Chapter VIII · WELSH-GYPSY STORIES

No. 54.—Jack and his Golden Snuff-box

Once upon a time there was an old man and an old woman, and they had one son, and they lived in a great forest. And their son never saw any other people in his life, but he knew that there was some more in the world besides his own father and mother, because he had lots of books, and he used to read every day about them. And when he read about some pretty young women, he used to go mad to see some of them. Till one day, when his father was out cutting wood, he told his mother that he wished to go away to look for his living in some other country, and to see some other people besides them two. And he said, ‘I see nothing at all here but great trees around me; and if I stay here, maybe I shall go mad before I see anything.’

The young man’s father was out all this time, when the conversation was going on between him and his poor old mother.

The old woman begins by saying to her son before leaving, ‘Well, well, my poor boy, if you want to go, it’s better for you to go, and God be with you.’ (The old woman thought for the best when she said that.) ‘But stop a bit before you go. Which would you like best for me to make you—a little cake and to bless you, or a big cake and to curse you?’

‘Dear! dear!’ said he, ‘make me a big cake. Maybe I shall be hungry on the road.’

The old woman made the big cake, and she went on top of the house, and she cursed him as far as she could see him.

He presently meets with his father, and the old man says to him, ‘Where are you going, my poor boy?’ When the son told the father the same tale as he told his mother, ‘Well,’ says his father, ‘I’m sorry to see you going away, but if you’ve made your mind to go, it’s better for you to go.’

The poor lad had not gone far, till his father called him back; when the old man drawed out of his pocket a golden snuff-box, and said to him, ‘Here, take this little box, and put it in your pocket, and be sure not to open it till you are near your death.’

And away went poor Jack upon his road, and walked till he was tired and hungry, for he had eaten all his cake upon the road; and by this time night was upon him, as he could hardly see his way before him. He could see some light a long way before him, and he made up to it, and found the back door and knocked at it, till one of the maidservants came and asked him what he wanted. He said that night was on him, and he wanted to get some place to sleep. The maidservant called him in to the fire, and gave him plenty to eat, good meat and bread and beer; and as he was eating his refreshments by the fire, there came the young lady to look at him. And she loved him well, and he loved her. And the young lady ran to tell her father, and said there was a pretty young man in the back kitchen. And immediately the gentleman came to him, and questioned him, and asked what work he could do. He said, the silly fellow, that he could do anything. (Jack meant that he could do any foolish bit of work, what would be wanted about the house.)

‘Well,’ says the gentleman to him, ‘at eight o’clock in the morning I must have a great lake and some of the largest man-of-war vessels sailing before my mansion, and one of the largest vessels must fire a royal salute, and the last round break the leg of the bed where my young daughter is sleeping on. And if you don’t do that, you will have to forfeit your life.’

‘All right,’ said Jack. And away he went to his bed, and said his prayers quietly, and slept till it was near eight o’clock, and he had hardly any time to think what he was to do, till all of a sudden he remembered about the little golden box that his father gave him. And he said to himself, ‘Well, well, I never was so near my death as I am now’; and then he felt in his pocket, and drew the little box out.

And when he opened it, there hopped out three little red men and asked Jack, ‘What is your will with us?’

‘Well,’ said Jack, ‘I want a great lake and some of the largest man-of-war vessels in the world before this mansion, and one of the largest vessels to fire a royal salute, and the last round to break one of the legs of the bed where this young lady is sleeping on.’

‘All right,’ said the little men; ‘go to sleep.’

Jack had hardly time to bring the words out of his mouth, to tell the little men what to do, but what it struck eight o’clock, when bang, bang went one of the largest man-of-war vessels; and it made Jack jump out of bed to look through the window. And I can assure you it was a wonderful sight for him to see, after being so long with his father and mother living in a wood.

By this time Jack dressed himself, and said his prayers, and came down laughing, because he was proud, he was, because the thing was done so well. The gentleman comes to him, and says to him, ‘Well, my young man, I must say that you are very clever indeed. Come and have some breakfast.’ And the gentleman tells him, ‘Now there are two more things you have to do, and then you shall have my daughter in marriage.’ Jack gets his breakfast, and has a good squint at the young lady, and also she at him.

(However, I must get on again with my dear little story.)

But, oh dear! there is worse to come yet.

The gentleman now makes a large hunting party, and invites all the gentlemen around the country to it, and to see the castle as well. And by this time Jack has a beautiful horse and a scarlet dress to go with them. On that morning his valet, when putting Jack’s clothes by, after changing them to go a-hunting, put his hand in one of Jack’s waistcoat pockets and pulled out the little golden snuff-box, as poor Jack left behind in a mistake. And that man opened the little box, and there hopped the three little red men out, and asked him what he wanted with them. ‘Well,’ said the valet to them, ‘I want this castle to be moved from this place far and far across the sea.’ ‘All right,’ said the little red men to him, ‘do you wish to go with it?’ ‘Yes,’ said he. ‘Well, get up,’ said they to him; and away they went, far and far over the great sea.

Now the grand hunting party comes back, and the castle upon the twelve golden pillars disappeared, to the great disappointment of those gentleman as did not see it before. That poor silly Jack is threatened by taking his beautiful young wife from him, for taking them in the way he did. But the gentleman is going to make a ’greement with him, and he is to have a twelvemonths and a day to look for it; and off he goes with a good horse and money in his pocket.

Then Jack got a good meal and bed, and in the morning he and the King went on to the fields; and the King called all the mice together, and asked them whether they had seen the great beautiful castle standing on golden pillars. And all the little mice said, No, there was none of them had seen it. The old King said to him that he had two other brothers: ‘One is the King of all the frogs; and my other brother, who is the oldest, he is the King of all the birds in the world. And if you go there, maybe they know something about it’ (the missing castle). The King said to him, ‘Leave your horse here with me till you come back, and take one of my best horses under you, and give this cake to my brother; he will know then who you got it from. Mind and tell him I am well, and should like dearly to see him.’

And then the King and Jack shook hands together. And when Jack was going through the gates, the little mouse asked him should he go with him; and Jack said to him, ‘No, I shall get myself into trouble with the King.’

And the little thing told him, ‘It will be better for you to have me go with you; maybe I shall do some good to you sometime without you knowing it.’

‘Jump up, then.’

And the little mouse ran up the horse’s leg, and made it dance; and Jack put the mouse in his pocket. Now Jack, after wishing good-morning to the King, and pocketing the little mouse which was on sentry, trudged on his way. And such a long way he had to go, and this was his first day. At last he found the place; and there was one of the frogs on sentry, and gun upon his shoulder, and did try to hinder Jack not to go in. And when Jack said to him that he wanted to see the King, he allowed him to pass; and Jack made up to the door. The King came out, and asked him his business; and Jack told him all from beginning to ending.

‘Well, well, come in.’

He gets good entertainment that night; and in the morning the King made a curious sound, and collected all the frogs in the world. And he asked them, did they know or see anything of a castle that stood upon twelve golden pillars. And they all made a curious sound, Kro-kro, kro-kro, and said ‘No.’

Jack had to take another horse, and a cake to his brother which is the King of all the fowls of the air. And as Jack was going through the gates, the little frog which was on sentry asked John should he go with him. Jack refused him for a bit; but at last he told him to jump up, and Jack put him in his other waistcoat pocket. And away he went again on his great long journey; it was three times as long this time as it was the first day; however, he found the place, and there was a fine bird on sentry. And Jack passed him, and he never said a word to him. And he talked with the King, and told him everything, all about the castle.

‘Well,’ said the King to him, ‘you shall know in the morning from my birds whether they know anything or not.’

‘Well,’ said the king, ‘where is the great bird?’

They had to wait, then, for a long time for eagle to make his appearance, when at last he came all in a perspiration, after sending two little birds high up in the sky to whistle on him to make all the haste he possibly could. The King asked the great bird, Did he see the great castle?

And the bird said, ‘Yes, I came from there where it now is.’

‘Well,’ says the King, ‘this young gentleman has lost it, and you must go with him back to it. But stop till you get a bit of something to eat first.’

They killed a thief, and sent the best part of it to feed the eagle on his journey over the seas, and had to carry Jack on his back. Now, when they came in sight of the castle, they did not know what to do to get the little golden box. Well, the little mouse said to them, ‘Leave me down, and I will get the little box for you.’ So the mouse stole himself in the castle, and had a hold of the box; and when he was coming down the stairs, fell it down, and very near being caught. He came running out with it, laughing his best.

‘Have you got it?’ Jack said to him.

He said, ‘Yes’; and off they went back again, and left the castle behind. As they were all of them (Jack, mouse, frog, and eagle) passing over the great sea, they fell to quarrelling about which it was that got the little box, till down it slipped into the water. (It was by them looking at it, and handing it from one hand to the other, that they dropped the little box in the bottom of the sea.)

‘Well, well,’ said the frog, ‘I knew as I would have to do something, so you had better let me go down in the water.’

And they let him go, and he was down for three days and three nights; and up he comes, and shows his nose and little mouth out of the water. And all of them asked him, ‘Did he get it?’ and he told them, ‘No.’

‘Well, what are you doing there, then?’

‘Nothing at all,’ he said; ‘only I want my full breath’; and the poor little frog went down the second time, and he was down for a day and a night, and up he brings it.

