Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/198

190 with his hand, and struck the earthenware vessel with it, and broke it, whereupon the oil and honey ran down on his head as he slept. So all his plans came to nought, and he was confounded.

In a country called Jurjān was an ascetic who had a wife of beautiful appearance, and whom he loved very much. She bore him a son of beautiful appearance and comely form. Now this son was born to them after they had despaired of offspring for a long time, and he remained continually with him. One day his wife said to him: "I am going upon one of your affairs, so keep a watch over the boy." But, when the woman had gone, a messenger from one of the chiefs of the town came for him, and could not wait. So he left the boy, and departed. Now they had in the house a weasel who used to help them in all their affairs, and did not leave a single mouse in the house without killing him. And he left him with the boy, and went with the messenger. Whereupon there came forth a powerful snake, and sought to kill the boy. And the weasel fought with the snake until he killed him, and bit him into several pieces; and the body of the weasel was stained with the snake's blood. When the ascetic returned from the man who had sent for him, and saw the weasel with his body stained with blood, he thought that the boy had been killed, and without searching into the matter sprang on the weasel and killed him. When he had killed him, he looked and saw, and lo, the boy was alive. And he repented, and was ashamed.

The story of The Traveller and the Goldsmith (p. 204) bears considerable resemblance to Grimm's fine märchen of The Grateful Beasts, and that of the Carpenter's Wife and her Paramour (p. 146), probably the original of a well-known fabliau. When we have noted that the fable of the Two Pigeons (p. 306 ) occurs in almost identical terms in the Arabian Nights, we have well-nigh exhausted the list of correspondences apparent on a cursory perusal; but others will doubtless suggest themselves to the reader.

The style of the Syriac version is, happily, for the most part simple, and free from the wearisome floweriness of Persian narrative, although such phrases as—"inclined to him the shoulder of obedience and displayed the fruits of energy" (p. 2), "fruits seasoned with the salt of truth," "poured out his noble character like gold in the fire of