Part Two

The Folktale from Ireland to India

II – The Complex Tale

2. Supernatural adversaries

In nearly all complicated fairy tales there is some kind of conflict. The hero must overcome obstacles in order that he may at last win his reward. A large series of stories throughout the European and western Asiatic area confront the hero with some type of supernatural adversary. Frequently the exact nature of the opponent is not made clear or will vary from one version of the story to another. In those which we shall first consider this adversary is sometimes a dragon, a horrible animal, or simply an undefined monster.

In spite of the unstable character of the chief opponent, the tales relating to these adventures are well defined and are among the best known of all narratives current in this area. [p. 24]

If one wished to study the ways in which a tale in the course of centuries becomes scattered over the whole of Europe he could not do better than to direct his attention to the two closely related folktales, The Two Brothers (Type 303) [11] and The Dragon Slayer (Type 300). The Two Brothers, as a regular part of its construction, contains almost the whole of The Dragon Slayer, so that it is necessary to study the two tales together if one is to secure an accurate picture of their mutual relationships, and of the history of the two stories, both when they are merged together and when they exist separately. In his thorough study of these two types Ranke [12] has had available for analysis some 770 versions of The Two Brothers and 368 of The Dragon Slayer. When it is realized that practically all examples of the first story contain the second, and that since the appearance of Ranke's study more than a hundred additional variants of the two stories have been reported, it will be clear that about 1100 examples of The Dragon Slayer are now known, and new ones are being constantly collected.

It will be convenient to discuss The Dragon Slayer as an independent story before considering its relationship to other tales with which it has combined. As a result of his analytical study Ranke has arrived at a form of the tale which would seem to include all the original elements. From this form, or one very much like it, all the other thousand or more variants seem to have been derived. This reconstruction is as follows: A poor married couple have two children, a boy and a girl. When the parents die they leave behind them only a small house and three sheep. The girl inherits the house, and the boy the animals. He exchanges these animals for three marvelous dogs and sets out with them into the world. On the way he meets an old man (or a woman) from whom, in recognition of a courtesy which he has shown, he receives a magic sword or a magic stick. Everything that he strikes with it will fall dead.

He arrives at the royal city which he finds all hung with black cloth, and he learns at an inn of the cause of the mourning. He discovers that a seven-headed dragon who lives on a mountain in the neighborhood demands periodically a maiden as a sacrifice, else he will lay waste the entire country. The sacrifice has been agreed upon and the lot has fallen to the princess. The king promises that whoever saves her shall have her hand and half his kingdom.

The young man goes with his animals to the place where the dragon lives and reaches there at the same time as the princess, who has been brought by the king's coachman. He approaches her, comforts her, and promises to fight the dragon for her. The monster appears with a great roar, but the young man does not let himself be frightened. He goes against him and with his [p. 25] sword strikes off all his heads. In this action, the dogs help him by holding the dragon fast. The hero now cuts out the tongues from the dragon's heads and puts them into his pocket. The rescued princess wishes him to go back with her to her father to receive the promised reward, but the hero wants to wander about for a while and to experience adventures. They agree upon a definite time when they will see each other again. He bids her to preserve silence in spite of everything, and goes on his way.

The coachman, who has accompanied the princess and has remained near by so as to see what happens, comes now and threatens her with death if she will not agree, on oath, to tell the king that it is he who has slain the dragon. As further witness, he takes along the heads of the slain dragon. These he shows to the king and, supported by the declaration of the princess, demands the promised reward. The king is much pleased, and sets a time for the wedding. His daughter, however, is able to have it postponed until the time when she has agreed to meet her rescuer. But when at this time he still does not appear, the time for the wedding is definitely fixed.

On the very day of the wedding the young man arrives in the city which is now, in contrast to the first time, decorated in red. In the same inn he inquires about the rejoicing and learns of the wedding. The innkeeper expresses the wish that he may have food to eat from the royal table, and the young man sends his dogs several times with a basket and with a message written on a card tied to their necks. The princess recognizes the animals and fulfills the directions of her rescuer. She, or the king, orders him to be invited in and he appears at the castle. He immediately declares that he is the real dragon slayer and asks whether the dragon heads have tongues in them. The heads are brought forth and it appears that they have none. The young man takes them out of his pocket and lays each of them in that particular head where it fits. The king and all those present acknowledge him as the true rescuer of the princess and immediately carry out the marriage of the two. The impostor is punished.

The related story of The Two Brothers actually provides a larger number of examples of that part of the story given above containing the dragon slaying, the impostor, the dragon-tongue proof, and the marriage with the princess than does the form we have just discussed. Nearly 800 of these stories are known, and only a few lack the dragon fight. This story in outline is as follows: [13]

A fisherman who has no children catches the King of the Fishes, who begs to be let loose. In return for his freedom he promises the fisherman other fish or shows him the place where they can be caught. When the fisherman catches him the second time the Fish once more persuades him to let him swim away. When this happens a third time, the Fish advises the fisherman to cut him up into a certain number of pieces and to give one part each to his [p. 26] wife, to his mare, and to his dog, and to bury the rest in the garden under a tree. The wife bears two sons, and at the same time the mare and dog each give birth to two young ones, and in the garden there grow two swords and trees. The twin boys are nearly identical, as are also the animals.

When the boys grow up, the first of them wishes to go out into the world. If any misfortune should happen to him his particular tree will fade and the brother will come to his rescue.

He sets forth with his sword, horse, and dog, and after a while arrives at a royal city. From this point on the story is identical with The Dragon Slayer tale given above, but after the marriage with the princess the narrative proceeds:

On the marriage night the curiosity of the young king is aroused by an extraordinary sight, a fire in the woods or on a mountain. He asks his wife about the appearance of this fire, and she tells him that no one who has gone to the fire has ever returned. She warns him not to follow it. But he is overcome with the desire for adventure and decides to find out the cause of this mystery. He saddles his horse and rides with his dog and sword toward the light of the fire. He comes to a house in which lives an old woman who is a witch. She pretends to be afraid of his dog and bids him to lay one of her hairs on it so that the dog will be quiet and not harm her. The young man performs her bidding. The hair transforms itself into a chain. She now approaches and strikes him with a rod and turns him to stone.

Back home the tree fades, and the second brother sees from this that the first is in dire peril or possibly dead. He saddles his horse, takes his dog and sword, and sets forth. After a long wandering he comes to the city in which his brother has become king. The innkeeper with whom he first stops and the young queen to whom he then goes mistake him for her husband, since he looks exactly like his brother. He realizes immediately that people are mistaking him for his brother and he lets them believe this, so that he may more easily find out something about his brother's fate.

At night when he is to sleep with his sister-in-law, he lays the naked sword between her and him.

He also sees the curious light and asks about its occurrence. The queen is astonished at his question, which she remembers to have already answered once, and warns him a second time. But he rides away, since he realizes now where his brother has had his misfortune, and comes to the hut and finds the old woman. He does not obey her order to lay the hair on the dog, but he sets the dog on to the witch and threatens her with death. She gives him the rod with which she has enchanted the first brother, and he strikes the stone with it and in this way disenchants him. The old woman is killed, and both brothers return together to the city.

Such, in a general form, are these two well-known tales. It will be noticed that when the incident of the dragon slaying is used in the Two Brothers [p. 27] story the only modification necessary is that the hero be accompanied by only one dog instead of three. Several other possible introductions are to be found and some differences in detail, but the story as given above has a remarkable stability over the entire area where it is found.

Both forms, the longer Two Brothers tale and the simpler Dragon Rescue story, have approximately the same distribution. A definite indication of this distribution will be interesting as showing the relative importance of boundary lines, national, racial, cultural, or linguistic, for determining the dissemination of a widely-known tale which has been handed down by word of mouth for a long time. In the following list the number of reported versions of the Two Brothers story are given first and then those for the simpler Dragon Rescue tale. It will be noted that all of them contain the central core: the rescue from the dragon, the impostor, the dragon-tongue proof, and the marriage with the princess. The distribution is as follows:

German	65	57	Cashubian	5	0	Jewish	2	0
Dutch	1	0	Polish 0	11	5	Caucasian	11	1
Flemish	14	9	Great Russian	15	0	Armenian	1	0
Danish	66	129	White Russian	6	0	Persian	2	0
Swedish	11	8	Little Russian	13	0	Indic	6	2
Finnish-Swedish	8	13	Lithuanian	47	88	Cambodian	1	0
Norwegian	42	18	Lettish	67	9	Malayan	2	2
Icelandic and Faroe	3	0	Estonian	31	1	Japanese	0	1
French	14	2	Livonian	3	0	Arabian in Africa	3	3
Rhaetian	3	2	Finnish	141	2	Berber and Kabyle	8	2
Italian	27	14	Lappish	3	5	Central African	5	8
Spanish	8	4	Volga peoples (Mordvinian)	1	0	Madagascar	1	0
Portuguese	5	3	Votyak	1	0	North American Indian	8	8
Roumanian	21	2	Hungarian	15	0	Cape Verde Island	3	1
Breton	3	2	Osman	3	0	French Canadian	1	0
Scottish	3	1	Chuvassian	7	0	Jamaican	2	1
Irish	10	4	Basque	2	4	Puerto Rican	5	3
Serbo-Croatian	15	1	Albanian	4	0	Haitian	0	1
Bulgarian	3	0	Greek	5	4	Mexican	0	1
Czech and Slovak	38	23	Gypsy	5	5	Brazilian	2	2
Wend	0	2

If certain countries in this list seem to be represented with a disproportionate number, it must be borne in mind that collecting has been much more thoroughly carried out in Germany, Denmark, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Finland than in most other countries. It seems quite certain, for example, that if French tales had been thoroughly collected during the last generation their showing would be much better. As it is, every French collection which we possess indicates the presence of these tales in the area which it covers. [p. 28]

The place where a folktale is most likely to suffer change is in its introduction, where a preliminary action really proper to another story but capable of being logically joined to the one in question is easily substituted. Such a substitution may very well be accepted and may set up a new tradition which, in a limited area, may live on side by side with the more regular form of the tale. This has happened with the two stories we are considering.

In The Two Brothers there has occurred confusion with the story of The Magic Bird-Heart (Type 567). [14] Since this is a tale of two brothers with magic objects, the confusion is not strange. This introduction generally appears as follows: A poor man comes into possession of a magic bird which lays golden eggs. The man sells the eggs and becomes rich. Once he goes on a journey and leaves the bird behind with his wife. She is persuaded to serve the bird to her lover for dinner. The bird possesses a marvelous characteristic—that whoever eats of its head will become ruler and whoever consumes the heart will have gold appear under his pillow while he sleeps. The bird is prepared, but by chance falls into the hands of the sons of the house hold, and the young men, without knowing of the wonderful power of the bird, eat the head and the heart. From this point on in the story we usually have an account of the loss and recovery of the magic powers, but the narrative may also proceed with the parting of the brothers and the regular adventures proper to The Two Brothers.

Another story frequently amalgamated with The Two Brothers is the East European tale of The Three Brothers. This begins with the fishing episode of The Two Brothers, proceeds with adventures proper to supernaturally strong men (Type 650), then, with some variation, goes into The Two Brothers tale. The very nature of the story, however, makes it necessary to repeat many episodes. For example, the first two brothers fall into the hands of the witch, and the sleeping with the naked sword is repeated.

In some twenty percent of all versions of The Two Brothers occurs the motif of The Jealous Brother. In these tales the younger brother, having been resuscitated and having heard that his brother has slept with his wife, kills his rescuer. Then on hearing the truth he repents and resuscitates him. Ranke feels that this ending is hardly an original part of the story since it is far from uniform in its occurrence, and since the means of resuscitation is usually the same as that already used for disenchantment in the same tale. On the other hand, the motif is not a recent invention. It occurs in Basile's Pentamerone (1634-36) and also has a wide distribution, indicative of a relatively long history.

These are the most important variations of The Dragon Slayer and The Two Brothers. Ranke has attempted, on the basis of his huge collection and his careful analysis, to arrive at some conclusions as to the history of the stories. It seems clear that The Dragon Slayer is the older of the two stories, [p. 29] and that The Two Brothers has simply taken over this old tale as a cluster of motifs in its composition. Ranke's study is not concerned with any possible earlier forms of The Dragon Slayer before it assumed its present definite structure. He realizes that the concept of the dragon is old; he sees unmistakable resemblances between this story and the Greek myth of Perseus and Andromeda, and with many older tales of rescues from monsters. He knows also that, as Hartland has pointed out in his three-volume work on The Legend of Perseus, many of the separate motifs in the story, such as the life-token, the enchantment and disenchantment, and the magic birth, are found in nearly all parts of the world, and may appear in a multitude of narrative connections. But with more than a thousand examples of the fully developed stories before him, he has confined his task to the establishment of a typical form of the tale which would approximate the original from which all the rest have been derived. These typical forms of the tale are those which we have outlined here.

On the basis of the entire study, he is convinced that The Dragon Slayer as we know it at present was developed in western Europe where the versions are closest to the typical form. As one goes east, greater and greater variation occurs. Particular departures from type show special geographic distribution, and are therefore to be listed as different redactions of the tale. To illustrate once for all the way in which such a story develops new forms, let us examine these redactions of The Dragon Slayer (and the Dragon Rescue episode of The Two Brothers) as worked out by Ranke.

I. The Romance Cycle of Redactions

(a) French. Like type except that in about half of versions impostor is a charcoal burner.

(b) French Colonial. On the periphery of French, and in the colonies (Cambodia, North America, Malay peoples).

(c) Spanish. Like French but not so regularly developed. Impostor a charcoal burner or Negro. In 63 percent of Type 303 no dragon fight. Spain, Puerto Rico, Jamaica.

(d) Portuguese. Like French. But one Portuguese and Brazilian have introduction from Hansel and Gretel. Portugal, Cape Verde Islands, Brazil.

(e) Italian. Near to original form. Basile's version (1634), recent Italian, Albanian.

(f) General Romance redaction. Main characteristics: periodic sacrifice to dragon. Change of details as one gets away from France. Found (in addition to Romance countries) in all parts of Europe. This form has apparently spread through Germany to Scandinavia, the Baltic Countries, and Russia and sporadically to Japan. [p. 30]

II. Central European. No periodic sacrifice to dragon. Sometimes this may be an unintentional omission. The spread is from Germany eastward and in a few cases northward. Some of these tales may be influenced directly by Grimm's version.

III. The Murder Redaction. The dragon slayer is killed by the impostor and later resuscitated. About half the Two Brothers tales in this group have The Magic Bird Heart (Type 567) as introduction, and thus show the influence of Grimm. It is a German reworking of the Romance redaction and then a dissemination (a) to Scandinavia and the Baltic, (b) to South Germany and the Balkans, and (c) to Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Little Russia.

IV. The Northern Redaction Cycle.

(a) General Northern Redaction. Giant adventure precedes dragon fight. Red Knight attempts rescue but in fear climbs tree and witnesses fight, later to appear as impostor. Three dragons. Battle at sea side. Princess louses hero and leaves ring in his hair. Recognition by ring. This version is certainly Scandinavian, probably from Norway (1) to Denmark and North Germany, (2) to Sweden and the Baltic countries, (3) to Scotland.

Of this Northern cycle, Ranke distinguishes a number of sub-groups: (b) Porter (hero as porter for king; dragon knocks at door). Denmark to Schleswig-Holstein. (c, d, e) "Peril" redactions (no sacrifice, but king has promised daughter to monster to save his life). Denmark to rest of Scandinavia and Finland, (f) Danish hesitation redaction (dragon postpones sacrifice three days), (g) Lillekort ("little short"). Tiny hero. Dragon fight plus experience with sea troll. Recognition by costly garments of princess. Norway to all parts of Scandinavia, (h) Finnish wake redaction. Like Norwegian but princess awakens hero who sleeps with his head on her lap. (i) Glass mountain tradition. Continuation with Type 530. In Denmark and Holstein. (k) Swedish Dragon Slayer redaction (no examples of Two Brothers). Three trolls, three princesses. First two brothers successful. Third brother rescued by his dogs. Sweden (1) to Pomerania, Schleswig Holstein and Denmark (2) to Finland. (1) Troll redactions. Miscellaneous adventures with trolls. Only in Denmark.

V. Binding redaction. Ogre magically bound. A mixture with Type 330. Seven German versions and scattered to Baltic countries, Denmark and as far southeast as Serbia. Only a few versions.

VI. Irish shoe redaction. Slipper recognition like Cinderella. Otherwise resembles Northern redaction.

VII. Spring redaction. Dragon guards spring and refuses to give people water. Arose in Balkans. Then (1) to Hungary, Russia, Poland, and [p. 31] Baltic States, (2) to Greece and Turkey and around the Mediterranean to North and Central Africa and to Cape Verde Islands.

VIII. Baltic Impostor redaction. Like Central European (II) but hero places the dragon tongues under a stone which the impostor cannot lift. From Baltic to Finland, Poland, and Russia.

IX. Slavic Waking redaction. Hero sleeping with head in princess's lap is awakened by hot tears. Expansion of Central European (II). Great Russia to (1) Baltic lands, (2) Little Russia, Roumania, Greece, Arabia.

