BUKOWINA-GYPSY STORIES

BUKOWINA-GYPSY STORIES

No. 17.—It all comes to Light

There was a man with as many children as ants in an anthill. And three of the girls went to reap corn, and the emperor’s son came by. And the eldest girl said, ‘If the emperor’s son will marry me, I will clothe his whole army with one spindleful of thread.’ And the middle girl said, ‘I will feed his army with a single loaf.’ And the youngest girl said, ‘If he will marry me, I will bear him twins clever and good, with hair of gold and teeth like pearls.’

His servant heard them. ‘Emperor, the eldest girl said, if you will marry her, she will clothe your army with one spindleful of thread; the middle girl said, if you will marry her, she will feed your army with a single loaf; the youngest girl said, if you will marry her, she will bear you twins clever and good, with golden hair.’

‘Turn back,’ he cried, ‘take the youngest girl, put her in the carriage.’

He brought her home; he lived with her half a year; and they summoned him to the army to fight. He remained a year at the war. His empress brought forth two sons. The servant took them, and flung them into the pigstye; and she put two whelps by the mother.

At evening the pigs came home, and the eldest sow cried, ‘Hah! here are our master’s sons; quick, give them the teat to suck, and keep them warm.’

The pigs went forth to the field. The servant came, saw that the boys are well, not dead; she flung them into the stable. At evening the horses came home, and the eldest mare cried, ‘Hah! here are our master’s sons; quick, give them the teat to suck.’

In the morning the horses went forth to the field. The servant took them, and buried them in the dunghill. And two golden fir-trees grew.

The emperor came from the war. The servant went to meet him. ‘Emperor, the empress has borne you a couple of whelps.’

The emperor buried the empress behind the door up to the waist, and set the two whelps to suck her. He married the servant. This servant said to the emperor, ‘Fell these fir-trees, and make me a bed.’

‘Fell them I will not; they are of exquisite beauty.’

‘If you don’t, I shall die.’

The emperor set men to work, and felled the firs, and gathered all the chips, and burned them with fire. He made a bed of the two planks, and slept with his new empress in the bed.

And the elder boy said, ‘Brother, do you feel it heavy, brother?’

‘No, I don’t feel it heavy, for my father is sleeping on me; but you, do you feel it heavy, brother?’

‘I do, for my stepmother is sleeping on me.’

She heard, she arose in the morning. ‘Emperor, chop up this bed, and put it in the fire, that it be burnt.’

‘Burn it I will not.’

‘But you must put it in the fire, else I shall die.’

The emperor bade them put it in the fire. She bade them block up the chimney, that not a spark should escape. But two sparks escaped, and fell on a couple of lambs: the lambs became golden. She saw, and commanded the servants to kill the lambs. She gave the servants the chitterlings to wash them, and gave the chitterlings numbered. They were washing them in the stream; two of the chitterlings fell into the water. They cut two chitterlings in half, and added them to the number, and came home. From those two chitterlings which fell into the water came two doves; and they turned a somersault,1 and became boys. And they went to a certain lady. This lady was a widow, and she took the boys in, and brought them up seven years, and clothed them.

And the emperor made proclamation in the land that they should gather to him to a ball. All Bukowina assembled. They ate and drank. The emperor said, ‘Guess what I have suffered.’ Nobody guessed. These two boys also went, and sat at the gate. The emperor saw them. ‘Call also these two boys.’

They called them to the emperor. ‘What are you come for, boys?’

‘We came, emperor, to guess.’

‘Well, guess away.’

‘There was a man with children as many as ants in an anthill. And three of the girls went to reap corn, and the emperor’s son came by. And the eldest girl said, “If this lad will marry me, I will clothe his army with one spindleful of thread.” The middle girl said, “If he will marry me, I will feed his army with a single loaf.” The youngest girl said, “If this emperor’s son will marry me, I will bear him twins clever and good, with hair of gold and teeth like pearls.” His servant said to the emperor, “Emperor, the eldest girl said that, if you will marry her, she will clothe your army with one spindleful of thread; and the middle girl said, if you will marry her, she will feed your army with a single loaf; and the youngest girl said, if you will marry her, she will bear you twins clever and good, with hair of gold and teeth like pearls.” Come forth, pearl.2 The emperor lived with her half a year, and departed to war, and remained a year. The empress brought forth two sons. The servant took them, flung them into the pigstye, and put two whelps by her. At evening the pigs came home, and the eldest sow cried, “Hah! here are our master’s sons; you must give them the teat.” In the morning the pigs went forth to the field. The servant came, saw that they are well, flung them into the stable. At evening the horses came; the eldest horse cried, “Hah! here are our master’s sons; you must give them the teat.” In the morning the horses went forth to the field. She came and saw that they are well. She buried them in the horses’ dunghill, and two golden fir-trees grew. The emperor came from the army. The servant went to meet him. “Emperor, the empress has borne a couple of whelps.” The emperor buried her behind the door, and set the two whelps to suck. The emperor married the servant. The new empress said, “Fell the fir-trees, and make a bed.” “Fell them I will not, for they are beautiful.” “If you don’t fell them, I shall die.” The emperor commanded, and they felled them, and he gathered all the chips and flung them in the fire, and he made a bed. And the emperor was sleeping in the bed with the servant. And the elder brother said, “Do you feel it heavy, brother?” “No, I don’t feel it heavy, for my true father is sleeping on me; but do you feel it heavy, brother?” “I do, for my stepmother is sleeping on me.” She heard, she arose in the morning. “Emperor, chop up this bed, and put it in the fire.” “Chop it up I will not, for it is fair.” “If you don’t, I shall die.” The emperor commanded, and chopped up the bed, and they put it in the fire; and she told them to block up the chimney. But two sparks jumped out on two lambs, and the lambs became golden. She saw, and commanded the servants to kill them, and gave the chitterlings to two girls to wash. And two chitterlings escaped, and they cut two chitterlings, and made up the proper number. From those chitterlings came two doves; and they turned a somersault, and became two boys. And they went to a certain widow lady, and she took them in, and brought them up seven years. The emperor gathered Bukowina to a ball, and they ate and drank. The emperor told them to guess what he had suffered. Nobody guessed, but I have. And if you believe not, we are your sons, and our mother is buried behind the door.’

Then came his mother into the hall. ‘Good-day to you, my sons.’

‘Thank you, mother.’

And they took that servant, and bound her to a wild horse, and gave him his head, and he smashed her to pieces.

Dr. Barbu Constantinescu furnishes this Roumanian-Gypsy variant:—

No. 18.—The Golden Children

There were three princesses, and they vaunted themselves before the three princes. One vaunted that she will make him a golden boy and girl. And one vaunted that she will feed his army with one crust of bread. And one vaunted that she will clothe the whole army with a single spindleful of thread. The time came that the princes took the three maidens. So she who had vaunted that she will bear the golden boy and girl, the time came that she grew big with child, and she fell on the hearth in the birth-pangs. The midwife came and his mother, and she brought forth a golden boy and girl. And her man was not there. And the midwife and his mother took a dog and a bitch, and put them beneath her. And they took the boy and the girl, and the midwife threw them into the river. And they went floating on the river, and a monk found them.

So their father went a-hunting, and their father found the lad. ‘Let me kiss you.’ For, he thought, My wife said she would bear a golden lad and girl like this. And he came home and fell sick; and the midwife noticed it and his mother.

The midwife asked him, ‘What ails you?’

He said, ‘I am sick, because I have seen a lad like my wife said she would bear me.’

Then she sent for the children, did his mother; and the monk brought them; and she asked him, ‘Where did you get those children?’

He said, ‘I found them both floating on the river.’

And the king saw it must be his children; his heart yearned towards them. So the king called the monk, and asked him, ‘Where did you get those children?’

He said, ‘I found them floating on the river.’

He brought the monk to his mother and the midwife, and said, ‘Behold, mother, my children.’

She repented and said, ‘So it is.’ She said, ‘Yes, darling, the midwife put them in a box, and threw them into the water.’

Then he kindled the furnace, and cast both his mother and also the midwife into the furnace. And he burnt them; and so they made atonement. He gathered all the kings together, for joy that he had found his children. Away I came, the tale have told.

And a very poor tale it is, most clearly defective; we never, for instance, hear what becomes of the mother. Non-Gypsy versions of this story are very numerous and very widely spread, almost as widely spread as the Gypsies. We have them from Iceland, Brittany, Brazil, Catalonia, Sicily, Italy, Lorraine, Germany, Tyrol, Transylvania, Hungary, Servia, Roumania, Albania, Syria, White Russia, the Caucasus, Egypt, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Bengal, as well as in Dolopathos (c. 1180) and Straparola. Special studies of this story have been made by Cosquin (vol. i. p. lxiii. and p. 190), and W. A. Clouston in his Variants and Analogues of the Tales in vol. iii. of Sir R. F. Burton’s Supplemental Arabian Nights (1887), pp. 617–648. Reference may also be made to Grimm, No. 96, ‘The Three Little Birds’; Wratislaw’s, No. 23, ‘The Wonderful Lads’; Grenville-Murray’s Doine; or, Songs and Legends of Roumania (1854), pp. 106–110; Denton’s Serbian Folklore, p. 238; Hahn, i. 272; ii. 40, 287, 293; ‘The Boy with the Moon on his Forehead,’ in the Rev. Lal Behari Day’s Folk-tales of Bengal (No. 19, p. 236); and ‘The Boy who had a Moon on his Forehead and a Star on his Chin,’ in Maive Stokes’s Indian Fairy Tales (No. 20, p. 119; cf. also, No. 2, pp. 7 and 245). ‘Chandra’s Vengeance’ in Mary Frere’s Old Deccan Days (No. 22, p. 225), offers some curious analogies. There the heroine is born with two golden anklets on her ankles, ‘dazzling to look at like the sun.’ She is put in a golden box, floated down the river, saved by a fisherman, etc. Cosquin acutely remarks that in the original story the king, of course, marries the three sisters, and the two elder, jealous, are the prime workers of the mischief.

Yet a third Gypsy version, a Slovak one, is furnished by Dr. von Sowa. It is plainly corrupt and imperfect:—

No. 19.—The Two Children

Somewhere there was a hunter’s son, a soldier; and there was also a shoemaker’s daughter. She had a dream that if he took her to wife, and if she fell pregnant by him, she would bring forth twins—the boy with a golden star upon his breast, and the girl with a golden star upon the brow. And he presently took her to wife. And she was poor, that shoemaker’s daughter; and he was rich. So his parents did not like her for a daughter-in-law. She became with child to him; and he went off to serve as a soldier. Within a year she brought forth. When that befell, she had twins exactly as she had said. She bore a boy and a girl; the boy had a golden star upon his breast, and the girl had a golden star upon her brow. But his parents threw the twins into diamond chests, wrote a label for each of them, and put it in the chest. Then they let them swim away down the Vah river.3

Then my God so ordered it, that there were two fishers, catching fish. They saw those chests come swimming down the river; they laid hold of both of them. When they had done so, they opened the chests, and there were the children alive, and on each was the label with writing. The fishers took them up, and went straight to the church to baptize them.

So those children lived to their eighth year, and went already to school. And the fishers had also children of their own, and used to beat them, those foundlings. He, the boy, was called Jankos; and she, Marishka.

And Marishka said to Jankos, ‘Let us go, Jankos mine, somewhere into the world.’

Then they went into a forest, there spent the night. There they made a fire, and Marishka fell into a slumber, whilst he, Jankos, kept up the fire. There came a very old stranger to him, and he says to him, says that stranger, ‘Come with me, Jankos, I will give you plenty of money.’

He brought him into a vault; there a stone door opened before him; the vault was full, brim full of money. Jankos took two armfuls of money. It was my God who was there with him, and showed him the money. He took as much as he could carry, then returned to Marishka. Marishka was up already and awake; she was weeping—‘Where, then, is Jankos?’

Jankos calls to her, ‘Fear not, I am here; I am bringing you plenty of money.’

My God had told him to take as much money as he wants; the door will always be open to him. Then they, Jankos and Marishka, went to a city; he bought clothes for himself and for her, and bought himself a fine house. Then he bought also horses and a small carriage. Then he went to the vault for that money, and helped himself again. With the shovel he flung it on the carriage; then he returned home with so much money that he didn’t know what to do with it.

Then he ordered a band to play music, and arranged for a ball. Then he invited all the gentry in that country, invited all of them; and his parents too came. This he did that he might find out who were his parents. Right enough they came; and he, Jankos, at once knew his mother—my God had ordained it, that he at once should know her. Then he asks his mother,4 does Jankos, what a man deserved who ruins two souls, and is himself alive.

And she says, the old lady, ‘Such a one deserves nothing better than to have light set to the fagot-pile, and himself pitched into the fire.’

That was just what they did to them, pitched them into the fire; and he remained there with Marishka. And the gentleman cried then, ‘Hurrah! bravo! that’s capital.’

No. 20.—Mare’s Son

A priest went riding on his mare to town. And … he led her into the forest, and left her there. The mare brought forth a son. And God came and baptized him, and gave him the name ‘Mare’s Son.’ He sucked one year, and went to a tree, and tries to pluck it up, and could not.

‘Ah! mother, I’ll suck one year more.’

He sucked one year more; he went to the tree; he plucked it up.

‘Now, mother, I shall go away from you.’

And he went into the forests, and found a man. ‘Good day to you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Tree-splitter.’

‘Hah! let’s become brothers. Come with me.’

They went further; they found another man. ‘Good day.’

‘Thanks.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Rock-splitter.’

‘Hah! let’s become brothers.’

They became brothers.

‘Come with me.’

They went further; they found yet another man. ‘Good day to you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Tree-bender.’

‘Come with me.’

The four went further, and they found a robbers’ den. The robbers had killed a heifer. When the robbers saw them, they fled. They went away, and left the meat untouched. They cooked the meat and ate. They passed the night. In the morning Mare’s Son said, ‘Let three of us go to hunt, and one stay at home to cook.’ They left Tree-splitter at home to cook, and he cooked the food nicely. And there came an old man to him, a hand’s-breadth tall, with a beard a cubit in length.

‘Give me to eat.’

‘Not I. For they’ll come from hunting, and there’ll be nothing to give them.’

The old man went into the wood, and cut four wedges, and threw him, Tree-splitter, on the ground, and fastened him to the earth by the hands and feet, and ate up all the food. Then he let him go, and departed. He put more meat in the pot to cook. They came from hunting and asked, ‘Have you cooked the food?’

‘Ever since you’ve been away I’ve had the meat at the fire, but it isn’t cooked properly.’

‘Dish it up as it is, for we’re hungry.’

He dished it up as it was, and they ate it. They passed the night. The next day they left another cook, and the three of them went off to hunt. The old man came again.

‘Give me something to eat.’

‘Not I, for they’ll come from hunting, and there’ll be nothing to give them to eat.’

He went into the wood, and cut four wedges, and fastened him to the earth by the hands and feet, and ate up all the food, and let him go, and departed. He put more meat in the pot to cook. They came from hunting. ‘Have you cooked the food?’

‘Ever since you’ve been away I’ve had it at the fire, but it isn’t cooked, for it’s old meat.’

