Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/261

Rh version is the invisible cap of Indian folk-tales; and in the Polish-Gypsy "Tale of a Wise Young Jew and a Golden Hen," which is closely analogous to "The Grateful Dead," the Jew picks up a beautiful wand, but makes no use of it afterwards.

The division of property, lacking also in the Bohemian, Polish, and Icelandic versions, recurs in Campbell's "The Barra Widow's Son" (No. 32, vol. ii., p. 110). This Gaelic story, replete with Celtic colour, has much closer affinities to Straparola than to Asbjörnsen. Its hero, Iain Mac a Maighstir, in Turkey redeems and buries the corpse of a debtor which two Turks are thrashing with iron flails; he also redeems the King of Spain's daughter, and brings her back to England. She sends him to Spain to reveal her whereabouts to her parents, and they bid him fetch her to them. A great general, a former lover, smuggles himself on board Iain's ship, and on the voyage back from England to Spain deserts him on an island, whereupon the princess goes mad. Iain is rescued from the island by a man in a boat, who asks him if he will give him half his realm, half his wife, and half his children. He returns to Spain; the princess recovers her reason; and the general is "torn amongst horses and burned amongst fires":—

"After the death of the king and queen, Iain was king over Spain. Three sons were born to him. On a night he heard a knocking in the door.

"'The asker is come,' said he.

"Who was there but the very man that took him out of the island.

"'Art thou for keeping thy promise?' said the one who came.

"'I am,' said Iain.

"'Thine own be thy realm, and thy children, and my blessing. Dost thou remember when thou didst pay eight merks for the corpse of a man in Turkey? That was my body. Health be thine; thou wilt see me no more.'"