little collection, _Affenschwanz, &c.; Variants orales
de Contes Populaires, Francais et Etrangers_
(Braunschweig, 1888), gives an amusing story, based
evidently on this rabbinical legend: The woman formed
from Adam's tail proved to be as mischievous as a
monkey, and gave her spouse no peace; whereupon another
was formed from a part of his breast, and she was a
decided improvement on her sister. All the giddy girls
in the world are descended from the woman who was made
from Adam's tail.

Adam's excuse for eating of the forbidden fruit, "She gave me of the
tree and I did eat," is said to be thus ingeniously explained by the
learned Rabbis: By giving him of the _tree_ is meant that Eve took a
stout crab-tree cudgel, and gave her husband (in plain English) a sound
rib-roasting, until he complied with her will!--The lifetime of Adam,
according to the Book of Genesis, ch. v, 5, was nine hundred and thirty
years, for which the following legend (reproduced by the Muslim
traditionists) satisfactorily accounts: The Lord showed to Adam every
future generation, with their heads, sages, and scribes.[60] He saw that
David was destined to live only three hours, and said: "Lord and Creator
of the world, is this unalterably fixed?" The Lord answered: "It was my
original design." "How many years shall I live?" "One thousand." "Are
grants known in heaven?" "Certainly." "I grant then seventy years of my
life to David." What did Adam therefore do? He gave a written grant, set
his seal to it, and the same was done by the Lord and Metatron.

[60] You and I, good reader, must therefore have been seen by
the Father of Mankind.

The body of Adam was taken into the ark by Noah, and when at last it
grounded on the summit of Mount Ararat [which it certainly never did!],
Noah and his three sons removed the body, "and they followed an angel,
who led them to a place where the First Father was to lie. Shem (or
Melchizidek, for they are one), being consecrated by God to the
priesthood, performed the religious rites, and buried Adam at the centre
of the earth, which is Jerusalem. But some say he was buried by Shem,
along with Eve in the cave of Machpelah in Hebron; others relate that
Noah on leaving the ark distributed the bones of Adam among his sons,
and that he gave the head to Shem, who buried it in Jerusalem."[61]

[61] _Legends of Old Testament Charact