Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/229

 'PRENTICE PILLARS : THE ARCHITECT AND HIS PUPIL.

BY \V. CKOOKE.

In many parts of the world a tale is current which usually assumes two forms. In the first class come the stories of a builder or architect and his pupil. The latter executes some work which surpasses that of his master, who in mortification commits suicide, or through jealousy kills the pupil. In the second group the builder or architect executes a work, and his employer, a King or Raja, orders him to be killed or mutilated in order that he may not bring glory to another employer by executing a work as great or greater than that which he has completed.

Of the first group I have found the following in- tances :

One of the circular windows in the transept of Lincoln Cathedral is said to have been designed by an apprentice. According to one story, the master, in mortification at the superiority of his pupil's work, committed suicide : by another account, in his rage he killed his pupil. Marks of human blood, which can never be washed out, arc said to be visible ; similar tales are told of the 'Prentice Pillar at Roslin Abbey, of the 'Prentice Window at Melrose, and of two rare windows in Rouen Cathedral, in all of which cases the master is said to have killed his apprentice.'^ The classical prototype of these stories is the tale of Talos or Perdix, nephew of Daedalus, who invented the saw, an

^ Notes and Queries, \. (1852), pp. 395-498 ; 5, i. (1874), p. 346; vii. (1877), P- 374-