Some, of course, are anthropologists or trained folklorists, but
perhaps the greater number are teachers, doctors, clergymen, missionaries, or
travelers, who have labored for the mere love of the harvest they were
gathering. They have recognized the worth of these old traditions, have
found them interesting and often beautiful things in themselves, and have
been impelled to recover them before it is too late. They have felt no need
of a remoter reason for their efforts.

But the comparative student of the folktale sees that, in addition to the
intrinsic interest which every story has as a means of entertainment or for
giving aesthetic pleasure, it presents a challenging problem in social history
and at the same time furnishes help toward the solution of that very
problem. The story which the collector has just recorded from the lips of
the old peasant was not original with this aged man but was learned,
perhaps in his youth, from someone else. The teller prides himself in pre-
serving it as an ancient tradition. It is not his, but belongs to his people and
is as much a part of them as any of their customs or beliefs could be. Though
the naïve collector may not realize it, the scholar knows that the folktale
he reads in a book or manuscript has probably had a long life and that
the version before him is merely one of the many, many retellings of the
story in many lands since it was first told and started on its long journey.

But even if a particular telling of a story is no more than one of many
scores or hundreds of variants, it plays its due part when the scholar follows
the urgings of his curiosity and begins to study the tale in its entirety. If

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