VI.—Contes des Fées.

Under this head, we include all those legends which do not readily fall under our other denominations. Fée and fairy are not synonymous. All such tales as those of the “Arabian Nights” might come within the designation of Contes des Fées, but they could hardly be included under Fairy Tales, though the former may be said to embrace the latter. We have divided our legends of this kind into two sections:—(A) Those which have a greater or less similarity to Keltic legends, as recorded in Campbell’s “Tales of the West Highlands,” and elsewhere; (B) Those which we believe to be derived directly from the French.

It may be, perhaps, as well to mention that we did not see Campbell’s “Tales of the West Highlands” till after these legends had been written down.

(A.)—Tales like the Keltic.

The Fisherman and His Sons.

“Spare my life! Spare my life! I will give you all that you shall desire.”

And this poor man spared its life, and went home without having caught anything else. When he came home his wife asks him:

“Where are your fish?”

He tells her how that he had caught a fish, and that it had begged him to spare its life, and that he had left it in the water. His wife says to him:

“Have you lost your head then? After having caught a fish to put it back again into the water!”

And she called him all sorts of names, even “big donkey.”

The next day he goes fishing again, and (what a chance!) the same fish came again. It asks him again to spare its life. But the man answers:

“No! My wife loaded me with abuse last evening.”

The fish said to him that he would give him as much money as he wished if he would but spare him. And our fisherman lets him go again. He remains there again all day, but nothing comes to his hook. Again he goes off home without anything at all. His wife is furious at seeing that he has nothing. He gives her some money, but she was not satisfied, and told her husband that he ought to have brought the fish.

He goes fishing again for the third time, and again the same fish returns, and says to him, “Let me go into the water.”

But our man will not let him go again; his wife had scolded him so much last night. He must carry him home.

“Well, then, since you will carry me home, I will tell you how you must divide me. You must give my tail to the dog, my head to the mare, and my trunk to your wife. At the end of a certain time your wife will bear three sons, and they will all be exactly like each other, exactly alike. The mare will have three colts, but all three alike, and the bitch three puppies, all exactly alike too. And if any misfortune should happen to any of the three children, the well which is behind the house will begin to boil.”

The woman did as the fish had said, and she gave birth to three wonderfully fine boys, who were all exactly, exactly alike, and the mare had three colts exactly alike, and the bitch three puppies exactly alike too.

Our young man takes his horse, his dog, and his sword, and starts off before the princess. He keeps himself hidden until the princess was alone at the top. Then our lad comes out, and the princess says to him:

“Where do you come from here? Go down quickly, else you will be eaten as well as I. It is quite enough for one (to die).”

And she entreats him to go down, but our lad will not. He wishes to try if he can do anything. At the same moment they hear a shrill hissing, and with that the serpent comes. The lad says to the dog:

“Do your duty.”

And the dog leaps upon the serpent and holds him. He takes his sword and cuts off his seven heads as best he can. When he has done that he takes the seven tongues out of the seven heads and puts them in his pocket. This princess had on seven robes, each more beautiful than the others, and he cuts seven pieces out of them severally. The princess does not know what to do to thank him. She wishes to take the lad home with her, but he will not go. And he returns to the inn.

He asks his wife:

“What is that?”

His wife says to him:

The husband said to her that he must go there. His wife did not wish it, but he had such a desire to do so that he takes his horse, his dog, and his sword, and goes off. He looks round and round (the castle), but he cannot find the door. At last he finds a little door half hidden, very small. He knocks. An old woman comes to him, and asks him what he wants.

He says, “I have seen this castle so beautiful outside, that I am anxious to see the inside.”

She shows him in. He sees a table splendidly laid out. There was nothing that there was not on the table. This woman invites him to take something. He says that he does not want anything, but she insists so much that he ends by taking something. As soon as he has eaten the first mouthful he becomes a terrible monster, and by no means could he get out of that house.

“You do not know what takes place there! They who go there never return.”

He says that he will start off directly. His wife asks him if he will return to that castle as before. “Do not go, I pray you.”

But nothing could have stopped him, and off he goes with his horse and his dog. Like the other brother, he goes wandering round and round the house without finding the door. At last he sees a very little door half hidden. He knocks at it, and the old woman comes and says to him:

“What do you want?”

“I have seen the outside of this castle, and I wish to see the inside.”

She tells him to come in. He leaves his horse and his dog outside, and he sees a table splendidly set out; one could not mention anything that was wanting, there was something of everything. She tells him to eat something. He did not wish to, but at last he takes something, (so little, that it was) almost nothing. At the first mouthful he becomes a terrible monster, and cannot in any way get out.

The water at home begins to boil, and they know that some misfortune has happened to him.

The third brother said that he must set out as quickly as possible. The parents did not wish it, but he said to them:

“Perhaps I shall save them; let me go.”

They give him as much money as they can. He takes a horse and a dog, and off he starts. He goes on, and on, and on. He also goes to the same inn as his other brothers. He is recognised immediately, and the king is informed that this young gentleman is there. He sends to fetch him immediately, and makes great feastings and rejoicings, thinking that it is always the same as their first young gentleman. In the evening he is conducted to the princess. The princess kneels down to say her evening prayers, and her husband, wishing to see a little more of the festival, placed himself at the window. He also sees the beautiful castle. He asks his wife:

“What is this beautiful house?”

She says to him, “What! You! Do not you know what it is? No one returns from there. You know yourself what happens there, since you have been there yourself.”

He said to her, “I must go and see it again.”

The princess would not let him go; but he broke away from her. He takes his horse and his dog, and starts off. He looks, and looks all round, and cannot find the door. An old woman appears to him, and says to him—

“What do you think will become of you here? They who go in there do not come out.”

“But that is why I wish to go in, to know what passes within.”

Then the old woman gives him a pigeon, cooked and prepared for eating, and said to him,

“Inside there is an old woman. She will try and force you to eat; but, if you are wise, you will not eat. You will show her the pigeon that you have in your pocket which remains after your repast, and you must make her eat some of the pigeon, and you will have full power over her.”

When he has found the door, he knocks. This old woman comes, and asks him what he wants. He says that he only wishes to see this house. She lets him in. He takes his dog, also, with him. He sees this splendid table. She wishes absolutely to make him eat; but he says that it is altogether impossible—that he has in his pocket a pigeon which he has not been able to eat, and that she must eat some of that. The old woman says she will not. He compels her, and tells her she must; and at last she eats it. He then asks her what she has done with his brothers. She says that she knows nothing about them; that she does not know what he means. He forces her to tell him, and says to her,

“I will make my dog strangle you if you do not tell me.”

He frightens her so, that she shows him some terrible monsters. He tells her to restore them as they were before, otherwise some misfortune shall happen to her, and to mind what she is about. At last she set to work to change them as they were before, and their horses and dogs as well.

They all go to the king’s palace, where everyone is immensely astonished to see three gentlemen arrive exactly alike in all respects. They ask the princess which is her husband. But the poor young lady is greatly embarrassed. She could not distinguish them, because they were exactly alike. At last he who had killed the serpent said that he was her husband. They make great rejoicings, and give a great deal of money to the two brothers, and to their parents, and they went off. They burnt the old woman in the midst of the market-place, and this handsome castle was given to the newly-married pair, and they lived happily at court; and, as they lived well, so they died happily.

Catherine Elizondo.

All the latter part of this tale is much more detailed than in the Gaelic, and it is singular to read this note from Campbell’s collector:—“The Gaelic is given as nearly as possible in the words used by Mackenzie; but he thinks his story rather shortened.” Of the identity of the two stories there can be no doubt, although each supplies what is wanting to the other.

Mahistruba, the Master Mariner.

Like many others in the world, there was a master mariner. Having had many losses and misfortunes in his life he no longer made any voyages, but every day went down to the seaside for amusement, and every day he met a large serpent, and every day he said to it:

“God has given thy life to thee; live then.”

