One of the most usual situations in folktales is the contest for the hand of a princess. In the wonder tales the hero normally succeeds in this competition through some marvelous help or through some supernatural power of his own. [236] But quite as interesting are those stories in which his success depends upon his quickness of wit. We have already noticed the tale in which the princess is to be given to the man who can make her speak (Type 945) and in which the hero so cleverly propounds a question that she is brought to speech in spite of herself. The silent princess is relatively rare in folktales; it is much more usual to find one who has never laughed. To cause such a woman to burst out in laughter will bring the hero not only her hand, but wealth and a share of the kingdom. Two of the stories involving this incident have several points in common and are occasionally confused, though the main action in each is clear.

The first of these is the tale of Dungbeetle (Type 559). It is so named because the help of this humble insect appears in nearly all versions of the narrative. When he hears that the princess has been offered to the man who can make her laugh, the hero sets out and, in the usual way of folktales, secures the help of grateful animals, or sometimes acquires magic objects, particularly a rope that binds and tightens and a magic fiddle which compels people to dance. [237] By employing these animals or objects, he succeeds in bringing the princess to laughter. But, instead of receiving her in marriage, he is thrown into a lions' den. By use of his magic or his helpers, he escapes. When again he has been refused the princess, he causes wasps to attack and drive out successive rivals on the bridal night. Eventually the princess recognizes his power and marries him. [p. 154]

This story appeared in Basile's Pentamerone and most versions conform rather closely to his telling of the tale. It seems to be known in all parts of Europe, but is not popular in any. It has also been reported from the Nuba of east Africa.

The closely related story, "All Stick Together" (Type 571), is much more popular. Though it is sometimes impossible to make a clear-cut distinction between the two stories, the center of interest in the latter is the sticking together of people and objects. The youngest of three brothers is the only one who divides food and drink with a hungry man, and, as a reward, he receives a golden goose with the power to make everything stick to it. Sometimes the goose is acquired through a lucky bargain. He takes the goose to an inn where the innkeeper's daughter tries to steal one of the golden feathers. He compels her to stick fast to the goose and later those who try to help her—the parson, the sexton, and others. It is usually through this absurd parade of people stuck to the goose that the princess is brought to laughter. But sometimes, as in the last tale, it is occasioned by the sight of three small animals which the hero owns, and sometimes by the foolish actions of the hero. As in the other tale, he is not immediately given his reward, but is assigned preliminary tasks: drinking a cellar full of wine, eating up a mountain of bread, or making a land and water ship. These he accomplishes, sometimes with the help of extraordinary companions. [238]

The tale has a way of adapting motifs from other stories, so that all kinds of contacts with material familiar elsewhere are noticeable as one moves from version to version. [239] The sticking together of the people as punishment for meddling appears in many other connections, particularly in a fifteenth century English poem, "The Tale of the Basyn." [240] As for the folktale, it is popular all over Europe, and several versions are known from the Near East.

The French have brought it to Canada and from them it has passed on to at least four of the eastern American Indian tribes. Several of the tales already reviewed have shown the hero winning the princess through the help of his magic objects. The story known as The Rabbit-herd (Type 570) combines such magic means with cleverness and trickery. The king has offered the princess as a prize to the man who is able to herd all his rabbits. The king has a magic pipe which always calls the animals back. The hero, unlike his elder brothers, is kind to an old woman and from her he also receives a pipe, stronger in its magic than the king's, [p. 155] with which he is able to call all the animals together. The success of the hero with his magic pipe causes great envy on the part of the king, the princess, or the queen. The versions differ as to which of them tries to obtain the pipe. In some, the queen bribes him by kissing him; in some, the princess lies with him; and in some, the king kisses a horse. In any case, the youth now knows a disgraceful story to tell. Before finally granting the princess to him, the king orders the boy to tell a sack of lies. He begins to tell great lies until the king or the queen sees that he is going to betray their disgrace. They make him stop, and give him the princess.

The characteristic trait in this story seems not to be the magic pipe so much as the hero's use of blackmail to gain his point at the end. For that reason, the story is frequently known as The Sack of Lies, or something similar. It is rather popular all the way from Iceland to the Caucasus, more than two hundred versions having already been noted. Sporadic variants have been collected on the Gold Coast of Africa, in the Philippines, from Cape Verde Islanders in Massachusetts, and very recently from persons of English stock in Virginia. Its general distribution would seem to indicate that it is essentially a European, rather than an Oriental tale.

