Page:The Grateful Dead.djvu/113

Rh relationship of the theme may be deferred to a later chapter.

Lithuanian II. is a characteristic specimen of the class of tales just referred to. A prince, while travelling, sees a corpse gnawed by swine in a street. He pays the man's creditors for his release and has the body buried. Later, on the same journey, he buys two maidens, one of whom is a king's daughter, and takes them home. After a year he goes on a second journey with the princess's picture for a figure-head on his ship, and a ring, which she has given him. The picture is recognized by the maiden's father, and the prince is sent back in the company of certain nobles to fetch her. While they are returning to her home with the princess, one of the nobles pushes the prince overboard. He lives on an island for two years, until a man comes to him and promises to bring him to court before the princess marries the traitor, on condition of receiving his first-born son. The agreement is made, and the prince wins his bride. After a son has been born to them, the man appears and demands the child. He is put off for fifteen years, and at the end of that time explains that he is the ghost of the rescued dead man.

All the traits of the compound type, as it has already been analyzed, are here apparent, save that the sacrifice of the child is substituted for that of the wife. The variant does not demand any further comment.

We come now to the various forms of Jean de Calais, which make up a little group by themselves. The ten examples of the story that I have been able to find differ from one another sufficiently to make separate analyses of most of them necessary.

The version by Mme. de Gomez (I.) runs as follows: Jean, the son of a rich merchant at Calais, while on a journey, comes to the city of Palmanie on the island of