Note 32 — Chapter V · The Grateful Dead and The Ransomed Woman.

The version by Mme. de Gomez (I.) runs as follows:32 Jean, the son of a rich merchant at Calais, while on a journey, comes to the city of Palmanie on the island of Orimanie. There he pays the debts and secures the burial of a corpse which is being devoured by dogs. He also ransoms two slave girls, one of whom he marries and takes home. The woman is the daughter of the King of Portugal. While taking her to her father’s court, Jean is separated from her by a treacherous general, but is saved by the grateful dead, and enabled to rejoin his wife. Later the ghost, who appears in the form of a man, demands half of their son according to the agreement of division which they have made. When Jean gives him the child to divide, the stranger praises his loyalty and disappears.