[73] This seems inserted from “Mahistruba,” p. 105.
[74] In the Gaelic it is a general, as here, and not a lame second officer, as in “Juan Dekos,” who wants to marry the lady, and who sets the hero on a desert island.—Campbell, Vol. II., p. 118.
[75] See note on page 149.
[76] We had put this tale aside, with some others, as worthless, until we found from Campbell how widely it is spread. The earliest version seems to be the Italian of Straparola, 1567. The first incident there, persuading that a pig is an ass, we have in another Basque tale; the last two incidents are identical. They are found, too, in the Gaelic, though in separate versions. For killing the wife, see Campbell, Vol. II., p. 232; for the last, pp. 222 and 234. Cf. also “The Three Widows,” with all the variations and notes, Vol. II., pp. 218–238. Is this a case of transmission from one people to another of the Italian of Straparola? or do all the versions point back to some lost original? and is there, or can there be, any allegorical meaning to such a tale? The answer to these questions seems of great importance, and the present tale to be a good instance to work upon. Petarillo seems an Italian name.
[77] “Peau d’Ane.”
[78] “Fidèle.”
[79] The narrator was here asked “if the place of the dance was at the king’s palace.” “No,” she gravely replied, “it was at the mairie.” In other tales it is on the “place,” i.e., the open square or market-place which there is in most French towns and villages in the south. It is generally in front either of the church or of the mairie.
[80] This was explained as meaning “Beaten with the Slipper.” This version came from the Cascarrot, or half-gipsy quarter of St. Jean de Luz, and may not be purely Basque. Except in one or two words the language is correct enough—for St. Jean de Luz.
[81] At an exclamation of surprise from one of the auditors, the narrator piously said, “It is the Holy Virgin who permitted all that.”
[82] Cf. “The Serpent in the Wood,” p. 38.