s his pact
with the Devil. The bibliography of this cycle is fully given in
Bolte-Polivka, 2 : 427-435, to which I have nothing to add except
this story itself! Our version is the only one so far recorded from
the Orient, and there can be no doubt that it is derived directly
from Europe. Ralston and Moe seem to detect a relationship between
this cycle and a Hindoo saga translated into Chinese in the seventh
century, and from the Chinese into French in the middle of the
nineteenth century, by the French orientalist Stanislas Julien; but
Bolte is of the opinion (p. 435) that there is probably no connection
between the two. In any case, to judge from recorded variants, the
Tagalog story is an importation from the Occident.

And yet there are not a few deviations in our version from the norm,
if Grimm's tale may be considered representative of the cycle. The most
important of these is the opening, which is one form of the "Promised
Child" opening (see Macculloch, 415 ff.). This formula of a childless
couple finally promising in despair to let their child serve even
the Devil if they are granted offspring, or to be satisfied with an
animal-child or some other monstrosity, is a favorite one in Filipino
Maerchen (cf. Nos. 3 and variants, 19 and variant, and 23), and its
use here may have been influenced by the beginning of the next tale.

Other differences may be noted briefly: (1) The compact made between
the hero and the Devil does not include the characteristic prohibitions
in the European versions; namely, that the hero is not to comb his
hair, wash himself, trim his beard, etc., during his seven years of
wandering. The Devil seems to rely merely on his bear-suit, which
he makes the hero wear, to produce insurmountable difficulties. It
may be that the prohibitions mentioned above were omitted because
they involved conditions wholly foreign to Filipino conception. The
natives take great pride in their hair, and always dress it carefully,
are scrupulously clean personally, and are beardless! I can cite no
parallel in folk-tales for the condition substituted; i.e., if the
wanderer does good with his money, the Devil will have no power over
him at the end of the seven years, while, if he spends it extravagantly
and foolishly, he goes to hell. Perhaps none need be sought outside
of actual experience. (2) The hero is supplied with money from a large
bag which the Devil gives him, not from the inexhaustible pockets of a
magic g