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910B
The Highlander Takes Three Advices from the English Farmer
Scotland
null
Cuthbert Bede [pseudonym for Edward Bradley], The White Wife: With Other Stories, Supernatural, Romantic, and Legendary (London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, 1865), pp. 141-46.
In one of the glens of Cantire there lived a young and loving pair who were blessed with one child, a fine healthy lad. They strove hard to provide themselves with the necessaries of life; but their croft was sterile and their crops scanty: and, after many bitter and serious consultations, it was agreed that they shoul...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
910B
The Prince Who Acquired Wisdom
India
null
Cecil Henry Bompas, Folklore of the Santal Parganas (London: David Nutt, 1909), no. 14, pp. 53-56.
There was once a raja who had an only son and the raja was always urging his son to learn to read and write in order that when he came to his kingdom he might manage well and be able to decide disputes that were brought to him for judgment; but the boy paid no heed to his father's advice and continued to neglect his le...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
910B
The Three Admonitions
Italy
null
Thomas Frederick Crane, Italian Popular Tales, (London: Macmillan and Company, 1885), no. 41, pp. 157-59.
A man once left his country to go to foreign parts, and there entered the service of an abbot. After he had spent some time in faithful service, he desired to see his wife and native land. He said to the abbot, 'Sir, I have served you thus long, but now I wish to return to my country.' 'Yes, my son,' said the abbot, ' ...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
910B
The Three Advices
Ireland
The same story is found in The Rural Repository, vol. 12-13, new series (Hudson, New York: William B. Stoddard, 1835-36), pp. 107-108.
T. Crofton Croker, 'The Three Advices: An Irish Moral Tale,' Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, vol. 4, no. 173 (May 23, 1835), pp. 131-32.
The stories current among the Irish peasantry are not very remarkable for the inculcation of any moral lesson, although numberless are the legends related of pious and 'good people,' the saints and fairies. The following tale of the Three Advices is the only one of a moral character which I remember to have heard. It w...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
910B
The Three Advices Which the King with the Red Soles Gave to His Son
Ireland
null
Patrick Kennedy, Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts (London: Macmillan and Company, 1866), pp. 73-77.
The name of the young chief was Illan, called Don, from his brown hair, and the first thing he set about doing after the funeral, was to test the wisdom of his father's counsels. So he went to the fair of Tailtean [now Telltown in Meath] with a fine mare of his, and rode up and down. He asked twenty gold rings for his ...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
Buttermilk Jack
null
According to the narrator, this song was sung at a country fair 'by a queer little man, with a twisted face, and a lurcher dog between his knees.' Thomas Hughes, best known for his novel Tom Brown's School Days (1857), was born in 1822 and died in 1896.
Thomas Hughes The Scouring of the White Horse; or, The Long Vacation Ramble of a London Clerk (Cambridge and London: Macmillan and Company, 1859), pp. 171-72.
Oh mother, my buttermilk I will sell, And all for a penny as you med zee; And with my penny then I will buy eggs, Vor I shall have seven for my penney. Oh mother, I'll set them all under our hen, And seven cock chickens might chance for to be; But seven cock chickens or seven cap hens, There'll be seven half-crownds fo...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
Day-Dreaming
The 1001 Nights
Note by Jacobs: I have given the story of the barber's fifth brother from the Arabian Nights as another example of the rare instances of tales that have become current among the folk, but which can be definitely traced to literary sources, though possibly, in the far-off past, it was a folk tale arising in the East. Th...
Joseph Jacobs, Europa's Fairy Book (New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1916), no. 15, pp. 110-14.
Now there was once a man at Bagdad who had seven sons, and when he died he left to each of them one hundred dirhams; and his fifth son, called Alnaschar the Babbler, invested all this money in some glassware, and, putting it in a big tray, from which to show and sell it, he sat down on a raised bench, at the foot of a ...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
Lazy Heinz
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
I have followed the Grimms' seventh and final edition (1857). This tale was added to their collection in the third edition (1837). Link to a separate file containing only the tale Lazy Heinz.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, 'Der faule Heinz,' Kinder- und Hausmärchen, vol. 2 (Göttingen: Verlag der Dieterichschen Buchhandlung, 1857), no. 164, pp. 313-15.
Heinz was lazy, and although he had nothing else to do but to drive his goat out to the pasture every day, he nevertheless groaned every evening when he returned home after finishing his day's work. 'It is in truth a heavy burden,' he said, 'and a tiresome job, to drive such a goat out to the field year in and year out...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
Lean Lisa
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
I have followed the Grimms' seventh and final edition (1857). This tale was added to their collection in the fourth edition (1840). Link to a separate file containing only the tale Lean Lisa.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, 'Die hagere Liese,' Kinder- und Hausmärchen, vol. 2 (Göttingen: Verlag der Dieterichschen Buchhandlung, 1857), no. 168, pp. 332-33.
