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TURKISH FAIRY TALES

Turkish Fairy Tales
AND FOLK TALES

Collected by Dʳ. Ignácz Kúnos

Translated from the Hungarian version
By
R.Nisbet.Bain.
Illustrated by
Celia Levetus

London
A. H. Bullen
18 Cecil Court, W.C.
1901

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PREFACE

THESE stories were collected from the mouths of the Turkish peasantry bythe Hungarian savant Dr. Ignatius Kunos, during his travels throughAnatolia,[1] and published for the first time in 1889 by the well-knownHungarian Literary Society, “A Kisfaludy Társaság,” under the Title ofTörök Népmések (“Turkish Folk Tales”), with an introduction byProfessor Vámbery. That distinguished Orientalist, certainly thegreatest living authority on the primitive culture of the Turko-Tartaricpeoples, who is as familiar with Uzbeg epics and Uiguric didactics aswith the poetical masterpieces of Western Europe, is enthusiastic in hispraises of these folk-tales. He compares the treasures of Turkishfolk-lore to precious stones lying neglected in the byways of philologyfor want of gleaners to gather them{vi} in, and he warns the student ofethnology that when once the threatened railroad actually invades theclassic land of Anatolia, these naively poetical myths and legends will,infallibly, be the first victims of Western civilization.

The almost unique collection of Dr. Ignatius Kunos may therefore beregarded as a brand snatched from the burning; in any case it is animportant “find,” as well for the scientific folk-lorist as for thelover of fairy-tales pure and simple. That these stories should containanything absolutely new is, indeed, too much to expect. ProfessorVámbery himself traces affinities between many of them and other purelyOriental stories which form the bases of The Arabian Nights. A fewSlavonic and Scandinavian elements are also plainly distinguishable,such, for instance, as that mysterious fowl, the Emerald Anka, obviouslyno very distant relative of the Bird Mogol and the Bird Zhar, whichfigure in my Russian Fairy Tales and Cossack Fairy Tales and FolkTales respectively, while the story of the Enchanted Turban is, insome particulars, curiously like Hans Andersen’s story, The TravellingCompanion. Nevertheless, these tales have a character peculiarly theirown; above all, they are remarkable for a vivid imaginativeness, agorgeous{vii} play of fancy, compared with which the imagery of the mostpopular fairy tales of the West seem almost prosa

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