Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/216

 THE PROVENIENCE OF CERTAIN NEGRO FOLK-TALES.

BY ELSIE CLEWS PARSONS.

II.

The Pass-word.

In the Cape Verde Islands "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" is a true folk- tale—I have called it "The Seven Robbers." Whether the island tale came from Portugal as a folk-tale or as literature I do not know. The evidence as far as it goes is in favour of the second hypothesis. In the Portuguese collections accessible to me I have not found "The Seven Robbers." The literary version of the tale I found known to a Saõ Nicolau Islander in Newport, Rhode Island, and to a Boa Vista friend of his in New Bedford. But whether as a Portuguese or as a Cape Verde Islands folk-tale the following tale is of interest as representing probably the initial variant of a great number of variants of "Ali Baba" in negro folklore.