Here, on the departure of the husband, the divinity Siva says to the couple, “Take each of you one of these red lotuses; and, if either of you shall be unfaithful during your separation, the lotus in the hand of the other shall fade, but not otherwise.” Then the husband set out for another city, where he began to buy and sell jewels. Four merchants of that country, astonished at the never-fading lotus in his hand, wormed the secret out of the husband by making him drunk, and then planned the seduction of the wife out of mere curiosity. To aid them in their plan, they had recourse to a female ascetic. She went to the wife, and attempted to move her to pity by showing her a weeping bitch, which she said was once a woman, but was transformed into a dog because of her hard-heartedness [for this device worked with better success; see Gesta Romanorum, chap. XXVIII]. The wife divined the plot and the motive of the young merchants, and appeared to be glad to receive them; but when they came at appointed times, she drugged them, and branded them on the forehead with an iron dog’s foot. Then she cast them out naked in a dung-heap. The procuress was later served even worse: her hose and ears were cut off. The young wife, fearing that for revenge the four merchants might go slay her husband, told her whole story to her mother-in-law. The mother-in-law praised her for her conduct, and devised a plan to save her son. The wise wife disguised herself as a merchant, and embarked in a ship to the country where her husband was. When she arrived there, she saw him in the midst of a circle of merchants. He, seeing her afar off in the dress of a man, thought to himself, “Who may this merchant be that looks so like my beloved wife?” But she went to the king, said that she had a petition to present, and asked him to assemble all his subjects. He did so, and asked her what her petition was. She replied, “There are residing here four escaped slaves of mine; let the king give them back to me.” She was told to pick out her slaves, which she did, choosing the four merchants who had their heads tied up. When asked how these distinguished merchants’ sons could be her slaves, she said, “Examine their foreheads, which I marked with a dog’s foot.” So done. The truth came out; the other merchants paid the wife a large sum of money to ransom the four, and also a fine to the king’s treasury.

There can be no doubt of a rather close relationship between the Persian and the Indian stories; nor can there be any doubt, it seems to me, of the relationship of these two with the “Chastity Wager” cycle. The additional details in Somadeva’s narrative connect it with European Märchen; e.g., J. F. Campbell, No. 18, and Groome, No. 33.

Our story of the “Golden Lock,” as well as the variants, is unquestionably an importation from Europe; but what the immediate source of the tale is, I am unable to say. For the convenience of any, however, who are interested in this group of stories, and care to make a further study of it, I give here a list of the occurrences of the tale in literature and in popular form. In literature, this story in Europe dates from the end of the twelfth century.

  1. Roman de Guillaume de Dole (c. 1200). Ed. by G. Servois for the Soc. des Anc. Textes français. Paris, 1893.
  2. Roman de la Violette (13th century). Ed. by Michel. 1834.
  3. Roman du Comte de Poitiers (13th century). Ed. by Michel. 1831.
  4. Le roi Flore et la belle Jehanne (a 13th century prose story). Published by L. Moland et C. d’Hericault in Nouvelles françaises en prose du xiii⊇ siècle, 1856 : 87–157; also in Monmerqué et Michel, Théâtre français au Moyen Age, 1842 : 417.
  5. Miracle de Othon, roy d’Espaigne (a 14th century miracle), in the Miracles de Nostre Dame. Published by G. Paris and U. Robert for the Soc. des Anc. Textes français, 4 : 315–388; and in Monmerqué et Michel, op. cit., p. 431 f.
  6. Perceforest, bk. iv, ch. 16, 17 (an episode, where the chastity token is a rose), retold by Bandello, part I, nov. 21 (cf. R. Köhler, in Jahrb. für rom. u. eng. lit., 8 : 51 f.).
  7. Boccaccio’s Decameron, 2 : 9 (cf. Landau, Die Quellen des Dekameron, 1884 : 135 ff.).

Two important treatments of the story in dramatic form are sixteenth-century Spanish, Lope de Rueda’s “Eufemia,” where the heroine tricks her maligner by accusing him of having spent many nights with her and of finally having stolen a jewel from under her bed; he denies all knowledge of her (cf. J. L. Klein, Geschichte des Dramas, 9 [1872] : 144–156); and English, Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline.” For modern dramas and operas dealing with this theme, see G. Servois, op. cit., p. xvi, note 5. In ballad form the story occurs in “The Twa Knights” (Child, 5 : 21 ff., No. 268).

Popular stories belonging to this cycle and containing the wager are the following:—

  1. J. F. Campbell, No. 18.
  2. J. W. Wolf, p. 355.
  3. Simrock, Deutsche Märchen, No. 51 (1864 ed., p. 235).
  4. H. Pröhle, No. 61, p. 179 (cf. also p. xlii).
  5. Ausland, 1856 : 1053, for a Roumanian story.
  6. F. Miklosisch, Märchen und Lieder der Zigeuner der Bukowina, No. 14.
  7. D. G. Bernoni, Fiabe popolari veneziane, No. I.
  8. Gonzenbach, No. 7.
  9. G. Pitrè, Nos. 73, 75.
  10. V. Imbriani, La Novellaja Fiorentina, p. 483.

Other folk-tales somewhat more distantly related are,—

  1. Comparetti, Nos. 36 and 60.
  2. Webster, Basque Legends, p. 132.
  3. F. Kreutzwald, Estnische Märchen (übersetzt von F. Löwe), 2d Hälfte, No. 6.
  4. H. Bergh, Sogur m. m. fraa Valdris og Hallingdal, p. 16.

For the story in general, see the following:—