This master mariner lived upon what his wife and daughter earned by sewing. One day the serpent said to him:

He does as the serpent told him, and the next day he goes down to the shore, and he tells the serpent that he has done as he had told him. The serpent then bids him go and fetch twelve sailors, very strong men, and to double whatever they shall ask. He goes and does what he was told to do. He returns to the serpent and tells him that he has twelve men. The serpent gives him all the money which he needed to pay for the ship. The shipbuilder is astonished to find that he is paid so large a sum of money in advance by this miserable man, but he hastens to finish his work as quickly as possible. The serpent again bids him have made in the hold of the ship a large empty space and a huge chest, and tells him to bring this down himself. He brings it, and the serpent gets into it. The ship was quickly ready, he embarks the chest in the ship, and they set out.

One of them answers, “Yes; I can kill a swallow in its flight.”

“All the better, all the better; that will be of use to you.”

He goes down to tell the serpent that there is a sportsman who can kill a swallow in its flight. And at the same moment the weather becomes black as night, and earth and sky are mingled together, and all are trembling with fright. The serpent gives the captain a good drink for the sportsman, and they bind him to the mast. At midnight a piercing cry was heard. It was the bird which was passing over, and our sportsman has the good luck to kill him. At the very instant the sea becomes calm. The captain goes to the serpent, and tells him that the bird is killed.

The serpent answers him, “I know it.”

When they had gone a little further without anything happening, the serpent said one day:

“Are we not near such a port?”

The captain says to him, “It is in sight.”

“Very well, then, we are going there.”

He tells him to go again, and ask his sailors if there is a fast runner among them. The captain goes and asks his sailors if there is any fast runner among them.

One of them says to him, “As for me, I can catch a hare running.”

“So much the better, so much the better; that will be of use to you.”

The captain goes to tell the serpent that there is one who can catch a hare running. The serpent says to him:

“You will land the runner at this port, and you will tell him that he must go to the top of a little mountain; that there is a little house there, and an old, old woman in it; and that there is there a steel, a flint, and a tinder-box; and that he must bring these three things on board one by one, making a separate journey each time.”

Our runner goes off, and comes to this house. He sees the old woman, with red eyes, spinning at the threshold of her door. He asks her for a drop of water, that he has walked a long way without finding any water, and will she give him a little drop? The old woman says to him, “No.” He begs her again, telling her that he does not know the roads in the country, nor where he is going to. This old woman kept constantly looking at the chimney-piece, and she said to him:

“I am going to give you some, then.”

“We have got the steel, but our man has got the skin of his back torn off.”

He gives him a remedy, and a good drink, and tells him that the man will be cured by to-morrow, but that he must go again next day.

He says, “No, no; the devil may carry off this old woman, if he likes, but I will not go there any more.”

But, as he was cured next day by giving him that good drink again, he sets off. He dresses himself in a shirt without arms, and in an old torn pair of trousers, and goes to the old woman’s, saying that his ship is wrecked on the shore, that he has been wandering about for forty-eight hours, and he begs her to let him go to the fire to light his pipe.

She says, “No.”

“Do have pity—I am so wretched; it is only a little favour I ask of you.”

“No, no, I was deceived yesterday.”

But the man answered, “All the world are not deceivers. Don’t be afraid.”

The captain goes directly to the serpent: “We have got the flint.”

He says to him, “I know it.”

He gives him the medicine and the good drink, in order that the man may be cured by the morrow, and that he may go again. But the man says, “No,” that he does not want to see that red-eyed old woman any more. They tell him that they still want the tinder-box. The next day they give him the good drink. That gives him courage, and the desire to return again.

He dresses himself up as if he had been shipwrecked, and goes off half naked. He comes to the old woman’s, and asks for a little bread, as he has not eaten for a long time, (and begs her) to have pity on him—that he does not know where to go to.

The old woman says to him: “Be off, where you will; you shall get nothing at my house, and nobody shall come in here. Every day I have enemies.”

“But what have you to fear from a poor man who only wants a little bread, and who will be off immediately afterwards?”

At last the old woman rises to go to her cupboard, and our man takes her little tinder-box. The old woman runs after him, wishing to catch him, but our man is ahead. She overtakes him just as he is leaping into the ship. The old woman takes hold of the skin of his neck, and tears it all right down to the soles of his feet. Our runner falls down, and they do not know whether he is alive or dead; and the old woman says:

“I renounce him, and all those who are in this ship.”

The captain goes to the serpent, and says to him:

“We have the tinder-box, but our runner is in great danger. I do not know whether he will live; he has no skin left from his neck to the soles of his feet.”

“Console yourselves, console yourselves, he will be cured by to-morrow. Here is the medicine and the good drink. Now, you are saved. Go on deck, and fire seven rounds of cannon.”

He mounts on deck and fires the seven rounds of cannon, and returns to the serpent, and says to him:

“We have fired the seven rounds.”

He says to him, “Fire twelve rounds more; but do not be afraid. The police will come here; they will handcuff you. You will be put in prison, and you will ask, as a favour, not to be executed before that they have visited the ship, in order to prove that there is nothing in it to merit such a chastisement.”

The captain goes on deck, and fires the twelve rounds of cannon. As soon as he has fired them, the magistrates and the police arrive; they handcuff the men, the sailors, and the captain, and they put them in prison. The sailors were not pleased; but the captain said to them:

“You will soon be delivered.”

The next day the captain asks to go and speak to the king. He is brought before the king, and the king says:

“You are condemned to be hanged.”

The captain says to him, “What! because we have fired some cannon-shots you are going to hang us!!”

The captain says to him: “I did not know either this news or this order, and I beg you not to kill us before going and seeing if there is anything in the ship which condemns us justly.”

He goes to the court. The men are let out of prison, and they give the captain a large sum of money for a dowry for his two daughters, and the ship for himself. To the sailors they give as much as they like to eat and drink for all the time they wish to stop there, and afterwards enough to live upon for the rest of their lives. The king and his son lived happily, and as they had lived well, they died happily also.

Gachina, The Net-maker.

Dragon.

He goes down into the garden, still without seeing anybody; but in passing under a fig tree, a voice says to him:

“Ay! ay! ay! what pain you have put me to, and what suffering you are causing me!”

He turns on all sides and finds nothing. He says:

“Who are you? You! I do not understand it. Appear!”

The voice says to him, “I cannot to-day; but perhaps to-morrow you will see me. But in order to do that you will have to suffer severely.”

He promises to suffer no matter what for her. The voice says to him:

“To-morrow night they will make you suffer every kind of torture, but you must not say anything; and if you do that, you will see me to-morrow.”

They had spoken all this before the soldier friend, but he had heard nothing of it.

They go to the house and find the dinner quite ready. Dragon would have wished that night had already come, to know what it was he was to see. He goes off to bed then, and after eleven o’clock he feels that something is coming, and his whole body is pricked all over. He keeps quite silent, because he wished to see the voice. And when the cock crew “Kukuruku!” he was released (from his torture). He lies waiting for daybreak to go to the fig tree. Day did not appear as soon as he would have wished it, and he goes running to the garden and sees under the fig tree, coming out of the ground as high as her shoulders, a young girl, and she says to him:

“Last night you have suffered in silence, but the next night they will make you suffer much more. I do not know if you can bear it without speaking.”

He promises her that he will suffer still more in order to save her.

As usual, they find the table ready for dinner and for supper. He goes off to bed. There happens to him the same thing as in the preceding night, but they do him still more harm. Happily he lies still without speaking. The cock crows “Kukuruku!” and they leave him quiet. As soon as daylight has come he goes off to the garden, and he sees the young lady visible as far as the knees. Dragon is delighted to save this beautiful girl, but she says sadly to him:

“You have seen nothing up to this time. They will make you suffer twice as much.”

