Chapter LXV: The Three Wishes

_Source._--Steinberg's _Folk-Lore of Northamptonshire_, 1851, but entirely rewritten by Mr. Nutt, who has introduced from other variants one touch at the close--viz., the readiness of the wife to allow her husband to remain disfigured.

_Parallels._--Perrault's _Trois Souhaits_ is the same tale, and Mr. Lang has shown in his edition of Perrault (pp. xlii.-li.) how widely spread is the theme throughout the climes and the ages. I do not, however, understand him to grant that they are all derived from one source--that represented in the Indian _Pantschatantra_. In my _Æsop_, i., 140-1, I have pointed out an earlier version in Phædrus where it occurs (as in the prose versions) as the fable of _Mercury and the two Women_, one of whom wishes to see her babe when it has a beard; the other, that everything she touches which she would find useful in her profession, may follow her. The babe becomes bearded, and the other woman raising her hand to wipe her eyes finds her nose following her hand--_dénouement_ on which the scene closes. M. Bédier, as usual, denies the Indian origin, _Les Fabliaux_, pp. 177, _seq._

_Remarks._--I have endeavoured to show, _l.c._, that the Phædrine form is ultimately to be derived from India, and there can be little doubt that all the other variants, which are only variations on one idea, and that an absurdly incongruous one, were derived from India in the last resort. The case is strongest for drolls of this kind.