It is made on a woman's advice.
It causes the death of the wisher[37].
The story is next found in the various forms of the Book of Sindibad, Greek, Hebrew, Persian, Arabic, and old Spanish, a book mentioned by all Arabic authors of the tenth century, and of Indian and Buddhistic origin[38]. As told in the various forms of Sindibad, the tale of The Three Wishes takes this shape. A man has a friendly spirit (a she-devil in the Spanish Libro de los Engannos), who is obliged to desert his company, but leaves him certain formulæ, by dint of repeating which he will have Three Wishes granted to him. The tree-spirit has disappeared, the one wish has become three. The man consults with his wife, who suggests that he should desire, not two heads and four hands, but an obscene and disgusting bodily transformation of another sort. He wishes the wish, is horrified by the result, and, on the woman's hint, asks to have all that embarrasses him removed. The granting of the wish leaves him with 'a frightful minus quantity,' and he expends the third wish in getting restored to his pristine and natural condition. The woman explains that she had not counselled him to desire wealth, lest he should weary of her and desert her. This, at least, is the conclusion in the Hebrew version, in the Parables of Sandabas (Deulin, Contes de Ma Mère L'Oye, p. 71).
How are we to account for this metamorphosis of the story in the Pantschatantra? Is the alteration a piece of Arabian humour? Was there another Indian version corresponding to the shape of the tale in the Book of Sindibad? The questions cannot be answered with our present knowledge.
Another change, and a very remarkable one, occurs in the Fables of Marie de France. Of Marie not much is known. In the Conclusion of her Fables, she says—
'Au finement de cest escrit K'én Romanz ai turné et dit, Me numerai par remembraunce Marie ai num, si sui de Fraunce.
* * * * *
Pur amur le cumte Willaume Le plus vaillant de cest Royaume, M'entremis de cest livre feire E de l'Angleiz en Roman treire, Ysopet apeluns ce livre Qu'il traveilla et fist escrire; De Griu en Latin le turna. Li Rois Henris qui moult l'ama Le translata puis en Engleiz E jeo l'ai rimé en Franceiz.'
That is to say, King Henry had translated into English a collection of fables and contes attributed to Æsop, and Marie rendered the English into French. Now Æsop certainly did not write the story of The Three Wishes. The text before Marie was probably a mere congeries of tales and fables, some of the set usually attributed to Æsop, some from various other sources. The Latin version, the model of the English version, was that assigned to a certain, or uncertain Romulus, whom Marie, in her preface, calls an emperor. Probably he borrowed from Phædrus, though he boasts that he rendered his fables out of the Greek. M. de Roquefort thinks he did not flourish before the eleventh or twelfth century[39]. Who was li rois Henris who turned the fables into Marie's English text? She lived under our Henry III. Perhaps conjecture may prefer Henry Beauclerk, our Henry I.
In any case Marie manifestly did render the fables, or some of the fables, in Le dit d'Ysopet out of English. The presence of English words in her French seems to raise a strong presumption in favour of the truth of the assertion. One of these English words occurs in her form of The Three Wishes (Fable xxiv), called Dou Vilain qui prist un Folet, also Des Troiz Oremens, or Du Vileins et de sa Fame. A Vilein captured a Folet (fairy or brownie?) who granted him Three Wishes. The Folet resembles the tree-bogle of the Pantschatantra. The vilein gave two wishes to his wife. Long they lived without using the wishes. One day, when they had a marrow bone for dinner, and found it difficult to extract the marrow, the wife wished that her husband had—