“What! You have not been able to make this wretched boy speak! I will make him speak, I will.”

He cuts off his arms and then his legs, and our Dragon does not say anything. They make him suffer a great deal, but happily the cock crows “Kukuruku!” and he is delivered. He was much afraid what would become of him without hands and without feet; but on touching himself he feels with pleasure that all that is made right again. While he is in bed he hears a great noise. He lies without saying anything, being frightened, and not knowing what might happen to him, when all of a sudden this young lady appears and says to him:

“You have saved me; I am very well pleased with you. But this is not enough; we must be off from here immediately.”

All the three go off together, and travel far, far, far away, and they arrive in a city. The young lady did not think it proper to lodge in the same hotel with them. Next morning the young lady gets up very early, and goes in search of the landlord of the hotel, and says to him:

“He has eaten something. Tell him that I will return, but tell, tell him, I beg you, to eat nothing.”

She leaves him a beautiful handkerchief. Dragon wakes up as soon as the young lady is gone. His comrade tells him that she had come, and that she had told him not to eat anything. And he shows Dragon the handkerchief. He was very vexed at having eaten, and would have wished that it was already the next day. He starts then very, very early, and waits for the young lady, and, as was fated to happen, finding a walnut in his pocket, he eats it. He immediately falls asleep. The young lady appears and finds him sleeping. She says that she will return again the next day, but that he must not eat anything. She leaves him another handkerchief. Dragon awakes as soon as she has gone. Judge with what vexation. His friend tells him that she said that she would return the next day, but that he must do his best not to eat anything. He goes then the third day without eating anything, but, as was to happen, despairing of seeing the young lady, who was late, arrive, he takes an apple from an apple tree and eats it. He falls asleep immediately. The young lady comes and finds him asleep. She gives his comrade a ring to give to Dragon, telling him that if Dragon wishes to see her he will find her in the City of the Four Quarters. Dragon is very vexed, and he says to his friend:

“The good God knows when I shall find this city, and it is better for you to go in one direction (and I in another).”

Thereupon they separate. Dragon goes off, far, far, far away. He comes to a mountain; there he sees a man, who had before his door holy water, and whoever made use of it was well received. He goes in, therefore, and asks him if he knows where is the City of the Four Quarters. He tells him—

“No; but there are the animals of the earth and of the air, and that the latter might perhaps guide him there.”

He whistles to them. They come from all quarters, and he asks them if they know where is the City of the Four Quarters? They tell him “No.” Then the man says to him—

“I have a brother on such a mountain, who has many more animals than I have; he has them all under his power, that man has.”

Dragon goes off then, and arrives there; he asks of that man if he knows where the City of the Four Quarters is? He tells him “No,” but that he has animals which will know it, if anyone ought to know it. He whistles to them. He sees the animals, small and great, coming from all quarters. Dragon was trembling with fright. He asks them one by one if they know where the City of the Four Quarters is. They tell him “No;” but the man sees that one animal is wanting, and that is the eagle. He whistles, and he comes. He asks him, too, if he knows where the City of the Four Quarters is. He says to him—

“I am just come from there.”

The man says to him,

“You must, then, guide this young gentleman there.”

The eagle says to him, “Willingly, if he will give me a morsel of flesh each time that I open my mouth.”

Dragon replies, “Yes, willingly.”

He then buys an ox. The eagle tells him to get upon his back. The man climbs up there with his ox, and when he opens his mouth he gives him a morsel of the ox, which kept gradually diminishing.

“You are in the City of the Four Quarters. Do your own business here. I am going off to my own home.”

This young gentleman asks what is the news in this city. They tell him that the king’s daughter is going to be married to-day. In this city it was permitted only to the wedding party to enter the church, but Dragon had bribed one of the keepers with money, (saying) that he would stop quiet in a corner of the church. It was also the custom in this city to publish the banns at the moment of marriage. When the priest began to publish them, Dragon came out of his corner, and said—

“I make an objection.”

He goes to the young lady, who recognises him; and he shows her the ring and the kerchiefs, and asks her in marriage. She says—

“This shall be my husband; he has well deserved it.”

He was still lame, as a piece of his flesh was still wanting. They were married then. The other bridegroom went back home quite ashamed. The others lived very happily, because both had suffered much. Then I was there, now I am here.

Louise Lanusse, St. Jean Pied de Port.

Ezkabi-Fidel.

“Ay! ay! Fidel, save me, I pray you, from here, and get me outside. You will not be sorry for it.”

Fidel stops at the place whence this voice came. A moment after, the white mare says to him,

“Come near the white mare; it is she who is speaking to you.”

Fidel goes up to her, and says to her that he cannot let her go—that the master has not given him any other work to do (than to take care of the horses), and that he certainly will not do any such thing. The mare said to him,

“Go and fetch a saucepan, and when I shall have filled it with water, you will wash your hands and your head.”

The time goes on, and the time returns. A long time had passed, and the master had never returned. And one day the mare said to him,

“Fidel, do you know how long you have been here?”

He says to her, “I don’t know at all—six months, perhaps?”

The mare says to him, “Six years have passed, and if the master arrives when seven years shall have passed, you will be enchanted—you, too, as we all are here—and the master is a devil.”

After that he heard that, Fidel is frightened, and he says to himself that it would be better to do what the white mare had said—to get on her back, and both to escape from there. They go off then, both of them. When they had gone some little distance, the mare asks him if he sees anything behind him.

“Earth, with thy power form a dense, terrible fog where he is.”

They go on again, and the mare says again—

“Look back again, if you see anything.”

Fidel says to her, “Yes, I see again this terrible thing; it is coming after us quickly, and is going to catch us.”

The mare at the same time says again to the earth, in striking it with her foot,

“Let it hail stones, and hail there where he is as much as can possibly fall.”

They go on. The mare says again,

“Look back, if you see anything.”

He says to her again, “He is here, this terrible monster. It is all up with us now—we cannot escape him; he is quite near, and he comes with speed.”

The mare strikes the earth with her foot, and says to it—

“Form before him a river, and let him drown himself there for evermore.”

He sees him drown himself there. The mare says to him,

It was the custom to carry the dinner to the gardener, but it was the youngest of the daughters who carried it to him. From the first day the gardener pleased the young lady, and she said to him one day that he must marry her. The lad said to her that that cannot be, that she ought not to think of marrying with a person of low birth and who has nothing, and that she must not dream any such dreams. This young lady falls ill. The father sends for the doctor, who says, after having touched her pulse, that she is ill of love; and the doctor goes to tell it to the king. The father goes to the young lady and tells her what the physician has said to him—that she is not so very ill. The daughter says to him:

“In order to cure me you must send and fetch the gardener. Let him give me some broth and I shall be cured.”

The father sends to fetch him directly, has him washed and properly dressed, and makes him carry the broth. There was among the court an old, old nurse; she was a witch, and as she knew what the physician had said, she goes and hides herself in the young lady’s bedroom before the gardener came there, in order to know what the young lady would say to him. The young lady said to him:

“Yes, and you shall marry me; I will not marry anybody else but you, whatever you may say.”

The lad said to her: “No, no, I will not hear that mentioned.”

“If you will marry him, do so; but I will not give you anything. You must go and live in a corner of the mountain with your husband; there is a house there, and there you must stop. You may come only one day a week to see me.”

That was all the same to this young lady, (and they are married), and go off there. As the king had given her no money, when Fidel’s hair grew she went from time to time to the goldsmiths, who said to her that they had not money enough belonging to them to pay for the gold that she brought them. And they lived there very happily.

One day Fidel heard that the king was engaged in a great war, and he told his wife to go to her father and tell him that he too wished to go to this war. This young lady goes to tell her father her husband’s commission. Her father says to her:

“What is the use of a young man like that who has never killed anything but mole-crickets? Let him stop at home.”

His daughter says to him: “At least he is your son-in-law!”

