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TALE (O.Eng. talu, number, account, See also: term, in the usual acceptance of the word, for fictitious narratives, long or See also: short, See also: ancient or See also: modern (see NovEL)
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In this article " tale " is used in a stricter sense, as See also: equivalent to the See also: German " Volks-marchen " or the French " See also: conte populaire." Thus understood, popular tales mean the stories handed down by oral tradition from an unknown antiquity, among savage and civilized peoples
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So understood, popular tales are a subject in See also: mythology, and indeed in the general study of the development of See also: man, of which the full See also: interest and importance was long unrecognized
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Popular tales won their way into literature, it is true, at a very distant See also: period
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The Homeric epics, especially the Odyssey, contain adventures (those, for example, of the Cyclops and the See also: husband who returns in disguise) which are manifestly parts of the general human stock of popular narrative
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Other examples are found in the Rigveda, and in the myths which were handled by the See also: Greek dramatists
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Collections of popular tales, more or less subjected to conscious See also: literary treatment, are found in See also: Sanskrit, as in the See also: work of Somadeva, whose See also: Katha Sarit Sagara, or " Ocean of the Streams of See also: Story," has been translated by Mr Tawney (See also: Calcutta, 188o)
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