Page:More English Fairy Tales.djvu/275

 No. xxx., at beginning of the twelfth century, among the Fabliaux, and in Bebel, Werke, iii., 71, whence probably it was reintroduced into England. See Prof. Crane's note ad loc.

Remarks.—Almost all Alfonsi's exempla are from the East. It is characteristic that the German version finishes up with a loss of honour, the English climax being loss of fortune.

LXXVIII. PUDDOCK, MOUSIE AND RATTON.

Source.—Kirkpatrick Sharpe's Ballad Book, 1824, slightly anglicised.

Parallels.—Mr. Bullen, in his Lyrics from Elizabethan Song Books, p. 202, gives a version "The Marriage of the Frog and the Mouse" from T. Ravenscroft's Melismata, 1611. The nursery rhyme of the frog who would a-wooing go is clearly a variant of this, and has thus a sure pedigree of three hundred years; cf. "Frog husband" in my List of Incidents, or notes to "The Well of the World's End" (No. xli.).

LXXIX. LITTLE BULL-CALF.

Source.—Gypsy Lore Journal, iii., one of a number of tales told "In a Tent" to Mr. John Sampson. I have re-spelt and euphemised the bladder.

Parallels.—The Perseus and Andromeda incident is frequent in folk tales; see my List of Incidents sub voce "Fight with Dragon." "Cheese squeezing," as a test of prowess, is also common, as in "Jack the Giant Killer" and elsewhere (Köhler, Jahrbuch, vii. 252).

LXXX. THE WEE WEE MANNIE.

Source.—From Mrs. Balfour's old nurse. I have again anglicised.

Parallels.—This is one of the class of accumulative stories like the Old Woman who led her Pig to Market (No. v.). The class is well represented in these isles.

LXXXI. HABETROT AND SCANTLIE MAB.

Source—Henderson's Folk-Lore of Northern Counties, pp. 258-62 of Folk-Lore Society's edition. I have abridged and to some extent re-written.

Parallels.—This in its early part is a parallel to the "Tom Tit