Note 171 — Appendix. VARIANTS AND ANALOGUES OF THE TALES IN THE SUPPLEMENTAL NIGHTS, VOL. III. (continued 2)

The Water of Life, the Water of Immortality, the Fountain of Youth—a favourite and wide-spread myth during the Middle Ages. In the romance of Sir Huon of Bordeaux the hero boldly encounters a griffin, and after a desperate fight, in which he is sorely wounded, slays the monster. Close at hand he discovers a clear fountain, at the bottom of which is a gravel of precious stones. “Then he dyde of his helme and dranke of the water his fyll, and he had no sooner dranke thereof hut incontynent he was hole of all his woundys.” Nothing more frequently occurs in folk-tales than for the hero to be required to perform three difficult and dangerous tasks—sometimes impossible, without supernatural assistance.