They passed the night. The third day they left another cook. The three of them went to hunt; and those two never told what they had undergone. Again the old man came, demanded food.

‘Not a morsel, for they’ll come from hunting, and I should have nothing to give them.’

He went into the wood, and cut four wedges, and fastened him to the earth by the hands and feet, and ate up all the food, and let him go. They came from hunting. ‘Have you cooked the food?’

‘The minute you went away I put the meat in the pot; but it isn’t cooked, for it’s old.’

The fourth day Mare’s Son remained as cook, and he cooked the food nicely.

The old man came. ‘Give me something to eat, for I’m hungry.’

‘Come here, and I’ll give you some.’

He called him into the house, and caught him by the beard, and led him to a beech-tree, and drove his axe into the beech, and cleft it, and put his beard in the cleft, and drew out the axe, and drove in wedges by the beard, and left him there. They came from hunting; he gave them to eat. ‘Why didn’t you cook as good food as I?’

They ate.

The old man pulled the tree out of the earth on to his shoulders, and dragged it after him, and departed into a cave in the other world.

Said Mare’s Son to them, ‘Come with me, and you shall see what I’ve caught.’

They went, and found only the place.

Said Mare’s Son, ‘Come with me, for I’ve got to find him.’

They went, following the track of the tree to his cave.

‘This is where he went in. Who’ll go in to fetch him out?’

They said, ‘Not we, we’re afraid. Do you go in, for it was you who caught him.’

He said, ‘I’ll go in, and do you swear that you will act fairly by me.’

They swore that they will act fairly by him. They made a basket, and he lowered himself into the cave, and went to the other world. There was a palace under the earth, and he found the old man with his beard in the tree, put him in the basket, and they drew him up. He found a big stone, and put it in the basket. ‘If they pull up the stone, they will pull up me.’ They pulled it up half-way, and cut the rope. He fell a-weeping. ‘Now I am undone.’

He journeyed under the earth, and came to a house. There was an old man and an old woman, both blind, for the fairies5 had put out their eyes. Mare’s Son went to them and said, ‘Good day.’

‘Thanks. And who are you?’

‘I am a man.’

‘And old or young?’

‘Young.’

‘Be a son to us.’

‘Good.’

The old man had ten sheep. ‘Here take the sheep, and graze them, daddy’s darling. And don’t go to the right hand, else the fairies will catch you and put out your eyes; that’s their field. But go to the left hand, for they’ve no business there; that’s our field.’

He went three days to the left hand, until he bethought himself, and made a flute, and went to the right hand with his sheep.

And there met him a fairy, and said to him, ‘Son of a roarer,6 what are you wanting here?’

He began to play on the flute. ‘Dance a bit for me.’

He began to play, and she danced. Just as she was dancing her very best, he broke the flute with his teeth.

The fairy said, ‘What are you doing, why did you break it, when I was dancing my very best?’

‘Come with me to that tree, that maple, that I may take out its heart and make a flute. And I will play all day, and you shall dance. Come with me.’

He went to the maple, and drove his axe into the maple, and cleft it. ‘Put your hand in, and take out the heart.’

She put in her hand; he drew out the axe, and left her hand in the tree.

She cried, ‘Quick, release my hand; it will be crushed.’

And he said, ‘Where are the old man’s and the old woman’s eyes? For if you don’t tell me, I shall cut your throat.’

‘Go to the third room. They’re in a glass. The larger are the old man’s, the smaller the old woman’s.’

‘How shall I put them in again?’

‘There is water in a glass there, and moisten them with the water, and put them in, and they will adhere. And smear with the water, and they will see.’

He cut her throat, and went and got the eyes of the old man and the old woman, and took the water, and moistened them with the water, and put them in, and they adhered. He smeared with the water, and they saw.

The old man and the old woman said, ‘Thank you, my son. Be my son for ever. I will give all things into your hand, and I will go to my kinsfolk, for it is ten years since I have seen them.’

And the old man mounted a goat, and the old woman mounted a sheep; and he said to his son, ‘Daddy’s darling, walk, eat, and drink.’ Away went the old man and the old woman to their kinsfolk.

He too set out, and went walking in the forest. In a tree were young eagles, and a dragon was climbing up to devour them. And Mare’s Son saw him, and climbed up, and killed him.

And the young eagles said to him, ‘God will give you good luck for killing him. For my mother said every year she was hatching chicks, and this dragon was always devouring them. But where shall we hide you? for our mother will come and devour you. But put yourself under us, and we will cover you with our wings.’

Their mother came. ‘I smell fresh man.’

‘No, mother, you just fancy it. You fly aloft, and the reek mounts up to you.’

‘I’m certain there’s a man here. And who killed the dragon?’

‘I don’t know, mother.’

‘Show him, that I may see him.’

‘He’s among us, mother.’

They produced him, and she saw him; and the minute she saw him, she swallowed him. The eaglets began to weep and to lament: ‘He saved us from death, and you have devoured him.’

‘Wait a bit; I’ll bring him up again.’

She brought him up, and asked him, ‘What do you want for saving my young ones from death?’

‘I only want you to carry me to the other world.’

‘Had I known that, I’d have let him devour my young ones, for to carry you up is mighty difficult. Do you know how I shall manage it? Bake twelve ovenfuls of bread, and take twelve heifers and twelve jars of wine.’

In three days he had them ready.

She said, ‘Put them on me; and when I turn my head to the left, throw a heifer into my mouth and an ovenful of bread; and when I turn to the right, pour a jar of wine into my mouth.’

She brought him out; he went to his brothers. ‘Good day to you, brothers. You fancied I should perish. If you acted fairly by me, toss your arrows up in the air, and they will fall before you; but if unfairly, then they will fall on your heads.’

All four tossed up their arrows, and they stood in a row. His fell right before him, and theirs fell on their heads, and they died.

I have excised the opening of this tale as far too Rabelaisian; in fact, it leaves the very priest ashamed. Its hero is called ‘Mare’s Son,’ and is suckled by a mare like Milosh Obilich in a Croatian ballad. But the story is clearly identical with Grimm’s ‘Strong Hans’ (No. 166, ii. 253, 454) and ‘The Elves’ (No. 91, ii. 24, 387), in one or other of which, or of their variants, almost every detail, sometimes to the minutest, will be found. Cosquin’s ‘Jean de l’Ours’ (No. 1, i. 1–27) should also be carefully studied, and Hahn’s ‘Das Bärenkind’ (No. 75, ii. 72). The Gypsy version is in one respect clearly defective: it has no heroine—a lack that might be supplied from Miklosich’s Gypsy story of ‘The Seer’ (No. 23). The episode of the fairies that blind occurs in ‘The Scab-pate’ (Geldart’s Folklore of Modern Greece, p. 158; cf. also Hahn, i. 222); and in Maive Stokes’s Indian Fairy Tales, p. 57, one finds a similar restoration of their eyes to seven blinded mothers, with salve, however, not water, for application. Cf. Krauss, i. 181, for a flute that obliges to dance; and a blind old man riding on a great goat comes in Denton’s Serbian Folk-lore, p. 249. The rescue of the young eagles, and the being borne to the upper world by the old mother-bird, are conjointly or separately very widespread. The meat generally runs short, and the hero gives her a piece of his own flesh (cf. p. 240). Hahn’s ‘Der Goldäpfelbaum und die Höllenfahrt,’ from Syra (No. 70, ii. 57, 297), furnishes an excellent example; and Cosquin (ii. 141) gives Avar, Siberian, Kabyle, Persian, and Indian variants. The rescue of two eaglets from a great snake occurs in ‘The Demon and the King’s Son’ (Maive Stokes’s Indian Fairy Tales, No. 24, p. 182), and in ‘Punchkin’ (Mary Frere’s Old Deccan Days, No. 1, p. 14). The striking ordeal at the close, recurring in ‘The Seer’ (No. 23, p. 89), is, to the best of my knowledge, peculiar to these two Gypsy stories; the arrows suggest a high antiquity. Von Sowa’s Slovak-Gypsy story of ‘The Three Dragons’ (No. 44) offers many analogies to ‘Mare’s Son,’ of which the Welsh-Gypsy story, ‘Twopence-halfpenny’ (No. 58, p. 243), is actually a variant. The first eight pages of ‘Prince Lionheart and his three Friends,’ in F. A. Steel’s Wide-awake Stories, pp. 47–54, and her ‘How Raja Rasalu’s Friends forsook him,’ pp. 255–7; also the very curious story of ‘Gumda the Hero’ (Campbell’s Santal Folk-tales, p. 57), offer Indian versions of the opening of ‘Mare’s Son.’

No. 21.—The Deluded Dragon

There was an old man with a multitude of children. He had an underground cave in the forest. He said, ‘Make me a honey-cake, for I will go and earn something.’ He went into the forest, and found a well. By the well was a table. He laid the cake on the table. The crows came and ate it. He slept by the well. He arose and saw the flies eating the crumbs. He struck a blow and killed a hundred flies. He wrote that he had killed a hundred souls with one blow. And he lay down and slept.

A dragon came with a buffalo’s skin to draw water. He saw what was written on the table, that he had killed a hundred souls. When he saw the old man, he feared. The old man awoke, and he too feared.

The dragon said, ‘Let’s become brothers.’

And they swore that they would be Brothers of the Cross.7 The dragon drew water. ‘Come with me, brother, to my palace.’

They went along a footpath, the old man first. When the dragon panted, he drove the old man forward; when he drew in his breath, he pulled him back. The dragon said, ‘Brother, why do you sometimes run forward and sometimes come back?’

‘I am thinking whether to kill you.’

‘Stay, brother, I will go first and you behind; maybe you will change your mind.’

They came to a cherry-tree. ‘Here, brother, have some cherries.’

The dragon climbed up, and the old man was eating below. The dragon said, ‘Come up, they’re better here.’

The old man said, ‘No, they aren’t, for the birds have defiled them.’

‘Catch hold of this bough.’

The old man did so. The dragon let go of it, and jerked the old man up, and he fell on a hare and caught it.

The dragon said, ‘What’s the matter, brother? Was the bough too strong for you?’

‘I sprang of my own accord, and caught this hare. I hadn’t time to run round, so up I sprang.’

The dragon came down and went home. The old man said, ‘Would you like a present, sister-in-law?’ [seemingly offering the hare to the dragon’s wife].

‘Thanks, brother-in-law.’

The dragon said to her aside, ‘Don’t say a word to him, else he’ll kill us, for he has killed a hundred souls with one blow.’ He sent him to fetch water: ‘Go for water, brother.’

He took the spade and the buffalo’s hide, dragged it after him, and went to the well, and was digging all round the well.

The dragon went to him. ‘What are you doing, brother?’

‘I am digging the whole well to carry it home.’

‘Don’t destroy the spring; I’ll draw the water myself.’

The dragon drew the water, and took the old man by the hand, and led him home. He sent him to the forest to fetch a tree. He stripped off bark, and made himself a rope, and bound the trees.

The dragon came. ‘What are you doing, brother?’

‘I am going to take the whole forest and carry it home.’

‘Don’t destroy my forest, brother. I’ll carry it myself.’ The dragon took a tree on his shoulders, and went home.

He said to his wife, ‘What shall we do, wife, for he will kill us if we anger him?’

She said, ‘Take uncle’s big club, and hit him on the head.’

The old man heard. He slept of a night on a bench. And he took the beetle, put it on the bench, dressed it up in his coat, and put his cap on the top of it. And he lay down under the bench. The dragon took the club, and felt the cap, and struck with the club. The old man arose, removed the beetle, put it under the bench, and lay down on the bench. He scratched his head. ‘God will punish you, brother, and your household, for a flea has bitten me on the head.’

‘There! do you hear, wife? I hit him on the head with the club, and he says a mere flea has bitten him. What shall we do with him, wife?’

‘Give him a sackful of money to go away.’

‘What will you take to go, brother? I’ll give you a sackful of money.’

‘Give it me.’

He gave it. ‘Take it, brother, and be gone.’

‘I brought my present myself; do you carry yours yourself.’

The dragon took it on his shoulders and carried it. They drew near to the underground cavern. The old man said, ‘Stay here, brother, whilst I go home and tie up the dogs, else they’ll wholly devour you.’ The old man went home to his children, and made them wooden knives, and told them to say when they saw the dragon, ‘Mother, father’s bringing a dragon; we’ll eat his flesh.’

The dragon heard them, and flung down the sack, and fled. And he met a fox.

‘Where are you flying to, dragon?’

‘The old man will kill me.’

‘Fear not; come along with me. I’ll kill him, he’s so weak.’

The children came outside and cried, ‘Mother, the fox is bringing us the dragon skin he owes us, to cover the cave with.’

The dragon took to flight, and caught the fox, and dashed him to the earth; and the fox died. The old man went to the town, and got a cart, and put the money in it. Then he went to the town, and built himself houses, and bought himself oxen and cows.

Dr. Von Sowa furnishes this Slovak-Gypsy variant:—

No. 22.—The Gypsy and the Dragon

There were a Gypsy and a shepherd, who tended his sheep. Every night two of the shepherd’s sheep went a-missing, or even three. The peasant came to his gossip, the Gypsy, who asks him, ‘Hallo! gossip, what’s up with you, that you’re so sorrowful?’

The peasant says to the Gypsy, ‘Ah! how should I not be sorrowful, when some one—I know not who—does me grievous harm?’

‘All right. I’ll help you there, for I know fine who it is. To-night let your wife make me two big cheeses, the size of that; and let her bake me some nice fine dough for supper. I’ll come and sup with you to-night. Then I’ll go and look after your sheep.’

All right! The Gypsy went and had a fine blow-out at the peasant’s. Night came, and the Gypsy went off to the sheep. And the cheese he put in his pocket, and in his hand he took an iron bar weighing three hundredweight, besides which he made himself quite a light wooden rod. And off he went to the sheepfold. There was nobody there but the shepherd’s man.

‘Go you home, my lad,’ says the Gypsy, ‘and I’ll stop here.’

Midnight came. The Gypsy made himself a big fire, and straightway the dragon comes to the Gypsy by the fire.

He said to him, ‘Wait a bit. I’ll give it your mother for this;8 what are you wanting here?’

‘Just wanting to see if you are such a strong chap, though you do eat three sheep every night.’

He was terrified.

‘Sit down beside me by the fire, and let’s just have a little trial of strength, to see which of us is the stronger. Do you throw this stick so high up in the air that it never falls down again, but stays there.’ (It was the bar that weighed three hundredweight.)

The dragon throws, threw it so high, that then and there it remained somewhere or other up in the sky. ‘Now,’ says the dragon to the Gypsy, ‘now do you throw, as I threw.’

The Gypsy threw—it was the little light wooden stick—threw it somewhere or other behind him, so that the dragon couldn’t see where he threw it, but he fancied he had thrown it where he had thrown his own.

‘Well, all right! Let’s sit down, and see whether you really are a clever chap. Just take this stone and squeeze it so that the water runs out of it, and the blood, like this.’ The Gypsy took the cheese; he squeezed it till the water ran out of it; then he said to the dragon, ‘Do you take it now and squeeze.’

