Celtic Fairy Tales Part 35

_Parallels_.--"The Lad with the Skin Coverings" is a popular Celtic figure, _cf._ MacDougall's Third Tale, MacInnes' Second, and a reference in Campbell, iii. 147. According to Mr. Nutt (_Holy Grail_, 134), he is the original of Parzival. But the adventures in these tales are not the "cure by laughing" incident which forms the centre of our tale, and is Indo-European in extent (_cf._ references in _English Fairy Tales_, notes to No. xxvii.). "The smith who made h.e.l.l too hot for him is Sisyphus," says Mr. Lang (Introd. to Grimm, p. xiii.); in Ireland he is Billy Dawson (Carleton, _Three Wishes_). In the Finn-Saga, Conan harries h.e.l.l, as readers of _Waverley_ may remember "'Claw for claw, and devil take the shortest nails,' as Conan said to the Devil" (_cf._ Campbell, _The Fians_, 73, and notes, 283).

Red-haired men in Ireland and elsewhere are always rogues (see Mr.

Nutt's references, MacInnes' _Tales_, 477; to which add the case in "Lough Neagh," Yeats, _Irish Folk-Tales_, p. 210).