The old Gypsy woman told him that some of her people were some of them from the Lovells, Stanleys, Lees, and I don’t know all their names. The King and Jack was very much pleased with the Gypsy woman’s conversation, but poor Jack’s time was drawing to a close of a twelvemonths and a day. And he, wishing to go home to his young wife, gave orders to the three little men to get ready by the next morning at eight o’clock to be off to the next brother, and to stop there for one night; also to proceed from there to the last or the youngest brother, the master of all the mice in the world, in such place where the castle shall be left under his care until it’s sent for. Jack takes a farewell of [[217]]the King, and thanks him very much for his hospitality, and tells him not to be surprised when he shall meet again in some other country.
Away went Jack and his castle again, and stopped one night in that place; and away they went again to the third place, and there left the castle under his care. As Jack had to leave the castle behind, he had to take to his own horse, which he left there when he first started. The king liked the Gypsy woman well, and told her that he would like if she would stay there with him; and the Gypsy woman did stay with him until she was sent for by Jack.
Now poor Jack leaves his castle behind and faces towards home; and after having so much merriment with the three brothers every night, Jack became sleepy on horseback, and would have lost the road if it was not for the little men a-guiding him. At last he arrives, weary and tired, and they did not seem to receive him with any kindness whatever, because he did not find the stolen castle. And to make it worse, he was disappointed in not seeing his young and beautiful wife to come and meet him, through being hindered by her parents. But that did not stop long. Jack put full power on. Jack despatched the little men off to bring the castle from there, and they soon got there; and the first one they seen outside gather sticks to put on the fire was the poor Gypsy woman. And they did whistle[4] to her, when she turned around smartly and said to them, ‘Dordi! dordi![5] how are you, comrades? where do you come from, and where are you going?’
‘Well, to tell the truth, we are sent to take this castle from here. Do you wish to stop here or to come with us?’
‘I would like better to go with you than to stay here.’
‘Well, come on, my poor sister.’
Jack shook hands with the King, and returned many thanks for his kingly kindness. When, all of a sudden, the King, seeing the Gypsy woman, which he fell in so much fancy with, and whom he so much liked, was going to detain the castle until such time he could get her out. But Jack, perceiving his intentions, and wanting the Gypsy woman himself [[218]]for a nurse, instructed the little men to spur up and put speed on. And off they went, and were not long before they reached their journey’s end, when out comes the young wife to meet him with a fine lump of a young Son.
Now, to make my long story short, Jack, after completing what he did, and to make a finish for the poor broken-hearted Gypsy woman, he has the loan of one of his father-in-law’s largest man-of-wars, which is laying by anchor, and sends the three little men in search of her kinsfolk, so as they may be found, and to bring them to her. After long searching they are found and brought back, to the great joy of the woman and delight of his wife’s people-in-law, for after a bit they became very fond of each other. When they came on land, Jack’s people allowed them to camp on their ground near a beautiful river; and the gentlemen and ladies used to go and see for them every day. Jack and his wife had many children, and had some of the Gypsy girls for nurses; and the little children were almost half Gypsies, for the girls continually learning them our language. And the gentleman and the lady were delighted with them. And the last time I was there, I played my harp for them, and got to go again.
