Chapter XV: Part 15

One day there came to visit the lady, their mistress, a nobleman belonging to the king's court. At dinner time the princess had to come to table along with the little daughter of the house, of whom she had the charge. Great was her terror when she recognised in the guest of the day one so familiar to herself and so near the sovereign. In conformity with the lowliness of the station she had assumed, she could escape actually talking to him, and she did her best to withdraw herself from his notice. She half hoped she had succeeded, when suddenly the butler had to come into the room to communicate an important despatch which had just arrived, to the mistress of the house. The princess could not restrain an anxious glance at the stranger, to see if he betrayed any sign of recognition; but he was used to courts, and therefore to dissemble; nor could she satisfy herself that he had discovered either of them. It was so likely that he should, however, that she was filled with fear, and he was no sooner gone than she held a long consultation with her husband as to what course they should pursue.

In the end, the difficulty of finding other employment decided them to remain, for the probability that they would be tracked seemed remote. After all, they reasoned, was it likely that the nobleman should think it worth while to observe two persons occupying such humble posts with sufficient attention to see who they were or who they were not?

The king meantime had been searching everywhere for his daughter, not being able by any means to divine how she could have escaped. Then one morning, all this time after, the nobleman comes down upon him with the news:

'I have found the princess. She is living as nurse to the Duchessa such a one, and her husband is the butler.'

The king could not rest a moment after he had heard the news; his travelling carriage was ordered round, and away he drove. It was just dinner-time when he arrived at the Duchessa's palace. If the princess had been terrified before, at being called to sit at table with a nobleman of the court, judge how much greater was her alarm when she saw her father himself seated at the board!

Great as had been his indignation, however, the joy of again meeting his child after the long separation blotted out all his anger, and after embracing her tenderly, he placed her by his side at the table. It was only when he came to take leave, and realised that she really belonged to another that his ire broke forth again. At this point the Duchessa put in a word. She highly extolled the excellent qualities of her butler, and declared he had been so skilful in the administration of her affairs, that he deserved to have a kingdom committed to him. In short, she softened the king's heart so completely that she brought him to own that, as he had now grown very old and feeble, he could not do better than recognise him for his son-in-law, and associate him with himself in the government.

And so he did, [406] and they all lived happily.

THE HAPPY COUPLE. [407]

I can tell you a story, [408] or two perhaps. What a number I used to know, to be sure! But what can I do? It is thirty years and more since anyone has asked me for them, and it's hard to put one's ideas together after such a time. You mustn't mind if I put the wrong part of the story before, and have to go backwards and forwards a little.

I know there was one that ran thus:--

There was a married couple who lived so happy and content and fond of each other, that they never had a word of dispute about anything the live-long day, but only thought of helping and pleasing each other.

The Devil saw this, and determined to set them by the ears; but how was he to do it? Such love and peace reigned in their home, that he couldn't find any way into the place. After prowling and prowling about, and finding no means of entrance, what does he do? He went to an old woman,--she must have been one of those who dabble with things they have no business to touch,--and said to her:

'You must do this job for me!'

'That's no great matter,' answered the old hag. [409] 'Give me ten scudi for my niece and a new pair of shoes for me, and I'll settle the matter.'

'Here are the ten scudi,' said the Devil; 'it will be time enough to talk about the shoes when we see how you do the business.'

The bad old woman set off accordingly with her niece and the ten scudi, instructing her by the way what she was to do.

This husband and wife lived in a place where there was a house on one side and a shop on the other, so that through a window in the house where they lived they could give an eye to anything that went on in the shop.

Choosing a moment when the man was alone in the shop, she sent the girl in with the ten scudi; and the girl, who had been told what to do, selected a dress, and a handkerchief, and a number of fine things, and paid her ten scudi. Then she proceeded leisurely to put them on, and to walk up and down the shop in them. Meantime the bad old woman went up to the wife:--

'Poor woman!' she said. 'Poor woman! Such a good woman as you are, and to have such a hypocrite of a husband!'

'My husband a hypocrite!' answered the wife. 'What can you mean--he is the best man that ever was.'

'Ah! he makes you think so, poor simple soul. But the truth is, he is very different from what you think.'

So they went on conversing, and the bad old woman all the time watching what was going on in the shop till the right moment came. Just as the girl was flaunting about and showing herself off, she said:

'Look here, he has given all those things to that girl there.'

And though the wife did not believe a word, curiosity prompted her to look, and there she saw the girl bowing herself out with as many thanks and adieus as if the poor man had really given her the things she had bought.

'Perhaps you will believe that!' observed the bad old woman.

'Indeed, I cannot help believing it,' answered the wife, 'but never otherwise should I have thought it; and I owe you a great deal for opening my eyes;' and she gave her a whole cheese. [410] 'I know what I shall do,' she continued, as she sobbed over her lost peace of mind; 'I shall show him I know his bad conduct by having no dinner ready for him when he comes up by-and-by.'

'That's right,' said the bad old woman. 'Do so, and show him you are not going to be trampled on for the sake of a drab of a girl like that;' and she tied her cheese up in a handkerchief, and went her way.

