of the same tale or of the same incident. The
volumes of _Waifs and Strays_ contain numerous examples of these
"runs," which have been indexed in each volume. These "runs" are
another confirmation of my view that the original form of the folk-tale
was that of the _Cante-fable_ (see note on "Connla" and on "Childe
Rowland" in _English Fairy Tales_).

XVII. SEA-MAIDEN.

_Source_.--Campbell, _Pop. Tales_, No. 4. I have omitted the births of
the animal comrades and transposed the carlin to the middle of the
tale. Mr. Batten has considerately idealised the Sea-Maiden in his
frontispiece. When she restores the husband to the wife in one of the
variants, she brings him out of her mouth! "So the sea-maiden put up
his head (_Who do you mean? Out of her mouth to be sure. She had
swallowed him_)."

_Parallels_.--The early part of the story occurs in No. xv., "Shee an
Gannon," and the last part in No. xix., "Fair, Brown, and Trembling"
(both from Curtin), Campbell's No. 1. "The Young King" is much like it;
also MacInnes' No. iv., "Herding of Cruachan" and No. viii., "Lod the
Farmer's Son." The third of Mr. Britten's Irish folk-tales in the
_Folk-Lore Journal_ is a Sea-Maiden story. The story is obviously a
favourite one among the Celts. Yet its main incidents occur with
frequency in Continental folk-tales. Prof. Koehler has collected a
number in his notes on Campbell's Tales in _Orient und Occident_, Bnd.
ii. 115-8. The trial of the sword occurs in the saga of Sigurd, yet it
is also frequent in Celtic saga and folk-tales (see Mr. Nutt's note,
MacInnes' _Tales_, 473, and add. Curtin, 320). The hideous carlin and
her three giant sons is also a common form in Celtic. The external soul
of the Sea-Maiden carried about in an egg, in a trout, in a hoodie, in
a hind, is a remarkable instance of a peculiarly savage conception
which has been studied by Major Temple, _Wide-awake Stories_, 404-5; by
Mr. E. Clodd, in the "Philosophy of Punchkin," in _Folk-Lore Journal_,
vol. ii., and by Mr. Frazer in his _Golden Bough_, vol. ii.

_Remarks_.--As both Prof. Rhys (_Hibbert Lect._, 464) and Mr. Nutt
(MacInnes' _Tales_, 477) have pointed out, practically the same story
(that of Perseus and Andromeda) is told of the Ultonian hero,
Cuchulain, in the _Wooing of Emer_, a tale which occurs in the Book of
Leinster, a MS. of the twelfth century, and was probably copied from
one of the eighth. Unfortunately it is not complete, and the Sea-Maiden