Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/513

 Rh Soaring Lark, &c.) We will only cite two memorable examples, Duschmanta forgets Sacontala, and Sigurd, Brunhild. See The Servant, in the Pentamerone (3. 6).

68.—.

From Münster. There is a variant from Vienna. A master-wizard tries to find a youth to assist him who can neither read nor write. He asks one whom he meets, "Canst thou read and write?" "Yes," answers the youth. The wizard says, "If thou canst read and write thou wilt be of no use to me." "Oh, you are speaking of reading and writing!" says the youth. "I misunderstood you; I thought you were asking if I could scream and eat; and both these things 1 understand thoroughly, but of reading and writing I know nothing. The master-wizard thinks, "He will suit me," and, as he likes him in other respects, he takes him. The youth, however, was quick-witted, and knew very well how to read and write, and was only pretending to be stupid. So he remamed some time in service, and lent a hand in the wizard's work, but whenever he was out of the way or gone out, the boy secretly read the books of magic and learnt by heart the formulas and rules. This continued until one day the master found him reading one of the books, and saw what had happened. "Wait," cries he; "thou shalt not escape me!" The boy hastily utters a powerful spell, becomes a bird, and flies away. The master as swiftly changes himself into a bird of prey and pursues him. The narrator had forgotten the series of metamorphoses which now followed, but the sequel was that the youth proved cleverer than the master, and whilst the latter was lying before him in the form of a grain of corn, the youth took that of a cock, and swallowed him, by which the magician was lost and annihilated.

There is another form of the tradition in Müllenhoff, No. 27, and in Pröhle's Märchen für die Jugend, No. 26. Incontestably the finest is the story in Straparola, 8, 5, in the complete edition (see further on); but the Danish in Etlar, p. 36, is also very good. In Polish see the Danish collection in Molbech, No. 66, p. 66, and Lewestam, p. 110. In Wallachian, The Devil and his Pupil, Schott, No. 18. In Servian, see Wuk, No. 6. The similar, though not identical, transformations of the two magicians in the well-known story in the Thousand and One Nights (1, 385, 386), should be remarked. It likewise occurs that one of the magicians changes himself into a pomegranate, the seeds of which the other, who is in the form of a cock, tears out; hut, as he has overlooked one seed, the metamorphoses continue. Others are to be found in the stories No. 56, 76, 79, and also in the Welsh saga of Ceridwen (Mone, 2. 521.) in which at last a hen devours the seed. Lastly, in Simplicissimus (p. 212,