Other the firmament is sunk,
Other wexen is the ground,
The thickness of four leavès round!
So much to-night higher I lay,
Certes, than yesterday.”
[509]. See also the same story in The Nights, vols. vii. and viii., which Mr. Kirby considers as probably a later version. (App. vol. x. of The Nights, p. 500.)
[510]. So, too, in the “Bahár-i-Dánish” a woman is described as being so able a professor in the school of deceit, that she could have instructed the devil in the science of stratagem; of another it is said that by her wiles she could have drawn the devil’s claws; and of a third the author declares, that the devil himself would own there was no escaping from her cunning!
[511]. There is a similar tale by the Spanish novelist Isidro de Robles (circa 1660), in which three ladies find a diamond ring in a fountain; each claims it; at length they agree to refer the dispute to a count of their acquaintance who happened to be close by. He takes charge of the ring and says to the ladies, “Whoever in the space of six weeks shall succeed in playing off on her husband the most clever and ingenious trick (always having due regard to his honour) shall possess the ring; in the meantime it shall remain in my hands.” (See Roscoe’s “Specimens of the Spanish Novelists,” Chandos edition, p. 438 ff.) This story was probably brought by the Moors to Spain, whence it may have passed into France, since it is the subject of a fabliau, by Haisiau the trouvère, entitled “Des Trois Dames qui trouverent un Anel,” which is found in Méon’s edition of Barbazan, 1808, tome iii. pp. 220–229, and in Le Grand, ed. 1781, tome iv. pp. 163–165.
[512]. Idiots and little boys often figure thus in popular tales: readers of Rabelais will remember his story of the Fool and the Cook; and there is a familiar example of a boy’s precocity in the story of the Stolen Purse—“Craft and Malice of Women,” or the Seven Wazírs, vol. vi. of The Nights.
[513]. I have considerably abridged Mr. Knowles’ story in several places.