TALE (O.Eng. talu, number,

See also:

• ACCOUNT
• ACCOUNT (through O. Fr. acont, Late Lat. comptum, cornputare, to calculate)

account,

See also:

• STORY, JOHN (c. 1510-1571)
• STORY, JOSEPH (1779-1845)
• STORY, ROBERT HERBERT (1835-1907)
• STORY, WILLIAM WETMORE (1819—1895)

story; the word is

See also:

• COMMON

common to many

See also:

• TEUTONIC
• TEUTONIC (GERMANIC) LANGUAGES

Teutonic

See also:

• LANGUAGES

languages; cf. Ger. Zahl, number, Erzahlung, narrative, Du.

See also:

• TAAL

taal, speech,

See also:

• LANGUAGE (adapted from the Fr. langage, from langue, tongue, Lat. lingua)

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