Page:English Fairy Tales.djvu/281

 Rh of Europe a number of tales relating to the feud between the Fox and the Bear (or Wolf). These stories were worked up by a mediæval artist into the Beast Epic known as Reynard the Fox. It is probable therefore that "Scrapefoot," the original of Southey's "Three Bears," is a survival of the English form of the Beast Epic. Altogether Southey's tale affords an extremely interesting example of the modifications which a story of this kind can undergo. As we have seen above, it has already been developed from its original form in Southey's book by popular tale writers who correspond nowadays to the bards of earlier times. And from the discovery of "Scrapefoot" we learn that Southey changed the fox (or vixen) of the original into an old woman, and thus disguised its representative character as the last survival of the Reynard cycle in English folk-tradition.

XIX. JACK THE GIANT-KILLER

Source.—From two chap-books at the British Museum (London, 1805; Paisley, 1814?). I have taken some hints from "Felix Summerly's" (Sir Henry Cole's) version, 1845, From the latter part, I have removed the incident of the Giant dragging the lady along by her hair.

Parallels.—The chap-book of "Jack the Giant-Killer" is a curious jumble. The second part, as in most chap-books, is a weak and late invention of the enemy, and is not volkstümlich at all. The first part is compounded of a comic and a serious theme. The first is that of the Valiant Taylor (Grimm, No. 20); to this belong the incidents of the fleabite blows (for variants of which see Köhler in Jahrb. rom. eng. Phil., viii., 252) and that of the slit paunch (cf. Cosquin, l. c. ii., 51). The Thankful Dead episode, where the hero is assisted by the soul of a person whom he has caused to be buried, is found as early as the Cento novelle antiche; and Straparola, xi., 2. It has been best studied by Köhler in Germania, iii., 199-209 (cf. Cosquin, i., 214-5; ii., 14 and note; and Crane, Ital. Pop. Tales, 350, note 12). It occurs