e fundamental outline is identical, wherever the story is found; and, whether it be an instance of the transmission of popular tales from one country to another, or one of those

ause of her grief, whereupon the mother, in her turn, begins to cry, and when the old man next comes to see what is the matter with his wife and daughter, and is informed about the speckled pony's packsaddle, he, too, "mingles his tears" with theirs. At last the young husband arrives, and finding the trio of noodles thus grieving at an imaginary misfortune, he there and then leaves them, declaring his purpose not to return until he has found three as great fools as themselves. In the course of his travels he meets with some strange folks: men whose wives make them believe whatever they please-on

he had been killed!" alluding to a potential son. The man was so much shocked at such an exhibition of folly that he left the country in search of three greater noodles. Among other adventures, he goes into a house and plays tricks on some people there, telling them his name is "Saw ye ever my like?" When the old man of the house comes home he finds his people tied upon tables, and asks, "What's the reason of this?" "Saw ye ever my l

pears to Lutonya so uncalled for that he leaves the house, declaring he will not return until he has met with people more foolish than they. He travels long and far, and sees several foolish doings. In one place a horse is being inserted into its collar by s

e she sat crying and crying, while the beer flowed all over the cellar-floor, until her old father and mother come in succession and blubber along with her about the hypothetical death of her imaginary grown-up son. The young man goes off in quest of three bigger fools, and sees a woman hoisting a cow on to the roof of her cottage to eat the grass that grew among the thatch, and to keep the animal from falling off,

istress. "Oh," says the girl, "while you were away, a brick fell down the chimney, and I thought, if it had fallen on me I might have been killed!" The only novel ad

a close analogy to those of other European countries. The foll

he went, and asked for the girl, and her parents gave her to him. They were married, and when they were in the midst of their dinner, the wine gave out. The husband said, "There is no more wine!" The bride, to show that she was a good housekeeper, said, "I will go and get some." She took the bottles

n her hand, and weeping. "What is the matter with you that you are weeping?" "Ah, my mother, I was thinking that if I had a son, and should name him Bastianelo, and he

t is the matter. Certainly something wrong has happened to the bride." He went and saw the whole cellar full o

anelo, and he should die, oh, how I should grieve! oh, how I should grieve!" Then he, to

ked, "What is the matter that you are all weeping, and have let the wine run all over the cellar?" Then the bride said, "I was thinking that if I had a son and called him Bastianelo, and he should die, oh, how I should grieve! oh, how I should grieve!" Then the groom said,

s better to try and go a little farther." So he went on, and shortly saw a man in his shirt-sleeves at a well, all wet with perspiration, and water. "What are you doing, sir, that you are so covered with water and in such a sweat?" "Oh, let me alone," the man answered; "for I have been here a long time drawing water to fill this pail, and I cannot fill it." "What are you dr

ng on those breeches and did not know how to get into them. "I have jumped and jumped," said the man, "until I am tired out, and I cannot imagine how to get into those breeches." "Oh," said the traveller, "you might stay here as long as you wished, for you would never get into them this way. Come down and lea

's legs. The groom did not wish his bride's head cut off, and the owner of the horse did not wish his horse's legs cut off, and hence this disturbance. Then the traveller said, "Just wait," and came up to the bride and gave her a slap that made her lower her head, and then he gave the horse a kick, and so they passed through the gate and entered the city. The groom and the owner of the horse asked the traveller what he wanted, for he had saved the groom his bride and the owner of t

they will have to cut off his hand. The traveller tells the child to drop the stones, and then he draws out his hand easily enough. Next he finds a bride who cannot enter the church because she is very tall and wears a high comb. The difficulty is settled as in the former story. After a while he comes to a woman who is spinning and drops her spindle. She calls out to the pig, whose name is Tony, to pick it up for her. The pig does nothing but grunt, and the woman in anger cries, "Well, you won't pick it up? May your mother die!" The traveller, who had overheard all this, takes a piece of pap

ork; and a woman dips a knotted rope into a deep well, and then having drawn it up, squeezes the water out of the knots into

"I can't give you that," said a voice from the inside; "for I am a lone widow. I can't take a man

to think of that!" replied the poor woman. "And, do tell me, how do you get on in the other world? What sort of a life is it?" "Oh, not so very bad; it depends what sort of a place you get. The part where we are is pretty good, except that we get very little to eat. Your husband, for instance, is nearly starved." "No, really?" cried the good wife, clasping her hands. "Only fancy, my good husband starving out there, so fond as he was of a good dinner, too!" Then she added, coaxingly, "As you know him so well, perhaps you wouldn't mind doing him the charity of taking him a little somewhat, to give him a treat. There are such lots of things I could easily send him." "Oh de

t's no easy way to find." "To be sure not; I ought to have thought of that," replied the widow. "Ah, well, so as my poor husband gets a good meal, never mind the donkey." So the pretended pilgrim from the other world went his way. He hadn't gone a hundred yards before the widow called him back. "Ah, she's beginning to think better of it," said he to himself, and he continued his way, pretending not to hear. "Good pilgrim," shouted th