X. Baltic Wrestling redaction. Hero and dragon sink into ground as they struggle. Baltic countries and Denmark.

XI. Lettish Devil redaction. Like Central European (II) but devil or devils instead of dragon. From Latvia to other Baltic countries.

This investigation of the Dragon Rescue both in The Dragon Slayer (Type 300) and in The Two Brothers (Type 303) shows certain obvious facts about its history. The place in which the form characteristic of these two tale-types took shape would seem to be France, both because the French versions are nearer to the typical form and also because dissemination from France in all directions offers the best explanation of the distribution of the tale. From France it went to the Hispanic peninsula and thence to the New World. Eastward it spread to Germany and southeastward to Italy. Secondary centers of dissemination in these two places sent the tale, modified in many ways, into surrounding countries. From Germany it went to Scandinavia, the Baltic countries, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Balkans. In both Norway and Denmark new redactions arose and spread —the Norwegian to Denmark, Scotland, and Ireland, and the Danish to all the rest of Scandinavia, to North Germany and Finland. From Italy it traveled to the surrounding islands of Sicily and Malta and to Albania, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. Less important centers of dissemination are the Baltic States, Great Russia, and Yugoslavia.

The very few versions of this tale found outside of Europe are clearly the result of the telling of the story by travelers or colonists. The American Indian variants are all from the French or Spanish, and the Cape Verde Island from the Portuguese. The appearance in Cambodia, Sunda Island, and Japan is purely sporadic.

Careful analysis of the Dragon Slayer story indicates that literary versions have had very little, if any, influence on its development. It has apparently spread east over Europe and only slightly into countries beyond, where it has undoubtedly been carried long distances by travelers or colonists.

The Two Brothers (Type 303) seems likewise to have arisen in western Europe and very likely in northern France. From there it has traveled in all directions, and the farther it has gone from this center, the more changes [p. 32] have taken place in its structure. The redactions do not correspond exactly to those of the Dragon Slayer episode which forms a part of it, but the general picture of the dissemination shows a similar group of centers: France as primary and Germany, Italy, Spain, and Denmark as secondary. It is impossible to tell just how old these two tales are. They have usually been placed as among the oldest stories belonging to the European tradition. As for The Dragon Slayer(Type 300), Ranke cites four reasons for believing that it is very old. (1) It has a great variety of redactions, each of which has taken time to develop and to spread far and in great numbers. (2) It is combined with other forms (especially Type 303) in spite of the fact that it has developed a form of its own which has a wide and active distribution. (3) Since it is possible to show special developments within particular redaction cycles, but often no direct connection between the various redactions, these fundamental differences must go far back. (4) Its presence Type 303 shows that it is at least as old as that type.

As mentioned before, Ranke is not attempting a history of The Dragon Slayer before it assumed the typical form found in the modern folktale. What its connection with Perseus and Andromeda or with Saint George and the Dragon may be he does not consider. There may well have been such older dragon fight stories which served as a foundation for the present tale, but the special complex which seems to have spread outward from France had taken on all of its present characteristics before its dissemination began. And it is only with the history of this fully formed tale that he is concerned.

As to The Two Brothers (Type 303) Ranke considers it as distinctly younger than the Dragon Rescue episode which it contains. It appears in the Bjarka saga of the fourteenth century and in Basile in the seventeenth. Its distribution would indicate considerable age, though its logical and complex structure, Ranke thinks, prevent it from being placed too far back.

In the case of both these tales (Types 300 and 303) the conclusions about age are extremely vague. They both have old elements, but as well-formed tale-types they would not seem to go back to antiquity. A combination of the currents of population movements since the beginning of the Middle Ages and the natural slow spreading of tales from place to place offers sufficient explanation for the present phenomenal distribution of these two tales over Europe and their sporadic occurrence in other continents.

Although the two stories which we have just considered in detail are those usually associated with the dragon fight, the dragon may also figure as the supernatural adversary in several other well-known tales. There is a tendency in these other stories, however, to leave the nature of the ogre or monster very vague—sometimes with human form, sometimes as a giant, and some times as a frightful being in half animal form.

Probably the best known of this whole group of stories is John the Bear, [p. 33] or The Bear's Son (Type 301). [15] In the most usual form of this tale, the hero has supernatural strength because of his marvelous birth. He has been supernaturally conceived or else he is the son of a bear who has stolen his mother. Even as a small boy he shows his extraordinary strength by breaking tools or by killing his playmates. He is eventually sent off from home and on his way he is joined by several extraordinary companions, a man of extraordinary sight, a keen hearer, and a great runner. [16] The three companions come to a house in the woods. They take turns in keeping house while the others are abroad. One after the other they are attacked by a monster who comes from an opening in the earth. On the third day, the hero keeps house and chases the monster through the hole to his abode in the lower world. His two companions let him down after the monster by means of a long rope, and they await his return while he has adventures in the lower world. There he finds a marvelous sword and conquers several monsters and rescues three maidens. He returns to the rope and has his companions raise the girls to the upper world. They take the girls off with them and leave him to his fate below.

He eventually reaches the upper world through the help of a spirit or, more often, of an eagle who carries him on his back and who demands to be fed. The hero feeds the eagle with his own flesh. He arrives at the home of the rescued princesses on the wedding day and, just as in the Dragon Rescue story, he sends his dogs to steal from the wedding feast, presents tokens, unmasks his rivals, and marries the most beautiful of the princesses.

Most versions of the tale are fairly true to the outline just given. Frequently, however, an entirely different introduction appears. A monster comes in the night and steals from the king's orchard. One after the other, the king's sons guard the orchard and watch for the monster. The youngest son pursues the thief and follows him into the lower world. The elder brothers wait for the hero, expecting to pull him up on a rope. The treacherous abandonment, the theft of the girls, and the conclusion of the story are exactly alike, whether introduced by John the Bear or by the Watch for the Devastating Monster.

This story is one of the most popular in the world. It is scattered over the whole of Europe, being especially well known in the Baltic states and in Russia. It is found in the Near East and North Africa but seems to have traveled only in fragments as far east as India. It is very popular among the French and Spanish who have taken it to America, where it has been adopted by American Indian tribes and also is told by the French in Canada and in Missouri. [p. 34]

In the story of The Skillful Hunter (Type 304) the supernatural opponents are usually spoken of as giants. With his magic gun which he has received from a green-clad huntsman or from an old woman, the hero displays his skill as a marksman. Among other exhibitions is the shooting of meat from the hands of giants. With these giants he agrees to go to abduct a queen. He enters the palace and then calls the giants in. As they enter one by one, he cuts off their heads. In the palace he finds a sleeping princess and lies with her without waking her. When he leaves he takes from her a handkerchief, a ring, or the like to use as a token. As in the Dragon Rescue story, an impostor comes forth and this time claims to be the unknown father of the princess's child. She refuses to marry him, however, and is punished by being made to live in a house in the woods and cook for everyone, or else to stay at an inn where all comers must tell their life history. In due time the hero appears to her, tells his story, produces his token, and receives the princess in marriage.

This tale has some interesting motifs, especially the deception of the giants and the princess's recognition in the inn, but it has never achieved great popularity among taletellers. Although it is current through most of central Europe and as far east as the Caucasus, only a single version appears in France, and no other so far west. Even in Finland, where tales have been so well collected, there are but few variants, and in the huge Lithuanian collections it does not appear at all, nor has it been carried by travelers or colonists to other continents. In all, not more than seventy-five versions have thus far been reported. [17]

The tale of The Danced-out Shoes (Type 306) presents the supernatural opponent of the hero in human form and as the lover of the princess. [18] It is discovered that a princess absents herself at night and always returns with her shoes danced to pieces. She is offered in marriage to the man who can solve the mystery of her conduct. She has succeeded in giving a narcotic to all those who have tried to follow her, but the hero refuses to drink and accompanies her on a magic underground journey. He possesses the power of making himself invisible and is able to observe her when she dances with the super natural being whom she visits every night. By means of tokens which he has brought from this subterranean realm, he is able to prove his story and to claim his reward.

This tale, like the last, seems to be primarily Central European with most frequent appearance in the area from Serbia north to Finland. It does not, so far as is now known, go east of Russia and is represented but once in France and Portugal. A single version is found in central Africa, and it has not thus [p. 35] far been reported in any other continents. Within its rather narrow geographical range it seems to be fairly popular, since somewhat more than a hundred variants are known.

The heroine in The Danced-out Shoes does not seem to be anxious to be rescued from her otherworld lover. In most tales, however, these supernatural lovers have forced themselves upon the princess and keep her in duress. One of the most popular tales of rescue from such an ogre lover is the story of The Monster with His Heart in the Egg (Type 302). The hero comes into possession of certain magic objects or powers which he finds useful in his adventures. He secures these magic aids in various ways: in some versions from grateful animals for whom he has made a just division of food, in some from giants whom he tricks into trading him their magic objects, in some from his animal brothers-in-law who give him the power of self-transformation. In any case, he hears that a princess has been carried off by an ogre and he goes to her rescue. He finds her and together they plot against the life of her unwelcome lover. She beguiles the ogre into telling her where he keeps his heart or what his life is bound up with. He tells her that his heart is to be found in a certain egg, very difficult of access or in a bird or insect which is guarded by dangerous beasts. The hero follows the instructions she gives him and finds the ogre's heart. When he destroys the heart, the ogre dies and the hero returns the princess to her home and receives his reward and takes the princess as his wife.

In the whole area from Ireland to India this tale has had a deserved popularity. It is frequently well told and the adventures of the hero and the princess in overcoming the monster lover have wide appeal to those who listen to tales of wonder. Within this area the tale has been reported some 250 times and seems to be well represented everywhere. In contrast to all the stories thus far mentioned it is popular in India. It has been pointed out that the versions in Asia place the ogre's heart in a bird or insect, whereas the typical European form has it in the egg. The story has been carried several times to Africa and to America, where it has taken its place in the traditions of the native Africans and the American Indians.

[11] This and similar numbers in parentheses after the title of a tale refer to Aarne-Thompson, The Types of the Folk-Tale (hereafter referred to as "Types").

[12] Die zwei Brüder.

[13] This reconstruction of the typical form of the tale is taken from Ranke, op. cit., p. 341.

[14] See p. 75, below.

[15] This story has never been thoroughly studied, though Panzer (Beowulf) has written a monograph pointing out the relations of this tale with the Beowulf epic. His conclusions are dubious.

[16] These extraordinary companions belong also to another story, Types 513, 514.

[17] This is to be compared with the 770 versions of The Two Brothers and more than a thousand versions of both The Dragon Rescue and The Bear's Son.

[18] For a series of other tales in which the heroine has a supernatural and usually monstrous lover, see Types 506-508.

300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 306, 330, 506-508, 513, 514, 530, 567, 650

Part Two

The Folktale from Ireland to India

II – The Complex Tale

3. Supernatural helpers

E. Helpful Animals

In some of the versions of the tales of extraordinary companions, particularly in North Africa, these peculiar helpers are animals. Though no one has ever taken the trouble to count all the occurrences, it is likely that, considering folktales all over the world, an even more important part is played by animal helpers than by human or supernatural. Such animals appear as actors in a large number of tales everywhere and they are substituted by story-tellers for human helpers with considerable freedom. In some tales, the role played by these animals is so important as to form the actual center of interest.

Such is true of The Animal Brothers-in-Law (Type 552), a story made popular in literary circles in the seventeenth century by Basile and carried on in the eighteenth by Musäus in his sophisticated retelling of folktales. A bankrupt man, in return for safety and money, promises his three daughters in marriage to three animals. Frequently these animals are a bear, an eagle, and a whale. Or it may be that the three girls themselves, despairing of marriage, say that they will marry anyone, even if it is an animal. In either case the animals take the girls as wives and leave with them. The brother of the girls visits his sisters, and he discovers that the animals periodically become men. The brothers-in-law, out of kindness, give him a part of their bodies, the eagle a feather, the bear a hair, and the whale a scale. These he can use to call on them for help. The brother now goes on his adventures and succeeds, by calling, at the proper moment, on his animal brothers-in-law.

The story up to this point is well integrated and justifies its being thought of as an independent tale. But from here on we may enter into any one of [p. 56] several adventure stories where the timely aid of the animal helpers is appropriate. The hero may use them in saving a princess from a monster, as in the Dragon Rescue tale, or in defeating the ogre with his life in an egg (Types 300, 302, 303), or occasionally in recovering the castle, wife, and magic objects which have been stolen from him (Type 560). Essentially, then, the story of The Animal Brothers-in-Law serves as an elaborate introduction which may be attached rather freely to suitable adventure stories.

Aside from those versions obviously dependent upon the literary work of Musäus or Basile, this tale is known in the more distinctly oral tradition of every part of Europe, though its occurrence is strangely inconsistent. It seems most popular in the Baltic states and in Russia. Its distribution is continuous from Ireland to the Caucasus and Palestine. At least one version has been carried by the French to America, where it is told among the Micmac Indians of Nova Scotia.

A special form of this tale, popular in Norway but hardly known outside (Type 552B), [46] has the father of the girls visit them. He sees the animals produce food by magic. When he attempts to imitate them, he not only fails but gets into trouble and is sometimes killed. [47]

Another tale of very limited distribution in Norway and the Baltic states, and rather rare even there, is The Raven Helper (Type 553). When the hero shoots a raven, the latter gives him a feather and with this feather the hero receives magic objects and treasure from the raven's three sisters. In his later adventures the hero makes use of this help in rescuing a princess from a sea monster. This latter part of the tale merges into the Dragon Rescue story (Type 300) in such a way that this whole type might well be considered merely one variety of that story.

The best known of stories, or episodes, which tell how the hero got the help of animals is that usually called The Grateful Animals (Type 554). As in most other tales of gratitude, the hero is the youngest of three brothers. Going on his adventures, he performs kind deeds for animals and wins their gratitude. In some cases he rescues the animals from danger or starvation, and in some he makes a satisfactory division of booty for three animals who are quarreling over it. As in The Animal Brothers-in-Law, the animals usually give the hero a part of their body so that he can summon them if he ever needs their help. Most frequently the animals are ants, ducks, and bees, or a raven, a fish, and a fox. The hero then proceeds, and the animals, called upon in his hour of need, perform his tasks for him and bring him success. In his choice of adventures for the hero at this point, the story-teller has considerable freedom, for his introduction may [p. 57] lead him almost anywhere. In practice, however, the episode is used as an introduction to a relatively small number of rather well-known stories. He may win a beautiful princess by performing certain difficult tasks, such as the sorting out of a large quantity of scattered seeds or beads, or the bringing of a ring or key from the bottom of the sea. The ants and the fish help with these two tasks. This would seem to be the normal course of the story of The Grateful Animals, for these tasks are seldom found in other connections. But the animals may help the hero bring back the water of life and death from the end of the world (Type 551); they may help him choose the princess from her identically clad sisters (Type 313); or they may help him hide from -the princess, and thus win her hand rather than lose his life (Type 329).

Although the story is known in the Persian Tuti-Nameh of the fourteenth century, its principal use seems to have been in oral folktales. It has been in Europe long enough to be told in every country, except possibly the British Isles. There are oral versions from India, Indonesia, and Ceylon, and from the Turks, Armenians, and Tartars. It is known in Africa in at least a dozen versions from Madagascar to the Guinea Coast, and has been carried by the French to Missouri.

None of the three tales of helpful animals which we have discussed has received adequate study. They should undoubtedly be handled as a group because of their frequent interrelation. It would be almost necessary to study the various tales for which these stories serve as introductory episodes. How independent a life can such merely introductory types have? These questions and the relation of written to oral versions, not to speak of the obvious Oriental affinities, should afford many interesting problems for future research.

In a special variety of The Grateful Animals tale the animals give the hero a part of their body so that he may use it to transform himself into that animal when he wishes to. This introduction is sometimes used as a part of The Dragon Rescue or any other tale where it is appropriate. [48] It is widely but thinly distributed over continental Europe and has been carried, presumably by the French, to the island of Mauritius.

This power of transforming himself to animals is a regular part of a rather complicated story (Type 665) told in the Baltic countries and to some extent in Hungary and Russia. The hero does not always receive this power from helpful animals, but in some versions is thus rewarded by an old man with whom he divides his last penny, or by a grateful dead man. While the hero is serving in the war, his king, about to be defeated, sends him to secure from the princess his magic sword (or his ring). By swimming as a fish, flying as a bird, and running as a hare he reaches the castle and secures the sword. As he leaves in his bird form, the princess cuts off one of his [p. 58] feathers. Later, as he is returning in the form of a hare, he is shot by a man who takes the sword to the king and claims the reward—which includes marriage to the princess. The hero is restored to life by his helper and, in the form of a dove, flies to the castle in time to forestall the wedding. The princess recognizes him by the feather which she has cut off.

