Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/204

198 they came running up with, "Grandfather, what have you got there?" "That which concerns you not, touch it not," said the grandfather; and he swept his gold into a bag and took it home to his old friend. The grandchildren told what they had seen, and henceforth the children strove who should be kindest to the old grandfather. Still acting on the counsel of his sagacious old chum, he got a stout little black chest made, and carried it always with him. When anyone questioned him as to its contents, his answer was, "That will be known when the chest is opened." When he died he was buried with great honour and ceremony, and then the chest was opened by the expectant heirs. In it were found broken potsherds and bits of slate, and a long-handled white wooden mallet with this legend on its head:

Wright, in his collection of Latin stories, published by the Percy Society (No. xxvi, p. 28), gives a variant of this tale (orally collected in 1862 by Mr. Campbell from the Scottish peasant), and, so far as can be judged by the abstract, the parallel between the two narratives, separated by at least five centuries of time, is remarkably close. The latter part is apparently different, for the Latin version tells how the old man pretended that the chest contained a sum of money, part of which was to be applied for the good of his soul, and the rest to dispose of as he pleased. But at the point of death his children opened the chest. "