Once upon a time there was the son of a king who for the punishment of some fault became a monster. He could become a man again only by marrying. One day he met a young girl who refused him, because she was so frightened at him. And the Tartaro wanted to give her a ring, which she would not accept. However, he sent it her by a young man. As soon as the ring was upon her finger it began to say, “Thou there, and I here.”4 It kept always crying out this, and the Tartaro pursued her continually; and, as the young girl had such a horror of him, she cut off her finger and the ring, and threw them into a large pond, and there the Tartaro drowned himself.

Estefanella Hirigarray,
of Ahetze.

Our next story was communicated by M. d’Abbadie to the Société des Sciences et des Arts de Bayonne. The narrator is M. l’Abbé Heguiagaray, the Parish Priest of Esquiule in La Soule:—

In my infancy I often heard from my mother the story of the Tartaro. He was a Colossus, with only one eye in the middle of his forehead. He was a shepherd and a hunter, but a hunter of men. Every day he ate a sheep; then, after a snooze, every one who had the misfortune to fall into his hands. His dwelling was a huge barn, with thick walls, a high roof, and a very strong door, which he alone knew how [5]to open. His mother, an old witch, lived in one corner of the garden, in a hut constructed of turf.

One day a powerful young man was caught in the snares of the Tartaro, who carried him off to his house. This young man saw the Tartaro eat a whole sheep, and he knew that he was accustomed to take a snooze, and that after that his own turn would come. In his despair he said to himself that he must do something. Directly the Tartaro began to snore he put the spit into the fire, made it red-hot, and plunged it into the giant’s one eye. Immediately he leapt up, and began to run after the man who had injured him; but it was impossible to find him.

“You shall not escape. It is all very well to hide yourself,” said he; “but I alone know the secret how to open this door.”

The Tartaro opened the door half-way, and let the sheep out between his legs. The young man takes the big bell off the ram, and puts it round his neck, and throws over his body the skin of the sheep which the giant had just eaten, and walks on all fours to the door.

The Tartaro examines him by feeling him, perceives the trick, and clutches hold of the skin; but the young man slips off the skin, dives between his legs, and runs off.

Immediately the mother of the Tartaro meets him, and says to him:

“O, you lucky young fellow! You have escaped the cruel tyrant; take this ring as a remembrance of your escape.”

He accepts, puts the ring on his finger, and immediately the ring begins to cry out, “Heben nuk! Heben nuk!” (“Thou hast me here! Thou hast me here!”)

The Tartaro pursues, and is on the point of catching him, when the young man, maddened with fright, and not being able to pull off the ring, takes out his knife, and cuts off his own finger, and throws it away, and thus escapes the pursuit of the Tartaro.

In other versions the young man goes into the forest with some pigs, meets the Tartaro there, is carried by him home, [6]blinds him with the red-hot spit, and escapes by letting himself down through a garret window. The Tartaro pursues, guided by his ring, which at last he throws to the young man to put on, when it cries out as above, and the young man cuts off his finger, and throws it down a precipice or into a bog, where the ring still cries out, and the Tartaro following, is dashed to pieces and drowned.

Like many others in the world, there was a man and woman who had a son. He was very wicked, and did nothing but mischief, and was of a thoroughly depraved disposition. The parents decided that they must send him away, and the lad was quite willing to set off.

He set out then, and goes far, far, far away. He comes to a city, and asks if they want a servant. They wanted one in a (certain) house. He goes there. They settle their terms at so much a month, and that the one who is not satisfied should strip the skin off the other’s back.5

The master sends his servant to the forest to get the most crooked pieces of wood that he can find. Near the forest there was a vineyard. What does the servant do but cut it all up, and carries it to the house. The master asks him where the wood is. He shows him the vine-wood cut up. The master said nothing to him, but he was not pleased.

Next day the master says to him, “Take the cows to such a field, and don’t break any hole in the fence.”

What does the lad do? He cuts all the cows into little pieces, and throws them bit by bit into the field. The master was still more angry; but he could not say anything, for fear of having his skin stripped off. So what does he do? He buys a herd of pigs, and sends his servant to the mountain with the herd. [7]

The master knew quite well that there was a Tartaro in this mountain, but he sends him there all the same.

Our madman goes walking on, on, on. He arrives at a little hut. The Tartaro’s house was quite close to his. The pigs of the Tartaro and those of the madman used to go out together. The Tartaro said one day to him—

“Will you make a wager as to who will throw a stone farthest?”

He accepted the wager. That evening our madman was very sad. While he was at his prayers, an old woman appeared to him, and asks him—

“What is the matter with you? Why are you so sad?”

He tells her the wager that he has made with the Tartaro. The old woman says to him—

“If it is only that, it is nothing.”

And so she gives him a bird, and says to him—

“Instead of a stone, throw this bird.”

The madman was very glad at this. The next day he does as the old woman told him. The Tartaro’s stone went enormously far, but at last it fell; but the madman’s bird never came down at all.

The Tartaro was astonished that he had lost his wager, and they make another—which of the two should throw a bar of iron the farthest. The madman accepted again. He was in his little house sadly in prayer. The old woman appears again. She asks him—

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I have made a wager again, which of the two will throw the bar of iron the farthest, and I am very sorry.”

“If it is only that, it is nothing. When you take hold of the bar of iron, say, ‘Rise up, bar of iron, here and Salamanca.’” (Altchaala palenka, hemen eta Salamanka.)6

Next day the Tartaro takes his terrible bar of iron, and [8]throws it fearfully far. The young man could hardly lift up one end, and he says—

“Rise up, bar of iron, here and Salamanca.”

When the Tartaro heard that (he cried out)—

“I give up the wager—you have won,” and he takes the bar of iron away from him. “My father and my mother live at Salamanca; don’t throw, I beg of you, I implore you—you will crush them.”

Our madman goes away very happy.

The Tartaro says to him again:

“I will pull up the biggest oak in the forest, and you pull up another.”

He says, “Yes.” And the later it grew in the day, the sadder he became. He was at his prayers. The old woman comes to him again, and says to him—

“What’s the matter with you?”

He tells her the wager he has made with the Tartaro, and how he will pull up an oak. The old woman gives him three balls of thread, and tells him to begin and tie them to all the oaks in the forest.7

Next day the Tartaro pulls up his oak, an enormously, enormously big one; and the madman begins to tie, and to tie, and to tie.

The Tartaro asks him:

“What are you doing that for?”

“You (pulled up) one, but I all these.”

The Tartaro replies,

“No! No! No! What shall I do to fatten my pigs with without acorns? You have won; you have won the wager.”

The Tartaro did not know what to think about it, and saw that he had found one cleverer than himself, and so he asks him if he will come and spend the night at his house.

The madman says, “Yes.”

He goes to bed then with the Tartaro. But he knew that [9]there was a dead man under the bed. When the Tartaro was asleep what does the madman do? He places the dead man by the Tartaro’s side, and gets under the bed himself. In the middle of the night the Tartaro gets up, and takes his terrible bar of iron and showers blows upon blows, ping pan, ping pan, as long and as hard as he could give them.

The Tartaro gets up as usual, and goes to see his pigs, and the madman also comes out from under the bed; and he goes to see the pigs too. The Tartaro is quite astounded to see him coming, and does not know what to think of it. He says to himself that he has to do with a cleverer than he; but he asks him if he has slept well.

He answers, “Yes, very well; only I felt a few flea-bites.”

Their pigs had got mixed, and as they were fat, he had to separate them in order to go away with his. The Tartaro asked the madman what mark his pigs had.

The madman says to him, “Mine have some of them one mark, some of them two marks.”

They set to work to look at them, and they all had these same marks.

Our madman goes off then with all the hogs. He goes walking on, on, on, with all his pigs. He comes to a town where it was just market day, and sells them all except two, keeping, however, all the tails, which he put in his pockets. As you may think, he was always in fear of the Tartaro. He sees him coming down from the mountain. He kills one of his hogs, and puts the entrails in his own bosom under his waistcoat. There was a group of men near the road. As he passed them he took out his knife, and stabs it into his chest, and takes out the pig’s bowels, and our madman begins to run very much faster than before, with his pig in front of him.

When the Tartaro comes up to these men, he asks if they have seen such a man.

“Yes, yes, he was running fast, and in order to go faster just here he stabbed himself, and threw away his bowels, and still he went on all the faster.” [10]

The Tartaro, too, in order to go faster, thrusts his knife into his body, and falls stark dead.8

The madman goes to his master’s. Near the house there was a marsh quite full of mud. He puts his live pig into it, and all the tails too. He enters the house, and says to the master that he is there with his pigs. The master is astounded to see him.

He asks him, “Where are the pigs, then?”

He says to him, “They have gone into the mud, they were so tired.”

Both go out, and begin to get the real pig out, and between the two they pull it out very well. They try to do the same thing with the others; but they kept pulling out nothing but tails.

The madman says, “You see how fat they are; that is why the tails come out alone.”

He sends the servant to fetch the spade and the hoe. Instead of bringing them he begins to beat the mistress, whack! whack! and he cries to the master, “One or both?”

The master says to him, “Both, both.”

And then he beats the servant maid almost to pieces. He goes then to the master, taking with him the spade and the hoe, and he sets to beating him with the spade and the hoe, until he can no longer defend himself, and then he thrashes the skin off his back, and takes his pig and goes off home to his father and mother; and as he lived well he died well too.

Pierre Bertrand
learnt it from his Grandmother, who died a few years since, aged 82.

We have several variations of this tale, some like the above, very similar to Grimm’s “Valiant Little Tailor,” others like Campbell’s “Highland Tales.” In one tale there are two [11]brothers, an idiot and a fool (Enuchenta eta Ergela). The idiot goes out to service first, and gets sent back for his stupidity. Then the fool goes, and outwits both his master and the Tartaro, whose eye he burns out with a red-hot spit, as in the first instance. In another the servant frightens the Tartaro at the outset by cracking two walnuts, and saying that they were bones of Christians he was cracking. Another wager is as to which shall carry most water from a fountain. The Tartaro fills two hogsheads to carry, but the lad says to him, “Only that; I will take the whole fountain;” and he begins to stir the water about with a stick. But the Tartaro cries out, “No! No! No! I give up. Where shall I go and drink if you carry away all my water?” Another variation is as follows:—

Like many others in the world, there lived a mother with her three sons. They were not rich, but lived by their work. The eldest son said one day to his mother—

“It would be better for us if I should go out to service.”

The mother did not like it, but at last she let him go. He goes off, far, far, far away, and comes to a house, and asks if they want a servant. They say “Yes,” and they make their agreement.

