tan loose. The Devil ran away exceedingly terrified.

Then Pedro went home, where his parents received him with great
joy. Thus by his cleverness he saved his parents and his future child
from a terrible fate.

Notes.

Like the preceding, this story is doubtless also an importation into
the Islands from Europe. It belongs to the general family of tales
known as the "Promised Child," but the narrative takes a turn which
leads into a special group of this family. The members of this group
are usually not long; and the stories, on the whole, are simple. A
parent promises, wittingly or unwittingly, his child to the Devil in
return for some service, and gives his signature to the bond. The
child grows up, and, noticing the dejection of his parents, forces
from them the secret of the pact. After equipping himself for the
struggle, he sets out for hell to recover the contract. In hell he
frightens or annoys the devils in various ways, and becomes such a
nuisance that finally the arch-fiend is glad to get rid of him by
surrendering the bond.

In a Lorraine story (Cosquin, No. LXIV, "Saint Etienne") "a woman
in confinement is visited by a grand gentleman, who persuades her to
sell her child to him for a large sum of money. He is to come for the
child in six or seven years. One day after a visit of the stranger,
the mother begins to suspect him of being the Devil. Her son notices
her sadness, and learns the secret that is troubling her. 'I'm not
afraid of the Devil,' he says boldly, and tells her to provide him with
a sheep-skin filled with holy water. Thus equipped, he sets off with
the stranger when the time comes, and, reaching hell, so frightens the
devils by sprinkling them with the holy water, that they are glad to
leave him in peace to return to his mother." In this story nothing
is said of a contract; but in a variant mentioned by Cosquin (2 :
232) a poor man signs in blood a bond according to which he agrees to
give up his son at the age of twenty to the rich stranger (Devil in
disguise) who has consented to be godfather to the infant. The demon
is finally put to flight with the aid of an image of the cross and
with the liberal use of holy water.

In a Wallachian story (Schott, No. 15) we find a close parallel
of incident to our story: the hero, acting on the advice of his
school-master, makes some ecclesiastical garments decorated with
crosses, and, dressed in these, he goes to hell and knocks on the
door. The