Chapter XVII: Jack and His Snuff-Box

_Source_.-Mr. F. Hindes Groome, _In Gipsy Tents_, p. 201 _seq._ I have eliminated a superfluous Gipsy who makes her appearance towards the end of the tale _à propos des boltes_, but otherwise have left the tale unaltered as one of the few English folk-tales that have been taken down from the mouths of the peasantry: this applies also to i., ii., xi.

_Parallels_.-There is a magic snuff-box with a friendly power in it in Kennedy's _Fictions of the Irish Celts_, p. 49. The choice between a small cake with a blessing, &c., is frequent (_cf._ No. xxiii.), but the closest parallel to the whole story, including the mice, is afforded by a tale in Carnoy and Nicolaides' _Traditions populaires de l'Asie Mineure_, which is translated as the first tale in Mr. Lang's _Blue Fairy Book_. There is much in both that is similar to Aladdin, I beg his pardon, Allah-ed-din.