And away they did go, after being there four days and nights; and, after a long tug over seas and mountains, arrive at the old King’s palace, who is the master of all the birds in the world. And the King is very proud to see them, and has a hearty welcome and a long conversation. Jack opens the little box, and told the little men to go back and to bring the castle here to them. ‘And all of you make as much haste back again as you possibly can.’

The three little men went off; and when they came near the castle, they were afraid to go to it, till the gentleman and lady and all the servants were gone out to some dance. And there was no one left behind there, only the cook and another maid with her. And it happened to be that a poor Gypsy woman, knowing that the family was going from home, made her way to the castle to try to tell the cook’s fortune for a bit of victuals, was there at the time. And the little red men asked her, ‘Which would she rather—go or stop behind?’

And she said, ‘I will go with you.’

And they told her to run upstairs quick. She was no sooner up and in one of the drawing-rooms than there comes just in sight the gentleman and lady and all the servants. But it was too late. Off they went at full speed, and the Gypsy woman laughing at them through the window, making motion for them to stop, but all to no purpose. They were nine days on their journey, in which they did try to keep the Sunday holy, by one of the little men turned to be priest, the other the clerk, and third presided at the organ, and the three women were the singers (cook, housemaid, and Gypsy woman), as they had a grand chapel in the castle already. Very remarkable, there was a discord made in the music, and one of the little men ran up one of the organ-pipes to see where the bad sound came from, when he found out that it only happened to be that the three women were laughing at the little red man stretching his little legs full length on the bass pipes, also his two arms the same time, with his little red nightcap, what he never forgot to wear, and what they never witnessed before, could not help calling forth some good merriment while on the face of the deep. And, poor things! through them not going on with what they begun with, they very near came to danger, as the castle was once very near sinking in the middle of the sea.

At length, after merry journey, they come again to Jack and the King. The King was quite struck with the sight of the castle; and going up the golden stairs, wishing to see the inside, when the first one that attracted his attention was the poor Gypsy woman. And he said to her, ‘How are you, sister?’

She said to him, ‘I am very well. How are you?’

‘Quite well,’ said he to her; ‘come into my place, to have a talk with you, and see who you are, and who your people are.’

The old Gypsy woman told him that some of her people were some of them from the Lovells, Stanleys, Lees, and I don’t know all their names. The King and Jack was very much pleased with the Gypsy woman’s conversation, but poor Jack’s time was drawing to a close of a twelvemonths and a day. And he, wishing to go home to his young wife, gave orders to the three little men to get ready by the next morning at eight o’clock to be off to the next brother, and to stop there for one night; also to proceed from there to the last or the youngest brother, the master of all the mice in the world, in such place where the castle shall be left under his care until it’s sent for. Jack takes a farewell of the King, and thanks him very much for his hospitality, and tells him not to be surprised when he shall meet again in some other country.

Away went Jack and his castle again, and stopped one night in that place; and away they went again to the third place, and there left the castle under his care. As Jack had to leave the castle behind, he had to take to his own horse, which he left there when he first started. The king liked the Gypsy woman well, and told her that he would like if she would stay there with him; and the Gypsy woman did stay with him until she was sent for by Jack.

‘Well, to tell the truth, we are sent to take this castle from here. Do you wish to stop here or to come with us?’

‘I would like better to go with you than to stay here.’

‘Well, come on, my poor sister.’

Jack shook hands with the King, and returned many thanks for his kingly kindness. When, all of a sudden, the King, seeing the Gypsy woman, which he fell in so much fancy with, and whom he so much liked, was going to detain the castle until such time he could get her out. But Jack, perceiving his intentions, and wanting the Gypsy woman himself for a nurse, instructed the little men to spur up and put speed on. And off they went, and were not long before they reached their journey’s end, when out comes the young wife to meet him with a fine lump of a young Son.

Now, to make my long story short, Jack, after completing what he did, and to make a finish for the poor broken-hearted Gypsy woman, he has the loan of one of his father-in-law’s largest man-of-wars, which is laying by anchor, and sends the three little men in search of her kinsfolk, so as they may be found, and to bring them to her. After long searching they are found and brought back, to the great joy of the woman and delight of his wife’s people-in-law, for after a bit they became very fond of each other. When they came on land, Jack’s people allowed them to camp on their ground near a beautiful river; and the gentlemen and ladies used to go and see for them every day. Jack and his wife had many children, and had some of the Gypsy girls for nurses; and the little children were almost half Gypsies, for the girls continually learning them our language. And the gentleman and the lady were delighted with them. And the last time I was there, I played my harp for them, and got to go again.

This story, like the next, was first printed in my In Gypsy Tents (1880), pp. 201–214 and 299–317. Thence both have been reprinted, with additions and deletions of his own, by Mr. Joseph Jacobs in his English Fairy Tales (1890), pp. 81–92, 236, and More English Fairy Tales (1894), pp. 132–145, 232–233. They are not English fairy-tales at all; neither were they ‘taken down from the mouths of the peasantry.’ Both were written out for me by the Welsh-Gypsy harper, John Roberts, for whom see the Introduction. I still have his neatly-written MSS., from one of which the second story of ‘An Old King and his Three Sons in England’ was printed verbatim et literatim at Messrs. T. and A. Constable’s for the Gypsy Lore Journal (vol. iii. October 1891, pp. 110–120). I insist upon this the more as it is all but unique to find the teller of a folk-tale who can himself transcribe it. The story belongs to the Aladdin group; and according to Mr. Jacobs, the closest parallel to it, including the mice, is afforded by Carnoy and Nicolaides’ Traditions Populaires de l’Asie Mineure (1889), in a tale from Lesbos, ‘L’Anneau de Bronze,’ No. 3, pp. 57–74. A much closer parallel, however, is afforded by Wratislaw’s Sixty Slavonic Folk-tales (1889), in the Croatian story of ‘The Wonder-working Lock,’ No. 54, pp. 284–289, with which compare a poorish Bohemian variant, ‘La Montre Enchantée,’ in Louis Léger’s Contes Slaves (1882, No. 15, pp. 129–137); Hahn’s ‘Von den drei dankbaren Thieren’ (No. 9, i. 109, and ii. 202); and two stories, Nos. 9 and 10, both called ‘Le Serpent Reconnaissant,’ in Dozon’s Contes Albanais (1881, pp. 63–76, and 219–222), in the former of which the talisman is a snakestone, in the latter a tobacco-box (of course, a mere coincidence). All these four stories offer analogies to our Roumanian-Gypsy ‘Snake who became the King’s Son-in-law’ (No. 7, p. 21). Grimm’s No. 97, ‘The Water of Life’ (ii. 50, 399), should also be compared; and ‘Sir Bumble,’ in F. A. Steel’s Wide-awake Stories, pp. 5–16. The little cake and blessing, or big cake and curse, recurring in ‘The Ten Rabbits,’ No. 64, comes also in ‘The Red Etin’ (Chambers’s Popular Rhymes of Scotland, p. 90), in Campbell’s West Highland Tales, Nos. 13, 16, and 17, and in Patrick Kennedy’s Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts, pp. 5, 54. In the Bukowina-Gypsy story, ‘Made over to the Devil’ (No. 34), the mother makes a cake for her departing son, but there is no word of curse or blessing. For many more variants (Arabic, Mongolian, Tamil, Greek, etc.) of ‘Aladdin,’ see Clouston’s Variants of Burton’s Supplemental Arabian Nights, pp. 564–575. ‘The elements,’ he observes, ‘of the tale are identical in all versions, Eastern and Western: a talisman by means of which its possessor can command unlimited wealth, etc.; its loss and the consequent disappearance of the magnificent palace erected by supernatural agents who are subservient to the owner of the talisman; and, finally, its recovery, together with the restoration of the palace to its original situation.’ The words apply strikingly to ‘Jack and his Golden Snuff-box,’ of whose existence Mr. Clouston was ignorant when he wrote them. Lastly—this is a find since I began this note—a marvellously close parallel to ‘The Wonder-working Lock’ and ‘La Montre Enchantée’ is offered by ‘The Wonderful Ring,’ in F. A. Steel’s Wide-awake Stories from the Panjab and Kashmir, pp. 196–208. Here the hero with his last four rupees buys a cat, dog, parrot, and snake; receives from snake’s grateful father a talismanic ring; builds by means of it a golden palace in the sea, and marries a princess; has the ring stolen by a witch, who sleeps with it in her mouth; but recovers it, thanks to the grateful animals, who tickle the witch’s nose with a rat’s tail. Another Oriental version is ‘The Charmed Ring,’ in Knowles’s Folk-tales of Kashmir, pp. 20–28. Of this story and its Croatian, Albanian, and other variants we get a fragment in Dr. Barbu Constantinescu’s Roumanian-Gypsy story of ‘The Stolen Ox.’ Here a peasant and his twelve sons are starving. He goes begging, but no one will give him anything, so he steals an ox from a farmer. The farmer next morning goes to look after his cattle, misses the ox, and, going in search of it, comes on the boys in the road. ‘What are you doing there, boys?’ ‘Just playing.’ ‘But last night you were roaring for hunger.’ ‘Yes; but my daddy went to a farm and stole an ox, and my daddy killed it. He killed the ox, he did, and we ate half the ox, and half remained, and my daddy buried it in the earth, wrapped up in the hide.’ The farmer goes and demands payment of the peasant, who gives him one of his sons to serve him for seven years. The lad serves the farmer faithfully, and at the end of his term sets off home. On his way he ‘lights on a dragon, and in the snake’s mouth was a stag. Nine years had that snake had the stag in his mouth, and been trying to swallow it, but could not because of the horns. Now that snake was a prince. And seeing the lad, whom God had sent his way, “Lad,” said the snake, “relieve me of this stag’s horns, for I’ve been going about nine years with it in my mouth.” So the lad broke off the horns, and the snake swallowed the stag. “My lad, tie me round your neck, and carry me to my father, for he doesn’t know where I am.” So he carried him to his father, and his father rewarded him. And I came away, and told the tale.’