Lean Lisa was not at all like Lazy Heinz and Fat Trina, who would not allow anything to disturb their rest. She burned herself out from morning until evening and loaded so much work on her husband, Lanky Lenz, that it was harder for him than for a donkey loaded with three sacks. But it was all for naught. They had noth...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
Sheik Chilli
India, Alice Elizabeth Dracott
null
Alice Elizabeth Dracott, Simla Village Tales; or, Folk Tales from the Himalayas (London: John Murray, 1906), pp. 68-69.
The hero of this story was one day walking along with a vessel of oil upon his head. As he walked he kept thinking of the future: I will sell the oil, and with the money I shall buy a goat, and then I shall sell the kids, and then I shall buy a cow, and sell the milk, till I get a large sum of money; then I shall buy a...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
Story of an Old Woman, Carrying Milk to Market in an Earthen Vessel.
Jacques de Vitry
Crane considers the above tale to be 'the oldest European version of this famous fable.' Jacques de Vitry was born in central France between about 1160 and 1170, and died in Rome in 1240.
Jacques de Vitry The Exempla; Or, Illustrative Stories from the Sermones Vulgares, edited by Thomas Frederick Crane (London: Folk-Lore Society, 1890), no. 51, pp. 154-55.
An old woman, while carrying milk to market in an earthen vessel, began to consider in what way she could become rich. Reflecting that she might sell her milk for three pence (obolos), she thought she would buy with them a young hen, from whose eggs she would get many chickens, which she would sell and buy a pig. This ...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
The Barber's Tale of His Fifth Brother
1001 Nights
null
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, translated from the Arabic by Richard F. Burton, reprinted from the original edition and edited by Leonard C. Smithers, vol. 1 (London: H. S. Nichols and Company , 1894), pp. 309-312.
When our father died, he left each of us one hundred dirhams. My fifth brother invested his inheritance in glassware, hoping to resell it at a handsome profit. He exhibited the glassware on a large tray, then fell to musing: These pieces will bring me two hundred dirhams, which I can use to buy more glass, which I will...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
The Broken Pot
The Panchatantra
One of India's most influential contributions to world literature, The Panchatantra (also spelled Pañcatantra or Pañca-tantra) consists of five books of animal fables and magic tales (some 87 stories in all) that were compiled, in their current form, between the third and fifth centuries AD. The German Sanskrit schol...
Pantschatantra: Fünf Bücher indischer Fabeln, Märchen und Erzählungen, translated from the Sanskrit into German by Theodor Benfey, vol. 2 (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1859), book 5, story 9, pp. 345-46.
In a certain place there lived a Brahman by the name of Svabhâvakripana, which means 'luckless by his very nature.' By begging he acquired a quantity of rice gruel, and after he had eaten what he wanted, there was still a potful left. He hung this pot on a nail in the wall above his bed. As night progressed, he could ...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
The Dairywoman and the Pot of Milk
France, Jean de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine, The Fables of La Fontaine, translated from the French by Elizur Wright (London: George Bell and Sons, 1888), book 7, fable 10, pp. 159-60. Link to this fable in French: La laitière et le pot au lait. Jean de La Fontaine was born in 1621 and died in 1695. His Fables were first published in several ...
null
A pot of milk upon her cushion'd crown, Good Peggy hasten'd to the market town; Short clad and light, with speed she went, Not fearing any accident; Indeed, to be the nimbler tripper, Her dress that day, The truth to say, Was simple petticoat and slipper. And, thus bedight, Good Peggy, light, -- Her gains already count...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
The Daydreamer
India, Henry Cecil Bompas
From Bompas' preface: 'The Santals are a Munda tribe, a branch of that aboriginal element which probably entered India from the northeast. At the present day they inhabit the eastern outskirts of the Chutia Nagpore plateau.'
Cecil Henry Bompas, Folklore of the Santal Parganas (London: David Nutt, 1909), no. 39, pp. 140-141.
Once an oil man was going to market with his pots of oil arranged on a flat basket, and he engaged a Santal for two annas to carry the basket. And as he went along, the Santal thought: With one anna I will buy food and with the other I will buy chickens, and the chickens will grow up and multiply, and then I will sell ...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
The Fakir and His Jar of Butter
The 1001 Nights
null
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, translated by Richard F. Burton, vol. 9 (Benares: Printed by the Kamashastra Society for private subscribers only, 1885), pp. 40-41.
A fakir abode once with one of the nobles of a certain town, who made him a daily allowance of three scones and a little clarified butter and honey. Now such butter was dear in those parts and the devotee laid all that came to him together in a jar he had, till he filled it and hung it up over his head for safekeeping....
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
The Lad and the Fox
Sweden
Nils Gabriel Djurklou was born in 1829 and died in 1904.
