investigation, while it went greatly to diminish our ideas of the richness of human invention would also shew, that these fictions, however wild and childish, possess such charms for the populace, as enable them to penetrate into countries unconnected by manners and language and having no apparent intercourse tho afford the means of transmission. It would carry me far beyond my bounds, to produce instances of this community of fable, among nations, who never borrowed from each other any thing intrinsically worth learning. Indeed the wide diffusion of popular fictions may be compared to the facility, with wich straws and feathers are dispersed abroad by the wind, while valuable metals cannot be transported without trouble and labour. There lives, I believe, only one gentleman, whose unlimited acquaintance with this subiect might enable him to do it justice; I mean my friend, Mr. Francis Douce, of the british museum, whose usual Kindness will I hope pardon my mentioning his name, while on a subject so closely connected with his extensive and curious researches.“
Eloi Johanneau. Mem. de l’acad. celtique. I. 162.
„On connait aussi les contes de fées, du chat botté et du petit Poucet avec ses bottes de 7. lieues, contes populaires de la plus haute antiquité, qui ne sont point de l’invention de Perrault.“
Brüder Grimm: Kinder- und Haus-Märchen Band 1 (1812). Berlin 1812, Seite XXIV. Digitale Volltext-Ausgabe bei Wikisource, URL: https://de.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Seite:Kinder_und_Hausm%C3%A4rchen_(Grimm)_1812_I_p_024.jpg&oldid=- (Version vom 18.8.2016)
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