More English Fairy Tales Part 32

x.x.xiii.) also requires the milk of nine kye for its daily rations, and cow's milk is the ordinary provender of such kittle cattle (Grimms'

_Teut. Myth._ 687), the mythological explanation being that cows = the clouds and the dragon = the storm. Jephtha vows are also frequent in folk-tales: Miss c.o.x gives many examples in her _Cinderella_, p. 511.

_Remarks._--Nine generations back from the last of the Lambtons, Henry Lambton, M.P., ob. 1761, reaches Sir John Lambton, Knight of Rhodes, and several instances of violent death occur in the interim. Dragons are possibly survivals into historic times of antedeluvian monsters, or reminiscences of cla.s.sical legend (Perseus, etc.). Who shall say which is which, as Mr. Lang would observe.

Lx.x.xVI. WISE MEN OF GOTHAM

_Source._--The chap-book contained in Mr. Hazlitt's _Shaksperian Jest Book_, vol. iii. I have selected the incidents and modernised the spelling; otherwise the droll remains as it was told in Elizabethan times.

_Parallels._--Mr. Clouston's _Book of Noodles_ is little else than a series of parallels to our droll. See my List of Incidents under the t.i.tles, "One cheese after another," "Hare postman," "Not counting self,"

"Drowning eels." In most cases Mr. Clouston quotes Eastern a.n.a.logies.

_Remarks._--All countries have their special crop of fools, Boeotians among the Greeks, the people of Hums among the Persians (how appropriate!), the Schildburgers in Germany, and so on. Gotham is the English representative, and as witticisms call to mind well-known wits, so Gotham has had heaped on its head all the stupidities of the Indo-European world. For there can be little doubt that these drolls have spread from East to West. This "Not counting self" is in the _Gooroo Paramastan_, the cheeses "one after another" in M. Riviere's collection of Kabyle tales, and so on. It is indeed curious how little originality there is among mankind in the matter of stupidity. Even such an inventive genius as the late Mr. Sothern had considerable difficulty in inventing a new "sell."

Lx.x.xVII. PRINCESS OF CANTERBURY

_Source._--I have inserted into the old chap-book version of the _Four Kings of Colchester, Canterbury_, &c., an incident ent.i.tled by Halliwell "The Three Questions."

_Parallels._--The "riddle bride wager" is a frequent incident of folk-tales (see my List of Incidents); the sleeping tabu of the latter part is not so common, though it occurs, _e.g._, in the Grimms' _Twelve Princesses_, who wear out their shoes with dancing.