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

xxvi THE OCEAN OF STORY
doubt, where dates are uncertain, as to what is hypothesis
and what is fact. How often has Maspero been responsible
for the quotation of some Ptolemaic papyrus as though it
were evidence from " ancient Egypt " in the usually accepted
sense of the term, and the first edition of the Cambridge
Ancient History itself quoted the Sayings of Ptahhotep as
belonging to the Old Kingdom, when the earliest papyrus
belongs in fact to the Middle Kingdom some centuries
later !
Next, as to the recording of variants. If the policy which
I have advocated were adopted, I should hope that my local
expert would give me references to all the variants from his
particular country. As regards the further record of the distribution
of variants, it should be recognised that Bolte and
Polivka will henceforward be as indispensable to the student
of folk-tales as is his Liddell and Scott to the Greek scholar.
Hence the appropriate reference to Bolte and Polivka should
be given, together with any correction of the references in
that upon the whole amazingly accurate work, and any useful
supplementary additions which the writer may be able to
make. But he should not unnecessarily duplicate informa-
tion which is already in Bolte and Polivka. His notes will,
of course, discuss the views of Bolte and Polivka and those
of other scholars about the structure and distribution of the
story, and will define the author's own attitude to the points
at issue. Here, where it is a case of quoting opinions, there
will naturally be appropriate references to the books in which
they are expressed, whether they are already mentioned by
Bolte and Polivka or not. But as regards the bibliography
of the occurrence of variants, the suggested use of Bolte and
Polivka as a standard initial reference would save not only
ink and paper, but, what is much more important, the reader's
time. Many others must have had the lamentable experience
of being referred for variants of some story, let us say, to
Gozenbach, Liebrecht, Brugmann-Leskien and von Hahn.
Conscientiously we look them all up, only to find in nine
cases out of ten an identical set of further references in all of
them.
Finally, our ideal annotator may be advised to adopt