No. 55.—An Old King and his three Sons in England

At last he came to some old house near a great forest, and there was some old man sitting out by the door, and his look was enough to frighten the Devil. And the old man said to him, ‘Good-morning, my king’s son.’

‘Good-morning to you, old gentleman,’ was the answer by the young prince, and frightened out of his wits, but he did not like to give in.

The old gentleman told him to dismount and to go in and have some refreshments, and to put his horse in the stable, such as it was. After going in, and Jack feeling much better after having something to eat, and after his long ride, began to ask the old gentleman how did he know that he was a king’s son?

‘Oh dear!’ said the old man, ‘I knew that you was a king’s son, and I knew what is your business better than what you do yourself. So you will have to stay here to-night; and when you are in bed, you mustn’t be frightened when you hear something come to you. There will come all manner of snakes and frogs, and some will try to get into your eyes and into your mouth. And mind,’ the old man said, ‘if you stir the least bit, then you will turn into one of those things yourself.’

Poor Jack did not know what to make of this, but however, he ventured to go to bed; and just as he thought to have a bit o’ sleep, here they came around him, but he never stirred one bit all night.

‘Well, my young son, how are you this morning?’

‘Oh! I am very well, thank you, but I did not have much rest.’

‘Well, never mind that. You have got on very well so far, but you have a great deal to go through before you can have the golden apples to go to your father. So now you better come to have some breakfast before you start on your way to my other brother’s house. Now you will have to leave your own horse here with me, until you come back here again to me, and to tell me everything about how you got on.’

After that out comes a fresh horse for the young prince. And the old man give him a ball of yarn; and he flung it between the horse’s two ears. And off he goes as fast as the wind, which the wind behind could not catch the wind before, until he came to his second oldest brother’s house. When he rode up to the door, he had the same salute as he had from the first old man; but this one was much uglier than the first one. He had long grey hair, and his teeth was curling out of his mouth, and his finger and toe nails were not cut for many thousands of years. So I shall leave you to guess what sort of a looking being he was, but still his Rómani speech was soft and nice, much different to his younger brother. He puts his horse in a much better stable, and calls him in, and gives him plenty to eat and drink, and lots of tobacco and brandy. And they have a bit of chat before they goes to bed. When the old man asks him many questions: ‘Well, my young son, I suppose that you are one of the King’s children, and come to look for the golden apples to recover him, because he is sick?’

Jack.—‘Yes; I am the youngest of the three brothers, and I should like well to get them to go back with.’

Old Man.—‘Well, don’t mind, my young son. I will send before you to-night to my oldest brother, when you go to bed, and I will say all to him what you want, and then he will not have much trouble to send you on to the place where you must go to get them. But you must mind to-night not to stir when you hear those things biting and stinging you, or else you will work great mischief to yourself.’

The young man went to bed, and beared all, as he did the first night, and got up the next morning well and hearty, and thought a good deal of the old man’s Rómani way the night before. After a good breakfast, and passing some few remarks, What a curious place that was, when the old man should say, ‘Yes’ to him, ‘you will see a more curious place soon; and I hope I shall see you back here all right.’ When out comes another fresh horse, and a ball of yarn to throw between his ears. The old man tells him to jump up, and said to him that he has made it all right with his oldest brother to give him a quick reception, and not to delay any whatever, ‘as you have a good deal to go through in a very short and quick time.’

He flung the ball, and off he goes as quick as lightning, and comes to the oldest brother’s house. (I forgot to tell you that the last old man told him not to be frightened at this one’s looks.) Well, to make my long story short, the old man received him very kindly, and told him that he long wished to see him, and that he would go through his work like a man, and return back here safe and sound.

‘Now to-night I shall give you rest; there shall nothing come to disturb you, so as you may not feel sleepy to-morrow. And you must mind to get up middling early, for you’ve got to go and come all in the same day. For there will be no place for you to rest within thousands of miles of that place; and if there was, you would stand in great danger never to come from there in your own form. Now, my young Prince, mind what I tell you. To-morrow, when you go in sight of a very large castle, which will be surrounded with black water, the first thing you will do you will tie your horse to a tree, and you will see three beautiful swans in sight. When you will say, ‘Swan, swan, carry me over for the name of the Griffin of the Greenwood’; and the swans will swim you over to the castle. There will be three great entrances, before you go in. The first will be guarded by four great giants, and drawn swords in their hands; the second entrance lions and other things; and the other with fiery serpents and other things too frightful to mention. You will have to be there exactly at one o’clock; and mind and leave there precisely at two, and not a moment later. When the swans carry you over to the castle, you will pass all these things, when they will be all fast asleep, but you must not notice any of them. When you go in, you will turn up to the right, you will see some grand rooms, then you will go downstairs and through the cooking kitchen, and through a door on your left you go into a garden, where you will find the apples you want for your father to get him well. After you fill your wallet, you make all the speed you possibly can, and call out for the swans to carry you over the same as before. After you get on your horse, should you hear any shouting or making any noise after you, be sure not to look back, as they will follow you for thousands of miles; but when the time will be up and you near my place, it will be all over. Well, now, my young man, I have told you all you have to do to-morrow; and mind, whatever you do, don’t look about you when you see all those dreadful things. Keep a good heart, and make haste from there, and come back to me with all the speed you can. I should like to know how my two brothers were when you left them, and what they said about me.’

The Old Man.—‘So ’tis, my daddy. My youngest brother ran away when he was young with the English Gypsies, and their speech is not the same as our speech. Well, let’s take a drop more brandy and a little tobacco, and then let’s go to bed. You need not fear. There are no snakes here.’

The young man went to bed, and had a good night’s rest, and got up the next morning as fresh as newly caught trout. Breakfast being over, when out come the other horse, and, when saddling and fettling, the old man began to laugh, and told the young gentleman that if he saw a pretty young lady, not to stay with her too long, because she may waken, and then he would have to stay with her, or to be turned into one of those unearthly monsters, like those which he will have to pass by going into the castle.

‘Ha! ha! ha! you make me laugh that I can scarcely buckle the saddle-straps. I think I shall make it all right, my uncle, if I sees a young lady there, you may depend.’

‘Well, my daddy, I shall see how you will get on.’

So he mounts his Arab steed, and off he goes like a shot out of a gun. At last he comes in sight of the castle. He ties his horse safe to a tree, and pulls out his watch. It was then a quarter to one, when he called out, ‘Swan, swan, carry me over, for the name of the old Griffin of the Greenwood.’ No sooner said than done. A swan under each side, and one in front, took him over in a crack. He got on his legs, and walked quietly by all those giants, lions, fiery serpents, and all manner of other frightful things too numerous to mention, while they were all fast asleep, and that only for the space of one hour, when into the castle he goes neck or nothing. Turning to the right, upstairs he runs, and enters into a very grand bedroom, and seen a beautiful Princess lying full stretch on a beautiful gold bedstead, fast asleep. It will take me too long to describe the other beautiful things which was in the room at the time, so you will pardon me for going on, for there was no time to lose. He gazed on her beautiful form with admiration, and looked at her foot, and said, ‘Where there is a pretty foot, there must be a pretty leg.’ And he takes her garter off, and buckles it on his own leg, and he buckles his on hers; he also takes her gold watch and pocket-handkerchief, and exchanges his for hers; after that ventures to give her a kiss, when she very near opened her eyes. Seeing the time short, off he runs downstairs, and passing through the cooking kitchen, through where he had to pass to go into the garden for the apples, he could see the cook all-fours on her back on the middle of the floor, with the knife in one hand and the fork in the other. He found the apples out, and filled his wallet well; and by passing through the kitchen the cook did very near waken, and she did wink on him with one eye; he was obliged to make all the speed he possibly could, as the time was nearly up. He called out for the swans, and off they managed to take him over, but they found he was a little heavier than when he was going over before. No sooner than he had mounted his horse, he could hear a tremendous noise, and the enchantment was broke, and they tried to follow him, but all to no purpose. He was not long before he came to the oldest brother’s house; and glad enough he was to see it, for the sight and the noise of all those things that were after him near frightened him to death.

‘Welcome, my daddy, I am proud to see you. Dismount and put the horse in the stable, and come in and have some refreshments; I know you are hungry after all you have gone through in that castle. And tell all what you did, and all what you saw there. There was other kings’ sons went by here to go to that castle, but they never came back alive, and you are the only one that ever broke the spell (for me to go from here). And now you must come with me, and a sword in your hand, and must cut my head off and must throw it in that well.’

The young Prince dismounts, and puts the horse in the stable, and then goes in to have some refreshments, for I can assure you he wanted some. And after telling him everything that passed, which the old gentleman was very pleased to hear, they both went for a walk together, the young Prince looking around and seeing the place all round him looking dreadful, also the old man. He could scarcely walk from his toe-nails curling up like ram’s horns that had not been cut for many hundred years, and big long hair. And although his teeth was curling out of his mouth, he could speak the Rómani language better than any other. They come to a well, and he gives the Prince a sword, and tells him to cut the old man’s head off, and to throw it in that well. The young man, through him being so kind to him, has to do it against his wish, but has to do it.

