Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/255

 Rh contest, and leave their only son to the mercy of the angel of death. One is surprised to find this line romantic touch in an old oriental tale. This tale belongs to the cycle of the mediaeval Byzantine epos of Digenis Akritas. At the close of his life he fights death, but unsuccessfully. The fight of man (hero) with Charon is now one the best known themes of modern Greek folk-songs. Many years ago I got a Macedo-Rumanian version from a seller of Turkish Delight in the market of Breslau. In this song, the hero asks in turn his father, mother, brother and sister to take out the snake from his bosom. All refuse except the maid of his love, who pulls out from his bosom, not a snake as he pretended, but a girdle of gold, studded with diamonds. It would be somewhat hazardous to connect with our tale the numerous tales of Death acting as godfather, etc., in fairy tales, or the cheating of Death by the power conferred upon the hero through three wishes granted to him by God (Christ or St. Peter). The connecting links must be found first, although there can be no doubt as to their belonging to one cycle.

Last, not least, we have in No. 4 another peculiar tale from the Bodleian MS., to which I know scarcely any parallels in European literature. Portions of it resemble the cycle of the lost child ultimately found in great honour. The disputation of the crows has a particularly oriental ring about it. German legend tells of the snake asking Charlemagne to deliver judgment (Grimm, Deutsche Sagen II., p. 130); but that is all we find of parallelism in the two tales. In a Rumanian translation of a Turkish (Arabic?) tale called The History of Skinder (a MS. in my possession), we find thus far an absolutely identical parallel with the first half of the Hebrew version. The further development of the tale is different in both versions.

Fortune has now played into my hands another MS., no less remarkable than those two I have been dealing with hitherto. This also is a collection of tales, but written