Down she went now to the husband, and plied him with suspicions of his wife, similar to those she had suggested to her against him. The husband was even less willing to listen to her than the wife had been, and when at last he drove her away, she said:

'You think she's busy all the morning preparing your dinner; but instead of that, she's talking to those you wouldn't like her to talk with. And you see now if to-day she hasn't been at this game so long that she has forgotten your dinner altogether.'

The husband turned a deaf ear, and continued attending to his shop; but when he went into the house and found no dinner ready, it seemed as if all that the bad old woman had said was come true.

He was too sad for words, so they didn't have much of a quarrel, but there could not but be a coldness after such an extraordinary event as a day without dinner.

The husband went back to his shop and mused. The wife sat alone in her room crying; presently the old hag came back to her.

'Well, did you tell him you had found him out?' she inquired.

'No! I hadn't courage to do that. And he was so patient about there being no dinner, that I felt quite sorry to have suspected him. Oh, you who have been so clever in pointing out my misery to me, can you not tell me some means of reconciliation?'

'Yes, there is one; but I don't know if you can manage it.'

'Oh yes; I would do anything!'

'Then you must watch till he is quite sound asleep, and take a sharp razor and cut off three hairs from the undergrowth of his beard, quite close to the skin. If you do that it will all come right again.'

'It seems a very odd remedy,' said the wife; 'but if you say it will do, I suppose it will, and thank you kindly for the advice;' and she gave her another cheese.

Then the witch went back to the husband.

'I suppose I was mistaken, and you found your dinner ready after all?' she said.

'No!' he replied; 'you were right about there being no dinner; but I am certain there was some cause for there being none, other than what you say.'

'What other cause should there be?' exclaimed the old woman.

'That I don't know,' he replied. 'But some other cause I am persuaded there must have been.'

'Well, if you are so infatuated, I will give you another token that I am right,' replied the old woman. 'You don't deserve that I should save your life, but I am so goodnatured, I can't help warning you. To-night, I have reason to know, she intends to murder you. You just give some make-believe snoring, but mind you don't sleep, whatever you do; and you see if she doesn't take up one of your razors to stab you in the throat.'

The good husband refused to believe a word, and drove her away. Nevertheless, when night came he felt not a little anxious; and if he had tried to sleep ever so much he could not, for he felt so excited. Then curiosity to see if the woman's words would come true overcame him, and he pretended to snore.

He had not been snoring thus long, when the wife took up the razor and came all trembling to the bedside, and lifted up his beard.

A cold sweat crept over the poor husband as she approached--not for fear of his life, which he could easily rescue, as he was awake--but because the proof seemed there that the old hag had spoken the truth. However, instead of taking it for granted it was so, and refusing to hear any justification--perhaps killing her on the spot, as she had hoped and expected,--he calmly seized her arm, and said:

'Tell me, what are you going to do with that razor?'

The wife sank on her knees by his side, crying:

'I cannot expect you to believe me, but this is really how it was. An old woman came and told me you were making love to a young girl in the shop, and showed me how she was bowing and scraping to you. I was so vexed, that to show you my anger I got no dinner ready; but afterwards, I felt as if I should like to ask you all about it, to make sure there was no mistake: only after what I had done, I didn't know how to begin speaking to you again. Then I asked the old woman if she couldn't tell me some means of bringing things straight again; and she said, if I could cut off three hairs from the undergrowth of your beard, all would come right. But I can't expect you to believe it.'

'Yes, I do,' replied the husband. 'The same old wretch came to me, and wanted me in like manner to believe all manner of evil things of you, but I refused to believe you could do anything wrong. So I had more confidence in you than you had in me. But still we were both very nearly making ourselves very foolish and very unhappy; so we will take a lesson never to doubt each other again.'

And after that there never was a word between them any more.

When the Devil saw how the old woman had spoilt the affair, he took the pair of shoes he was to have given her, and tied them on to a long cane which he fastened on the top of a mountain, and there they dangled before her eyes, but she could never get at them.

[This is just the Siddi Kür story of the mischief-making fox, which I have given as 'The Perfidious Friend' in 'Sagas from the Far East,' and similar to the first Pantcha Tantra story.]

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE ROOM OF A HOTEL. [411]

They say there was a countess who was very fond of her husband, and her husband was very fond of her; and they vowed nothing should ever make the one think ill of the other.

One day the brother of the countess, who had been long away at the wars, and whom the count had never seen, came back to see her just while the count was out.

'Now we'll have some fun,' said the countess. 'We'll watch till my husband is coming home, and then as he comes into the room you just be kissing me; he will be so astonished to see a stranger kissing me, he will not know what to make of it. Then in five minutes we will tell him who you really are, and it will make a good laugh.'

The brother thought it would be a good joke, and they did as she had said.

It happened, however, that by accident [412] the count did not that day as usual come into his wife's room, but passing along the terrace in front of it, he saw, as she had arranged, one who was a stranger to him kissing her.

Then he went into his room, and calling his confidential servant [413] he told him what had happened, and adding, 'You will never see me any more,' went his way.

The countess waited on and on for her husband to come in, full of impatience to have her joke out. But when she found he did not come at all, she went into his room to seek him there. There she found the servant, who told her what the Count had said, and the desperate resolution he had taken.

'What have I done!' exclaimed the terrified Countess. 'Is it possible that I am to be punished thus for a harmless joke!'

Then, without saying anything to anyone she wrapped her travelling cloak about her, and set out to seek her husband.

