And he was in such a rage that, if his wife had not begged him to forgive her, he would even have beaten her; but his wife prevented him. He sent his mother and his sister out of the house, and he and his wife lived for many years happy and pleased with each other; and as they lived well they died well too.
The Sister of Laurentine.
This may be Toutou, but in the Basque country it is sometimes difficult to get hold of a person’s surname. “Who is Laurentine?” you ask. “She is Toutou’s sister,” is the reply. “But who is Toutou?” “She is Laurentine’s sister.” If you want to get anything more out you have to cross-examine for half-an-hour. Some of our tales are not signed; we believe these are to be divided between Catherine Elizondo and Laurentine Kopena. Fresh names we think we always put down, but these brought so many tales that we sometimes omitted it with them, and in the rearrangement for printing we have lost our clue.
We have some thirteen other tales of all kinds, besides variations, which we have not given. They are mostly short, and not very different in character from those given above, except in being more stupid in two or three cases; and a few of them are to be found in M. Cerquand’s collection.
[1] The first portion of this tale is told of the Tartaro as “Twenty-Four.” We suspect that it is an old Tartaro tale joined on to a Christopheros legend, unless indeed this be the very peculiarity and meaning of the Christopheros legend—the enlisting of the old gods into the service of Christ, and including the most human of them in His salvation. The last part of the tale is very widely spread. It is given by F. Caballero in the Spanish, and by Cenac-Moncaut, “Le Sac de la Ramée,” p. 57—“Littérature Populaire de la Gascogne.” There is something like it in Campbell’s “Tale of the Soldier,” Vol. II., p.276.
[2] This seems to be one of the many variations of the “Golden Legend,” the “Aurea Legenda” which Longfellow has so well versified.
[3] The idea of this incident is not confined to Christianity; a similar story is told of a Mahommedan saint, and a caliph or king. The scene of the story is Cairo.