least degree depreciated their value; they have only changed the character of their service. They may no longer be appealed to as authority but they still contain truths that are as old as man and suggest to both writers and public speakers lines of thought that bear on the problems of the present age. "They are the safest index to the inner life of a people," says Mr. A. Cohen, 'with their aid we can construct a mental image of the conditions of existence, the manners, characteristics, morals and Weltanschauung of the community which used them. They present us with the surest data upon which to base our knowledge of Volkspsychologie." But more than an index they are of value to all who seek to serve their fellowmen in revealing to them the forces that move their consciences and wills. "A really good proverb," says Sir William Sterling-Maxwell, "is a coin as fine as any that ever was struck in the mint of Sicily."

As few people realize the antiquity of the common proverbs, I have selected a few of the most familiar sayings and sought to indicate in some degree their great age and the high esteem in which they have been held not alone by the common people but by literary workers of the past and present. I have added a few groups of folk sayings that indicate how widely they or their equivalents have been used by people in

all parts of the world. It need hardly be said that the proverbs selected are only representative. There are a multitude of other common phrases that are just as old and that have been just as popular in the past, but enough examples have been given to enable the reader to realize the large place that proverbs have held in the esteem of men, for the development of character and wise direction in the affairs of daily life.

The original renderings of foreign phrases have not been given as such renderings would add to the size of the book without increasing its usefulness to the general reader, but care has been taken to use only such renderings as have been approved by competent translators.

The languages and dialects indicated in parenthesis after the proverbs quoted are not intended to signify that such proverbs are found only in the languages and dialects given but rather to show their most pronounced affiliation.

The small figures following the proverb headings refer to pages in Curiosities in Proverbs where the same saying is quoted and in many cases annotated.

It is hoped that the book will be found interesting and instructive and will lead to a greater appreciation of the value of the sayings of our fathers who helped to give us the heritage of wisdom and truth.

38, 294

Proverbs Annotated

A BIRD IN THE HAND IS WORTH TWO IN THE BUSH

Certainty is better than uncertainty, possession is better than prospect.

Though caution and prudence are commendable, the truthfulness of the proverb under all circumstances may be questioned. The refusal to take business risks would stop the wheels of industry and prevent social, political and commercial advancement. While possession may sometimes be better than prospect, "prospect is often better than possession" (English).

The Teluges compare men who give up a certainty for an uncertainty to a jumping leech that never lets go its head in its forward movement, till it grasps its feet, and say that he is "like the leaping leech," while the Osmanli peasants decline to use a simile and substitute the proverb, "Forty birds that are in the mountain are worth one farthing"; but the Italians give the thought a religious turn and affirm that "God helps him who is in possession." Mr. F. Edward Hulme draws attention to

the difference in our English rendering of the proverb and that of the Scotch. He says that the leading idea in both the Scottish version: "A bird in the hand is worth twa fleeing bye" and the English declaration that "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" "is the greater value of a small certainty than a larger possibility; but while the twittering of the free birds in the bush may be provoking there is at least the possibility of their capture, while the Scottish version gives a still greater value to our possession, seeing that even as we grasp it, the possibility of increasing our store is rapidly passing away.

As to the origin of the saying, it belongs to that class of proverbs that spring spontaneously into popularity among widely separated people. Nathan Bailey, early in the eighteenth century, was of the opinion that it was borrowed from the Hebrews or Greeks but gave no reason for his opinion. The thought was undoubtedly expressed in proverbial form by both the Greeks, and the Romans long before the Christian era. Some have thought that it originated in the well known Cuckoo story of the Gothamites which Mr. J. O. Halliwell gives in the following words:

"On a time the men of Gotham, fain would have pinn'd in the cuckoo, whereby she should sing all the year; and in the midst of the town they had a hedge made round in compass, and

they had got a cuckoo, and put her into it, and said, 'Sing here, and you shall lack neither meat

nor drink all the year.' The cuckoo when she perceived herself encompassed within the hedge, she flew away. ‘A vengeance on her,' said the wise men, 'We made not our hedge high enough.'"

Alfred Stapleton, who made a study of Nottingham lore, said that he sometimes wondered whether the cuckoo story, or some similar tradition, may not have had something to do with the origin of the saying "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." If the proverb sprang from some such tale we must not forget that all the Gothamite stories predate their application to the fools of that town.

Lord Surrey, we are told, at one time gave a kingfisher to Sumers, the jester to King Henry VIII. Learning afterwards that Lord Northampton desired the bird he asked Sumers to return it to him and promised that if he would do so he would compensate him later with the gift of two kingfishers; but the jester thinking that possession was better than prospect refused to comply with Lord Surrey's request saying, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

Æsop (B.C. 561) has several fables bearing on the lesson of the proverb, as for example, The Fisherman and the Sprat and The Partridge and the Fowler, but the most striking one is the story