No sooner he does it, and flings his head in the well, than up springs one of the finest young gentlemen you would wish to see; and instead of the old house and the frightful-looking place, it was changed into a beautiful hall and grounds. And they went back, and enjoyed themselves well, and had a good laugh about the castle, when he told him all about what had passed, especially when he told him about the cook winking on him and could not open the other eye. The young Prince leaves this young gentleman in all his glory, and he tells the young Prince before leaving that he will see him again before long. They have a jolly shake-hands, and off he goes to the next oldest brother; and, to make my long story short, he has to serve the other two brothers the same as the first, and he has to take to his own horse to go home.

Now the youngest brother there was a good deal of the English Gypsy in him, and begun to ask him how things went on, and making inquiries and asking, ‘Did you see my two brothers?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did they look?’

‘Oh! they looked very well. I liked them much. They told me many things what to do.’

‘Well, did you go to the castle?’

‘Yes, my uncle.’

‘And will you tell me what you see in there? Did you see the young lady?’

‘Yes, I saw her, and plenty other frightful things.’

‘Did you hear any snake biting you in my oldest brother’s bed?’

‘No, there were none there; I slept well.’

‘You won’t have to sleep in the same bed to-night. You will have to cut off my head in the morning.’

The young Prince had a good night’s rest, and changed all the appearance of the place by cutting his head off before he started in the morning, having a good breakfast, and supplying himself with a little brandy and a good lot of tobacco for the road before starting, for he had a very long way to go, and his horse had not the same speed as theirs had. A jolly shake-hands, and tells him it’s very probable that he shall see him again very soon when he will not be aware of it. This one’s mansion was very pretty, and the country around it beautiful, after having his head cut off. And off he goes, over hills, dales, valleys, and mountains, and very near losing his apples again. (I forgot to tell you that he give some to each of those brothers before leaving.)

After a while he awoke, and, seeing the tracks of other horses, he mounted and off with him, not thinking anything about the apples being changed. He had still a long way to go by himself, and by the time he got near London he could hear all the bells in the town ringing, but did not know what was the matter until he rode up to the palace, when he came to know that his father was recovered by his brothers’ apples. When he got there, his two brothers went off to some sports for a while. And the king was very glad to see his youngest son, and was very anxious to taste his apples. And when he found that they were not good, and thought that they were more for poisoning him, he sent immediately for the head butcher to behead his youngest son; and was taken away there and then in a carriage. But instead of the butcher taking his head off, he took him to some forest not far from the town, because he had pity on him, and there left him to take his chance. When presently up comes a big hairy bear, limping upon three legs; and the Prince, poor fellow, climbed up a tree, frightened of him, and the bear telling him to come down, that it’s no use of him to stop there. With hard persuasion poor Jack comes down; and the bear speaks to him in Rómani, and bids him to ‘Come here to me; I will not do you any harm. It’s better for you to come with me and have some refreshments. I know that you are hungry all this time.’

The poor young Prince says, ‘No, I am not very hungry; but I was very frightened when I saw you coming to me first, when I had no place to run away from you.’

The bear said, ‘I was also afraid of you when I saw that gentleman setting you down from that carriage. I thought you would have some guns with you, and that you would not mind killing me if you would see me. But when I saw the gentleman going away with the carriage, and leaving you behind by yourself, I made bold to come to you, to see who you was; and now I know who you are very well. Isn’t you the King’s youngest son? I seen you and your brothers and lots of other gentlemen in this wood many times. Now, before we go from here, I must tell you that I am a Gypsy in disguise; and I shall take you where we are stopping at.’

The young Prince up and tells him everything from first to last, how he started in search of the apples, and about the three old men, and about the castle, and how he was served at last by his father after he came home; and instead of the butcher to take his head off, he was kind enough to leave him to have his life, and to take his chance in the forest, live or die; ‘and here I am now, under your protection.’

The bear tells him, ‘Come on, my brother. There shall be no harm come to you as long as you are with me.’

So he takes him up to the tents; and when they sees ’em coming, the girls begin to laugh, and says, ‘Here is our Jubal coming with a young gentleman.’

When he advanced nearer the tents, they all begun to know that he was the young Prince that had passed by that way many times before; and when Jubal went to change himself, he called most of them together in one tent, and tells them everything all about him, and tells them to be kind to him. And so they were, for there was nothing that he desired but what he had, the same as if he was in the palace with his father and mother. He was allowed to romp and play with the girls, but no further, though his princely manners and the chastity of the girls hindered all bad thoughts. Him having lessons on the Welsh harp when a boy by some Welsh harper belonging to the Woods or Roberts family, who were Welsh Gypsies of North Wales, made a little difference to his way of speaking to that of the London magpies, when they used to say, ‘Dorda! this young gentleman talks as if he was two hundred years old; we can’t understand him.’ They used to have a deal of fun with him at night-time, when telling his funny tales by the fire. Jubal, after he pulled off his hairy coat, was one of the smartest young men amongst them, and he stuck to be the young Prince’s closest companion. The young Prince was always very sociable and merry, only when he would think of his gold watch, the one as he had from the young Princess in that castle. The butcher allowed him to keep that for company, and did not like to take it from him, as it might come useful to him some time or another. And the poor fellow did not know where he lost it, being so much excited with everything.

He passed off many happy days with the Stanleys and Grays in Epping Forest. But one day him and poor Jubal was strolling through the trees, when they came to the very same spot where they first met, and, accidentally looking up, he could see his watch hanging up in the tree which he had to climb when he first seen poor Jubal coming to him in the form of a bear; and cries out, ‘Jubal, Jubal, I can see my watch up in that tree.’

‘Well! I am sure, how lucky!’ exclaimed poor Jubal, ‘shall I go and get it down?’

‘No, I’d rather go myself,’ said the young Prince.

Now she says, ‘Have you not another son?’

When the King began to shiver and shake and knock his two knees together that he could scarcely stand upon his legs, and did not know what to say to her; he was so much frightened. At last a thought came to him to send for his head butcher, and inquired of him particularly, Did he behead his son, or is he alive?

‘He is saved, O King.’

‘Then bring him here immediately, or else I shall be done for.’

Two of the fastest horses they had were put in the carriage, to go and look for the poor Welsh-harping Prince. And when they got to the very same spot where they left him, that was the time when the Prince was up the tree, getting his watch down, and poor Jubal standing a distance off. They cried out to him, Did he see another young man in this wood? Jubal, seeing such a nice carriage, thought something, and did not like to say No, and said Yes, and pointed up the tree. And they told him to come down immediately, as there is a young lady in search of him with a young child.

‘Ha! ha! ha! Jubal, did you ever hear such a thing in all your life, my brother?’

‘Do you call him your brother?’

‘Well, he has been better to me than my brothers.’

‘Well, for his kindness he shall come to accompany you to the palace, and see how things will turn out.’

After they go to the palace, he has a good wash, and appears before the Princess, when she asks him, or puts the question to him, ‘Had he ever been at the Castle of Melváles?’ when he with a smile upon his face, and gives a graceful bow.

And says my lady, ‘Walk over that handkerchief without stumbling.’

He walks over it many times, and dances upon it, and nothing happened to him. She said, with a proud and smiling air, ‘That is the young man’; and out comes the exchanged things by both of them. Presently she orders a very large box to be brought in and to be opened, and out come some of the most costly uniforms that was ever wore on an emperor’s back; and when he dressed himself up, the King could scarcely look upon him from the dazzling of the gold and diamonds on his coat and other things. He orders his two brothers to be in confinement for a period of time; and before the Princess demands him to go with her to her own country, she pays a visit to the Gypsies’ camp, and she makes them some very handsome presents for being so kind to the young Prince. And she gives Jubal an invitation to go with them, which he accepts, also one of the girls for a nurse; wishes them a hearty farewell for a time, promising to see them again in some little time to come, by saying, ‘Cheer up, comrades, I’m a Rómani myself; I should like to see you in my country.’

As I said in my notes to No. 54, Mr. Joseph Jacobs has also reprinted this story, with alterations (e.g. of ‘head butcher’ to ‘headsman’), additions, and omissions of his own. Especially has he deleted every mention of Gypsies, whilst leaving in references to ‘tents,’ ‘camp,’ etc., which thus appear rather à propos de bottes. Such tampering with folk-tales reminds one somehow of your ‘restoring’ architect, called in about an old church. ‘Yes,’ he pronounces, ‘that window is Late Perpendicular, so will have to come out, and we’ll put in an Early English one according to the original design.’ Not that he knows the original design, but he pleases his dupes: some there be, however, that curse. But Grimm, Mr. Jacobs pleads, rewrote his fairy-tales. Maybe He did, but every folklorist is not a Grimm.

After this, Mr. Jacobs remarks that ‘the tale is scarcely a good example for Mr. Hindes Groome’s contention (in Transactions Folk-Lore Congress) for the diffusion of all folk-tales by means of gypsies as colporteurs. This is merely a matter of evidence, and of evidence there is singularly little, though it is indeed curious that one of Campbell’s best equipped informants should turn out to be a Gypsy. Even this fact, however, is not too well substantiated.’ As I have shown in my Introduction, I have never made such a contention; there, too, I have told all I know about Campbell’s informant—Mr. Jacobs, perhaps, may know more. But his oracular judgment, that this story is a poor example for my (real) contention, that is what staggers me, unbacked though it be by one tittle of counter-evidence. The following is all I can adduce in self-vindication.

