[43] Cf. below, “The Singing Tree,” etc., p. 176.
[44] Cf. “Old Deccan Days,” p. 139; and Cox, “Aryan Mythology,” Vol. I., p. 160, seq.
[45] Cf. below, p. 156.
[46] The word “Ezkabi” is “the scab;” he either really had it, as in the next version, or was supposed to have it from keeping his head covered, as in this. In both cases the hair is most beautiful, precious, golden, and love-compelling.
[47] Cf. with the whole of this tale, Campbell’s second tale, “The Battle of the Birds,” and the variations, especially the one of “Auburn Mary,” Vol. I. pp. 52–58.
[48] Cf. Baring Gould’s chapter, “Swan-Maidens”—“Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,” p. 561, seq.
[49] In the Gaelic the labours are more like those of Herakles—to clean out a byre, to shoot birds, and to rob a magpie’s nest. The Basque incidents seem to fit better into a climatological myth.
[50] In “Old Deccan Days” (“Truth’s Triumph”) it is the hair and not the comb that does the wonders. In M. Cerquand’s “Récits” the comb is an attribute of the Basa-Andre.
[51] In Campbell’s “Battle of the Birds” the hero always sleeps while the giant’s daughter does his task for him.
[52] Here the narrator interposed, “You see it is just as it happens; the women are always the worst.” But in Campbell it is the giant himself who says, “My own daughter’s tricks are trying me.”