The modern Folk-Tales, however, make it practically impossible that these at least could have arisen independently. Many of them have an introductory set of incidents, Jephtha-Vow, Herd-Boy, Shepherd-Boy, Prince; this I have adopted in my version. But besides this the Tasks are often identical, Cleaning Stable (Dasent, Campbell), Finger-Ladder (Campbell, trace in Cosquin 32), Building Castle (Grimm 113, Hahn 54); the Oblivion Kiss occurs in Scotland, Germany, Spain, Tyrol, Tuscany, Sicily, and Rome, all in connection with similar stories.
The tale has been especially popular in Celtdom. I have enumerated no less than fourteen versions in my notes on the "Battle of the Birds" (Celtic Fairy Tales, p. 265). There we have the Obstacles to Pursuit mainly in the form of forest, mountain, and river, which the late Mr. Alfred Nutt pointed out to be the natural boundaries of the Nether-World in Teutonic Paganism. It is, therefore, possible that our story has been "contaminated" or influenced by the notion of the "Descent to Hell."
Here, as in the parallel case of Cupid and Psyche, we find a classical story, with many of the incidents clearly reproduced in modern Folk-Tales, while others have been inserted to make the tale longer or more of the folk-tale character.
At the same time the story as a whole is found spread from America to Samoa, from India to Scotland, with indubitable signs of being the same story dressed up according to local requirements. The Master-Maid is, accordingly, one of the most instructive of all folk-tales, from the point of view of the problem of diffusion.
XIX. A VISITOR FROM PARADISE
This droll, in its two parts, occurs throughout Europe as has been shown by Cosquin in his elaborate Notes to No. 22. The Visitor from Paradise, for example, occurs in Brittany, Germany, Norway, and Sweden, England, Roumania, Tyrol, and Ireland. In some of the versions the silly wife gives some household treasure to a passer-by because her husband had said that he was keeping this for Christmas, for Easter, or for "Hereafterthis" and the Visitor claims it in that name. (See More English Fairy Tales.) The idea also occurs in the literature of jests in Pauli, 1519, Hans Sachs, and in Trésor du Ridicule, Paris, 1644. Cosquin has also traced it to Ceylon, Orientalist, 1884, p. 62.
The adventure of the door and the robbers is equally widely spread in Normandy, Germany, Austria, Bosnia, Rome, Catalonia, and Sicily. (Gonz., i., 251-2.) It forms part of the tale of "Mr. Vinegar" in English Fairy Tales. The two adventures are, however, rarely combined; Cosquin knows of only two instances. I have, however, ventured to combine them here instead of making two separate tales of them.
In telling the story one has to slur over the pronunciation of "Paradise," making the last vowel short, so as to explain the misunderstanding about "Paris." I have retained the Paris motif as all through the Middle Ages, wayfarers from and to Paris (wandering scholars or clerics) would be familiar sights to the peasantry throughout Europe.
Bolte gives in full (ii., 441-6) a Latin poem by Wickram in 1509 entitled, "De Barta et marito eius per studentem Parisiensem subtiliter deceptis," which is practically identical with the early part of our story and has this misunderstanding about Paris and Paradise. It accordingly occurs in most of the German books of Drolls as those by Bebel and Pauli, and it is possible that the folk versions were derived from this, though they stretch as far as Cairo and North India. See Clouston, Book of Noodles, pp. 205, 214. In some of the folk-tales, there is an introduction in which the Foolish Wife sells three cows, but keeps one of the three as a pledge. Thereupon her husband leaves her until he can find any one as silly, which he does by posing as a Visitor from Paradise. This is more suitable for an introduction for "The Three Sillies."