Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/225



the story of The Two Friends, given by Miss S. M. Taylor, a great demon rises from a well and draws from his ear a box, out of which he lifts a beautiful maiden. This little piece contains some very interesting parallels to some other folk-tales. In Alif Leilah we Leilah (Macnaghten, vol. i. p. 5) nearly the same tale is given, although the reason for hiding a maiden in a box is more obvious, when we hear that the demon carried her off on the night of her marriage, and is very anxious to preserve his stolen wife for his exclusive enjoyment. It is, however, possible that the Indian story assumed a more innocent character by being told to a lady, just as the same story in the Alif Leilah we Leilah is changed in the same way in the Ceyrout edition of Salhani. Another point in this story is very interesting. The demon draws the box from his ear. Now the ear played a considerable part in metamorphosis in Russian folk-tales. In the story of Ivan Tsaryevich and his horse, Sivka-Boorka, Ivan Tsaryevich dives in one ear of the horse and comes out metamorphosed from the other ear.

A parallel to the third of the four simpleton stories is found in a Russian tale of a stupid boy who met waggoners carrying wheat. He asked for some; but they beat him. He came to his mother and complained of their treatment. The mother said: "You were stupid, my boy. You ought to say:

i.e. I wish you to carry and never to have enough carrying; to carry in carts—and never end it. The boy went and met men carrying on a bier a dead man. Burial in Russia being accom-