Page:The folk-tales of the Magyars.djvu/391

 Rh corn kiln. The kiln began to burn, and I to extinguish it. In the heat my horse began to melt, my saddle to roast, and the village's illegitimate children to eat it up. I began to drive them away, but the dogs were set at me; and when I began to whip them, they bit my whip to pieces. So all my things were destroyed, and poor me fell down. Perhaps I shall never be well again, it was so long." Compare this characteristic ending with that of the Magyar tales.

In the Finnish "Ei-niin-mitä" (Just nothing), S. ja T. ii. 53, a man catches a swan-maiden of great beauty. The king, so soon as ho hears of her, determines to have her for his son, and the courtiers advise him to make the man procure—1st, "A table, on which is painted the moon and stars;" this his wife gets her husband while he is asleep; 2nd, "he was to go nowhere and fetch nothing." His wife again helps him, by sending him to a house where an old woman summons all her servants (Cf. "Fairy Elizabeth," p. 106). This time it is a frog who takes the man, and he at length comes to a palace; and as he paces the floor at night, he mutters to himself, "Just nothing." "Beg your pardon," says a voice; and he finds that he has an invisible companion, who obeys all his commands, and answers to the name of "Just Nothing." When he returns to the king, he finds they are just celebrating the wedding of the king's son with his own wife, who does not recognise him till he drops a ring into the empty goblet out of which he has drunk the corn brandy the bride had given him. By his new powers he soon upsets the bad king and his host, and then all is joy and happiness. Cf. Musaeus, Volksmärchen der Deutschen von J. L. Klee. Leipzig, 1842. "Der geraubte Schleier"; Walachische Märchen von A. und A. Schott. Stuttgart, 1845. "Der verstossene Sohn." Weil, Tausend und eine Nacht,vo.iv. "Geschichte des Prinzen Ojanschach;" ''Irische Elfenmärchen, von Grimm. Leipzig'', 1826. "Die Flasche."