Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/234

 226 chooses the gardener, much to her father's displeasure; and the lovers are wedded and banished from the palace. The hero, however, finds his opportunity when his father-in-law goes to war. Given contemptuously an old hack and a rusty sword, he mounts his mule, hurries after the army, and, thrice defeating the enemy, he single-handed compels peace. Upon certain terms which will enable him afterwards to prove his case he temporarily yields the spoils and glory to his brothers-in-law, the husbands of his wife's sisters, who insult him and wound him in the leg. On his recovery he holds a feast, where he discloses himself in all his proper splendour, claims and proves to be the real victor, and puts his brothers-in-law to open shame.

A Greek variant narrated by Von Hahn approaches more closely in its opening to the true Teacher and his Scholar type. The hero and a colt are born in consequence of his father and mother having eaten an apple given them by an ogre and fed a mare with the rind. The monster has previously bargained for the issue, and he fetches the hero accordingly to his fastness. In this castle the rooms are forty-one in number; and the hero finds the key of the forty-first room and enters it while his master sleeps. Inside are two puddles: one of silver and the other of gold; and his curiosity is discovered by his having dipped his finger in the latter. The ogre in his rage dips the boy entirely into the puddle, and he emerges all gilded. The hero afterwards flies on his horse; and his former master, unable to overtake him, counsels him to shake the bones out of an old man whom he will meet, and dress himself in his skin. He follows this advice, and takes service with a king who is the father of three daughters. The youngest, of course, catches a glimpse of his real nature, and chooses him as her husband. He procures a remedy for the king, who is smitten with blindness; and afterwards in war defeats the enemy, with a conclusion similar in general terms to that of the previous story.

The mongrel inhabitants of Zanzibar tell a story of a boy whose birth was the result of a bargain similar to that in the foregoing variant. The demon, whose medicine proves so powerful, takes one