My friend Mr. Sampson has got from Matthew Wood another Welsh-Gypsy version, called ‘I Valín Kalo Pāni’ (The Bottle of Black Water). ‘This,’ he writes, ‘is a variant of your “King and his Three Sons,” with which it agrees in most particulars, except of course Roberts’ own picturesque little touches, and that a bottle of black water takes the place of the three golden apples.’ Then, what I did not, could not know when I published In Gypsy Tents (1880), there is a closely parallel non-Gypsy variant in Professor Theodor Vernaleken’s In The Land of Marvels (Eng. trans. 1884), No. 52, pp. 304–9 and 360. It is called ‘The Accursed Garden,’ and comes from St. Pölden in Lower Austria. Here is a summary:—

A king has three sons, the youngest the handsomest. He falls sick, and learns he can only get better by eating a fruit from the Accursed Garden. The brothers set out one after the other; the two eldest lose all their money gaming in an inn, and are put in jail (cf. No. 49, p. 184). The youngest son comes to a hermit’s in a great forest, inquires the way to the Accursed Garden, and gets a red ball, which, flung before him, will show the way. He next comes to a black dog, and sleeps three nights with him, then to a red dog, lastly to a white maiden. Before reaching the mountain on whose top is the garden he ties his horse to a fig-tree. He has to enter the garden at eleven, and leave before noon. In a castle in the midst of the garden he finds a sleeping lady, writes down his name and address, departs and is pursued by devouring beasts. Returning to the white maiden, he is desired by her to divide a grape into four parts, and to cast a part into each corner of her dwelling. Immediately it became a splendid palace. The red and black dogs are likewise changed into princes, and the hermit into a king. The prince comes up as his brothers are going to be hanged, buys them off, is robbed by them in the night of his fruit, receiving in its stead a poisoned one, and then is thrown into a valley. The late hermit discovers and revives him, but the king his father, finding his fruit is poisoned, orders him to be shot. But the servant spares him; and the young lady, arriving with a great army, proclaims that if the prince who fetched the fruit be not produced she will besiege the city. Then the servant tells how he spared the prince, who is sought for and brought to the king. He accurately describes the garden, and marries the princess.

The well-known Sleeping Beauty recurs in two other Gypsy stories—the Moravian one of ‘The Princess and the Forester’s Son’ (p. 147), which offers marked analogies to John Roberts’s tale, and that from the Bukowina, ‘The Winged Hero’ (pp. 100–104), which is very Oriental in character. Whether she was ever familiar to English or Scottish folklore I do not know; but Scott in chapter xxvi. of The Antiquary alludes to her.

For the three helpful brothers, cf. F. A. Steel’s Wide-awake Stories, p. 35–36; and for the prohibition not to look about [behind], Maive Stokes’s Indian Fairy Tales, p. 140.

No. 56.—The Five Trades

Once there were a sailor and other four men. One was a smith, and the other was a soldier and a tailor, and the last was an innkeeper. The sailor asked the smith to come upon the sea. The smith said, ‘No, I must go and do some work.’ ‘What is your work?’ ‘To heat iron,’ says the smith, ‘and make it into shoes for horses.’ The sailor asked the other three to come on board his ship. The soldier said he must go to make facings and marchings; and the tailor said, ‘I must go and make clothes to keep you warm.’ And the innkeeper said, ‘I am going to make beer to make you drunk, that you may all of you go to the devil.’ That’s all of that.

This little temperance apologue by a non-teetotaler is one of the very few Gypsy stories with a moral.

No. 57.—Ashypelt

Once there was an old man and an old ’ooman livin’ in the Forest o’ Dean. They ’ad twelve sons, and there was one son called Ashypelt. He was the youngest son, and they didn’t never think but very little o’ Ashypelt, as ’ee was allus used to be i’ the esshole under the fire, an’ the brothers used to spit on ’im and laugh at ’im an’ make fun of ’im an’ that. He never spoke, didn’t Ashypelt, nor hear nuthin’. These eleven brothers—they was nearly allus felling timber and that—used to go, they used to go off tel Saturdays for a week. They used to do that very reglar, and were bringing a lot of money in for the old man and the old ’ooman.

So the old ’ooman sez one day, ‘Well, John, I sez, I think you an’ me ’as got enough money now to live on which will keep we all the days of our life. An’ we’ll tell ’em to-night’—it was on a Saturday, an’ they was comin’ home again, they was comin’ home with all the week’s wages—‘we’ll say to ’em as the pressgang ’as been after ’em, as they’ve got to ’ear as we’ve got eleven very fine sons, and they wants to make soldiers of ’em. So I’ll begin a-cryin’ when they comes ’ere to-night, and I’ll say to ’em, “O my very dear sons, the pressgang’s been after yous ’ere to-day. They want yous to go for soldiers, an’ the best you can do, my dear children”—the old ’ooman was cryin’ very much, makin’ herself so—“is to go to sleep in the barn.” An’ we’ll put ’em to sleep in the barn, an’ give ’em their week’s victuals with ’em’ (what they used to take reglar), sez the old ’ooman to the old man. ‘We can soon put Ashypelt out o’ the road.’ (He was listenin’ all the time, the poor Ashypelt, listenin’ wot the old ’ooman was sayin’.) ‘Soon as we’ve put the eleven sons in the barn we’ll set fire to ’em about twelve o’clock and burn ’em: that’s the best way to take it out of ’em. We’ll burn ’em,’ she sez.

Poor Ashypelt gets up out o’ the esshole—this was about the hour of eleven: they was sittin’ up till twelve to set the barn afire. He goes up to the barn, an’ ’ee throws ’is brothers up one after another neck and crop—an’ they was goin’ to kill ’im—an’ their week’s victuals.

‘Oo are you?’ they sez.

‘I am your brother Ashypelt,’ he sez, ‘I am your brother Ashypelt.’

So one looks at ’im, an’ another looks at ’im, to find a certain mark as they know to him. They went to kill poor Ashypelt for throwing them up.

He sez, ‘My father and mother is goin’ to set you afire, all the lot o’ you, that’s the reason they put you in the barn. An’ come with me up on that back edge, an’ you’ll see the barn goin’ afire directly,’ sez Ashypelt.

They sat on this high edge tel twelve o’clock come, an’ they was lookin’ out, an’ they seen the old ’ooman an’ the old man go with a lantern, an’ puttin’ a light to the barn an’ all the straw what was in it. So they thanked Ashypelt very much for savin’ their lives, but they didn’t injure their father or mother; but they all started to go on the road together. They comes to twelve cross-roads; an’ poor Ashypelt, never bein’ out o’ the esshole before, ’ee took very sleepy, through bein’ a very ’ot day.

So one brother sez to the other, ‘We’ll all take a road to ourselves. Each one will take a road, an’ in twelve months an’ a day we’ll all meet ’ere agen.’

’Ee sez, ‘Yes, Ashypelt, I can give you a job,’ ’ee sez. ’Ee sez, ‘Wot can you do?’

Ashypelt sez, ‘I can do everythink as you try to put me to.’

‘Well, Ashypelt,’ ’ee sez, ‘I’ll give you fifty pounds to sleep into the castle all night, an’ a good suit o’ clo’es.’

‘Oh! yes,’ ’ee sez; ‘I’ll sleep there,’ ’ee sed.

So ’ee sez to Ashypelt, ’ee sez, ‘You shall have a good bag o’ nuts to crack an’ plenty o’ ’bacca to smoke, an’ a good fire to sit by,’ ’ee sez.

But ’ee allowed him no can o’ beer to drink, plenty o’ water, so as he wouldn’t get trussicated. An’ ’appen about eleven o’clock at night ’ee sez, ‘Now Ashypelt, it is about the time you’ve got to come in along o’ me.’

So ’ee takes Ashypelt with ’im about eleven o’clock to this castle. ’Ee opens the door, an’ ’ee sez, ‘There you are, go an’ take your seat, an’ sit down.’ ’Ee sez ‘Here is your bag o’ nuts, an’ plenty o’ ’bacca to smoke.’

So just now Ashypelt was sittin’ down, an’ just about the hour o’ twelve ’ee could ’ear a lot o’ noise about the room. ’Ee looks around behind ’im at the door, an’ ’ee sees a man naked.

So ’ee sez, ‘Come up to the fire an’ warm you. You looks very cold.’

It was a sperrit, you see. ’Ee wouldn’t come up to the fire, so Ashypelt went an’ fetched im. Ashypelt sez, ‘Will you ’ave a smoke?’ ’ee sez, an’ ’ee takes an’ ’ee fills ’im a new pipe. ’Ee sez, ‘Will you crack some nuts?’

So ’ee smoked all poor Ashypelt’s ’bacca, an’ cracked all ’is nuts, an’ poor Ashypelt ’ad none. But ’ee sez, ‘You are a very greedy fellow indeed, I must say,’ ’ee sed, ‘after a man bringing you up to warm you at the fire, an’ taking everythink off ’im.’

Just about the hour o’ two o’clock away goes this man from ’im. So therefore Ashypelt sits contented down afore the fire to hisself.

So next mornin’ the master sez to ’im at the hour o’ six o’clock, ‘Are you alive, Ashypelt?’