The master was to give a very high salary—100,000 francs—but the servant was to do everything that the master ordered him, and, if he did not do it, the master was to tear the skin off his back at the end of the year, and to dismiss him without pay.9

The servant said to him,

“All right; I am strong, and I will work.”

On the morrow the master gives him a great deal of [12]work, but he does it easily. The last months of the year the master presses him much more, and one day he sends him into a field to sow fourteen bushels of wheat in the day. The lad goes sadly, taking with him a pair of oxen. He returns to the house very late in the evening. The master says to him,

“Have you done your work?”

He says, “No.”

“Do you remember the agreement we made? I must tear the skin off your back: that is your salary.”

He tears the skin off, as he had said, and sends him away home without anything. His mother was in great grief at seeing him come home so thin and weak, and without any money.

He tells what has happened, and the second brother wishes to start off at once, saying that he is strong, and that he will do more work. The mother did not like it, but she was obliged to let him go.

He goes to the same house as his brother, and makes the same terms with the master. When he had almost finished his year, his master sends him too to sow fourteen bushels of wheat. He starts very early in the morning, with two pair of oxen; but the night came before he had sown it all. The master was very glad at the sight of that. He strips his skin off his back also, and sends him away without any money. Think of the vexation of this mother in seeing both her sons return in this fashion.

The third wishes to start off at once. He assures his mother that he will bring back both the money and the skin of his back. He goes to this same gentleman. He tells this one, too, that he will give him a high salary, on condition that he will do all that he shall tell him to do, otherwise he shall have the skin torn off his back, and be sent away without anything, at the end of the year.

He had made him work hard and well for ten months, and then wished to try him. He sent him to the field, and told him to sow fourteen bushels of wheat before night. He answers, “Yes.” [13]

He takes two pairs of oxen, and goes off to the field. He ploughs a furrow all round the field, and throws his fourteen bushels of wheat into it. He then makes another furrow, to cover it up, and at night time he goes home to the house. The master is astonished. He asks him if he has sown it.

“Yes, it is all under ground; you may be sure of it.”

The master was not pleased; he had his fears.

The next day he sends him with sixteen head of cattle to such a field, and says to him,

“You must take all these cattle into the field without unlocking the gate or making a gap.”

Our lad takes a hatchet, a hoe, and a fork. Off he goes, and when he gets to the field he kills them all, one by one. He cuts them up with the hatchet, and throws them with the fork into the field.

He comes home at nightfall, and says to his master that all the cattle are in the field as he had told him. The master was not pleased, but he said nothing.

The next day he told him to go to such a forest and to bring a load of wood from there, but all the sticks quite, quite straight. Our lad goes off and cuts down in the chestnut copse all the young chestnut trees which his master had planted, and which were very fine ones; and he comes home. When the master saw that, he was not pleased, and said to him,

“To-morrow you shall go again with the oxen; and you must bring a load of wood quite crooked, all quite crooked; if you bring only one straight, so much the worse for you.”

The lad goes off, and pulls up a fine vineyard. After he had loaded his cart, he comes home. When the master saw that, he could not say anything; but he did not know what to think of it.

He sends him into a forest. There was a Tartaro there; and all the persons, and all the animals who went there, he ate them all. The master gives him ten pigs, and also food for ten days, telling him that the hogs would fatten themselves [14]well there, because there were plenty of acorns, and that he must return at the end of ten days.

Our lad begins, and he goes on, and on, and on. He meets an old woman, who says to him:

“Where are you going to, lad?”

“To such a forest, to fatten these pigs.”

The woman says to him:

“If you are not a fool, you will not go there. That horrible Tartaro will eat you.”

This woman was carrying a basket of walnuts on her head, and he said to her:

“If you will give me two of these walnuts I will beat the Tartaro.”

She willingly gives them to him, and he goes on, and on, and on. He meets another old woman, who was winding thread. She says to him:

“Where are you going, lad?”

“To such a forest.”

“Don’t go there. There is a horrible Tartaro there, who will be sure to eat you, and your pigs as well.”

“I must go there all the same, and I will conquer him, if you will give me two of your balls of thread.”

She gives him them, willingly; and he goes on farther, and finds a blacksmith, and he, too, asks him where he is going? And he answers, “To such a forest, to fatten my pigs.”

“You may just as well go back again. There is a terrible Tartaro there, who will be sure to eat you.”

“If you will give me a spit, I will beat him.”

“I will give it you, willingly,” and he gives it him with goodwill.

Our lad goes on, and comes to this forest. He cuts off the tails of all his pigs, and hides them in a safe place. The Tartaro appears, and says to him:

“How did you come here? I am going to eat you.”

The lad says to him:

“Eat a pig if you like, but don’t touch me.” [15]

He takes his two nuts, and rubs them one against the other.

“I have two balls here, and if one of them touches you, you are dead.”

The Tartaro is frightened, and goes away in silence. After having eaten a pig, he comes back again, and says to him:

“We must make a wager—which of the two will make the greatest heap of wood?”

The Tartaro begins to cut and to cut. Our lad leaves him alone, and when he has made a terrible big heap, he begins to go round all the trees with his balls of thread, and says to him.

“You, that; but I, all this;” and he goes on tying and tying. The Tartaro gives in, saying “that he is more clever than he.” As he had stopped his ten days, he makes in the night a great fire, and makes his spit red-hot in it; and while the Tartaro was sleeping, he plunges this spit into his only eye. After having taken his pigs’ tails, he goes away from the forest without any pigs, because the Tartaro had eaten one every day. Near his master’s house there was “a well of the fairy.”10 Our lad sticks in there the tails of all his hogs, excepting one, as well as he could. He then goes running to his master, telling him that all the pigs were coming home very gaily, and that they had got so hot in coming so fast that they had all gone under the mud. “I wished to drag one out by pulling, but only the tail came away; here it is.”

He goes off then with the master to this marsh; but the master did not dare go in there to pull them out. He goes off sadly with his servant home, not knowing what to think about it. There he counts him out his 100,000 francs, and he went home proudly to his mother and his brothers. There they lived happily, and their master was left with 100,000 francs less. That served him right for having so much. [16]

Like many others in the world, there was a mother and her son. They were very wretched. One day the son said to his mother that he must go away, to see if he could do anything. He goes far, far, far away. He traverses many countries, and still goes on and on. He arrives in a great city, and asks if they know of a place for a servant. They tell him that there is one in the king’s house. There they tell him that he is to be gardener. But he tells them that he does not know how to use a hoe at all, but that, all the same, he would learn it with the others. He was very nice-looking. He soon learnt it, and was liked by everybody.

This king had a daughter, and she often noticed Petit Perroquet, because he was polite to everybody. In this city there was a prince, and he was paying court to this young princess, and he was seized with dislike and jealousy of Petit Perroquet. One day this prince11 went to find the king. He said to him,

“You do not know what Petit Perroquet says?—that he could bring the Tartaro’s horse here.”

The king sends for Petit Perroquet, and says to him,

“It seems that you have said that you could bring the Tartaro’s horse here?”

“I certainly did not say it.”

“Yes, yes,” said the king, “you said it.”

“If you will give me all that I ask for, I will try.”

He asks for a great deal of money, and sets off. He travels on, and on, and on, and he had to pass a wide river. He speaks to the ferryman, and pays the passage money, and tells him that perhaps he will have a heavy load on his return, but that he will be well paid. [17]

He lands on the other side; but he had yet a long way to go in the forest, because the Tartaro lived in a corner of the mountain. At last he arrives, and knocks at the door. An old, old woman comes to him, and says to him,

“Be off from here as quickly as possible; my son smells the smell of a Christian a league off.”

“To eat me here, or to eat me elsewhere, it is all the same to me.”

But he goes outside, and hides himself under a great heap of cut ferns. He had scarcely been there a moment, when he hears a deep breathing and a grinding of teeth, which sounded like thunder. He stops where he is, trembling. The Tartaro goes to his house, and asks his mother if there is not some Christian or other hidden here.

“No, no,” says she. “But eat away, your dinner is all ready.”

“No, no! I must eat this Christian first.”

He goes hunting, looking, looking into every corner. He goes to the heap of ferns, and pulls off some to put them on one side; but our Petit Perroquet was quite, quite at the bottom. The Tartaro was just on the point of finding him, but he grew tired, and went indoors, and began to eat and to drink enormously. Our Petit Perroquet creeps out of his ferns, and goes off to the stable. The horse had a big bell round his neck, but he fills it with ferns (this bell was as large as the big bell in the church of St. Jean de Luz). He mounts on the horse’s back, and very soon he arrives at the ferry, and the ferryman comes to meet him. Together they get the horse into the ferry-boat as well as they could, and they cross over. He gave him a handsome reward. As soon as he was on the other side, the Tartaro appeared, crying out to him to give him his horse back again, and that he would give him all he could wish for. He replies, “No,” and goes off full gallop. When he came near the king’s palace he took the fern out of the bell, and everybody comes running out of doors or to the windows. All the world was astonished to see Petit Perroquet return.

The king was in ecstasy. He did not know what to say, [18]but he liked him even more than he did formerly, and the princess did also. The other prince was not at all pleased, and he begins to think of some other plot. He goes off to find the king, and he says to him,

“Do you not know that Petit Perroquet says that he could bring the Tartaro’s diamond?”

The king sends for Petit Perroquet, and says to him,

“It seems that you say you can get the Tartaro’s diamond?”

“I certainly did not say any such thing.”

“Yes, yes—you said it.”

“No, no! I did not say it; but I will try, if you give me all I shall ask for.”

And he asks for a great deal of money.

He goes off, and reaches the ferry, and pays the ferryman well, and goes far, far, far away into the forest, till he gets to the house of the Tartaro. The old woman tells him to be off from there; and he goes and hides himself again in the ferns. And he stops there until the Tartaro comes to the house, just as he did the first time. He turns over nearly all the ferns, and leaves him scarcely covered. He stops quietly there all the time that the Tartaro was having his huge supper, and when he thinks he has finished, and is taking his nap, he creeps out very, very gently. The Tartaro always put his diamond under his pillow, and he takes it away without waking him, and escapes, running off as fast as if to break his feet. The ferryman is there, and he crosses him over, and he pays him well. The Tartaro appears on the other side again, and calls out to him telling him to give him back his diamond, and that he would give him all that he could wish for. He answers, “No, no!” and runs on to the king’s house.

When he arrived there, the king did not know what to do. One feasted him, and another feasted him, and all the world was busied about him, and everyone loved him more and more, and the princess as well as the rest. The wicked prince did not know what to think of it. He was eaten up with jealousy, and he thought of something else, and said to the king: [19]

“Petit Perroquet says that he can bring the Tartaro himself.”

