burnt his Wyfe, and after forged her againe by the helpe of oure blessed Lord."[1]
In the fifth chapter we have a most delightful selection of nursery tales, which comprise an astonishing number of different "cumulative" stories, similar to our "Old Woman and the crooked Sixpence," and "The House that Jack built," Norse, Gaelic, and other parallels to which are already well known to all story-comparers; nor must we forget the curious Indian version, "The Death of poor Hen-Sparrow," in Wide-Awake Stories.
The sixth, and last, chapter, Stories and Jests, leads off with a version of "King John and the Abbot," of which, by-the-by, there is a variant also in the Turkish jest-book, ascribed to the Khoja (teacher) Nasred-Dín. Next we have a very amusing form of the wide-spread story of the quest of the Three Greatest Fools. Among other stories are "The Wager" (the Silent Couple) and "Scissors they are." The sayings and doings of Giufà, the typical booby of Sicily, are duly represented, though in those given in pp. 297-302 he is rather a knave than a fool, in fact, a Sicilian Scogan or Tyl Eulenspiegel. In "Uncle Capriano" (p. 303) we meet with an old and far-travelled acquaintance: the story, it is not generally known, exists in a Latin poem of the eleventh century, where the hero is called Unibos, because he had lost all his cattle but one, and cleverly tricks his enemies, the provost, the mayor, and the priest of the town. The story is known in Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the West Highlands of Scotland, France, Algeria (among the Kabaïl, or wandering tribes), and throughout India. This version resembles the Icelandic legend of "igurdr the Sack-knocker" in several of the details. The incidents of the capon and of the husband carried off by his wife, in the story of "The Clever Girl" (p. 311), are both found in the Talmud, and the latter is the subject of a Russian folk-tale. In the concluding story, "Crab" (p. 314), we have a variant of "Dr. Know-all" in Grimm's collection, the original of which occurs in the great Sanskrit story-book, Kathá Sarit Ságara, in the tale of Harisarman.
- ↑ Contributions to Early English Literature. From rare books and ancient MSS. 15th to 17th centuries. Edited by J. O. Halliwell (now Halliwell-Phillips). Privately printed, 1849.
