Notes.
Like the preceding, this story was doubtless imported from Europe, and probably through the medium of the religious. The occasion for the three questions, as well as the questions themselves, varies widely in the many different forms of the story; but the relationship among the members of the cycle is unmistakable. A general outline that would embrace most of the variants is this: A certain person, on penalty of losing his head if he fails, is required to give satisfactory answers to three (or four) difficult questions; a friend of the contestant, who resembles him, wears the other’s clothes, and answers the questions ingeniously, thus saving his friend’s life and winning a considerable reward for him and himself. The fullest bibliography of this cycle is that given by Oesterley in his edition of Pauli’s “Schimpf und Ernst” (Stuttgart, 1866), p. 479. For other references to the group of stories, see Grimm, No. 152, and his notes; Rittershaus, 404–408 (No. CXV, “Der König und der Bischof”); Köhler-Bolte, 82 (on Moncaut’s French story “Le Meunier et le Marquis”), 267 (on J. F. Campbell’s No. 50), and 492 (on the Turkish Nasreddin’s 70th jest).
The opening of our story is like that of many of the tales in the “Bride Wager” group, in which the youngest of three brothers, after the two older have lost their lives, risks his. Compare, for instance, the European variants cited in our [notes to No. 21]. This opening, which does not belong to our present cycle, was doubtless attached to the story of the three questions in the Islands themselves. The combination does not appear to have been very happily effected, although it is easy to see the basis for the association (cf. Von Hahn’s formula 24 and bibliography). Very little distinction is made between the good qualities of the three brothers, and the Negrito’s determination to help the last only is not motivated. The Negrito himself, however, is necessary to the story,—he takes the place of the miller in most of the European forms,—and he had to be fitted in as best he could. The magic ring of the slave, with the aid of which he is able to make himself look exactly like his master, does not appear in any of the other variants that I know of. In many of the European forms the occasion of the questions is this: A king or a nobleman becomes angry with a priest or bishop, and threatens him with death if he cannot answer within a definite time three questions that are put to him. As the chief interest of the story is in the solving of the riddles or problems, it is easy to see how there might be a wide variation in setting if the story passed around much by word of mouth.
The questions themselves are curious. Here are some of those found in the European versions: (1) How much water is there in the sea? (2) How many days have passed since Adam lived? (3) Where is the centre of the earth? (4) How far is it from earth to heaven? (5) What is the breadth of heaven? (6) What is the exact value of the king and his golden crown? (7) How long a time would it take to ride around the whole world? (8) What is the king thinking of this very moment? (9) How far is fortune removed from misfortune? (10) How far is it from East to West? (11) How heavy is the moon? (12) How deep is water?
Some of the answers to these questions are clever; others are only less stupid than the persons who asked the questions. The solutions to the twelve just given are: (1) “A tun.”—“How can you prove that?”—“Just order all the streams which flow into the sea to stand still.” This reply is not unlike the counter-demand to the third question in our story. (2) “Seven; and when they come to an end, they begin again.” (3) “Where my church stands: let your servants measure with a cord, and if there is the breadth of a blade of grass more on one side than on the other, I have lost my church.” (4) “Just so far as a man’s voice can easily be heard.” (5) “A thousand fathoms and a thousand ells: then take away the sun and moon and all the stars, and press all together, and it will be no broader.” (6) This question is answered exactly as the second in out story. (7) “If you set out with the Sun and ride with him, you will get around the earth in twenty-four hours.” (8) “The king thinks I’m an abbot, and I’m only a shepherd (or miller).” With this question and answer compare the last task in our [No. 25]. (9) “Only one night, for yesterday I was a shepherd, and to-day I am an abbot.” (10) “A day’s journey.” (11) “A quarter (of a pound): if the king doesn’t believe it, let him weigh the moon himself.” (12) “A stone’s throw.”
The method of answering the questions asked in this cycle of stories, and the obscure origin of the clever substitute, form a direct connection, I believe, between this group and the “Clever Lass” cycle. Not only do we find in both the situation of a person out of favor required to answer difficult riddles, and the task assumed voluntarily by some one humbler but more clever than he, but even some of the questions themselves, and the same style of answers, are found in both cycles. For example, compare questions and answers 1, 3, 5, 7, above, with tasks 1, 2, 4, in the [notes to our No. 7]. In Grimm, No. 152, “The Shepherd Boy,” the hero is asked three questions impossible to answer,—How many drops of water are there in the sea? How many stars are in the heavens? How many seconds has eternity? He gets out of his difficulty just as the “Clever Lass” gets out of hers,—by making equally impossible counter-demands, or else giving answers that cannot be proved incorrect.