Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/389

Rh disguise, told her the story of the wager. The wife set herself to find the toll-keeper, and, with the help of one of her travelling companions, succeeded and had him called before the Court. There the toll-keeper had to confess his deceit, and was condemned to the gallows, while his possessions were given to the merchant and his wife.

The second tale is from Serbia, and is very similar to the first one, and I have taken it from the manuscript collection of Serbian tales by Dr. Tihomir Gjorgjevic. The hero of this tale is a Turk. One day a Serbian merchant reproached him with the infidelity of his wife, and offers him a wager on this matter. If the merchant—thus runs the wager—brings convincing proof of the wife's infidelity, the Turk is to give him all his possessions, and moreover to become his slave for life. The ruse employed by the would-be lover is the same in this story as in the last, and again it is a woman, a Greek by birth, who renders him assistance. The device by which the Greek contrives to have the chest placed in the wife's bed-chamber is, however, slightly different. Leaving the chest, the merchant did not attempt to touch the sleeping wife, but took three strings of pearls and perceived that the wife had a mole on her leg. On the merchant's return these proofs sufficed to convince the Turk. He gave all his goods to the merchant and became his slave.

Three years later the wife, who had become anxious through hearing no news from her husband during all this time, garbed herself like a merchant and set out in search of her husband, accompanied by an Arab giant. Eventually she found both her husband and the merchant. The matter was not brought before the Court, but arranged by means of a new wager between the wife and the merchant concerning the draining of a barrel of wine. The stake for this wager was the same as in the former case. The loser was to forfeit his possessions to the winner and become his slave for life. Needless to say the wife won the wager. The head of the merchant was struck off.