Gabriel Djurklou, Fairy Tales from the Swedish, translated by H. L. Brækstad (London: William Heinemann, 1901), pp. 85-86.
There was once upon a time a little lad, who was on his way to church, and when he came to a clearing in the forest he caught sight of a fox, who was lying on the top of a big stone fast asleep, so that the fox did not know the lad had seen him. 'If I kill that fox,' said the lad, taking a heavy stone in his fist, 'and...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
The Milkmaid and Her Bucket
Ambrose Bierce
The American satirist Ambrose Bierce was born in 1842 and died about 1914. He was last seen in Chihuahua, Mexico. D. L. Ashliman's folktexts, a library of folktales, folklore, fairy tales, and mythology.
Ambrose Bierce, Fantastic Fables (New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1899), p. 192.
A senator fell to musing as follows: 'With the money which I shall get for my vote in favour of the bill to subsidise cat-ranches, I can buy a kit of burglar's tools and open a bank. The profit of that enterprise will enable me to obtain a long, low, black schooner, raise a death's-head flag and engage in commerce on t...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
The Milkmaid and Her Pail
Aesop
null
Æsop's Fables, translated by V. S. Vernon Jones (London: W. Heinemann; New York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1916), pp. 25-26.
A farmer's daughter had been out to milk the cows, and was returning to the dairy carrying her pail of milk upon her head. As she walked along, she fell a-musing after this fashion: The milk in this pail will provide me with cream, which I will make into butter and take to market to sell. With the money I will buy a nu...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
The Peasant and the Cucumbers
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 and died in 1910.
Leo Tolstoy, Fables for Children; Stories for Children; Natural Science Stories, translated by Leo Wiener (London: J. M. Dent and Company, 1904), p. 40.
A peasant once went to the gardener's, to steal cucumbers. He crept up to the cucumbers, and thought, 'I will carry off a bag of cucumbers, which I will sell; with the money I will buy a hen. The hen will lay eggs, hatch them, and raise a lot of chicks. I will feed the chicks and sell them; then I will buy me a young s...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
The Poor Man and the Flask of Oil
Bidpai
null
The Tortoise and the Geese and other Fables of Bidpai, retold by Maude Barrows Dutton (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1908), pp. 8-9.
There was once a poor man, who lived in a house next to a wealthy merchant who sold oil and honey. As the merchant was a kind neighbor, he one day sent a flask of oil to the poor man. The poor man was delighted, and put it carefully away on the top shelf. One evening, as he was gazing at it, he said half aloud, 'I wond...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
The Story of the Devotee Who Spilt the Jar of Honey and Oil
India/Persia
null
The Anvár-i Suhailí; or, The Lights of Canopus, Being the Persion Version of The Fables of Pilpay, translated by Edward B. Eastwick (Hertford: Stephen Austin, 1854), p. 409.
They have related that a pious man had a house in the vicinity of a merchant, and lived happily through favor of his neighborly kindness. The merchant continually sold honey and oil, and made his profits by that traffic in unctuous and sweet commodities. Inasmuch as the pious man lived a blameless life, and ever sowed ...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
What Happened to a Woman Called Truhana
Spain, Prince Don Juan Manuel
This book (Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio) was first written in 1335. Don Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena, was born in 1282 and died in 1348.
Prince Don Juan Manuel Count Lucanor; or, The Fifty Pleasant Stories of Patronio: The Tales of the 'Spanish Boccaccio', first done into English by James York, 1868 (London: Gibbings and Company, 1899), no. 28, pp. 147-49.
A woman named Truhana, who was not very rich, went one day to market, carrying on her head a jar of honey. Along the road she was calculating how she could sell the honey and buy eggs, these eggs would produce chickens, and with the produce of the sale of these latter she would buy lambs; and in this way was calculatin...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
1430
What Happened to the Ascetic When He Lost His Honey and Oil
Kalilah and Dimnah
null
Kalilah and Dimnah; or, The Fables of Bidpai: Being an account of their literary history, with an English translationof the later Syriac version of the same, by I. G. N. Keith-Falconer (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1885), p. 170.
It is said that an ascetic derived his nourishment from a king, that is, the governor of a town, every day so much oil and so much honey. And whatever he had remaining, he used to pour into an earthenware vessel which he hung on a peg above the bedstead on which he slept. One day while sleeping on the bedstead, with th...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
954
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
Translated by Richard F. Burton
null
null
But the woman whom Ali Baba had married was poor and needy; they lived, therefore, in a mean hovel and Ali Baba eked out a scanty livelihood by the sale of fuel which he daily collected in the jungle and carried about the town to the Bazar upon his three asses. Now it chanced one day that Ali Baba had cut dead branches...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
954
The Forty Thieves
Retold by Andrew Lang
null
null
In a town in Persia there dwelt two brothers, one named Cassim, the other Ali Baba. Cassim was married to a rich wife and lived in plenty, while Ali Baba had to maintain his wife and children by cutting wood in a neighboring forest and selling it in the town. One day, when Ali Baba was in the forest, he saw a troop of ...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
156
Androcles
Aesop
null
The Fables of Æsop, selected, told anew, and their history traced by Joseph Jacobs (London: Macmillan and Company, 1902), no. 23, pp. 60-61. First published 1894.
