In the story of The Bear's Son (Type 301) we have already met the next group of helpers to be considered, the extraordinary companions who are each endowed with some remarkable power. This motif (F601ff.) is by no means a necessary part of that tale, but it may well have been taken over from the two stories we are now to consider in which these helpers play a |leading role. Both of these stories have the same beginning, but show considerable variation in the body of the narrative. The first story especially is very widespread, and an examination of the variants shows that the storytellers have used a considerable freedom in the way in which they have combined motifs. The tales have never been adequately analyzed and studied, but a superficial examination of them indicates that both tales and both of the main varieties of the first tale are current in the same areas. The types are certainly not always kept clearly apart.

The younger of three brothers, unlike the two elder, has been kind to an old man who helps him provide a ship that goes both on land and water. For the building of such a ship the king has promised to give his daughter in marriage. On his way to the court with the ship the hero encounters, one after another, six extraordinary men. One of them is so strong that he pulls up trees. One can shoot out the left eye of a fly two miles away. One can blow hard enough to turn a windmill. One can hear grass grow, or the wool on the back of a sheep. One can run around the world in a moment, and one can eat or drink enough for an army. A number of other strangely endowed men appear in the hundreds of variants of this tale.

With his marvelous ship and these strange friends who have joined him, the hero reaches the castle, shows his ship, and demands the princess in marriage. The king puts him off and will fulfill the bargain only when the youth has performed certain tasks—deeds which the king knows are quite impossible. With the help of his companions, the hero succeeds in performing all the tasks assigned and in winning the princess.

The tasks assigned in this tale are always fitted to the special endowments of the companions. With this limitation, they show a wide variety. Most [p. 54] usual are: eating a tremendous amount, fetching water from the end of the world, enduring extreme heat or cold, defeating an opposing army, or rescuing the princess. Sometimes the task takes the combined efforts of two of the helpers. When the water must be brought from the world's end, the runner goes for it, but he sleeps on the way and the shooter has to wake him.

As one looks over the versions of this tale, it is clear that a large number do not have the incident of the land and water ship. The simpler version is usually called, after Grimm, How Six Travel Through the World (Type 513A); that with the marvelous boat, The Ship that Went on Sea and Land (Type 513B). Both varieties of the tale are found all over Europe, but it is only the first which has gone farther, and The Ship seems to be a special development which has taken place on European soil and has not traveled elsewhere.

The most striking part of this tale is undoubtedly the specially endowed companions and the way in which they perform the tasks set for the hero. This nucleus of the story is very old. It has interesting parallels in the literature of ancient India. [45] Similar characters were found among the Argonauts, though they were not used exactly as in our story. The most striking resemblance to our tale in the older literature is the old Welsh story of Kylhwch and Olwen which is found in the Mabinogion of the eleventh century. It is interesting that in this Welsh tale the companions are at the court of King Arthur and that some of them bear names which in the later development of the Arthurian story are given to certain knights of the Round Table.

We do not, of course, know how long this story has been told by taletellers in Europe. None except the Mabinogion have exalted the companions into Arthurian knights, but have kept the adventures on the usual folktale level. The tale has been fortunate enough to be reworked by several composers of literary stories, Sercambi in fourteenth century and Basile in seventeenth century Italy, and Madame d'Aulnoy in France at the end of the seventeenth century.

The whole story, in its various modifications, shows evidence of having come into Europe from India. It is found not only in older Buddhistic writings, but also in the modern oral collections of tales of India. It is also reported frequently in the folklore of the peoples of western Asia and eastern Europe. In Europe itself, the distribution is remarkably uniform, and indicates a long period of development. The tale of the remarkable helpers has also been carried to distant places by travelers and settlers: to China, to Indonesia, to Africa, and to America, where it is found not only among the French of Canada and Missouri, but also among the American Indians of Nova Scotia and of the central plains.

With its wide ramifications of plot, its obviously long history, its great [p. 55] popularity as a folktale, and its frequent use in literary tale collections, an adequate investigation of this story would bring the scholar face to face with practically all the difficult problems of folktale scholarship.

Before leaving the extraordinary companions, mention should be made of a story which was developed by literary writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and which has been collected in a few countries from oral raconteurs (Type 514). A maiden disguised as a man goes to the wars in place of her brother (or father). The complications that arise are not consistent in all versions. In some she marries the princess, who keeps her secret. In others the queen attempts to seduce the "hero," and then when unsuccessful, demands that the king send him on a dangerous expedition. Whether expelled for marrying the princess or because of the anger of the king, the heroine secures the help of extraordinary companions and performs the tasks necessary. In some versions she disrobes and brings about the discomfiture and execution of the queen, and later marries the king. In others she secures magic help whereby she actually does change her sex and then returns to be reunited with the princess.