countries) of ridding his master of vermin, he discovers a little keybound on the top of the ogre's head. It gives him access to the chamber where the princess is. She warns him to behave as if he were stupid; and he carries out her instructions until the ogre at last, losing patience, turns him out-of-doors. Returning home he persuades his mother to sell him in the form of a horse. Pursued by the demon he changes into all sorts of animals and at last into a flower in a princess' hand. The ogre tries in every way to obtain the flower; but the princess tells him, "Though your heart burst in pieces, you shall not get the flower from me." As he hears this the ogre bursts in pieces, and the hero restored to humanity marries the heroine. The bursting in pieces of the ogre reminds us of the Troll in the northern tale;[1] and there may indeed be some connection of thought between that and the bursting and scattering of one of the combatants, which seems a necessary feature of the conflict between the master and his too clever scholar in the present type. Though, if so, it is not easy to trace, and I must leave the task to more accomplished mythologists.
An Italian variant, similar in its general course to the three stories given above, differs in its commencement.[2] A boy goes out with his father's ass, and causes a princess who sees him to laugh. He is bold enough to make her an offer of marriage; but the only answer he can get from her is—"If thou do a miracle fairer than this I will marry thee." Determined to win her, he goes to study under a magician, and soon outdoes his master in learning. The wizard trusts him with the keys of twenty-four chambers, forbidding him to open two of them. In these chambers he finds a young prince and another daughter of the king. The latter of course gives him the usual instructions how to behave towards the magician, from whom he at length escapes. The transformation and sale tricks follow, until the hero is captured by the wizard, from whom he can only escape by touching water. He accomplishes this by turning into a fish, and afterwards performs the required miracle by becoming a ring on the princess's finger. His further changes are those into a grain of millet
