The ocean of story, being C.H. Tawney's translation of Somadeva's ...

FOREWORD xxi
forms may the results of his labours be most compendiously
and profitably expressed. Again it will be understood that
I offer only personal opinions to form a basis of discussion.
However little value the former may prove to have, the latter
will not be inopportune for it will ;
not ultimately delay the
attainment of our journey's end to pause in order to take
the bearings of the proximate landmark and perhaps even
to look where the feet are next to be placed.
I assume that our ultimate goal is to discover through
the study of particular stories in their different settings the
history of this form of popular fiction, the laws which govern
its creation and transmission, and perhaps eventually to
assess the respective contributions to the common stock
which have been made in particular areas by particular
peoples. Our task, which can hardly yet be said to have
emerged from its preliminary stages, is complicated by the
bewildering character of the material and the formidable
quantity of it which already demands assimilation. Further,
but little consideration appears as yet to have been devoted
to the possibility of devising a convenient and standard
method of co-ordinating the floating information which is at
present available ; while, lastly, the material is drawn from
so wide an area that real knowledge of all the relevant facts
linguistic, cultural, literary and historical, in all sections
of it would overtax the qualities of a superman.
It would appear that specialisation is forced upon us and
that the student of folk-tales must join the ranks of those
" who know more and more about less and less." I do not
mean, of course, that he should be ignorant of the general
problems or not have a good working knowledge of com-
parative
folk-lore : without that he will not be an efficient
specialist. But I do think that he will now profitably limit the
scope of his special investigations and perhaps the nature of
his immediate ambitions. The days when the unsystematic
collection of random analogies were useful are past. By that
I do not mean that notes like those of Tawney, for example,
were not valuable in their generation. We owe, in fact, every-
thing to him and his peers. It is rather that their particular
lode has been worked out, and we have now learned all