45. King John and the Bishop.
P. 404 a. The Two Noble Kinsmen, V, ii, 67, 68,
Daughter. How far is 't now to the end o the world, my masters?
Doctor. Why, a day's journey, wench.
G. L. K.
404 b. Death the penalty for not guessing riddles. There is no occasion to accumulate examples, but this Oriental one is worth mentioning. In the tale of Gôsht-i Fryânô, Akht, the sorcerer, will give three and thirty riddles to Gôsht, and if Gôsht shall give no answer, or say, I know not, he will slay him. After answering all the riddles, Gôsht says he will give Akht three on the same terms, and the sorcerer, failing to solve them, is slain. Arḍâ-Vîrâf, Pahlavî text, etc., Haug and West, Bombay and London, 1872, pp. 250, 263 f. This tale Köhler has shown to be one with that of the fine Kirghish lay 'Die Lerche,' in Radloff, Proben der Volkslitteratur der türkischen Stamme Süd-Sibiriens, III, 780: see Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, XIX, 633 ff.
Additions to the literature, by Dr R. Köhler.
405 b. The tale cited by Vincent of Beauvais is told by Étienne de Bourbon, A. Lecoy de la Marche, Anecdotes historiques, légendes et apologues, tirés du recueil inédit d'Étienne de Bourbon, No 86.
In an as yet unprinted fifteenth-century Low German poem on the Seven Deadly Sins (Josefs Gedicht von den sieben Todsünden... nach der Handschrift bekannt gemacht von Dr Babucke, Oster-Programm des Progymnasiums zu Norden, 1874, p. 18), a king puts an abbot four questions:
De erste vraghe was, wor dat ertrike wende
Unn were hoghest, eft he dat kende;
De ander, wor dat unghelucke queme
Unn bleve, wan dat eyn ende neme;
Dat drudde, wo gud de konig were na rade
Wan he stunde in synem besten wade;
De verde, we syner eldermoder beneme
De maghedom unn dar wedder in greme.