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]