This tale of self-transformation has its greatest popularity in Estonia, Lithuania, and Finland; it appears never to have been recorded in Germany or western Europe. The other tale in which this motif is most frequently used (Type 316) displays a distribution almost exactly the opposite. Its principal occurrence is in Germany and it is known (though it has never attained any great circulation) in France, the British Isles, and Norway. One version has been reported from the Negroes of Jamaica. But, in spite of the enormous collections made there, the tale does not appear in the Baltic countries. In this story, best known from the Grimm collection, a boy has been unwittingly promised to a water nix and tries to avoid carrying out the promise. From grateful animals he receives the ability to transform himself into their shapes. He does fall into the water nix's power, but is finally rescued partly by the help of his wife, who has received advice from an old woman, and partly through his ability to transform himself. The story goes on to tell how after a long time the hero succeeds in being recognized by his wife and finally reunited with her.

Largely because of the influence of Perrault's collection of fairy tales, one of the best known of all stories of helpful animals is Puss in Boots. Though the story is generally concerned with a hero who is helped by a cat (Type 545B), a considerable number of versions (Type 545A) have a girl as the central figure. A difference is also made in the animal helper. Instead of a cat, very frequently there appears a fox, and sometimes even other animals.

The hero (or heroine) inherits nothing but a cat, who turns out to have miraculous powers. The cat takes the youth to the palace and proclaims to the king that the boy is a dispossessed prince. He also wooes the princess in behalf of his master. Obeying the cat's instructions, the boy is not abashed at the luxury he sees about him, but always remarks that he has better things at home. When the king is to visit the boy's castle, the cat goes ahead and succeeds in making the peasants tell the king that they are working for his master. The cat also goes to the castle of a giant, whom he kills through trickery. He takes possession of the castle for his master and brings about a happy marriage with the princess. At the end, the cat's head is cut off and thus the enchantment is broken, so that he returns to his original form as a prince.

Among the writers of literary folktales this has been one of the most popular stories. It appears in the Italian collections of Straparola and Basile in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Perrault's French version at the end of the seventeenth century has been of primary influence on the tradition of [p. 59] the tale. No systematic investigation has been made, but it seems clear that this is primarily a folktale which lives in books and is more at home in the nursery than in adult gathering. Nevertheless, the story has maintained a real oral tradition. It is found not only in all parts of Europe, but clear across Siberia; and in southern Asia it is well known in India, whence it has traveled to Indonesia and the Philippines. Colonists and travelers have carried it to the American Indians and to Africa, though sometimes it is difficult to be sure whether a particular helpful animal story actually belongs to this tradition or not. As one gets away from central Europe, the greater variations one finds from the literary version of Perrault. It is in such more purely oral tales that we find the girl as central actor. In some of these the helper may not be an animal at all, but, instead, a grateful dead man (Type 505). All these complications would make the story of Puss in Boots an interesting study in the mutual relationships of literary and folk tradition.

[46] A similar story in Russian is listed by Andrejev {Ukazatel' Skazočnik) as Type No. 299*.

[47] This motif of the unsuccessful imitation of the production of food by magic seems to have been invented independently in this tale and in a group of American Indian stories (see J2425).

[48] See Bolte-Polívka, II, 22, n. 1.

299*, 300, 302, 303, 313, 329, 505, 545A, 545B, 551, 552, 552B, 553, 554, 560, 665

J2425

Part Two

The Folktale from Ireland to India

II – The Complex Tale

4. Magic and marvels

A. Magic Powers

In a very large proportion of folktales wherever they may be found magic plays a considerable part, and it is almost universal in some form in all those stories we know as wonder tales. In an important group of these stories the possession of such powers and objects serves as the crucial point in the narrative.

A good example of such a tale is that known as The Lazy Boy (Type 675). Just as in the story of The Two Brothers (Type 303) , the hero catches a large fish, usually a salmon, and when he agrees to throw the salmon back into the water the latter gives him the power of making all his wishes come true. He has but to say, "By the word of the Salmon." Among his other accomplishments he makes a saw that cuts wood of itself and a self-moving boat or wagon. His arrival in the royal city in his strange conveyance and the sight of his marvelous saw at work causes the princess to laugh at him. In his anger, he wishes her pregnant. When in due time she has a child an inquiry is made as to who the unknown father may be and all the probable men are gathered together. The child picks the hero out as his father, and the parents [p. 68] are then joined in marriage. In his anger, the king has the hero and princess abandoned in a glass box in the sea or in a cask in the mountains. The hero still has his magic power, which he uses to make a great castle next to the king's. He then invites and humbles his father-in-law.

This is one of the few very well-known European tales which do not appear in the great collection of Grimm. It has been known, however, for a long time, since it is found in the Nights of Straparola in sixteenth century Italy and a hundred years later in the Pentamerone of Basile. It is disseminated rather evenly over the whole of Europe and extends eastward far into Siberia. It does not appear to be known in India or Africa, but two versions have been reported from Annam, and it has been carried to New Guinea and to America. The Cape Verde Island version told in Massachusetts is obviously from Portugal, and the Missouri French and the American Indian tales told by the Maliseets of New Brunswick and the Ojibwas of Michigan are clearly from France.

I am not a collector of folktales, but this happens to be one of the few which I have taken down in the field. The story in question is such a good example of the way in which a tale entering an alien culture may be changed that I cannot forbear making special mention of the story as told me by an Ojibwa Indian on Sugar Island, Michigan, in the summer of 1941. He had been telling us stories of the Ojibwa culture hero. Suddenly he asked, "Did you ever hear the tale about Rummy and his little Ford car?" He proceeded then to tell what is undoubtedly the present story, though confused with some other French tales. Rummy was clearly the hero of these French tales, René, and the little Ford car was Mr. Joseph's idea of the self-moving wagon. The automatic saw played its part, and the experience with the princess was exactly as we have outlined it above. From other tales he brought in the story of the magic tablecloth which produced food of itself and the tabu against looking backwards, which he repeated frequently but apparently did not understand or actually make use of in the story.

No one has investigated this tale systematically, but a casual listing of the versions country by country suggests the strong probability of origin in southern Europe and of the predominant influence of the literary treatments of the two famous Italian taletellers of the Renaissance.

If the literary origin of The Lazy Boy appears not to be certain, there can be no doubt that the story of Open Sesame (Type 676) has been learned by those who tell it either from a copy of the Arabian Nights itself or eventually, perhaps through many intermediaries, from the same source. It seems likely that this tale has entered the oral tradition of nearly every European country since the time of Galland's translation of the Thousand and One Nights into French at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Whether the versions current in central Africa have come more directly from the Arabic versions of the work has not been determined, but seems probable. [p. 69] The fact that the story is now an authentic part of the folklore of a good part of Europe, whatever its actual origin may have been, justifies its inclusion in the canon of oral folktales. It is known to almost everyone. The poor brother observes robbers entering a mountain and overhears the magic words "Open Sesame," which gives them admittance. He secures much gold from the mountain and takes it home. He borrows money scales from his rich brother and a piece of the money remains in the scale and thus betrays the secret. The rich brother tries to imitate, but forgets the formula for opening the mountain and is caught inside. Though the magic words vary as the tale passes from country to country, they always seem to be at least a reminiscence of the phrase "Open Sesame."

Another tale of magic powers which surely comes from the Orient, but this time from India, is that of The Magician and His Pupil (Type 325). The fact that it is well known in India and also throughout Europe has served to bring it to the attention of those folklorists interested in the problem of the Indian origin of the European folktales. In 1859 Theodor Benfey in the Prolegomena to his Pantschatantra uses this story as an illustration of the way in which tales from India are taken over into the Mongolian literature (in this case, as part of the collection of Kalmuck tales known as Siddhi-Kür) and carried through this intermediary into Europe. More than fifty years later his disciple, Emmanuel Cosquin, [61] while accepting the main thesis of Indic origin for European tales, made exception to the importance of the Mongols and uses the present tale as the foundation for his case. He shows clearly enough that the European tales are like the purely Indian ones and are considerably different from the Mongolian form.

The main fact that this tale is originally from India seems never to have been disputed, though it has become so well known in Europe that it must be ranked among the most popular of oral stories. It is told in the sixteenth century by Straparola. It appears in nearly all the collections of the Near East and of southern Siberia. Beyond India, where it has been frequently reported, it is told in the Dutch East Indies and in the Philippines. It is popular in North Africa, and has been brought to Missouri by the French and to Massachusetts by Portuguese-speaking Cape Verde Island Negroes.

The details of the story remain remarkably constant wherever it is told. A father sends his son to school to a magician. The father may have the son back if, at the end of one year, he can recognize the son in the animal form to which the magician will have transformed him. The boy learns magic secretly, and he escapes from the magician by means of a magic flight. He either transforms himself frequently, or else he casts behind him magic obstacles. [62] He thus returns to his father and helps his father make money by [p. 70] selling him as a dog, an ox, or a horse. At last he is sold as a horse to the magician. Contrary to his instructions, the father gives the bridle along with the horse and this brings the youth into the magician's power. The boy succeeds in stripping off the bridle and then he conquers the magician in a transformation combat. He changes to various animals and the magician likewise changes himself. The details of these changes vary somewhat. One of the most popular varieties of this motif is that in which the youth (or prince) has flown to a princess in the form of a bird and is hidden by her after he has transformed himself to a ring. As the princess throws the ring, a great number of grains of corn fall on the ground. When the magician as cock is about to eat the corn, the boy becomes a fox and bites off the cock's head.

In this tale, as in the two treated immediately before it, the magic powers are thought of as inherent in the hero. Much more common in folktales is the use of objects whose intrinsic magic power does not depend upon any special quality in the person who uses them.

[61] "Les Mongols et leur prétendu rôle dans la transmission des contes indiens vers l'Occident Europeen," Revue des traditions populaires, XXVII (1912)=Etudes folkforiques, pp. 497-612.

[62] This motif appears in many tales; cf. Motifs D671 and D672).

303, 325, 675, 676

D671, D672

Part Two

The Folktale from Ireland to India

II – The Complex Tale

4. Magic and marvels

B. Magic Objects

A general pattern is found in nearly all stories of magic objects. There is the extraordinary manner in which the objects are acquired, the use of the objects by the hero, the loss (usually by theft), and the final recovery. Of these tales, we shall first examine The Magic Ring (Type 560). This story was one of the first to receive exhaustive treatment by the so-called Finnish method. After a close examination and analysis of several hundred versions, Aarne [63] constructs an "archetype," somewhat as follows:

A poor (or impoverished) young man spends the little money he has in order to rescue a dog and later a cat who are about to be killed. With the help of these animals he also rescues a serpent who is in danger of being burned. The thankful serpent takes him to his home, where his father gives him a stone (sometimes with a hole in it). By means of this magic object the young man constructs a beautiful castle and wins a princess for a wife. The stone, however, is stolen from him by a stranger, and through the magic power of the stone the castle and the wife are likewise removed far away. The helpful animals now set forth to recover the magic object. The dog swims, carrying the cat on his back, and succeeds in crossing the river to the opposite bank where the thief dwells. In front of the castle the cat catches a mouse and threatens it with death if it will not get for her the stone which the thief is holding in his mouth. In the night, the mouse tickles the lips of the sleeping thief with its tail. The thief must spit the stone up onto the floor. The cat receives it and carries it away in its mouth. On the way home as they are crossing the river the dog demands the stone so that he can carry it. But he lets it fall out of his mouth, and a fish swallows it. Later they are [p. 71] able to catch the fish, to recover the stone, and to bring it to their master. He immediately has his castle returned and joins his wife, with whom he lives happily ever after.

In most of the European versions, of course, we deal with a magic ring rather than a stone. But Aarne is convinced that the stone represents the older form of the story. Although he did not have available nearly so large a collection of versions as it would be possible to assemble today, his discussion shows that there can be little doubt that the tale was made up in Asia, probably in India, and that it has moved from there into Europe. It was certainly well established there before the seventeenth century, when it was apparently heard in Italy by Basile, who tells the story in his Pentamerone. While the tale is undoubtedly more popular in eastern Europe than in western, it is told, at least sometimes, in almost every country or province on the Continent. It has been reported from the Highland Scottish, and the Irish, but seems not to be known in Iceland. It is popular through North Africa and the Near East and has penetrated as far south as Madagascar and the Hottentot country. Eastward of India the tale has been recorded several times in farther India, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines. A clear enough version is also current in Japan. The French have brought the story to the Indians of the Maritime Provinces and to Missouri. There are Portuguese versions (from the Cape Verde Islands) in Massachusetts, and Spanish in Argentina. If, as Aarne contends, the story started in India, it has gone a long way and has made itself thoroughly at home in the western world.

The same general pattern is, of course, familiar in the tale of Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (Type 561). The finding of the lamp in the underground chamber and the magic effects of rubbing it, the acquisition of castle and wife, the theft of the lamp and loss of all his fortune, and the final restoration of the stolen lamp by means of another magic object is known to all readers of the Arabian Nights, even of the most juvenile collections. Though this tale has entered somewhat into the folklore of most European countries, it has never become a truly oral tale. Its life has been dependent upon the popularity of the Arabian Nights, especially since their translation by Galland a little over two hundred years ago. There was, indeed, doubt for a good while as to whether the Aladdin story really belonged to the canon of the Arabian Nights, and it was suggested that it was a concoction of Galland himself. But the authenticity of the story as a part of the Thousand and One Nights has now been sufficiently proved. It is doubtful, however, whether the story has ever been a part of the actual folklore of any country.

Much the same relationship between written and oral versions is to be seen in the closely related tale, The Spirit in the Blue Light (Type 562) . The form in which it is now told over a considerable part of Europe has undoubtedly been influenced, and in most cases is the direct result of its artistic [p. 72] telling by Hans Christian Andersen in his Fyrtojet (The Tinder Box). As in the Aladdin story, a fire steel, or tinder box, is found in an underground room. With this the hero makes a light, in response to which a spirit comes to serve him. Among other adventures, he has his servant bring the princess to him three nights in succession. He is discovered and in his confusion loses his tinder box. As he is about to be executed he asks permission to light his pipe. A comrade has brought back his tinder box to him and given it to him in prison. As he lights his pipe, his spirit helper appears and rescues him.

In spite of the fact that this tale was carefully studied by Aarne, [64] he has not very clearly distinguished this tradition from that of Aladdin and, indeed, the two are almost inextricably mixed up. The essential difference is that in this tale the magic object is lost through accident rather than through the plot of an enemy. Though the tale is not unknown in southeastern Europe, its greatest popularity is in the Baltic states and Scandinavia. Not all these versions have been analyzed, but it would seem probable that Hans Christian Andersen has had a predominant influence in the dissemination of this story.

Three other tales of the loss and recovery of magic objects have been studied together by Antti Aarne. [65] The magic objects they treat of are, respectively, three, two, and one. By far the most popular of the three is The Table, the Ass, and the Stick (Type 563), and indeed it seems likely that the other two are little more than special developments of this type.

A poor man receives from a benefactor a table, a tablecloth, or sack which supplies itself with food. This is stolen from him by the host at the inn where he stays and an object identical in appearance is substituted for it. When the poor man goes home and tries to produce food, he fails. When he goes again to his benefactor he is given a marvelous ass or horse which will drop all the gold he may desire. The host at the inn plays the same trick a second time, and the man finds himself possessed of a worthless animal. The third time the benefactor gives him a magic cudgel and with this he compels the host to return the magic objects he has stolen.

This tale has a very extensive distribution, and is present in almost every collection of stories in Europe and Asia. It is told almost throughout Africa and has been carried frequently to both North and South America. Aside from the present day oral forms in India, there is indication that a tale with most of its essentials was current at least as early as the sixth century after Christ, since it appears in a collection of Chinese Buddhistic legends. [66] After all his extensive study of the versions of this tale, Aarne is undecided as to whether it has moved from Asia into Europe or vice versa. [67] [p. 73]

In the same study Aarne has handled the related story which involves only two magic objects. This is usually known as The Magic Providing Purse and "Out, Boy, Out of the Sack!" (Type 564). Aarne is surely right in thinking of it as a special development of the story just treated. The magic objects are received in the same way. The first of these, usually a purse, is stolen by a neighbor and it is recovered by the use of a magic sack which either draws the enemy into it or contains a manikin which beats him until called off. There is a rather free exchange in the kinds of magic objects between this tale and that of the magic tablecloth. It may well be that we have here nothing more than an abbreviated form of the latter in which the number of objects is reduced from three to two. At any rate, this particular form appears in a very limited area around the eastern end of the Baltic Sea. The single versions reported for Norway and for Flanders are quite isolated from the main area in which this type has developed.

Of somewhat wider distribution is the third of these stories treated in Aarne's study. In this there is only one object, a magic mill or pot (Type 565). The hero receives a magic mill which grinds meal or salt, and which only the owner can command to stop. Sometimes it is a girl who is given a magic pot which fills with porridge and which will obey no one but its owner. The tale may proceed in any one of three ways. In one, the girl's mother commands the pot to work, but the house overflows with porridge before the daughter can return and stop it. Or the man who steals the mill sets it to grinding meal and must call the owner to the rescue. The third ending is more tragic: A sea-captain steals the salt mill and takes it aboard ship, where he commands it to grind salt. He is unable to stop the mill, which keeps on grinding even after the ship sinks under the weight of the salt. This is the reason why the sea is salt.

Aarne comes to the conclusion that this tale, confined as it is to northern Europe from Finland to Norway, is a special development of the story with two magic objects which we have just discussed. A particular subgroup, that concerning the salt mill, he thinks has been developed by a mixture with an old seaman tradition about why the sea is salt.

