Parallels.–Mr. Hartland has studied Human Midwives in the Archaeol. Review, iv., and parallels to our story in Folk- Lore, i. 209, seq.; the most interesting of these is from Gervase of Tilbury (xiii. cent.), Otia Imper., iii. 85, and three Breton tales given by M. Sebillot ( Contes, ii. 42; Litt. orale, 23; Trad. et Superst., i. 109). Cf. Prof. Child, i. 339; ii. 505.
XLI. THE WELL OF THE WORLD’S END.
Source.–Leyden’s edition of The Complaynt of Scotland, p. 234 seq., with additional touches from Halliwell, 162-3, who makes up a slightly different version from the rhymes. The opening formula I have taken from Mayhew, London Labour, iii. 390, who gives it as the usual one when tramps tell folk-tales. I also added it to No. xvii.
Parallels.–Sir W. Scott remembered a similar story; see Taylor’s Gammer Grethel, ad fin. In Scotland it is Chambers’s tale of The Paddo, p. 87; Leyden supposes it is referred to in the Complaynt, (c. 1548), as “The Wolf of the Warldis End.” The well of this name occurs also in the Scotch version of the “Three Heads of the Well,” (No. xliii.). Abroad it is the Grimms’ first tale, while frogs who would a-wooing go are discussed by Prof. Köhler, Occ. u. Orient ii. 330; by Prof. Child, i. 298; and by Messrs. Jones and Kropf, l.c., p. 404. The sieve-bucket task is widespread from the Danaids of the Greeks to the leverets of Uncle Remus, who, curiously enough, use the same rhyme: “Fill it wid moss en dob it wid clay.” Cf., too, No. xxiii.
XLII. MASTER OF ALL MASTERS.
Source.–I have taken what suited me from a number of sources, which shows how wide-spread this quaint droll is in England: (i) In Mayhew, London Poor, iii. 391, told by a lad in a workhouse; (ii) several versions in 7 Notes and Queries, iii. 35, 87, 159, 398.
Parallels.–Rev. W. Gregor gives a Scotch version under the title “The Clever Apprentice,” in Folk-Lore Journal, vii. 166. Mr. Hartland, in Notes and Queries, l.c., 87, refers to Pitré’s Fiabi sicil., iii. 120, for a variant.
Remarks.–According to Mr. Hartland, the story is designed as a satire on pedantry, and is as old in Italy as Straparola (sixteenth century). In passionate Sicily a wife disgusted with her husband’s pedantry sets the house on fire, and informs her husband of the fact in this unintelligible gibberish; he, not understanding his own lingo, falls a victim to the flames, and she marries the servant who had taken the message.
XLIII. THE THREE HEADS OF THE WELL.
Source.–Halliwell, p. 158. The second wish has been somewhat euphemised.