Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/299

 this form of the story the incident of the frog in the pot is omitted, and the other incidents are considerably altered. Instead of the king's treasure we find a magic gem, on which the prosperity of the country depends; it is not stolen but lost by the king's daughter. Instead of the horse we have the cure of a sick Khan who had been driven mad by evil spirits. The folly of the man who represents the Brahman consists in his choosing worthless presents for his reward. (The story is the IVth in Sagas from the Far East.) Benfey considers the fullest form of the story to be that in Schleicher's Lithuanian Legends. In this form of the story we have the stealing of the horse. In other points it resembles the Mongolian version. The Brahman is represented by a poor cottager, who puts up over his door a notice saying that he is a Doctor, who knows everything and can do everything. The third exploit of the cottager is the find ing of a stolen treasure which is the second in the Indian story, but his second is a miraculous cure which is in accordance with the Siddikür. The latter is probably a late work; and we may presume that the Mongols brought the Indian story to Europe, in a form resembling that in the Kathá Sarit Ságara more nearly than the form in the Siddikür does. In the third exploit of the cottager in the Lithuanian talc, which coi responds to the second in the Indian, the treasure has been stolen by three servants. They listen outside while the Doctor is alone in his room. When the clock strikes one,—he says, "We have one." When it strikes two, he says—"We have two." When it strikes three, he says,—"We have now three." In their terror they go to the doctor and beg him not to betray them. He is richly rewarded.

But after all, Grimm's form of the tale is nearest to the Sanskrit. The dish with crabs in it, the contents of which the Doctor has to guess, makes him exclaim— " Ach ich armer Krebs." This might almost have been translated from the Sanskrit; it is so similar in form. The guilty servants, who stole the gold are detected by the Doctor's saying to his wife—"Margaret, that is the first"—meaning the first who waited at table, and so on.

The story is also found in the Facetiæ of Henricus Bebelius, 1506. Here a poor charcoal-burner represents the Brahman. He asks three days to consider. The king gives him a good dinner, and while the first thief is standing at the window, he exclaims " Jam unus accessit" meaning " one day is at an end." The next day the second thief comes to listen. The charcoal-burner exclaims " Secundus accessit" and so with the third, whereupon they all confess.

Benfey conceives himself to have found the incident of the horse in Poggii Facotiæ (LXXXVI ed. Cracov. 1592, p. 59). Here a doctor boasts a wonder-working pill. A man who has lost his ass takes one of these pills. It conducts him to a bed of reeds where he finds his ass. (The article from which I have taken those parallels is found in Benfey 's Orient und Occident, Vol. I, p. 371 and ff.)