The Count had walked on till he could walk no farther, and then he had gone into an inn, where he hired a room for a week; but he went wandering about the woods in misery and despair, and only came in at an hour of night. [414]

The Countess also walked on till she could walk no farther, and thus she came to the same inn; but as she had only a woman's strength the same journey took her a much longer time, and it was the afternoon of the next day when she arrived. She too asked for a room, but the host assured her with many expressions of regret, that he had not a single room vacant. The Countess pleaded her weariness; the man reiterated his inability to serve her.

'Give me only a room to rest a little while in,' she begged; 'just a couple of hours, and then I will start again and journey farther.'

Really compassionating her in her fatigue, the man now said:

'If you will be satisfied with that much, I can give you a room for a couple of hours; but no more.'

She was fain to be satisfied with that, as she could get no more, and the host showed her into her husband's room, which he would not want till 'an hour of night.'

By accident, however, the Count came in that night an hour earlier, and very much surprised he was to find a lady in his room. The Countess, equally surprised to see a stranger enter, pulled her veil over her face, so that they did not recognise each other.

'I am sorry to disturb you, madam, but this room, I must inform you, I have engaged,' said the count; but sorrow had so altered his voice that the countess did not know it again.

'I hope you will spare me,' replied the Countess. 'They gave me this room to rest in for two hours, and I have come so long a way that I really need the rest.'

'I can hardly believe that a lady of gentle condition can have come a very long way, all alone and on foot, for there is no carriage in the yard; so I can only consider this a frivolous pretext,' replied the Count, for sorrow had embittered him.

'Indeed it is too true though,' continued the Countess. 'I came all the way from such a place (and she named his own town) without stopping for one moment's rest.'

'Indeed!' said the Count, his interest roused at the mention of his own town; 'and pray what need had you to use such haste to get away from that good town?'

'I had no need to haste to leave the place,' replied the Countess, hurt at the implied suspicion that she was running away for shame. 'I hasted to arrive at another place.'

'And that other place was ----?' persisted the Count, who felt that her intrusion on his privacy gave him a right to cross-question her.

The Countess was puzzled how to reply. She had no idea what place she was making for.

'That I don't know,' she said at last, with no little embarrassment.

'You will permit me to say that you seem to have no adequate reason to allege for this unwarrantable occupation of my room; and what little you tell me certainly in no way inclines me to take a favourable view of the affair.'

The Countess was once more stung by the manner in which he seemed to view her journey, and feeling bound to clear herself, she replied:

'If you only knew what my journey is about, you would not speak so!' and she burst into a flood of tears.

Softened by her distress, the Count said in a kinder tone:

'Had you been pleased to confide that to me at first, maybe I had not spoken so; but till you tell me what it is, what opinion can I form?'

'This is it,' answered the Countess, still sobbing. 'Yesterday I was the happiest woman on the face of the earth, living in love and confidence with the best husband with whom woman was ever blessed. So strong was my confidence that I hesitated not to trifle with this great happiness. My brother came home from the wars, a stranger to my husband. "Let him see you kiss me," I said, "it will seem so strange that we will make him laugh heartily afterwards." He saw him kiss me, but waited for no explanation. He went away without a word, as indeed (fool that I was) I well deserved, and I journey on till I overtake him.'

The Count had risen to his feet, and had torn the veil from her face.

'It can be no other but my own!' he exclaimed, in a voice from which sorrow being banished his own tones sounded forth, and clasped her in his arms.

THE COUNTESS'S CAT. [415]

There was a very rich Countess who was a widow and lived all alone, with no companion but only a cat, after her husband died. The greatest care was taken of this cat, and every day a chicken was boiled on purpose for him.

One day the Countessa went out to spend the day at a friend's villa in the Campagna, and she said to the waiting woman:

'Mind the cat has his chicken just the same as if I were at home.'

'Yes! Signora Countessa, leave that to me,' answered the woman; but the Countess was no sooner gone out than she said to the man-servant:

'The cat has the chicken every day; suppose we have it to-day?'

The man said, 'To be sure!' and they ate the chicken themselves, giving the cat only the inside; but they threw the bones down in the usual corner, to make it appear as if he had eaten the whole chicken.

The cat said nothing, but looked on with great eyes, full of meaning. [416]

When the Countess came back that evening the cat, instead of going out to meet her as he always did, remained still in his place and said nothing.

'What's the matter with the cat? Hasn't he had his chicken?' asked the Countess, immediately.

'Yes! Signora Countessa,' answered the cameriera. 'See, there are the bones on the floor, where he always leaves them.'

The Countessa could not deny the testimony of her eyes, so she said nothing more but went up to bed.

The cat followed her as he always did, for he slept on her bed; but he followed at a distance, without purring or rubbing himself against her. The Countess saw something was wrong, but she didn't know what to make of it, and went to bed as usual.

That night the cat throttled [417] the Countess, and killed her.

The cat is very intelligent in his own interest, but he is a traitor.

'It would have been more intelligent,' I observed, 'if he had throttled the waiting woman in this instance.'

Not at all; the cat's reasoning was this:--If thou hadst not gone out and left me to the mercy of menials, this had not happened; therefore it was thou who hadst to die.

