if he is not actually identical with him. His
adventures might be regarded as a sequel to the former ones. The Noodle
family is strongly represented in English folk-tales, which would seem
to confirm Carlyle's celebrated statistical remark.

LXXI. THE KING OF ENGLAND

_Source._--Mr. F. Hindes Groome, _In Gypsy Tents_, told him by John
Roberts, a Welsh gypsy, with a few slight changes and omission of
passages insisting upon the gypsy origin of the three helpful brothers.

_Parallels._--The king and his three sons are familiar figures in
European _maerchen_. Slavonic parallels are enumerated by Leskien Brugman
in their _Lithauische Maerchen_, notes on No. 11, p. 542. The Sleeping
Beauty is of course found in Perrault.

_Remarks._--The tale is scarcely a good example for Mr. Hindes Groome's
contention (in _Transactions Folk-Lore Congress_) for the diffusion of
all folk-tales by means of gypsies as _colporteurs_. This is merely a
matter of evidence, and of evidence there is singularly little, though
it is indeed curious that one of Campbell's best equipped informants
should turn out to be a gypsy. Even this fact, however, is not too well
substantiated.

LXXII. KING JOHN AND THE ABBOT

_Source._--"Prosed" from the well-known ballad in Percy. I have changed
the first query: What am I worth? Answer: Twenty-nine pence--one less, I
ween, than the Lord. This would have sounded somewhat bold in prose.

_Parallels._--Vincent of Beauvais has the story, but the English version
comes from the German Joe Miller, Pauli's _Schimpf und Ernst_, No. lv.,
p. 46, ed. Oesterley, where see his notes. The question I have omitted
exists there, and cannot have "independently arisen." Pauli was a
fifteenth century worthy or unworthy.

_Remarks._--Riddles were once on a time serious things to meddle with,
as witness Samson and the Sphynx, and other instances duly noted with
his customary erudition by Prof. Child in his comments on the ballad,
_English and Scotch Ballads_, i, 403-14.

LXXIII. RUSHEN COATIE

_Source._--I have concocted this English, or rather Scotch, Cinderella
from the various versions given in Miss Cox's remarkable collection of
345 variants of _Cinderella_ (Folk-Lore Society, 1892); see _Parallels_
for an enumeration of those occurring in the British Isles. I have used
Nos. 1-3, 8-10. I give my composite the title "Rushen Coatie," to
differentiate it from any of the Scotch variants, and for the purposes
of a folk