The father then says to her: “He may come on such a day.”

Fidel goes as they had told him. He asks the king for a horse and a sword. The king gives him a horse blind and lame. Fidel was not pleased with it. He begins his march, wishing to get on as quickly as possible, but when he had gone a little distance, the horse sticks in the mud, and cannot in any way get out of it. While he is there, the white mare comes to him. She gives him a beautiful horse, and a lance and a sword, and tells him that he will see his brothers-in-law encamped round a city, but not to stop there with them, but to ride straight to the city; that the gates will be shut, but as soon as he shall have touched them with his lance they will be broken to pieces, and that they will make peace with him. He does as she told him, and starts off on his horse like the lightning, without paying the slightest attention to his brothers-in-law. He goes up to the city, and as soon as he has touched the gates with his sword they are in pieces. He enters the city, and all the world comes out and makes him a thousand fêtes. They declare that they wish for no more war. They give him the key of the treasury and all the papers, and he retires from there with all the honours. When he returns he tells his brothers-in-law to retire—that the war is finished. They go back again. He stops at the place where he had left his old horse in the mud. He sends away his beautiful horse with all his things, and Fidel stops there, not being able to drag his old horse out of the mud. When his brothers-in-law pass, they mock at him (and ask him) if it is there that he has passed all his time. He tells them, “Yes.” The others go on ahead, and at length he also arrives at the king’s house. He leaves his old horse there and goes off home. He does not tell his wife what has happened, and they live in their hole.

“You will see two animals fighting close to you, and you will gather the herb which makes the dead to live; you will have it boiled, and you will keep this water for yourself.”

Fidel goes into the city, and as soon as he has entered, he cries:

“Who wishes to buy the water that gives sight to the blind, and the water which makes old men young?”

His two brothers-in-law appear, and say that they must have some of this water, and ask what it costs. And he tells them that he does not sell it, but only gives it in exchange for golden apples. These gentlemen willingly make the exchange. But they wish to make trial of it directly; they bring an old blind dog, and immediately he grows young again. Judge how pleased they were with their water of power. They set off to the king, and this water makes him become very young and gives him sight. The king wishes to have great rejoicings, and invites all his friends in the neighbourhood. Fidel arrives at home, and says nothing to his wife. When he hears that the king is going to have rejoicings, he sends his wife to ask the king if he would not like them to go there too; that they would help, one in cutting the wood, and the other in serving at table. She did not wish to go there at all. She told her husband that she would a hundred times sooner stop at home; but her husband sends her off by force, (saying) that they ought to be there on that day. She goes, then, the poor woman, against her wish. She asks her father if he does not want some one to help on the feast day. The father says, “No!”—they have servants enough. An old general who was sitting by his side said to him:

“Why do you not let them come?”

Then the king said, “Come then on such a day.”

Fidel and his wife go. While they are at breakfast the old general asks Fidel if he also does not know something to relate? He replies “Yes,” that he knows some (stories), but more than one would not be pleased with what he would tell. Then the king says, placing his sword upon the table:

“The point of my sword shall know news of the heart of him who shall speak.”

Fidel begins then, how he went to the war with an old horse, blind and lame, but that in spite of that he had carried off the keys of the treasure and the papers. The king says to him that he has not seen them yet—that he is still expecting them. Fidel takes out the papers and gives them to the king. He gives also the keys of the treasury. The king assures himself that they are the real ones. He then narrates how he has sold in exchange for two golden apples that precious water. At this instant his wife rises and says to him:

“Where have you these golden apples—you?”

“Do not disturb yourself for that; as I have taken away her life I will give it her again.”

“See, this is the scab of my husband!”

The king says that the crown will shine much better on his head. He goes to fetch it, and places it upon this precious head. He banishes his sons-in-law with his two daughters to the same desert place where Fidel formerly lived. And Fidel and his wife lived much richer than the king was. His precious head gave him this power; and as they lived well they died well too.

Laurentine.

We have another version almost identical with the above, except at the commencement. Ezkabi really has the scab. On his journey, after leaving his home, he pays the debts of a poor man whose corpse is being beaten in front of the church, and buries him. There is nothing about a white mare. An old woman is the good genius of the tale. He goes as gardener, and the king’s daughter falls in love with him, from catching a sight of his golden hair from her window; for the rest the stories are identical, except that this is a shorter form than the above.

Suggested Explanation of the above Tale (The Lady-Pigeon and her Comb).

This legend seems to us to be one of the best examples in our collection of what may be called atmospherical, or climatological myths.

The story opens with man in misery, without the aid of cultivation and agriculture. The old king we take to be a personification of winter; his daughter of spring, warmth, and fertility—of what the French call “la belle saison.” The comb, with which she does her marvels, is the power which draws out her golden hair, the sun’s bright rays. The young man, who, without her aid, can effect nothing, is man in relation to the frozen ground, which needs her aid to quicken it into fertility. It is the old Sun-god, the Cyclops, who tells him where to find, and how to woo, his fairy bride. But spring and earth are as yet both fast bound in winter’s dominions. There he must go, and learn what he must do, if they are to be married. The felling of the forest, the sowing and ripening corn, and the cooked cake, teach him that he can only succeed by her help; and yet he does not see how she does it—man cannot see the corn grow, etc. The summer warmth and fertilizing power, typified by the ring, still lies buried in the frozen waters. The taming of the horses shows the need and help of domestic animals in agriculture. These things are necessary to be known ere spring can free herself from winter’s dominion and marry her chosen lover. Winter would still hold her fast; but even in his own home her influence works secretly against him. He does not suspect that she is in league with her lover. But at length they are joined together; they flee, and the great struggle between winter and spring has fairly set in. She is able to hide her flight a little while; but he discovers it, and pursues and nearly overtakes her. But, by means of her comb, scattering abroad her warm rays, she works wonders. He is stopped by rough, wintry roads. Her path is through fair and pleasant ways; the storms, and hail, and rain of early spring assist her, but it is the mighty inundation of the swollen rivers which finally overwhelms him, and sweeps him for ever away.

But their union is not complete yet. She cannot enter the Christians’ land. The natural powers of earth and sky have need of agriculture and civilization for their full expansion. And man, frightened at the toil, is lured back again to the nomad hunter life. He forgets his bride in the pleasures of the chase. He spends the winter thus, but is drawn back by the attraction of his waiting bride in spring. She has food in abundance; he is hungry. Other wooers come; she cheats and deludes them, till her true husband appears, and submits to her once more. Then is the full marriage of earth and husbandry, and man wedded to the summer’s warmth and glow.

All parts of the tale are not equally clear, nor do we positively affirm that we have interpreted it aright. But there can be no doubt that we have here a nature allegory; and, told as it is by those who have not the most remote suspicion of its meaning, many things in it must needs be confused; the wonder is that the details are still so clear and so little distorted as they are. And, if this be the interpretation, or even if this kind of interpretation be allowed in this case, then we must consider if it is not to be extended to every case in which the several incidents occur, though they are now mingled and confused with circumstances with which they had no original connection.

The Young Schoolboy.

Once upon a time there was a gentleman and lady. They had a child. The father was captain of a ship. The mother regularly sent her son to school, and when the father came back from his voyages he asked his child if he had learnt much at school. The mother answered, “No, no! not much.”

The father went off for another voyage. He comes home the second time. “My child, what have you learnt at school?”

The child answers his father, “Nothing.”

“You have learnt nothing?”

The captain goes to find the schoolmaster, and asks him if his child does not learn anything.

“I cannot drive anything into that child’s head.”

The boy comes up, and the father, asks him again what he has learnt at school.

“This is all. (To understand) the song of the birds.”

“O, my son, the song of the birds! the song of the birds! Come, come on board ship with me.”

And he carries him off. While they were on the voyage a bird comes and settles on the end of the ship, singing, “Wirittitti, kirikiriki.”

