Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/206

 THE PROVENIENCE OF CERTAIN NEGRO FOLK-TALES.

IV.

Missing Tongues.

One of the best known tales of the Hispanic Peninsula is the tale of the disproof of the false claim to the rescue of the princess from the dragon by means of the tongues or tongue tips which the true rescuer had preserved. The tale is often found in the Peninsula and elsewhere in Europe imbedded in the tale generally known as "The Two Brothers." Among the Cape Verde Islanders in New England I have found the tale both associated with that of "The Two Brothers" and independently narrated. Of the latter form of presentation is the following tale which I heard in Newport, Rhode Island.

There was a city where a king lived. In this city was a well whose water came from a place where lived seven robbers. Every household that wanted water had to give them a person. Now there were no more households to give a person but the king's. In this city was a man named Jõa Porcero. He was the herd of all the pigs in the city, and he was so used to being with pigs, he looked like a pig. There was a boy so knowing that, in all the colleges of