[2]: Campbell's Popular Tales of the West Highlands, vol. ii., pp. 385—387.
In a Northumberland popular tale a child in bed sees a little fairy come down the chimney, and the child tells the creature that his name is My-ainsel. They play together, and the little fairy is burnt with a cinder, and on its mother appearing when it cries, and asking it who had hurt it, the imp answers, "It was My-ainsel."—There is a somewhat similar story current in Finland: A man is moulding lead buttons, when the Devil appears, and asks him what he is doing. "Making eyes." "Could you make me new ones?" "Yes." So he ties the Devil to a bench, and, in reply to the fiend, tells him that his name is Myself (Issi), and then pours lead into his eyes. The Devil starts up with the bench on his back, and runs off howling. Some people working in a field ask him who did it. Quoth the fiend, "Myself did it" (Issi teggi).
Cf. the Odyssey, Book ix., where Ulysses informs the Cyclops that his name is No-man, and when the monster, after having had his eye put out in his sleep, awakes in agony, he roars to his comrades for help:
"Friends, No-man kills me, No-man, in the hour Of sleep, oppresses me with fraudful power!" "If no man hurt thee, but the hand divine Inflict disease, it fits thee to resign;— To Jove, or to thy father, Neptune, pray," The brethren cried, and instant strode away.
[3] Ralston's Russian Folk-Tales.
[4] Crane's Italian Popular Tales, pp. 279—282.
[5] A game played with peach-pits, which are thrown into holes made in the ground, and to which certain numbers are attached.
[6] Crane's Italian Popular Tales, pp. 282-3.
[7] The same story is told in Brittany, with no important variations.
[8] Quite as literally did the rustic understand the priest's assurance, that whatsoever one gave in charity, for the love of God, should be repaid him twofold: next day he takes his cow to the priest, who accepts it as sent by Heaven—and the poor man did not get two cows in return. The story is known in various forms all over Europe; it was a special favourite in mediæval times. See Le Grand's Fabliaux, tome iii., 376: "La Vache du Curé," by the trouvère Jean de Boves; Wright's Latin Stories; Icelandic Legends, etc.