Chapter II: The Three Sillies

_Source_.--From _Folk-Lore Journal_, ii. 40-3; to which it was communicated by Miss C. Burne.

_Parallels_.--Prof. Stephens gave a variant from his own memory in _Folk-Lore Record_, iii. 155, as told in Essex at the beginning of the century. Mr. Toulmin Smith gave another version in _The Constitutional_, July 1, 1853, which was translated by his daughter, and contributed to _Mélusine_, t. ii. An Oxfordshire version was given in _Notes and Queries_, April 17, 1852. It occurs also in Ireland, Kennedy, _Fireside Stories_, p. 9. It is Grimm's _Kluge Else_, No. 34, and is spread through the world. Mr. Clouston devotes the seventh chapter of his _Book of Noodles_ to the Quest of the Three Noodles.