The king sends for Petit Perroquet, and says to him:

“It appears that you have said that you will bring the Tartaro himself here.”

“No, no, no, I did not say anything at all like that; but if you will give me all I ask for, I will try. You must have a carriage made of iron, half-a-yard thick, and three horses to draw it, and lots of money. When all that is ready, I will set out.”

He asks, also, for a barrel of honey, another of feathers, and two horns, and starts off.

When he comes to the ferry, it was no easy thing to get this carriage into the boat. When he has got to the other side, he first puts himself into the barrel of honey, and then into the barrel of feathers, and ties the horns on to his head, and then mounts as postilion. He then comes to the Tartaro’s house, and just then he happened to be at home. Petit Perroquet knocks at the door. The Tartaro himself comes to open, and asks:

“Who are you? You!”

“I!!—I am the oldest of all the devils in hell.”

He opens the carriage door for him, and says:

“Get in there.”

The Tartaro gets in, and Petit Perroquet, very glad, starts off, and arrives at the ferry. He crosses, as he best can, with his carriage and horses. He pays the ferryman generously, and comes to the king’s palace. They were all terrified when they saw that he had the Tartaro there. They tried to shoot him with cannon, but he caught the bullets, and sent them back as if they had been balls to play with. They could not kill him in that way, so they finished him with other arms.

As Petit Perroquet had well gained her, they gave him the princess in marriage. He sent for his mother to the court, and as they lived well, so they died happily.

Pierre Bertrand. [20]

Like many of us who are, have been, and shall be in the world, there was a king, and his wife, and three sons. The king went out hunting one day, and caught a Tartaro. He brings him home, and shuts him up in prison in a stable, and proclaims, by sound of trumpet, that all his court should meet the next day at his house, that he would give them a grand dinner, and afterwards would show them an animal such as they had never seen before.

The next day the two sons of the king were playing at ball against (the wall of) the stable where the Tartaro was confined, and the ball went into the stable. One of the boys goes and asks the Tartaro—

“Throw me back my ball, I beg you.” [23]

He says to him, “Yes, if you will deliver me.”

He replies, “Yes, yes,” and he threw him the ball.

A moment after, the ball goes again to the Tartaro. He asks for it again; and the Tartaro says:

“If you will deliver me, I will give it you.”

The boy says, “Yes, yes,” takes his ball, and goes off.

The ball goes there for the third time, but the Tartaro will not give it before he is let out. The boy says that he has not the key. The Tartaro says to him:

“Go to your mother, and tell her to look in your right ear, because something hurts you there. Your mother will have the key in her left pocket, and take it out.”

The boy goes, and does as the Tartaro had told him. He takes the key from his mother, and delivers the Tartaro. When he was letting him go, he said to him:

“What shall I do with the key now? I am undone.”

The Tartaro says to him:

“Go again to your mother, and tell her that your left ear hurts you, and ask her to look, and you will slip the key into her pocket.”

The Tartaro tells him, too, that he will soon have need of him, and that he will only have to call him, and he will be his servant for ever.

He puts the key back; and everyone came to the dinner. When they had eaten well, the king said to them that they must go and see this curious thing. He takes them all with him. When they are come to the stable, he finds it empty. Judge of the anger of this king, and of his shame. He said:

“I should like to eat the heart, half cooked, and without salt, of him who has let my beast go.”

Some time afterwards the two brothers quarreled in presence of their mother, and one said to the other:

“I will tell our father about the affair of the Tartaro.”

When the mother heard that, she was afraid for her son, and said to him:

“Take as much money as you wish.” [24]

And she gave him the Fleur-de-lis.2 “By this you will be known everywhere as the son of a king.”

Petit Yorge3 goes off, then, far, far, far away. He spends and squanders all his money, and does not know what to do more. He remembers the Tartaro, and calls him directly. He comes, and Petit Yorge tells him all his misfortunes; that he has not a penny left, and that he does not know what will become of him. The Tartaro says to him:

“When you have gone a short way from here you will come to a city. A king lives there. You will go to his house, and they will take you as gardener. You will pull up everything that there is in the garden, and the next day everything will come up more beautiful than before. Also, three beautiful flowers will spring up, and you will carry them to the three daughters of the king, and you will give the most beautiful to the youngest daughter.”4

He goes off, then, as he had told him, and he asks them if they want a gardener. They say, “Yes, indeed, very much.” He goes to the garden, and pulls up the fine cabbages, and the beautiful leeks as well. The youngest of the king’s daughters sees him, and she tells it to her father, and her father says to her:

“Let him alone, we will see what he will do afterwards.” And, indeed, the next day he sees cabbages and leeks such as he had never seen before. Petit Yorge takes a flower to each of the young ladies. The eldest said:

“I have a flower that the gardener has brought me, which has not its equal in the world.”

And the second says that she has one, too, and that no one has ever seen one so beautiful. And the youngest said that hers was still more beautiful than theirs, and the others [25]confess it, too. The youngest of the young ladies found the gardener very much to her taste. Every day she used to bring him his dinner. After a certain time she said to him,

“You must marry me.”

The lad says to her,

“That is impossible. The king would not like such a marriage.”

The young girl says, too,

“Well, indeed, it is hardly worth while. In eight days I shall be eaten by the serpent.”

For eight days she brought him his dinner again. In the evening she tells him that it is for the last time that she brought it. The young man tells her, “No,” that she will bring it again; that somebody will help her.

The next day Petit Yorge goes off at eight o’clock to call the Tartaro. He tells him what has happened. The Tartaro gives him a fine horse, a handsome dress, and a sword, and tells him to go to such a spot, and to open the carriage door with his sword, and that he will cut off two of the serpent’s heads. Petit Yorge goes off to the said spot. He finds the young lady in the carriage. He bids her open the door. The young lady says that she cannot open it—that there are seven doors, and that he had better go away; that it is enough for one person to be eaten.

Petit Yorge opens the doors with his sword, and sat down by the young lady’s side. He tells her that he has hurt his ear, and asks her to look at it;5 and at the same time he cuts off seven pieces of the seven robes which she wore, without the young lady seeing him. At the same instant comes the serpent, and says to him,

“Instead of one, I shall have three to eat.”

Petit Yorge leaps on his horse, and says to him, [26]

“You will not touch one; you shall not have one of us.”

And they begin to fight. With his sword he cuts off one head, and the horse with his feet another;6 and the serpent asks quarter till the next day. Petit Yorge leaves the young lady there. The young lady is full of joy; she wishes to take the young man home with her. He will not go by any means (he says); that he cannot; that he has made a vow to go to Rome; but he tells her that “to-morrow my brother will come, and he will be able to do something, too.” The young lady goes home, and Petit Yorge to his garden. At noon she comes to him with the dinner, and Petit Yorge says to her,

“You see that it has really happened as I told you—he has not eaten you.”

“No, but to-morrow he will eat me. How can it be otherwise?”

“No, no! To-morrow you will bring me my dinner again. Some help will come to you.”

The next day Petit Yorge goes off at eight o’clock to the Tartaro, who gives him a new horse, a different dress, and a fine sword. At ten o’clock he arrives where the young lady is. He bids her open the door. But she says to him that she cannot in any way open fourteen doors; she is there, and that she cannot open them, and he should go away; that it is enough for one to be eaten; that she is grieved to see him there. As soon as he has touched them with his sword, the fourteen doors fly open. He sits down by the side of the young lady, and tells her to look behind his ear, for it hurts him. At the same time he cuts off fourteen bits of the fourteen dresses she was wearing. As [27]soon as he had done that, the serpent comes, saying joyfully,

“I shall eat not one, but three.”

Petit Yorge says to him, “Not even one of us.”

He leaps on his horse, and begins to fight with the serpent. The serpent makes some terrible bounds. After having fought a long time, at last Petit Yorge is the conqueror. He cuts off one head, and the horse another with his foot. The serpent begs quarter till the next day. Petit Yorge grants it, and the serpent goes away.

The young lady wishes to take the young man home, to show him to her father; but he will not go by any means. He tells her that he must go to Rome, and set off that very day; that he has made a vow, but that to-morrow he will send his cousin, who is very bold, and is afraid of nothing.

The young lady goes to her father’s, Petit Yorge to his garden. Her father is delighted, and cannot comprehend it at all. The young lady goes again with the dinner. The gardener says to her,

“You see you have come again to-day, as I told you. To-morrow you will come again, just the same.”

“I should be very glad of it.”

On the morrow Petit Yorge went off at eight o’clock to the Tartaro. He said to him that the serpent had still three heads to be cut off, and that he had still need of all his help. The Tartaro said to him,

“Keep quiet, keep quiet; you will conquer him.”

He gives him a new dress, finer than the others, a more spirited horse, a terrible dog,7 a sword, and a bottle of good scented water.8 He said to him,

“The serpent will say to you, ‘Ah! if I had a spark between my head and my tail, how I would burn you and your lady, and your horse and your dog.’ And you, you will say to him then, ‘I, if I had the good-scented water to [28]smell, I would cut off a head from thee, the horse another, and the dog another.’ You will give this bottle to the young lady, who will place it in her bosom, and, at the very moment you shall say that, she must throw some in your face, and on the horse and on the dog as well.”

He goes off then without fear, because the Tartaro had given him this assurance. He comes then to the carriage. The young lady says to him,

“Where are you going? The serpent will be here directly. It is enough if he eats me.”

He says to her, “Open the door.”

She tells him that it is impossible; that there are twenty-one doors. This young man touches them with his sword, and they open of themselves. This young man says to her, giving her the bottle,

“When the serpent shall say, ‘If I had a spark between my head and my tail, I would burn you,’ I shall say to him, ‘If I had a drop of the good-scented water under my nose;’ you will take the bottle, and throw some over me in a moment.”

He then makes her look into his ear, and, while she is looking, he cuts off twenty-one pieces from her twenty-one dresses that she was wearing. At the same moment comes the serpent, saying, with joy,

“Instead of one, I shall have four to eat.”

The young man said to him,

“And you shall not touch one of us, at any rate.”

He leaps on his spirited horse, and they fight more fiercely than ever. The horse leaped as high as a house, and the serpent, in a rage, says to him,

“If I had a spark of fire between my tail and my head, I would burn you and your lady, and this horse and this terrible dog.”