This story, like the next, was first printed in my In Gypsy Tents (1880), pp. 201–214 and 299–317. Thence both have been reprinted, with additions and deletions of his own, by Mr. Joseph Jacobs in his English Fairy Tales (1890), pp. 81–92, 236, and More English Fairy Tales (1894), pp. 132–145, 232–233. They are not English fairy-tales at all; neither were they ‘taken down from the mouths of the peasantry.’ Both were written out for me by the Welsh-Gypsy harper, John Roberts, for whom see the Introduction. I still have his neatly-written MSS., from one of which the second story of ‘An Old King and his Three Sons in England’ was printed verbatim et literatim at Messrs. T. and A. Constable’s for the Gypsy Lore Journal (vol. iii. October 1891, pp. 110–120). I insist upon this the more as it is all but unique to find the teller of a folk-tale who can himself transcribe it. The story belongs to the Aladdin group; and according to Mr. Jacobs, the closest parallel to it, including the mice, is afforded by Carnoy and Nicolaides’ Traditions Populaires de l’Asie Mineure (1889), in a tale from Lesbos, ‘L’Anneau de Bronze,’ No. 3, pp. 57–74. A much closer parallel, however, is afforded by Wratislaw’s Sixty Slavonic Folk-tales (1889), in the Croatian story of ‘The Wonder-working Lock,’ No. 54, pp. 284–289, with which compare a poorish Bohemian variant, ‘La Montre Enchantée,’ in Louis Léger’s Contes Slaves (1882, No. 15, pp. 129–137); Hahn’s ‘Von den drei dankbaren Thieren’ (No. 9, i. 109, and ii. 202); and two stories, Nos. 9 and 10, [[219]]both called ‘Le Serpent Reconnaissant,’ in Dozon’s Contes Albanais (1881, pp. 63–76, and 219–222), in the former of which the talisman is a snakestone, in the latter a tobacco-box (of course, a mere coincidence). All these four stories offer analogies to our Roumanian-Gypsy ‘Snake who became the King’s Son-in-law’ (No. 7, p. 21). Grimm’s No. 97, ‘The Water of Life’ (ii. 50, 399), should also be compared; and ‘Sir Bumble,’ in F. A. Steel’s Wide-awake Stories, pp. 5–16. The little cake and blessing, or big cake and curse, recurring in ‘The Ten Rabbits,’ No. 64, comes also in ‘The Red Etin’ (Chambers’s Popular Rhymes of Scotland, p. 90), in Campbell’s West Highland Tales, Nos. 13, 16, and 17, and in Patrick Kennedy’s Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts, pp. 5, 54. In the Bukowina-Gypsy story, ‘Made over to the Devil’ (No. 34), the mother makes a cake for her departing son, but there is no word of curse or blessing. For many more variants (Arabic, Mongolian, Tamil, Greek, etc.) of ‘Aladdin,’ see Clouston’s Variants of Burton’s Supplemental Arabian Nights, pp. 564–575. ‘The elements,’ he observes, ‘of the tale are identical in all versions, Eastern and Western: a talisman by means of which its possessor can command unlimited wealth, etc.; its loss and the consequent disappearance of the magnificent palace erected by supernatural agents who are subservient to the owner of the talisman; and, finally, its recovery, together with the restoration of the palace to its original situation.’ The words apply strikingly to ‘Jack and his Golden Snuff-box,’ of whose existence Mr. Clouston was ignorant when he wrote them. Lastly—this is a find since I began this note—a marvellously close parallel to ‘The Wonder-working Lock’ and ‘La Montre Enchantée’ is offered by ‘The Wonderful Ring,’ in F. A. Steel’s Wide-awake Stories from the Panjab and Kashmir, pp. 196–208. Here the hero with his last four rupees buys a cat, dog, parrot, and snake; receives from snake’s grateful father a talismanic ring; builds by means of it a golden palace in the sea, and marries a princess; has the ring stolen by a witch, who sleeps with it in her mouth; but recovers it, thanks to the grateful animals, who tickle the witch’s nose with a rat’s tail. Another Oriental version is ‘The Charmed Ring,’ in Knowles’s Folk-tales of Kashmir, pp. 20–28. Of this story and its Croatian, Albanian, and other variants we get a fragment in Dr. Barbu Constantinescu’s Roumanian-Gypsy story of ‘The Stolen Ox.’ Here a peasant and his twelve sons are starving. He goes begging, but no one will give him anything, so he steals an ox from a farmer. The farmer next morning goes to look after his cattle, misses the ox, and, going in search of it, comes on the boys in the road. ‘What are you doing there, boys?’ ‘Just playing.’ ‘But last night you were roaring for hunger.’ ‘Yes; but my daddy went to a farm and stole an ox, and my daddy killed it. He killed the ox, he did, and we ate half the ox, and half remained, and my daddy buried it in the earth, wrapped up in the hide.’ The farmer goes and demands payment of the peasant, who gives him one of his sons to serve him for seven years. The lad serves the farmer faithfully, and at the end of his term sets off home. On his way he ‘lights on a dragon, and in the snake’s mouth was a stag. Nine years had that snake had the stag in his mouth, and been [[220]]trying to swallow it, but could not because of the horns. Now that snake was a prince. And seeing the lad, whom God had sent his way, “Lad,” said the snake, “relieve me of this stag’s horns, for I’ve been going about nine years with it in my mouth.” So the lad broke off the horns, and the snake swallowed the stag. “My lad, tie me round your neck, and carry me to my father, for he doesn’t know where I am.” So he carried him to his father, and his father rewarded him. And I came away, and told the tale.’