_Parallels._--Campbell's No. 1 has a very close parallel to the opening. Mr. Larminie refers to a similar tale collected by Kennedy. Another version from West Munster has been recently published in the _Gaelic Journal_, iv. 7, 26, 35. The evasion of the promise to give up the sword at the end seems a favourite incident in Achill folk-tales; it occurs in two others of Mr. Larminie's stories. On the framework, see note on "Conal Yellow claw" (_Celtic Folk-tales_, V.). I have there suggested that the plan comes from the East, ultimately from Buddha.
_Sources._--Supplied by Mrs. Gale, now in the United States, from the recitation of her mother who left Ireland over fifty years ago.
_Parallels._--"Noodle Tales" like this are found everywhere in Europe, and have been discussed by Mr. Clouston in a special monograph in _The Book of Noodles_, 1889. The "sell" at the end is similar to that in the "Wise Men of Gotham." Kennedy (_Fireside Stories of Ireland_) gives a similar set of adventures, p. 119 _seq._
_Remarks._--Mrs. Gale remarks that it was a common superstition in Ireland, that if a raven hovered over the head of cattle, a withering blight had been set upon the animals. As birds of carrion they were supposed to be waiting for the carcases.
_Sources._--MacDougal, _Waifs and Strays_, III. ix. pp. 216-21.
_Parallels._--Campbell, _West Highland Tales_, "The Master and the Man," iii. 288-92.
_Remarks._--I need scarcely suggest the identification of the Ploughman with the----. As usual in folk-tales, that personage does not get the best of the bargain. The rustic Faust evades his contract by a direct appeal to the higher powers. This is probably characteristic of Scotch piety.
XXXVII. THE GREEK PRINCESS AND THE YOUNG GARDENER.
_Sources._--Kennedy, _Fireside Stories_, pp. 47-56.
_Parallels._--Campbell, _West Highland Tales_, lvi.; _Mac Iain Direach_, ii. 344-76. He gives other variants at the end. The story is clearly that of the Grimms' "Golden Bird," No. 57. They give various parallels in their notes. Mrs. Hunt refers to an Eskimo version in Rae's _White Sea Peninsula_, called "Kuobba the Giant and the Devil." But the most curious and instructive parallel is that afforded by the Arthurian Romance of Walewein (_i.e._, Gawain), now only extant in Dutch, which, as Professor W. P. Ker has pointed out in _Folk-lore_, v. 121, exactly corresponds to the popular tale, and thus carries it back in Celtdom to the early twelfth century at the latest.