This is quite true, for cats are always traitors. Dogs are faithful, cats are traitors. [418]

[Perhaps this tale would have been hardly worth printing, but that the selfsame story was told me as a positive fact by an Irishman, who could not have come across the Italian story. In the Irish version it was its master the cat killed; in the wording of the narrator he 'cut his throat.']

WHY CATS AND DOGS ALWAYS QUARREL. [419]

'Why do dogs and cats always fight, papa?' we used to say.

And he used to answer, 'I'll tell you why;' and we all stood round listening.

'Once on a time dogs and cats were very good friends, and when the dogs went out of town they left their cards on the cats, and when the cats went out of town they left their cards on the dogs.'

And we all sat round and listened and laughed.

'Once the dogs all went out of town and left their cards as usual on the cats; but they were a long time gone, for they were gone on a rat-hunt, and killed all the rats. When the cats heard that the dogs had taken to killing rats, they were furious against the dogs, and lay in wait for them and set upon them.

'"Set upon the dogs! at them! give it them!"' [420] shouted the cats, as they flew at them; and from that time to this, dogs and cats never meet without fighting.

And we all stood round and laughed fit to split our sides.

[Scheible, Schaltjahr I., 375, gives a more humorous version of this.]

THE CATS WHO MADE THEIR MASTER RICH.

'Ah! as to cats and mice, listen and I'll tell you something worth hearing!

'In America, once upon a time, there were no cats. Mice there were in plenty; mice everywhere; not peeping out of holes now and then, but infesting everything, swarming over every room; and when a family sat down to meals, the mice rushed upon the table and disputed the victuals with them.

'Then one thought of a plan; he freighted three ships; full, full of cats, and off to America with them. There he sold them for their weight in gold and more, and whiff! the mice were swept away, and he made a great fortune. A great fortune, all out of cats!'

[In the 'Russian Folktales' is also a version of the Whittington story, p. 43.]

APPENDICES.

APPENDIX A. p. xx.

I have done injustice to the part assigned to the horse in French legendary tales by omitting mention of it in this place. Charles Louandre ('Chefs-d'oeuvre des conteurs Français,' Paris, 1873, note to pp. 43-4) calls special attention to it and gives us the name of many horses famous in the old French minstrelsy. There was 'Valentin,' the horse of Roland; 'Tencedor, of Charlemagne;' 'Barbamouche, swifter than the swallow;' and many others. But there is no name to the charger in the graceful 'Lai de Graélent,' by Marie de France, whose fidelity is the occasion of his Note. I ought not to have forgotten either, the honours paid him in the Spanish Romances, of which the brave 'Black Charger of Hernando' ('Patrañas') may serve as the type.

APPENDIX B.

My attention has been called, while these sheets have been passing through the press, to a collection which enables me to subjoin some notes of analogies between the Folktales of France and those in the text. It is entitled 'Recueil des Contes des Fées,' Geneva, 1718; published without author's name, and the stories are much less artificially treated than in the better known collections of the Comtesse d'Aulnoy, de Caylus, Perrault, Madame de Villeneuve, &c.

Monteil ('Traité de Matériaux-Manuscrits,' Paris, 1835) mentions a MS. in his possession, of the year 1618, entitled 'Contes des Fées,' from which Perrault, the least artificial of the French collectors, seems to have drawn his tales. Mayer ('Discours sur l'Origine des Contes des Fées,' Geneva and Paris, 1786) ascribes to him the revival of the knowledge of the existence of popular fairy tales and mediæval romances, and many of our own Nursery Rimes (notably 'Puss in Boots') are simply translated from his versions.

'Prince Rainbow' ('Le Prince Arc-en-Ciel'), the fifth story in the 'Recueil,' contains similar incidents with those in 'Filagranata,' in combination with the introduction of the opening of a nut in place of one of the oranges in my next story. (I have another Roman story in MS. which hinges on the opening of three nuts in the place of three oranges.) In the French story the ire of the bad fairy is excited against the princess who holds the place of Filagranata, by her receiving the name of 'Fairer-than-Fairies' ('Plus-belle-que-Fée'). The bad fairy Lagrée, who is so old that she has only one tooth and one eye, carries her off to an underground palace, where her task is to tend a fire, instead of feeding pigeons. Here she is courted by a prince transformed into a rainbow, whom she finds of course always seated in the sunshine on a fountain. While talking to him, she lets her fire out. Lagrée sends her to get fresh fire from the giant Locrinos, devourer of maidens; the giant's wife takes compassion on her, and gives her the fire, and with it a stone to use in time of distress. Lagrée, in fury at her success, sends away Prince Rainbow. Fairer-than-Fairies escapes, and goes in search of him, taking with her the stone, a branch of myrtle, and her cat and dog; when she is weary with wandering, the stone provides her a cave to sleep in, the dog keeping guard. Lagrée pursues her; the dog attacks her, and throws her down, so that she breaks her only tooth, and the princess escapes for another stage. Lagrée overtakes her again as she is sleeping in a bower the branch of myrtle has raised for her. The cat makes the defence this time, scratching out her only eye, finally disabling her. After this, Fairer-than-Fairies is entertained in a white and green palace by a white and green lady, who gives her a nut, to be used only in direst need. After another year's wanderings, another white and green lady gives her a pomegranate; at the end of another year, another gives her a crystal vial. Afterwards she comes to a silver palace, suspended by silver chains from four trees. She then breaks the nut; a Swiss appears and admits her, and she finds Prince Rainbow in an enchanted sleep, answering to the kiss of forgetfulness in 'Filagranata.' Fairer-than-Fairies breaks open the pomegranate, all the pips become violins, whose melody makes the prince open his eyes. She breaks open the crystal flask, and a Seiren appears, who sings the tale of all the princess has endured. The prince wakes--the spell is ended. The silver palace turns into a real and inhabited one. They embrace, and are married.