“My son, come, come, instead of beginning by learning the art of a captain you have learned the song of birds. Do you know what this bird sings?”

“Yes, my father. I know he sings that I am now under your orders, but you shall also be under mine.”

What does this captain do? He takes a barrel, knocks out the head, and puts his son into it. He closes up the barrel and throws it into the sea, and a storm casts it ashore.

A king was walking there just at that moment, and he finds this barrel and sends for his men. They begin to try and break open the barrel, and the boy cries out from inside:

“Gently, gently, there is someone inside.”

They open the barrel, and the boy comes out from inside. The king takes him home, and he marries the king’s daughter.

One day the father of this boy was caught in a great storm, and the captain is thrown by the tempest on the sea-shore. He went to the king, and saw his son. The son recognised the father, but the father did not recognise the son at all, and he became his own son’s servant. One day he said to him:

“Do you know who I am?”

“No, sir.”

“I am such an one, your son. At such a time you threw me into the sea in a barrel, and now the bird’s song has come true.”

And after that the father and the son lived together very happily.

Estefanella Hirigaray.

The following seems to be a variation of the same:—

The Son who Heard Voices.

Like many others in the world, there was a gentleman and lady. They had several children. There was one whom they did not love so much as they did the others, because he said that he heard a voice very often. He said also that this voice had told him that a father and a mother would be servants to their son, but without saying that it was they. When the mother heard that she got very angry, taking it for herself. They were very rich, and they had two men-servants. This mother told these servants to go with her son and kill him, and bring his heart back to the house.

The next day she said to her son:

“You must go for a walk to such a place with these servants, and you may stop there till twelve o’clock.”

The lad goes off quietly with the servants, and when they had gone a little distance, the two servants begin to talk loudly, and to dispute, and get angry. He goes up to them, and sees what they are quarrelling about. The one wished to kill him, and the other did not. They fought, and the one who did not wish to kill him got the better of the other. And they said that they would kill a big dog which they had with them, and that they would carry his heart to their mistress. Before the servants returned the mother had already begun to be sorry.

Our young man wandered from place to place, and wandering like that, he said to himself that he must go to Rome. He meets with two men who tell him that they are going to Rome too, and they will make the journey together. They loved this young lad very much, because they saw that there was something in him different from the rest. When night came they all go to a house hidden in a thick forest. They ask shelter for the night. They tell them to enter, and give them a good supper. Our young lad hears the voice, and it says to him:

“You are in a very unhappy place here. It would have been better if you had not come here.”

The other men said to him, “What is that? What is that?”

“Nothing at all. It would have been better to have gone elsewhere.”

When they had finished supper, they show them to bed, but our young gentleman does not go to sleep. He hears in the middle of the night a great noise made by the robbers, who were returning home laden with silver. The woman said to them:

“Go gently. We have three men here, and they say that one of them is very rich.”

Our young man hears that. He wakes his comrades, and they jump out of the window and escape. They walk on the whole day. When night comes they see a beautiful house, and they ask to be lodged there that night. They said to them:

“Certainly, with pleasure, but you will not have much rest; we have a daughter who for seven years shrieks out in pain night and day.”

These men say to the young man: “Will not you cure her—you?”

He said to them: “I will try.”

(The narrator had forgotten how this was done).

They were very rich. When he had cured the young girl, this poor father said to him:

“Sir, it is you who are now the master of this house. Give your orders, and whatever you wish shall be done.”

Our young gentleman thanks him very much, and tells him that he is going to Rome, but that he cannot say what he will do later after that. This young lady had a beautiful ring on her finger. The father cut this ring in two, and gave him one-half. They depart, and at length they arrive close to Rome, and as they come near all the bells begin to ring of themselves. Everyone comes out:

They take our young gentleman and make him the Holy Father.

“I forgive you, I am your son.”

The joy and the happiness kill the father and mother on the spot. He takes the two servants home with him, and gives to him who did not wish to kill him the half of the young lady’s ring, and he married her, and lived happily in the midst of riches. He told the servant who wished to kill him to go to the mountain and to be a charcoal-burner, and he is still there making charcoal; and this charcoal which you see here was brought from his house.

(B.)—Contes des Fées, derived directly from the French.

We do not suppose that the tales here given are the only ones in our collection which are derived more or less directly from or through the French. Several of those previously given under different heads we believe to have been so. The question, however, still remains: Whence did Madame d’Aulnoy, Perrault, and the other writers of the charming “Contes des Fées,” derive their materials? Place their talent as high as we may, we still believe them to have been incapable of inventing them. Combine, transpose, dress up, refine—all this they did in an incomparable manner. Some portions they may have culled, directly or indirectly, from Eastern stories; their own imagination may have filled up many a blank, expanded many a hint, clothed many a half-dressed body in the habit of their own times—as heraldic painters formed grotesque monsters by selecting and putting together parts from many diverse animals; but to create, even in fancy, was beyond their line, if it is not altogether beyond the power of man. Therefore, when we hear these tales related by peasants ignorant of French, we may still ask how far they have learnt them at second or third hand from the printed works, and how far they are reciting the crude materials out of which those works were originally composed? This is a question which can only be fully answered when all the legends in all the languages and patois of France shall have been collected and compared. Meanwhile, we beg our readers to accept these few tales as a small and not very valuable stone contributed towards the erection of so vast an edifice.

The Step-Mother and the Step-Daughter.

A father and his daughter were living together. The daughter told her father to marry again. The father said, “Why? you will be unhappy.” “It is all the same to me; I prefer to see you happy.” And after some time he marries again. This lady asked her husband to give her full power over this young girl to do what she will with her. The husband consents, and does not think any more about her; he did not even see her again. This lady says to the young girl, “If you do all I tell you, you will be the better for it.” The king lived near their house, and one day her step-mother gave her the keys of the king’s house and told her to go at such an hour of the night into the king’s bed-room, “and without waking him you will bring me back his sash.” The daughter did not like it at all, but in spite of that she goes off, and without any person seeing her, she returns home with the king’s girdle. The next day the step-mother says to her step-daughter, “You must go again, and you must bring the king’s watch chain.” While she was taking it, the king moved in his bed, and the young girl is so frightened that she runs off, and loses her shoe at the door of the king’s room. At the end of some days they hear that the king has made a proclamation that he will go from house to house with a shoe, and that she whom it fits perfectly shall be his wife. The king goes looking and looking, first of all, in the houses of the rich; but he had said that he would go into all the houses. He goes then to this gentleman’s who had married again, because it was close at hand. The persons of his suite asked him why he went there, for they were only poor people. The king will go all the same. He finds this lady, who says that they are poor, and that she is ashamed to receive the king in her bed-room; but it was there she had her step-daughter very nicely dressed, with only one shoe on her feet. She was dazzling with beauty, and the king finds her very much to his taste. They are married immediately; he takes the father and step-mother to his house, and they all live happily, and this step-daughter owed her good fortune to her step-mother.

Louise Lanusse.

There are two curious versions of these tales in Bladé’s “Contes Populaires Recueillis en Agenais” (Paris, Baer, 1874), Nos. I. and VIII. Those who wish to compare others may follow up the references there given by Reinhold Köhler, on pp. 145 and 153; also those given at pp. 44 and 47 of Brueyre’s “Contes Populaires de la Grande Bretagne” (Paris, Hachette, 1875).

The Cobbler and his Three Daughters (Blue Beard).

Like many others in the world, there was a cobbler who had three daughters. They were very poor. He only earned enough just to feed his children. He did not know what would become of him. He went about in his grief, walking, walking sadly on, and he meets a gentleman, who asks him where he is going, melancholy like that. He answers him,

“Even if I shall tell you, I shall get no relief.”

“Yes, yes; who knows? Tell it.”

“I have three daughters, and I have not work enough to maintain them. I have famine in the house.”

