throwing two shoes successively in the road, which also occurs in Bengal (Day, xi.); the theft of the horse occurs in Brittany, Norway, Ireland, Tuscany, Scotland (Campbell, 40), Flanders, in Basque and Catalan, Russia and Servia. The third test of kidnapping the priest occurs in Brittany, Flanders, Norway, Basque, Catalan, Scotland, Ireland, Lithuania, Tuscany. In Iceland the persons carried away are a king and a queen.
The three tests of the Master Thief, the stealing of bed, horse, and priest, occur as early as Straparola, i., 2, who also has a somewhat similar story of the "Scholar in Magic," viii., 5, which contains the zigzag transformation of the Arabian Nights. Both forms occur in Grimm, 68, 192. While the three tests are fairly uniform throughout Europe, the introduction by which the lad becomes a thief and proves himself a Master Thief varies considerably; and I have had to make a selection rather than a collation.
In some forms the farmer has three sons, of whom the youngest adopts thievery as a profession, which indeed it was in the Middle Ages (as we know from the Cul-le-jatte of The Cloister and the Hearth). In Hahn, 3, the Master Thief has to bring a "Drakos" instead of a priest. Curiously enough, in Gonzenbach, 83, the Master Thief has to bring back a "dragu."
In many of the variants the Master Thief executes his tricks in order to gain the King's daughter by a sort of Bride Wager. But in most cases he does them in order to escape the natural consequences of his thievery.
XVII. THE UNSEEN BRIDEGROOM
The adult reader will of course recognize that this is the story of Cupid and Psyche, as told by Apuleius, and translated with such felicity by Pater in his Marius, Pt. i., ch. 5. Though the names of the gods and goddesses—Venus,