'Incarnat, Blanc et Noir,' in the same 'Recueil,' is very similar to the 'Three Love-Oranges.' A prince walking out in the snow sees a crow. He tries his skill at bringing him down, and the black bird falls bleeding on the white snow. The sight makes him desire a maiden who combines these three tints. Suddenly a voice tells him to go to the 'Kingdom of Marvels,' and that there he will find a tree with splendid apples (they are not expressly said to be golden). He is to take three, and not to open them till he reaches home. Curiosity overcomes him by the way; he opens one, and a beautiful maiden appears; before he can embrace her she disappears. Afterwards, his homeward travels lead him on the sea; the desire to open one of the apples again overcomes him, but though he orders the vessel to be closely covered down all over, the second maiden disappears like the first. He only opens the third on reaching home, and then there comes to him a maiden exactly such as he desired, whom he marries. Afterwards he goes to the wars; and the mother-in-law, who hated her all along, kills her, and throws her body in the castle moat, and substitutes another woman, a creature of her own. The prince expresses his surprise, but she assures him the different appearance is only the effect of a spell. The prince, however, pines after his own maiden. One day he sees swimming in the castle moat a fish with red, white, and black scales, which he spends all his time in gazing at. The false wife pretends she has an irrepressible desire to eat that particular fish; she is in a delicate state of health, and he cannot refuse her. After that a tree springs up suddenly, which once more presents the three colours. The false wife (inspired by the mother-in-law) demands that it shall be cut down and burnt. He cannot refuse her. Finally, a palace, built of rubies, pearls, and jet, suddenly appears by the side of his own. By unheard-of exertion he gets into it, and there finds in a cabinet his own maiden, whom he recalls to his side.

Another ('Le Buisson d'Épines fleuries') contains noticeable analogies with both the group of 'The Pot of Marjoram,' and that of 'Maria Wood.' The mother of a fairy princess is led to fill the stepmother's part towards her, by her having so lavishly distributed the ointment of perpetual youth, which had been entrusted to her keeping, that none is left for the queen's own use when she desires to have recourse to it to regain the lost affections of her husband, an earthly king. The governess comes to the aid of the princess, and they fly away together with tents and all requisites of the journey stowed away in pearls for travelling boxes (some analogy, perhaps, with the 'Candeliera'). Their adventures bring them across Prince Zelindor, who marries the princess. The vengeance of the fairy mother pursues them in various shapes, till at last she turns Zelindor into a Sweet Briar. The princess is attracted towards the plant, and tends it with the greatest care, without knowing it is her husband. The enraged fairy queen orders her to pluck a branch, and she is obliged to obey. The plant flows with blood, and Zelindor declares she is the cause of his death; at this juncture the husband of the fairy queen, fetched by the benevolent governess, appears. His return reconciles the queen to her daughter; and with an elixir she heals Zelindor's wounds, and restores him to his bride.

Perrault's rimed fable of 'Peau d'Âne' is much nearer 'Maria Wood.' The dying queen binds the king to marry no one who does not surpass her in beauty and understanding. Only their daughter comes up to the mark. Her fairy godmother tells her to ask for the brilliant dresses, and finally for the skin of a gold-coin-producing donkey. The king sacrifices even this. The fairy tells her to put on this skin while she stows her sunbeam dresses, jewels, &c., in a press which she promises shall follow underground wherever she carries her wand. She is made hen-wife in a king's farmyard, and puts on her brilliant dresses on holidays in her private room. The prince sees her through the keyhole, and falls ill because his parents object to the union. 'Peau d'Âne' makes him a cake into which she drops one of her rings. The prince is charmed with the idea of the hand it suggests to him; his malady increases, and this softens his parents. He says he will marry no one but her whom the ring fits, and thus of course 'Peau d'Âne' marries him.

The counterpart, in Perrault, to the group to which 'Il Rè Moro' belongs is a very clever, but somewhat artificially told story, called 'Kadour.' Kadour, an exquisitely beautiful princess of Cashmere, is utterly deficient, not in riches, like the chicory-seller's daughter, but in mind. She comes one day to a hole in the ground, and a monstrous figure comes out of it, and offers her the gift of mind, on condition of marrying him in a year. Without knowing what mind is, she has perceived that all her exceeding beauty has been powerless to attract any of the attention she has seen lavished on others, and she gives a sort of stupid consent. The monster tells her that the gift of mind is to be obtained by simply repeating the words, 'O Love, who canst inspire all things; if it needs but to love to lose my insipidity, behold I am ready!'

'O toi qui peux tout animer,
Amour, si pour n'être plus bête
Il ne faut que savoir aimer,
Je suis prête.'