The young man says,

“I, if I had the good-scented water under my nose, I would cut off one of your heads, and the horse another, and the dog another.” [29]

As he said that, the young lady jumps up, opens the bottle, and very cleverly throws the water just where it was wanted. The young man cuts off a head with his sword, his horse another, and the dog another; and thus they make an end of the serpent. This young man takes the seven tongues with him, and throws away the heads. Judge of the joy of this young lady. She wanted to go straight to her father with her preserver (she says), that her father must thank him too; that he owes his daughter to him. But the young man says to her that it is altogether impossible for him; that he must go and meet his cousin at Rome; that they have made a vow, and that, on their return, all three will come to her father’s house.

The young lady is vexed, but she goes off without losing time to tell her father what has happened. The father is very glad that the serpent was utterly destroyed; and he proclaims in all the country that he who has killed the serpent should come forward with the proofs of it.

The young lady goes again with the dinner to the gardener. He says to her,

“I told you true, then, that you would not be eaten? Something has, then, killed the serpent?”

She relates to him what had taken place.

But, lo! some days afterwards there appeared a black charcoal-burner, who said that he had killed the serpent, and was come to claim the reward. When the young lady saw the charcoal-burner, she said immediately, that most certainly it was not he; that it was a fine gentleman, on horseback, and not a pest of a man like him. The charcoal-burner shows the heads of the serpent; and the king says that, in truth, this must be the man. The king had only one word to say, she must marry him. The young lady says, she will not at all; and the father began to compel her, (saying) that no other man came forward. But, as the daughter would not consent, to make a delay, the king proclaims in all the country, that he who killed the serpent would be capable of doing something else, too, and that, on [30]such a day, all the young men should assemble, that he would hang a diamond ring from a bell, and that whosoever riding under it should pierce the ring with his sword, should certainly have his daughter.9

From all sides arrive the young men. Our Petit Yorge goes off to the Tartaro, and tells him what has happened, and that he has again need of him. The Tartaro gives him a handsome horse, a superb dress, and a splendid sword. Equipped thus, Petit Yorge goes with the others. He gets ready. The young lady recognizes him immediately, and says so to her father. He has the good luck to carry off the ring on his sword; but he does not stop at all, but goes off galloping as hard as his horse can go. The king and his daughter were in a balcony, looking on at all these gentlemen. They saw that he still went on. The young lady says to her father:

“Papa, call him!”

The father says to her, in an angry tone,

“He is going off, because apparently he has no desire to have you.” And he hurls his lance at him. It strikes him on the leg. He still rides on. You can well imagine what chagrin for the young lady.

The next day she goes with the gardener’s dinner. She sees him with his leg bandaged. She asks him what it is.

The young lady begins to suspect something, and goes to tell to her father how the gardener had his leg tied up, and that he must go and ask him what is the matter. That he had told her that it was nothing. [31]

The king did not want to go, (and said) that she must get it out of the gardener; but to please his daughter, he says he will go there. He goes then, and asks him, “What is the matter?” He tells him that a blackthorn has run into him. The king gets angry, and says “that there is not a blackthorn in all his garden, and that he is telling him a lie.”

The daughter says to him,

“Tell him to show it us.”

He shows it to them, and they are astonished to see that the lance is still there. The king did not know what to think of it all. This gardener has deceived him, and he must give him his daughter. But Petit Yorge, uncovering his bosom, shows the “fleur-de-lis” there. The king did not know what to say; but the daughter said to him,

“This is my preserver, and I will marry no one else than him.”

Petit Yorge asks the king to send for five dressmakers, the best in the town, and five butchers. The king sends for them.

Petit Yorge asks the dressmakers if they have ever made any new dresses which had a piece out; and on the dressmakers saying “No,” he counts out the pieces and gives them to the dressmakers, asking if it was like that that they had given the dresses to the princess. They say, “Certainly not.”

He goes, then, to the butchers, and asks them, if they have ever killed animals without tongues? They say, “No!” He tells them, then, to look in the heads of the serpent. They see that the tongues are not there, and then he takes out the tongues he has.

The king, having seen all that, has nothing more to say. He gives him his daughter. Petit Yorge says to him, that he must invite his father to the wedding, but on the part of the young lady’s father; and that they must serve him up at dinner a sheep’s heart, half cooked, and without salt. They make a great feast, and place this heart before this [32]father. They make him carve it himself, and he is very indignant at that. The son then says to him:

“I expected that;” and he adds, “Ah! my poor father, have you forgotten how you said that you wished to eat the heart, half cooked, and without salt, of him who let the Tartaro go? That is not my heart, but a sheep’s heart. I have done this to recall to your memory what you said, and to make you recognize me.”

They embrace each other, and tell each other all their news, and what services the Tartaro had done him. The father returned happy to his house, and Petit Yorge lived very happily with his young lady at the king’s house; and they wanted nothing, because they had always the Tartaro at their service.

Laurentine.

In a variation of the above tale, from the narration of Mariño Amyot, of St. Jean Pied de Port, the young prince, as a herdsman, kills with a hammer successively three Tartaros who play at cards with him; he then finds in their house all their riches and horses, barrels full of gold and silver, etc., and also three “olano,” which is described as an animal who serves the Tartaro, like a dog, but much larger and more terrible, but also more intelligent and able to do any message. He kills the serpent with the aid of the “olanos,” and the princess helps by striking the serpent’s tail with a sword,10 instead of sprinkling the “sweet-scented water.” The “olano” then steals dishes off the king’s table for the prince. The charcoal-burner comes; but at last the prince shows the tongues and pieces of dress, and all ends happily, except for the charcoal-burner, who is placed on the top of seven barrels of powder, and fire is applied beneath, and then nobody sees him any more. [33]

The commencement of the next is so different that we give it at length.

Like many others in the world, there was a mother with her three sons. The eldest said to her that he wished to go from country to country, until he should find a situation as servant, and that she should give him a cake.

He sets out. While he is going through a forest he meets an old woman, who asks him for a morsel of his cake.11 He says to her, “No!” that he would prefer to throw it into the muddy clay. And the lad asks her if she knows of a servant’s place. She says, “No.” He goes on from forest to forest, until the night overtakes him. There comes to him a bear. He says to him,

“Ant of the earth! who has given you permission to come here?”

“Who should give it me? I have taken it myself.”

And the bear devours him.

The second son asks his mother to give him a cake, for he wishes to go as a servant, like his brother. She gives him one, and he goes away like his brother. He meets an old woman, who says to him,

“Give me a little of your cake.”

“I prefer to throw it into this muddy clay rather than to give you any of it.”

He asks her if she knows of a servant’s place. She replies, “No.” And on he goes, on, on, on, deeper into the forest. He meets a huge bear. He says to him,

“Ant of the earth! Who has given you permission to come here?” [34]

“Who should give it me? I have taken it myself.”

And the bear devours him.

The third son asks his mother to give him a cake, for he wishes to go off, like his brothers. He sets off, and walks on, and on, and on. And he finds an old woman. She asks him,

“Where are you going?”

“I want a situation as servant.”

“Give me a little bit of your cake.”

“Here! Take the whole as well, if you like.”

“No, no! A little bit is enough for me.”

And he asks her if she knows of a servant’s place. She says to him,

“Yes; you will find it far beyond the forest. But you will meet an enemy here; but I will give you a stick, with the touch of which you may kill him.”12

He goes on, and on, and on. There comes to him a bear, and says to him,

“Ant of the ground! Who has given you permission to come here?”

“Who has given it me? I have taken it myself.”

The lad gives him a little blow with his stick, and the bear gives a howl—

“Oy, oy, oy!—spare my life! Oy, oy, oy!—spare my life!”

But he said to him,

“Tell me, then, how many you are in the place where you live?”

“Seven.”

He gives him another blow, and he falls stark dead.

He goes on, on, on, until he finds a palace. He goes in, and asks,

“Do you want a servant?” [35]

They say to him,

“Yes, yes; our shepherd has gone away, and we want one.”

They send him to bed; and the next day they give him a fine flock of sheep, and tell him not to go on the mountain, because it is full of large and savage animals, and to pay great attention, because the sheep always want to go there. The next day he goes off with his sheep, and all of them run away to this mountain, because the herbage was very good there. Our shepherd had, fortunately, not forgotten his stick, for at that moment there appeared before him a terrible bear.

“Who has given you permission to come here?”

“I have taken it myself.”

“I must eat you.”

He approaches, but our shepherd gives him a little blow with his stick, and he begins to cry out,

“Oy, oy, oy!—spare my life!”

“Tell me, then, how many you are where you live?”

“We were seven yesterday, but to-day we are only six, with me.”

He gives him another blow, and he falls stark dead. And the shepherd hides him as well as he can in a hedge, and then he returns home with his sheep, well filled. That evening the sheep gave him a great deal of milk, and he made fine cheeses with it.13 The master and mistress were delighted to have such a servant. The next day he goes off again. As soon as he opened the stable-door the sheep start off running to the good pasture and fine herbage, and the same things (happen again). At the end of a moment there appears a bear, who asks him why he comes there into those parts. Our shepherd, with his stick, gives him a little blow on the neck, and the bear begins to cry,

“Ay, ay, ay!—spare my life!” [36]

He asks him,

“How many are you there where you live?”

“We were seven, but at present we are five with me.”

And he gives him a little blow, and he falls stiff and dead. And in five days he kills all the bears in the same way; and when he saw the last one come, he was frightened to see a beast so immense and so fearful, and which came dragging himself along, he was so old. He says to him,

“Why have you come into these parts?”

And at the same time the shepherd gives him a little blow. He begins to cry out to him to spare his life, and that he would give him great riches and beautiful apartments, and that they should live together. He spares his life, and sends the flock back to the house. They go through hedges and hedges, and “through the fairies’ holes,”14 and arrive at last at a fine palace. There they find the table set out with every kind of food and drink. There were also servants to attend on them, and there were also horses all ready saddled, and with harness of gold and silver. There was nothing but riches there. After having passed some days there like that, our shepherd said to himself that it would be better to be master and owner of all that fortune. So he gives a blow to the bear, and kills him stark dead.

After having dressed himself splendidly, he gets on horseback, and goes from country to country, and comes to a city, and hears the bells sounding, dilin-don, dilin-don, and all the people are in excitement. He asks, “What is the matter?” They tell him how that there is in the mountain a serpent with seven heads, and that one person must be given to him every day. This serpent has seven heads. They draw lots to know who must be given to the serpent. The lot had fallen on the king’s daughter, and every one was in grief and distress, and all were going, with the king at their [37]head, to accompany her to the mountain. They left her at the foot of the mountain, and she went on mounting alone to the top. This young man goes after her, and says to her,

“I will accompany you.”

The king’s daughter says to him,

“Turn back, I beg you. I do not wish you to risk your life because of me.”

He says to her,

“Have no fear for me. I have a charm of might.”

