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.
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.
Source.—I have made up this Celtic Reynard out of several fables given by Campbell, West Highland Tales, under the title "Fables," vol. i. pp. 275 seq.; and "The Keg of Butter" and the "The Fox and the little Bonnach," vol. iii. Nos. lxv. lxvi.
Parallels.—The Fox's ruse about a truce among the animals is a