In proportion as she repeats these words she is filled with intelligence; but no sooner is she so gifted than everyone appreciates and surrounds her, and she soon falls in love with Arada, the handsomest of her adorers. When the monster returns at the end of the year, and takes her down to his palace through the hole in the earth, she is in great perplexity what decision to make. She perceives that either way she must lose Arada, and says that she cannot give any answer; the monster says he will decide for her, and send her back to her first estate. Her newly-acquired powers, however, give her such loathing of this condition, that she finally prefers retaining her mind even on the terrible condition already propounded. The monster declares himself King of the Gnomes, master of boundless riches, and every kind of luxury and pleasure is lavished on her, as on the chicory-seller, to reconcile her with her situation; but in this case all in vain. She contrives to let Arada know her unhappy position, that she may have the benefit of his sympathy. The gnome-king punishes her by transforming his handsome person into a duplicate of his own, so that Kadour never knows to which of them she is speaking.

This story is better known under the title of 'Riquet à la Houpe,' under which name it has been dramatised; in this, however, the senseless but beautiful princess has the compensatory faculty of rendering handsome her mind-giving but hideous lover, and therefore the happy dénouement is easily worked out. It is also the foundation of 'Beauty and the Beast;' and probably springs from the same idea as that embodied in the Ardshi Bordshi story I have given as 'Who invented Woman,' in 'Sagas from the Far East.'

A sort of counterpart to the story of 'Il Rè Moro' is given under the title of 'Le Prince Sincer,' in Gueulette's 'Fabliaux, ou Soirées Bretonnes,' but this series seems to be but a réchauffé of Oriental tales, and not a collection of local traditions, as the name leads one to expect, notwithstanding that he introduces Druids into them. The story I have named forms a link also in some of its details with that in the text called 'I Satiri.' Another of the same series, called 'Le Prince Engageant,' has some analogy with the 'Tre Merangoli di Amore' (The Three Love-Oranges), in a prince finding his bride by giving her a pomegranate while she is transformed as a dragon.

In a note to his translation of the ballad of 'Pérédur ou le Bassin Magique,' Th. de la Villemarqué [421] gives a Breton version of the 'Three Golden Apples' story. Pérédur is induced to abandon the state of retirement in which his mother has kept him, after the death of his father and his five brothers, by seeing Owen ride by, 'seeking the knight who divided the apples at the Court of Arthur.' Upon this the annotator remarks that the episode here alluded to has not been discovered; but, by way of compensation, he supplies the following, which was told him by a peasant of the diocese of Quimper, who could not read, and had received it by tradition from his forefathers.

King Arthur was holding a feast at Lannion, in Brittany; five other kings assisted at it, with their wives and their suite. Just as dinner is over Merlin appears, and hands three golden apples to the king, and says they are to be adjudged to the three most beautiful women. There is a great commotion, and blood is about to flow in the dispute, when an unknown knight advances into the hall, mounted on a black charger with so luxuriant a mane that it envelops both him and his rider. The cause of dispute is referred to him for arbitration. He takes up the three apples, and compares their colour to the hair of the five queens, and their perfume to the ladies' breath; but settles the competition, like 'the Gold-Spitting Prince,' in 'Sagas from the Far East,' by disappearing with the prize.

He further quotes, from 'Myvyrian,' i. 151, 152, 155, that Merlin was so fond of apples that he devoted a poem to their celebration, and declared he had an orchard with 147 apple-trees of the greatest beauty; their shade was as valued as their fruit, and was confided to the care, not of a dragon, but of a fair maiden, with floating hair and teeth like drops of dew.

APPENDIX C. p. 195.

It ought to have been remarked under Note 1, that Abelard's name is spelt Abailard in old French, which brings it nearer the name in the legend.

APPENDIX D. p. 196.

Cardinal Valerio, Bishop of Verona (in his 'De Rhetorica Christiana' cited in Ludovic Lalanne's 'Curiosités des Traditions,' iv. 403-4), has a very ingenious mode, among others, of accounting for the amplification of Legends; he says it was the custom in many monasteries to give the young monks liberty as a sort of exercise and pastime to write variations of the acts of the saints and martyrs, and they exerted their fancy in producing imaginary conversations and incidents of a nature consonant with the original story; that the most ingenious and well-written of these would sometimes be placed among other MSS. in the Library, and would mislead readers in later times.

APPENDIX E. p. 208.

Charles Louandre ('Chefs-d'oeuvre des Conteurs Français,' Paris, 1873) gives an episode out of the 'Voyage d'outremer du Comte de Ponthieu' (a Roman of the thirteenth century), which has curious analogies both with this tale of the Pilgrims, with another Roman story I have in MS., and with that of 'The Irish Princess' in 'Patrañas.' Adèle de Ponthieu was married to Thiébault de Domart. They go a pilgrimage to S. James of Compostella to pray that they may have heirs. Robbers overcome them by the way, bind Thiébault to a tree, and ill-treat Adèle. As soon as she escapes from them Thiébault calls to her to cut his bonds with his sword; she, judging it better that he should die than live to blush for her, attempts to take his life with the same blow which severs the cord; he foresees her intention and circumvents it. He does not divine her motive, but yet makes no allusion to the matter till they return from their pilgrimage, then he puts it as an A and B case to her father; the father decides such a woman should die. She is put into a barrel and cast into the sea; the barrel is picked up by merchants who sell her to the Sultan, and she becomes the mother of the mother of Saladin. Meantime her father and husband cannot rest for love of her, they go to search the world over for her. A shipwreck makes them the property of the Sultan who makes a present of them to Adèle. She, recognising them, pretends to be a Saracen soothsayer, and by revealing her acquaintance with their previous history, like the injured Queen in 'The Pilgrims,' brings them to an expression of penitence and of lasting love for her. She then escapes with them and lives happily with her husband, the Pope prescribing to her a certain penitential rule of life to purge her involuntary infidelity.