At the same time they hear an extraordinary noise and hissing, and he sees the serpent coming like the lightning. As our man has his stick with him, he gives him a little blow on one of his heads, and one by one the seven heads fall off, and our princess is saved.

In order to go to the mountain, she was dressed in her most beautiful robes. She had seven of them on. He took a little piece from each of the seven robes, and he likewise takes the tongue from each of the heads, and puts them in these little pieces of silk. He then takes the king’s daughter on his horse, and descends the mountain. The daughter goes home to her father, and our gentleman to the bear’s house. The news that the seven-headed serpent is killed spreads quickly. The king had promised his daughter, and the half of his kingdom, to the man who should have killed him. The serpent was killed, as we have said. Three charcoal-burners, passing by on the mountain, see the serpent, and take the seven heads, and go to the king, asking to have a reward. But, as they were three, they were in a difficulty; and they were sent away until the council was assembled, and to see if any other person would come. As nobody appeared, they were going to draw lots who should be the husband of the king’s daughter. There was great excitement that day, and there was also a great stir when this young man arrived in the city. He asks what it is. They tell him what it is. He was splendidly dressed, and had a magnificent horse. He asks to see the king, and, as he was handsomely dressed, he is received immediately. [38]He asks if the seven heads of the serpent had seven tongues in them; and they cannot find them. Then he shows the seven tongues. He sends, too, for the princess’ seven robes, and he shows the seven pieces that are wanting, as well as the seven tongues. When they see that, all exclaim—

“This is the true saviour of the king’s daughter!”

And they are married.

The three charcoal-burners, after having been dressed in a coat of sulphur, were burnt alive in the midst of the market-place.

Our gentleman and lady lived very happily, sometimes at her father’s house and at other times at their own bear’s-house; and, as they had lived well, they died happily. Then I was there, and now I am here.

Our next tale will show the serpent in a new character, and might have been included under the variations of “Beauty and the Beast.”

Like many others in the world, there was a widower who had three daughters. One day the eldest said to her father, that she must go and see the country. She walked on for two hours, and saw some men cutting furze, and others mowing hay.

She returned to the house, astonished at having seen such wonderful things. She told her father what wonderful things she had seen, and her father replied:

“Men cutting furze! Men mowing hay!!”

The second daughter asks, too, to go like her sister, and she returned after having seen the same things. And the third daughter said that she ought to go, too.

“Child, what will you see?”

“I, like my sisters, something or other.” [39]

She set off on the same road as the others; and she, like the others, saw men cutting furze, and men mowing hay. She went on further, and she saw some washerwomen; and she went still a little further on till she had walked for three hours, and she saw some wood-cutters cutting firewood. She asked them if she should see anything more if she went a little further. They told her that she would see some more wood-cutters cutting firewood.

She went very much farther into the wood, and she was caught, and kept prisoner by a serpent. She remained there crying, and not able to eat anything; and she remained like that eight days, very sad; then she began to grow resigned, and she remained there three years. At the end of three years she began to wish to return home. The serpent told her to come back again at the end of two days; that his time was nearly finished, and that he was a king’s son condemned for four years15 (to be a serpent). He gave her a distaff and spindle, of silver-gilt, and a silk handkerchief. He said to her:

“If you do not find me here on your return, you will have to wear out seven pairs of shoes, six of leather and one pair of iron ones (before you will be able to find me).”

When she came home, her father would not let her go back to the house where she had passed such a long time with a son of a king, condemned to be a serpent. She said that his time was almost finished, and that in gratitude she ought to return; that he had said that he would marry her. The father had her put in prison, confined in a room very high up. The fourth day she escaped, and went to the place, but she did not find the king’s son. She had already shoes on her feet. She had almost worn them out. After that she bought another pair. She kept journeying on and on, and asking if it were far, and they told her that it was very far. She bought still another pair of shoes, and these, too, got worn out on the road. She bought a fifth pair, and [40]after them the sixth also. She then asked if she were near yet, and they told her that she was still very far. Then she bought the seventh pair of shoes, of iron. And when she had gone a short way in these shoes, she asked if it were far from there to the son of the king. The seventh pair of shoes were almost worn out when she came to a city, and heard sounds of music. She inquired what was happening in the city.

“Such a king’s son is being married to-day.”

She went to the house, and knocked at the door. A servant came.

“What do you want?”

She asked if there were any work to spin, and she would spin it.

And the servant went to tell it to the mistress. The lady ordered the servant to bring her in. She brought her in. And when she was in the kitchen, she showed the silk handkerchief which the king’s son had given her; and she began to blow her nose with that. The lady was quite astonished to see the girl blow her nose with such a beautiful handkerchief, as if it were nothing,16 when her son had one just like it for his marriage-day. So she told her son, when he came back from the church, that she had a spinster who came from a great distance, and said to him:

“She has a silk handkerchief just like yours!”

And the king’s son said to his mother:

“I, too, must see this spinster that you have there.” And he began to go there.

And his mother said to him,

“But why must you see her?”

“I wish to see her.”

He went to the kitchen, and in his presence she used her silk handkerchief. [41]

He said to her,

“Show me that.”

She said to him,

“It is too dirty to put into your hands, sir.”

The gentleman says to her,

“I wish to see it, and show it to me.”

(Then) he recognised the young girl. She showed him (too) the distaff and spindle.

At table, when everybody was engaged telling stories, this king said:

“I also have a story to tell.”

Everybody was silent, and turned to look at him, and he said:

“Formerly, I had a key to a chest of drawers, and I lost it, and had a new one made. (After that, I found the old one.)”

And he turned to his wife:

“Should I use the old one or the new one?”

And she replied:

“If the first was a good one, why should you make use of the new one?”

Then he gave her this answer:

“Formerly, I had a wife, and now I have taken you. I leave you, and take the former one. Do you go off, then, to your own house.”

Gagna-haurra Hirigaray.
(Learnt at Guethary.)

For the version of the Heren-Suge tales which most closely approaches the Gaelic, see below, “Keltic Legends,” “The Fisherman and his Sons,” p. 87.

[42]

One day a fox was hungry. He did not know what to think. He saw a shepherd pass every day with his flock, and he said to himself that he ought to steal his milk and his cheese, and to have a good feast; but he needed some one to help him in order to effect anything. So he goes off to find a wolf, and he says to him,

“Wolf, wolf! we ought to have a feast with such a shepherd’s milk and cheese. You, you shall go to where the flocks are feeding, and from a distance you must howl, ‘Uhur, uhur, uhur.’ The man, after having milked his sheep, drives them into the field, with his dog, very early in the morning, and he stops at home to do his work, and then he makes his cheese; and, when you have begun to howl ‘Uhur, uhur,’ and the dog to bark, the shepherd will leave everything else, and will go off full speed. During this time I will steal the milk, and we will share it when you come to me.”

The wolf agreed to have a feast, and set out. He did just what the fox had told him. The dog began to bark when the wolf approached. And when the man heard that he went off, leaving everything, and our fox goes and steals the vessel in which the curdled milk was. What does he do then, before the arrival of the wolf? He gently, gently takes off the cream, thinly, thinly, and he eats all the contents of the jug. After he has eaten all, he fills it up with dirt, and puts back the cream on the top, and he awaits the wolf at the place where he had told him. The fox says to him, since it is he who is to make the division, that as the top is much better than the underneath part, the one who should choose that should have only that, and the other all the rest. “Choose now which you would like.”

The wolf says to him,

“I will not have the top; I prefer what is at the bottom.” [44]

The fox then takes the top, and gives the poor wolf the vessel full of dirt.2 When he saw that, the wolf got angry; but the fox said to him,

“It is not my fault. Apparently the shepherd makes it like that.”

And the fox goes off well filled.

Another day he was again very hungry, and did not know what to contrive. Every day he saw a boy pass by on the road with his father’s dinner. He says to a blackbird,

“Blackbird, you don’t know what we ought to do? We ought to have a good dinner. A boy will pass by here directly. You will go in front of him, and when the boy goes to catch you, you will go on a little farther, limping, and when you shall have done that a little while the boy will get impatient, and he will put down his basket in order to catch you quicker. I will take the basket, and will go to such a spot, and we will share it, and will make a good dinner.”

The blackbird says to him, “Yes.”

When the boy passes, the blackbird goes in front of the boy, limping, limping. When the boy stoops (to catch him), the blackbird escapes a little further on. At last the boy, getting impatient, puts his basket on the ground, in order to go quicker after the blackbird. The fox, who kept watching to get hold of the basket, goes off with it, not to the place agreed upon, but to his hole, and there he stuffs himself, eating the blackbird’s share as well as his own.

Then he says to himself,

“I shall do no good stopping here. The wolf is my enemy, and the blackbird, too. Something will happen to me if I stay here. I must go off to the other side of the water.”

He goes and stands at the water’s edge. A boatman happened to pass, and he said to him: [45]

“Ho! man, ho! Will you, then, cross me over this water? I will tell you three truths.”

The man said to him, “Yes.”

The fox jumps (into the boat), and he begins to say:

“People say that maize bread is as good as wheaten bread. That is a falsehood. Wheaten bread is better. That is one truth.”

When he was in the middle of the river, he said:

“People say, too, ‘What a fine night; it is just as clear as the day!’ That’s a lie. The day is always clearer. That is the second truth.”

And he told him the third as they were getting near the bank.

“Oh! man, man, you have a bad pair of trousers on, and they will get much worse, if you do not pass over people who pay you more than I.”

“That’s very true,” said the man; and the fox leapt ashore.

Then I was by the side of the river, and I learnt these three truths, and I have never forgotten them since.

Astoa Eta Otsoa.

Like many others in the world, there was an ass. He was going along a ravine, laden with Malaga wine. (You know that asses are very much afraid of wolves, because the wolves are very fond of the flesh of asses.) While he was journeying along in that fashion, he sees a wolf coming at some distance; he could not hide himself anywhere. The wolf comes up, and the ass says to him:

“Good morning, good morning, Mr. Wolf; in case you should be thirsty, I have some excellent Malaga to drink.”

“I am not thirsty; no!—but astoundingly hungry; yes! My dinner to-day shall be your head and ears.” [46]

“Mr. Wolf, if you were good enough to let me go and hear one mass——?”

He says to him, “Well! yes.”

Our ass goes off then. When he gets into the church he shuts the door inside with his foot, and stops quietly there.

When the wolf began to get impatient at waiting, he said:

“Ay, ay, what a long mass! one would say it was Palm Sunday.”

The ass said to him:

“Dirty old wolf, have patience. I am staying here with the angels, and I have my life (safe) for to-night.”

“Ay, ay, you bad ass, you are too, too, filthy, you know. If ever you meet with me again, mass you shall not hear.”