ants five shillings for the cow and ten pounds for the hen. A butcher buys the cow, but doesn't want the hen. As she cannot find a buyer for the hen, she goes back to the butcher, who treats her to so much brandy that she gets dead-drunk, and in this conditio

ld woman, as I

arket her egg

arket, all on

sleep on the k

edlar, whose n

etticoats al

etticoats up

old woman to sh

tle woman fi

hiver and she

onder, and she

on me, this

be I, as I

og at home, and

he'll wag hi

t I, he loudly

little woman a

ttle dog, and

ark, and she

y on me, thi

es her goodman, and seeing a suspicious-looking creature on the roof of the shed, he fetches his gun and is going to shoot at his goody, when he recognises her voice. Amazed at such a piece of folly, he resolves to leave her and not come back till he has found three goodies as silly. He meets with a female descendant of the Schildburgers, evidently, carrying into her cottage sunshine in a sieve, there being no window in the hous

She explains the whole affair, upon which he mounts a horse and gallops away after the rogue who had thus taken advantage of his wife's simplicity. The stranger, perceiving him approach, hides the horse and cart behind a high hedge, takes part of the horse's tail and hangs it on the branches of a birch-tree, and then lays himself down on his back and gazes up into the sky. When Peter comes up to him, he exclaims, still looking at the sky, "What a wonder! there is a man going straight to heaven on a black horse!" Peter can see no such thing. "Can you not?" says the stranger. "See, there is his tail, still on the birch-tree. You must lie down in this very spot, and look straight up, and don't for a moment take your eyes off the sky, and then you'll see- what you'll see." So Peter lies down and gazes up at the sky very intently, looking for the man going straight to heaven on a black horse. Meanwhile the traveller

counterpart of the Norse version of the pretended pilgrim from paradise, of which the above is an abstract. It is found in Pandit S.M. Natésa Sástrí's Folk-lore in Southern India, now in course of publication at Bombay; a work which, when completed,

you really come from them?" said the simple woman. "Are they doing well there? Dear old people! How glad my husband would be to see you, were he here! Sit down, please, and rest until he returns. How do they live there? Have they enough to eat and dress themselves withal?" These and a hundred other questions she put to the rogue, who, for his part, wished to get away as soon as possible, knowing full well how he would be treated if the miser should return while he was there. So he replied, "Mother, language has no words to describe the miseries they are undergoing in the other world. They have not a rag of clothing, and for the last six days they have eaten nothing, and have lived on water only. It would break your heart to see them." The rogue's pathetic words deceived the good woman, who firmly believed that he had come down from Kailása, a messenger from the old couple to herself. "Why should they so suffer," said she,

othes and jewels and store of money. On hearing this, the anger of the husband was great; but he checked himself, and inquired which road the messenger from Kailása had taken, saying that he wished to follow him with a further message for his parents. So she very readily pointed out

erved this, he thanked all his gods most fervently, and having waited until his enemy had climbed nearly up to him, he threw down his bundle of booty, and then leapt nimbly from branch to branch till he reached the ground in safety, when he mounted the miser's horse and with his bundle rode into a thick forest, where he was not likely to be discovered. Being thus balked the miser came down the pípal tree slowly c

sent, and she has sent me to you for her dowry." The woman at once gave him all the money and jewels that were in the house, and sent him away delighted with his unexpected good luck. Soon after, the woman's husband returned, and learning how silly she had been, mounted his horse and rode after the beggar. The rest of the story corresponds to the Tamil version, as above, with the exception that when the husband saw the beggar slide down the tree, get on his horse, and ride off, he cried out to him, "Hey, son-in-law, you may tell Kaluhámi that the money and jewels are from her mother, and that the horse is from me;" which is altoge

TNO

of some women who, as judges, doomed a horse to be hanged: the thief who stole the horse got off, because it was his first off

les of the West Highland

ho had hurt it, the imp answers, "It was My-ainsel."-There is a somewhat similar story current in Finland: A man is moulding lead buttons, when the Devil appears, and asks him what he is doing. "Making eyes." "Could you make me new ones?" "Yes." So he ties the Devil to a ben

s name is No-man, and when the monster, after having had his eye put

er!" "If no man hurt thee, but the hand divine Inflict disease, it fits thee to resign;

s Russian

an Popular Tale

e thrown into holes made in the ground, a

ian Popular Ta

ld in Brittany, with n

kes his cow to the priest, who accepts it as sent by Heaven-and the poor man did not get two cows in return. The story is known in various forms all over Europe; it was a sp

pular Tales f

ginal. This is Chapter II,

END

suggested by such popular tales as those of the man going about in quest of three greater fools than his wife, father-in-law, and mother-in-law. It is, however, simp