A slave named Androcles once escaped from his master and fled to the forest. As he was wandering about there he came upon a lion lying down moaning and groaning. At first he turned to flee, but finding that the lion did not pursue him, he turned back and went up to him. As he came near, the lion put out his paw, which ...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
156
Androcles and the Lion
Joseph Jacobs
Jacobs' story is a reconstruction from various historical sources. In 1912 George Bernard Shaw created a delightful, if irreverent, play, Androcles and the Lion from the traditional tale.
Joseph Jacobs, Europa's Fairy Book (New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, © 1916), pp. 107-109. This book was also published under the title European Folk and Fairy Tales.
It happened in the old days at Rome that a slave named Androcles escaped from his master and fled into the forest, and he wandered there for a long time until he was weary and well nigh spent with hunger and despair. Just then he heard a lion near him moaning and groaning and at times roaring terribly. Tired as he was ...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
156
Of the Remembrance of Benefits
Gesta Romanorum
The Gesta Romanorum or 'Deeds of the Romans' is a collection of some 283 legends and fables. Created as a collection ca. 1330 in England, it served as a source of stories and plots for many of Europe's greatest writers.
Gesta Romanorum, translated by Charles Swan, revised and corrected by Wynnard Hooper (London: George Bell and Sons, 1906), no. 104, pp. 180-81.
There was a knight who devoted much of his time to hunting. It happened one day, as he was pursuing this diversion, that he was met by a lame lion, who showed him his foot. The knight dismounted, and drew from it a sharp thorn; and then applied an unguent to the wound, which speedily healed it. A while after this, the ...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
156
The Lion and the Saint
Andrew Lang
Link to a painting of Saint Jerome by Niccolò Antonio Colantonio.
Andrew Lang, The Red Book of Animal Stories (London: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1899), pp. 138-42.
If you should have the opportunity of seeing any large picture gallery abroad, or our own National Gallery in London, you will be very likely to come across some picture by one or other 'old master' representing an old man, with a long beard, sometimes reading or writing in a study, sometimes kneeling in a bare desert-...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
156
The Lion and the Thorn
Ambrose Bierce
Link to an article about Ambrose Bierce.
Ambrose Bierce, Fantastic Fables (New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1899), pp. 170-71.
A lion roaming through the forest, got a thorn in his foot, and, meeting a shepherd, asked him to remove it. The shepherd did so, and the lion, having just surfeited himself on another shepherd, went away without harming him. Some time afterward the shepherd was condemned on a false accusation to be cast to the lions i...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
156
The Slave and the Lion
Aesop
null
Æsop's Fables, translated by V. S. Vernon Jones (London: W. Heinemann, 1912), pp. 31-32.
A slave ran away from his master, by whom he had been most cruelly treated, and, in order to avoid capture, betook himself into the desert. As he wandered about in search of food and shelter, he came to a cave, which he entered and found to by unoccupied. Really, however, it was a lion's den, and almost immediately, to...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
402
Chonguita the Monkey Wife (Fansler)
Philippines
Fansler's source: 'Narrated by Pilar Ejercito, a Tagalog from Pagsanjan, Laguna. She heard the story from her aunt, who had heard it when she was still a little girl.' Fansler entitles this story simply 'Chonguita.' For comparison, follow this link to a collection of tales about Monkey Bridegrooms.
Dean S. Fansler, Filipino Popular Tales (Lancaster and New York: American Folk-Lore Society, 1921), no. 29, pp. 244-246.
There was a king who had three sons, named Pedro, Diego, and Juan. One day the king ordered these three gentlemen to set out from the kingdom and seek their fortunes. The three brothers took different directions, but before they separated they agreed to meet in a certain place in the forest. After walking for many days...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
402
Doll i' the Grass (Norway)
Norway
This tale differs from others in this group in that the 'creature' discovered by the hero in his search for a bride is not a creepy, crawly thing, but rather a beautiful -- but diminutive -- human (or possibly elfin) female. However, in all other aspects this story follows the outline of a traditional type 402 folktale...
Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, Popular Tales from the Norse, translated by George Webbe Dasent (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1888), pp. 374-376.
Once on a time there was a king who had twelve sons. When they were grown big he told them they must go out into the world and win themselves wives, but these wives must each be able to spin, and weave, and sew a shirt in one day, else he wouldn't have them for daughters-in-law. To each he gave a horse and a new suit o...
Ashliman's Folktexts
2021-03-10
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