The princess as a prize for correct guessing is the principal feature of The Louse-Skin (Type 621). She has had a louse fattened until it becomes as big as a calf and at its death has had a dress made from its skin. She agrees to marry the man who can guess what the dress is made from. The hero learns by trickery, and thus wins her. The major interest in this tale is concerned with the tricks whereby the puzzle is solved. [241]

As an autonomous story, we find it here and there all over Europe, whence it has been carried to Indonesia and the Philippines. Within Europe, the overwhelming majority of the variants are from four east Baltic countries.

In other parts of Europe, the tale is more likely to serve merely as an introduction to Cupid and Psyche (Type 425B), King Thrushbeard (Type 900), and The Robber Bridegroom (Type 955). In some cases our story proceeds, like the next one we shall consider, with the giving of the princess to the suitor to whom she turns in the night.

A tale very closely related to the last two, since in part it is like one, and in part like the other, is The Birthmarks of the Princess (Type 850). The hero here, like the rabbit-herd, has a magic pipe which causes hogs to dance. The princess covets his dancing hogs, and he sells them to her in return for seeing her naked. By using his knowledge of her birthmarks thus acquired as a basis for blackmail, he wins her as his wife. As a further test, the princess is to be given to the suitor to whom she turns in the night. The hero and a rival suitor are put to bed with her. They each strive to entice her and finally she turns to the hero. [p. 156]

In spite of its appearance as being a mere concoction of two other tales, this narrative as a whole is told all over Europe and has been carried to Virginia. There seem to be no older literary versions, so that its development probably belongs to the authentic folklore of the European continent.

Three of the tales concerned with the winning of a princess place her in an open contest of wits with the hero. [242] The first is The Princess who Cannot Solve the Riddle (Type 851). Here she is offered to the man who can propose a riddle too hard for her. On the way to the contest, the hero is given a clue which he develops later into a riddle. He sees a horse poisoned and then eaten by ravens, who in turn fall dead. The ravens are then eaten by twelve men, who die of the poison. In case the story has this introduction, the riddle which the hero propounds is "One killed none, and yet killed twelve." Other riddles are sometimes substituted, particularly that of the murdered lover and of the unborn. The first of these is generally given: With what thinks, I drink; what sees, I carry; with what eats, I walk. (The queen has a cup made from the skull of her murdered lover and a ring from one of his eyes, and she carries two of his teeth in her boots.) The riddle of the unborn is: I am unborn; my horse is unborn; I carry my mother on my hands. (A boy who has been taken from his dead mother's body digs up her body and makes gloves of her skin. He rides a colt which has been taken from a dead mare's body.) Whichever of these riddles he uses, the princess is greatly puzzled and tries to learn the answer by trickery. She slips into his room at night, hoping that she can learn it from his dreams. He knows about her visit, however, and keeps a token. When he uses this to prove her visit, she surrenders.

In comparison to the other stories of wit contests with the princess, this has the widest distribution as an oral narrative and the most extensive literary history. The general theme of the winning of a bride through the giving or solving of a riddle goes back at least to the Greek romances and recurs in medieval collections. As a part of folklore, the tale is current from Iceland and the British Isles to Russia, and it has been carried abroad frequently: to central Africa and to North and South America, through Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Negro settlers. The tale may well have intimate Oriental relations, because of the great interest eastern story-tellers have in all kinds of riddles and other displays of wit. [243]

In another tale of this group, The Hero Forces the Princess to Say "That is a Lie" (Type 852), he accomplishes the task indicated by the telling of impossible tales, usually gross exaggerations. The interest of the story is primarily in these "tall tales." They may be mere exaggerations of size about an enormous animal or building (a type of story familiar in America in the [p. 157] legends of Paul Bunyan), or they may be about impossible happenings: a tree growing to the skies overnight, like Jack's beanstalk, or the ascent or descent from the skies on a rope of chaff, or of a man who cuts off his head and replaces it. [244] Usually he is not able to bring her to the desired words until he makes up shameful slanders about her.

Though this tale appears to have no literary history, it is scattered rather evenly over Europe as an oral story, and it is found in single versions in Indonesia, North and Central Africa, and in the British tradition of Virginia and the French of Missouri. The distribution in Europe shows the tale unusually popular in Ireland and Scandinavia, though only a detailed analysis of the versions would indicate where the story originated and what has been its history.

