Note 25 — Chapter VIII · Conclusion.

From Semitic lands, if it was indeed there made, the compound seems to have travelled into Europe as well as into other parts of Asia.25 It has spread during the intervening centuries throughout the length and breadth of Europe, always remaining a genuinely popular tale. As far as my knowledge goes, it did not appear in literature from the time when the Hebrew book of Tobit was written till Peele’s Old Wives’ Tale was presented some fifteen centuries later on the English stage. In the nineteenth century it again appeared to the reading public in the version which the Dane Andersen made from a Norse folk-tale. Yet the story in all versions of the compound extant is unmistakably the same, though it has suffered more changes in detail than would be worth while to enumerate here, since they have already been noted in the chapter dealing with the type. The most important modification which it sustained was due to its meeting The Lady and the Monster and absorbing elements of that tale. How early this took place it is impossible to say, since George Peele’s play is the only literary monument that helps to fix any date. A considerable stretch of time must, however, be allowed for the passage of a folk-tale from the extreme east of Europe to England. That the secondary combination was indeed made in eastern Europe admits of definite proof. All the known variants of The Grateful Dead + The Poison Maiden from the west have The Lady and the Monster as well, while three Slavic east-European versions26 are of this type. It follows that the compound must have been formed in the east and carried to the west, since otherwise the distribution should be precisely the opposite of that which obtains. Moreover, had the compound been made in Asia, it is improbable that it would have left such a comparatively feeble trace in the eastern part of the continent of Europe and later have conquered all the west. Other combinations, primary and secondary, have also arisen; but, if the collection of variants hitherto made is at all adequate, they are of inconsiderable importance.