‘Oh! yes,’ ’ee sez to ’im, ‘I am alive, sir. An’ there came a very rude man ’ere last night, an’ took all my ’bacca, an’ cracked all my nuts off me,’ ’ee sez, ‘for the kindness I done for ’im. ’Ee was naked, an’ I axed ’im to ’ave a warm.’

‘Well,’ ’ee sez to Ashypelt, ‘come along an’ ’ave some breakfast, Ashypelt.’ An’ ’ee takes ’im to the new ’ouse from the castle, to ’ave some breakfast. ‘Would you wish to stop another night, Ashypelt?’ ’ee sez, ‘an’ I’ll give you another fifty pounds.’

‘Oh! yes,’ sez Ashypelt, ‘’im never seein’ anythin’, an’ never knowin’ wot sperrits or ghostses was, ’im bein’ allus in the esshole.’

So all day Ashypelt went up an’ down the garden, an’ learnin’ ’ow to dig in the garden an’ one thing or another, tel eleven o’clock came again the next night.

‘Well, come, Ashypelt, my lad,’ ’ee sed, ‘it’s time for you to go back to your room agen now.’

So the next night ’ee gave ’im very near ’alf a pound o’ ’bacca to smoke an’ a bigger bag o’ nuts. So about the hour o’ twelve o’clock ’ee turns round to the door again, an’ there was five or six of these ghostses came in to ’im this time an’ sperrits. So there was one stood up in the corner in ’is skeleton. There was five more runnin’ up and down the room pitity-pat, pitity-pat.

‘Come up to the fire,’ Ashypelt sez, ‘an’ warm yous. Yous looks very cold all runnin’ about naked,’ ’ee sed. ’Ee sez, ‘There’s some ’bacca there an’ some pipes. ’Ave a smoke apiece.’

So this poor fellow stood up in the corner.

‘You come ’ere,’ sed Ashypelt; ‘you looks very cold, you’re nuthin’ but bones.’

But ’ee gave Ashypelt no answer. So Ashypelt comes up to ’im, to pull ’im out up to the fire, an’ ’ee ’appened to give ’im a bit of a touch round the neck—somewhere under the jaw, I think it was—as ’ee wouldn’t come for ’im. This fellow tumbled all into pieces, in small bits o’ pieces about ’alf an inch, tumbled all into pieces when Ashypelt ’it ’im.

‘Now, Ashypelt,’ sez one of ’em, ‘if you don’t put that fellow up agen as you fun’ ’im, we’ll devour you alive.’

Poor Ashypelt got fixing one little bone on top of another, an’ one little bone on top of another, but ’ee got tumblin’ them down as quick as ’ee was fixing them very near. Well, ’ee fixed an’ fixed at last tel it come very near one o’clock that ’ee was bein’ with ’im, but ’ee got ’em together agen. So away they all goes just about two o’clock an’ leaves ’im; an’ when ’ee come to look for the ’bacca, every morsel ’ad gone, ’ee never ’ad one pipeful.

‘Well,’ ’ee sez, ‘they’re a greedy lot o’ fellows, them is,’ ’ee sez. ‘They served me worse agen to-night,’ ’ee sez. So ’ee comes an’ sits ’imself down completely by ’is own fire agen.

Next morning at the hour o’ six o’clock the master comes for ’im agen. ‘Are you alive, Ashypelt?’ ’ee sez.

‘Oh! yes,’ ’ee sez, ‘I’m alive.’

He sez, ‘Did you ’ear anythin’ last night?’

‘Yes,’ sez Ashypelt, ‘there come a lot o’ greedy fellows ’ere, an’ smoked all my ’bacca an’ cracked all my nuts off me.’

So ’ee sez, ‘Come on down, Ashypelt, an’ ’ave your breakfast.’ ’Ee takes ’im to the new ’ouse to ’ave ’is breakfast. But after ’ee’d ’ad ’is breakfast, ‘Now, Ashypelt,’ ’ee sez, ‘I will give you another fifty to stop another night.’

Well, poor Ashypelt, never ’avin’ no money, ’ee sed, Yes, ’ee would do it. Well, ’ee took ’im, as usual, up an’ down the garden agen next day with ’im, taking ’im up an’ down the garden tel eleven o’clock come the next night.

‘So now, Ashypelt, my boy, it’s time for me to take you up to your room,’ ’ee sez. ‘I’ll give you a little extra ’bacca to-night. I’ll give you a pound, an’ a bigger bag o’ nuts—altogether it might be a gohanna [guano] bag o’ nuts—an’ a pound o’ ’bacca.’

So ’ee fastened ’em into the room before Ashypelt comes, an’ ’ee leaves ’im sittin’ ’down comfortable to ’isself ’avin’ a bit o’ a smoke o’ ’is ’bacca. But ’ee ’eard one o’ the terriblest noises ’ee ever ’eard in ’is life shoutin’ blue wilful murders, but ’ee couldn’t see nuthin’. This was at the hour o’ twelve. Bangin’ one of ’is doors wide open, in comes a man to ’im with ’is throat cut from ’ere to there. Ashypelt axed ’im to come an’ ’ave a pipe o’ ’bacca, an’ to ’ave a warm. Well, poor Ashypelt never seein’ nuthin’, ’ee wasn’t frightened a bit.

So the man sez to ’im, ‘Now, Ashypelt, my boy, I see you are not frightened. Come with me, an’ I’ll show you where I lies. My brother ’as killed me—it’s my brother what gives you this money to stop ’ere. You come with me, Ashypelt, down these steps.’

He took ’im down steps, down steps, down steps. Ashypelt axed ’im ’ow much further ’ee ’ad to go, an’ it ’ad been very dark goin’ down these steps. Ashypelt couldn’t see ’is way, but when ’ee got to the bottom there was a very fine light.

‘Now, Ashypelt,’ ’ee sez, ‘come with me,’ ’ee sez. ‘I’m that man as you struck in the room an’ knocked all to pieces. Now, Ashypelt, I’ll make you a gentleman for life if you’ll do one thing for me. Come along o’ me,’ ’ee sez to Ashypelt. Then ’ee sez, ‘Lift up that flag,’ ’ee sez.

‘No, sir,’ sez Ashypelt, ‘I can’t lift it up,’ ’ee sez to ’im; ‘but lift it you.’

‘Put your ’and down to it, an’ try to lift it up,’ ’ee sed.

Ashypelt done what ’ee told ’im, puttin’ ’is ’and down to lift the flag, an’ he draws the flag up. What was under that but a big pot o’ gold spade-ace guineas an’ that.

So ’ee sez, ‘Come along o’ me, Ashypelt,’ ’ee sez, ‘on further,’ ’ee sez. ’Ee sez, ‘Rise that flag up, Ashypelt.’

Ashypelt doin’ so, ’ee told ’im to rise one flag up, ’ee sez, ‘Rise the other one, Ashypelt, next to it.’

Ashypelt rises the other one, an’ there this ’ere skeleton was lyin’ in the coffin. That’s where ’ee was buried; ’is brother buried ’im there into the coffin. This was the older brother tel what the one was that was alive, that was dead. But they got fallin’ out which would ’ave the castle. The next brother killed the old one, an’ buried ’im there.

‘Now,’ sez this man with his throat cut from ’ere to there, ‘Ashypelt, I want you to do me a favourite, an’,’ ’ee sez, ‘you’ll never be troubled no more. You can sleep in that room all your lifetime,’ ’ee sez, ‘nuthin’ will ever trouble you no more. Now, in the mornin’,’ ’ee sez, ‘when my brother comes for you, ’ee ’ll ax you what sort o’ night’s rest you ’ad. So you say, “All right, only they smoked all my ’bacca an’ cracked all my nuts agen.” An’ the first town you get to, Ashypelt, an’ you leaves here, you make a report as ’ee’s killed ’is own brother; an’ when they calls for witnesses, Ashypelt, I’ll repear into the hall with my throat cut from ’ere to there. You can come back, Ashypelt, an’ take the castle, ’cause there’s nobody takes the castle barrin’ me an’ my brother.’

So Ashypelt goes to the next town as ’ee could meet with, an’ ’ee goes an’ makes a ’larm to a magistrate; an’ the magistrate sent some pleecemen with ’im, back to fetch this gentleman, an’ Ashypelt goes with ’em.

‘Hello!’ sez ’ee to Ashypelt, ‘what brings you back ’ere?’ ’ee sed.

So the pleeceman got close to this man. ‘For you,’ ’ee sez, an’ catches ’out of ’im, ‘They are come back for you, for killin’ yourn brother,’ takin’ ’im off back to the town agen, an’ Ashypelt along with ’im, takin’ ’im an’ tryin’ ’im. When they were tryin’ ’im, at the hour o’ twelve the magistrate cries out for witnesses, an’ the man repears with ’is throat cut from ’ere to there, just as they cried out for witnesses. ’Is brother got life—twenty years; an’ ’ee died shortly after ’ee got life. ’Ee broke ’is ’eart.

Well, Ashypelt goes back to the castle an’ lives there, an’ got a servant or two with ’im into the castle. One day ’ee bethought ’isself about ’is brothers where ’ee ’ad to meet them. ’Ee gets a pair of ’orses and a carriage, an’ ’ee buys eleven suits o’ clo’es, thinkin’ upon ’is poor brothers. So ’ee drives ahead until ’ee comes to these twelve roads, where ’ee ’ad to meet ’em twelve months an’ a day. So ’ee was drivin’ up to these ’ere twelve roads, an’ there they was all lyin’ down.

