[63] This is a curious testimony to an ancient practice. In the same way the Basques call “La Fête Dieu,” “Corpus Christi Day;” “Phestaberria,” “The New Feast,” though it was instituted in the thirteenth century.
[64] This is a very old and wide-spread story. The Gaelic versions are given in Campbell, Vol. II., p. 239, seq. Cf. also Cox, “Aryan Mythology,” Vol. I., p. 111, seq.
[65] In the Gaelic it is the bishop’s horse.
[66] This is in the Norse and Teutonic versions.
[67] This, again, is more like the Gaelic.
[68] This name was written thus phonetically from the Basque, and it was not till I saw the Gaelic tale that it struck me that it is simply “Jean d’Ecosse”—“John of Scotland,” or “Scotch John.” In the analogous tale in Campbell, “The Barra Widow’s Son,” Vol. II., p. 111, we read—“It was Iain Albanach” (literally, Jean d’Ecosse) “the boy was called at first; he gave him the name of Iain Mac a Maighstir” (John, master’s son) “because he himself was master of the vessel.” This seems decisive that in some way the Basques have borrowed this tale from the Kelts since their occupation of the Hebrides. The Spanish versions, too, are termed “The Irish Princess” (Patrañas, p. 234).
[69] See note on preceding page, and Campbell, Vol. II., p. 3.
[70] Whether this refers to any real custom about dead men’s debts, we cannot say. It occurs in the Gaelic, in “Ezkabi,” and in other tales and versions, notably in the Spanish; see as above, and “The White Blackbird,” below, p. 182.
[71] In other versions it is the soul of the man whose debts he had paid, either in the shape of a hermit or a fox. In the Gaelic it is left vague and undetermined. He is called “one,” or “the asker.” (Campbell, Vol. II., pp. 119 and 121.) The same contract is made in each case, and with the same result.
[72] This is, of course, “Jean de Calais”—“John of Calais”—and would seem to show that it was through some French, and not Spanish, versions that the Basques learnt it.