xvi REYNARD THE FOX

vented by the author must have been found
among the Folk.

It is found among the Folk, even to the
present day, that incident of the Iced Wolf's
Tail. Dr. Krohn, a Finnish savant, has found
no less thana hundred and seventy-one variants
of the incident collected by folklorists in all the
four quarters of the globe. Still, nearly all of
these have been printed this century, and it
remains possible that they have been derived,
directly or indirectly, from the Reynard itself.
But though possible, this is far from being
probable. It is little likely, for example, that
the Finns, among whom no less than ninety-
eight variants of the incident have been
discovered, were at any time diligent students
of Reynard, nor can we attribute similar
learning to Uncle Remus, who also tells the
tale. No, we must assume that the Iced
Wolfs Tail has lived among the Folk for over
a thousand years, and that it was from the Folk
that the French satirist first adopted it.

Some, indeed, would go further, and contend
that it has lived among the Folk in all places
where it is found, because it is natural to the
Folk to think of wolves or bears fishing with
their tails in the ice. But by going further in