A tale of magic objects known to the literary world through the Fortunatus legend is The Three Magic Objects and the Wonderful Fruits (Type 566). This story resembles the other handling of magic objects in that it involves their loss and recovery. Three men each receive a magic object from some supernatural being, a manikin, an enchanted princess, or the like. One of them is given a self-filling purse or a mantle with an inexhaustible pocket, another a traveling cap that will take him wherever he wants to go, and the third a horn (or a whistle) that furnishes soldiers. Two of the objects are stolen by a princess with whom the hero plays cards. By means of the traveling cap they transport the princess to a distant place, usually an island, but she succeeds in using the cap to wish herself back home. The [p. 74] hero now being deserted happens to eat an apple which causes horns to grow on his head, but later he finds another apple, or another kind of fruit, which removes the horns. With both kinds of apples in his possession he returns to the court and succeeds in enticing the princess into eating one of the apples. Horns grow on her head. In payment for curing her with the other apple, he receives back the magic objects.

The story is not always satisfactorily motivated. The three companions soon drop out of sight, and the hero is left alone to complete his adventures. In those versions in which the objects are received from enchanted princesses, the hearer expects to learn more about these women and vainly imagines that they are going to end as wives for the three companions. In spite of these inconsistencies, however, this is, as far as Europe is concerned, one of the most popular of all the tales of magic objects. It is distributed rather evenly over the whole continent, but does not extend any appreciable distance into Asia. Though some features of the narrative are to be found in the Persian Tuti-Nameh, and more remotely in the Indic collection Sukasaptati, the fully developed story seems to be essentially oral and west European. [68] It has been carried by the French into America, where it is told by the Penobscot Indians in Maine, and by the Portuguese from Cape Verde Islands to Massachusetts.

Another story in which three magic objects regularly appear is that of The Knapsack, the Hat, and the Horn (Type 569). This tale is not generally so popular as the one concerning the marvelous fruits, but it has a much wider distribution. It seems to be about as well known in Indonesia and India as it is in Ireland. It has never been systematically studied, and a cursory examination of its distribution does not throw much light on its history. It appeared in Germany in literary form as early as 1554 and has been frequently used by later writers. Its popularity in the old tradition of such countries as Germany, Flanders, Ireland, and Russia would indicate that it has had a vigorous life quite aside from the literary tradition.

The details of the transactions in this story differ a good deal from version to version, though the general outline is clear enough. The youngest of three brothers finds a magic object, exchanges it for another, and by means of the second gets hold of the first again. By such trick exchanges he comes into possession of the three magic objects which give the tale its title, and with these he is able to produce an indefinite amount of food and a huge army. He makes war against the king and succeeds in all his enterprises.

This tale differs from the other stories of magic objects in that there is no loss or recovery. The simplicity of the plot makes it natural that it has attached itself to other stories with ease.

Considerable resemblance to the tale of the wonderful fruits is also found [p. 75] in The Magic Bird-Heart (Type 567). [69] On the basis of his careful analysis, Aarne has reconstructed the probable form of the original tale:

Fate has brought into the possession of a poor man a magic bird which lays golden eggs. The man sells the precious eggs and becomes rich. Once he goes on a trip and leaves the bird with his wife to take care of. In his absence the man who has bought the eggs (sometimes another) comes to the wife and engages in a love affair with her and persuades her to prepare and serve the marvelous bird for his meal. The bird possesses a wonderful trait, that whoever shall eat its head will become ruler and whoever swallows its heart will find gold under, his pillow when he has been sleeping. The bird is killed and prepared, but by chance falls into the hands of the two sons of the man who is absent on his journey. Knowing nothing of the wonderful characteristics of the bird, they eat the head and the heart. The lover does not yet give up his plan, for he knows that a roast which is prepared from the eaters of the bird will have the same effect as the bird itself, and he demands that the boys shall be killed, and finally persuades the mother to agree. The hoys suspect the plot, and flee. The one who has eaten the head arrives in a kingdom where the old ruler has just died and the new one must be chosen. Through some type of marvelous manifestation the young man is chosen ruler. The other boy receives all the gold he wishes. In the course of his adventures he is betrayed by a girl and an old woman. He punishes the girl by using his magic power to turn her into an ass so that she will be severely beaten. But at last he restores her to her human form. In most versions the boys eventually punish their mother.

The story of the magic bird-heart has been cited in the older literature as an illustration of a tale which has travelled from India into Europe. Aarne's exhaustive study, however, while indicating an Asiatic origin, concludes that the most plausible home for the story is western Asia, perhaps Persia. It is well known in eastern Europe, especially in Russia and around the Baltic, but it is to be found in western and southern Europe as well. It is frequently found in North Africa and is reported once from much farther south in that continent. The French have taken it to Canada, where they still tell it, and from them it has doubtless been learned by the Ojibwas of southern Ontario. Though it is found in the Persian Tuti-Nameh of around 1300 a.d., Aarne demonstrates clearly that its life has been primarily oral and practically un influenced by literary retellings.

In a considerable number of the stories about the ownership of magic objects the hero comes into possession of these objects by means of a trick which he plays upon certain devils or giants. He finds them quarreling over the possession of three magic objects (or it may be that three heirs to the property are quarreling), and he undertakes to settle the quarrel. He must [p. 76] hold the object, but as soon as he gets hold of it, he uses it to get possession of the other objects. He then goes on his adventures, which may consist of the performance of tasks assigned to the suitors of a princess, or the freeing of the princess from an enchantment. But this method of acquiring the magic objects is by no means confined to any particular folk story, and it is a real question whether one is justified in considering that we have here a real folktale. It is, perhaps, convenient for cataloguing purposes to list it with an appropriate number (Type 518), but it is essentially an introductory motif (D832) which may lead into almost any story in which magic objects can be used for the performance of tasks, for effecting rescues, or for acquiring wealth. [70]

Considered as a motif, it has a long history. It appears in unmistakable form in a Chinese Buddhistic collection of the sixth century after Christ, in the Ocean of Story (eleventh century), and in the Thousand and One Nights. Aside from its subordinate role in connection with other tales, there are a considerable number of versions in which the principal interest seems to be in this trick. In one way or another, the motif has a very extensive distribution throughout Europe and Asia. It is common in North Africa and appears occasionally much further south. Because of its wide distribution, of its association with so many different folktales, and of its easily ascertainable antiquity, this story (or tale motif, if you like) affords many interesting problems for anyone who may undertake to write its history.

An interesting variation on the story of the hero with his three magic objects is that known from the Grimm collection as The Jew Among Thorns (Type 592). The tale is widely distributed over every part of Europe, but, except for single and apparently sporadic appearances in Indonesia and among the Kabyle of North Africa, it has not traveled east or south. It has been reported in English tradition in Virginia, among the Missouri French and the Jamaica Negroes. It has been so frequently treated in literature, especially in Germany and England, ever since the fifteenth century, that these literary forms have undoubtedly affected the oral tradition. For whatever reason, the story appears with unusual variation of detail. Perhaps a thorough comparative study of the relationship of the more than two hundred and fifty reported versions with the many literary treatments would clarify its complicated history.

The story has many points in common with several we have been examining. The hero is driven from home by an evil stepmother or he is dismissed from service with a pittance after many years of labor. He gives the small amount of money he has to a poor man, and in return he is granted the fulfillment of three wishes. Most important of these is for a magic fiddle which compels people to dance. Usually he asks for a never-failing crossbow [p. 77] and for the power of having all his desires obeyed. Other magic objects or powers besides these frequently appear in this story. In the course of his adventures he meets a monk, or more frequently a Jew, and they shoot at a bird on a wager. As the loser of the contest, the Jew must go into the thorns naked and get the bird. With his magic fiddle the hero compels the Jew to dance in the thorns. In some versions this whole episode of the dancing in the thorns is replaced by a story of the defeat of a giant by making him dance. Eventually the boy is brought to court for his misdeeds and is condemned to be hanged. As a last request he secures permission to play on his fiddle, and he compels the judge and all the assembly to dance until he is released.

Anyone acquainted with European folktales will recognize a number of motifs in this story which he has already encountered in other tales. Its central unifying idea seems to be the magic fiddle and the dancing it compels. The evil stepmother, the dismissal from service with a pittance, the helping of the poor man with the last penny, and the escape from execution by an illusory last request show affinities with many other tales. A consequence of this abundance of folktale commonplaces is the fact that there are many points at which this story may lead imperceptibly into other well-known plots. [71]

We have already encountered several magic animals, aside from the many helpful beasts which assist in the action of folktales. The hen that lays golden eggs, in Jack and the Beanstalk, and the horse or donkey which drops gold for its master are but two of these. Perhaps most surprising of all magic animals is the half-chick. Because he appears so frequently in French tales, he is usually known by his French title, Demi-coq (Type 715). The very fact of his being only a half animal has caused the tellers of this tale to permit themselves the greatest extravagances of invention. Two children are left a cock as their only inheritance. They divide it by cutting it in two. One of them receives the help of a fairy godmother who makes the half-cock magic. Demi-coq now sets out on his adventures. He first wishes to recover some borrowed money. Under his wings, or elsewhere in his body, he takes with him some robbers, two foxes, and a stream of water. When he goes to the castle and demands the money, he is imprisoned with the hens, but the foxes eat them up. Likewise in the stable, the robbers steal the horses. When he is to be burned, the stream puts out the fire. He is finally given the money. The story usually ends with the discomfiting of the king. When, in spite of all his tricks, Demi-coq is eaten by the king, he keeps crowing from the king's body.

This story has been studied, as far as the western European versions are concerned, by Ralph S. Boggs. [72] His conclusion is that the center of the development is Castile and that the tale spread from there throughout France and was carried to various parts of South America —Brazil, Chili, and [p. 78] Argentina—by Portuguese and Spanish settlers, and to the Cochiti Indians of New Mexico and to Missouri by the Spanish and French, respectively. In the literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the story appeared twice, once in France and once in Spain. It is referred to in a play published in France in 1759. Boggs is of the opinion that the Spanish tale given literary treatment in the early nineteenth century by Fernán Caballero has been of primary importance in the development of this story in southwest Europe. This tale is, however, not confined to that area, but, with some variations, is found throughout most of the continent and as far east as India. It is very unevenly distributed. No versions have been reported from the British Isles, from Germany, or Czechoslovakia. On the other hand, the Finns possess nearly a hundred, and it is popular in Estonia and Russia. As a supplement to Boggs's study, a treatment of the tale in the other areas would be illuminating.

Seldom in folktales does any thought seem to be given to the processes by which marvelous objects may be constructed: their existence is merely taken for granted. One exception to this statement is the tale of The Prince's Wings (Type 575). It usually begins with a contest in the construction of a marvelous object. A skillful workman makes wings (or sometimes a magic horse) that will carry one through the air. A prince buys the wings from the workman and flies to a tower in which a princess is confined. They fly away together and when the father of the princess offers half his kingdom as a reward for her return, the prince flies back with her and enforces the bargain.

The essential part of this story, the journey on the flying horse or with the wings, appears in several Oriental tales, notably in the Thousand and One Nights and in the Ocean of Story, and it is familiar to the readers of medieval romance through the adventures of Cléomadès. It does not appear to be known in oral tradition outside of northern and eastern Europe. Of three tales of magic objects known only in Scandinavia and the Baltic countries, the most popular is the story of the young man who has power to make all women love him (Beloved of Women, Type 580). By means of this power he secures magic objects and eventually marries a queen. Not more than a half dozen versions have been reported of the other two tales. One of these is Fiddevav (Type 593) in which an old woman gives the hero a magic stone and advises him to go to a peasant's house at night, to say nothing but "Thanks," and to lay the stone in the ashes. The stone prevents fire from being made, and all who poke in the ashes, the daughter, the housewife, the preacher, etc. must keep saying "Fiddevav" until they are released from the magic. This happens only when the hero receives the peasant's daughter. The second tale, The Thieving Pot (Type 591), tells how a peasant exchanges his cow for a magic pot which goes out and steals food and money from the peasant's rich neighbors.

These last two tales are good examples of stories known in a relatively [p. 79] small area. If other parts of the world had been as thoroughly explored for tales as Scandinavia and the countries of the eastern Baltic, there would doubtless be hundreds of other such stories which have never wandered far from the place where they were originally told.

[63] Vcrgleichende Märchenforschungen, pp. 3-82.

[64] As a part of his study of The Magic Ring (Vergleichende Märchenforschung, pp. 5 3-82).

[65] Die Zaubergaben (Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne, XXVII, Helsinki, 1911, pp. 1-96).

[66] Chavannes, 500 Contes, III, 256, No. 468.

[67] For a discussion of this question, see Krohn, Übersicht, pp. 51-2.

[68] This conclusion has been reached by Aarne's thoroughgoing analysis of the tale (Vergleichende Märcheniorschungen, pp, 85-142).

[69] See the extensive study by Aarne (Vergleichende Märchenjorschungen, pp. 143-200). For the opening of this tale as an introduction to The Two Brothers (Type 303), see p. 28, above.

[70] Bolte-Polívka (II, 331) point out that this introduction appears in Types 302, 306, 313B, 400, 401, 507A, 552, and 569.

[71] For a list of the most usual of these combinations see analysis for Type 592.

[72] The Halfchick Tale in Spain and France.

302, 303, 306, 313B, 400, 401, 507A, 518, 552, 560, 561, 562, 563, 564, 565, 566, 567, 569, 575, 580, 591, 592, 593, 715

Part Two

The Folktale from Ireland to India

II – The Complex Tale

8. Good and bad relatives

C. Banished Wife or Maiden

The same hostile forces which frequently bring about the replacement of the true bride by the false are often responsible for the invention of slanders or for other machinations which result in the banishment of an innocent wife or maiden. Four popular and widely distributed tales have this central motivation, and still others have developed in particular areas. [158] This theme of the banished wife was popular in the literature of the Middle Ages, and sometimes appeared in forms very close to those found in oral tradition today. [159]

Most closely related to the tragic story of Constance, as Chaucer has made it known to the literary world, are The Maiden Without Hands (Type 706) and The Three Golden Sons (Type 707). These two tales have in common the motif of the wife who is accused of giving birth to animals or monsters. The Maiden Without Hands always begins by telling how the heroine has her hands cut off and is abandoned to her fate. The reasons for this cruel punishment differ widely as the tale is followed from one area to another. It may be because she refuses to marry her father, [160] or because her father has sold her to the devil (S211), or because, in spite of his commands, she has persisted in praying, or because of the jealousies and slanders of her mother-in-law or sister-in-law. Whether she is abandoned in the woods or on the sea, she is observed by a king [161] who takes her home and marries her in spite of her mutilation. For the second time, she is cast forth with her newborn children [p. 121] because one of her relatives has changed a letter announcing their birth, so as to make the message announce the birth of monsters. This central incident will be familiar to all readers of The Man of Law's Tale. The way in which the heroine has her hands restored and is eventually reunited to her husband is handled with considerable variety, both in written and oral versions. Sometimes also, as in Chaucer, there is reduplication of the banishment.

The literary treatment of this general theme begins as early as the year 1200 in southern England. Between that time and the seventeenth century it received not fewer than seventeen distinct literary handlings, [162] including those in Chaucer and Gower and in the romance of Emare. With slight variations, it appears in the Thousand and One Nights from which it has entered the Arabic oral tradition. Basile tells the story in his Pentamerone and it forms the subject of a special group of south Slavic folksongs. [163] Whatever may be the relation of the oral tale to the well-known literary treatments, there can be no doubt as to the popularity of the theme among unlettered story tellers. Few collections of any extent in all of Europe from Ireland to eastern Russia fail to have this story. It is known in the Near East and in central Africa, but has not been noted in the tales of India or lands beyond. In America it has not only been taken over by the Micmac and Wyandot Indians but has been carried by the French to Missouri and by Cape Verde Islanders to Massachusetts. It has reached Brazil and Chile in South America. The oral tale is so popular and so widely distributed that it deserves more study than it has yet received.

Even more popular is the other tale of the calumniated wife, The Three Golden Sons (Type 707) . Though no adequate investigation has been given to this story, it is clear that it is one of the eight or ten best known plots in the world. A cursory examination of easily available reference works shows 414 versions, an indication that a thorough search might bring to light several hundred more. These are found in practically every European tale collection. In Asia they have been reported from almost every quarter of Siberia, from the Near East, and from India. It is well established in all parts of Africa. In America three traditions are represented: the French among the French Canadians and the Thompson River Indians, the Portuguese in Brazil and among the Cape Verde Islanders in Massachusetts, and the Spanish among the Tepecano Indians of Mexico and in the white tradition of Chile. [164] It does not seem to have a long literary history, since the oldest version appeared in the sixteenth [p. 122] century in Straparola's Nights. In the early eighteenth, Madame d'Aulnoy and Galland both published it, the former using a tale based upon Straparola and the latter reporting one which he had heard in Arabic. The story would seem to belong almost entirely to folklore rather than to literature. Its distribution would suggest European origin, though a thorough study might conceivably show that the dissemination was in the other direction.