He handed him a stone, and the dragon kept squeezing and squeezing till the blood streamed from his hand. ‘I see plainly,’ he said to the Gypsy, ‘you’re a better man than I.’

‘Well, take me now on your back, and carry me to your blind mother.’

They came to his blind mother. Fear seized her, for where did one ever hear the like of that—the dragon to carry the Gypsy on his back.

‘Now, you’ll give me just whatever I want.’

‘Fear not. I will give you as much money as you can carry, and as much food as you want, both to eat and to drink; only let me live and my mother. And I’ll never go after the sheep any more.’

‘Well and good. I could kill you this moment, and your blind mother too. Then swear to me that you will go no more to that peasant’s to devour his sheep.’

Straightway he swore to him, that indeed he would go no more.

‘Now you must give me money, both gold and silver, and then you must take me on your back and carry me home.’

Well and good. He gave him the money, and took him on his back, and carried home the Gypsy and the money. The Gypsy’s wife sees them. ‘My God! What’s up?’ And the children—he had plenty—came running out. The dragon was dreadfully frightened and ran off. But he flung down the Gypsy’s money and left it there. The Gypsy was so rich there was not his equal. He was just like a gentleman. And if he is not dead, he is still living, with his wife and children.

There must be also a Turkish-Gypsy version, for Paspati on p. 576 gives this quotation from the story of a young man’s contest with a dragon:—‘I am looking to see which is the highest mountain, to seize you, and fling you thither, that not a bone of you be left whole.’ Wlislocki furnishes a Transylvanian-Gypsy variant, ‘The Omniscient Gypsy,’ No. 23, p. 61; and the hero is a Gypsy in Lithuanian and Galician stories. ‘The Valiant Little Tailor’ (Grimm, No. 20, i. 85, 359), is very familiar, but is less like our Gypsy versions than is Hahn’s No. 23, ‘Herr Lazarus und die Draken.’ Cf. also Hahn, i. 152 and ii. 211; Cosquin, i. 95–102; and Clouston, i. 133–154. The story is widely spread; we have Norwegian, Sicilian, Hungarian, Albanian, Turkish, Persian, Sanskrit, and other versions. ‘Valiant Vicky, the Brave Weaver,’ in F. A. Steel’s Wide-awake Stories, pp. 89–97, is a very modern, non-heroic Indian version; cf. also ‘The Close Alliance,’ pp. 132–7. ‘How the Three Clever Men outwitted the Demons’ (Mary Frere’s Old Deccan Days, No. 23, p. 271) offers certain analogies; so does the ‘Story of a Simpleton’ in Campbell’s Santal Folk-tales, p. 45.

No. 23.—The Seer

They say that there was an emperor, and he had three sons. And he gave a ball; all Bukowina came to it. And a mist descended, and there came a dragon, and caught up the empress, and carried her into the forests to a mountain, and set her down on the earth. There in the earth was a palace. Now after the ball the men departed home.

And the youngest son was a seer; and his elder brothers said he was mad. Said the youngest, ‘Let us go after our mother, and seek for her in Bukowina.’ The three set out, and they came to a place where three roads met. And the youngest said, ‘Brothers, which road will you go?’

And the eldest said, ‘I will keep straight on.’

And the middle one went to the right, and the youngest to the left. The eldest one went into the towns, and the middle one into the villages, and the youngest into the forests. They had gone a bit when the youngest turned back and cried, ‘Come here. How are we to know who has found our mother? Let us buy three trumpets, and whoever finds her must straightway blow a blast, and we shall hear him, and return home.’

The youngest went into the forests. And he was hungry, and he found an apple-tree with apples, and he ate an apple, and two horns grew. And he said, ‘What God has given me I will bear.’ And he went onward, and crossed a stream, and the flesh fell away from him. And he kept saying, ‘What God has given me I will bear. Thanks be to God.’ And he went further, and found another apple-tree. And he said, ‘I will eat one more apple, even though two more horns should grow.’ When he ate it the horns dropped off. And he went further, and again found a stream. And he said, ‘God, the flesh has fallen from me, now will my bones waste away; but even though they do, yet will I go.’ And he crossed the stream; his flesh grew fairer than ever. And he went up into a mountain. There was a rock of stone in a spot bare of trees. And he reached out his hand, and moved it aside, and saw a hole in the earth. He put the rock back in its place, and went back and began to wind his horn.

His brothers heard him and came. ‘Have you found my mother?’

‘I have; come with me.’

And they went to the mountain to the rock of stone.

‘Remove this rock from its place.’

‘But we cannot.’

‘Come, I will remove it.’

He put his little finger on it, and moved it aside.9 ‘Hah!’ said he, ‘here is our mother. Who will let himself down?’

And they said, ‘Not I.’

The youngest said, ‘Come with me into the forest, and we will strip off bark and make a rope.’

They did so, and they made a basket.

‘I will lower myself down, and when I jerk the rope haul me up.’

So he let himself down, and came to house No. 1. There he found an emperor’s daughter, whom the dragon had brought and kept prisoner.

And she said, ‘Why are you here? The dragon will kill you when he comes.’

And he asked her, ‘Didn’t the dragon bring an old lady here?’

And she said, ‘I know not, but go to No. 2; there is my middle sister.’

He went to her; she too said, ‘Why are you here? The dragon will kill you when he comes.’

And he asked, ‘Didn’t he bring an old lady?’

And she said, ‘I know not, but go to No. 3; there is my youngest sister.’

She said, ‘Why are you here? The dragon will kill you when he comes.’

And he asked, ‘Didn’t he bring an old lady here?’

And she said, ‘He did, to No. 4.’

He went to his mother, and she said, ‘Why are you here? The dragon will kill you when he comes.’

And he said, ‘Fear not, come with me.’ And he led her, and put her in the basket, and said to her, ‘Tell my brothers they’ve got to pull up three maidens.’ He jerked the rope, and they hauled their mother up. He put the eldest girl in the basket, and they hauled her up; then the middle one, jerked the rope, and they hauled her up. And while they are hauling, he made the youngest swear that she will not marry ‘till I come.’ She swore that she will not marry till he comes; he put her also in the basket, jerked the rope, and they hauled her up.

And he found a stone, and put it in the basket, and jerked the rope. ‘If they haul up the stone, they will also haul up me.’ And they hauled it half-way up, and the rope broke, and they left him to perish, for they thought he was in the basket. And he began to weep. And he went into the palace where the dragon dwelt, and pulled out a box, and found a rusty ring. And he is cleaning it; out of it came a lord, and said, ‘What do you want, master?’

‘Carry me out into the world.’

And he took him up on his shoulders, and carried him out. And he took two pails of water. When he washed himself with one, his face was changed; and when with the other, it became as it was before. And he brought him to a tailor in his father’s city.

And he washed himself with the water, and his face was changed. And he went to that tailor; and that tailor was in his father’s employment. And he hired himself as a prentice to the tailor for a twelvemonth, just to watch the baby in another room. The tailor had twelve prentices. And the tailor did not recognise him, nor his brothers.

The eldest brother proposed to the youngest sister, whom the seer had saved from the dragon. And she said, ‘No, I have sworn not to marry until my own one comes.’ The middle son also proposed; she said, ‘I will not, until my own one comes.’

So the eldest son married the eldest girl; the middle son married the middle girl; and they called the tailor to make them wedding garments, and gave him cloth.

And the emperor’s son said, ‘Give it me to make.’

‘No, I won’t, you wouldn’t fit him properly.’

‘Give it me. I’ll pay the damage if I don’t sew it right.’

The tailor gave it him, and he rubbed the ring. Out came a little lord, and said, ‘What do you want, master?’

‘Take this cloth, and go to my eldest brother, and take his measure, so that it mayn’t be too wide, or too narrow, but just an exact fit. And sew it so that the thread mayn’t show.’

And he sewed it so that one couldn’t tell where the seam came. And in the morning he brought them to the tailor.

‘Carry them to them.’

And when they saw them, they asked the tailor, ‘Who made these clothes? For you never made so well before.’

‘I’ve a new prentice made them.’

‘Since the youngest would not have us, we’ll give her to him, that he may work for us.’

They went and got married. After the wedding they called the prentice, called too the maiden, and bade her go to him.

She said, ‘I will not,’ for she did not know him.

The emperor’s eldest son caught hold of her to thrash her.

She said, ‘Go to him I will not.’

‘You’ve got to.’

‘Though you cut my throat, I won’t.’

Said the youngest son, ‘I’ll tell you what, Prince, let me go with her into a side-room and talk with her.’

He took her aside, and washed himself with the other water, and his face became as it was. She knew him.10

‘Come, now I’ll have you.’

He washed himself again with the first water, and his face was changed once more, and he went back to the emperor.

And he asked her, ‘Will you have him?’

‘I will.’

‘The wedding is to be in twelve days.’

And they called the old tailor, and commanded him, ‘In twelve days’ time be ready for the wedding.’ And they departed home.

Six days are gone, and he takes no manner of trouble, but goes meanly as ever. Now ten are gone, and only two remain. The tailor called the bridegroom. ‘And what shall we do, for there’s nothing ready for the wedding?’

‘Ah! don’t fret, and fear not: God will provide.’

Now but one day remained; and he, the bridegroom, went forth, and rubbed the ring. And out came a little lord and asked him, ‘What do you want, master?’

‘In a day’s time make me a three-story palace, and let it turn with the sun on a screw, and let the roof be of glass, and let there be water and fish there, the fish swimming and sporting in the roof, so that the lords may look at the roof, and marvel what magnificence is this. And let there be victuals and golden dishes and silver spoons, and one cup being drained and one cup filled.’

That day it was ready.

‘And let me have a carriage and six horses, and a hundred soldiers for outriders, and two hundred on either side.’

On the morrow he started for the wedding, he from one place, and she from another; and they went to the church and were married, and came home. His brothers came and his father, and a heap of lords. And they drink and eat, and all kept looking at the roof.

When they had eaten and drunk, he asked the lords, ‘What they would do to him who seeks to slay his brother?’

His brothers heard. ‘Such a one merits death.’

Then he washed himself with the other water, and his face became as it was. Thus his brothers knew him. And he said, ‘Good day to you, brothers. You fancied I had perished. You have pronounced your own doom. Come out with me, and toss your swords up in the air. If you acted fairly by me, it will fall before you, but if unfairly, it will fall on your head.’

The three of them tossed up their swords, and that of the youngest fell before him, but theirs both fell on their head, and they died.

‘The Seer’ belongs to the same group as Miklosich’s ‘Mare’s Son’ (No. 20), Grimm’s ‘Strong Hans,’ and Cosquin’s ‘Jean de l’Ours.’ Its first half is largely identical with that of Ralston’s ‘Koschei the Dauntless’ (pp. 100–103), its latter half more closely with that of Ralston’s ‘The Norka’ (pp. 75–80). There also the prince engages himself to a tailor: but, whilst in our Gypsy version the change in his appearance is satisfactorily accounted for, the Russian says merely, ‘So much the worse for wear was he, so thoroughly had he altered in appearance, that nobody would have suspected him of being a prince.’ The striking parallel with No. 120 of the Gesta Romanorum has been noticed in the Introduction; minor points of resemblance may be glanced at here. The mist that descends, and the carrying off of the empress, may be matched from Hahn, ii. 49, and Dietrich’s Russische Volksmärchen (Leip. 1831), No. 5. For the cross-roads, compare Hahn, ii. 50, and the Welsh-Gypsy story of ‘An Old King and his Three Sons’ (No. 55), where likewise the younger of three sons goes to the left. Figs causing horns to grow occur in Hahn, i. 257 (cf. also Grimm, ii. 421–422; and De Gubernatis’ Zool. Myth. i. 182). The box with the little lord belongs to the Aladdin cycle (cf. Welsh-Gypsy story, ‘Jack and his Golden Snuffbox,’ No. 54; Grimm, ii. 258; and Clouston, i. 314–346). For the engagement to court-tailor as apprentice, cf. Grimm, ii. 388; for washing the face, Grimm, ii. 145; for pronouncing one’s own doom, Grimm, i. 59; and for the concluding ordeal the close of our No. 20, p. 79. In a Lesbian story, ‘Les trois Fils du Roi’ (Georgeakis and Pineau’s Folk-lore de Lesbos, No. 7, p. 41), the hero also turns tailor, the youngest maiden having given him three nuts containing three superb dresses.

No. 24.—The Prince, his Comrade, and Nastasa the Fair

There was an emperor with an only son; and he put him to school, to learn to read. And he said to his father, ‘Father, find me a comrade, for I’m tired of going to school.’ The emperor summoned his servants, and sent them out into the world to find a boy, and gave them a carriageful of ducats, and described what he was to be like, and how old. So they traversed all the world, and found a boy, and gave a carriageful of ducats for him, and brought him to the emperor. The emperor clothed him, and put him to the school; and he was the better scholar of the two.

There was an empress, the lovely Nastasa.11 A virgin she, who commanded her army. And she had a horse, which twelve men led forth from the stable; and she had a sword, which twelve more men hung on its peg. And princes came to seek her, and she said, ‘He who shall mount my horse, him will I marry, and he who shall brandish my sword.’ And when they led forth the steed, and the suitors beheld it, they feared, and departed home.

The emperor’s son said, ‘Father, I will go to Nastasa the Fair, to woo her’; and he said, ‘Come with me, brother.’ Their father gave them two horses, and gave them plenty of ducats; and they set out to Nastasa the Fair. And night came upon them, and they rested and made a fire.

And the emperor’s son said, ‘If I had Nastasa the Fair here, I would stretch myself by her side; and if her horse were here, what a rattling I’d give him; and if her sword were here, I would brandish it.’

And his brother said, ‘All the same, you’ve got to feed swine.’

And in the morning they journey till night, and at night they rested again. Again he said, ‘If I had Nastasa the Fair here, I would stretch myself by her side; and if her horse were here, I would rattle him; and if her sword were here, I would brandish it.’

‘Brother, you’ve got to feed swine.’

He cut off his head with his sword, and went onward. And two Huculs12 came, and put his head on again, and sprinkled the water of life. And he arose, and mounted his horse, and gave each of the Huculs a handful of ducats. And he went after his brother, and caught him up on the road. And they journeyed till night, and he said to his brother, ‘Brother, if you will hearken to me, it will go well with you.’

‘I will, brother.’ He came to Nastasa the Fair.

‘What have you come for?’

‘We have come to demand your hand.’

And she said, ‘Good, but will you mount my steed?’

‘I will.’

She cried to her servants, ‘Bring forth the steed.’

Twelve men brought him forth; the comrade mounted him. The horse flew up aloft with him, to cast him down. And he took his club, and kept knocking him over the head.

The horse said, ‘Don’t kill me.’

‘Let yourself gently down with me, and fall beneath me, and I will take you by the tail and drag you along the ground, that she may see how I treat you.’

He cried aloud, ‘What a poor, wretched horse you have given me.13 Bring the sword, that I brandish it.’

Twelve men brought the sword; he brandished it, and flung it to the Ninth Region. There was Paul the Wild; he was nailed to the roof by the palms of his hands. And thither he flung the sword; it cut off his hands, and he fled away.

