Of the second kind, among very many, are Straparola, viii, 5, see Grimms, III, 288, Louveau et Larivey, II, 152; Grimms, Nos 68, 117; Müllenhoff, No 27, p. 466; Pröhle, Märchen für die Jugend, No 26; Asbjørnsen og Moe, No 57; Grundtvig, Gamle danske Minder, 1854, Nos 255, 256; Hahn, Griechische Märchen, No 68; the Breton tale Koadalan, Luzel, in Revue Celtique, I, 106/107; the Schotts, Walachische Mærchen, No 18;[374] Woicicki, Klechdy, II, 26, No 4; Karadshitch, No 6; Afanasief, V, 95 f, No 22, VI, 189 ff, No 45 a, b, and other Russian and Little Russian versions, VIII, 340. Köhler adds several examples of one kind or the other in a note to Koadalan, Revue Celtique, I, 132, and Wollner Slavic parallels in a note to Leskien und Brugman, Litanische Volkslieder und Märchen, p. 537 f.
The usual course of events in these last is that the prentice takes refuge in one of many pomegranate kernels, barley-corns, poppy-seeds, millet-grains, pearls; the master becomes a cock, hen, sparrow, and picks up all of these but one, which turns into a fox, dog, weasel, crow, cat, hawk, vulture, that kills the bird.
The same story occurs in the Turkish Forty Viziers, Behrnauer, p. 195 ff, the last transformations being millet, cock, man, who tears off the cock's head. Also in the introduction to Siddhi-Kür, Jülg, pp 1-3, where there are seven masters instead of one, and the final changes are worms, instead of seeds, seven hens, a man with a cane who kills the hens.[375]
The pomegranate and cock (found in Straparola) are among the metamorphoses in the contest between the afrite and the princess in the tale of the Second Calender in the Arabian Nights.
Entirely similar is the pursuit of Gwion the pigmy by the goddess Koridgwen, cited by Villemarqué, Barzaz Breiz, p. lvi, ed. 1867, from the Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, I, 17. Gwion having, by an accident, come to the knowledge of superhuman mysteries, Koridgwen wishes to take his life. He flees, and turns successively into a hare, fish, bird; she follows, in the form of hound, otter, hawk; finally he becomes a wheaten grain, she a hen, and swallows the grain.
The ordinary tale has found its way into rhyme in a German broadside ballad, Longard, Altrheinländische Mährlein und Liedlein, p. 76, No 40, 'Von einem gottlosen Zauberer und seiner unschuldigen Kindlein wunderbarer Erlösung.' The two children of an ungodly magician, a boy and a girl, are devoted by him to the devil. The boy had read in his father's books while his father was away. They flee, and are pursued: the girl becomes a pond, the boy a fish. The wicked wizard goes for a net. The boy pronounces a spell, by which the girl is turned into a chapel, and he into an image on the altar. The wizard, unable to get at the image, goes for fire. The boy changes the girl into a threshing-floor, himself into a barley-corn. The wizard becomes a hen, and is about to swallow the grain of barley. By another spell the boy changes himself into a fox, and then twists the hen's neck.
Translated by Gerhard, p. 18.
1
The lady stands in her bower door,
As straight as willow wand;
The blacksmith stood a little forebye,
Wi hammer in his hand.