Over the entire area the story appears with considerable uniformity. As in The Maiden Without Hands, the king marries a girl whom he happens to meet. Here, however, we usually have three girls who make their boasts as to what would happen if they should marry the king. The king over hears the youngest of the girls say that if she were the queen she would bear triplets with golden hair, a chain around their necks, and a star on their foreheads. After the king has taken her as wife her sisters plot against her. They substitute a dog for the newborn children and accuse the wife of giving birth to the dog. The children are thrown into a stream, but they are rescued, sometimes by a miller or a fisherman. The wife is imprisoned, [165] or banished. After the children have grown up, the eldest one sets out on a quest. The reason for his undertaking the quest varies much in the different versions. He may go out to try to find his father or to seek the speaking bird, the singing tree, and the water of life. [166] On his quest the eldest brother fails and is transformed into a marble column. The second brother has the same experience, and it remains for the youngest (sometimes a sister) to rescue them. The kindness and consideration of the latter secures the help of an old woman, and eventually the disenchantment of the brothers and the possession of the magic bird and the magic objects. When all have returned from the quest, the king's attention is attracted by means of the magic objects, and the bird of truth reveals to him the whole story. The children and wife are restored and the sisters-in-law punished.

Another tale which has many points in common with The Maiden Without Hands (Type 706) is Our Lady's Child (Type 710). [167] In one way or another the heroine of this story secures the ill will of some powerful person. In some forms of the tale she is under the special protection of the Blessed Virgin, whose enmity she incurs by falsely denying that she has looked into a forbidden room. As a punishment, the girl loses her power of speech. In other variants, instead of Our Lady, the opponent is a witch or some naturally malevolent woman; occasionally even a man appears in this role. In any event, the maiden becomes the wife of the king. But when she gives birth [p. 123] to children, she is punished by having them stolen one by one. Only when she finally acknowledges her guilt are they returned to her.

This tale shows so much variation from the time it appeared in Straparola in the sixteenth century and a hundred years later in Basile that its history might be difficult to work out. It shows frequent contamination with other tales, especially The Maiden Without Hands, and the uncertainty of whether we are dealing with a pious legend of the Blessed Virgin or with a story of a cruel witch has introduced many inconsistencies into the tradition. It is known in all parts of Europe, the Near East, North Africa, and Jamaica, but seems nowhere to have achieved great popularity. On the whole, the witch as the foster mother seems to be better known than the Blessed Virgin. The central incident of the loss of the children, as well as the marriage of the king to a girl who has been mutilated or disabled, makes understandable the confusion of this tale with the two just discussed.

Before leaving the tales of slandered wives, mention should be made of a story which has been reported only from the Scandinavian peninsula, Born from a Fish (Type 705). As in the tale of The Two Brothers (Type 303), a man catches a magic fish which he is to feed to his wife. Instead, he eats it himself and becomes pregnant. A girl child is cut out of his knee. The child is carried off by birds and lives in a bird-nest. The story now proceeds like others of this group: she is seen by the king who marries her; her children are stolen away and she is driven forth. The ending is unusual. The king, realizing his mistake, seeks for his banished wife. She is found by means of a riddle which could apply only to her: a fish was my father, a man was my mother.

The main action of the four tales which we have just examined—the discovery of the persecuted maiden in the woods or a tree, her marriage to the king, the slander concerning the birth of her children, the loss of the children, the abandonment of the queen, the eventual discovery of the truth, and the reunion of the family—is so uniform that there has been much transfer from one tale to the other, if, indeed, they are all essentially different stories. In the brief summary of the plots, a number of widespread motifs, found now in one and now in another, have escaped our notice. Among these are the casting off of the wife and child in an open boat (S431.1) and the accusation of murder supported by the evidence of a bloody knife left in the queen's bed (K2155.1.1). [168]

The banished girl in our European folktales is frequently a young maiden, like Snow White. [169] The motivation in this story (Type 709) [170] is the jealousy of the stepmother who learns from her speaking mirror that Snow White is [p. 124] even more beautiful than she. The hunter who has been ordered to kill her substitutes an animal's heart and lets her go. [171] Or sometimes she is sent directly to the house of dwarfs or robbers where the stepmother expects her to be killed. She is kindly received by the dwarfs, who adopt her as a sister. The stepmother learns Snow White's whereabouts from her magic mirror and succeeds, often after several trials, in poisoning the girl. Sometimes this is by means of poisoned lace and a poisoned comb; finally, after the dwarfs have revived her from her first two poisonings, the stepmother succeeds by means of an apple. The dwarfs lay the maiden out in a glass coffin. A prince sees her and orders his men to carry the coffin. They stumble and thus dis lodge the apple, so that the girl revives. She marries the prince, who sees to it that the stepmother is given a horrible punishment. The version just outlined is essentially that given by Grimm. The tale appears without great variation over a considerable area—from Ireland to Asia Minor and well down into central Africa. Except for one Portuguese version in Brazil, it does not seem to have come to America. The story appears in two variations in Basile's Pentamerone, and it is likely that the oral tradition has been greatly influenced by this literary treatment. Böklen also shows that there has been extraordinary borrowing from other tales with similar motifs. There are also many resemblances to older mythical stories, but how significant these are in the actual history of the tale may be doubted. In spite of Böklen's detailed analysis of the stories, he has made little attempt to reach conclusions about its origin and history.

In the last few years this story has come to the attention of millions of children and adults through the remarkable treatment in the cinema version of Walt Disney. This was based directly upon the Grimm text.

Much less well known than Snow White is the tale of The Wonder Child (Type 708). It seems to be most popular in Scandinavia, though there are scattered versions as far away as Hungary and Brittany. Through the magic power of a witch stepmother, sometimes merely by a curse and sometimes by being fed a magic apple—a princess gives birth to a monster son. She is driven forth into the forest or abandoned in a boat on the sea. The monster son develops miraculous powers. He helps his mother in her work of spinning at a castle. He accompanies a prince in search of a bride, or on a hunt. When they are cast in prison together, the boy promises to rescue the prince if the latter will marry his mother. Though the prince imagines that the mother must be a monster also, he consents. He rejoices to find her like other people. At the wedding, the monster is disenchanted when his mother calls him her son. In some versions the disenchantment occurs when his head is cut off. [p. 125]

A study of this last tale might show some very interesting results. Though its area of distribution is relatively small and though it is nowhere especially popular, the tale seems well enough recognized to constitute a real tradition. No literary versions have been noticed, so that we are apparently dealing with something which is essentially, if not entirely, oral.

[158] The whole subject of the outcast child, including both banished daughters and banished sons, has been discussed in some detail by E. S. Hartland (Folk-Lore Journal, IV, 308). He makes the following divisions: (1) the King Lear type, dealing with the adventures of the king's three daughters; (2) the value of salt type, concerned only with the adventures of the youngest daughter; (3) the Joseph type, in which a boy or girl is banished because of dreams of future greatness. The fourth and fifth types record the career of an only son who has fallen without reasonable cause under his father's anger. Of these types, the third will be discussed in section IX, p. 138, below. The fourth and fifth are represented by Types 671 and 517.

[159] An excellent discussion of this whole cycle of literary tales is found in Margaret Schlauch's Chaucer's Constance and Accused Queens (New York, 1927).

[160] An incident which we shall find in Type 510B.

[161] See Motif N711 and all its subdivisions for references to other tales in which this incident appears.

[162] For a listing of these, see Bolte-Polívka, I, 298ff. The whole tale has been studied by Däumling (Studie über den Typus des Mädchens ohne Hände, München, 1912) and the Comte du Puymaigre (Revue d'histoire des religions, Sept.-Oct., 1884; summarized in Mélusine, II, 309).

[163] For these, see Bolte-Polívka, I, 306.

[164] For a study of the Chilean versions of the tale, see Rodolfo Lenz, "Un Grupo de Consejas Chilenas, Estudio de Novelistica comparada" (Santiago, 1912); see also Espinosa, Journal of American Folklore, XXVII, 230.

[165] In some versions the wife may be thrown into a stream and transformed, as in The Black and the White Bride (Type 403).

[166] In connection with the quest, the story frequently shows the influence of The Three Hairs from the Devil's Beard (Type 461).

[167] The oldest known version of this story, that in Straparola's Nights, is a thorough amalgamation of the two tales.

[168] For other motifs belonging here, see cross references assembled at Motifs S400, S410, and S431.

[169] Aside from Snow White and The Maiden Without Hands, we shall find Cap o' Rushes and others of the Cinderella cycle being cast out. See also Motif S301 with all its references.

[170] See Böklen, Sneewittchenstudien.

[171] The compassionate executioner appears in a number of stories from the time of Joseph on down; see Motif K512 with all its subdivisions. We have already met it in the tale of The Three Languages (Type 671).

303, 403, 461, 510B, 517, 671, 705, 706, 707, 708, 709, 710

K512, K2155.1.1, S211, S431.1, N711, S301, S400, S410, S431

Part Two

The Folktale from Ireland to India

II – The Complex Tale

12. Origin and history of the complex tales

Not every complex tale known to story-tellers of the area we are considering has found a place in the discussion just concluded. But practically all of those omitted are of very limited distribution. [283] With each tale the main facts about its history and its occurrences in oral tradition have been indicated wherever conclusions seemed possible. While discussing each tale, I have had before me a summary of the scholarship which has been devoted to it and a complete list of oral versions insofar as the extensive reference books and regional surveys now available made this possible. Frequently the mere bringing together of this material was sufficient to compel conclusions about the tale which do not seem likely to need revision. But when all tales with such clear-cut histories have been considered, there remain a large number which present problems sufficient to occupy the attention of scholars for many a decade to come.

Of these complex tales, along with a few closely related simple anecdotes, we have examined somewhat over two hundred. The order in which they have been taken up has been determined by their subject matter. And that means that tales about the same kinds of characters or incidents have been brought together, often when there was no organic relationship between them and when they had little if anything in common in their origin and history. When so much remains dark about the beginnings and about the vicissitudes of so large a number of our folktales, no complete account of them can be based upon historical categories.

Nevertheless, in a very tentative way it may be of interest to see which of our tales have a history that can be proclaimed with some confidence, which of them show great probabilities of proper solution, and which of them still present difficult problems.

That many of our European and Asiatic folktales go back to a literary source is as clear as any fact of scholarship can be made. There would thus seem to be no reason to doubt that an Oriental literary text is responsible for the subsequent development of a considerable number of tales which have received oral currency in Europe and sometime in the Orient. In the older Buddhistic sources [284] are found: Death's Messengers (Type 335); Six Go Through the Whole World (Type 513A); The Three Snake Leaves (Type 612); [p. 177] The Two Travelers (Type 613); The Animal Languages (Type 670); "Think Carefully Before You Begin a Task" (Type 910C); The Brave Tailor (Type 1640); and Doctor Know-All (Type 1641). In the Ocean of Story, a Sanskrit collection brought together in the twelfth century but based upon much older material, there appear, as probable originals of the European oral tradition, versions of: Wise Through Experience (Type 910A); The Servant's Good Counsels (Type 910B); and Faithful John (Type 516). From other collections of literary tales originating in India appear to come: The Bridge to the Other World (Type 471); The Four Skillful Brothers (Type 653); The Wise Brothers (Type 655); and One Beggar Trusts God, the Other the King (Type 841). From various literary sources in India the incidents which make up two of our related tales have been taken and unified at some point before they entered into the oral tradition of the west. [285] These two are : The Son of the King and of the Smith (Type 920); and The King and the Peasant's Son (Type 921). Whatever may be the ultimate source of the stories in the Thousand and One Nights, several of our old folktales are found in that work in much the form in which these stories first reached European taletellers. Among these tales appearing in the Arabian Nights are: Siddhi Numan (Type 449*); Aladdin (Type 561); Open Sesame (Type 676); Luck and Wealth (Type 736); Hatch-penny (Type 745); Oft Proved Fidelity (Type 881); The Treasure of the Hanging Man (Type 910D); and The Forty Thieves (Type 954). Finally, of these tales of Oriental origin, may be mentioned one which appears in the Persian collection, The Thousand and One Days. This is The Prophecy (Type 930).

Similarly, an ultimate origin in European literature seems unmistakable for a dozen or more of the stories current today, whether locally or over the complete European-Asiatic area. Three of the tales which we have noticed certainly go back to Greek literature: Oedipus (Type 931) to Sophocles; Rhampsinitus (Type 950) to Herodotus; and The Wolf and the Kids (Type 123) to the Aesop collection. A fourteenth century Latin poem, the Asinarius, is responsible for the very few oral versions of The Ass (Type 430). Folktales have borrowed very freely from saints' legends: certainly Pride Is Punished (Type 836) is a mere oral treatment of the legend of Polycarp. The great collections of illustrative tales which in the Middle Ages went under the name of Exempla contained a considerable number of folktales. Frequently it is impossible to tell whether they may be reworkings of oral tradition, but sometimes it is quite evident that the oral tale is taken directly from the literary collection. This is clearly true of: Friends in Life and Death (Type 470); The Boy Who Learned Many Things (Type 517); The Three Languages (Type 671); The Angel and the Hermit (Type 759); and Who Ate the Lamb's Heart (Type 785). At least two tales seem to have been learned from the work of the German Meistersinger: The Faithful Wife (Type 888); and [p. 178] The Pound of Flesh (Type 890). Of course, both of these tales were used by Shakespeare, and that fact has doubtless been of influence on their subsequent popularity. Many stories have undoubtedly originated among the people of Italy, and it is sometimes difficult to know whether a tale recounted by those great writers of novelle beginning with Boccaccio was learned from the people or was invented by the author. For at least three of our folktales such literary invention by the novella writer seems the most reasonable hypothesis. The Wager on the Wife's Chastity (Type 882) is in Boccaccio's Decameron; The Luck-Bringing Shirt (Type 844) in the Pecorone of Ser Giovanni; and The Taming of the Shrew (Type 901) in the Nights of Straparola. The Pentamerone of Giambattista Basile of the early seventeenth century is almost completely made up of oral folktales, though transformed into an extraordinary literary style. But it is probable that he invented several tales by freely combining traditional material. Such seems to be the situation with The Forsaken Fiancée (Type 884). Finally, at least one tale given currency by the Grimms, The Two Girls, the Bear, and the Dwarf (Type 426), comes directly from a German literary collection of stories which appeared in 1818.

The fact that one may cite a literary form of a story, even a very old version, is by no means proof that we have arrived at the source of the tradition. Nothing is better authenticated in the study of traditional narrative than the fact that the literary telling of a tale may represent merely one of hundreds of examples of the story in question and have for the history of the tradition no more significance than any other one of the hundreds of variants at hand. Apuleius's telling of Cupid and Psyche and the author of Tobit's version of The Grateful Dead Man tale appear both to be rather late and somewhat, aberrant forms of much older oral tales. With this warning in mind, the careful student should be slow in arriving at the conclusion that a stated literary document is the fountainhead of a particular narrative tradition. For those tales which we have just listed, the actual dependence on the literary source has seemed well established. In addition to these, there are a considerable number for which there is a well-known early literary form to which the weight of evidence would point probably, but not quite certainly, as the actual source. Some of these tales have been very popular among story-tellers, and have spread over two or more continents, and some have had only a very limited acceptance among the people. The degree of popularity and the geographical extent of the distribution is a fact which must be taken into consideration with every tale when we are trying to judge the question of its ultimate literary or oral invention. For this reason, in listing the tales with probable literary sources, it is helpful to indicate briefly what type of oral distribution each has.

At least related to the old Greek story of The Cranes of Ibycus is the tale The Sun Brings All to Light (Type 960; oral: Spain to Russia). From saints' [p. 179] legends at least two oral tales appear to have been taken: Hospitality Rewarded (Type750B; oral: scattered thinly over most of Europe); and Christ and the Smith (Type 753; oral: all Europe, especially the Baltic states). Certainly influenced by some of the legends of the popes, if not directly borrowed from them, is The Dream (Type 725; oral: moderately popular in eastern Europe and the Baltic states). In addition to the folktales which we are sure have come from books of Exempla, there are several where such an origin seems likely: The King and the Robber (Type 951A; oral: Germany and the Baltic states, sporadic in Hungary and Russia); The Old Robber Relates Three Adventures (Type 953; oral: thinly scattered, Ireland to Roumania); and "We Three; For Money" (Type 1697; oral: thinly scattered over all Europe). The influence of the chivalric romance in general is seen in The Bride Won in a Tournament (Type 508) which was told in Straparola's Nights and received frequent literary treatment in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but has been collected orally only in three versions in Lithuania.

The rich prose literature of medieval Iceland has in it many folktale elements, most of which doubtless go back to popular tradition. But this may not have been true in all cases: an Icelandic prose tale of 1339 seems to lie back of the oral tale Godfather Death (Type 332; oral: Iceland to Palestine, especially the Baltic states, but not Russia). A medieval chronicle of 1175 probably forms the beginning of the tradition later carried on through French and German jestbooks and at least one English play, and connected with the name of a famous Lord Mayor of London. This is Whittington's Cat (Type 1651; oral: scattered from western Europe to Indonesia, especially popular in Finland).

