Truebner and Co.), a work
which must prove invaluable to every English student of comparative
folk-lore.
[13] Siva's paradise, according to Hindu mythology, is on Mount Kailasa,
in the Himalyas, north of Manasa.
[14] Tawney's translation, which is used throughout this work.
CHAPTER III.
GOTHAMITE DROLLERIES (_continued_).
The Schildburgers, it has been already remarked, are the Gothamites of
Germany, and the stories of their stupidity, after being orally current
for years among the people, were collected near the close of the
sixteenth century, the earliest known edition being that of 1597. In a
most lively and entertaining article on "Early German Comic Romances"
(_Foreign Quarterly Review_, No. 40, 1837), the late Mr. W.J. Thoms
has furnished an account of the exploits of the Schildburgers, from
which the following particulars and tales are extracted: "There have
been few happier ideas than that of making these simpletons descend from
one of the wise men of Greece, and representing them as originally
gifted with such extraordinary talents as to be called to the councils
of all the princes of the earth, to the great detriment of their
circumstances and the still greater dissatisfaction of their wives, and
then, upon their being summoned home to arrange their disordered
affairs, determining, in their wisdom, to put on the garb of stupidity,
and persevering so long and so steadfastly in their assumed character as
to prove 'plain fools at last.
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