BOOK I.
his own hurt. The body is then by the king's order hung on a tree, the guard being ordered to seize any one who should venture to take it down. The lad, driving before him a horse loaded with two kegs of whisky, approaches the soldiers as though he wished to pass them stealthily, and when they catch the horse's bridle, he runs off, leaving the men to drink themselves to sleep, and then returning takes away the wright's body. This exploit is followed by others which occur in no other version: but the final scene is a feast, at which, according to the Seanagal's prediction, the Shifty Lad asks the king's daughter to dance. The Seanagal upon this puts a black mark upon him; but the lad, like Morgiana in the story of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," discovering the mark, puts another on the Seanagal, and on twenty other men besides him. The king is then advised to say that the man who had done every trick that had been done must be exceedingly clever, and that if he would come forward and give himself up, he should have the princess for his wife. All the marked men accordingly claim the prize; and the craft of the Shifty Lad is once more called into practice, to secure the maiden for himself.[1] Mr. Campbell, who relates this story, gives full weight to the suggestion that the incidents in which it resembles the version of Herodotos may "have been spread amongst the people by those members of their families who study the classics at the Scotch Universities;" but he adds with good reason, that if the resemblances to other stories not classical are to be accounted for in the same way, it must be supposed "that these books have all been read at some time so widely in Scotland as to have become known to the labouring population who speak Gaelic, and so long ago as to have been forgotten by the instructed who speak English and study foreign languages."[2]
Point and drift of these stories.In the Norse and Teutonic versions it seems impossible not to see the most striking incident of the Egyptian tale in a connexion and under forms which force on us the conclusion that they are not related to each other in any other way than by their growth from a- ↑ The theft of treasure by a clever rogue occurs in the story of the Travels of Dummling, who is Boots under another name. Compare also Grimm's stories of "The Four Accomplished Brothers," "The Rogue and his Master," and of the "Young Giant." In the latter tale Hermes takes more the form of the Maruts, or Crushers; and the myth of the Molionids is reenacted with singular exactness. The young giant brings up from the water a huge mill-stone which he places round his neck, and so keeps watch all night. He is assailed by evil demons, but he returns every blow with interest—a description which reminds us of the Hesiodic narrative of the toil of Hermes the whole night through. The only reward which he asks is the pleasure of kicking his master, who is sent spinning into the air and is never more seen.
- ↑ Tales of the West Highlands, i. 352.