The jestbooks of the Renaissance contain a number of folktales. In many cases, these were taken from older literary collections, or indeed from oral tradition. But occasionally they seem to have served as a real source for tales which now belong to the folk. Such would seem to be true of The Wishes (Type 750A; oral: popular throughout Europe, sporadic in China); The Tailor in Heaven (Type 800; oral: scattered thinly over Europe, sporadic among Buryat of Siberia); The Devil as Advocate (Type 821; oral: all Europe, especially Baltic, moderately popular); Sleeping Beauty (Type 410; oral: scattered thinly over Europe, one-third of versions Italian, based on Basile); and The Three Brothers (Type 654; oral: confined to Europe).

A German literary tale of the thirteenth century may well be the beginning of The Frog King (Type 440; oral: Germany to Russia only). The habit of writing literary folktales was carried on into the eighteenth century, both in France and in Germany. Many of these tales never assumed any oral popularity. On the other hand, The Girls Who Married Animals (Type 552), although concocted by Musäus at the end of the eighteenth century of authentic oral material, combined with an analogous tale in Basile, has since entered into the stream of oral tradition in the form he then designed. Its [p. 180] oral distribution shows the greatest inconsistency and indicates frequent direct use of the literary source.

For all the tales mentioned thus far in this summary there seems a strong probability of ultimate literary origin. But it cannot be too frequently repeated that the fact of the appearance of a tale in some literary document is no proof that it did not originate among the people. Oral tales have been a very fruitful source For literary story-tellers everywhere. It thus happens that frequently the literary appearance of a story only represents one of many hundreds of versions and is, of course, less important in the history of the tale than the oral variant from which the story was borrowed. It is not always easy to tell when a story belongs primarily to oral tradition and frequently the problem of priority is quite unsolvable. But a very considerable number of tales appearing in literary collections show such a preponderance of oral variants, as well as other indications of popular origin, that their literary appearance would seem to be purely incidental. There can be little doubt that they are all essentially oral, both in origin and in history.

Several such oral tales have found a place in Oriental literary collections. In the Hindu fable collection, the Panchatantra, occurs a good part of the tale of Luck and Intelligence (Type 945); it also occurs in recent literary form in India, but has a vigorous life in popular tradition of India and the Near East, and sporadically as far afield as Germany and the Philippines. In the Ocean of Story, as well as in the Thousand and One Nights, occur fragments of Devils Fight over Magic Objects (Type 518; oral: all Europe, western Asia, and North Africa) and of The Prince's Wings (Type 575; oral: sparingly over north and eastern Europe). In the Ocean of Story, likewise, there is an analogue of The Girl as Helper in the Hero's Flight (Type 313). This story does not otherwise appear in central Asia but is one of the most popular of all oral folktales in Europe and America; it is no wonder that it has been retold by such story-tellers as Straparola and Basile. Two tales popular in the tradition of the Near East appear in the Persian Tuti Nameh: The Grateful Animals (Type 554; oral: Europe and Asia, especially Baltic countries) and The Magic Bird-heart (Type 567; oral: eastern and southern Europe, and Persia; origin probably in Persian tradition). In an Arabic history of the ninth century appears an abbreviated version of The King and the Abbot (Type 922), though Walter Anderson has shown that the tradition is certainly oral, in spite of frequent literary treatments in Europe. Likewise, the occurrence of the story of The Monster in the Bridal Chamber (Type 507B) in the apocryphal Book of Tobit does not carry the implication that this version is the source of the tradition: it is obviously a late and considerably modified form of the story, which appears to have developed orally in the Near East.

Much more frequently have oral tales found a place in one or more European collections of literary stories. In another place more specific mention [p. 181] is made of popular tales embedded in the Greek or Latin classics. [286] Sometimes these retellings represent rather faithfully what must have been the plot of one of our oral tales at the time and place it was heard, though there may be radical adaptation to literary form or fashion. Such is true of the retelling of the tale of Polyphemus (Type 1137) by Homer, of Cupid and Psyche (Type 425) by Apuleius, and of Perseus and Andromeda (a version of Type 300? ) by various writers of myths.

It is sometimes difficult to tell whether such a classical story as that of Perseus is really a version of a folktale now current in Europe. There is little doubt, however, that the appearance of the story of The Dragon-Slayer (Type 300) in connection with that of The Two Brothers (Type 303) in Icelandic saga does represent an actual version of an oral tale, apparently originating in France, and now known by almost every taleteller in the world. In Icelandic saga there also appears a version of The Clever Peasant Girl (Type 875), though this does not represent its source, which is certainly oral and central European. The learning of animal speech by eating the flesh of a serpent occurs in a German and Baltic oral tale (Type 673) and also in the Siegfried story, but this is the only parallel, and the resemblance may not indicate actual relationship.

In other literary forms of the Middle Ages there occasionally appear oral tales. Geoffrey of Monmouth, in telling the story of King Lear, includes the incident of Love Like Salt (Type 923), widely known, not only through Shakespeare's treatment, but also as a part of the Cinderella cycle (Type 510). The chivalric romances, likewise, contain much that must have been taken directly from the people. Marie de France thus tells the tale of The Prince as Bird (Type 432), which, though certainly oral, has been frequently retold by both medieval and Renaissance writers. In some versions of the Tristram story occur elements of The Clever Horse (Type 531; oral: western Europe to the Philippines, origin probably India), and in an Icelandic saga of the fourteenth century there is a much clearer version. In the Fortunatus romance, which occurs in many forms, there is found a version of The Three Magic Objects and the Wonderful Fruits (Type 566), essentially west European folk tradition. The Gesta Romanorum, and later, Hans Sachs, have versions of The Three Doctors (Type 660), a tradition well known from Ireland to Russia. Despite the fact that the French and German fabliaux are usually literary in content, at least two oral tales are used in such collections: The Hero Catches the Princess with Her Own Words (Type 853) and King Thrushbeard (Type 900).

Though the jestbooks which were in vogue during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries normally consist of very simple anecdotes, occasionally they included a complex folk story, like Hansel and Gretel (Type 327A); Master Pfriem (Type 801); One-Eye, Two-Eyes, Three-Eyes (Type 511); The [p. 182] Student from Paradise (Type 1540); or The Three Lucky Brothers (Type 1650). The latter story also appears in a collection of novelle. These prose tale collections, beginning as early as Boccaccio's Decameron, sometimes contain stories which the author had heard, though they are usually much changed in style from what must have been the oral original. Such is true of The Smith Outwits the Devil (Type 330), and of Six Go Through the Whole World (Type 513). The latter tale appears in many other literary collections, both Oriental and European.

For the history of the folktale, two collections in the novella tradition are especially important. Insofar as they contain folktales, they are either purely oral stories or else tales of literary origin which had already become a part of the folklore of Italy. Many of these oral tales have their first literary appearance in these collections. In the Pleasant Nights of Straparola in the sixteenth century are versions of: The Magician and His Pupil (Type 325; apparently of oral origin in India); The Youth Who Wanted to Learn What Fear Is (Type 326); The Youth Transformed to a Horse (Type 314; one of the most popular of oral tales); Cap o' Rushes (Type 510B); The Three Golden Sons (Type 707); Our Lady's Child (Type 710); The Cat Castle (Type 545A); Puss in Boots (Type 545B); and The Lazy Boy (Type 675).

An even longer list of oral tales is found for the first time in the Pentamerone of Basile, 1634-36. Among them are: The Maiden in the Tower (Type 310); The Black and the White Bride (Type 403); The Three Oranges (Type 408); Little Brother and Little Sister (Type 450); The Maiden Who Seeks her Brothers (Type 451); The Spinning-Woman by the Spring (Type 480); The Three Old Women Helpers (Type 501); Dung-beetle (Type 559); The Magic Ring (Type 560); The Louse-Skin (Type 621); The Carnation (Type 652); Snow-White (Type 709); and The Good Bargain (Type 1642).

The folktale collection of Charles Perrault which appeared in 1697 is hardly to be considered as literary at all, but rather as a group of fairly faithful versions of oral tales. The later French collections of Madame D'Aulnoy, on the other hand, were definitely literary, and seldom contained any real folktales which had not already appeared in writers like Straparola or Basile. Exceptions are The Mouse as Bride (Type 402) and The Shift of Sex (Type 514).

Such are the principal collections of literary tales which have given us versions of oral stories. To complete the list, one would have to make several miscellaneous additions. The King and the Abbot (Type 922) appears in a German poem of the thirteenth century and frequently thereafter; the oral tradition of how Peter's Mother Falls from Heaven (Type 804) is given in a fifteenth century German poem; The Monster's Bride (Type 507A) appears in a sixteenth century English comedy; Bearskin (Type 361) is [p. 183] retold by Grimmelshausen in 1670; and Demi-coq (Type 715) is given a French name because of his appearance in a French story written in 1759.

Such is the list of those tales which, although they have appeared in one or more literary collections, seem quite certainly to be oral, both in origin and in history. Sometimes their subsequent popularity has been greatly increased by the fact that they have been charmingly retold by Basile or Perrault. Otherwise, their history is in no essential respect different from that large group of stories to which we shall now turn. These belong to the folklore of Europe and Asia, and have never had the fortune to appeal to any literary story teller. We know them only in oral form and can therefore speak with almost complete certainty of their origin among the people. Here belong some of the most interesting of all folktales.

Most of the European stories which originated in the Orient either go back to literary sources in the East or else, in spite of their origin in popular Oriental tradition, have received literary treatment in Asia or in Europe. Such tales, of literary origin or handling, have just been discussed. There remain a few which seem to have developed orally in Asia and to have reached Europe entirely by word of mouth. Such is true of Three Hairs from the Devil's Beard (Type 461), very often told in connection with the tale of The Prophecy (Type 930). The latter story is Oriental, but is found in early Buddhistic material. [287] The widely diffused tale of The Little Red Bull (Type 511*), while showing relation to several well-known European stories, probably comes from Oriental folk tradition.

By far the largest number of purely oral European and Asiatic tales seem quite certainly to have developed in Europe. The great majority of these are confined to the European continent, but some of them are worldwide in their distribution. Examples of the latter are The Dragon-Slayer (Type 300), John the Bear (Type 301), and The Two Brothers (Type 303). [288] Some European oral tales have traveled far into the Orient: Bluebeard (Type 311); The Journey to God to Receive Reward (Type 460A); The Journey in Search of Fortune (Type 460B); The Wild Man (Type 502); The Speaking Horsehead (Type 533); and The Profitable Exchange (Type 1655). Others have gone no further than the Near East: The Princess Transformed into Deer (Type 401); The Princess on the Glass Mountain (Type 530); Strong John (Type 650); The Juniper Tree (Type 720); and The Greater Sinner (Type 756C).

A considerable number of oral stories have received very wide distribution over the entire European continent but, except for purely sporadic occurrences, they do not appear elsewhere. To this list belong: The Hunter (Type 304); [p. 184] The Dwarf and the Giant (Type 327B); Hiding from the Devil (Type 329); The House in the Wood (Type 431); The Water of Life (Type 551); The Fisher and His Wife (Type 555); The Rabbit-herd (Type 570); The Self-righteous Hermit (Type 756A); The Devil's Contract (Type 756B); The Singing Bone (Type 780); The Peasant in Heaven (Type 802); The Birthmarks of the Princess (Type 850); The Golden Ram (Type 854); The King and the Soldier (Type 952); The Robber Bridegroom (Type 955) and The Clever Maiden Alone at Home Kills the Robbers (Type 956B).

The stories just listed are well represented in all parts of Europe, so that without special investigation it is not easy to say just where the story has developed. With a large number of tales, however, we find that, in spite of occurrences over the entire continent, their area of great popularity is clearly limited, sometimes to a single country, more often to a group of neighboring peoples. Such tales with occurrences primarily in eastern Europe are: The Princess in the Shroud (Type 307); The Faithless Sister (Type 315); and The Prince and the Arm Bands (Type 590). These last two are closely related and seem to have their center in Roumania.

General European tales most popular in eastern and northern Europe are: The Danced-Out Shoes (Type 306); Lenore (Type 365); The Helpful Horse (Type 532); and The Snares of the Evil One (Type 810).

Especially characteristic of Scandinavia and the Baltic states are: The Boy Steals the Giant's Treasure (Type 328, the English story of Jack the Giant Killer); Bear-skin (Type 361); The Man as Heater of Hell's Kettle (Type 475); The King is Betrayed (Type 505); The Spirit in the Blue Light (Type 562—popularly influenced by H. C. Andersen's treatment); The Greedy Peasant Woman (Type 751); Sin and Honor (Type 755; also very popular in Ireland); The Devil's Riddle (Type 812); The Hero Forces the Princess to Say "That is a Lie" (Type 852); The Youth Cheated in Selling Oxen (Type 1538); The Clever Boy (Type 1542); and The Man Who got a Night's Lodging (Type 1544).

Rather widespread traditions having their focus definitely in Scandinavia are: The Man from the Gallows (Type 366); The Princess Rescued from Robbers (Type 506B); The Wonder Child (Type 708); The Princess Confined in the Mound (Type 870); and The Little Goose-Girl (Type 870A).

Oral tales distributed over all Europe, but especially characteristic of the western countries, are: The Giantkiller and his Dog (Bluebeard) (Type 312); The Nix of the Mill-pond (Type 316); Little Red Riding Hood (Type 333); Bargain of the Three Brothers with the Devil (Type 360); The Healing Fruits (Type 610); and The Presents (Type 620).

Finally, at least two tales seem to be especially characteristic of British tradition: Tom-Tit-Tot (Type 500) and Out-riddling the Judge (Type 927). The special form of Type 328 known as Jack the Giant Killer and that known as Jack and the Beanstalk represent peculiar British developments. [p. 185]

There has been no attempt in this book to give notice to all folktales known in Europe and Asia, especially to the hundreds of oral stories which are told in only a single locality or which have never traveled far from their original home. A considerable number of such stories local to Roumania, Hungary, Wallonia, and Russia may be examined in the excellent folktale surveys of these countries. [289] Of such of them as appear in the Aarne-Thompson Types of the Folk-Tale, it will be noticed that a large number of the local tales are characteristic of the Baltic area. It must be borne in mind that very exhaustive lists have been made of the Finnish and Estonian tales, [290] so that these large numbers are no cause for wonder. Of these oral tales in the main part of the Aarne-Thompson index, the following seem to be confined to the Baltic states: a version of The Black and the White Bride (Type 403C); The Girl in the Form of a Wolf (Type 409); Punishment of a Bad Woman (Type 473); "Iron is More Precious than Gold" (Type 677); The Rich Man's and the Poor Man's Fortune (Type 735); The Cruel Rich Man as the Devil's Horse (Type 761); The Princess who Murdered her Child (Type 781); Solomon binds the Devil in Chains in Hell (Type 803); The Deceased Rich Man and the Devils in the Church (Type 815); The Devil as Substitute for Day Laborer at Mowing (Type 820); The Boastful Deer-slayer (Type 830); The Dishonest Priest (Type 831); The Disappointed Fisher (Type 832); How the Wicked Lord was Punished (Type 837); and The Wolves in the Stable (Type 1652).

Local to the Baltic and Scandinavian countries are: [291] a version of The Children and the Ogre (Type 327C); The Vampire (Type 363); The Prince as Serpent (Type 433); The Raven Helper (Type 553); The Magic Providing Purse (Type 564); The Magic Mill (Type 565; sporadic in Ireland, Greece, and France); Beloved of Women (Type 580); The Thieving Pot (Type 591); Fiddevav (Type 593); The Gifts of the Dwarfs (Type 611); The Beautiful and the Ugly Twin (Type 711); The Mother who Wants to Kill her Children (Type 765); the Prodigal's Return (Type 935); and At the Robbers' House (Type 956A).

A much smaller group are limited to the Baltic states and Russia: The Strong Woman as Bride (Type 519); The Man Who Flew like a Bird and Swam like a Fish (Type 665; also in Bohemia); The Punishment of Men (Type 840); The Bank Robbery (Type 951B); and Cleverness and Gullibility (Type 1539; 253 versions in Finland alone, sporadic in Greece, Turkey, and America).

Though the groups of peoples just noticed are represented by a large number [p. 186] of local stories, some tales of limited dissemination occur almost everywhere. Thus The Faithless Wife (Type 315B*) belongs to the Baltic and Balkan states and Russia. Hans my Hedgehog (Type 441) is known from Norway to Hungary, but depends entirely upon the Grimm version. Born from a Fish (Type 705) seems purely Scandinavian, and four tales apparently are known only in Norway: The Animal Sons-in-law and their Magic Food (Type 552B); The King's Tasks (Type 577); The Children of the King (Type 892); and Like Wind in the Hot Sun (Type 923A). Confined to south eastern Europe is The Serpent Maiden (Type 507C). Primarily Italian, but also known in Russia, is The Wolf (Type 428). Central European, primarily German, are the three varieties of The Serpent's Crown (Types 672A, B, and C). And two tales, except for occasional appearances of the Grimm version in other countries, seem to be limited to German tradition: Jorinde and Joringel (Type 405) and The Girl as Flower (Type 407).