In The Hero Catches the Princess with her Own Words (Type 853) we see resemblances to several of the tales just discussed, and indeed to many others farther afield. The princess is offered in marriage to the man who can outwit her in repartee. On the way to the contest the hero picks up various objects, a dead crow, an egg, and the like. In his contest with the princess he always reduces her words to scorn by producing these objects at the proper time. This part of the tale is often very obscene. As usual, the successful hero is put off and is thrown into prison. By means of his magic tablecloth, purse, and fiddle he escapes. Then, by means of his fiddle, he captures the princess and refuses to release her unless she answers "No" to all his questions. By properly phrasing the questions, he gets her into his bed and marries her.

The last half of this tale frequently appears independently, namely, the play upon the word "No." [245] The whole story appears in a Middle High German poem and later was used both in French poetry and in the English ballads.

As a part of folklore, it is most popular in states around the Baltic, though it is known in all parts of Europe. In America it has been brought by the French to the Ojibwa Indians, by the Spanish to the Zuñi, to Massachusetts by Cape Verde Island Portuguese-speaking Negroes, and to Jamaica by Negroes from Africa. The tale does not appear to be known in Asia.

There are, of course, other tricks by which story-tellers have imagined their lowly heroes as winners of the much desired princess. [246] One of them, The Golden Ram (Type 854), reminds us of a scene in Shakespeare's Cymbeline. The hero has made a boast that if he had only one thing, he could marry the princess. The. king challenges him to make good his words. He says that the desired thing is money. When the king gives him all the gold he needs, he has a hollow golden ram constructed. He hides himself in the ram and has [p. 158] it left where the princess will see it. She insists upon having it carried into her room. Of course, the hero eventually comes out and wins her.

In spite of the suggestion of the Trojan horse and of boxes and trunks hiding lovers familiar to literary stories of the Middle Ages, this tale in its present form seems to be an oral development. Its distribution is by no means uniform in Europe, where ninety percent of the versions have been found within Finland, either among the Finnish or the Swedish inhabitants. It seems to have some popularity in Italy and it has been learned, presumably from the French, by the Maliseet Indians of New Brunswick.

In this whole group of tales in which the princess is won by cleverness there is a mixture of motivation. Sometimes the taleteller seems really interested in the romantic aspects of the story, the lowly youth winning the lady of his desire, but most often this is subordinated to the desire to see a sharp contest of wits won by a man against what seems to be overwhelming odds.

The final group of stories which we shall notice in our survey of the complex tale in Europe and Asia is concerned with robbers and their adventures. Many stories with this general theme consist of a single incident or motif. But since these incidents frequently form a part of one of the longer complex tales, it will be convenient to notice them in connection with these longer stories with which they have affinity and of which they are frequently an organic part. [274]

One of these complex robber tales has a very long known history. Herodotus, in the fifth century before Christ, tells the story of the treasure house of Rhampsinitus (Type 950). [275] Some of the parts of this tale were apparently known in Greece before his time. But there seems little doubt that all subsequent versions of the story go back eventually to Herodotus. It appears not only in the literary collections of the European Middle Ages and Renaissance, but also in the Buddhistic writings of the early Christian era and in the Ocean of Story from India of the twelfth century. Moreover, the tale has had a wide acceptance in oral tradition all the way from Iceland across Europe and Asia to Indonesia and the Philippines. It does not seem to have gone to central or south Africa nor to the western hemisphere except in a tale of the Cape Verde Islanders in Massachusetts.

Herodotus tells the story in a good deal of detail, and the changes which have taken place in the twenty-four hundred years since his time consist in minor elaborations. The architect of the king's treasure house has left a stone loose in the building. As Herodotus tells it, he leaves directions to his two sons at the time of his death so that they may have free entry to the king's treasure. In some more modern versions it is the architect himself who robs the treasure house. Sometimes the theft is detected by means of a straw fire the smoke of which escapes through the secret hole. In any event, the thief is caught in a trap. In order that his identity may be concealed and that his brother can continue the thefts, he has the brother cut off his head and leave the headless body. The king wishes to identify the thief and to this end has the body carried through the streets to see if anyone will weep for it. Though the son has forewarned the family, the mother becomes importunate and insists upon the rescue of her son's body. His brother succeeds in stealing the body either, as Herodotus shows, by cleverly getting the guards drunk or else by putting on the same motley garb as the guards and thus being taken for a guard. The last attempt of the king to capture the robber is also un successful. The king sends his daughter to a brothel and gives all men free access to her. She makes each of them declare his most dangerous exploit. [p.172] When she learns of the theft, she is to mark the culprit with a black sign. The rascal marks all of the knights, and even the king himself, and thus escapes detection. Herodotus tells it somewhat differently. The princess is to hold tight to the hand of the robber when she discovers him. Knowing this, he takes with him the hand of a corpse, and she finds that he has escaped while she holds on to the dead man's hand. Some other versions also tell how a child is used to test guilt. The boy will hand a thief a knife. But at the proper time the rascal exchanges a toy with the child and thus escapes detection. At the end, he is always rewarded by marriage with the king's daughter.

