INTRODUCTION XXIli

found among the Folk we are enabled to guess
with some precision, owing to the researches
of M. Sudre, the set of tales on which the
twelfth-century artist based his work. The
outrage of Reynard on Dame Wolf, the Iced
Wolfs Tail, the Fishes in the Car, the Bear
in the Cleft, the Wolf as Bell-ringer, the Dyed
Fox, together with the Atsopic Fables of the
Sick Lion, the Lion’s Share, the Fox and the
Goat, and the Fox, Cock, and Dog—these form
the chief Folk ingredients out of which the
artist of the Reynard made up his tale. But
how ingeniously did he weld them into an
artistic whole! In his hands the insult offered
by the Fox to Dame Wolf becomes the
starting-point of a whole Beast Epic, dealing
with the feud between the Fox and the Wolf,
which, ultimately, draws in all the other
animals in its train, till the court of King
Noble becomes like Verona in the days of the
Montagues and the Capulets.

Curiously enough, Dr. Krohn has found
these Folk incidents of the Cycle scattered
separately among the Folk in all parts
of the world. Still more curiously he finds
all these incidents, and more also, current
among the Finnish folk even at the present