Chapter XXVIII: Jack the Cunning Thief

_Sources._--Kennedy, _Stories of Ireland_, pp. 38-46; Campbell, _West Highland Tales_, i. 320 _seq._; "The Shifty Lad," Dasent, _Popular Tales from the Norse_, pp. 232-51, "Master Thief." Koehler has a number of variants in his notes on Campbell: _Orient und Occident_, Band ii. Mr. Clouston has a monograph on the subject in his _Popular Tales_, ii. 115-65. A separate treatise on the subject has been given by S. Prato, 1882, _La Leggenda di Rhampsinite_. Both these writers connect the modern folk-tales with Herodotus' story of King Rampsinites. Mr. Knowles in his _Folk-tales of Kashmir_, has a number of adventures of "Sharaf the Thief." The story of "Master Thief" has been heard among the tramps in London workhouses (Mayhew, _London Labour and London Poor_, iii. 119).

_Remarks._--Thievery is universally human, and at first sight it might seem that there was no connection between these various versions of the "Master Thief." But the identity of the tricks by which the popular hero-thief gains his ends renders it impossible that they should have been independently invented wherever they are found.