They summoned the prince to table to eat, and set him at table, and twelve servants ate with him. They kept squeezing him, and he said, ‘I’ll step outside into the fresh air.’ He went out, and said to his brother, ‘Come, do you sit here, for I’m off.’

So he sat there in their midst, and they kept squeezing him. And he took his club, and began to lay about with it. And he said, ‘This is your way of showing one honour.’ They fled and departed.

At nightfall now it grew dark, and Nastasa the Fair called the prince to her. He went to her. She set her foot on him, and picked him up, and he was like to die.

And he said, ‘Let me go into the fresh air.’

She said, ‘Go.’

He went out, and said to his brother, ‘Stay you here, for I’m off.’

And he went and lay down beside her. She set her foot on him. He took his club and thrashed her with it, so that he left in her only the strength of a mere woman.

He went out, went to his brother. ‘Well, brother, now you can go, and don’t be frightened; but, when you come to her, give her a slap.’

He went to her, gave her a slap, and slept beside her. In the morning they went out for a walk, and she said to him, ‘My lord, what a thrashing you gave me! yet when you came back you kissed me.’14

And he said to her, ‘I didn’t kiss you, I gave you a slap.’

‘Who then was it thrashed me?’

‘My brother.’

She said not a word.

The brother slept by himself in another room. And she took the sword and cut off his feet. He made himself a winged cart; it ran a mile when he gave it a shove. And he found Paul the Wild, and said, ‘Where are you going to, brother?’

‘I am going into the world to get my living, for I have no hands.’

‘Ha! let’s become Brothers of the Cross,15 and do you yoke yourself to the cart, and draw it gently, for you have feet.’

They went a-begging, and went into the woods and found a house, and took up their abode in it. And they went into a city and begged. A girl came to give him an alms; and he caught her, and threw her into the cart, and fled with her into the forest, there where their house was. And they swore they would not commit sin with her. The devil came, and lay with her. And they heard, and arose in the morning.

And Dorohýj Kúpec16 asked, ‘You swore. Why then did you go in to her and commit sin?’

‘It wasn’t me, brother, for I too heard, and I thought it was you.’

‘He’ll come this night, and do you take me in the stumps of your hands, and fling me on to them; I’ll seize him, whoever he is.’

At night he came to her, and lay with her. They heard, and Paul took him and flung him on to them. He seized the devil, and they lit the candle, and began to beat him. And he prayed them not to, ‘for I will restore you your feet, and likewise him his hands.’ In the morning they bound him by the neck, and led him to a spring.

‘Put your feet in the spring.’

He put his feet in the spring, and his feet became as they were before. And Paul put his hands in, and his hands were likewise restored. And Dorohýj Kúpec put some of the water of life in one pail, and some of the water of death in another. And he came back to their house; and they made a fire, put a fagot of wood on the fire, and burnt the devil, and flung his ashes to the wind. And Dorohýj Kúpec said, ‘Now, brother, do you take that girl to yourself, and live with her, for I will go to my brother.’

He set out, and went to his brother, and found his brother by the roadside feeding swine.

‘Well, do you mind my telling you, brother, you’d come to feed swine? Do you put on my clothes, and give me yours, for I’ll turn swineherd, and do you stay behind.’

He took and drove the swine home, and she cried, ‘Why have you driven the swine home so soon?’

The swine went into the sty, and one wouldn’t go; and he took a cudgel and beat it so that it died. And when Nastasa the Fair saw that, she fled into the palace, ‘for this is Dorohýj Kúpec.’

He followed her into the palace, and said to her, ‘Good day to you, sister-in-law.’

‘Thanks,’ said she.

He caught her by the hand and dragged her out, and cut her all in pieces, and made three heaps of them; and two heaps he gave to the dogs, and they devoured them. And the rest of her he gathered into a single heap, and made a woman, and sprinkled her with the water of death, and she joined together; and sprinkled her with the water of life, and she arose.

‘Take her, brother; now you may live with her, for now she has no great strength. I will go home,’ said Dorohýj Kúpec.

And home he went.

This Gypsy story is absolutely identical with the widespread Russian one of ‘The Blind Man and the Cripple’ (Ralston, pp. 240–256). The Russian version as a whole is fuller and more perfect; yet neither from it, nor, seemingly, from any of its variants, can the Gypsy tale be derived. The opening of the latter comes much closer to that of Hahn’s story from Syra (ii. 267), a variant of the Turkish-Gypsy story of ‘The Dead Man’s Gratitude’ (No. 1), and surely itself of Gypsy origin. Here a king has an only son, and puts him to school; and the vizier, sent in quest of another lad, buys a beautiful Gypsy boy with a voice like a nightingale’s. He, too, is put to school, and proves the better scholar of the two.

In Ralston, as in Hahn, ii. 268, the prince falls in love through a portrait (cf. supra, p. 4). In Ralston Princess Anna the Fair propounds a riddle, as in the Turkish-Gypsy story of ‘The Riddle’ (No. 3), where, too, she consults her book (cf. Ralston, p. 242). In Ralston there is no quarrel, and no cutting off of head; nothing also of the heroic sword. The squeezing by the servants is wanting in the Russian tale, but the sleeping with the bride occurs in a variant, and Ralston cites a striking parallel from the Nibelungenlied. The comrade in Ralston, after his feet are cut off, falls in with a blind hero; the devil—a late survival of the mediæval incubus—is represented by a Baba Yaga; and the prince is made a cowherd (but a swineherd in two of the variants). The finale in Ralston is extremely poor—best in the Ryazan variant, where the comrade beats the enchantress-queen with red-hot bars until he has driven out of her all her magic strength, ‘leaving her only one woman’s strength, and that a very poor one.’ In the winged cart we seem to get a forecast of the tricycle.

No. 25.—The Hen that laid Diamonds

There was a poor man, and he had three sons. And the youngest found six kreutzers, and said, ‘Take, father, these six kreutzers, and go into the town and buy something.’ And the old man went into the town and bought a hen, and brought it home; and the hen laid a diamond egg. And he put it in the window, and it shone like a candle. And in the morning the old man arose and said, ‘Wife, I will go into the town with this egg.’ And he went into the town, and went to a merchant. ‘Buy this egg.’

‘What do you want for it?’

‘Give me a hundred florins.’

He gave him a hundred florins. The old man went home and bought himself food, and put the boys to school. And the hen laid another egg, and he brought it again to that merchant, and he gave him a hundred more florins. He went home. Again the hen laid an egg; he brought it again to that merchant. And on the egg there was written: ‘Whoso eats the hen’s head shall be emperor; and whoso eats the heart, every night he shall find a thousand gold pieces under his head; and whoso eats the claws shall become a seer.’

The merchant came to that village and hired the old man: ‘What shall I give you to convey my merchandise?’

‘Give me a hundred florins.’

And he hired the man with the hen for half a year. The merchant came to the man’s wife and said, ‘Your man is dead, and my money is gone with him, but I’m willing to wed you: I’m rich.’

‘Wedded let us be.’

‘Good, we will, and kill me the hen for the wedding-feast. We shall do without fiddlers.’17

And they hired a cook. ‘Have the hen ready against our return from church.’

The boys came home from school. ‘Give us something to eat.’

‘I’ve nothing to give you, for he told me not to give any of the hen.’

And the boys begged her, ‘Do let us have a bit too, for it was we looked after the hen; do let us have a bit too, if it’s ever so little.’

She gave the eldest the head, and the middle one the heart, and to the youngest she gave the claws. And they went off to school.

And they came from the wedding, and sat down to table; and he said to the cook, ‘Give us to eat.’

And she served up the hen to them. And he asked for the head and the heart, and he asked for the claws. There were none!

And he asked the cook, ‘Where is the head?’

She said, ‘The boys ate it.’

And he, that merchant, said, ‘I don’t want any of this hen. Give me the head and the heart and the claws; I will eat only them.’

The cook said, ‘The boys ate them.’

And he said, ‘Wife, make them bitter coffee to make them vomit.’

And they came home from school, and the youngest boy said, ‘Don’t drink this coffee, it will kill you.’18

They went home, and their mother gave them the coffee; and they poured it on the ground and went back to school.

The merchant came and asked, ‘Were they sick?’

She answered, ‘No.’

‘I will go to the town and buy apples; and do you entice them into the cellar, and I will cut their throats, and take out head, heart, and claws, and eat them.’

The youngest brother said, ‘Let us go out into the world.’

‘Go! what for?’

‘Our father is meaning to kill us.’

They departed, and went into another kingdom. The emperor there was dead; and they took his crown and put it in the church; whosever head the crown falls on he shall be emperor. And men of all ranks came into the church; and the three boys came. And the eldest went before, and slipped into the church; and the crown floated on to his head.

‘We have a new emperor.’

They raised him shoulder-high,19 and clad him in royal robes. A mandate is issued: There is a new emperor. The army came and bowed before the new emperor.

And the middle brother said, ‘I’m off. I shan’t stay here. I want to be emperor too.’

And the youngest said, ‘I shall stay.’

So the middle one departed, and went to another emperor; that emperor had a daughter. And thus said the emperor, ‘Whoever surpasses her in money, he shall marry her.’

He went to her. ‘Come, let us play for money.’

They started playing; he beat her. One day they played, and two not. And he surpassed her in money, and wedded her. And the emperor joined them in marriage, and made him king.

And she had a lover. And that lover sent her a letter: ‘Ask him where he gets all his money from.’

And she asked him: ‘My lord, where do you get all your money from, that you managed to beat me?’

‘Every night I find a thousand gold pieces under my head.’

‘How so?’

‘I ate a hen’s heart.’

She wrote a letter and sent it to her lover: ‘He ate a hen’s heart, and every night he finds a thousand gold pieces under his head.’

And he sent her another letter: ‘Make him coffee, that he vomit—vomit that heart up. And do you take it and eat it; then I’ll marry you.’

She made him coffee, and he drank it, and vomited up the heart; and she took it and ate it. And she went to her father. ‘Come, father, see how he vomits. He’s not the man for me.’

The emperor saw how he vomited. ‘Here, off you go. I don’t want your sort.’ And he took all his clothes off him, and gave him common clothes. And he departed.

He went into the forest, and he hungered, and he came to an apple-tree. He took an apple and ate it, and became an ass. He goes weeping, goes onward, and found a crab-apple, and ate one of its apples, and became a man again. He turned back and took two apples, and took two also of the crab-apples, and went to the city where his wife was. And he stood by the roadside, and his wife went out to walk.

‘Are your apples for sale, my man?’

‘They are.’

He sold her an apple. She took a bite of it, and became a she-ass. He took her by the mane, and put a bridle on her head, and got on her, and galloped with her into the town, and went with her to an inn, and ordered bitter coffee, and poured it into her mouth; and she vomited, and vomited, and vomited up the heart. And he took it and ate it, and said, ‘Now, I’m master.’ And he went to his father-in-law: ‘I demand justice; this is your daughter.’

The emperor summoned his ministers, but he said, ‘I don’t want you to pass judgment; come with me to the new emperor.’

So they went to the new emperor. And the emperor drives in his carriage, and he goes riding on his wife.

And the youngest brother said, ‘My brother will appeal to you for judgment; deliver a good one.’

The emperors met, and bowed themselves; and the father-in-law said, ‘Deliver judgment for this man.’

‘I will. You have made her a she-ass; make her a woman again.’

‘But she’ll have to behave herself in the future.’

‘She shall,’ said her father, ‘only do restore her.’

He gave her a crab-apple, and she ate it, and became a woman again. The emperor took off his crown and set it on his head. ‘Do you take my crown, do you be emperor.’

‘Das goldene Hahn,’ a Greek story from Ziza (Hahn, No. 36, i. 227), presents a very close parallel:—The Jew knows that whoever eats the head will be king, whoever eats the heart will be able to read men’s hearts, and whoever eats the liver will every morning find a thousand piastres under his pillow.… The three boys, coming from school, eat them.… Their mother tries to poison them.… By advice of the middle boy they do not eat.… Finally they go out into the world.

The episode of the crown, suggestive of the Arthurian legend, is wanting in Hahn. The notion of a contest in money occurs, to the best of my knowledge, in no other folk-tale; but we meet with it in the second fytt of the English ballad of ‘The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green.’ And at Peterborough Fair, in September 1872, a Gypsy told me, as a matter of history, of a similar contest between two Gypsies: each had to show a guinea for the other’s.

Grimm’s ‘Two Brothers’ (No. 60, i. 244, 418), with its variants, should be carefully compared, also his ‘Donkey Cabbages’ (No. 122, ii. 139, 419), which is a recast of the latter portion of our Bukowina-Gypsy story, for we get bird’s heart … gold pieces under pillow … emetic … donkey cabbage … recovery through different kind of cabbage … punishment … restoration … emetic proposed. It is noteworthy also that the conclusion of Grimm’s ‘Two Brothers’ can be matched by the conclusion of a Hungarian-Gypsy story (Friedrich Müller’s No. 5), whose first half I have summarised on p. 34. Its hero next comes to a city deprived of its water by twelve dragons, who are also going to eat the king’s daughter. He undertakes to rescue her, but falls asleep with his head on her knee. The twelve white dragons roar under the earth, and then emerge one by one from out of the fountain, to be torn in pieces by the hero’s twelve wild animals. The water becomes plentiful, and the hero marries the princess. But a former lover of hers poisons him. The twelve animals find his grave, and dig him up. They go in quest of the healing herb; and the hare, ‘whose eyes are always open, sees a snake with it in his mouth, robs the snake of it, and runs off, but at the snake’s request restores a portion.’ They then resuscitate their master. (Cf. Grimm’s ‘The Two Snake-leaves,’ No. 16, i. 70; Hahn, ii. 204, 260, 274; and our Bukowina-Gypsy story, ‘Pretty-face,’ No. 29, p. 111). The hero sends a challenge by the lion to the former lover, who is just about to wed the princess. She reads, weeps, and breaks off the match. In comes the hero, and they are married again. ‘If they are not dead, they are still alive.’

Clouston epitomises Roman and Indian versions of our story (i. 93–99), but omits ‘The Two Brothers’ in F. A. Steel’s Wide-awake Stories, pp. 138–152, and ‘Saiyid and Said’ in Knowles’s Folk-tales of Kashmir, pp. 74–97. The last offers wonderfully close analogies to the Gypsy story. Cf. also Krauss, i. 187; and Vuk’s Servian story, No. 26.

No. 26.—The Winged Hero

There was a certain great craftsman, and he was rich. He took to drinking and gambling, and drank away all his wealth, and grew poor, so that he had nothing to eat. He saw a dream, that he should make himself wings; and he made himself wings, and screwed them on, and flew to the Ninth Region, to the emperor’s castle, and lighted down. And the emperor’s son went forth to meet him, and asked him, ‘Where do you come from, my man?’

‘I come from afar.’

‘Sell me your wings.’

‘I will.’

‘What do you want for them?’

‘A thousand gold pieces.’

And he gave him them, and said to him, ‘Go home with the wings, and come back in a month’s time.’

He flew home, and came back in a month; and the prince said to him, ‘Screw the wings on to me.’

