Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/307

Rh 'O Hálim, there remaineth to me no one but thee, except God, and I as long as I live would not cease to hold thy soul in my embrace; and if I do not take care of thy soul and put it in the midst of my eye how can I live after thee? If I knew thy soul I would take care of it, as of my right eye.' And thereupon he said to me, 'When I was born the astrologers declared that the destruction of my soul would be effected by the hand of one of the sons of the human kings. I therefore took my soul and put it into the crop of a sparrow, and I imprisoned the sparrow in a little box, and put this into another small box, and this I put within seven chests, and the chests I put into a copper of marble within the verge of this circumambient ocean; for this part is remote from the countries of mankind, and none of mankind can gain access to it. Now I have told thee, and tell not thou any one of this, for it is a secret between me and thee.'" By the aid of Suleyman's seal-ring Seyf-el-Mulook raised the coffer, and, taking forth the sparrow from the little box, strangles it and it dies, the body of the Jinni falling upon the ground a heap of black ashes. In some tales not included by Galland or Lane, which Mr. Kirby of the British Museum has translated and edited under the title of the New Arabian Nights, we have a variant of the above under the title of "Joadar of Cairo and Mahmood of Tunnis." Joadar is bent on the release of his enchanted betrothed, and this he achieves by also strangling a sparrow, the ogre of the story being simultaneously dissolved into a heap of ashes.

But the most venerable illustration of the leading idea in the Punchkin group is found, although in more subtle form, in the Egyptian tale of "The Two Brothers." This is contained in the papyrus known as the d'Orbiney, first described by the Vicomte de Rougé, and supposed to be of the fourteenth century B. C. Summaries of this are given by Mr. Goodwin in Cambridge Essays for 1858, and by Professor Mahaffy in his Prolegomena to Ancient History, pp. 331 ff. These summaries must, for the present purpose, be epitomised. There were two brothers, Anepou and Satou, joined as one in love and labour. One day Satou was sent to fetch seed-corn from Anepou's house, when he found his brother's wife adorning her hair. She urged him to stay with her, but he refused, promising however to keep her