Chapter XLI: The Well of the World's End

_Source_.--Leyden's edition of _The Complaynt of Scotland_, p. 234 _seq._, with additional touches from Halliwell, 162-3, who makes up a slightly different version from the rhymes. The opening formula I have taken from Mayhew, _London Labour_, iii. 390, who gives it as the usual one when tramps tell folk-tales. I also added it to No. xvii.

_Parallels_.--Sir W. Scott remembered a similar story; see Taylor's _Gammer Grethel, ad fin_. In Scotland it is Chambers's tale of _The Paddo_, p. 87; Leyden supposes it is referred to in the _Complaynt_, (c. 1548), as “The Wolf of the Warldis End.” The well of this name occurs also in the Scotch version of the “Three Heads of the Well,” (No. xliii.). Abroad it is the Grimms' first tale, while frogs who would a-wooing go are discussed by Prof. Köhler, _Occ. u. Orient_ ii. 330; by Prof. Child, i. 298; and by Messrs. Jones and Kropf, _l.c._, p. 404. The sieve-bucket task is widespread from the Danaids of the Greeks to the leverets of _Uncle Remus_, who, curiously enough, use the same rhyme: “Fill it wid moss en dob it wid clay.” _Cf._, too, No. xxiii.