clearly reproduced in modern
Folk-Tales, while others have been inserted to make the tale longer or
more of the folk-tale character.

At the same time the story as a _whole_ is found spread from America
to Samoa, from India to Scotland, with indubitable signs of being the
same story dressed up according to local requirements. The Master-Maid
is, accordingly, one of the most instructive of all folk-tales, from
the point of view of the problem of diffusion.

XIX. A VISITOR FROM PARADISE

This droll, in its two parts, occurs throughout Europe as has been
shown by Cosquin in his elaborate Notes to No. 22. The Visitor from
Paradise, for example, occurs in Brittany, Germany, Norway, and
Sweden, England, Roumania, Tyrol, and Ireland. In some of the versions
the silly wife gives some household treasure to a passer-by because
her husband had said that he was keeping this for Christmas, for
Easter, or for "Hereafterthis" and the Visitor claims it in that name.
(See _More English Fairy Tales_.) The idea also occurs in the
literature of jests in Pauli, 1519, Hans Sachs, and in _Tresor du
Ridicule_, Paris, 1644. Cosquin has also traced it to Ceylon,
_Orientalist_, 1884, p. 62.

The adventure of the door and the robbers is equally widely spread in
Normandy, Germany, Austria, Bosnia, Rome, Catalonia, and Sicily.
(Gonz., i., 251-2.) It forms part of the tale of "Mr. Vinegar" in
_English Fairy Tales_. The two adventures are, however, rarely
combined; Cosquin knows of only two instances. I have, however,
ventured to combine them here instead of making two separate tales of
them.

In telling the story one has to slur over the pronunciation of
"Paradise," making the last vowel short, so as to explain the
misunderstanding about "Paris." I have retained the Paris _motif_ as
all through the Middle Ages, wayfarers from and to Paris (wandering
scholars or clerics) would be familiar sights to the peasantry
throughout Europe.

Bolte gives in full (ii., 441-6) a Latin poem by Wickram in 1509
entitled, "De Barta et marito eius per studentem Parisiensem
subtiliter deceptis," which is practically identical with the early
part of our story and has this misunderstanding about Paris and
Paradise. It accordingly occurs in most of the German books of Drolls
as those by Bebel and Pauli, and it is possible that the folk
versions were derived from this, though they stretch as far as Cairo
and North India. See Clouston, _Book of Noodles_, pp. 205,