Immediately when he has complied,
the dog seizes him and kills him. The hero later weds the princess.

A fourth form (d) is the Tagalog story "The Battle of the Enchanters,"
printed in JAFL 20 : 309-310.

Both of these variants (c and d) bear a close resemblance to our
second story of "The Mysterious Book," and all three probably go back
to a common source; but that source is not the "Arabian Nights" (as
Gardner hints, JAFL 20 : 309, note), although the second calendar's
tale in that collection represents one form of the "Transformation
Combat" cycle. These three Filipino variants are members of the large
family of Oriental and European folk-tales of which the Norse "Farmer
Weathersky" (Dasent, No. XLI) or the German "The Thief and his Master"
(Grimm, No. 68) may be taken as representatives. The essential elements
of this form of the "Transformation Combat" cycle have been noted by
Bolte-Polivka (2 : 61) as follows:--

A A father gives his son up to a magician to be taught, the condition
being that the father at the end of a year must be able to recognize
his son in animal form.

B The son secretly learns magic and thieving.

C In the form of a dog, ox, horse, he allows his father to sell him,
finally to the magician himself, to whom the father, contrary to
directions, also hands over the bridle.

D1 The son, however, succeeds in slipping off the bridle, and (D2)
overcomes the magician in a transformation combat (hare, fish, bird,
etc.). D3 Usually, after the hero has flown in the guise of a bird
to a princess and is concealed by her in the form of a ring, the
magician appears to the king her father, who has become sick, and
demands the ring as payment for a cure. The princess drops the ring,
and there lies in its place a pile of millet-seed, which the magician
as a hen starts to pick up; but the hero quickly turns himself into
a fox, and bites off the hen's head.

With slight variations from the formula as given above, these elements
are distributed thus in our stories:--

(b) BD2D3
(c) BCD2D3
(d) BCD1D3

Bolte and Polivka (2 : 66) cite a number of Oriental versions of
the story (Hindoo and Arabian) which in their main outlines are
practically identical with our variants. In the absence of the story
in any Spanish version, it seems most reasonable to look to India as
the source of our tales; unless, as is possible, they were introduced
into the Islands from Straparola (viii,