The ass said to him:

“There are no dogs round the fold of Alagaia; if you go there you would get lots of sheep.”

The wolf gives it up, and sets off for the flock where the ass had told him to go. When the ass saw that he had gone away he came out of the church, and went home, and took good care not to come near the wolf’s place any more.

[47]

Once upon a time there lived in one house the landlady and the farmer’s wife.7 The farmer’s wife had three sons; one day they said to their mother to give each of them a ball and a penny roll, that they wished to go from country to country. The mother was sorry to part with her three much-loved sons; but all three started off.

When they were in the midst of a forest they saw that night was coming on, and the eldest brother said that he would climb up the first tree. He finds a tall tree, and climbs up to the top, to the very tip-top, and the second says to him:

“Do you see nothing?”

He says, “No, no; there’s nothing to be seen, nothing; not a feather! nothing!”

“Come down then; you are an old donkey.”

And the second climbs, and he sees nothing. The third says to him:

“You are no good at all, you others. I will climb up.”

And he climbs to the top, to the very tip-top. The others say to him:

“And do you not see anything?”

He says to them:

“Yes; I see a long column of smoke, but very, very thin, and far, very far away. Let us go towards that.” [50]

And the three brothers set out together. At eight o’clock in the evening they come to a grand castle, and they knock at the door, and the Basa-Andre (wild woman) comes to answer. She asks:

“Who is there?”

And they reply, “It is we who are here.”

“What do you want, young children? Where are you going to at this time of night?”

“We ask and beg of you to give us shelter for to-night; we will be satisfied with a corner of the floor, poor wretches as we are.”

“I have my husband, the Basa-Jaun, and if he catches you he will eat you; that’s certain.”

“And if he catches us outside he will eat us all the same.”

Then she let these three brothers come in, and she hides the three in three different corners. Afterwards, at nine o’clock, the Basa-Jaun comes. He made a great noise and blustering, and then the Basa-Andre goes out, and says to him:

“There is nobody here.”

“Yes, you have somebody; bring them out, or else I will eat you myself.”

And she goes and brings out the eldest brother, trembling with fright. The Basa-Jaun says to him,

“Will you be my servant?”

He says to him, “Yes.”

And Basa-Jaun begins again to sniff about.

“You have still somebody else here?”

And she brings out the second, and he says to him:

“Will you be servant to me?”

And he said, “Yes.”

Again, he smelled the smell of some one, and at the third time she brings out the third, and he says to him:

“All three of you shall sup with me to-night, and afterwards we shall go to bed. But to-morrow we will all go hunting.” [51]

And they go hunting the next day until eight o’clock in the evening.

Now, they had at home a little sister. She was little then, but in time she grew up. One day the landlady and the farmer’s wife had put out the new maize in the garden to dry; and when no one saw her, the little girl took some from her mistress’ heap, and put it to her own. When the mistress saw that, she began to cry out, saying to her,

“Bold hussey that you are, there is no one like you! You will come to a bad end like your brothers.”

And the young girl began to cry, and goes to find her mother, and says to her,

“Mother, had I any brothers?”8

She says to her, “Yes, my child.”

“What were they?”

“Child, they went away a long time ago,” she said to her.

This little girl says,

“I, too, must be off to-day. Give me a distaff to spin with, and a penny cake.”

She sets off, and comes to the house of the Basa-Jaun, and she knocks at the door, and she lets her in. While his wife was telling her that it is the house of the Basa-Jaun, the elder brother comes in; but they did not recognise one another at all. And afterwards Basa-Jaun comes, and says, as he enters the house:

“You have something here for me,” says he.

“No,” says she.

“Show it.”

And immediately she shows her. Basa-Jaun says to her:

“Will you engage yourself as my servant?”

She says to him, “Yes, sir.”

Some days afterwards the brothers recognised their sister, and they embraced each other very much. And this young girl who was so well before began to grow thin. And one day one of her brothers asked her: [52]

“What is the matter with you that you are getting thin like this?”

And she answered:

“The master every evening asks me to put my little finger through the door, and he sucks the finger through the door, and I become every day more sad and more languid.”9

One day, when the Basa-Andre was not at home, these brothers and the sister plotted together to kill Basa-Jaun, if they could catch him in a ravine in a certain place. And they kill him.

One day the wife asks,

“Where is Basa-Jaun?”

And Basa-Andre takes out three large teeth, and brings them to the house, and tells this young girl herself, when she heats the water for her brothers’ feet in the evening, to put one tooth in the water of each.10 And as soon as the third had finished washing the three brothers became oxen; and this young girl used to drive all three into the fields. And this young girl lived there on the birds they (the oxen) found, and nothing else.

One day, as she was passing over a bridge,11 she sees Basa-Andre under, and says to her:

“If you do not make these three oxen men as they were before, I will put you into a red-hot oven.”

She answers her:

“No! go to such a dell, and take thence three hazel sticks,12 and strike each of them three blows on the back.”

And she did what she told her, and they were changed [53]into men the same as they were before; and all the brothers and the sister lived happily together in Basa-Jaun’s castle, and as they lived well they made a good end also.

Estefanella Hirigaray.

Once upon a time there was a woman who had three daughters. One day the youngest said to her that she must go out to service. And going from town to town, she met at last a fairy who asked her:

“Where are you going to, my child?”

And she answered, “Do you know a place for a servant?”

“Yes; if you will come to my house I will take you.”

She said, “Yes.”

She gave her her morning’s work to do, and said to her:

“We are fairies. I must go from home, but your work is in the kitchen; smash the pitcher, break all the plates, pound the children, give them breakfast (by themselves), dirty their faces, and rumple their hair.”13

While she was at breakfast with the children, a little dog comes to her and says:

“Tchau, tchau, tchow; I too, I want something.”

“Be off from here, silly little dog; I will give you a kick.”

But the dog did not go away; and at last she gave him something to eat—a little, not much.

“And now,” says he, “I will tell you what the mistress has told you to do. She told you to sweep the kitchen, to fill the pitcher, and to wash all the plates, and that if it is all well done she will give you the choice of a sack of charcoal [54]or of a bag of gold; of a beautiful star on your forehead, or of a donkey’s tail hanging from it. You must answer, ‘A sack of charcoal and a donkey’s tail.’”

The mistress comes. The new servant had done all the work, and she was very well satisfied with her. So she said to her:

“Choose which you would like, a sack of charcoal or a bag of gold?”

“A sack of charcoal is the same to me.”

“A star for your forehead, or a donkey’s tail?”

“A donkey’s tail would be the same to me.”

Then she gives her a bag of gold, and a beautiful star on her forehead.14 Then the servant goes home. She was so pretty with this star, and this bag of gold on her shoulders, the whole family was astonished at her. The eldest daughter says to her mother:

“Mother, I will go and be a servant too.”

And she says to her, “No, my child, you shall not do so.”

But as she would not leave her in peace (she assented), and she goes off like her sister. She comes into the city of the fairies, and meets the same fairy as her sister did. She says to her:

“Where are you going, my girl?”

“To be a servant.”

“Come to us.”

And she takes her as servant. She tells her like the first one:

“You will dig up the kitchen, break the plates, smash the pitcher, give the children their breakfasts by themselves, and dirty their faces.”

There was some of the breakfast left over, and the little dog comes in, and he went:

“Tchow! tchow! tchow! I too, I should like something.”

And he follows her everywhere, and she gives him [55]nothing; and at last she drove him off with kicks. The mistress comes home, and she finds the kitchen all dug up, the pitcher and all the plates broken. And she asks the servant:

“What do you ask for wages? A bag of gold or a sack of charcoal? a star on your forehead, or a donkey’s tail there?”

She chose the bag of gold and a star on her forehead; but she gave her a sack of charcoal, and a donkey’s tail for her forehead. She goes away crying, and tells her mother that she comes back very sorry. And the second daughter also asks permission to go.

“No! no!” (says the mother), and she stops at home.

Estefanella Hirigaray.

There was once upon a time a gentleman and lady. And the lady was spinning one evening. There came to her a fairy, and they could not get rid of her; and they gave her every evening some ham to eat, and at last they got very tired of their fairy.

One day the lady said to her husband:

“I cannot bear this fairy; I wish I could drive her away.”

And the husband plots to dress himself up in his wife’s clothes just as if it was she, and he does so. The wife goes to bed, and the husband remains in the kitchen alone, and the fairy comes as usual. And the husband was spinning. The fairy says to him:

“Good-day, madam.”

“The same to you too; sit down.”

“Before you made chirin, chirin, but now you make firgilun, fargalun.”15 [56]

The man replies, “Yes, now I am tired.”

As his wife used to give her ham to eat, the man offers her some also.

“Will you take your supper now?”

“Yes, if you please,” replies the fairy.

He puts the frying-pan on the fire with a bit of ham. While that was cooking, and when it was red, red-hot, he throws it right into the fairy’s face. The poor fairy begins to cry out, and then come thirty of her friends.

“Who has done any harm to you?”

“I, to myself; I have hurt myself.”16

“If you have done it yourself, cure it yourself.”

And all the fairies go off, and since then there came no more fairies to that house. This gentleman and lady were formerly so well off, but since the fairy comes no longer the house little by little goes to ruin, and their life was spent in wretchedness. If they had lived well they would have died well too.

Estefanella Hirigaray.

Once upon a time there was a mother who had a very beautiful daughter. The mother was always bustling about, but the daughter would not do anything. So she gave her such a good beating that she sat down on a flat stone to cry. One day the young owner of the castle went by. He asks:

“What makes such a pretty girl cry like that?”

The woman answers him:

“As she is too pretty she will not work.”

The young man asks if she knows how to sew. [57]

She answers, “Yes; if she liked she could make seven shirts a day.”

This young gentleman is much smitten with her. He goes home, and brings a piece of linen, and says to her:

“Here are seven shirts, and if you finish them by such a time we will marry together.”

She sat thinking without doing anything, and with tears in her eyes. Then comes to her an old woman, who was a witch, and says to her:

“What is it makes you so sad?”

She answers, “Such a gentleman has brought me seven shirts to sew, but I cannot do them. I am sitting here thinking.”

This old woman says to her:

“You know how to sew?”

“I know how to thread the needle; (that is all).”

This woman says to her:

“I will make your shirts for you when you want them, if you remember my name in a year and a day.” And she adds, “If you do not remember I shall do with you whatever I like. Marie Kirikitoun—nobody can remember my name.”

And she agreed. She makes her the seven shirts for the appointed time. When the young man came the shirts were made, and he takes the young girl with joy and they are both married.