And he screwed them on, and wrote down for the prince which peg he was to turn to fly, and which peg he was to turn to alight. The prince flew a little, and let himself down on the ground, and gave him another thousand florins more, and gave him also a horse, that he might ride home. The prince screwed on the wings, and flew to the south. A wind arose from the south, and tossed the trees, and drove him to the north. In the north dwelt the wind, drove him to the Ninth Region. And a fire was shining in the city. And he lighted down on the earth, and unscrewed his wings, and folded them by his side, and came into the house. There was an old woman, and he asked for food. She gave him a dry crust, and he ate it not. He lay down and slept. And in the morning he wrote a letter for her, and gave her money, and sent her to a cookshop with a letter to the cookshop to give him good food. And the old woman came home, and gave him to eat, and he also gave to the old woman. He went outside, and saw the emperor’s palace with three stories of stone and the fourth of glass. And he asked the old woman, ‘Who lives in the palace? and who lives in the fourth story?’

‘The emperor’s daughter lives there. He won’t let her go out. He gives her her food there by a rope.’

And the maid-servant lowered the rope, and they fastened the victuals to it, and she drew them up by the rope. And the maid-servant had a bedchamber apart, where she slept only of a night, and the day she passed with the princess.

And that emperor’s son screwed on his wings and flew up, flew to the glass house, and he looked to see how the bars opened, and opened them, and let himself in. And she was lying lifeless on the bed. And he shakes her, and she never speaks. And he took the candle from her head; and she arose, and embraced him, and said to him, ‘Since you are come to me, you are mine, and I am yours.’ They loved one another till daybreak; then he went out, placed the candle at her head, and she was dead. And he closed the bars again, and flew back to the old woman.

Half a year he visited the princess. She fell with child. The maid-servant noticed that she was growing big, and her clothes did not fit her. She wrote a letter to the emperor: ‘What will this be, that your daughter is big?’ The emperor wrote back a letter to her: ‘Smear the floor at night with dough, and whoever comes will leave his mark on the floor.’ She placed the candle at her head, and the girl lay dead. And she smeared the floor with dough, and went to her chamber. The emperor’s son came again to her, and let himself in to her, and never noticed they had smeared the floor, and made footprints with his shoes, and the dough stuck to his shoes, but he never noticed it, and went home to the old woman, and lay down and slept. The servant-maid went to the emperor’s daughter, and saw the footprints, and wrote a letter to the emperor, and took the measure of the footprints, and sent it to the emperor. The emperor summoned two servants, and gave them a letter, and gave them the measure of the footprints. ‘Whose shoes the measure shall fit, bring him to me.’ They traversed the whole city, and found nothing.

And one said, ‘Let’s try the old woman’s.’

And another said, ‘No, there’s nobody there.’

‘Stay here. I’ll go.’

And he saw him sleeping, and applied the measure to his shoes. They summoned him. ‘Come to the emperor.’

‘All right.’

He bought himself a great cloak, and put it on, so that his wings might not be noticed, and went to the emperor. The emperor asked him, ‘Have you been going to my daughter?’

‘I have.’

‘With what purpose have you done so?’

‘I want to marry her.’

The emperor said, ‘Bah! you’ll not marry her, for I’ll burn you both with thorns.’

The emperor commanded his servants, and they gathered three loads of thorns, and set them on fire, and lowered her down, to put them both on the fire. The emperor’s son asked, ‘Allow us to say a pater noster.’ He said to the girl, ‘When I fall on my knees, do you creep under the cloak and clasp me round the neck, for I’ll fly upwards with you.’

She clasped him round the neck, and quickly he screwed the wings, and flew upwards. The cloak flew off, the soldiers fired their guns at it; on he flew. She cried, ‘Let yourself down, for I shall bear a child.’

He said, ‘Hold out.’

He flew further, and alighted on a rock on a mountain, and she brought forth a child there. She said, ‘Make a fire.’ He saw a fire in a field afar off. He screwed his wings, and flew to the fire, and took a brand of it, and returned. And a spark fell on one wing, and the wing caught fire. Just as he was under the mountain the wing fell off, and he flung away the other one as well. And he walked round the mountain, and could not ascend it.

And God came to him and said, ‘Why weepest thou?’

‘Ah! how should I not weep? for I cannot ascend the mountain, and my wife has brought forth a child.’

‘What will you give me if I carry you up to the top?’

‘I will give you whatever you want.’

‘Will you give me what is dearest to you?’

‘I will.’

‘Let us make an agreement.’

They made one. God cast him into a deep sleep, and her as well, and God bore them home to his father’s, to his own bed, and left them there, and departed. And the child cried. The warders heard a child crying in the bedchamber. They went and opened the door, and recognised him, the emperor’s son. And they went to the emperor and told him, ‘Your son has come, O emperor.’

‘Call him to me.’

They came to the emperor; they bowed themselves before him; they tarried there a year. The boy grew big, and was playing one day. The emperor and the empress went to church, and his nurse too went to the church. God came, disguised like a beggar. The emperor’s son said to the little lad, ‘Take a handful of money, and give it to the beggar.’

The beggar said, ‘I don’t want this money; it’s bad. Tell your father to give me what he vowed he would.’

The emperor’s son was angry, and he took his sword in his hand, and went to the old man to kill him. The old man took the sword into his own hand and said, ‘Give me what you swore to me—the child, you know—when you were weeping under the mountain.’

‘I will give you money, I will not give you the child.’

God took the child by the head, and the father took him by the feet, and they tugged, and God cut the child in half.

‘One half for you, and one half for me.’

‘Now you’ve killed him, I don’t want him. Take him and be hanged to you.’

God took him, and went outside, and put him together; and he was healed, and lived again.

‘Do you take him now.’

For God cut off his sins.

Of this story, widely familiar through H. C. Andersen’s ‘Flying Trunk,’ Wlislocki furnishes a Transylvanian-Gypsy variant, ‘The Wooden Bird,’ in his ‘Beiträge zu Benfey’s Pantschatantra’ (Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenl. Gesellschaft, vol. xxxii. 1888, part i. p. 119). For that variant and many others—Persian, Hindu, Modern Greek, etc., including ‘Der Weber als Wischnu’ from Benfey, i. 159–163, ii. 48–56, see W. A. Clouston’s Notes on the Magical Elements in Chaucer’s ‘Squire’s Tale,’ and Analogues (Chaucer Soc. 1890, pp. 413–471). Cf. also Grimm’s ‘Blue Light,’ No. 116; Hahn, No. 15, and ii. 269, for tower of glass or crystal; Cosquin, No. 31; and Hahn, ii. 186, for a king who governs nine kingdoms. With the princess lying lifeless on the bed compare the lady sleeping on a golden bedstead in Lal Behari Day’s Folk-tales of Bengal, p. 251. In ‘The Demon and the King’s Son’ (Maive Stokes’s Indian Fairy Tales, p. 186), the demon every day makes his daughter lie on her bed, and covers her with a sheet, and places a thick stick at her head, and another at her feet. Then she dies till he comes home in the evening and changes the sticks. This brings her to life again. Cf. also notes to our Welsh-Gypsy story of ‘An Old King and his three Sons’ (No. 55).

No. 27.—Tropsyn

There was a poor man, and he had four sons. And they went out to service, and went to a gentleman to thrash wheat. And they received so much wheat for a wage, and brought it to their father. ‘Here, father, eat; we will go out to service again.’ And they went again to a gentleman, who was to give them each a horse at the year’s end. And the youngest was called Tropsyn; and the gentleman made him his groom. And a mare brought forth a colt; and that colt said, ‘Tropsyn, take me. The year is up now.’

The gentleman said, ‘Choose your horses.’

So the three elder brothers chose good horses; but Tropsyn said, ‘Give me this horse, master.’

‘What will you do with it? it’s so little.’

‘So it may be.’

Tropsyn took it and departed; and the colt said, ‘Let me go, Tropsyn, to my dam to suck.’

And he let it go, and it went to its dam, and came back a horse to terrify the world.

‘Now mount me.’

He mounted, and the horse flew. He caught up his brothers, and his brothers asked him, ‘Where did you get that horse from?’

‘I killed a gentleman, and took his horse.’

‘Let’s push on, and escape.’

Night fell upon them as they were passing a meadow, and in that meadow they saw the light of a fire. They made for the light. It was an old woman’s, and she was a witch, and had four daughters. And they went there, and went into the house; and Tropsyn said, ‘Good-night.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Can you give us a night’s lodging?’

‘I’m not sure; my mother is not at home. When she comes you had better ask her.’

The mother came home. ‘What are you wanting, young fellows?’

‘We’ve come to demand your daughters in marriage.’

‘Good.’

She made them a bed on the ground with its head to the threshold, and her daughters’ with its head to the wall. And the old woman sharpened her sword to cut off their heads. And Tropsyn took his brothers’ caps, and put them on the girls’ heads. And the old woman arose, and kept feeling the caps, and keeps cutting off the heads, and killed her daughters.

Tropsyn arose, and led his brothers outside. ‘Come, be off.’ And he arose, Tropsyn; and the old woman had a golden bird in a cage; and Tropsyn said to the horse, ‘I will take a feather of the bird.’

And the horse said, ‘Don’t.’

‘Bah! I will.’ And he took a feather, and put it in his pocket.

And they mounted their horses and rode away, and went to a city. There was a great lord, a count; and he asked them, ‘Where are you going?’

‘We are going to service.’

‘Take service with me, then.’

And that lord was still unmarried. And they went to him, and he gave them each a place. One he set over the horses, and one he set over the oxen, and one he set over the swine; and Tropsyn he made coachman. Of a night Tropsyn stuck the feather in the wall, and it shone like a candle. And his brothers were angry, and went to their master. ‘Master, Tropsyn has a feather, such that one needs no candle—of gold.’

The master called: ‘Tropsyn, come here, bring me the feather.’

Tropsyn brought it, and gave it to his master. The master liked him better than ever, and the brothers went to the master, and said to him, ‘Master, Tropsyn has said that he’ll bring the bird alive.’

The master called Tropsyn. ‘Tropsyn, bring me the bird. If you don’t, I shall cut off your head.’

He went to his horse. ‘What am I to do, horse, for the master has told me to bring the bird?’

‘Fear not, Tropsyn; jump on my back.’

So he mounted the horse, and rode to the old woman’s. And the horse said to him, ‘Turn a somersault,20 and you’ll become a flea, and creep into her breast and bite her. And she’ll fling off her smock, and do you go and take the bird.’

And he took the bird, and departed to his master; the master made him a lackey.

And there was in the Danube a lady, a virgin; and of a Sunday she would go out on the water in a boat. And his brothers came to their master and said, ‘Master, Tropsyn boasts that he’ll bring the lady from the bottom of the Danube.’

‘Tropsyn, come here. What is this you’ve been boasting, that you’ll bring me the lady?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘You’ve got to, else I shall cut off your head.’

He went to his horse. ‘What am I to do, horse, for how shall I bring her?’

And the horse said, ‘Fear not, let him give you twelve hides and a jar of pitch,21 and put them on me, and let him make you a small ship, not big, and let him put various drinks in the ship. And do you hide yourself behind the door. And she will come, and drink brandy, and get drunk, and sleep. And do you seize her, and jump on my back with her, and I will run off home.’

The horse ran home to the master, and Tropsyn gave her to his master in the castle. The count shut the doors, and set a watch at the window to prevent her escape, for she was wild. The count wanted to marry her; she will not.

‘Let them bring my herd of horses, then I will marry you. He who brought me, let him bring also my horses.’

The count said, ‘Tropsyn, bring the horses.’

Tropsyn went to his horse. ‘What am I to do, horse? How shall I bring the horses from the Danube?’

‘Come with me, fear not.’

When he came to the Danube, the horse leapt into the Danube, and caught the mother of the horses by the mane, and led her out. And Tropsyn caught her, and mounted her, and galloped off. And the whole herd came forth, and ran after their dam home to the count’s palace. The lady cried ‘Halt!’ to the horses.

The count wants to marry her. She says, ‘Let him milk my mares, and when you have bathed in their milk, then I will marry you.’

The count cried, ‘Tropsyn, milk the mares.’

And Tropsyn went to his horse. ‘What shall I do, horse? How shall I milk the mares?’

‘Fear not, for I will catch her by the mane, and do you milk, and fear not.’

And he milked a whole caldron full.

And the lady said, ‘Make a fire, and boil the milk.’

And they made a fire, and the milk boils.

‘Now,’ said the lady, ‘let him who milked the mares bathe in the milk.’

And the count said, ‘Tropsyn, go and bathe in the milk.’

He went to the horse. ‘What shall I do, horse? for if I bathe, then I shall die.’

The horse said, ‘Fear not, lead me to the caldron; I will snort through my nostrils, and breathe out frost.’

He led the horse; the horse snorted through his nostrils; then the milk became lukewarm. Then he leapt into the caldron, and fair as he was before, he came out fairer still. When he came out, the horse snorted through his nostrils, and breathed fire into the caldron, and the milk boiled again.

And the lady said to the count, ‘Go thou too and bathe in the milk, then will I live with thee.’

The count went to the caldron and said, ‘Tropsyn, bring me my horse.’

Tropsyn brought him his horse; the horse trembled from afar. The count leapt into the caldron; only bones were to be seen at the bottom of the caldron.

Then cried the lady, ‘Come hither, Tropsyn; thou art my lord, and I am thy lady.’

Of this Bukowina-Gypsy story we have a very interesting Welsh-Gypsy version, taken down in Rómani from Matthew Wood’s recitation by Mr. Sampson, and thus epitomised by him in English:—

No. 28.—The Beautiful Mountain

Somewhere far off were a quarryman and his wife. They had a son in their old age. They died. An old man comes to beg, and asks boy will he come with him to seek fortune. They go. ‘Wish me into a horse.’ Boy does so. ‘Jump on my back.’ He does so. They take the road. Horse warns boy to help anything in distress. Boy finds a little fish cast up by the tide, and puts it back in the water. Fish promises gratitude. They cross the Beautiful Mountain. Horse warns boy to touch nothing. A feather blows in his mouth. He spits it out again and again, but it returns. He looks at it, thinks it pretty, puts it in his pocket. They descend other side of the mountain. Boy hears noise of bellowing in a castle. Finds sick giant in bed, without servant-maid. Boy gets him food. Giant promises gratitude. Horse asks boy if he touched anything on mountain. ‘Nothing but this feather.’ ‘That feather will bring you sorrow, but keep it now you have it.’ They come to a castle. Boy asks for work. Master tests his handwriting. Engages him. Wants him to sleep indoors; he prefers stable beside his old horse (cf. Grimm, No. 126, ii. 155, also for pen). They marvel at his penmanship, done with this feather. One day the master’s man steals the pen by a ruse, and brings it to master: ‘Master, the man that got the feather can get the bird.’ Boy tells horse what they want him to do. Horse tells him to ask for three days’ leave and three sacks of gold. Horse and boy go off. They go and get the bird, choosing the dirtiest and ugliest bird (cf. Polish-Gypsy story, No. 49, for choosing bird in common cage). The master’s man says, ‘Master, the bird is fair, but fairer still the lady’ (that owned it). Boy told to fetch lady; he tells horse. Horse reminds him that he said the feather would bring him trouble. Three more days and three purses of gold. Horse says, ‘Wish me into a boat on the sea.’ The boat is full of the finest silk. They sail under the castle. Lure lady on board to see silk. She goes into cabin. Boy weighs anchor and off. Lady comes up, and drops her keys into sea. They return. Man says to master, ‘Master, the man that got the lady can get the castle.’ Boy tells horse. Horse reminds him of unlucky feather. Three more days and bags of gold. They go. Horse reminds boy of giant’s promise. Giant puts chain round castle and drags it along. The castle is walled round and locked. Lady demands her keys. Boy and horse go off, call the little fish. He fails to find keys. Tries again and brings them up. Keys given to lady. Lady says, ‘Which would you prefer, Jack, to have your head cut off or your master’s head cut off?’ Boy says, ‘Cut off mine, not his.’ Lady says, ‘You have spoken well. Had you not spoken thus, your own head would have been cut off. Now the master’s head will fall, not yours.’ Boy and lady wed, and live in the castle still. ‘Now you’ve got it.’