In the rapid summary just completed it seems clear that for most of the complex tales of the European and Asiatic areas some generalizations are safe. Though we may not be able to say just when or just where a tale originated, or whether it was first an oral story or a literary creation, the general probabilities are such as we have indicated. Many questions of detail within the limits of these probabilities will engage the efforts of future scholars.

There still remain a considerable number of these complex tales where the evidence at present available is either insufficient to lead to general conclusions or else is so overwhelming in amount that it has never yet been properly utilized for systematic investigation.

For some tales, when the data are all assembled, the question as to whether they are essentially literary or oral seems quite unsolvable without much further study. Among such tales are: The Gifts of the Little People (Type 503); The Princess Rescued from Slavery (Type 506A); The Jew Among Thorns (Type 592); Tom Thumb (Type 700); The Maiden Without Hands (Type 706); Christ and Peter in the Barn (Type 752A); The Forgotten Wind (Type 752B) ; The Saviour and Peter in Night-Lodgings (Type 791); The Lazy Boy and the Industrious Girl (Type 822); The Princess who Cannot Solve the Riddle (Type 851); and The Parson's Stupid Wife (Type 1750).

In another group the question as to whether the tale is essentially Oriental or European is still not satisfactorily solved: The Ogre's (Devil's) Heart in the Egg (Type 302); The Spirit in the Bottle (Type 331); The Prince as Bird (Type 432); The Man Persecuted because of his Beautiful Wife (Type 465); The Table, the Ass, and the Stick (Type 563); and "All Stick Together" (Type 571).

Finally, a half dozen stories well known over the entire world present major problems of investigation, because of the great mass of materials at [p. 187] hand, much of unorganized. Each of them offers a challenge to scholarship. These six tales The Man on a Quest for his Lost Wife (Type 400); Cinderella (Type 510A); The Bird, the Horse, and the Princess (Type 550); The Knapsack, the Hat, and the Horn (Type 569); The Master Thief (Type 1525); and the Rich and the Poor Peasant (Type 1535). [p. 188]

[283] An exhaustive treatment would include a considerable number of such tales of purely local development for Lithuania, for Roumania, for Russia, and for India. The material for the first three of these countries may be examined in the surveys of Balys, Schullerus, and Andrejev, respectively (see references on pp. 420f.). No adequate survey of the material for India has yet been made. I have been working upon one for some years and have reasonable hopes of completing it.

[284] These are best represented by (1) Cowell, The Jātaka; (2) Chavannts, 500 Contes.

[285] For a discussion of this point, see p. 160, above.

[286] See pp. 278ff., below.

[287] See pp. I39f., above.

[288] The other tales which are distributed over the world and have received literary treatment have already been discussed.

[289] For Roumania, Hungary, and Wallonia, see FF Communications Nos. 78, 81, and 101 respectively. For the Russian, see Andrejev, Ukazatel' Skazočnich Siuzhetov.

[290] The number of purely Baltic tales would be greatly increased by inclusion of all those listed in Balys' Motif Index, which appeared after the Aarne-Thompson Index, and also by citing many of the "Types not Included" from the Aarne-Thompson Index.

[291] Single sporadic occurrences elsewhere are disregarded.

123, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 306, 307, 310, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, 315B*, 316, 325, 326, 327A, 327B, 327C, 328, 329, 330, 331, 332, 333, 335, 360, 361, 363, 365, 366, 400, 401, 402, 403, 403C, 405, 407, 408, 409, 410, 425, 426, 428, 430, 431, 432, 433, 440, 441, 449*, 450, 451, 460A, 460B, 461, 465, 470, 471, 473, 475, 480, 500, 501, 502, 503, 505, 506A, 506B, 507A, 507B, 507C, 508, 510, 510A, 510B, 511, 511*, 513, 513A, 514, 516, 517, 518, 519, 530, 531, 532, 533, 545A, 545B, 550, 551, 552, 552B, 553, 554, 555, 559, 560, 561, 562, 563, 564, 565, 566, 567, 569, 570, 571, 575, 577, 580, 590, 591, 592, 593, 610, 611, 612, 613, 620, 621, 650, 652, 653, 654, 655, 660, 665, 670, 671, 672A, 672B, 672C, 673, 675, 677, 700, 705, 706, 707, 708, 709, 710, 711, 715, 720, 725, 735, 736, 745, 750A, 750B, 751, 752A, 752B, 753, 755, 756A, 756B, 756C, 759, 761, 765, 780, 781, 785, 791, 800, 801, 802, 803, 804, 810, 812, 815, 820, 821, 822, 830, 831, 832, 836, 837, 840, 841, 844, 850, 851, 852, 853, 854, 870, 870A, 875, 881, 882, 884, 888, 890, 892, 900, 901, 910A, 910B, 910C, 910D, 920, 921, 922, 923, 923A, 927, 930, 931, 935, 945, 950, 951A, 951B, 952. 953, 954, 956A, 956B, 960, 1137, 1525, 1535, 1538, 1539, 1540, 1542, 1544, 1640, 1641, 1642, 1650, 1651, 1652, 1655, 1697, 1750

Part Two

The Folktale from Ireland to India

III – The Simple Tale

4. Legends and traditions

B. Marvelous Beings and Objects

1. Marvelous Animals

Perhaps the best known of all marvelous animals is the dragon (B11 and subdivisions), and there seems little doubt that for the Occident, at least, the dragon legends are organically related. But whether the fire-breathing, many-headed monster authenticated in the legend of Saint George is actually the same creature as the gigantic luck-bringing dragon of China is by no means clear. At least in Western tradition, the dragon seems to be conceived of as a kind of crocodile or alligator with something of the shape of a scorpion, or perhaps of a lizard. He seems quite generally to be a fire-breather and though sometimes he has only one head, he more usually has either three, seven, or [p. 244] nine. These heads have the power of growing back unless they are all cut off at once. As in Beowulf, popular fancy has very often pictured the dragon as the guardian of treasure and the devastator of a country. This seems to be a popular belief, and it is therefore no great stretch of the imagination for the teller of folktales to picture the dragon as the creature who comes to the king's court and demands human sacrifices. Such stories as The Dragon Slayer (Types 300 and 303) undoubtedly rest upon a secure basis of popular belief.

The dragon is only one of a considerable number of frightful monsters which roam the land. And the sea has also its marvelous beings, sometimes terrifying and sometimes kindly and well disposed. Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea with whom Odysseus came to grips, and Scylla and Charybdis illustrate the way in which old ideas of this kind have survived in the highly developed Greek mythology. The Sirens were dangerous, to be sure, but they were fair to look upon, and this is true also of the mermaids (B81), who inhabit not only the seas known to Greek sailors, but many more modern waters. These ladies, half woman, half fish, perhaps command as widespread a real belief as any other creatures of human fancy. There are not actually many specific tales about the adventures of mermaids, merely accounts of hundreds of people who say they have seen them. As a popular concept they have furnished subjects for art, and one of them sits, through sunshine and storm (in bronze), on a rock in the harbor of Copenhagen.

There are also mermen (B82), but so far as I know, they are never mates of the mermaid. Each of them seeks to lure a human being as spouse into the cold sea-caves. Matthew Arnold's The Forsaken Merman tells with inimitable charm one of the best known of all merman legends (C713): how the human wife of the merman is drawn back to earth by the sound of the church bells and how, when she has once come under their spell, he has lost her forever, and how he and their children must go back alone to their home under the waves

              Where great whales go sailing by,

              Sail and sail with unshut eye

              Around the world forever and aye.

These two inhabitants of the sea are illustrative of a very large body of tradition about water-spirits (F420 and subdivisions). Sometimes these creatures are associated with the ocean or the seas, but an even larger number inhabit lakes and streams. Greek mythology, of course, knew many such beings. But the traditions of all parts of Europe are rich with their presence.

Sometimes they are not to be distinguished from fairies, and many of the beliefs about fairies are ascribed to them. Though sometimes these water-spirits have partly an animal form, they are often purely human in appearance. [p. 245]

To animals themselves, even when there is no touch of human physical attributes, popular fancy has ascribed many marvelous qualities. Talking beasts (B210) are a commonplace in folktales and seem to be very generally believed in. But even more widespread is the faith that certain animals have superhuman powers of perception or wisdom (B120-B169). Birds, serpents, or fishes give good advice or reveal hidden secrets. Animals may also see ghosts or spirits invisible to human eyes. Some of them may utter prophecies, and nearly all can furnish omens of good or bad luck. Very widespread is the idea that the actions of an animal may properly determine some great decision—what road to take, or where a building or a city should be founded. One group of legends, familiar to all who know the Siegfried story, tells how wisdom is acquired from some animal. Most often this takes place when the magic serpent or fish is eaten, but sometimes the animal merely teaches the human being the secrets of wisdom. [381]

Although popular beliefs have thus ascribed superhuman wisdom to some animals, there is every tendency for folk tradition to minimize the differences between man and beast. [382] Sometimes heroes may assume either quality at will, but very frequently we have tales about animals who have nothing human except certain habits and ways of thinking.

We learn nothing from popular tradition about the remarkable social arrangements in the actual lives of such creatures as ants or bees. The animal society is conceived purely in terms of the human. There are kings over each species of wild and domestic beasts (B220 and B240). Large assemblies are imagined in which the birds, and sometimes other animals, form parliaments for legislation or for the election of rulers (B230; Types 220 and 221). Chaucer's Parlement of Foules is only the culmination of a long line of these traditions. Saints' legends are particularly fond of stories illustrating the pious acts of religiously inclined beasts. Most picturesque of all such beliefs is that about the oxen who kneel in their stalls on Christmas Eve or who speak to each other at that time in praise of the newborn Saviour (B251.1.2). Many a skeptic has felt like the unbelieving Thomas Hardy when he went to the ox's stall on Christmas night "hoping it might be so."

Several of the folktales which we have already examined tell of regular war fare (B260) between groups of animals, the wild and domestic beasts, or the birds and quadrupeds (Types 104 and 222). Animals likewise enter into legal relationships (B270). The commonest legends of this kind concern trial and execution for crimes (B272.2 and B275.1). Of course, such proceedings were much more than mere traditions among our ancestors, and we still hold the sheep-killing dog responsible for his murders.

Most extensive of all the traditions concerning the manlike activities of animals have to do with weddings between members of different species [p. 246] (B280). Stories of this kind are certainly very old: they appear in early versions of the Aesop fables. [383] They were especially cultivated in the literature of the Middle Ages, often in the form of risqué songs or poems. One of the best known of American folksongs, "Frog Went a-Courting," is an elaboration of this motif.

Zoologists find many items of especial interest in the beliefs and legends that have grown up about extraordinary animal characteristics (B720-B749). These are usually mere beliefs, rather than localized stories, but over a huge portion of the world the existence of many of these phenomena are devoutly believed in. Such is the magic stone or jewel which is found in the head of a serpent, and sometimes of a dog. Sometimes such a jewel is luminous and shines with a light of its own. It is generally believed that such shining happens with a cat's eye. As for the breathing of fire, this is not confined to dragons, but is a power shared by lions, birds, or even horses.

As for extraordinary habits in animals (B750), popular fancy has never been able to reach the extremes of the medieval clerics who wrote The Physiologus and other bestiaries. But there is a widespread belief that snakes swallow their young to protect them, that the swan sings as she dies, that a snake will not die before sunset, that a turtle will hold with its jaws until it hears thunder, that a snake may take its tail in its mouth and roll like a wheel, that snakes milk cows at night, that a cat sucks the breath of a sleeping child, and that a salamander subsists on fire.

Aside from general beliefs, there are, of course, some specific legends about animals. One of these, for example, is about a cat whose master has been told that upon his return home he should say, "Robert is dead" (B342). [384] Robert is one of the cat's companions, and as soon as he hears this, the cat leaves for good.

[381] See p. 260, below.

[382] For the animal hero with human characteristics, see p. 217, above.

[383] For this motif, see Type 224, p. 224, above.

[384] The same tale is told in which some kind of house spirit takes the place of the cat (F405.7).

104, 220, 221, 222, 224, 300, 303

B11, B81, B82, B120-B169, B210, B220, B230, B240, B251.1.2, B260, B270, B272.2, B275.1, B280, B342, B720-B749, B750, C713, F405.7, F420

Part Two

The Folktale from Ireland to India

III – The Simple Tale

4. Legends and traditions

C. Return from the Dead

The same question of the reality of belief appears with especial clearness when we deal with legends concerning the return from the dead. [401] The attitude of the story-teller varies much from country to country. Tellers of popular tradition, and their listeners as well, usually make no question about the credibility of a ghost story. This is true even in those western countries most influenced by rationalistic thinking, though here the ghosts which are alleged to have appeared are usually mere spooks. The tradition of the person who returns from the realm of the dead to revisit old scenes has become much impoverished, so that we have to go to groups of people less disturbed in their ancient ways of thinking to find full-blooded ghosts. Medieval literature, in general, and the folklore of eastern Europe, not to speak of that from so-called primitive peoples, is filled with instances of dead men who appear to their friends or enemies in form and stature as they had lived. Hamlet's father is on the borderline between the two ideas: he is recognizable, but is also spectral. Sometimes, however, the ghost is little more than a living dead man in full flesh and blood pacing up and down the earth awaiting the second death when his body shall eventually disintegrate in the grave. Frightful creatures these are, often appearing as vampires living on the wholesome blood of mortals.

It is hard to tell how widespread is the faith in the possibility of raising the dead. No study has ever been made that would throw, any light on beliefs of this kind at the present day in our western culture. It seems safe, however, to hazard a guess that such beliefs are very largely confined to strictly religious contexts, in which the occurrence is regarded as a definite miracle, a real interposition of power from on high. As we move eastward into Asia into other cultural patterns, and especially as we go on to Oceania or to the aborigines of the Americas or Africa, the bringing of a person back from the dead becomes much more commonplace and is easily accepted in non-sacred stories which are received as true.

Very much the same situation is found when we look into the stories of reincarnation. First of all, it is not always possible to distinguish accurately between the return from the dead in another form and the idea of ordinary transformation. As conceived by Ovid, sometimes the change of a [p. 255] person into an object or animal takes place without death and sometimes as a definite return in a new form. In present Western Culture, tales of actual reincarnation are probably nearly always thought of as unmistakable fictions, even by those who might believe in magic transformations. Of course, again, as we reach India, metempsychosis becomes for millions an object of religious faith, and this fact has made instances of reincarnation commonplace in Hindu tradition.

The very close relation of doctrines concerning future life and the next world to the whole religious belief and activity of people has profoundly affected this entire group of traditions. The pattern of organized Christian doctrine has worked for a thousand years or more to modify, and sometimes entirely to displace older concepts once universally accepted. Insofar as these survive at all, they are treated as fictions or, if not, those who believe in them are regarded as extraordinarily gullible and naive. But the poems and tales of Europe, both literary and popular, do contain many motifs dealing with the return of the dead, and seem to indicate a much richer tradition in former times.

We have already encountered resuscitation in several of our folktales. The dead may be brought back to life by cutting off his head (E12; Type 531), by burning him (E15; Type 753), or, as with Snow White, by removing the poisoned apple from her throat (E21.1; Type 709). A magic ointment may be used (E102), or the parts of the dismembered corpse may be brought together and revived (E30; Types 303 and 720). Most popular of all in folk tales is revival through the Water of Life (E80; Types 550 and 551). This water is usually found after a long quest and is powerful against both disease and death. Herbs or leaves are sometimes efficacious (E105; Type 612), or a magic fruit (E106; Type 590), or blood (E113; Type 516). In addition to these motifs peculiar to the folktale, there appear a few resuscitation tales which belong either to the world of myth or of legend. The method by which Thor, when he has killed his goats and eaten them, then reassembles their bones to bring them back to life (E32) has been employed by many other heroes in Europe and out, and the special feature of this legend, that one bone or member is missing and causes deformity in the revived animal or person (E33; Type 313), is likewise very widespread. Another tale from Norse mythology well known elsewhere is that of the warriors who fight each day and slay each other but are revived every night (E155.1).

Nearly all these stories of resuscitation appear as motifs in folktales or myths, not as actual traditions. This is also true of most of the tales of reincarnation. In folktales they are rather common, and examples will occur to almost anyone familiar with them: the little boy in The Juniper Tree (Type 720) who comes forth as a bird from the bones his sister has buried (E607.1 and E610.1.1); the appearance of Cinderella's dead mother as a cow (E611.2) or a tree growing from the grave (E631; Type 510); and the many varieties [p. 256] of the tale of The Singing Bone (E632; Type 780). More definitely in ballad tradition appear the twining branches which grow together from the graves of lovers (E631.0.1). We have already seen, also, how some explanatory legends have ascribed the habits of certain animals to their recollection of former existences as men (A2261.1).

On the contrary, as we have already noticed, the living tradition and active faith of nearly all countries abound in ghost legends. Not only may thousands of people be found who testify to having seen ghosts, but practices are all but universal which assume for their justification a substratum of such a belief.

