Note 56.1 — Chapter VIII · THE LIFE-TOKEN IN TALE AND CUSTOM.

There are certain common folktale incidents we must first of all notice, though it is unnecessary to do so at any great length. One of them is found in a group of tales which I have elsewhere ventured to classify under the name of The Teacher and his Scholar. A Greek variant of these, from the island of Syra, referred to in an earlier chapter, runs thus: A disguised demon promises children to a childless king on condition of his repaying him with the eldest. The demon thereupon gives the king an apple, to be eaten, one half by himself and the other half by the queen. Three sons are born; and the eldest is, notwithstanding all precautions, carried off by the demon. After some time he finds means to escape from his master’s clutches, accompanied by a princess whom the demon has held captive. During his term of service he has learned how to transform himself at will; and on parting for a while from the princess he takes lodgings with an old woman. To make money, he changes into a mule, which his hostess offers for sale; but he charges her to retain the halter. Afterwards he changes into a bath-house, whereof she is to keep the key. By this precaution he is able to return to his own form. Finally he changes into a pomegranate, which his father plucks; but the demon by a trick nearly succeeds in getting possession of it. It falls in pieces, and the seeds are scattered. The demon then takes the shape of a hen and chickens; whereupon the hero becomes a fox and kills the hen and chickens, but loses his eyes, for the hen has eaten two of the seeds. He afterwards recovers his sight and marries the princess.56.1