man came along with a cow. The master said, "Who is clever enough to get the cow?" Viçent answered, "That's me, master." He put on the sheep's skin and acted like a sheep. The man said, "There's my sheep." He left the cow to go and get the sheep. Viçent went and stole the cow.
The next day a bird flew by with eggs in his mouth (?). The master said, "Who is clever enough to get those eggs?" Viçent answered, " That's me, master." An old scholar said, "No, you go every day. This time I go." The master sent this boy. He stole the eggs. Viçent went behind him and stole the eggs from his pocket. He put his hand in his pocket and found nothing. Viçent showed them the eggs. The master said, "Get out from here as soon as you can. You are a greater thief than me."
Viçent went home to his mother. He went to the house of the king, he stole the queen's dress.
The Master Thief cycle is, as we know, one of the most familiar parts of European-Indian folk-lore. There are, too, several European as well as Indian versions of the Treasure of King Rhampsinitus.[1] In none of those accessible to me is the tar barrel thief catching episode embroidered with the Tar Baby pattern. Is it not quite possible, however, that there are unrecorded variants of the Treasure of King Rhampsinitus in which, as in the Cape Verde Islands variant, this pattern may appear? The discovery of such a strictly European variant would be absolute proof of the European origin of Tar Baby. As it is, with only the Portuguese Negro variants in evidence, the hypothesis that the pattern is African has to be considered. On this hypothesis the Tar Baby pattern would merely have been spliced into the Cape Verde Islands Rhampsinitus tale, the local splicing having been suggested by the analogy
- ↑ Cosquin, ii. 277; Schiefner, A., in Mélanges Asiatujues, Bull. de l'Académie Impériale des Sciences de St-Pétersburg, vi. (1869-73), 161-186; Kohler, R. in Orient und Occident, ii. (1864), 303-13; "Filipino Popular Tales," No. viii.; Goonetilleke, W., "Sinhalese Folk-Lore," The Orientalist, i (1884), 56-61. In this variant the thief-catching is due, not to a tar barrel, but to the greediness of the father, who cannot squeeze out through the hole he came in by—a common Negro tale pattern, by the way.
