English Fairy Tales Part 26

_Parallels_.--This is the _Hans im Gluck_ of Grimm (No. 83). _Cf._ too, "Lazy Jack," _infra_, No. xxvii. Other variants are given by M. Cosquin, _Contes pop. de Lorraine_, i. 241. On surprising robbers, see preceding tale.

_Remarks_.--In some of the variants the door is carried, because Mr.

Vinegar, or his equivalent, has been told to "mind the door," or he acts on the principle "he that is master of the door is master of the house." In other stories he makes the foolish exchanges to the entire satisfaction of his wife. (_Cf._ Cosquin, i. 156-7.)

VII. NIX NOUGHT NOTHING.

_Source_.--From a Scotch tale, "Nicht Nought Nothing," collected by Mr.

Andrew Lang in Morayshire, published by him first in _Revue Celtique_, t. iii; then in his _Custom and Myth_, p. 89; and again in _Folk-Lore_, Sept. 1890. I have changed the name so as to retain the _equivoque_ of the giant's reply to the King. I have also inserted the incidents of the flight, the usual ones in tales of this type, and expanded the conclusion, which is very curtailed and confused in the original. The usual ending of tales of this cla.s.s contains the "sale of bed" incident, for which see Child, i. 391.

_Parallels_.--Mr. Lang, in the essay "A Far-travelled Tale" in which he gives the story, mentions several variants of it, including the cla.s.sical myth of Jason and Medea. A fuller study in Cosquin, _l.c._, ii. 12-28. For the finger ladder, see Kohler, in _Orient and Occident_, ii. III.

VIII. JACK HANNAFORD.

_Source_.--Henderson's _Folk-Lore of Northern Counties_ (first edition), p. 319. Communicated by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould.

_Parallels_.--"Pilgrims from Paradise" are enumerated in Clouston's _Book of Noodles_, pp. 205, 214-8. See also Cosquin, _l.c._, i. 239.

IX. BINNORIE.

_Source_.--From the ballad of the "Twa Sisters o' Binnorie." I have used the longer version in Roberts's _Legendary Ballads_, with one or two touches from Mr. Allingham's shorter and more powerful variant in _The Ballad Book_. A tale is the better for length, a ballad for its curtness.

_Parallels_.--The story is clearly that of Grimm's "Singing Bone" (No.

28), where one brother slays the other and buries him under a bush.

Years after a shepherd pa.s.sing by finds a bone under the bush, and, blowing through this, hears the bone denounce the murderer. For numerous variants in Ballads and Folk Tales, see Prof. Child's _English and Scotch Ballads_ (ed. 1886), i. 125, 493; iii. 499.

X. MOUSE AND MOUSER.

_Source_.--From memory by Mrs. E. Burne-Jones.

_Parallels_.--A fragment is given in Halliwell, 43; Chambers's _Popular Rhymes_ has a Scotch version, "The Cattie sits in the Kilnring spinning"

(p. 53). The surprise at the end, similar to that in Perrault's "Red Riding Hood," is a frequent device in English folk tales. (_Cf. infra_, Nos. xii., xxiv., xxix., x.x.xiii., xli.)

XI. CAP O' RUSHES.

_Source_.--Discovered by Mr. E. Clodd, in "Suffolk Notes and Queries" of the _Ipswich Journal_, published by Mr. Lang in _Longinan's Magazine_, vol. xiii, also in _Folk-Lore_, Sept. 1890.

_Parallels_.--The beginning recalls "King Lear." For "loving like salt,"

see the parallels collected by Cosquin, i. 288. The whole story is a version of the numerous cla.s.s of Cinderella stories, the particular variety being the Catskin sub-species a.n.a.logous to Perrault's _Peau d'Ane_. "Catskin" was told by Mr. Burch.e.l.l to the young Primroses in "The Vicar of Wakefield,'" and has been elaborately studied by the late H. C. Coote, in _Folk-Lore Record_, iii. 1-25. It is only now extant in ballad form, of which "Cap o' Rushes" may be regarded as a prose version.

XII. TEENY-TINY.

_Source_.--Halliwell, 148.

XIII. JACK AND THE BEANSTALK.

_Source_.--I tell this as it was told me in Australia, somewhere about the year 1860.

