--- title: Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 25 — Indian Fairy Tales · full text with trees description: Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 25, «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: In this particular case we may be doubtful; but in others, again--as the incident of the rat's tail up nose (see Notes on _The Charmed R --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Indian Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/) / Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 25 # Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 25 Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 25 of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs: the whole text, 23 sentences and 701 words. Every sentence has its own page with its syntax tree and pragmatics, parsed by Mova itself. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/1/) — In this particular case we may be doubtful; but in others, again--as the incident of the rat's tail up nose (see Notes on \_The Charmed Ring\_)--there can be little doubt of the Indian origin. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/2/) — And generally, so far as the incidents are marvellous and of true fairy-tale character, the presumption is in favour of India, because of the vitality of animism or metempsychosis in India throughout all historic time. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/3/) — No Hindu would doubt the fact of animals speaking or of men transformed into plants and animals. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/4/) — The European may once have had these beliefs, and may still hold them implicitly as "survivals"; but in the "survival" stage they cannot afford material for artistic creation, and the fact that the higher minds of Europe for the last thousand years have discountenanced these beliefs has not been entirely without influence. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/5/) — Of one thing there is practical certainty: the fairy tales that are common to the Indo-European world were invented once for all in a certain locality, and thence spread to all the countries in culture contact with the original source. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/6/) — The mere fact that contiguous countries have more similarities in their story store than distant ones is sufficient to prove this: indeed, the fact that any single country has spread throughout it a definite set of folk-tales as distinctive as its flora and fauna, is sufficient to prove it. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/7/) — It is equally certain that not all folk-tales have come from one source, for each country has tales peculiar to itself. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/8/) — The question is as to the source of the tales that are common to all European children, and increasing evidence seems to show that this common nucleus is derived from India and India alone. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/9/) — The Hindus have been more successful than others, because of two facts: they have had the appropriate "atmosphere" of metempsychosis, and they have also had spread among the people sufficient literary training and mental grip to invent plots. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/10/) — The Hindu tales have ousted the native European, which undoubtedly existed independently; indeed, many still survive, especially in Celtic lands. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/11/) — Exactly in the same way, Perrault's tales have ousted the older English folk-tales, and it is with the utmost difficulty that one can get true English fairy tales because \_Red Riding Hood\_, \_Cinderella\_, \_Blue Beard\_, \_Puss in Boots\_ and the rest, have survived in the struggle for existence among English folk-tales. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/12/) — So far as Europe has a common store of fairy tales, it owes this to India. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/13/) — I do not wish to be misunderstood. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/14/) — I do not hold with Benfey that all European folk-tales are derived from the Bidpai literature and similar literary products, nor with M. Cosquin that they are all derived from India. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/15/) — The latter scholar has proved that there is a nucleus of stories in every European land which is common to all. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/16/) — I calculate that this includes from 30 to 50 per cent. of the whole, and it is this common stock of Europe that I regard as coming from India mainly at the time of the Crusades, and chiefly by oral transmission. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/17/) — It includes all the beast tales and most of the drolls, but evidence is still lacking about the more serious fairy tales, though it is increasing with every fresh collection of folk-tales in India, the great importance of which is obvious from the above considerations. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/18/) — In the following Notes I give, as on the two previous occasions, the \_source\_ whence I derived the tale, then \_parallels\_, and finally \_remarks\_. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/19/) — For Indian \_parallels\_ I have been able to refer to Major Temple's remarkable Analysis of Indian Folk-tale incidents at the end of \_Wideawake Stories\_ (pp. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/20/) — 386-436), for European ones to my alphabetical List of Incidents, with bibliographical references, in \_Transactions of Folk-Lore Congress\_, 1892, pp. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/21/) — 87-98. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/22/) — My \_remarks\_ have been mainly devoted to tracing the relation between the Indian and the European tales, with the object of showing that the latter have been derived from the former. - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/31/23/) — I have, however, to some extent handicapped myself, as I have avoided giving again the Indian versions of stories already given in \_English Fairy Tales\_ or \_Celtic Fairy Tales\_. - ← previous: [Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/30/) - next →: [I. the Lion and the Crane.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/32/) - ↑ back to [Indian Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7128/)