‘Hello! my men,’ ’ee sez, ‘what are you men all lyin’ down for?’ (Ashypelt bein’ dressed up, lookin’ gentleman, they didn’t know ’im.)

‘We’re waitin’ for a brother of ours by the name o’ Ashypelt,’ they sed.

‘Would you know ’im if you would see ’im?’ ’ee sed.

‘Oh! yes, we would know ’im very well. Twelve months an’ a day we ’ad to meet on these roads.’

So ’ee sez to ’em, ‘I’m your brother Ashypelt,’ ’ee sed to the one.

So they looks at ’im.

‘If you’re our brother Ashypelt, show your arm; you ’ave a mark on it what we know to.’

So they looks at this mark.

‘Oh! it is my brother Ashypelt,’ they sez, blessin’ ’im an’ kissin’ ’im an’ slobberin’, an’ so on.

So ’ee gives ’em a suit o’ clo’es apiece, these eleven brothers, to put on.

‘Now,’ ’ee sez, ‘I think we’ll go back an’ see the old ’ooman an’ the old man, how they are gettin’ on, from ’ere,’ sez Ashypelt to ’is brothers. ‘An’ when we get nigh ’ome, you eleven brothers stop behind, an’ I’ll drive up to the little farm, an’ ax the old lady what came of her eleven sons what she ’ad.’

So poor Ashypelt drives up to the ’ouse.

‘Hello! my old lady,’ ’ee sez, ‘what’s come of all the eleven sons as you ’ad?’

‘Oh!’ sez ’er, ‘they all went off for soldiers.’

So ’ee calls ’is eleven brothers up, an’ ’ee sez, ‘Didn’t you try to burn my eleven brothers in that barn,’ ’ee sez, ‘when you set the barn alight, an’ told ’em as the pressgang o’ soldiers was after ’em?’

So she sez, ‘No—true—no,’ she sed.

I tell you, sir, they give me a shilling for telling you that lie.

The name Ashypelt (Scottish Ashypet, Irish Ashiepelt, etc.; cf. Engl. Dialect Dict., pp. 80, 81) must be of Teutonic origin—akin to the familiar High German Aschenbrödel (‘Cinderella’) and the Norse Askepot (‘Boots’). The form coming nearest to it is also the oldest known to me: the mystic, Johann Tauler (c. 1300–61), says, in the Medulla Animæ, ‘I thy stable-boy and poor Aschenbaltz.’ See Grimm’s Household Tales, i. 366–7. In another story told by Cornelius Price, ‘The Black Dog of the Wild Forest,’ the hero is hidden by an old witch in the ash-hole under the fire. In the Polish-Gypsy tale of ‘A Foolish Brother and a Wonderful Bush’ (No. 45), that brother crouches over his stove; in Dasent’s Tales from the Norse, Boots sits all his life in the ashes (pp. 90, 232, 382); in Ralston’s story ‘Ivan Popyalof’ (p. 66), from the Chernigof government, the third brother, a simpleton, ‘for twelve whole years lay among the ashes from the stove, but then he arose and shook himself, so that six poods of ashes fell off from him’; and in Léger’s Bohemian story (Contes Slaves, p. 130) of ‘La Montre Enchantée,’ which is a variant of our No. 54, the third brother, a fool, does nothing but begrime himself with the cinders from the stove. The idea, then, extends beyond the Teutonic area; but how the name Ashypelt has found its way to South Wales is past my telling.

Compare Grimm’s No. 4 (i. 11), ‘The Story of the Youth who went forth to learn what Fear was,’ with the variants on pp. 342–347; also a fragment from Calver, Derbyshire, ‘The Boy who Feared Nothing,’ in Addy’s Household Tales. From a London tinker Campbell of Islay got a story of a cutler and a tinker who ‘travel together, and sleep in an empty haunted house for a reward. They are beset by ghosts and spirits of murdered ladies and gentlemen, and the inferior, the tinker, shows most courage, and is the hero. “He went into the cellar to draw beer, and there he found a little chap a-sittin’ on a barrel with a red cap on ’is ’ed; and sez he, sez he, ‘Buzz.’ ‘Wot’s Buzz?’ sez the tinker. ‘Never you mind wot’s buzz,’ sez he. ‘That’s mine; don’t you go for to touch it,’ ” etc., etc., etc.’ (Tales of the West Highlands, vol. i. p. xlvii.). And in vol. ii. p. 276, Campbell gives a Gaelic story, ‘The Tale of the Soldier’ (our No. 74), which was told by a tinker.

No. 58.—Twopence-Halfpenny

There were three brothers. The three were going on the road to seek for work. Night came upon them. They knew not where to go to get lodgings: it was night. They were travelling through a wood on an old road. They saw a small light, and they came to a cottage. They were hungry and tired. The door was open. They saw a table with food upon it.

Said the eldest brother, ‘Go you in.’

‘I am not going in; go in yourself.’

‘Not I, indeed.’

‘You are two fools,’ said Jack. And in he went, and sat down at the table, and ate his bellyful. The other two watched him. They were afraid to enter the house. At last the other two went in, and sat down and ate.

Now a little old woman comes. Said the old woman, ‘I have seen no man here for many years. Whence came ye hither?’

‘We are seeking for work.’

‘I will find work for you to-morrow.’

They went to bed. Up they rose in the morning. And there was a great pot on the fire, and porridge and milk. That was the food they ate. Now the old woman tells the eldest brother to go into the barn to get the tools, and to go into the wood to fell the trees. He took off his coat. There he is doing the work. There came an old dwarf, and asked him who told him to fell the wood. He could not see this little man, so small was he. He looked under his feet; he saw him in the stubble. The old dwarf hit him and beat him, until he bled, and there he left him. Now the maid comes with his dinner. The girl went home and told the two other brothers to come and carry him home and put him to bed.

In the morning the second brother goes to the wood. The eldest brother told him it was a little man who beat him, and the second brother laughed at him. He went off now down to the woods. Here is something that asks him who told him to fell the trees. He looked around him; he could see nothing. At last he saw him in the stubble. ‘Be off,’ said he. The little stranger knocked him to pieces. The little maid came down to him with his dinner, and went home and told the two brothers to come and carry him home. The two brothers went down and brought him home.

Jack laughed at them: ‘I am going down to-morrow myself.’

In the morning he went down to the wood. Here he is felling the trees. He heard something. He looked beneath his feet. He saw the little man in the stubble. Jack kicked him.

‘You had better keep quiet,’ said the little man.

The dwarf hit him. Down went Jack, and the dwarf half-killed him. There was Jack lying there now. The maid came with his dinner. Home went the maid, and told the two brothers to come and carry him home.

‘No,’ said Jack, ‘leave me here and go.’

The two brothers went home. Jack was watching him, and the little man crept under a great stone. Up got Jack now, and home he went, and told his two brothers to go into the stable and get out four horses. They took a strong rope, and the three went with the horses and fastened the rope round the stone. They took the horses, and pulled it up, and found a well there.

‘Go you down,’ said one.

‘Not I,’ said the other; ‘I am not going down.’

‘I will go down,’ says Jack. ‘Fasten this rope and let me down, and when you hear me say “Pull up,” pull me up; and when I say “Let go,” let me go.’

Now the two brothers fastened him and let him down. Down he went a very little way. The little man beat him. ‘Pull me up.’ He goes down again. He forgets the word: ‘Let me down.’ He came into a beautiful country, and there he saw the old dwarf. The old dwarf spoke to him: ‘Since you have come into this country, Jack, I will tell you something now.’ The old man tells Jack what he is to do. ‘You will find three castles. In the first one lives a giant with two heads, and,’ said the old dwarf, ‘you must fight him. Take the old rusty sword. I will be there with you.’

‘I am afraid of him.’

‘Go on, and have no fear. I will be there with you.’

Here is Jack at the castle now. He knocked at the door. The servant-maid came, and he asked for her master.

‘He is at home. Do you wish to see him?’

‘Yes,’ said Jack, ‘I want to fight with him.’

The maid went and told him to come out.

‘Are you wanting something to eat?’

‘No,’ said Jack, ‘come out, and I will fight with you.’

‘Come here and choose your sword.’ (Jack chose the old rusty sword.) ‘Why do you take that old rusty sword? Take a bright one.’

‘Not I. This one will do for me.’

The twain went out before the door. Off went one head.

‘Spare my life, Jack. I will give you all my money.’

‘No.’

He struck off the other head; he killed him. (Now this was the Copper Castle: so they called it.)

Now Jack goes on to the next, the Silver Castle. A giant with three heads lived there. Jack chose the rusty sword, and struck two heads off.

‘Don’t kill me, Jack; let me live. I will give you the keys of my castle.’

‘Not I,’ said Jack; and off went the other head.

Now Jack goes on to the next, the Golden Castle. And there was a giant with four heads.

‘Have you come here to fight with me?’

‘Yes,’ says Jack.

The giant told him to choose a sword, and he chose the old rusty sword; and out they went Jack struck off three heads.

‘Don’t kill me, Jack. I will give you my keys.’

‘Yes, I will,’ said Jack; and off went the other head.

