Note 3 — Chapter XV

Here Wilson observes: The circumstances here related are not without analogies in fact. It is not marvellous therefore that we may trace them in fiction. The point of the story is the same as that of the “Deux Anglais à Paris,” a Fabliau, and of “Une femme à l’extremité qui se mit en si grosse colère voyant son mari qui baisait sa servante qu’elle recouvra la santé” of Margaret of Navarre, (Heptameron. Nouvelle 71). Cp. Henderson’s Folk-lore of the Northern Counties, p. 131.

Webster, Duchess of Malfi, Act IV, Sc. 2, tells a similar story,