Note 3 — Chapter CVIII

In the above wild story the hero has to endure the assaults of the witches on three successive nights. So in the story of the Headless Princess (Ralston’s Russian Folk-Tales, p. 271) the priest’s son has to read the psalter over the dead princess three nights running. He is hardest pressed on the last night; and on each occasion at day-break the “devilry vanished.” In the same way in The Soldier’s Midnight Watch (ib. p. 274) the soldier has three nights of increasing severity. So in Southey’s Old Woman of Berkeley, the assaults continue for three nights, and on the third are successful.