This is one of the best examples of stability in a folktale. Nevertheless, a study of the detailed changes, especially by oral raconteurs, should be of great interest in connection with the mutual relations of literature and folklore. It would be interesting to know by what devious routes this story of Herodotus has come to be part of the repertory not only of the novelle writers of the Renaissance, but of simple story-tellers in the farthest reaches of Europe and Asia.

The interest of the teller of this tale is obviously on the side of the robber in his opposition to the king. In a tale familiar to the literature of northern Europe since the Renaissance and known orally in Germany, the Baltic states, and Hungary, [276] the king is in alliance with the robber. He joins him in disguise to rifle a bank. The robber, however, will not permit him to take more than six shillings, pointing out that the king has so many thieves. In another purely Baltic tale, The Bank Robbery (Type 951B), robbers help the king by accidentally discovering a conspiracy against him as they climb up to enter the bank.

A tale of a robber is used at least once as a framework for bringing together a group of related stories. Though the tale is undoubtedly literary, appearing as it does in written narrative collections since the twelfth century, it is nevertheless rather well known in the folklore of Ireland, Scotland, Germany, and Roumania. In this story, The Old Robber Relates Three Adventures to Free His Sons (Type 953), the captor demands that each adventure should be more frightful than the last. He tells first of all of a fearful encounter with ghostlike cats. Next comes an adventure with a one-eyed giant, such as Odysseus experienced with Polyphemus. The third adventure reminds one of Hansel and Gretel: an ogre is fooled by the substitution of a corpse for a child who is to be cooked for him. Lastly, the robber tells how he substituted himself later in order to save the child. It turns out that the rescued child of the last tale is the robber's present captor. In gratitude, he rewards the old man liberally.

Story-tellers are not always on the side of the robbers, for they realize that robber bands are often cruel and ruthless, and they may be interested [p. 173] in the ways in which such bands are defeated. A story rather popular in northern and eastern Europe is that of The King and the Soldier (Type 952) in which the soldier is impelled to testify to the king against the crimes of his superior officer. He accompanies the king, whom he does not know, to the robbers' house and there renders them helpless by a magic spell or else succeeds in killing them and saving the life of the king. Later the king reveals himself and rewards the soldier.

Familiar to all readers of the Arabian Nights is the story of The Forty Thieves (Type 954). The robbers attempt to enter the house hidden in oil casks. The clever girl inside detects the plan and kills them all. This story is, of course, literary, but is occasionally heard as a folktale in all parts of Europe and sometimes elsewhere. It may not, indeed, be original with the Arabian Nights, since there is an ancient Egyptian tale with the same general plot. [277]

In somewhat simpler fashion, merely by cutting off their heads as they enter the house, one after the other, the hero of the story At the Robbers' House (Type 956A) gets rid of them, escapes from the hot chamber where he is confined along with many corpses, and takes away the robbers' treasure. This is not a well-known tale, though it is occasionally told all the way from Flanders to Russia.

Better known is its female counterpart, The Clever Maiden Alone at Home Kills the Robbers (Type 956B). She also cuts off their heads as they enter, one by one. But this story has a sequel, for a companion of the robbers takes revenge by appearing as a suitor for the girl. He beguiles her into the woods, where the robber band finds her. Only with great difficulty does she escape. This tale, with its greater range of interest, seems to be at home in all parts of Europe, but except for a corrupt New York State version has not been reported outside.

The girl wooed by the robber is even more familiar in the story of The Robber Bridegroom (Type 955). Though she imagines she has married a fine gentleman, she finds that she has been taken into a den of robbers. While she is hidden under the bed, she sees another girl murdered. She severs the fingers of the murdered girl and keeps them as proof of the imposition. The details of the story differ a good deal. Sometimes she finds her way, by means of ashes or peas which she has scattered, to make a path through the woods. [278]

The story has several points in common with the Bluebeard tale [279] of the girl who unwittingly marries an ogre and discovers the corpses of her sisters, and there has been some mutual influence between the two types. The Robber Bridegroom is rather popular in various countries in all parts of Europe, but seems to be quite unknown in others. The single versions in [p. 174] Armenia, India, New York State, and the Virginia mountains are the only ones thus far reported outside of Europe.