But this young girl grew continually sadder and sadder; though her husband made great feasts for her she never laughed. One day they had a frightfully grand festival. There came to the door an old woman, and she asks the servant:

“What is the reason that you have such grand feastings?”

She answers, “Our lady never laughs at all, and her husband has these grand feasts to make her gay.”

The old woman replied: [58]

“If she saw what I have heard this day she would laugh most certainly.”

The servant said to her, “Stay here; I will tell her so at once.”

They call the old woman in, and she told them that she had seen an old woman leaping and bounding from one ditch to another, and saying all the time:

“Houpa, houpa, Marie Kirikitoun; nobody will remember my name.”

When this young lady heard that, she was merry at once, and writes down this name at once. She recompensed highly the old woman, and she was very happy; and when the other old woman came she knew her name.18

Estefanella Hirigaray.

There was a gentleman and lady who were very poor. This man used to sit sadly at a cross-roads. There came to him a gentleman, who asked: “Why are you so sad?”

“Because I have not wherewith to live.”

He said to him, “I will give you as much money as you like, if at such a time you tell the age of the devil.”

Our man goes off happy. He leads a merry life with his wife, for they wanted for nothing. They lived at a great rate. But time went on, and the time was approaching. This man recollected that he had not busied himself at all about the devil’s age. He became pensive. His wife asked him what was the matter with him then? why is he not happy? that they wanted for nothing; why is he so sad? He tells her how it is that he got rich, and what compact he had made with a gentleman. His wife said to him:

“If you have nothing but that, it is nothing at all. [59]Get into a barrel of honey, and when you come out of it get into another barrel of feathers, and dressed like that go to the cross-roads and wait for the devil there. You will put yourself on all fours, and walk backwards and forwards, and go between his legs, and walk all round him.”

The man does as his wife had told him. The devil comes, and draws back (when he sees him); and our man goes up quite close to the devil. The devil being frightened said to him:

“I am so many years old, and I have never seen any animal like that, and such a frightful one.”19

Our man had heard enough. He went off home at full speed, and told his wife that they would want for nothing, that he had done as she had told him, just as if she had been a witch, and that he was no longer afraid of the devil. They lived rich and happily, and if they lived well, they died well too.

Franchun Beltzarri.

There were, like many others in the world, a man and a woman over-burthened with children, and very poor. The woman no more knew what to do. She said that she would go and beg. She goes off, far, far, far away, and she arrives at the city of the fairies. After she had told them how many children she had, all give her a great many alms—she was laden with them.

The queen of the fairies gives her besides twenty pounds in gold, and says to her:

“If you will give me your child when you are confined—you shall bring it up in your law—I will give you a great deal of money, if you will do that.”

She told her that the godmother was already decided [60]upon, but that she would speak about it to her husband. The queen told her to go home, and to return with the answer in a week.

She gets home as she best can, very much fatigued by her burthen. Her husband was astonished that she could have carried so much. She tells him what had happened with the queen of the fairies. He says to her:

“Certainly, we will make her godmother.”

And she returns at the end of a week to tell the queen that she accepts her. She tells her not to send and tell her when she is confined, that she will know it herself, and that she will come all right. At the end of a week she is confined of a daughter. The queen arrives, as she had said, with a mule laden with gold. When they came back from the christening, the godmother and the child fly away; and the parents console themselves with their other children, thinking that she will be happier in the house of the queen of the fairies.

The queen takes her to a corner of a mountain. It is there where her house was. She had already another god-daughter; this was a little dog, whose name was Rose,21 and she named this last god-daughter Pretty-Rose. She gave her, too, a glint of diamonds in the middle of her forehead.22 She was very pretty. She grew up in the corner of the mountain, amusing herself with this dog. She said to her one day:

“Has the queen no other houses? I am tired of being always here.”

The dog said to her: “Yes, she has a very fine one by the side of the king’s highway, and I will speak to my godmamma about it.”

And the dog then told her how Pretty-Rose was bored, and (asked her) if she would not change her house. She [61]said to her, “Yes,” and off they go. While they were there one day Pretty-Rose was on the balcony, and a king’s son passes, and he was astonished at the beauty of Pretty-Rose; and the king begged and prayed her to look at him again, and (asked her) if she would not go with him. She told him, “No, that she must tell it to her godmamma.” Then the dog said, aside:

“No, without me she shall not go anywhere.”

This king says to her: “But I will take you, too, willingly; but how shall I get you?”

Rose says to him: “As I give every evening to my godmother always a glass of good liqueur to make her sleep well, as if by mistake, instead of half a glass, I will give her the glass full, and as she will not be able to rise any more to shut the door as usual, I, I will go and take the key to shut it. I will pretend to, and will give her back the key, leaving the door open, and you will open it when you come. She will not hear anything; she will be in a deep sleep.”

The king’s son said that he would come at midnight, in his flying chariot.

When night came, Rose gave her godmother the good drink in a glass, brim, brim-full. The godmother said:

“What! what! child!”

“You will sleep all the better, godmamma.”

“You are right,” and she drinks it all.

But she could not any more get up to shut the door, she had become so sleepy.

Rose said to her: “Godmamma! I will shut the door to-day; stop where you are.”

She gave her the key, and Rose turns and turns it back again and again in the keyhole as if she had locked it; and leaving it unlocked she gave the key to her godmother, and she puts it in her pocket. She goes to bed; but Rose and Pretty-Rose did not go to bed at all. At midnight the son of the king arrives with his flying chariot. Rose and Pretty-Rose get into it, and go to this young man’s house. The next day Rose says to Pretty-Rose: [62]

“You are not so pretty as you were yesterday;” and looking at her closely, “I find you very ugly to-day.”

Pretty-Rose said to her: “My godmamma must have taken away my diamond glint.”

And she said to Rose, “You must go to my godmamma, and ask her to give me back the glint that I had before.”

Rose did not want to go there—she was afraid; but Pretty-Rose prayed her so much, that she took off the silver dress and set out.23 When she came to the mountain, she began to call out:

“Godmamma! godmamma! Give Pretty-Rose her beautiful glint as before. I shall be angry with you for always (if you do not), and you will see what will happen to you.”

The godmother said to her:

“Come here, come in, I will give you breakfast.”

She said, “I am afraid you will beat me.”

“No! no! come quickly, then.”

“You will give Pretty-Rose her glint?”

“Yes, yes, she has it already.”

She then goes in. The queen washes her feet and wipes them, and puts her upon the velvet cushion, and gives her some chocolate; and says to her, that she knows where Pretty-Rose is, and that she will be married, and to tell her from her not to trouble herself about her toilet, nor about anything that is necessary for the wedding and feast, that she would come on the morning of the day.

Rose goes off then. While she is going through the city where Pretty-Rose is, she hears two ladies, who were saying to two gentlemen, “What kind of wife is it that our brother is going to take? Not like us, because he keeps her shut up so close. Let us go and see her.”

The little dog said to them, “Not a bit like you, you horrible blubber-lips, as you are. You shall see her—yes.” [63]

When the young kings heard that, they were ready to run their swords through the poor little dog. When she gets to Pretty-Rose’s house she hides herself, and tells her all that has happened. Pretty-Rose gives her some good liqueur to drink, and she comes to herself. The king makes a proclamation that whoever shall (merely) spit where the little dog shall have placed her feet shall be killed, and to mind and pay attention to it.

When the marriage day had arrived, came the queen. She brought for the wedding-day a robe of diamonds; for the next day, of gold; and for the third day, of silver. Judge how beautiful she was with her glint of diamonds, and her dress of diamonds, too. They could not look at her. Her godmother told her to have her sisters-in-law there, and not to be afraid of them; that they could not come near her in beauty. When she went out (of her room) on the wedding-day, her sisters-in-law could not look at her, she dazzled them so much. They said to each other:

“The little dog was right when she said she was beautiful, this lady.”

And for three days Pretty-Rose walked about,24 and every one was astounded at her beauty. When the feast was over, the godmother went home. Rose would not leave Pretty-Rose. The godmother told Pretty-Rose that she was born of poor parents, and that she had once helped them, but that what she had given them must be already exhausted. Pretty-Rose gave them enough for all to live grandly. She herself had four children, two boys and two girls; and if they had lived well, they had died well.

Laurentine
Learnt it from her mother. [64]

Once upon a time, like many others in the world, there was a young lad. He was one day in a lime-kiln, and the witches came at night. They used to dance there, and one pretended to be the mistress of a house, who was very ill; and one day, as she was going out of the church, she let the holy wafer fall on the ground, and a toad had picked it up; and this toad is still near the door, under a stone, with the bread in his mouth.3 And again, this same witch said that, until they took away this bread out of the toad’s mouth, this lady will not be cured. This young lad had heard it all. When they had danced their rounds, the witches go away home, and our lad comes out of the lime-kiln, and goes to the house of this lady who is ill, and says to her,

“I know what must be done to cure you,” and he told her all that he had heard from the witch.

The sick lady did what they told her, and the same day she was cured, and the young man was well paid.

And that very evening there came to him a hunch-backed girl, and said to him,

“I have heard that you know where the witches hold their Sabbat.”

He says, “Yes.”

“To-morrow I think I should like to hear what the witches say.”

And he points out to her the hole of the lime-kiln. And at midnight all the witches came, some from one quarter, some from another—some laughing, and others cutting capers. The witches said one to another,

“We must look in the lime-kiln, to see what may be there.”

They go to look, and they find the hunchback girl, and they send her off— [67]

“Go, go—through hedges and hedges, through thorns and thorns, through furze-bushes and furze-bushes, scratches and pricks.”

And in no way could our poor hunchback find her way home. All torn to pieces and exhausted, at last, in the morning, she arrived at her house.

Estefanella Hirigaray.

The second part of this story is evidently a blundered version, transferred from fairies to witches, of Croker’s “Legend of Knochgrafton” (“Fairy Legends of South of Ireland,” p. 10); and M. Cerquand, Part II., p. 17, has a Basque version, “Les Deux Bossus,” almost identical with this Irish legend. The tale, as given in Croker, is found in the Bearnais Gascon, in Spanish, Italian, and German. It is evident, we think, that the Basque land is not its home, but that it has travelled there. We have also another Basque variation of the first part, in which two lads hear the witches at the Sabbat say that a king’s daughter can only be cured by eating an ox’s heart. The opening of this story is so different, that we here give it:—

Once upon a time there were two brothers, the one an idiot, and the other a fool. They had an old mother, old, old, very old. One morning early the elder arranges to go with his sheep to the mountain, and he leaves the fool at home with his old, old, mother, and said to him:

“I will give my mother some chocolate now, and you will give her a hot bath (afterwards), quite, quite, hot.”

