Whatever was the original meaning of IE *sneigwh-, it is clear that it already meant ‘snow’ in the time of Indo-European community. Words of that group are to be found in all branches of Indo-European except Hittite, Albanian, Armenian, and Tocharian (of which in any case the recorded vocabulary is small).

The story of Tepegöz is the eighth of the twelve surviving tales of the medieval Turkish cycle of Dede Korkut. In language and style it is uniform with the remainder of the cycle, but in character it differs considerably, being composed largely of incidents common to the folktales of many peoples. Its most striking feature, and the one which has attracted most attention, is the variant of the story of Polyphemus which it contains. But besides this the story has a peculiar interest of its own. It is not a mere chance retelling of an old tale. Its narrative has been based upon a traditional wording which goes back to a time before the various incidents, of independent origin, were welded together in the present complex story.

The Cherng shianqtext is included as section 25 of the present editions of the Shyun Tzyywhich are all based on the edition established by the Tarng commentator Yang Lianq. In his preface, which is dated A.D. 819, Yang Lianq notes that the editions at his disposal included the Cherng shianq as section eight.

In September 1964 we were able, after considerable difficulty, to reach the village al-Jinainah (al-Junainah) of Wādī Jirdān (which we had already visited earlier in the year along the spectacular new road from Wādī ‘Amaqīn). In the afternoon of that day and early next morning before leaving to return to ‘Ataq we made a brief survey of the tower known as al-Muqaiyad—the subject of this article. The visit being so hurried and part of the work being carried out after dark, we were not able to record everything in quite the detail we should have wished. We are much indebted to Lt.-Col. Adrian Donaldson, D.S.O., M.B.E., the CO., and Major S. F. B. Francis, T.D., then of the 5th Battalion, Federal Regular Army, the latter escorting us to the mouth of Wādī Jirdān at ‘Ayādh, and for the generous hospitality they gave us at ‘Ataq. We acknowledge with pleasure the courtesy of Shaikh Ruwais b. Miḥsin b. Ḥasan Namārī Hilālī, Federal Councillor, who permitted us to survey the ḥuṣn and supplied us with much information on it, as also to his brother Ḥasan b. Miḥsin.

The motto of this article, taken from a novel by Rushdie (1995: 3), briefly summarizes its theme. The ‘traveller’ I wish to discuss is the love story of Abimanyu and Ksiti (or Modern Javanese Siti) Sundari. The earliest account of this story seems to be the Old Javanese kakawin Gaoṭkacâsraya (‘Gaṭotkaca's help’), said to be composed by mpuPanuluh in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century (Zoetmulder, 1974: 277). But how the story travelled and what mouths it ended up in! In 1990, for instance, Kamal Z. recorded his performance of the Javanese pop song ‘Siti Sundari’, composed by himself, in which he sang the following lines:

Tughluqabad, situated 18 kilometres south-east of New Delhi, is the oldest surviving sultanate town in India. It was built by Sultan Ghiyāth al-dīn Tughluq between 1320 and 1323, and its well preserved walls, its street layout and the remains of its buildings provide us with the earliest existing example of Indo-Muslim urban planning and its architectural components. The town was designed by Ahmad b. Ayāz, an Anatolian architect and a nobleman of the Tughluq court, who was responsible for the design of many of the early Tughluq buildings1 and who was later raised to the rank of Grand Vizier at the time of Muhammad b. Tughluq (1325–51), but was put to death by Fīrūz Shāh Tughluq (1351–88) in the early days of his reign.