id accordingly. And after several days had
passed the people asked the noodle if he had seen the diachok. "Yes," he
answered. "I killed him some time ago with my hatchet, and my brothers
carried him to the cellar." They seize upon him and compel him to go
down into the cellar and bring out the body. He gets hold of the goat's
head, and asks, "Was your diachok dark-haired?" "He was." "Had he a
beard?" "Yes." "And horns?" "What horns are you talking of?" "Well, see
for yourselves," said he, tossing up the head to them. They saw it was a
goat's head, and went away home.

* * * * *

The reader cannot fail to remark the close resemblance there is between
the first parts of the Arabian and Russian stories; and the second parts
of both reappear in many tales of the Silly Son. The goat's carcase
substituted for the dead man occurs, for instance, in the Norse story of
Silly Matt; in the Sicilian story of Giufa; in M. Riviere's _Contes
Populaires de la Kabylie du Djurdjura_; and "Foolish Sachuli," in
Miss Stokes' _Indian Fairy Tales_. The incident of the pretended
shower of broiled fish and flesh is found in Campbell's _Tales of the
West Highlands_ (porridge and pancakes); in Riviere's Tales of the
Kabail (fritters); "Foolish Sachuli" (sweetmeats); Giufa, the Sicilian
Booby (figs and raisins); and in M. Leger's _Contes Populaires
Slaves_, where, curiously enough, the trick is played by a husband
upon his wife. It is perhaps worth while reproducing the Russian story
from Leger, in a somewhat abridged form, as follows:

In tilling the ground a labourer found a treasure, and carrying it home,
said to his wife, "See! Heaven has sent us a fortune. But where can we
conceal it?" She suggested he should bury it under the floor, which he
did accordingly. Soon after this the wife went out to fetch water, and
the labourer reflected that his wife was a dreadful gossip, and by
to-morrow night all the village would know their secret. So he removed
the treasure from its hiding-place and buried it in his barn, beneath a
heap of corn. When the wife came back from the well, he said to her
quite gravely, "To-morrow we shall go to the forest to seek fish; they
say there's plenty there at present." "What! fish in the forest?" she
exclaimed. "Of course," he rejoined; "and you'll see them there." Very
early next morning he got up, and took some fish, which he had concealed
in a basket. He went to the grocer's and bough