himself at the foot of the cross to pray and weep. On rising, he sees
before him a palace that proves to be Paradise itself. St. Peter, the
celestial porter, receives his letter and carries it to its destination.
While the youth waits, he finds St. Peter's spectacles on the table and
amuses himself by trying them on. Many and marvellous are the things
they reveal to him; but the porter comes back, and he hastily takes off
the glasses, fearing to be scolded. St. Peter, however, tells him: "Fear
nothing, my child. You have already been looking through my glasses for
five hundred years!" "But I have only just put them on my nose!" "Yes,
my child," returned the door-keeper, "it is five hundred years, and I
see you find the time short." After this it is a trifle that he spends
another hundred years looking at the seat reserved for himself in
Paradise and thinks them only a moment. The Eternal Father's reply to
the letter is handed to him; and since his master and the king who sent
him on the errand have both long been dead and in Paradise (though on
lower seats than that which he is to occupy), he is bidden to take the
reply to his parish prices [TN: priests]. The priest will in return hand
him a hundred crowns, which he is to give to the poor, and when the
last penny has been distributed he will die and enter Paradise, to
obtain the seat he has been allowed to see. As he makes his way back,
one of the hermits explains to him the various sights he beheld and the
difficulties he conquered during his outward journey. I shall not stop
to unveil the allegories of this traditional Pilgrim's Progress, which
is known from Brittany to Transylvania, from Iceland to Sicily. Other
Breton tales exist, describing a similar journey, in all of which the
miraculous lapse of time is an incident. In one the youth is sent to the
sun to inquire why it is red in the morning when it rises. In another a
maiden is married to a mysterious stranger, who turns out to be Death.
Her brother goes to visit her, and is allowed to accompany her husband
on his daily flight, in the course of which he sees a number of
remarkable sights, each one of them a parable.[145]

A story is told at Glienke, near New Brandenburg, of two friends who
made mutual promises to attend one another's weddings. One was married,
and his friend kept his word; but before the latter's turn to marry came
the married man had fallen into want, and under the pressure of need had
committe