LXXVIII. PUDDOCK, MOUSIE, AND RATTON
Source.—Kirkpatrick Sharpe's Ballad Book, 1824, slightly anglicised.
Parallels.—Mr. Bullen, in his Lyrics from Elizabethan Song Books, p. 202, gives a version, "The Marriage of the Frog and the Mouse," from T. Ravenscroft's Melismata, 1611. The nursery rhyme of the frog who would a-wooing go is clearly a variant of this, and has thus a sure pedigree of three hundred years; cf. "Frog husband" in my List of Incidents, or notes to "The Well of the World's End" (No. xli.).
LXXIX. LITTLE BULL-CALF
Source.—Gypsy Lore Journal, iii., one of a number of tales told "In a Tent" to Mr. John Sampson. I have respelt and euphemised the bladder.
Parallels.—The Perseus and Andromeda incident is frequent in folk-tales; see my List of Incidents sub voce "Fight with Dragon." "Cheese squeezing," as a test of prowess, is also common, as in "Jack the Giant Killer" and elsewhere (Köhler, Jahrbuch, vii., 252).
LXXX. THE WEE WEE MANNIE
Source.—From Mrs. Balfour's old nurse. I have again anglicised.
Parallels.—This is one of the class of accumulative stories like The Old Woman and her Pig (No. iv.). The class is well represented in these isles.
LXXXI. HABETROT AND SCANTLIE MAB