APPENDIX F. p. 392.

The centenarian Guillaume Boucher (1506-1606) gives in his 'Sérées' a French story (called 'The Fish-bone') of a quack doctor favoured by luck, to whom he gives the name of Messire Grillo. Charles Louandre ('Chefs-d'oeuvre des conteurs Français,' p. 278) points out that doctors hardly ever figure in popular literature before the sixteenth century, though after the Renaissance they became the constant subject of satire; and that thus Molière did little more than collect the jokes at their expense which had been floating during the previous half-century.

NOTES

[1] An hour before the evening Ave.

[2] Professor de Gubernatis (whose work was not published till my collection had long been in progress) fills a far more important place than that of a mere collector of legends. His vast generalisations, indeed, touch less upon the household tales of Italy than those of any other country, and those which he does introduce are entirely from Tuscany and Piedmont. I had not the advantage of seeing either his book on 'Zoological Mythology,' or Mr. Cox's 'Mythology of the Aryan Nations,' till after my MS. was in the printer's hands, and was not able, therefore, to give references in my notes to the places where their interpretation may be found, though each group to which my stories respectively belong has been treated by them. It is a treatment, however, which requires to be studied as a whole, and could hardly be understood under any piecemeal reference.

[3] There are, of course, the older collections of Straparola and Basile, referred to by Mr. Campbell and Professor De Gubernatis, not to speak of those of Boccaccio and Sacchetti; but these were made for quite different purposes than that of supplying Italy's quota to the study of Comparative Mythology. The comparatively recent 'Collection of Sicilian Tales,' by Laura Gonzenbach, mentioned by Professor De Gubernatis, I did not know of, and have not been able to see. Straparola's collection seems, in Rome at least, to have fallen into the oblivion which Mr. Campbell says is its merited lot. At least, not only was it not mentioned to me at any of the depôts where rare books are a spécialité, but my subsequent inquiry for it by name failed to produce a copy.

[4] I gave a translation of one of them, containing legendary details of the 'Flight into Egypt,' together with some verses of a Spanish version of the same, in a paper on 'Street Music in Rome,' in the 'Monthly Packet' of December, 1868.

[5] Roman vernacular for a child of either sex.

[6] Whatever Biverde may mean. Possibly bel-verde, such, at least, is the title of Pellicciaio's Madonna with the 'beautiful green' dress, at the Servite Church, Siena. The title may also be compared with 'The Maid of the Bright-Green Kirtle,' in Campbell's 'West Highland Tales.'

[7] This, I am inclined to think, is the case with some published stories, as e.g. the singular medley contained in the third of the 'Tales of the West Highlands,' vol. i.

[8] Except perhaps among the Scotch Highlanders. See Campbell's 'Tales,' Preface to vol. i.

[9] See remarks in Preface to Campbell's 'Tales of the West Highlands,' vol. i. p. c. Dr. Dasent's 'Popular Tales from the Norse,' pp. xliv, xlv, &c.

[10] It has been observed to me that these words furnish a remarkable, because unconscious, parallel to the well-known dictum of Minucius Felix, on the mythical exploits of the old heathen gods and heroes, 'Quæ si facta essent fierent; quia fieri non possunt ideò nec facta sunt.'

[11] ('And they burnt her to death in the public square.')

[12] 'Don't marry or set out on a journey on a Friday or Tuesday;' and under the two heads brought under the rime, any other undertaking is equally proscribed: some servants, for instance, dislike going to a new situation on those days.

[13] In the story of 'Filagranata,' infra, pp. 6 et seq., he is divested in a marked manner of the individuality and importance attaching to his part in the corresponding versions of other countries.

[14] The Rev. Alfred White told me, however, an English story of the sort, picked up from a countryman in Berkshire. The Magpie was one day building her nest so neatly, and whispering to herself after her wont as she laid each straw in its place, 'This upon that, this upon that,' when the Woodpigeon came by. Now the Woodpigeon was young and flighty, and had never learnt how to build a nest; but when she saw how beautifully neat that of the Magpie looked, she thought she would like to learn the art. The busy Magpie willingly accepted the office of teaching her, and began a new one on purpose. Long before she was half through, however, the flighty Woodpigeon sang out, 'That'll doooo!' The Magpie was offended at the interruption, and flew away in dudgeon, and that's why the Woodpigeon always builds such ramshackle nests. Told well; the 'This upon that!' and the 'That'll do!' takes just the sound of the cry of each of the birds named.

[15] This story comes from Palombara.