Now all the castles, and the money and the three fair ladies in the three castles, were his. Off Jack goes now and the lady with him. He goes back to the Silver Castle, and takes that lady. He goes to the Copper Castle, and takes that lady. And the four went on and came to the place where Jack descended. The old dwarf was there waiting for him. Jack sent the three ladies up to his brothers. Now the old dwarf wanted meat. Jack went back to the castle, and cooked some meat for him. The old dwarf carried Jack up a bit; the old dwarf stopped; he wanted meat. Jack gave him meat. He went up a bit further; he stopped; he wanted meat. Jack gave him meat. He went up a bit higher. He wanted meat. Jack had none. Now he was a very little way from the surface. He knew not what to do. He drew his knife from his pocket, and cut a little meat off his leg, and gave it to the old dwarf. Up went Jack.

Two of the ladies and his two brothers had gone off. And the eldest brother had taken the fairest lady; and the second brother had taken the other lady; and they had left the ugly lady for Jack. Jack asked her where they had gone. The lady told him; and he hastened after them. He caught them by the church: they were going to be married. The fairest lady looked back, and saw Jack.

‘That one’s mine,’ said Jack.

Jack took and married her. He left the other lady for his eldest brother to marry. There was only the second brother now, and he took the ugly lady. There are the three brothers and the three ladies.

Now they want to go down to the three castles. Jack told the old dwarf to carry them down.

‘I will carry you down; you must give me food as I come down.’

‘Yes,’ said Jack, ‘I will give you plenty of food.’

‘I will take you down.’

He carried them all down. And the old dwarf went along with Jack. Jack put one brother and one lady in the Copper Castle, and the other brother in the Silver Castle; and Jack went to the Golden Castle. And Jack kept the old dwarf all his days. The old dwarf died, and at last Jack grew old himself.

There! you’ve done me.

A most interesting variant of our No. 20, the Bukowina-Gypsy story of ‘Mare’s Son,’ and so of Grimm’s ‘Strong Hans’ and Cosquin’s ‘Jean de l’Ours.’ In one respect it is more perfect than ‘Mare’s Son,’ that during the upward flight the hero cuts a piece out of his leg, which piece by rights the dwarf should have kept and restored (cf. p. 79). It is, however, contrary to every canon of the story-teller’s art for the dwarf to prove helpful to the hero; and the brother’s treachery, in cutting the rope, is omitted. For the castles of copper, silver, and gold see pp. 233–4. One is left rather sorry for the ugly lady.

An old smith lived on a hill with his wife and mother-in-law. He could only make ploughshares. A boy comes, and wants his horse shod. The smith could not do it. The boy cuts the horse’s legs off, stops the blood, and puts the legs on the fire, beats them on the anvil, and replaces them on the horse. He gives the smith a guinea, and goes away. The smith tries this with his mother-in-law’s horse, but bungles it: the horse bleeds to death, and its legs are burnt to ashes. The boy comes again with two old women. ‘I want you to make them young again.’ The smith couldn’t. The boy puts them on the fire, beats them on the anvil, and rejuvenates them. The smith tries it with his wife and mother-in-law, but burns them to ashes. He leaves his forge, and sets off in the snow and wind. The barefooted boy follows him. The smith wants to send him off. The boy tells him of a sick king in the next town, whom they will cure, the boy acting as the smith’s servant. The butler admits them, and gives them plenty to eat and drink. The smith forgets all about the sick king, but the boy reminds him. They go up. The boy asks for a knife, pot, water, and spoon. He cuts the king’s head off, and spits on his hand to stop the blood. He puts the head in the pot, boils it, lifts it out with the golden spoon, and replaces it on the king, who is cured. The king gives them a sack of gold. They take the road again.

‘All I want,’ says Barefoot, ‘is a pair of shoes.’

‘I’ve little enough for myself,’ says the smith.

The boy leaves him, and the smith goes on alone. Hearing of another sick king, he goes to cure him, but takes too much to drink, and boils his head all to ribbons, and lets him bleed to death. A knock comes to the door. The smith, frightened, refuses admittance.

‘Won’t you open to little Barefoot?’

‘Tell your father the smith is here.’

The little devil went and told his father.

‘He will kill us all,’ said the devil, ‘if we let him in. Here, take this wisp of straw, and light him upstairs to God.’

The little devil did so. The smith went to heaven. There he sat and played the harp. And there we shall all see him one day unless we go to the devil instead.

Cf. Ralston’s ‘The Smith and the Demon,’ p. 57, and ‘The Pope with the Greedy Eyes,’ p. 351; Dasent’s ‘The Master-Smith’ (Tales from the Norse, p. 106); Clouston, ii. 409; a curious Nigger version from Virginia, ‘De New Han’,’ plainly derived from a European source, which I published in the Athenæum for 20th August 1887, p. 215, and give here as an appendix; Reinhold Köhler’s essay, ‘Sanct Petrus, der Himmelspförtner’ (Aufsätze über Märchen und Volkslieder, pp. 48–78); ‘L’Anneau de Bronze’ in Carnoy and Nicolaides’ Traditions Populaires de l’Asie Mineure, p. 62; and Grimm’s ‘Brother Lustig,’ No. 81 (i. 312, 440). With the last compare this sketch of a story, which M. Paul Bataillard got from Catalonian Gypsies encamped near Paris in 1869, and which very closely resembles one of the Cento Novelle Antiche, summarised by Crane (Italian Popular Tales, p. 360).

St. Peter travels with Christ as his servant, and they are often hard put to it for a livelihood. Christ sends St. Peter to find a sheep, and, bidding him cook it, goes to heal a sick person, who rewards him richly. Peter eats the sheep’s liver and kidneys, and Christ, when he comes back, asks where the liver and kidneys are, ‘for Jesus, who is God, knows everything.’ Peter replying that the sheep had none, at the end of their meal Christ divides into three heaps the large sum received from the farmer whom he has healed. ‘For whom are these three heaps?’ asks Peter. ‘The two first for each of us,’ Christ answers, ‘and the third for him who ate the liver and kidneys.’ ‘That was me,’ says Peter. ‘Very well,’ Christ answers, ‘take my share as well. I return to my own.’ And then it is that Christ takes the cross, etc. ‘You see,’ the narrator ended, ‘that it was God Jesus who at the beginning of the world founded all the estates of men—first doctors, for he healed for money—and who taught the Gypsies to beg and to go barefoot, whilst St. Peter instructed them how to deceive their like.’

In another Catalonian-Gypsy story, Christ sends St. Peter to a farm to get an omelette or some roasted eggs, and Peter returns with the omelette hidden in his hat, intending to keep it for himself. Two other pseudo-Christian legends of Christ travelling with St. Peter were told to M. Bataillard by an Alsatian Gypsy, but he had forgotten them (Letter of 22nd April 1872). Ralston has a legend (p. 346) of a Gypsy who learns of God, through St. George, that ‘his business is to cheat and to swear falsely,’ so opens business by stealing the saint’s golden stirrup.

Lastly Dr. von Sowa gives this confused but curious Slovak-Gypsy tale:—

No. 60.—The Old Soldier

There was a very old soldier; he was twelve years in military service. Then the colonel asked him, ‘My good man, what do you want for having served me so many years here? Whatever you want I will give you, for you have served me well so many years. I will give you a beautiful white horse, and I will give you three big tobacco-pipes, so that you’ll smoke like a gentleman. I will give you three rolls for your journey. The whole company never served as well as you have served me. I left everything to you; you have performed every sentry.’

‘If I went home on furlough, I should weep bitterly. How can I leave you, my good comrades? Now I go home, shall never see you more; I have none but my God and good comrades. I was a good soldier, the sergeant over the entire company. The major has given me a beautiful white horse to go home on. O God, I am going; but I have not much money, only a little.’

When he had come into great forests, there came a beggar and begs of the soldier. He said to him, did the soldier, ‘O God! what can I give you? I am, you see, a poor soldier, and I have far to go, yet my heart is not heavy. But, wait a bit, O beggar, I will give you a roll.’ Then he bade him farewell.

Afterwards the same beggar came again to the soldier, and begs of him, ‘O my soldier, give me something, make me a present.’

‘How can I make you a present, seeing I have given already to four beggars? But wait, here I’ll give you these couple of kreutzers, to get a drink of brandy with.’

Well, he went further. Again a third beggar met him; again he begs of him. ‘My God!’ he said to him, ‘I am a poor soldier; I have no one but God and myself. I shall have no money; I shall have nothing for myself; I’m giving you everything. My God! what am I to do? I’m an old soldier, a poor man; and, being so poor, where shall I now get anything? I gave you everything—bread, money, and my white horse. Now I must tramp on alone on my old legs. No one ever will know that I was a soldier. But my Golden God be with you, farewell.’

Then the beggar said to the soldier, ‘Old soldier, I permit you to ask whatever you will. For I am God.’

The soldier answered, ‘I want nothing but a stick that when I say “Beat” will beat every one and fear nobody.’

God gave it him. ‘Tell me now what do you want besides.’

‘Give me further a sack that if I say to a man “Get in” he must forthwith get into it.’

‘Good, but you still may ask for a third gift. Only think well, so that God in your old days may succour you.’

‘I want nothing but a sack that will let fall money when shaken.’

God gave him that too, and went off. The old soldier goes further, comes to a city, comes into an inn. There were many country-folk and other people of all sorts. He sits down to table, and orders victuals and drink. Straightway the gentleman brought him something to eat. When he had eaten and drunk, he asks him to pay. He takes the sack, shakes it; golden pieces come tumbling out. He paid them all to the gentleman, and went away. The gentleman was right glad that he had given him all that money.