dine at Duke Humphry's ordinary,1 where, amongst other good stomachs that repaired to his bountiful feast, there came a whole jury of penniless poets, who being fellows of a merry disposition (but as necessary in a commonwealth as a candle in a straw bed), he accepted of their company, and as from poets cometh all kind of folly, so he hoped by their good directions to find out his Foole of Fooles, so long looked for. So, thinking to pass away the dinner-hour with some pleasant chat (lest, being

le of H

ies, I, being a traveller, made him believe that the steeple of Brentwood, in Essex, sailed in one night as far as Calais, in France, and afterwards returned again to its proper place. Another time I made him believe that in the forest of Sherwood, in Nottinghamshire, were seen five hundred of the King of Spain's galleys, which went to besiege Robin Hood's Well, and that forty thousand scholars with elder squirts performed such a piece of service as

nd was pretty foolery, but yet the Foole of a

l of Hu

aving kept them a year or two at school, he examined them saying, "My good boy," quoth he to one of them, "what dost thou learn and where is thy lesson?" "O father," said the boy, "I am past grace." "And where art thou?" quoth he to the other boy, who likewise answered tha

e of all Fooles cannot be found among those before named, one of themselves must be the fool, for there cannot be a v

ools. The author of the Cook's Tale of Gamelyn-which is generally considered as a spurious "Can

astie hast tho

ck of Dovyr h

twicè hot an

But it may have been a name of a particular kind of fish caught in the waters off Dover. If, however, a "Jack of Dover" is a tw

TNO

ine at all. See Brewer's Dictionary of Phras

chool, and asked them how they progressed in their learning. The youngest-referring, of course, to the Shorter Catechism-replied that he w

DE

, Man

and her

us, Pe

d his C

hoolmas

n Idio

hts, 81, 83

dles, 70, 7

rchie, Banquet

, John

he Two Sh

Carles of,

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ius,

others of

r and his

s and the

tt, F

o' the D

, Fools

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Dwatrins

he Sieur Gaular

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" River,

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Andre

Four Sim

rd, Jo

Five Prec

d the G

of Si

Arabian N

k-Lore of

aten by

The Gotha

ge-Tr

on Tr

ead in a

of the West Highlands, 32

old Wo

of Schi

ew Arabian

e Sinhale

lain, B

he Gotham

n the Hi

The St

Noodles,

ntes Portug

, Miche

man and

s, F.

House, D

pular Tales, 117,

edging in

and the

ather's c

fig-tr

pot of h

stolen c

uncil-H

orse Tales

Gul's Hor

the Mea

na Cleri

and Pat

Apprent

t ate H

g Care of t

The Good

, Abbé

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owning

e Lucan

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Le Grand

Best of

nd his P

ian Silly S

, Gotha

Bit b

n Southern

the aloes

birch-tr

e cott

p lost in

lephant-d

porrid

Ramaya

k of meal,

shopkeep

firesid

y his mu

refor

tingdo

the buff

Bull of

inherita

mosqui

palm-t

e trun

Italian No

as, on the G

ll, F.

e Sieur, 8,

nd Tort

manorum,

. Vazírs, 10

cilian Booby,

d Old W

amartan, 2

their late H

t the Ale

the Mad Men of,

Florentin

Noodle

pps, J.O., xiii.

Hums, M

W.C., x

ry he has g

The Fool

hens' Apology f

es, Jes

adesa

Pot of,

Dream of

Noodles, 3

48, 51, 70, 96, 97-106, 111,

115, 127, 143, 16

ourer and

and his

and his h

and lost

and mosqu

n's Dre

over's Qu

e Noodl

t Birth-Stories)

f Scogi

r's Jest-

nd Thie

Tales,

Tales, 65

ari, 11, 7

Sagara, 48,

ef, Th

asr-ed-

upid Son,

he Gotham

, J.H.,

of Log

Populaires Sl

de Fra

nd Quicke An

Jest-Bo

f the Schil

and Pup

ansform

reen che

the we

lowed by

s Loque

, The

-Din Kh

astri Pa

's Hier

he Three G

k Nood

odles, 1

Brid

The, 69, 87,

Tantra,

o came from, 204

ld man, an

lost b

s drea

ar of fea

jar of

e mirr

two slav

slave wh

e spar

twin-bro

is to

n Nood

Tales, 7

timus

d the D

Faceti?

of Goth

caused to

he Atten

ssian Folk-T

-hunt

Gothami

and or

Boiling,

laires de la Kabylie

es, 47, 128,

and the

l of Newe

Gulistán

The Men

ter's Lad

Roaste

, Casting, 4

bies, 97, 11

oodles,

Matt

Son, T

Simon,

and Shar

ád Nám

67-69, 87, 89, 113,

Alexa

The Sto

-Wheel,

Henry, Tal

dian Fairy

dicantium,

t, Etie

Quicke Ans

y, C.

and Mirth,

on a T

W.J., x

tory of Nottin

atest Noo

rove, 144,

he Gotham

, 11, 86, 90, 9

ishers,

rother

Ludovic

ory of Englis

nd his youn

s Nes

to the

, The

e Noodle

ses Whipt an

Tail, T

, on the Goth

Balls,

and the

n wakene