“If it is only that, we will manage it. You will give me one of your daughters, and I will give you so much money.”

The father was very grieved to make any such bargain; but at last he comes down to that. He gives him his eldest daughter. This gentleman takes her to his palace, and, after having passed some time there, he said to her that he has a short journey to make—that he will leave her all the keys, that she might see everything, but that there is one key that she must not make use of—that it would bring misfortune on her. He locks the door on the young lady. This young girl goes into all the rooms, and finds them very beautiful, and she was curious to see what there was in that which was forbidden. She goes in, and sees heaps of dead bodies. Judge of her fright! With her trembling she lets the key fall upon the ground. She trembles for the coming of her husband. He arrives, and asks her if she has entered the forbidden chamber. She tells him “Yes.” He takes her and puts her into an underground dungeon; hardly, hardly did he give her enough to eat (to live on), and that was human flesh.

This cobbler had finished his money, and he was again melancholy. The gentleman meets him again, and says to him,

“Your other daughter is not happy alone; you must give me another daughter. When she is happy, I will send her back; and I will give you so much money.”

The father did not like it; but he was so poor that, in order to have a little money, he gives him his daughter. The gentleman takes her home with him, like the other. After some days he said to her too,

“I must take a short journey. I will give you all the keys of the house, but do not touch such a key of such a room.”

He locks the house-door, and goes off, after having left her the food she needed. This young girl goes into all the rooms, and, as she was curious, she went to look into the forbidden chamber. She was so terribly frightened at the sight of so many dead bodies in this room, that she lets the key fall, and it gets stained. Our young girl was trembling as to what should become of her when the master should come back. He arrives, and the first thing he asks—

“Have you been in that room?”

She told him “Yes.” He takes her underground, like her other sister.

This cobbler had finished his money, and he was in misery; when the gentleman comes to him again, and says to him,

“I will give you a great deal of money if you will let your daughter come to my house for a few days; the three will be happier together, and I will send you the two back again together.”

The father believes it, and gives him his third daughter. The gentleman gives him the money, and he takes this young girl, like the others. At the end of some days he leaves her, saying that he is going to make a short journey. He gives her all the keys of the house, saying to her—

“You will go into all the rooms except this one,” pointing out the key to her. He locks the outside door, and goes off. This young girl goes straight, straight to the forbidden chamber; she opens it, and think of her horror at seeing so many dead people. She thought that he would kill her too, and, as there were all kinds of arms in this chamber, she takes a sabre with her, and hides it under her dress. She goes a little further on, and sees her two sisters almost dying with hunger, and a young man in the same condition. She takes care of them as well as she can till the gentleman comes home. On his arrival, he asks her—

“Have you been in that room?”

She says, “Yes;” and, in giving him back the keys, she lets them fall on the ground, on purpose, and at the instant that this gentleman stoops to pick them up, the young lady cuts off his head (with her sword). Oh, how glad she was! Quickly she runs to deliver her sisters and that young man, who was the son of a king. She sends for her father, the cobbler, and leaves him there with his two daughters, and the youngest daughter goes away with her young gentleman, after being married to him. If they lived well, they died well too.

In another version, by Estefanella Hirigaray, we have the more ordinary tale of “Blue Beard”—that of a widower who has killed twenty wives, and marries a twenty-first, who has two brothers. She drops the key in the forbidden chamber, and is detected by the blood on it. She manages to write to her brothers, and the dialogue by which she endeavours to gain time is rather spirited. She is allowed to put on her wedding-dress, etc., to die in. She goes to get ready, and she hears the cries of her husband, “Are you ready?” “I am putting on my dress.” He bawls out again, “Are you ready?” “Give me a moment more.” “Are you ready?” “I am fastening my dress.” “Are you ready yet?” “I am putting on my stockings.” And she kept constantly looking out of window to see if her brothers were coming. “Are you ready?” “Stop one moment; I am putting on my shoes.” “Are you ready?” “I am brushing my hair.” “Are you ready?” “Let me put on my wreath.” And she sees her brothers coming on horseback in the forest, but a very long way off. She hears again, “Are you ready?” “I am coming in an instant.” “You are coming? I’ll come, if you do not come down.” “Don’t come; I will come down myself, without you.” He seizes her on the stairs to kill her; but the brothers rush in just in time to prevent her death, and they put him in prison.

We heard, also, another version, which, unfortunately, we did not take down. It had something about a horse in it, and was like “The Widow and her Daughters,” in Campbell, Vol. II., Tale xli., p. 265.

The Singing Tree, the Bird which tells the Truth, and the Water that makes Young.

Like many others in the world, there were three young girls. They were spinning together, and as girls must always talk about something while they are spinning, the eldest said:

“You will not guess what I am thinking about?”

“Tell it us, tell it us,” (said the other two).

“That I should like to be married to the king’s valet.”

“And I with his son-in-law,” said the second.

And the third said: “And I with the king himself.”

Now, the king lived not far from these girls, and just at that moment he was passing before the door of their house, and heard what they said. The next day the king asked the eldest:

“What were you saying yesterday at such a time?”

And she was ashamed to tell him, but the king pressed her so much that at last she told it:

“I said that I wished to be married to your servant.”

He made the second come, and asked her the same question: “What were you talking about yesterday?”

She would not tell; but the king pressed her so much that she said:

“I—I was saying that I wished to marry your son-in-law.”

He sends them back home, and sends for the third, and asks her what she said the evening before. She never dared to tell it, because that would have been too great an impudence, but at the last she told it him; and the king told her that they must really be married together, because she was so very pretty. This young girl goes running off home. She told her sisters that she is to marry the king, and all three go to live in the king’s house. The two sisters were very jealous. The princess became in the family-way; and the king was obliged to go to another kingdom. His poor wife was confined of a fine girl. But her sisters made the queen believe that she had given birth to a cat, and they wrote this too to the king. The king wrote back to them:

When the king returned he did not mention the cat at all. She became pregnant a second time, and the king was obliged to go to another kingdom, and when the princess was confined her sisters made her believe that she had given birth to a dog. Think what grief and pain this poor queen suffered. Her sisters wrote to the king that his wife had given birth to a dog, and that without doubt she had something to do with animals. He wrote again: “If it be a dog, take all possible care of it.” But they said that they had already thrown it into the water, as they had done with the cat.

Fortunately a gardener was there, the same that had been there the first time. He caught hold of the basket, and finds a beautiful child inside. He is very glad, and carries the child to his wife, who puts the infant out to nurse.

The princess became pregnant the third time. The king had intended to stop at home; but at the moment of the confinement he was obliged to go away somewhere, and the sisters wrote to the king that she had been confined of a bear. The king flew into a great rage, and ordered her to be put into a dungeon underground. They gave her a little food through a hole, so that she might not die of starvation; and nevertheless she had given birth to a handsome boy. The same gardener found this basket too, which they had thrown into the water. He carries it to his wife, and she gave it to the same nurse. They were very happy with it, and said that Heaven had sent them these three children, and they loved their father and mother very much; but when they were very old they both died.

The two brothers and their sister got on very well together. They loved each other very much. The boys used to go out hunting and shooting, and they were so well off that they had something to give to the poor. One day there came an old woman begging, and she said to them:

“You cannot be happy.”

“Yes, yes, we certainly are,” they answered.

And the woman said to them: “No, no, you want three things before you can be happy—the tree which sings, the bird which tells the truth, and the water which makes young again.”

The young girl grows sad at that. Her brothers remarked it immediately, and they asked her what was the matter with her. But she would not tell them. At last they forced her to tell it to them. She told them what this woman had told her.

“If this apple changes I shall be in some trouble, and if it turns rotten I shall be dead.”

And he starts off, and travels on, and on, and on. He finds a monk who tells him to retrace his steps, that there are great dangers before him; but he will go on notwithstanding. He meets again another monk, who tells him that he will never return. He confesses himself and prepares for death, such great dangers will he have to pass through. He said to him:

But our lad grew frightened and turned his head round, and was changed into stone.