[16] The expression employed in this place was 'Orca;' as this is a word of most frequent, but somewhat capricious use, I interrupted the narrator to inquire her conception of it. 'Well, it means a species of beast,' she said; 'but you see it must have been a bewitched ('fatata') beast, because the story says it was so rich, and had a palace, and spoke and did all the things you shall hear.' She did not, however, seem to identify it with the evil principle according to its undoubted derivation, nor did she allow either that it had any connexion with 'orso,' a bear, as the narrator of the 'il Vaso di Persa' had expounded it, and indeed as the details of that story required; it will be seen, therefore, that popular fancy invests the monster with various shapes. The story of 'The Pot of Marjoram,' it will be seen, contains one or two incidents in common with this one. The apparently insignificant detail of the little plant--on which, however, both stories rest for a foundation--is noteworthy, the narrator in each instance being most positive that it was the one she had named and no other, and in both cases insisting on showing me the plant, that there might be no mistake about it. (See note to the word 'Persa,' infra, p. 54.)

[17] Filagranata bella bella,
Tira giù le bionde trecce,
Ch' io son nonna vecchiarella.

'Tira giù,' or 'butta giù,' as in the next repetition, mean equally 'throw-down.' 'Biondo' expresses particularly the yellow tint in hair. Bazzarini, 'Ortografia Enciclopedica Universale,' defines it, 'colore tra il giallo e bianco ed è proprio di capelli,' on the authority of Petrarch's use of the word. He has also 'biondeggiante, che biondeggia, che ingiallisce,' turning or tending to yellow; and it is thus the yellow Tiber gets called 'il biondo Tevere.'

[18] 'Portogallo' is now the ordinary word for an orange, and points to the introduction of the fruit from the Portuguese colonies in the sixteenth century. The 'arancia,' 'melarancia,' or 'merangola,' the ungrafted orange-tree, was, however, indigenous in Italy; and the fruit, which has even a finer appearance than the edible orange, is still grown for ornament in Roman gardens.

[19] 'Puzzo,' stink. There is no neutral word in Italian for a smell; you must define a good or a bad smell either as a perfume or a stink.

[20] 'Camminando, camminando, camminando.' This threefold repetition of this verb, according to the tense and person required by the story, I have found used as a sort of sing-song refrain by all the tellers of tales I have had to do with.

[21] 'Vecchiarella,' little old woman.

[22] 'Fata;' ethnologically Fata is the same as 'Fairy,' 'Fée,' &c., &c., and 'fairy' is the only translation; but it will be observed the Italian 'fata' has always different characteristics from the English 'fairy.'

[23] 'Buzzica' is a homely word for a lamp-filler; it probably comes from 'buzzicare,' to move gently or slowly. The narrator used the word because she would, according to local custom, keep her oil in a 'buzzica,' without perceiving that it was most inappropriate for the purpose of the story, which required that the oil should be poured out quickly.

[24] 'Allagato,' inundated. I preserve the word on account of its expressiveness--literally making a lake of the country.

[25] 'Fior di farina.'

[26] As the story was told me the dialogue was broken, and every incident of the journey was made the subject of a separate question and answer; all the furniture in the room also here entered into conversation with the pigeons, brooms being particularly loquacious; but as it became tedious, and by no means added to the poetry of the situation, I condensed it to the dimensions in the text.

[27] 'I tre Melangoli di amore;' melangolo or merangolo, or merangola, an ungrafted orange. See note to 'Filagranata.'

[28] 'Caccia,' though usually translated by 'hunt,' is used for all kinds of sport. Bazzarini says it even includes 'pallone' and other games; but it is in common use for shooting small birds as for hunting quadrupeds.

[29] 'Mora Saracena,' a black Saracen woman; 'mora' is in constant use for a dark-coloured person. Senhor de Saraiva tells me that a so-called 'Mora encantada' figures as one of the favourite personages in Portuguese traditionary tales; but she is less often an actual Moor than a princess held in thrall by Moorish art, to be set free by Christian chivalry. She is often represented as bound at the bottom of a well.

[30] Mia padrona dice che son tanta brutta,
E son tanta bella,
Io rompo la brocca e la brocchetta.

This verse would be hardly comprehensible but that the incident is better explained in the more detailed versions of other countries mentioned in note to the last tale. The ugly 'Mora' sees the reflection of the face of the beautiful maiden who sits in the tree overlooking the fountain, and takes it for her own. See Campbell's Tales of the W. Highlands, pp. 56-7, &c.

[31] Cuoco, cuoco, per chi cucinate,
Pel figlio del rè o per la mora Saracena?
Il cuoco si possa dormentar',
E le vivande si possano bruciar'.

[32] 'Palombelletta,' dear little dove.

[33] 'Spillone,' big pin. This magic use of long pins driven into the head is one of the frequent charges against witches. See numerous instances at various epochs given by Del Rio, 'Disquisitionum Magicarum,' lib. iii. p. 1, 2 iv. s. II., where he mentions among others the cases of two midwives who were convicted in Germany of having destroyed, the one forty, the other innumerable, new-born infants in this manner.

[34] Cuoco! cuoco! di reale cucina
Che faremo della regina?
Tutti posse a dormentar',
E la pranza posse bruciar'.

The words have been clipt in repetition. 'Posse,' in the third line, must be a corruption of 'si pongono,' from the verb 'ponere;' and in the fourth line, of 'si puo,' from the verb 'potere.'