He goes to the mountain with his sheep. The second son put the water on to boil, and said to his mother:

“My mother, the water is hot, what bath would you like?”4 [68]

She says to him:

“A bath with wood-ashes.”

And he carries it to the bed while it is boiling; and as she did not get up, he said to her:

“Would you like a little broth?” And she said “Yes.”

“My mother, get up quickly!” and she did not get up.

He takes her, and puts her himself into this boiling water, so that he boiled his poor mother. And he said to her,

“My mother, get up again; the water is not cold.”

She did not answer. The night comes, and the other brother returns from the mountains, and says to him:

“How is our mother?”

“All right.”

“Have you given her the bath?”

“Yes; but she is still there, and she is asleep in her bath.”

“Go and see if she is still asleep.”

He goes, and says, “No, no; she is laughing—she keeps on laughing.”

The other brother goes there, and perceives that their mother is quite dead. He did not know what to do. They both go into the garden, and there they make a great hole and bury her.

They then burn the house, go into the woods, see the witches, cure the king’s daughter, whom one of them marries, and they live happily.5

It is possible that this first part may be a narrative of fact. We knew at Asté, near Bagnères de Bigorre, a brother, an idiot “crétin,” who deliberately began to chop up his sister (also an idiot and “crétin”), who offered no resistance. He had chopped off several of her fingers, when they were accidently interrupted. In spite of the blood and pain, she was only laughing at it.

We have another tale of this kind, which may be also founded on fact, so sad is often the condition of the crétins [69]in the mountains. It is of a mother and her imbecile son; he nearly kills himself by chopping off the branch of the tree on which he was sitting. Then he believes himself dead, and commits various other follies. His mother thinks a wife might be able to take care of him, and tells him to cast sheeps’ eyes at the young girls coming out of church after mass. He takes this literally, cuts out the eyes of all their flock, and so kills their sheep, the only thing they had, and throws these at the girls, who are disgusted, and quarrel with him. He goes home, and mother and son end their lives together in wretchedness.

Like many others in the world, there was a man and woman, labourers, who lived by their toil. They were at ease. They had a mule, and the man lived by his mule carrying wine. Sometimes he was a week away from home. He always went to the same inn, where there was a woman and her daughter. One day the labourer sets off with his loaded mule, and his wife was very near her confinement. She was expecting it hourly; but, as he had orders upon orders, he was obliged to set off. He goes then, and comes to this inn. It was a market-day, and they had not kept a bedroom for him as usual, because there were so many people there, and he is put into a dark room without windows near the kitchen. He had not yet gone to sleep, when he hears the woman say to her daughter,

“You are not aware that the wife of the man who is there is confined? Go and see if he is asleep.”

When the man heard that, he began to snore; and when the young girl heard through a slit in the door that he was snoring, she said to her mother,

“Yes, yes, he is asleep.”

The mother said to her then (you may guess whether he was listening)—

“I must go and charm this newly-born infant.” [70]

She takes up a stone under the hearth, and takes from under it a saucepan, in which there was an ointment. She takes a brush, and well rubs herself over her whole body, saying,6

“Under all the clouds and over all the hedges, half an hour on the road, another half-hour there, and another to return.”

As soon as she had said that, off she went. When the man saw that she was gone, he comes out of his room. He had seen what she did. He anoints himself like her, and says,

“Over the clouds, and under the hedges”—(he made a blunder there7)—“a quarter of an hour to go there, half an hour to stop, and a quarter of an hour for the return.”

He arrives at his house, but torn to pieces by the thorns, and his clothes in strips, but that was all the same to him; he places himself behind the door of his wife’s bedroom with a big stick. There comes a great white cat, “Miau, miau!”8 When the man heard that, he goes out of the place where he was hiding, and with his stick he almost killed this cat, and set out directly afterwards for the inn, but not easily, under all the hedges. In spite of that, he arrives at the woman’s house. He goes to bed quickly. The next day, when he gets up, he sees only the daughter. He asks her where her mother is. “She is ill, and you must pay me.”

“No! I prefer to see your mother.”

He goes to the mother, and finds her very ill. From this [71]day he goes no more to that inn. When he gets home, he tells his wife what had happened, and how he had saved the child. But all was not ended there. They had misfortune upon misfortune. All their cows died, and all their other animals too. They were sinking into the deepest misery.9 They did not know what would become of them. This man was brooding sadly in thought, when he met an old woman, who asked him what was the matter with him. He told her all his troubles, how many misfortunes they had had—all his cows lost. He had bought others, and they too had died directly. He is charmed by witches.

“If you are like that you have only to put a consecrated taper under the peck measure in the stable, and you will catch her.”

He does as the old woman told him, and hides himself in the manger. At midnight she comes under the form of a cat, and gets astride the ox, saying:

“The others before were fine, but this is very much finer.”

When our man heard that he comes out from where he was hiding, and with his stick he leaves her quite dead; although when he had done that our man was without any resources; (he had) neither bread, nor maize, nor cows, nor pigs, and his wife and children were starving.

He goes off to see if he can do anything. There meets him a gentleman, who says to him:

“What is the matter, man, that you are so sad?”

“It is this misery that I am in that torments me so.”

“If you have only that, we will arrange all that if you like. I will give you as much money as you wish, if at the end of the year you can guess, and if you tell me with what the devil makes his chalice; and if you do not guess it then your soul shall be for us.”

When our man has got his money, he goes off home without thinking at all of the future. He lived happily for [72]some time with his wife and child; but as the time approached he grew sad, and said nothing to his wife. One day he had gone a long way, wishing and trying to find out his secret, and the night overtakes him. He stops at a cross-roads, and hides himself. (You know that the witches come to the cross-roads10 to meet together.) They come then, “hushta” from one side, “fushta” from the other, dancing. When they had well amused themselves like that, they begin to tell each other the news. One says:

“You do not know, then, such a man has sold his head to the devil; certainly he will not guess with what the devil makes his chalice. I do not know myself; tell it me.”

“With the parings of the finger-nails which Christians cut on the Sunday.”

Our man with difficulty, with great difficulty, kept from showing himself, through his joy and delight. As soon as the day appeared all the witches went off to their homes, and our man too went off to his. He was no more sad. He waited till the day arrived, and went to the cross-roads. This gentleman was already there, come with a lot of devils, thinking that he would be for hell. He asks him:

“You know what the devil makes his chalice of?”

“I do not know, but I will try. With the parings of the finger-nails which Christians cut on Sundays?”

As soon as he heard that, the devil goes off with all the others in fire and flame to the bottom of hell. Our man went off home, and lived a long time with his wife and daughter. If they had lived well, they would have died well too. [73]

Like many others in the world, there was a gentleman and lady. They were very well off, but they could not keep any of their children. They had had ever so many, and all died. The lady was again in a hopeful condition. At the beginning of the night she was confined of a fine boy.

Two young men heard this news, and they said to each other:

“We ought to have a feast; we must steal a sheep out of this house. They will not pay attention to us with all their bustle and their joy.”

One of the lads then goes after eleven o’clock towards the house. He meets an old woman, who said to him:

“Where are you off to, lad? There is nothing like the truth.”

“I was going, then, to such a house; the lady has been confined, and I wish to take advantage of it to steal a sheep. They will not pay any attention to-day. And you, where are you going?”

“I too am going to the house. I am a witch, and it is I who have killed all their children.”

“And how do you do that?”

“Easily. When the infant sneezes nobody says, ‘Domine stekan,’11 and then I become mistress of the child.”

The witch enters, doubtless as she liked, much more easily than our lad; but nevertheless he got in himself too. He was busy choosing his sheep, when he hears the infant sneeze. He says very, very loudly:

“Domine stekan; even if I should not get my sheep.”

They go to see who is there, and what he was saying. The lad relates what the old woman had told him. As you may imagine they thanked him well, and told him to choose [74]the finest sheep. The father and mother were delighted that they would save this child; but, poor wretches, they had not seen everything. A devil had come, who took their child and carried it to the roadside, and left it there. A coachman passing by sees this child, and takes it with him. He was married, but had no children. They had a great desire to have one. They were very well off also. His wife was delighted to see this fine child; they gave it a good nurse, and the child grew fast and became wonderfully handsome. The devil had placed himself in the child’s cradle. This mother gave him suck, and, contrary to the other, he did not grow at all. The parents were vexed at having such a child; they did not know what to think of it. Their true child was more than extraordinarily clever. The coachman and his wife were dazed with joy, and they loved him as (if he were) their own child. When he was twelve years old, he said to his father and mother that he wished to become a monk. The coachman and his wife were very sorry, and they asked him to become only a priest. But after having seen his great desire they allow him to do as he wished.

He went away then, and at the age of eighteen years he was able to say mass. When he was there, one day two men were passing in front of the garden of his real father, and they began to quarrel. They got so enraged that one killed the other, and threw him into his father’s garden. This father was tried and condemned to death for having killed this man.

While this young monk was saying mass, there comes to him a white pigeon and tells him what was taking place in his father’s house, and that the pigeon will assume the form of the monk, “and you shall go off in my shape.” The monk willingly does what he tells him, and arrives when they are leading his father to execution. He was being followed by the judges and by a crowd of people. He asks what he has done. They tell him that he has killed a man. He asks if they would do him a favour before they put him [75]to death—if they would accompany him to the grave of the man whom he has killed. They tell him, “Yes.”

They all go off then. The monk has the grave opened, restores him to life, and asks him, pointing to his father:

“Is this the man who has killed you?”

The dead man says to him, “No!”

After having said that he dies again. The monk did not wish to know who had killed him; he knew all he wanted with that. The father wished to take the monk home with him to dinner, but he would not go that day. He said to him:

“I will come on such a day.”

As you may fancy they made a splendid dinner; nothing was wanting there. They invited all their friends and acquaintances to rejoice with them. When the monk arrives, the lady, before sitting down to table, wished to show him her child, how she had suckled him with her own milk eighteen years, and that he did not grow at all, but was always just as he was when he was born. The monk betook himself to prayer, and he saw that which they believed to be a child fly away under the shape of a devil in fire and flame, and he carried off with him part of the house. He told his mother not to vex herself because she had had the devil there, and that she would be happier without such a child.

All the world was astonished at the power of this monk; but the mother was still grieved. The monk, to console her, told her his history; how he was her true child; how the devil had taken him and carried him to the roadside; how he had been found and brought up by a coachman; and that it was he himself who had been made priest, and her son. All were astounded at his words. After they had well dined, the monk went back into his convent, and the father and mother lived honourably, as they did before; and as they lived well, they died well too.

Catherine Elizondo. [76]