Chapter VIII: Welsh-Gypsy Stories (4)

Jack comes down, and he cuts his head off, and he goes on the road, crying very much to hisself about his two little dogs. So going on this road as he was crying, he turned his head round at the back of his horse, looking behind him, and he sees two of the handsomest young ladies coming as ever he saw in his life.

‘What are you crying for?’ said these ladies to him.

‘I am crying,’ he said, ‘about two little dogs, two faithful dogs, what I had.’

‘What was the name of your little dogs?’

‘One was named Hear-all, and the t’other was named Spring-all.’

‘Would you know them two dogs if you would see them again?’

‘Oh dear, yes!’ says Jack. ‘Oh dear, yes!’ says Jack.

‘Well, I am Hear-all, and this is Spring-all.’

Away Jack goes home to his father and mother, and lives very happy there all the days of his life.

A capital and very curious story, but plainly imperfect: Jack, of
course, should marry the princess. There is a very West Highland
ring about it, yet I cannot match it from Campbell, nor indeed
elsewhere. At the same time many of the incidents are familiar
enough. For the balls of worsted and the three helpful sisters (or
brothers, hermits, etc.), cf. John Roberts’ story of ‘An Old King
and his Three Sons’ (No. 55, pp. 220–234). The bridge-making
episode suggests a combination of the Passage of the Red Sea and
the bridge-making ball of yarn in ‘The Companion’ (Dasent’s Tales
from the Fjeld, p. 73). The lucky-bone in the ear reminds one of
the pin which, driven into the heroine’s head, causes
transformation into a bird (Maive Stokes’s Indian Fairy Tales, pp.
12, 14, 253; and Laura Gonzenbach’s Sicil. Märchen, i. p. 82), or
of the comb, poisoned apple, etc., in Grimm’s ‘Snow-white’ (No.
53), and its Chian, Albanian, and other variants, which produce, as
in Jack’s case, suspended animation. For the cutting off of the
helpful animal’s head, under a threat, and the consequent
transformation, cf. the Scottish-Tinker story of ‘The Fox’ (No.
75).