Part 7 (2/2)

[2] Professor Crane's _Italian Popular Tales_, p. 302. This actual throwing of eyes occurs in the folk-tales of Europe generally.

[3] In _Le Cabinet des Fees, 1788_ (tome x.x.xviii., p. 337 ff.).-- There can be no such name as Xailoun in Arabic; that of the noodle's wife, Oitba, may be intended for ”Utba.” Cazotte has so Frenchified the names of the characters in his tales as to render their identification with the Arabic originals (where he had any such) often impossible.

Although this story is not found in any known Arabian text of the _Book of the Thousand and One Nights_, yet the incidents for the most part occur in several Eastern story-books.

[4] On a similar occasion Giufa, the Sicilian brother to the Arabian fool, did somewhat more mischief. Once his mother went to church and told him to make some porridge for his baby-sister. Giufa made a great pot of porridge and fed the baby with it, and burned her mouth so that she died. Another time his mother on leaving home told him to feed the hen that was sitting and put her back in the nest, so that the eggs should not get cold. Giufa stuffed the hen with food so that he killed her, and then sat on the eggs himself until his mother returned.--See Crane's _Italian Popular Tales_, pp. 296-7.

[5] Abridged and modified from a version in the _Folk-Lore Record_, vol. iii., pp. 153-5.

[6] The usual mode by which in the East thieves break into houses, which are for the most part constructed of clay. See Job xxiv. 16.

[7] Kurakkan is a species of grain.

[8] _The Orientalist_, June, 1884, pp. 137-8.

[9] Ummu Sulayman. In Arabia the mother is generally addressed in this way as a mark of respect for having borne children, and the eldest gives the t.i.tle. Our bang-eater supposed he was addressing an old woman who had (or might have had) a son named Solomon.

[10] See Ralston's _Russian Folk-Tales._ [Transcriber's note: Footnote reference missing from original, p. 153]

[11] From a paper on ”Comparative Folk-lore,” by W. Goonetilleke, in _The Orientalist_, i., p. 122.

[12] _Mery Tales, Wittie Questions, and Quicke Answeres, very pleasant to be Readde._ Imprinted at London by H. Wykes, 1567.

[13] Thus, too, Scogin and his ”chamber-fellow” successively declared to a rustic that the sheep he was driving were pigs. In Fortini's novels, in like manner, a simpleton is persuaded that the kid he offered for sale was a capon; and in the Spanish _El Conde Lucanor_, and the German _Tyl Eulenspiegel_, a countryman is cheated out of a piece of cloth. The original form of the incident is found in the _Hitopadesa_, where three sharpers persuade a Brahman that the goat he is carrying for a sacrifice is a dog. This story of the Florentine noodle--or rather Poggio's version--may have been suggested by a tale in the _Gesta Romanorum_, in which the emperor's physician is made to believe that he had leprosy. See my _Popular Tales and Fictions_, where these and similar stories are compared in a paper ent.i.tled ”The Sharpers and the Simpleton.”

[14] In Powell and Magnusson's _Legends of Iceland_ (Second Series, p. 627), a woman makes her husband believe that he is dressed in fine clothes when he is naked; another persuades her husband that he is dead, and as he is being carried to the burying-ground, he perceives the naked man, who a.s.serts that he is dressed, upon which he exclaims, ”How I should laugh if I were not dead!” And in a _fabliau_ by Jean de Boves, ”Le Villain de Bailleul; _alias_, Le Femme qui fit croire a son Mari qu'il etait mort,” the husband exclaims, ”Rascal of a priest, you may well thank Heaven that I am dead, else I would belabour you soundly with my stick.”--See M. Le Grand's _Fabliaux_, ed. 1781, tome v., pp. 192, 193.

[5] _History of the Forty Viziers; or, The Forty Morns and Forty Eves._ Translated from the Turkish, by E.J.W. Gibb, M.R.A.S. London: G. Redway, 1886.

[16] A variant of this is found in John Bromyard's _Summa Praedicantium_, A 26, 34, as follows:

Quidam sedebat juxta igneum, cujus vestem ignis intrabat. Dixit socius suus, ”Vis audire rumores?” ”Ita,” inquit, ”bonos et non alios.” Cui alius, ”Nescio nisi malos.” ”Ergo,” inquit, ”nolo audire.” Et quum bis aut ter ei hoc diceret, semper idem respondit. In fine, quum sentiret vestem combustam, iratus ait socio, ”Quare non dixisti mihi?” ”Quia (inquit) dixista quod noluisti audire rumores nisi placentes et illi non erant tales.”

[17] Under the t.i.tle of ”The Phisitian that bare his Paciente in honde that he had eaten an a.s.se” this jest occurs in _Merry Tales and Quicke Answeres_, and Professor Crane gives a Sicilian version in his _Italian Popular Tales_.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FOUR SIMPLE BRaHMANS.

[As a sort of supplement to the sayings and doings of the silly son, the following highly diverting Indian tale is here inserted, from the Abbe Dubois' French rendering of the Tamil original, appended, with others, to his selections from the _Panchatantra_. The story is known in the north as well as in the south of India: in the Panjabi version there are, however, but three noodle-heroes. It will be seen that the third Brahman's tale is another of the numerous silent couple cla.s.s, and it may possibly be the original form.]

_Introduction._

In a certain district, proclamation had been made of a Samaradanam being about to be held.[1] Four Brahmans, from different villages, going thither, fell in upon the road, and, finding that they were all upon the same errand, they agreed to proceed in company. A soldier, happening to meet them, saluted them in the usual way, by touching hands and p.r.o.nouncing the words always applied on such occasions to Brahmans, ”_Dandamarya_!” or ”Health to my lord!” The four travellers made the customary return, ”_Asirvadam!_” and going on, they came to a well, where they quenched their thirst and reposed themselves in the shade of some trees. Sitting there, and finding no better subject of conversation, one of them asked the others, whether they did not remark how particularly the soldier had distinguished him by his polite salutation. ”You!” said another; ”it was not you that he saluted, but me.” ”You are both mistaken,” says a third; ”for you may remember that when the soldier said, '_Dandamarya!_' he cast his eyes upon me.”

”Not at all,” replied the fourth; ”it was I only he saluted; otherwise, should I have answered him as I did, by saying, '_Asirvadam_'?”

Each maintained his argument obstinately; and as none of them would yield, the dispute had nearly come to blows, when the least stupid of the four, seeing what was likely to happen, put an end to the brawl by the following advice: ”How foolish it is in us,” said he, ”thus to put ourselves in a pa.s.sion! After we have said all the ill of one another that we can invent--nay, after going stoutly to fisticuffs, like Sudra rabble, should we be at all nearer to the decision of our difference?

The fittest person to determine the controversy, I think, would be the man who occasioned it. The soldier, who chose to salute one of us, cannot yet be far off: let us therefore run after him as quickly as we can, and we shall soon know for which of us he intended his salutation.”

This advice appeared wise to them all, and was immediately adopted. The whole of them set off in pursuit of the soldier, and at last overtook him, after running a league, and all out of breath. As soon as they came in sight of him, they cried out to him to stop; and before they had well approached him, they had put him in full possession of the nature of their dispute, and prayed him to terminate it, by saying to which of them he had directed his salutation. The soldier instantly perceiving the character of the people he had to do with, and being willing to amuse himself a little at their expense, coolly replied, that he intended his salutation for the greatest fool of all four, and then, turning on his heel, he continued his journey.

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