It must at least be nearly five hundred years since the ancestors of our Welsh Gypsies parted from those of their kinsfolk in Bukowina; yet the resemblance between these two versions still is marvellous. The talking horse, the entering into service at the castle, the feather, the fetching the bird, the fetching a lady (in the Bukowina version not the lady), the cabin even, the fetching the lady’s belongings, and the doom of the master—these eight details are common to both: the very order of them is identical. Non-Gypsy variants are Grimm’s ‘Ferdinand the Faithful’ (No. 126; ii. 153, 425), Cosquin’s ‘Le Roi d’Angleterre et son Filleul’ (No. 3, i. 32), his ‘La Belle aux Cheveux d’Or’ (No. 72, ii. 290), the Donegal story of ‘The Red Pony’ in W. Larmenie’s West Irish Folk-tales (1893, pp. 211–218), a Russian story summarised by Ralston (p. 287), and Laura Gonzenbach’s long Sicilian story, ‘Die Geschichte von Caruseddu’ (No. 83, ii. 143–155, 257–9). All six deserve careful study, but specially the last, which links these stories to the heroic version of ‘The Master Thief’ (supra, p. 51). For its plot, told briefly, is this:—Caruseddu and his two elder brothers go as gardeners to a dragu (rendered ‘Menschenfresser’ or ‘ogre,’ but query rather ‘dragon’). By the Hop-o’-my-thumb device of changing caps, as in ‘Tropsyn’ (cf. also Hahn, ii. 179–180), Caruseddu deludes him into devouring his own three daughters. The brothers then take service with a king—Caruseddu as trusted servant, the others as gardeners. They are jealous of Caruseddu, and get the king to send him to steal first the dragu’s talking horse, next his bed-cover with golden balls, and lastly the dragu himself. This last task he achieves by the trick of getting the dragu to try if a new coffin for (the supposed dead) Caruseddu is big enough.22 Still at his brothers’ suggestion, Caruseddu is now sent to fetch the daughter of the queen with the seven veils; he achieves this, like his former feats, with the help of the talking horse. The princess refuses to wed the king unless he recovers for her the veil and the ring she had lost on the way to him; Caruseddu recovers them by the aid of a grateful bird and a grateful fish (cf. the Welsh version). He also sifts a barnful of wheat, oats, and barley with the aid of grateful ants. Lastly, he has to plunge into a fiery furnace, but, smeared with foam snorted by the talking horse, he emerges uninjured, far fairer than before. The old and ugly king has to essay the same ordeal, and asks Caruseddu what he smeared himself with. Who, sickened at last by his master’s ingratitude, answers, ‘With fat.’ So the king is burnt to ashes, and Caruseddu marries the princess. Reinhold Köhler, the learned annotator of Gonzenbach, compares Straparola, iii. 2 (Grimm, ii. 478) and a Wallachian story, where the hero bathes in boiling milk, which his magic horse blows cold, but in which the king himself perishes. Wratislaw gives a curious Servian story from Bosnia, ‘The Bird-catcher’ (No. 42, pp. 239–245). Here the hero, a bird-catcher, is advised by a grateful crow, but the horse comes in very mal-à-propos at the finish. Cf. also Hahn, ii. 180, 186; and Clouston’s Eastern Romances, p. 499, 570.

No. 29.—Pretty-face

There was a widow lady, and she had an only son. And he stuck his ring in the wall, and said, ‘Mother, when blood flows from the ring, then I am dead.’

And he was called Peter Pretty-face.

He took the road, and the dragon with six heads came, and he drew his sword and killed him, and made three heaps of him, and planted a red flag, and went further. And a dragon with twelve heads came, and he drew his sword, and killed him also, and made twelve heaps, and planted a black flag, and went further. And there came one with twenty-four heads, and he killed him also, and made twenty-four heaps, and planted a white flag.

Behold! the dragons carried off an emperor’s daughter—there were twelve dragons—and shut her up in their castle. And they went and fought from morning even till noon; he who shall prove himself strongest, he shall marry the maiden.

And his mother had said to him, ‘If you will go, your death will not be by a hero, but your death will be by a cripple.’

So he went to that castle, and saw the maiden at the window, and he asked her, ‘What are you doing there?’

‘The dragons carried me off, and shut me up here.’

‘And where are they gone to?’

‘They are gone to fight for me.’

‘And when will they come home?’

‘They will come at noon to dine. And they will hurl their club, and it will strike the door, that I may have the food ready.’

He opened the door and went in to her. The dragons hurled the club, and struck the door; and he took the club, and hurled it back, and killed them all.

‘Now have no fear; they are dead.’

He married the emperor’s daughter.

And the emperor heard that the dragons had carried off his daughter; and the emperor said, ‘He who shall free her from the dragons, he shall marry her.’ The emperor knew not that Peter Pretty-face had married her. He thought that the dragons had carried her off.

And there was one Chutilla the Handless, and he went to the emperor. ‘I, O emperor, will rescue your daughter from the dragons.’

‘Well, if you do, she shall be yours.’

So he, Chutilla, went to Peter Pretty-face. And night came upon him, and he had nowhere to sleep, and he crept into the hen-house. In the morning Peter Pretty-face arose, and washed his face, and looked out of the window, and Chutilla came forth from the hen-house.

And Peter Pretty-face saw him. ‘By him is my death.’

Chutilla came indoors and said, ‘Good-morning, Peter Pretty-face.’

‘Thanks, Chutilla.’

‘Come, Peter Pretty-face, give me the emperor’s daughter.’

He said, ‘I will not.’

Chutilla caught him by the throat, and placed his head on the threshold.23 ‘Give me, Peter Pretty-face, the maiden, else I will cut off your head.’

‘Cut it off; I will not give her.’

Chutilla cut off his head, and took the girl and departed.

Blood began to flow from the ring. His mother saw it. ‘Now my son is dead.’ She went after him, to seek for him, and came to the red flag. His mother said, ‘My son went this way.’ She went further, and came to the black flag. ‘My son went this way.’ She went further, and came to the white flag. ‘My son went this way.’ She came to the castle, found her son dead; and two serpents were licking the blood. And she struck one serpent, and it died. And the other serpent brought a leaf in its mouth, and went to the first serpent, and it also arose. And the lady saw, and killed it also, and took the leaf, and placed her son’s head again on the trunk, and touched it with the leaf, and he arose.

‘Mother, I was sleeping soundly.’

‘You would have slept for ever if I had not come.’

‘Mother, I will go to my lady.’

‘Go not, mother’s darling.’

‘Bah! I will go, mother.’

‘If go you will, God aid you.’

He went, and went straight to Chutilla, and seized Chutilla, and cut him all in little pieces, till he had cut him up, and cast him to the dogs, and they devoured him. And he took the emperor’s daughter, and went with her to the emperor.

And the maiden said, ‘Father, this is he that saved me from the dragons.’

The emperor joined them in marriage, and made him king. And they lived, perhaps they are living even now.

I know no variant, Gypsy or Gentile, of this story, though Chutilla recalls the ‘Halber Mensch’ of Hahn, ii. 274. The three flags, red, black, and white, are seemingly unique. For casting the club to announce one’s coming, cf. supra, pp. 37, 40; and Denton’s Serbian Folklore, p. 124. For snake-leaf in Hungarian-Gypsy tale, cf. supra, p. 99. And for ‘Mother, I was sleeping soundly,’ cf. supra, p. 33. If the story of ‘Peter Pretty-face’ is complete, his easy victory at the end may be due to God’s help, invoked by the mother.

No. 30.—The Rich and the Poor Brother

There were two brothers, one poor and one rich. And the rich one said to him, ‘Come with me, brother, to our father.’ And the rich one took bread for himself, and the poor one had none.

And the rich one kept eating bread, and the poor one said, ‘Give me, too, a bit of bread.’

‘If you will give me an eye, I will give you a bit of bread.’

‘I will give it you, brother.’

And he took out an eye, and gave him a bit of bread.

And he went further, and he hungered. ‘Give me a bit more bread.’

‘Give me one more eye.’

‘I will give it you, brother.’

Behold, he was blind now, and his brother took him by the hand and led him under the gallows, and left him there; and his brother departed. At nightfall came the devils, and perched on the gallows.

And the biggest devil asked, ‘What hast done in the world? where wert walking?’

‘I did—I stopped the water.’

‘And thou, what hast thou done?’

‘The emperor’s daughter neither dies nor lives; she is just in torment.’

‘And thou, what hast thou done?’

‘I did—that a brother dug out a brother’s eyes.’

‘If he knew, there’s a brook here, and if he washed himself, he would see.’

‘If the townsfolk knew to go to the mountain and remove the stone, the water would flow again.’

And the third said, ‘But if the emperor’s daughter knew, under her bed there is a toad, and if she takes it out, and gets ready a bath, and puts the toad in the bath, and if they wash her, she would grow strong.’

Then the cocks crowed, and the devils departed.

So the man dragged himself to the brook, and kept feeling with his hand till he found the water. And he washed his face, and his eyes were restored to him. And he went into the city where they had stopped the water. ‘What will you give me if I release the water?’

‘What you want, we will give you.’

‘Well, come with me to the mountain, take to you iron crowbars.’

So they went to the mountain, and raised the stone; and the water flowed plentifully.

‘Well, now, what do you want, man, for releasing the water?’

‘Give me a carriage and two horses and a carriageful of money.’

They gave them to him. He went to the emperor’s daughter. ‘What will you give me if I make her strong?’

‘What you want, I will give you.’

‘Set water on the fire to boil.’

And he went and took out the toad, and threw it into the bath; and they washed the emperor’s daughter, and she grew stronger and fairer than ever.

‘What do you want for making her strong and fair?’

‘Give me two horses and a carriageful of money, and give me a driver home.’

So he went home, and sent the servant to his brother, to borrow a bushel. And his brother asked, ‘What to do with the bushel?’

‘To measure money with.’

His brother gave him the bushel, and went himself and asked his brother, ‘Where did you get it, the money, from, and the horses?’

‘From there where you left me.’

‘Lead me, too, thither to that place. I am sorry, brother.’

‘Don’t be sorry; you’ve just got to go. Well, come, brother.’

So they both went to the place where he dug out his eyes.

‘Give me, brother, a bit of bread.’

‘Give me an eye.’

He gave him an eye, and he gave him a bit of bread.

And they went further. ‘Give me, brother, a bit more bread.’

‘Give me one more eye.’

‘I will, brother.’

So he gave him a bit more bread, and took him by the hand, and led him under the gallows, and left him there, and departed. At nightfall came the devils, and perched on the gallows. And the biggest devil asked, ‘What have you done? where have you been to in the world?’

One said, ‘Don’t tell, for there was lately a blind man under the gallows, and he heard what we said. And he made himself eyes, and made the water run, and raised up the emperor’s daughter. Stay, while I look under the gallows.’

And they found the blind man. ‘There’s a blind man here.’ And they rent him all in pieces. Then the devils departed; the man was dead.

This story is told as well as story may be. There is a Gypsy variant, longer but not half so good, from the Hungarian Carpathians, in Miklosich’s Beiträge, p. 3:—

No. 31.—The Three Brothers

There was, there was not, a lord; and he had three sons. And one was the eldest son, and he said to his father, ‘We will go somewhere to seek a livelihood.’

‘Well, go, my sons,’ said their father.

When they went, he baked loaves for each one to put in his wallet. Then they went a long way, and the youngest had most bread. And that youngest brother said, ‘Brothers mine, I cannot carry this wallet, so first we will eat from my wallet, brothers mine.’

When they had eaten, they then went a long way further, and then those two brothers ate, and gave not to the third. He now had nothing, and says, ‘Brothers mine, why don’t you give me to eat? You ate up mine, and now you don’t give me to eat.’

‘If you’ll let one of your eyes be taken out, then we will give you to eat,’ said the two elder brothers. And then they took out his eye, and then gave him to eat. When they had eaten, they went a long way further. And there again those two brothers eat, and the third one says, ‘Why don’t you give me to eat? Now you’ve taken my eye out, and yet give me nothing to eat.’

‘If you’ll let your other eye be taken out, then we will give you to eat.’

And he, the youngest, says, ‘Just do with me what you will.’

Then they took out his eye; then they gave him to eat; then that eyeless one said, ‘Lead me under the cross; maybe some one will give me something.’

They led him not under the cross, but under a gallows, and there hung a dead man. And then thither came three crows, and thus talked one with another:

‘What’s the news in your country?’ thus they asked one of them. ‘What’s the news?’

‘In my country there is no water.’

‘And in your country what’s the news?’

‘There’s a dew there, if a blind man rubs his eyes with it, he forthwith sees.’

‘And in your third country what’s the news?’

‘In my country there is a princess sick.’

And then those three crows went to the lad, and then they asked him what he was doing under the gallows.

And he said, ‘My brothers brought me here.’

And then those three crows flew away. And that lad feels in the grass with his hands, then he put it on his eyes, then he moistened his eyes; forthwith he saw. And then that lad departed to the king. That lad was then the king’s servant, and went then to a city, and went up above the city, and saw there such a great rock, and struck that rock as with a rod; forthwith the water came from the rock. And then that water flowed into the city, where there was no water, there flowed that water, and the people were greatly rejoiced. And then he, that lad, cried that the water will always flow; then were the people greatly rejoiced that that water was flowing.

And then that boy went to another city, and there was a sick princess. He went to that king, and asked him, ‘What’s this princess got?’

‘What’s she got! she’s sick.’

‘If you will give me her to wife, then I will help her,’ said that lad to the king.

‘Do but help her, then we will give you her to wife.’

When he had healed her, then he took her to wife; and then they held the bridal seven whole years. And then he became young king.

That young king said to his soldiers, ‘Hark ye, soldiers, go after my two brothers.’

Then those soldiers went after those two brothers, and then they brought the brothers. Then that young king asks them, ‘How many brothers had you?’

And they said, ‘We are only two.’

The king says, ‘Hah! were there ever more of you?’

Then those two brothers say, ‘We were three.’

Then, ‘What have you done with the third one?’