_Parallels_.--There is a chap-book version which is very poor; it is given by Mr. E. S. Hartland, _English Folk and Fairy Tales_ (Camelot Series), p. 35, _seq._ In this, when Jack arrives at the top of the Beanstalk, he is met by a fairy, who gravely informs him that the ogre had stolen all his possessions from Jack's father. The object of this was to prevent the tale becoming an encouragement to theft! I have had greater confidence in my young friends, and have deleted the fairy who did not exist in the tale as told to me. For the Beanstalk elsewhere, see Ralston, _Russian Folk Tales_, 293-8. Cosquin has some remarks on magical ascents (i. 14).

XIV. THREE LITTLE PIGS.

_Source_.--Halliwell, p. 16.

_Parallels_.--The only known parallels are one from Venice, Bernoni, _Trad. Pop._, punt. iii. p. 65, given in Crane, _Italian Popular Tales_, p. 267, "The Three Goslings;" and a negro tale in _Lippincott's Magazine_, December, 1877, p. 753 ("Tiny Pig").

_Remarks_.--As little pigs do not have hair on their chinny chin-chins, I suspect that they were originally kids, who have. This would bring the tale close to the Grimms' "Wolf and Seven Little Kids," (No. 5).

In Steel and Temple's "Lambikin" (_Wide-awake Stories_, p. 71), the Lambikin gets inside a Drumikin, and so nearly escapes the jackal.

XV. MASTER AND PUPIL

_Source_.--Henderson, _Folk-Lore of Northern Counties_, first edition, p. 343, communicated by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould. The rhymes on the open book have been supplied by Mr. Batten, in whose family, if I understand him rightly, they have been long used for raising the----; something similar occurs in Halliwell, p. 243, as a riddle rhyme. The mystic signs in Greek are a familiar "counting-out rhyme": these have been studied in a monograph by Mr. H. C. Bolton; he thinks they are "survivals" of incantations. Under the circ.u.mstances, it would be perhaps as well if the reader did not read the lines out when alone. One never knows what may happen.

_Parallels_.--Sorcerers' pupils seem to be generally selected for their stupidity--in folk-tales. Friar Bacon was defrauded of his labour in producing the Brazen Head in a similar way. In one of the legends about Virgil he summoned a number of demons, who would have torn him to pieces if he had not set them at work (J. S. Tunison, _Master Virgil_, Cincinnati, 1888, p. 30).

XVI. TATTY MOUSE AND TATTY MOUSE.

_Source_.--Halliwell, p. 115.

_Parallels_.--This curious droll is extremely widespread; references are given in Cosquin, i. 204 _seq._, and Crane, _Italian Popular Tales_, 375-6. As a specimen I may indicate what is implied throughout these notes by such bibliographical references by drawing up a list of the variants of this tale noticed by these two authorities, adding one or two lately printed. Various versions have been discovered in:

ENGLAND: Halliwell, _Nursery Rhymes_, p. 115.

SCOTLAND: K. Blind, in _Arch. Rev_. iii. ("Fleakin and Lousikin," in the Shetlands).

FRANCE: _Melusine_, 1877, col. 424; Sebillot, _Contes pop. de la Haute Bretagne_, No. 55, _Litterature orale_, p. 232; _Magasin picturesque_, 1869, p. 82; Cosquin, _Contes pop. de Lorraine_, Nos. 18 and 74.

ITALY: Pitre, _Novelline popolari siciliane_, No. 134 (translated in Crane, _Ital. Pop. Tales_, p. 257); Imbriani, _La novellaja Fiorentina_, p. 244; Bernoni, _Tradizione popolari veneziane_, punt. iii. p. 81; Gianandrea, _Biblioteca delle tradizioni popolari marchigiane_, p.,11; Papanti, _Novelline popolari livornesi_, p. 19 ("Vezzino e Madonna Salciccia"); Finamore, _Trad. pop. abruzzesi_, p. 244; Morosi, _Studi sui Dialetti Greci della Terra d'Otranto_, p. 75; _Giamb. Basile_, 1884, p. 37.

GERMANY: Grimm, _Kinder-und Hausmarchen_, No. 30; Kuhn and Schwarz, _Norddeutsche Sagen_, No. 16.