Note 20 — Chapter XX

This incident reminds one of Schiller’s ballad—Der Gang nach dem Eisenhammer. (Benfey Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 320.)

The story of Fridolin in Schiller’s ballad is identical with the story of Fulgentius which is found in the English Gesta Romanorum, see Bohn’s Gesta Romanorum, Introduction, page 1. Douce says that the story is found in Scott’s Tales from the Arabic and Persian, p. 53 and in the Contes devots or Miracles of the Virgin. (Le Grand, Fabliaux, v. 74.) Mr. Collier states upon the authority of M. Boettiger that Schiller founded his ballad upon an Alsatian tradition which he heard at Mannheim. Cp. also the 80th of the Sicilianische Märchen which ends with these words, “Wer gutes thut, wird gutes erhalten.” There is a certain resemblance in this story to that of Equitan in Murie’s lays. See Ellis’s Early English Metrical Romances, pp. 46 and 47. It also resembles the story of Lalitánga extracted from the Kathá Kosha by Professor Nilmani Mukerjea in his Sáhitya Parichaya, Part II, and the conclusion of the story of Damannaka from the same source found in his Part I. The story of Fridolin is also found in Schöppner’s Sagenbuch der Bayerischen Lande, Vol. I, p. 204.