‘Done with him! He demanded of us to eat, then we took out his eyes.’

Then, ‘I am he,’ thus did that young king say. ‘Now, what am I to do with you?’

Those two brothers say, ‘Lead us under that cross.’

He led them under that very cross. When he had led them, there came again those same three crows. When they had come, again they asked one another, ‘What is the news in your country?’

‘In my country now is the princess well.’

‘And in your second country what is the news?’

‘In my country now is much water.’

‘And in your third country what is the news?’

‘There now is no such dew as they rubbed the eyes with.’

Then those three crows came to those two lads, and then there those crows say, ‘We will tear these two lads.’ And they tore and devoured them. And then those three crows flew away, and flew into the sky.

With its then’s and its that’s, a very imperfect, schoolboyish version. It does not tell how the hero cured the princess, or that his two brothers were blinded. Non-Gypsy variants of this widespread story are Grimm’s ‘The Two Travellers’ (No. 107, ii. 81), Cosquin’s ‘Les Deux Soldats de 1689’ (No. 7, i. 84), Denton’s Servian story of ‘Justice or Injustice’ (p. 83), Wratislaw’s ‘Right always remains Right’ (Lusatian, No. 14, p. 92), Hahn’s ‘Gilt Recht oder Unrecht’ (No. 30, i. 209), and others cited by Clouston (i. 249–261) from Norway, Portugal, the Kabyles, the Kirghiz, Arabia, Persia, and India. The borrowing the bushel occurs in the ‘Big Peter and Little Peter’ group of stories (cf. Clouston, i. 120, ii. 241–278; and Campbell’s Santal Folk-tales, pp. 30, 100), of which we have a Welsh-Gypsy version (No. 68), and which have a certain affinity with ‘The Rich and the Poor Brother.’ ‘Prince Half-a-Son’ in F. A. Steel’s Indian Wide-awake Stories, p. 290, is plainly analogous. On p. 277 we have ‘a great rich wedding that lasted seven years and seven days.’

No. 32.—The Enchanted City

There was a poor lad, and he served seven years, and could not earn anything. And he went into the world, and went into a city, and spent the night there, and lay down under a wall, and slept. In that wall there was a hole, and he awoke, and looked through the hole, and saw a candle. And he crept through the hole, and went into a palace. There was a great city, and there was an emperor in the city; and the emperor was dead, and also the empress was dead. And the emperor had a daughter, and she commanded the army. And that city was excommunicated, and the people were turned into stone. So the lad went into the palace of the emperor, and there in the palace all were turned into stone. And he marvelled what this might be, that the men were like men, but yet were all turned into stone.

A cat came, and set food on the table. He sat down to table, and ate. At night came the cat, and brought him food, and brought him cards, and said to him, ‘There will come a lord, and will say, “Play at cards,” and do you play; and he will spit on you, and do you bear it, but look at the clock. When it strikes ten, then give him a slap.’

Then there came devils as many as the blades of grass; and they beat him and tormented him till twelve o’clock; and the cocks crowed, and they fled. He lay down in the bed and slept. In the morning the cat brought him food, and he ate. At nightfall she again brought him food, said to him, ‘He will come again for you to play with him, and do you play till ten o’clock, and give him a slap; and they will come to you as many as all the blades of grass, and will beat you and torment you, and do you bear it till twelve o’clock.’

The lord came to him. ‘Hah! let us play cards.’

And they played till ten o’clock. He gave him, the devil, a slap. They came as many as all the blades of grass, and they beat him and tormented him till twelve o’clock, and they fled. He lay down in the bed and slept. In the morning he heard the folks talking in the city. In the morning the cat brought him food, and brought him royal clothes. He ate, and put on the clothes, and went into twelve chambers. There was the emperor’s daughter in her bed. One half was alive, and she said, ‘You are my emperor, and I am your empress, but come no more to me.’

Again at night the cat brought him food, and said to him, ‘He will come again to-night to play cards till ten o’clock. At ten o’clock give him a slap again, and they will come to you as many as all the blades of grass, and they will beat you and torment you, but bear it.’

That lord came to him. ‘Hah! let us play cards.’

And they played till ten o’clock. He gave him a slap, and they came as many as all the blades of grass, and they beat him and tormented him, and he bore it till twelve o’clock. At twelve o’clock they fled. He lay down on the bed and slept. In the morning the band began to play, they held a review.24 ‘For we have a new emperor.’ The ministers came to him, and raised him shoulder-high. ‘We have a new emperor.’

And he is in a hurry to go to his empress, and said, ‘Stay here, I will be back immediately.’

And he went to her. There she stood with her head to the roof, and a vapour went forth from her mouth; and he opened the door, and she just made a sign to him with her hand, and fell back on the bed, and became stone up to the waist. And she called him to her. ‘Leave me; I want you not. Why did you not wait to come to me, till I should obtain remission of my sins? Take you my father’s horse and his sword, and take a purse; as much money as you want, it shall not fail.’

He set out, and journeyed, and departed into another kingdom. There two emperors were fighting, because one would not give his daughter to the other’s son. ‘Set yourself to battle with me, since you refuse your daughter.’ They fought seven years. So he25 came into that city, and came to an inn, to a certain Armenian. And there was a great famine; the soldiers were dying of hunger. So he asked the Armenian, ‘What’s the news here?’

‘No good. They have been waging a great war seven years here for a girl, and the soldiers are dying of hunger.’

And he said, ‘Go and call them to me.’

The soldiers came, and he bought bread and brandy, and they drank and ate; and he said to the Armenian, ‘I, if I choose, I will cut that army to pieces.’

The Armenian went to the emperor. ‘Emperor, a king’s son is come, and has boasted that he by himself will cut that army to pieces.’

‘Call him to me.’

‘What is this you’ve been boasting? will you cut that army to pieces?’

‘I will.’

‘If you do, I will give you my daughter, and give you one half of my kingdom.’

And he, when he went to battle, waved to the right hand, and slew one half of the army, and he waved to the left hand, and slew the other half. And he came home, and the emperor gave him his daughter, and made a marriage.

‘Ask him what strength is his, that he slew so great an army.’26

And he said, ‘My sword slays.’

And she sent back a letter, ‘The sword alone slays; send me another sword, and I will send this one to you.’

She sent him the sword, and he then said, ‘Set yourself now to battle with me.’

And he went in hope. But the emperor slew him, and cut him all in pieces, and put him in the saddle-bags, and placed him on his horse, and said, ‘Whence thou didst bear him living, bear him dead.’27

The horse carried him home, thither to that lady who was of stone. She cried, ‘Bring him to me.’ She laid him on a table, and put him all together; and she sprinkled him with dead water, and he became whole; and she sprinkled him with living water, and he arose.28

‘Go back; take you this purse, you have but to wish and you will find it full of money. And go to that Armenian, and give him whatever he wants, and tell him you will turn yourself into a horse. Take a hair from my tail,29 and bind it round you like a girdle, and fling a somersault.’30

So he turned himself into a horse; and the Armenian took him, and led him into the city. The emperor bought him, and mounted him. He dashed him to the earth, and he died. The horse took the sword in his mouth, and went to the Armenian. The Armenian loosened the hair, and he became a man again. He made the Armenian king; and he departed home to his mistress, the first one, and wedded her. And he became emperor.

A mere ruin of a folk-tale, but what a fine ruin. The cat reminds one of Grimm’s No. 106, ‘The Poor Miller’s Boy and the Cat’ (ii. 78, 406), where the cat takes the hero into an enchanted castle, and gives him to eat and to drink. But Grimm’s No. 92, ‘The King of the Golden Mountain’ (ii. 28, 390), comes much closer to our Gypsy story. There the hero has three nights running to let himself be tortured in a bewitched castle by twelve black men till twelve o’clock, so to set free an enchanted maiden. Grimm’s No. 121, ‘The King’s Son who feared Nothing’ (ii. 134, 419), should also be compared, and our Welsh-Gypsy story, ‘Ashypelt’ (No. 57). The latter half of ‘The Enchanted City’ is identical with Krauss’s No. 47 (i. 224), a Slovenian story. For the magic sword cf. infra, p. 160; Clouston’s notes to Lane’s Continuation of Chaucer’s ‘Squire’s Tale’ (Chaucer Soc. 1888, pp. 372–381); Wratislaw’s Polish story, ‘The Spirit of a buried Man,’ No. 18, p. 122; and F. A. Steel’s Wide-awake Stories, p. 62. Playing cards with the devil or a monster occurs also in our No. 63 (p. 256), and in folk-tales from Russia, Germany, French Flanders, Lorraine, and Brittany (cf. Ralston, p. 375; Grimm, No. 4, i. 16, 346; and Cosquin, i. 28; ii. 254, 259, 260).

No. 33.—The Jealous Husband

There was a merchant, great and wealthy, and he had a beautiful wife; he did not let her go out. And he went in a ship on the Danube after merchandise with another merchant. And they were coming home. They hauled their ships to the bank, and moored them to the bank, to pass the night. They fell into discourse. Said one, ‘Has your wife got a lover at home?’

And he said, ‘My wife has not got a lover.’

‘Come, what will you give me if I become her lover?’

‘If you do, I will give you my estate, and my merchandise too, ship and all.’

‘How will you know that I am her lover?’

‘If you tell me her birth-mark, and if you take the gold ring from her finger. But my wife will be like to thrash you, if you but hint such a thing to her. I left a maid with her, to see that my wife does not go out of doors.’

‘I shall succeed, though.’

‘Go home and try; I’ll bring your ship.’

Home he went. What will he do? for he cannot come near her. He found an old wife. ‘Old wife, what am I to do to get the ring from the lady?’

‘What will you give me if I contrive that you get it?’

‘I will give you a hundred florins.’

‘Get a big chest made, and a window in it, and get into it, and make a bolt inside, and I will carry you to her.’

She carried him in the chest under the wall of her house, and went to the lady. ‘I beg you, lady, to take in my box of clothes, so that they may not be stolen.’

‘Carry it into the hall.’

She called the maid, and the maid helped her to carry him into the hall.

‘I beg you, lady, to let me take it right into your house. I will come in the morning to fetch it.’

‘Well, put it in a corner.’

The old woman went off home. The lady at night took a bath, and laid the ring on the table, and washed herself. And through the little window he perceived a mole under her right breast. The lady slept all night in her bed, and forgot the ring on the table, and put out the candle. And he let himself out, took the ring off the table, and got back into the chest, shut himself in. The old woman came next morning at daybreak, and carried her chest outside. He opened it, and came out, and took the chest, and departed. He went to meet the husband, and found him on the way.

‘Hast thou lain with my lady?’

‘I have.’

‘What is her birth-mark?’

‘She has a mole under her right breast. If you do not believe me, here is the ring as well.’

‘It’s all right; take the ship and everything in it, and come home, and I will give you also the estate.’

He went home, and said never a word to the lady; and he made a little boat, and put her in it, and let it go on the Danube. ‘Since you have done this, away you go on the Danube.’ He gave his whole estate, and became poor, and carried water for the Jews.

A whole year she floated on the Danube; the year went like a day. An old man caught her, and drew her to shore, and opened the boat, and took her out, and brought her to his house. She abode with him three years, and spun with her spindle, and made some money. And she bought herself splendid man’s clothes, and dressed herself, and cut her hair short, and went back to her husband. She went and passed the night beneath a lime-tree, and slept under the lime-tree. In that city the emperor was blind. She saw a dream: in the lime-tree was a hole, and in the hole was water; and if the emperor will anoint himself with that water he will see. She arose in the morning, and searched around, and found the hole. And she had a little pail, and she drew water in the pail, and put it in her pocket, and went into that city to an inn, and drank three kreutzers’ worth of brandy. And she asked the Jew, ‘What’s the news with you?’

‘Our emperor is blind, and he will give his kingdom to him who shall make him see.’

‘I will do so.’

The Jew went to the emperor, and the emperor said to him, ‘Hah! go and bring him to me.’

They brought him to the emperor. ‘Will you make me see? then I will give you my daughter.’

She took water, and anointed his eyes, and he saw. The emperor set his crown on her head. ‘Do you be emperor. I want nothing but to stay beside you.’ The emperor clad her royally, called his army, beat the drum. ‘For there’s a new emperor.’

And she saw her husband carrying water for the Jews. ‘Come hither. Have you always been poor?’

‘No, I once was not poor, I was rich. I had an estate, and I was a great merchant.’

‘Then how did you lose your estate?’

‘I lost it over a wager. My wife played the wanton with another, and I gave up the estate, and sent her adrift on the Danube.’

Straightway she sent for the other, and they brought him. ‘How did you come by this man’s estate?’

‘Over a wager.’

‘What was your wager?’

‘That I would lie with her.’

‘Then you did so?’

‘I did.’

‘And, pray, what were her birth-marks?’

‘Under her right breast she had a mole.’

‘Would you know that mole again?’

‘I would.’

Then she drew out her breast. ‘Did you lie with me?’

‘I did not.’

‘Then why those falsehoods? Here, take him, and cut him all to pieces.’

And she looked earnestly on her husband. ‘You, why did you not ask me at the time?’

‘I was a fool, and I was angry.’

‘Here, take him outside, and give him five-and-twenty, to teach him wisdom.’

She threw the robes off her, and put them on him. ‘Do you be emperor, and I empress.’

Were I a painter, I would paint a picture—the Forest of Arden, a Gypsy encampment, with tents, dogs, donkeys, and children, a Gypsy story-teller, and Shakespeare. But one knows, of course, that Shakespeare derived the material of his Cymbeline from the novel of Boccaccio (Dec. ii. 9), immediately in all likelihood, and not through the second story in Westward for Smelts. Granted he did, the question arises next, whence did Boccaccio get his material? Did he invent it, and, if so, is this Gypsy story derived from Boccaccio, and not it only, but Campbell’s West Highland tale of ‘The Chest’ (No. 18), Larminie’s ‘Servant of Poverty’ (West Irish Folk-tales, pp. 115–129), and at least two other folk-tales cited by Köhler—one in Wolf’s German Hausmärchen, p. 355, and one from Roumania in Ausland, 1856, p. 1053? Campbell’s story at any rate cannot have come from Boccaccio, containing, as it does, the essence, not merely of Cymbeline, but also of The Merchant of Venice. For its hero borrows £50 on condition that if he does not repay it within a year and a day he is to lose a strip of skin cut from his head to his foot;31 ‘Yes,’ says the heroine, ‘but in cutting it, not one drop of blood must be shed.’ To go fully into this question would occupy pages and pages; I must content myself with referring to The Remarks of M. Karl Simrock on the Plots of Shakespeare’s Plays, with notes by J. O. Halliwell (Shakespeare Soc. 1850), pp. 64–75 and 45–63, and to Reinhold Köhler on Campbell’s tale in Orient und Occident, ii. 1864, pp. 313–316. But it is just worth pointing out that Gypsies may have had a considerable influence on the European drama. The Scottish Gypsies who, as recorded in the Introduction, used yearly to gather in the stanks of Roslin during the last half of the sixteenth century, acted there ‘severall plays.’ We have not the dimmest notion what those plays may have been; still, this would be quite an early item in any history of the stage in Scotland. Sir William Ouseley in his Travels in Persia (1823), iii. 400–405, gives a long description of a Persian puppet-play, curiously like our own Punch and Judy: ‘the managers of these shows, and the musicians who attended them, were said to be of the Karachi or Gypsy tribe.’ I myself at Göttingen, in 1873, several times came across a family of German Gypsies, very full-blooded ones, who were marionette-showers; like a dull dog, I never went to see their shows. Gorger (Rómani gaújo, Gentile or man) is current theatrical slang for a manager; and Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor (1851) shows that the slang of our English show-folk contains a good many Rómani words. The very Pandean pipes are suggestive of importation from South-east Europe. Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister offers something to the purpose, so also do the Bunjara players in Mrs. F. A. Steel’s On the Face of the Waters (1896); and my own In Gypsy Tents, pp. 295–6, gives a glance at an English travelling theatre whose performers spoke fluent Rómani.