After some days the apple begins to get bad, and they fall into great sorrow because something must have happened to their brother, and the second brother said that he must go off too; and off he goes with a horse and a little money. Like the other brother he meets a monk, who wishes to stop him; but he said to him that it was all the same to him. He goes on till he meets another monk. This one also said to him:

“Return on your steps. You will not be able to pass; you will hear cries and see horrors and terrible things—you will never be able to pass through.”

But he prepares himself to go forward. He warned him well not to look round. He leaves his horse and sets out. When he has gone a short distance he hears frightful cries, and (sees) terrible things; and after having gone some distance further he looks on one side, and is changed into stone.

The apple which he had left with his sister first changes, then goes quite rotten. You may judge of the sorrow and the grief of this poor girl. She says to herself that she must dress herself like a man. She locks the door (of their house), and sets out on horseback. The same monk wishes to prevent her going on. But she has a still greater desire to do so, and, notwithstanding all she hears, she will go on. She arrives at the last monk, who was a great saint. He did not recognise that it was a young girl. For a hundred years past he had been on the same spot, until someone should get to the end of the mountain, and he hoped that this young girl might pass. He gives her a bottle into which she might put the water that makes young again, and says to her:

“You will sprinkle one drop on each stone, and they will live.”

She sets off. The horrible cries did not frighten her. All kinds of things were said to her. She goes on and on, constantly running, and gets to the top of the mountain, and she is saved.

At the same instant she hears a thrilling song from a tree, which was warbling like a bird. A bird, too, flies on to her shoulder, and tells her so many things that she is quite astounded. But she does not lose her time—she takes out her bottle and fills it with water. She pours a drop on each stone, and finds her brothers at last. Think, think how they all three rejoiced together! They take their horses (they too had been changed into stones) and go home with their tree, and the bird, and the water.

They lived very happily. The brothers went out hunting every day, and sometimes they met the king. One day the king invited them to dine with him, but they said that they must first ask permission of their sister. When they came home they asked her, and the bird answered immediately:

“On condition that the king will come here to-morrow.”

They go with this answer to the king, and he says, “Yes.”

They dine very well with the king, but their sister was not at all pleased; she did not know how to receive the king. The bird says to her:

“Lay the table with a fine cloth, and three dishes; put lentils into one, parched peas into the other, and haricot beans into the other.”

Next day the king comes with his two brothers. The king is astonished to hear this beautiful tree and this fine singing. He had never heard anything so wonderful. He was surprised to see these three dishes, and he said to them:

“Is it not strange to receive a king like this?”

And the bird, hopping out of its cage, begins, “It is not more strange than to see this young woman pass for a cat. Is she a cat?”

In the same way it points to the elder brother, “Is this a dog, this young man? Is not this a thing more astonishing?”

The king is confounded. And the same thing for the third time, pointing to the second son, “Is this a bear, this one? Is this not an astonishing thing?”

The king, in his amazement, does not know what to answer to the bird; but it continues:

“Is it not a shame to leave one’s wife, and make her live eighteen years in a dungeon underground?”

The king is terribly frightened, and off he goes with his sons and his daughter, intending to free their mother; but they did not forget the precious water, and they wash this princess in it, and she becomes as young as at eighteen years old. Judge of the joy of the king, of the queen, and of their children! The king fell into a great rage, and condemns the queen’s sisters to be burnt alive in the midst of the market-place, with shirts of sulphur on them.

Catherine Elizondo.

We have also the more common version of this story—of an aged king with three sons. He reads of this water, and the three sons successively set out to fetch it. The two first fail, and stop, drinking, &c., in a certain city. The youngest meets an old woman, who tells him how to charm all the beasts in a forest he has to pass through, and how to get the water, but he is not to take anything else. But he steals the bird, and the magic horse as well, and when he gets to the forest finds all the animals awake. The old woman appears again, and gives him a magic stick, with the aid of which he passes. He finds his brothers against the advice of the old lady, and they throw him into a pit and take away the water, the horse, and the bird; but the water has no effect in their hands. The old woman appears, and sends a fox to help him out of the pit. He comes home, the horse neighs, the bird sings, he gives the water to his father, and from one hundred years old he becomes twenty.

E. Hirigaray.

The White Blackbird.

Like many others in the world, there was a king who had three sons. This king was blind, and he had heard one day that there was a king who had a white blackbird, which gave sight to the blind. When his eldest son heard that, he said to his father that he would go and fetch this white blackbird as quickly as possible.

The father said to him, “I prefer to remain blind rather than to separate myself from you, my child.”

The son says to him, “Have no fear for me; with a horse laden with money I will find it and bring it to you.”

The second son, seeing that his brother did not return, said to his father that he wished to go off, (and asked him) to give him a horse and plenty of money, and that certainly he would not lose his time. He sets off, and, as was fated to occur, he goes to the inn where his brother had been ruined. After supper these young ladies say to him:

“You must have a game of cards with us.”

He refuses, but these young ladies cajole him so well, and turn him round their fingers, that he ends by consenting. They begin then, and he also loses all his money, his horse, and makes a great many debts besides. They put him in prison like his brother.

After some time the king and his youngest son are in deep grief because some misfortune must have happened to them, and the youngest asks leave to set out.

“I assure you that I will do something. Have no anxiety on my account.”

This poor father lets him go off, but not with a good will. He kept saying to him that he would prefer to be always blind; but the son would set off. His father gives him a beautiful horse, and as much gold as his horse could carry, and his crown. He goes off far, far, far away. They rested every night, and he happened, like his brothers, to go to the same inn. After supper these young ladies say to him:

“It is the custom for everyone to play at cards here.”

He says that it is not for him, and that he will not play. The young ladies beg him ever so much, but they do not succeed with this one in any fashion whatever. They cannot make him play. The next morning he gets up early, takes his horse, and goes off. He sees that they are leading two men to death. He asks what they have done, and recognises his two brothers. They tell him that they have not paid their debts within the appointed time, and that they must be put to death. But he pays the debts of both, and goes on. Passing before the church he sees that they are doing something. He asks what it is. They tell him that it is a man who has left some debts, and that until someone pays them he will be left there still. He pays the debts again.

He goes on his journey, and arrives at last at the king’s house where the blackbird was. Our king’s son asks if they have not a white blackbird which restores sight. They tell him, “Yes.” Our young gentleman relates how that his father is blind, and that he has come such a long way to fetch it to him.

The king says to him, “I will give you this white blackbird, when you shall have brought me from the house of such a king a young lady who is there.”

He answers, “I want a young lady from the king’s house.”

He gives his horse to the fox to take care of, and the fox says to him:

“You will go to such a room; there will be the young lady whom you need. You will not recognise her because she has old clothes on, but there are beautiful dresses hanging up in the room. You will make her put on one of those. As soon as she shall have it on, she will begin to sing and will wake up everybody in the house.”

He goes inside as the fox had told him. He finds the young lady. He makes her put on the beautiful dresses, and as soon as she has them on she begins to sing and to carol. Everyone rushes into this young lady’s room. The king in a rage wished to put him in prison, but the king’s son shows his crown, and tells how such a king sent him to fetch this young lady, and when once he has brought her he promises him the white blackbird to open his father’s eyes.

The king then says to him, “You must go to the house of such a king, and you must bring me from there a white horse, which is very, very beautiful.”

Our young man sets out, and goes on, and on, and on. As he comes near the house of the king, the fox appears to him and says to him:

He goes off as the fox had said to him. He finds the horse with the bad saddle, and puts on him the fine one, and then the horse begins to neigh and cannot stop himself. People arrive, and they wish to put the young man in prison, but he shows them his crown, and relates what king had sent him to fetch this horse in order to get a young lady. They give him the horse, and he sets off.

