Page:The folk-tales of the Magyars.djvu/411

 Rh THE ENVIOUS SISTERS. Kriza, v.

Cf. the beginning of the tale "The Three Princesses," in the present volume ^ p. 144. The tale is frequently found in Hungary, also amongst the Germans and Servians.

For cruelty towards the best (generally the youngest), cf. pp. 36, 152, 182 in this collection; Chaucer and Boccacio; Grimm, i. "The Girl without Hands," p. 127, and Notes, p. 378. The Finnish variant tells how there was once a brother and sister, and when the father was dying he said to his son, "Treat your sister well." All went on comfortably until the brother married a girl who was "the devil's wife's daughter," and before long, owing to her slanders, the sister was turned out. The girl then went to the king's castle, and lived there as a beggar. In the spring the king's son went to sow his field, and said: "Who first eats of these peas, she shall be my wife." This he said in a joke to the others. But the girl was there, behind the fence, and she heard and remembered it all. Summer came the peas were ripe. Then the girl dug a hole under the fence, and went and eat some peas. Suddenly the king's son remembered his pea-field, and thought, "I will go and see how the peas are getting on. He went and saw some one had been eating them, and so he watched for some time, and lo! a girl came cautiously through a hole and began to eat the peas. The king's son seized her and carried her home in a sheet. Then he dressed her in a royal dress, and made her ready to be his wife, as a king's bride ought to be. They lived together till the king's son made his wife pregnant, then he was obliged to go to the war, and he said to his wife, "If you have a boy send me a letter, and I will come back: if it is a girl, send me a letter, and I will come back when I can." Well! the wife had a son. She sent a letter asking her husband to come home at once, and sent a slave with it. The slave went to spend the night in the girl's home. When he had been there a little time the mistress said, "Would you like to sleep here?" "Yes," answered the messenger, and began to bathe; but the devil's daughter, in the meantime, opened his bag and changed the letter's