No. 34.—Made over to the Devil

There was a rich man, and he went into the forest, and fell into a bog with his carriage. And his wife brought forth a son, and he knew it not. And the Devil came forth, and said, ‘What will you give me if I pull you out?’

‘I will give you what you want.’

‘Give me what you have at home.’

‘I have horses, oxen.’

‘Give me that which you have not seen.’

‘I will.’

‘Make a covenant with me.’

He made a covenant with him, and the Devil pulled him out of the mud, and the man went home. By the time he got home he had forgotten the covenant.

The boy was twenty years old. ‘Make me a cake, mother, for I’m off to the place my father pledged me to.’ And he went far over the mountains, and came to the Devil’s house. There was an old woman in the house, and a daughter of the Devil’s, and she asked him, ‘Whither art going, lad?’

‘I have come to the lord here, to serve.’

And the girl saw him, and he pleased her. ‘I may tell you that he is my father. My father will turn himself into a horse, and will tell you to mount him and traverse the world. And do you make yourself an iron club and an iron curry-comb, and hit him with the club, for he will not stoop, and get on his back, and as you go keep hitting him on the head.’

He traversed the world, and came home, put him in the stable, and went to the maiden.

‘My father didn’t fling you?’

‘No, for I kept hitting him on the head.’

The Devil called him, and took a jar of poppy-seed, and poured it out on the grass, and told him to gather it all up, and fill the jar, for, ‘If you don’t, I will cut off your head.’

He went to the maiden, and wept.

‘What are you weeping for?’

‘Your father has told me to fill the jar with poppy-seed; and if I don’t, he will cut off my head.’

She said, ‘Fear not.’ She went outside and gave a whistle, and the mice came as many as all the blades of grass and the leaves.

And they asked, ‘What do you want, mistress?’

‘Gather the poppy-seed and fill the jar.’

And the mice came and picked up the grains of poppy-seed one by one, and filled the jar.

The Devil saw it. ‘You’re a clever chap. Here is one more task for you: drain the marsh, and plough it, and sow it, and to-morrow bring me roasted maize. And if you do not, I shall cut your head off.’

He went to the maiden and wept. ‘Your father has told me to drain the marsh, and give him roasted maize to-morrow.’

‘Fear not.’

She went outside, and took the fiery whip. And she struck the marsh once, and it was dried up; a second time she struck, and it was ploughed; the third time she struck, it was sowed; the fourth time she struck, and the maize was roasted; and in the morning he gave him roasted maize.

She said to him, ‘We are three maidens. He will make us all alike, will call you to guess which is the eldest, which is the middle one, and which the youngest; and you will not be able to guess, for we shall be all just alike. I shall be at the top, and notice my feet, for I shall keep tapping one foot on the other; the middle one will be in the middle, and the eldest fronting you, and so you will know.’

The Devil said to him, ‘One more task I will give you. Fell the whole forest, and stack it by to-morrow.’

He went to the maiden, and the maiden asked him, ‘Have you a father and mother?’

‘I have.’

‘Ah! let us fly, for my father will kill you. Take the whetstone, and take a comb; I have a towel.’

They set out and fled. The Devil arose, saw that the forest is not felled. ‘Go and call him to me.’

Ho, ho! there is neither the lad nor the maiden.

‘Hah! go after them.’

They went, and the two saw them coming after them. And she said to him, ‘I will make myself a field of wheat, and do you make yourself to be looking at the wheat, and they will ask you, “Didn’t a maiden and a lad pass by?” “Bah! they passed when I was sowing the wheat.” ’

‘Go back, for we shall not catch them.’

They went back. ‘We did not catch them.’

‘On the road did not you find anything?’

‘We found a field of wheat and a peasant.’

‘Go back, for the field of wheat was she, and he was the peasant.’

They saw them again. She said to the lad, ‘I will turn a somersault and make myself an old church, and do you turn a somersault and make yourself an old monk, and they will ask you, “Didn’t a maiden and a lad pass by?” “They passed just as I began the church.” ’

‘Ah! go back, for we shall never catch them. When he was beginning the church! It is old now.’

‘Did you not find anything on the road?’

‘We found a church and a monk.’

‘The church was she, and he was the monk. I will go myself.’

They saw him. ‘Now my father is coming; we shall not escape. Fling the comb.’

He flung the comb, and it became a forest from earth to sky. Whilst he was gnawing away the forest, they got a long way ahead. He was catching them up; she cried, ‘Fling the whetstone.’

He flung the whetstone, and it became a rock of stone from earth even to heaven. Whilst he, the Devil, was making a hole in the rock, they got a long way ahead. Again he is catching them up. ‘Father is catching us up.’ She flung the towel, and it became a great water and a mill. They halted on the bank.

And he cried, ‘Harlot, how did you cross the water?’

‘Fasten the millstone to your neck, and jump into the water.’

He fastened the millstone to his neck, and jumped into the water, and was choked.

She said, ‘Fear not, for my father is choked.’

He went to his father with the maiden. His father rejoiced; but the maiden said to the lad, ‘I will go to expiate my father’s sins, for I choked him. I go for three years.’

She took her ring, and broke it in half, and gave one half to him. ‘Keep that, and do not lose it.’ She departed for three years.

He forgot her, and made preparations to marry. He was holding his wedding. She came, and he knew her not.

‘Drink a glass of brandy.’

She drank out of his glass, and flung the half of the ring into the glass, and gave it to him. When he drank, he got it into his mouth, and he took it in his hand and looked at it, and he took his half and fitted the two together. ‘Hah! this is my wife; this one saved me from death.’

And he quashed that marriage, and took his first wife and lived with her.

There are several obvious lacunæ in this story, one that the poppy-seed must have been mixed with some other seed, else the task would have been far too easy. The Polish-Gypsy story of ‘The Witch’ (No. 50), corresponds pretty closely; and for the roasted maize task compare the Roumanian-Gypsy story of ‘The Snake who became the King’s Son-in-law’ (No. 7). For a multitude of non-Gypsy variants see Ralston’s ‘The Water-King and Vasilissa the Wise’ (pp. 120–133), especially the Indian story at the end. Cf. also Cosquin, ii. 9, and i. 103, 106, 139, 141. The ring episode recurs in the Bohemian-Gypsy story, ‘The Three Dragons’ (No. 44, p. 154). The fiery whip in the Gypsy story is, to the best of my knowledge, unique.

No. 35.—The Lying Story

Before I was born, my mother had a fancy for roast starlings. And there was no one to go, so I went alone to the forest. And I found roast starlings in the hollow of a tree. I put in my hand, and could not draw it out. I took and got right in, and the hole closed up. I set out and went to my godfather to borrow the axe.

My godfather said, ‘The servant with the axe is not at home, but,’ said my godfather, ‘I will give you the hatchet, and the hatchet is expecting little hatchets.’

‘Never fear, godfather.’

And he gave me the hatchet, and I went and cut my way out of the tree, and I flung down the hatchet. Whilst it was falling a bird built its nest in the handle, and laid eggs, and hatched them, and brought forth young ones; and when the hatchet had fallen down, it gave birth to twelve little hatchets. And I put them in my wallet, and carried them to my godfather. My godfather rejoiced. He gave me one of the hatchets, and I stuck it in my belt at my back, and went home. I was thirsty and went to the well. The well was deep. I cut off my brainpan, and drank water out of it. I laid my brainpan by the well, and went home. And I felt something biting me on the head; and when I put up my hand to my head there came forth worms. I returned to my brainpan, and a wild-duck had laid eggs in my brainpan, and hatched them, and brought forth ducklings. And I took the hatchet, and flung it, and killed the wild-duck, but the ducklings flew away. Behind the well was a fire, and the hatchet fell into the fire. I hunted for the hatchet, and found the handle, but the blade of the hatchet was burnt. And I took the handle, and stuck it in my belt at my back, and went home, and found our mare, and got up on her. And the handle cut the mare in half, and I went riding on two of her legs, and the two hind ones were eating grass. And I went back, and cut a willow withy, and trimmed it, and sewed the mare together. Out of her grew a willow-tree up to heaven. And I remembered that God is owing me a treeful of eggs and a pailful of sour milk. And I climbed up the willow, and went to God, and went to God’s thrashing-floor. There twelve men were thrashing oats.

‘Where are you going to, man?’

‘I am going to God.’

‘Don’t go; God isn’t at home.’

And the smiths felled the willow, and I took an oat-straw and made a rope, and let myself down. And the rope was too short, and I kept cutting off above, and tying on below; then I jumped down, and came to the other world. I went home, and got a spade, and dug myself out [of the other, or nether world], and went home, and gave the starlings to my mother, and she ate, and was safely delivered of me, and I am living in the world.

One is reminded of Münchausen and of several lying tales in Grimm, e.g. Nos. 112, 138, 158, and 159. Cf. especially his notes at ii. 413. The very first Gypsy folk-tale I ever took down, twenty years ago now, from one of the Boswells, was the following lying tale:—

No. 36.—Happy Boz’ll

Wonst upon a time there was a Romano, and his name was Happy Boz’ll, and he had a German-silver grinding-barrow, and he used to put his wife and his child on the top, and he used to go that quick along the road he’d beat all the coaches. Then he thought this grinding-barrow was too heavy and clumsy to take about, and he cut it up and made tent-rods of it. And then his donkey got away, and he didn’t know where it was gone to; and one day he was going by the tent, and he said to himself, ‘Bless my soul, wherever’s that donkey got to?’ And there was a tree close by, and the donkey shouted out and said, ‘I’m here, my Happy, getting you a bit o’ stick to make a fire.’ Well, the donkey came down with a lot of sticks, and he had been up the tree a week, getting firewood. Well then, Happy had a dog, and he went out one day, the dog one side the hedge, and him the other. And then he saw two hares. The dog ran after the two; and as he was going across the field, he cut himself right through with a scythe; and then one half ran after one hare, and the other after the other. Then the two halves of the dog catched the two hares; and then the dog smacked together again; and he said, ‘Well, I’ve got ’em, my Happy’; and then the dog died. And Happy had a hole in the knee of his breeches, and he cut a piece of the dog’s skin, after it was dead, and sewed it in the knee of his breeches. And that day twelve months his breeches-knee burst open, and barked at him. And so that’s the end of Happy Boz’ll.

Also Münchausen-like; but I believe it was largely this story, which I printed on p. 160 of my In Gypsy Tents, that led the great Lazarus Petulengro to remark once to Mr. Sampson, ‘Isn’t it wonderful, sir, that a real gentleman could have wrote such a thing—nothing but low language and povertiness, and not a word of grammar or high-learned talk in it from beginning to end.’

We have a third Gypsy lying story, a Welsh-Gypsy one. Matthew Wood’s father had, like a good many Gypsies, a contempt for folk-tales, and, when called on for his turn, he always gave this, the very shortest one:—‘There were a naked man and a blind man and a lame man. The blind man saw a hare, and the lame man ran and caught it, and the naked man put it in his pocket.’ Cf. Grimm’s No. 159, ‘The Ditmarsch Tale of Wonders’ (ii. 230, 452). Indian lying stories occur in Maive Stokes’s Indian Fairy Tales, Nos. 4, 8, 17.

---

1 See footnote 2 on p. 16. ↑

2 The meaning of these three words is obscure. According to Miklosich, they are a magic formula with which the boy summons the empress from her grave behind the door. Or, perhaps, at this point the boy shows his pearly teeth. ↑

3 Slov. Vah, Ger. Waag, a river of Northern Hungary. ↑

4 By rights this question should be put to the grand-parents. ↑

5 Zenele, a Roumanian loan-word, is rendered ‘zenæ’ in the Latin translation; ‘böse weibliche Genien,’ ‘evil feminine spirits,’ in the vocabulary. ↑

6 She says much worse in the original. ↑

7 This phrase occurs also in our No. 24, in a Wallachian story cited by Hahn (ii. 312), and, if I mistake not, in Ralston, but I have mislaid the exact reference. The Romani trúshul, cross, is from the Sanskrit trisula, the trident of Siva. ↑

8 Bowdlerised. ↑

9 Cf. the very curious ‘Story of Lelha’ in Campbell’s Santal Folk-tales, p. 80:—Boots, the youngest brother, presses his three brothers ‘to attempt the removal of the stone, so they and others to the number of fifty tried their strength, but the stone remained immovable. Then Lelha said, “Stand by, and allow me to try.” So putting to his hand, he easily removed it, and revealed the entrance to the mansion of the Indarpuri Kuri.’ ↑

10 Cf. Hahn, i. 140, lines 4–7. ↑

11 Anastasia. ↑

12 Ruthenian mountaineers of the Carpathians. ↑

13 With this episode of the horse compare that of the pony in ‘Brave Seventee Bai’ (Mary Frere’s Old Deccan Days, No. 3, p. 30). ↑

14 That is, of course, the prince’s poor little blow had seemed to her like a caress. ↑

15 Cf. footnote on p. 80. ↑

16 This, it seems, is the comrade’s name. ↑

17 A very Gypsy touch this, for the fiddlers of course would be Gypsies, so the meanness of dispensing with their services would appeal to the Gypsy mind. ↑

18 Observe, he had become a seer already. ↑

19 Lit. they raised him on the hands. ↑

20 See footnotes on p. 16. ↑

21 No use is made of these. Was the ship to be made of them? ↑

22 Hahn has the selfsame story up to this point, only not so well told, ‘Von dem Schönen und vom Drakos’ (No. 3, i. 75–79, and ii. 178–86). ↑

23 As a kind of block evidently. I do not remember this elsewhere. ↑

24 It should be remembered that Austro-Hungarian Gypsies have all to serve in the army. ↑

25 The text runs, ‘So he, the king’s son,’ etc., but this makes nonsense. ↑

26 This inquiry as to the secret of the hero’s strength should by rights be made, not by the emperor, but by a former lover. ↑

27 Cf. supra, pp. 28, 33, 35. ↑

28 Cf. supra, pp. 28, 33. ↑

29 This suggests that the cat and the princess really were one. Cf. footnote on No. 46. ↑

30 Cf. footnote 2, p. 16. ↑

31 Cf. note on the Polish-Gypsy story of ‘The Brigands and the Miller’s Daughter,’ No 47, p. 171. ↑