By far the chief of all folktales concerning robberies is The Master Thief (Type 1525). In one or another of its forms it appears in nearly every collection of tales from Europe and Asia and occasionally in all other parts of the world. It consists first of all of a nucleus, a well-defined series of incidents which occurs almost everywhere and which affords a clue by which even very fragmentary stories can be identified as belonging to this cycle. To this nucleus (designated as Type 1525A) other appropriate incidents are added with a good deal of freedom, though these special developments are by no means haphazard in their geographical relationship. Of this nuclear part of the tale, more than seven hundred oral versions have been noted from all over the world, and literary tellings have been common since its appearance in Pauli's Schimpf und Ernst early in the sixteenth century.

This most usual part of the tale normally begins with the return home of a prodigal son who is now a great man and who boasts of his skill as a thief. Sometimes there are brothers who have been away to learn trades, and they vie with each other in bragging about their accomplishments. [280] A neighboring earl hears about the master thief and challenges him to submit to tests. He steals the horses from under vigilant mounted horsemen, either by disguising himself as an old woman or else by skillfully inducing them to get drunk. He steals horses or cattle from their drivers when he lets loose a rabbit so that the drivers all join in the chase. A much severer test is to steal a ring from the countess's finger and a sheet from the bed in which she is sleeping. He does this by raising a corpse to the bedroom window and inducing the earl to shoot it. In order to avoid scandal, the earl goes outside and buries the body of the man whom he thinks he has killed. While this is going on, the thief enters into the dark bedroom pretending to be the husband and persuades the countess to give him the sheet, so that he can wrap up the corpse. He also persuades her that it would be the decent thing to bury him with her ring on, since he has lost his life in the attempt to get the ring. When the earl returns, they realize that they have been duped.

After these and other similar thefts, the hero is condemned to death. While he is awaiting execution, he is put in a sack. Just as in the tale of The Rich and the Poor Peasant, [281] he persuades a gullible passerby to take his place in the sack by saying that he is waiting to be taken to heaven. [282]

To this central part of the story additions may be made with considerable freedom. The cheater steals a horse by pretending to show the earl how a [p. 175] horse may be stolen but by really riding it away (Type 1525B). Or he fishes in the street and, while travelers are watching his foolish actions, his confederate steals their wagons (Type 1525C). These two latter incidents are usually inserted within the general framework of the tale. The theft of the horse is much the better known of the two. But the next series of incidents (Type 1525D) is so popular that it might well be considered an essential part of the type. It has been noted in all parts of the world and in considerably more than three hundred versions. These incidents always concern the stealing of an animal, usually an ox. One of the best known devices is the putting of shoes in the road separately. The owner of the ox passes the first by, but when later he finds the second, he leaves his ox unguarded while he returns for the first. In some versions the articles are a sword and a sheath or a knife and a fork. The ox owner may also be attracted away from his animal when the rascal apparently hangs himself in the woods or when he imitates the bellowing of cattle so that the owner leaves one ox in order to try to recover one that he has lost. More rarely in this series of incidents, the thief steals clothes by inducing the owner to take them off and go bathing. Sometimes also he scares some thieves away from their treasure by striking an ox which he himself has killed and crying out, "Those others did it."

The next two incidents to be considered are often quite independent of the central part of the master thief tale. In one of these, The Thieves and their Pupil (Type 1525E), members of the group take turns in stealing from each other. Finally the pupil surpasses them all. The last incident, a purely Baltic development, is really a combination of several other tales by which horses and money are stolen. Usually this incident is followed by the exchange of the prisoner in the sack (Type 1525F).

Stories of clever thieves are very old, and as we read literature and look into the folklore of remote parts of the world, we will find many stories of this general nature. But within the range of the European and Asiatic folktale, the story of The Master Thief is much more than a casual group of clever thefts. As a well-defined folktale, it appears to have a wide geographical distribution with clearly recognizable relationships from area to area, and a literary history going back at least to the Renaissance. Because of the interesting affinities between this tale and many other stories of thefts and because of the extremely wide circulation which this tale has experienced over the world, it would be interesting to know much more about its history and development that we do now, when no really adequate study has been devoted to it. A tale of this kind, in which incidents can be inserted rather freely, presents comparative problems which should be susceptible to analytical study with as much hope of success as any one of the two hundred and more complex tales which we have now finished reviewing. [p. 176]