He comes to the house of the king where the young lady was. He shows his horse with its beautiful saddle, and asks the king if he would not like to see the young lady take a few turns on this beautiful horse in the courtyard. The king says, “Yes.” As the young lady was very handsomely dressed when she mounted the horse, our young man gives the horse a little touch with his stick, and they set off like the lightning. The king’s son follows them, and they go both together to the king who had the white blackbird. They ask him for the blackbird, and the bird goes of itself on to the knees of the young lady, who was still on horseback. The king’s son gives him a blow, and they set off at full gallop; he also escapes in order to rejoin them. They journey a long, long time, and approach their city.

His brothers had heard the news how that their brother was coming with the white blackbird. These two brothers had come back at last to their father’s house, and they had told their father a hundred falsehoods; how that robbers had taken away their money, and many things like that. The two brothers plotted together, and said that they must hinder their brother from reaching the house, and that they must rob him of the blackbird.

“I will leap in there; you will take hold of my tail one by one, and I will save you.”

The two wicked brothers had taken the blackbird, but he escaped from them as they entered the house, and went on to the white horse. Judge of the joy of the youngest brother when he sees that nothing is wanting to them! They go to the king. As soon as they enter the young lady begins to carol and to sing, the bird too, and the horse to neigh. The blackbird of its own accord goes on to the king’s knees, and there by its songs restored him to sight. The son relates to his father what labours he underwent until he had found these three things, and he told him how he had saved two men condemned to death by paying their debts, and that they were his two brothers; that he had also paid the debts of a dead man, and that his soul (the fox was his soul) had saved him from the cistern into which his brothers had thrown him.

Think of the joy of the father, and his sorrow at the same time, when he saw how wisely this young son had always behaved, and how wicked his two brothers had been. As he had well earned her, he was married to the young lady whom he had brought away with him, and they lived happily and joyfully. The father sent the two brothers into the desert to do penance. If they had lived well, they would have died well.

The Sister and her Seven Brothers.

There was a man and a woman very poor, and over-burdened with children. They had seven boys. When they had grown up a little, they said to their mother that it would be better that they should go on their own way—that they would get on better like that. The mother let them go with great regret. After their departure she gave birth to a little girl, and when this little girl was grown up a little she went one day to a neighbor’s to amuse herself, and having played some childish trick the neighbor said to her:

The child goes home and says to her mother, “Mother, have I some brothers?”93

The mother says, “Yes.”

“Where are they?”

“Oh, gone off somewhere.”

The daughter said to her, “I must go too, then. Give me a piece of linen enough to make seven shirts.”

And she would go off at once. The mother was very sorry for it, having already seven children away from home, and the only one she had wished to go away. She let her go then.

This young girl went off, far, far, far away. She asks in a town if they know seven brothers who work together. They tell her “No.” She goes off to a mountain and asks there too, and they tell her in what house they live. She goes to this house, and sees that all the household work is to be done, and that there is nobody at home. She makes the beds, and cleans the whole house, and puts it in order. She prepares the dinner, and then hides herself in the dust-hole. Her brothers come home, and are astonished to see all the household work done and the dinner ready. They begin to look if there is anyone in the house, but they never think of looking in the dust-hole, and they go off again to their work. Before night this young girl does all the rest of the work, and had the supper ready against the return of her brothers, and hides herself again in the dust-hole. Her brothers are astonished, and again search the house, but find nothing.

They go to bed, and this young girl takes to sewing and sews a whole shirt. She gives it to her eldest brother, and in the same way she made a shirt every night, and took it to one of her brothers. They could not understand how that all happened. They always said that they would not go to sleep, but they fell asleep as soon as they were in bed. When the turn of the youngest came to have the shirt, he said to them, “Certainly I will not fall asleep.” After he is in bed the young girl goes and says to him, thinking that he is asleep:

“Your turn has come now at last, my dearly loved brother.”

And she begins to put the shirt on him on the bed, when her brother says to her:

“You are then my sister, you?”

And he kisses her. She tells him then how she had heard that she had brothers, and how she had wished to go to them to help them. The other brothers get up and rejoice, learning that it was their sister who had done all the household work.

One day when she was there the son of a king passes by, and is quite astonished to see so beautiful a girl there. He speaks to her, and tells her that he wishes to marry her. The young girl says to him that she is very poor, and that that cannot be. The king says, “Yes, yes, yes, that makes no difference.”

The princess takes these cows home with her; they were always well treated. The princess became pregnant, and was confined while the king was absent. The witch comes, and takes her out of her bed, and throws her down a precipice that there was in the king’s grounds, and the witch puts herself into the princess’ bed. When the king comes home, he finds her very much changed, and tells her that he would not have recognised her. The princess tells him that it was her sufferings that had made her thus, and, in order to cure her more quickly, he must have the Breton cow killed.

The king says to her—

“What! Did you not make me promise that she should never be killed? How is it you ask me that?”

The witch considered that one her greatest enemy; and, as she left him no peace, he sent a servant to fetch the cows. He finds them all seven by the precipice; they were lowing, and he tried to drive them to the house, but he could not do it in any way; and he hears a voice, which says,

“It is not for myself that I grieve so much, but for my child, and for my husband, and for my dearly-loved cows. Who will take care of them?”

The lad could not succeed (in driving them), and goes and tells to the king what is taking place. The king himself goes to the precipice, and hears this voice. He quickly throws a long cord down, and, when he thinks that she has had time to take hold of it, he pulls it up, and sees that they have got the princess there. Judge of the joy of the king! She relates to her husband all that the witch had done to her, both formerly and now. The king goes to the witch’s bed, and says to her,

“I know your villanies now; and, if you do not immediately change these cows, as they were before, into fine boys, I will put you into a red-hot oven.”

The witch makes them fine men, and, notwithstanding that, the king had her burnt in a red-hot oven, and threw her ashes into the air. The king lived happily with his wife, and her seven brothers married ladies of the court, and sent for their mother, and they all lived happily together.

Louise Lanusse.

We have also, in Basque, a version of Madame d’Aulnoy’s “Abenan.” It seems to be a mixture of various legends strung together by this fanciful writer; but we do not think it worth either our own or our readers’ while to try to disentangle its separate parts. The pretty little tale of “The Faded Roses” has been told us from two quite different sources. This tale, though without doubt derived from the French, we can trace up in Basque further than any other. It was told us by a lady of between seventy and eighty, who heard it as a child from an old nurse, whom she distinctly remembers to have told her that she learnt it as a child from her mother. It must thus have existed in Basque over a century.

We have in MS. a long Rabelesian legend, which opens like Cenac-Moncaut’s tale of “Le Coffret de la Princesse,” in his “Littérature Populaire de la Gascogne” (Paris, 1868). A king will give one of his daughters to whoever can guess what the skin of a certain animal is. It is the devil who guesses it, and who marries the princess. She is saved by the “white mare,” which appears in so many of our tales. She then dresses as a man, but, nevertheless, a prince falls in love with her; and then follow a lot of scenes, the converse of the adventure of Achilles in Scyros. They marry; but, after seven years, the devil-husband reappears. After strange adventures, they are again succoured and united by the “white mare,” who binds the devil for ever, and then flies to heaven as a white pigeon, and the rest live happily ever after. This legend is from “Laurentine, Sister of Toutou,” and may be mingled with Cascarrot legends. We have given it as derived from the French, partly because the heroine’s name is Fifine, and because this, and “Petit Perroquet and the Tartaro,” are the only tales in our collection in which the term “prince” is employed in the Basque instead of “the king’s son.” Cf. Campbell’s “Highland Tales,” passim.

We owe the following notes to the kindness of M. H. Vinson, Judge at La Réole, Gironde. They may be of assistance to some of our readers in the endeavour to trace out the length of time which is required for the translations of exotic legends to become popular traditions among a people who know the language of the translation only by “social contact.”