There is so much variety in the general concept of ghost that one can hardly make an exact definition of it. In general, it may be said that we have legends all the way from a complete return from the dead with full human functions to the most wraithlike of spooks frightening people as they pass graveyards. We have noted that some traditions imply essentially a "living dead man," who merely wanders about waiting final death (E422). Not less complete in human functions is The Grateful Dead Man (E341) already met in a series of folktales (Types 505-508), where he returns to pay a debt of gratitude. These revenants of flesh and blood are most often malicious, and their return is usually to punish rather than to reward. The dead lover returns and takes his sweetheart behind him on horseback and attempts to carry her with him into the grave (E215). [402] The dead wife frequently returns to protest to her husband against his evil ways (E221), particularly if he has married again. Or a dead person returns to punish indignities suffered by the corpse or ghost (E235; Type 366), such as the theft of an arm or leg, or the kicking of the skull. Or, as in the Don Juan legend (E238; Type 470), the dead man is scornfully invited to dinner and then compels his host to go with him to the other world.

The dead may also return in their proper form on friendly missions. Best known of such stories, both in tales and ballads, are those concerning the return of a dead mother (E323), either to suckle her neglected baby or otherwise aid her persecuted children. [403] The dead child sometimes returns to stop the inordinate weeping of its parents (E324, E361). And sometimes conscientious dead come back to repay a money debt (E351) or to return stolen goods (E352).

Retaining some of his human characteristics, but essentially ghostlike, is the vampire (E251), who comes out of his grave at night and sucks blood (Types 307 and 363). There are many descriptions of these horrible creatures, especially in the legends of eastern Europe and of India. Elaborate means are devised for getting rid of them, the best known being the driving of a stake through the grave. Other wandering and malicious dead appear in many [p. 257] legends without the special characteristics of the vampire. They frequently make unprovoked attacks on travelers in the dark (E261), or they haunt buildings and molest those bold enough to stay in them overnight (E282-E284; Type 326).

Tales of spooks are likely to be rather vague in their outlines and frequently to be little more than an example of some popular belief or practice. There are, for example, a large number of stories about the unquiet grave (E410ff.), all telling of some reason why the dead person is unable to rest in peace. It may be because of a great sin—murder, suicide, adultery, or even, in medieval tales, the taking of usury. Particularly restless are the excommunicated or the unbaptized, or those who have not had proper funeral rites. And the murdered and the drowned are doomed for a certain period to walk the earth (E413, E414). Many special qualities are ascribed to these spectral ghosts. They are frequently invisible except to one person (E421.1.1) or to horses (E421.1.2). They are luminous (E421.3) and they cannot cast shadows (E421.2). But the wraithlike nature of these ghosts has permitted them to assume a multitude of forms in the imagination of those to whom they have appeared. Sometimes they are animals (E423), sometimes skeleton-like (E422.1.7), sometimes headless (E422.1.1), like the one which Ichabod Crane encountered.

Many are the ways in which the dead are discouraged from leaving the grave and in which they are "laid" if they become restless and wander forth (E430ff., E440ff.). All kinds of precautions are taken at funerals, the best known being to carry the coffin through a hole in the wall or to place a coin in the mouth of the corpse. Some relics of ancient sacrifice to the dead are still to be found. Many different magic objects can be carried as a protection against them, and like witches, they are thought to be powerless to cross rapid streams or to pass a crossroads. The restless ghost may sometimes be quieted by reburial or by an elaborate magic ritual, or by burning or decapitating the body. He may have to wander until some particular event takes place, or he may be only waiting for the cock to crow.

Ghosts are not always encountered by themselves. Many are the legends concerning groups of dancing ghosts (E493), of church services (E492), or processions of the dead (E491). And in addition to stories embodying these general conceptions, three of the tales concerning companies of ghosts are among the most popular in all Europe, The Wild Hunt, The Flying Dutch man, and The Sleeping Army.

The first of these, The Wild Hunt (E501), appears in the greatest variety of detail, though the central idea is always the same. It is the apparition of a hunter with a crowd of huntsmen, horses, and dogs, crossing the sky at night. Stories of this kind go back to classical antiquity, and they appear nearly all over Europe. The huntsman himself, and sometimes his companions, are identified with historic characters, sometimes even with one of the gods. [p. 258] The Flying Dutchman (E511), while not nearly so well known as The Wild Hunt, has much more definite texture as a real tale. A sea captain, because of his wickedness, sails a phantom ship eternally without coming to harbor. The only variety in the different versions concerns the nature of the crime, whether it has been unusual cruelty, a pact with the devil, or defiance of a storm. The third of these legends, The Sleeping Army (E502), tells of a group of soldiers who have been killed in battle and who come forth on certain occasions from their resting place, usually in a hill or cave, and march about, restlessly haunting the old battlefield. [404]

All these, and many other traditions of the return from the dead which might be cited, imply a belief in some mysterious element which survives the death of the body, that which we ordinarily call the soul. There is every tendency for popular tradition to conceive of this element in material terms, so that the passage of soul from body at death is not only actual but visible. Sometimes it is thought of as having the form of a mouse (E731.3), or bird (E732), or butterfly (E734.1) [405] which leaves the mouth at the supreme moment. Souls are sometimes identified with the stars, and it is thought that a shooting star signifies that someone is dying (E741.1.1). And, finally, not only popular tradition, but medieval literature as well, gives us pictures of devils and angels contesting over a man's soul (E756.1). It can be little wonder that an idea so difficult for even theologians and philosophers should produce much inconsistency in the traditions of unlettered folk.

[401] The whole of chapter "E" of the Motif-Index is devoted to this subject.

[402] See Type 365. This tale of "Lenore" appears both as ballad and prose folktale.

[403] See Types 403, 510A, 511, and 923.

[404] For other similar tales, see D1960.1 and D1960.2, p. 265, below.

[405] Cf. the Greek ψυϰη, meaning at once soul and butterfly.

303, 307, 313, 326, 363, 365, 366, 403, 470, 505-508, 510, 511, 531, 516, 550, 551, 590, 612, 709, 720, 753, 780, 923

A2261.1, D1960.1, D1960.2, E, E12, E15, E21.1, E30, E32, E33, E80, E102, E105, E106, E113, E155.1, E215, E221, E235, E238, E261, E282-E284, E323, E324, E341, E351, E352, E361, E410ff., E413, E414, E421.1.1, E421.1.2, E421.2, E421.3, E422, E422.1.1, E422.1.7, E423, E430ff., E440ff., E491, E492, E493, E501, E502, E511, E607.1, E610.1.1, E611.2, E631, E631.0.1, E632, E731.3, E732, E741.1.1, E756.1

Number of Borrowing of European-Asiatic Tales by Indonesians, African, and American Indians

Type

Indonesianx

Africanx

Americanx Indianx

1. The Theft of Fish		5	7
2. Tail-Fisher		3	13
4. Carrying the Sham-Sick Trickster		5
5. Biting the Foot	13	16
6. Inquiring about the Wind		2
7. Calling of Three Tree Names		1
8. The Painting	2	7
9A. The Unjust Partner: Bear Threshes		7
9B. The Unjust Partner: Corn and Chaff			2
15. Theft of Butter (Honey) by Playing Godfather		13	2
21. Eating His Own Entrails	1	1
30. Fox Tricks Wolf into Falling into a Pit		1
31. Fox Climbs from Pit on Wolf's Back	15
33. Fox Plays Dead and is Thrown out of Pit and Escape	20	5
36. Fox in Disguise Violates the She-Bear	1
37. Fox as Nursemaid for Bear	7	30
38. Claw in Split Tree	11	2
47A. Fox Hangs by Teeth to Horse's Tail		2	1
49. Bear and the Honey			2
50. Sick Lion	1
55. Animals Build a Road		18	1
56. Fox Steals Young Magpies		7
60. Fox and Crane			3
62. Peace Among Animals			1
72. Rabbit Rides Fox a-Courting	1	6	7
73. Blinding the Guard		2	2
100. Wolf as Dog's Guest Sings			1
101. Old Dog as Rescuer of Child			1
104. Cowardly Duelers			3
105. Cat's Only Trick		2
111. Cat and Mouse Converse	3
122A. Wolf Seeks Breakfast		2
122B. Cat Washes Face before Eating		5
123. Wolf and Kids			1
125. Wolf Flees from Wolf-Head		12
130. Animals in Night Quarters			1
154. "Bear-Food"		6	1
155. Ungrateful Serpent Returned to Captivity	12
156. Splinter in Bear's Paw		1
157. Learning to Fear Men		1	1
175. Tarbaby and Rabbit	2	39	23
210. Cock, Hen, etc. on Journey	10
221. Election of Bird King	2
222. War of Birds and Quadrupeds		4
225. Crane Teaches Fox to Fly	4	3	43?
228. Titmouse Tries to be Big as Bear	1	8
235. Jay Borrows Cuckoo's Skin	3
248. Dog and Sparrow	1
249. Ant and Cricket			3
275. Race of Fox and Crayfish	26		1
295. Bean, Straw, and Coal			3
300. Dragon-Slayer	1		14
301. Three Stolen Princesses			16
302. Ogre's Heart in Egg	2		1
303. Twins or Blood-Brothers	3		3
307. Princess in the Shroud		2
311. Rescue by Sister (Girls in Sacks)		5	1
313. Girl as Helper in Hero's Flight		2	33
314. Youth Transformed to Horse (Goldener)	24	4	15
325. Magician and Pupil	1
326. Learning What Fear Is			2
327A. Hansel and Gretel	6	8	10
327B. Dwarf and Giant	3
327C. Devil Carries Hero in Sack		9	6?
328. Boy Steals Giant's Treasure			6
331. Spirit in Bottle			1
333. Red Ridinghood; Six Little Goats		16
400. Quest for Lost Wife	37	11	29
401. Princess Transformed into Deer		1
402. Mouse (Cat, etc.) as Bride	1
403. Black and White Bride	1	15	6
408. Three Oranges		1
425. Search for Lost Husband (Cupid and Psyche)	5	5	1
432. Prince as Bird		1
450. Little Brother and Little Sister		3
451. Maiden Who Seeks her Brothers			1
461. Three Hairs from Devil's Beard	17	1	1
471. Bridge to Other World	1	1	1
480. Spinning Woman by the Spring	6		3
506. Rescued Princess: Grateful Dead	6		1
507. Monster's Bride: Grateful Dead			1
510A. Cinderella	2	3	4
510B. Cap o' Rushes		2	1
511. One-Eye, Two-Eyes, Three-Eyes	3
513. The Helpers (Extraordinary Companions)		2	3
514. Shift of Sex	1
516. Faithful John		1
518. Devils Fight over Magic Objects		2
531. Clever Horse		3	2
533. Speaking Horse-head		6
545. Cat as Helper (Puss in Boots)	2	10
550. Bird, Horse, and Princess	4	4
551. Sons on Quest for Remedy		4
552A. Three Animal Brothers-in-Law			1
554. Grateful Animals	11
555. Fisher and His Wife	5
559. Dungbeetle		1	4
560. Magic Ring	36	8	2
561. Aladdin	1		2
563. Table, Ass, and Stick	7	14	4
566. Three Magic Objects and Wonderful Fruits	2		1
567. Magic Bird-heart	13	1	1
569. Knapsack, Hat, and Horn	5		5
570. Rabbit-herd	1	1
571. "All Stick Together"		1
590. Prince and Arm Bands			1
592. Jew Among Thorns	1
612. Three Snake-Leaves	2
613. Two Travelers		5	1
621. Louse-Skin	3
650. Strong John	27	3	4
653. Four Skillful Brothers	8	12
655. Wise Brothers	1	2
670. Animal Languages	6	23
671. Three Languages		2
675. Lazy Boy	2
676. Open Sesame	1	9
700. Tom Thumb		5	1
706. Maiden Without Hands		6	2
707. Three Golden Sons		8	1
709. Snow White		6
750. The Wishes: Hospitality Rewarded	1	1	3
780. Singing Bone		8
781. Princess Who Murdered her Child		12
785. Who Ate the Lamb's Heart?	1
851. Princess who Cannot Solve Riddle	3	2
852. Princess Forced to Say, "That is a Lie."	1	2
853. Princess Caught with her own Words			2
854. Golden Ram			1
875. Clever Peasant Girl	3	3
882. Wager on Wife's Chastity	2
900. King Thrushbeard		1?
901. Taming of the Shrew			1
910. The Good Precepts		2
921. King and Peasant's Son	1	2
922. King and Abbot	1
923. Love Like Salt		1
930. Prophecy for Poor Boy		1	1
931. Oedipus	1
935. Prodigal's Return			1
945. Luck and Intelligence	8	1
950. Rhampsinitus	1
1000. Anger Bargain	5		2
1004. Hogs in Mud, Sheep in Air	2	3	4
1012. Cleaning the Child	1
1015. Whetting the Knife	2
1030. Crop Division	1
1031. Roof as Threshing Flail			2
1060. Squeezing the Stone	1	1	1
1061. Biting the Stone		1	1
1062. Throwing the Stone	1		1
1063. Throwing Contest with Golden Club			1
1074. Race with Relatives in Line	6	38	12
1085. Pushing Hole in a Tree			1
1088. Eating Contest: Food in Bag			20
1115. Attempted Murder with Hatchet		10
1119. Ogre Kills Own Children: Substitutes in Bed		14	5
1149. Children Desire Ogre's Flesh	10	4
1157. Gun as Tobacco Pipe		1
1200. Sowing of Salt		1
1250. Bringing Water from Well: Human Chain		1	2
1260. Porridge in Ice Hole	1
1276. Rowing without Going Forward	4
1278. Bell Falls into Sea: Mark on Boat	2
1310. Crayfish as Tailor: Drowned	18	22	31
1319. Pumpkin as Ass's Egg, Rabbit as Colt			1
1350. Loving Wife: Man Feigns Death		1?
1360C. Old Hildebrand			1
1380. Faithless Wife: Husband Feigns Blindness		1
1384. Quest for Person Stupid as Wife		2
1386. Meat as Food for Cabbage	7
1415. Lucky Hans	2		1
1430. Man and Wife Build Air Castles	7	1
1525. Master Thief	2		6
1528. Holding Down the Hat	2		1
1530. Holding up the Rock		11	3
1535. Rich and Poor Peasant	10	16	11
1537. Corpse Killed Five Times	3		2
1539. Cleverness and Gullibility	7		3
1540. Student from Paradise (Paris)	3
1541. For the Long Winter			2
1542. The Clever Boy: Fooling-Sticks			8
1563. "Both?"			3
1585. Lawyer's Mad Client			1
1590. Trespasser's Defense			1
1610. To Divide Presents and Strokes		2
1611. Contest in Climbing Mast			1
1612. Contest in Swimming			1
1640. Brave Tailor	3		4
1641. Doctor Know-All	21	3
1642. The Good Bargain: Money to Frogs			4
1651. Whittington's Cat	2	2
1653. Robbers under Tree	2	1	5
1655. Eaten Grain and Cock as Damages		10	1
1685. Foolish Bridegroom	6	1
1696. "What Should I Have Said?"	6	4	2
1698A. Search for Lost Animal: Deaf Person	1
1698B. Travelers Ask the Way: Deaf Peasant		1
1730. Three Suitors Visit Chaste Wife	2	3
1737. Parson in Sack to Heaven		1
1775. Hungry Parson			3
1920A. Lying Contest: "Sea Burns"	1
1930. Schlaraffenland		3
2028. Troll (Wolf) Cut Open		1
2030. Old Woman and Pig	2	4
2031. Frost-bitten Foot	4	3
2033. Nut Hits Cock's Head		3
2034C. Lending and Repaying, Progressive Bargains		22
2035. House that Jack Built		4
2400. Ground Measured with Horse's Skin			1

1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9A, 9B, 15, 21, 30, 31, 33, 36, 37, 38, 47A, 49, 50, 55, 56, 60, 62, 72, 73, 100, 101, 104, 105, 111, 122A, 122B, 123, 125, 130, 154, 155, 156, 157, 175, 210. 221, 222, 225, 228, 235, 248, 249, 275, 295, 300, 301, 302, 303, 307, 311, 313, 314, 325, 326, 327A, 327B, 327C, 328, 331, 333, 400, 401, 402, 403, 408, 425, 432, 450, 451, 461, 471, 480, 506, 507, 510A, 510B, 511, 513, 514, 516, 518, 531, 533, 545, 550, 551, 552A, 554, 555, 559, 560, 561, 563, 566, 567, 569, 570, 571, 590, 592, 612, 613, 621, 650, 653, 655, 670, 671, 675, 676, 700, 706, 707, 709, 750, 780, 781, 785, 851, 852, 853. 854. 875, 882, 900, 901, 910, 921, 922, 923, 930, 931, 935, 945, 950, 1000, 1004, 1012, 1015, 1030, 1031, 1060, 1061, 1062, 1063, 1074, 1085, 1088, 1115, 1119, 1149, 1157, 1200, 1250, 1260, 1276, 1278, 1310, 1319, 1350, 1360C, 1380, 1384, 1386, 1415, 1430, 1525, 1528, 1530, 1535, 1537, 1539, 1540, 1541, 1542, 1563, 1585, 1590, 1610, 1611, 1612, 1640, 1641, 1642, 1651, 1653, 1655, 1685, 1696, 1698A, 1698B, 1730, 1737, 1775, 1920A, 1930, 2028, 2030, 2031, 2033, 2034C, 2035, 2400