, "Who are you?"

"I am the duende."

"Why are you there?"

"Because I want to be here."

"Go away!"

"No, I won't."

"Don't you know me?"

"Yes, I know you. You are Masama, who cheated me once. Give your head
to the king." So the executioner cut Masama's head off.

Then Mabait came, and told the king that he could cure the
princess. After he was given permission to try, he said to the duende,
"Who are you?"

"I am the duende, your friend."

"Will you please come out of the princess's abdomen?"

"Yes, I will, for the sake of our friendship."

Mabait was married to the princess, was crowned king, and lived
happily with his friend the duende.

Before attempting to decide anything concerning the provenience of
these two tales, we shall first examine versions of the story from
other parts of the world. The nearest European analogue that I am
familiar with is an Andalusian story printed by Caballero in 1866
(Ingram, 107, "The Demon's Mother-in-Law"). An outline of the chief
elements of this tale follows:--

Mother Holofernes, while very neat and industrious, was a terrible
termagant and shrew. Her daughter Panfila, on the contrary, was so lazy
and thoughtless, that once, when the old woman burnt herself badly
because her daughter was listening to some lads singing outside,
instead of helping her mother with the boiling lye for washing,
the enraged Mother Holofernes shouted to her offspring, "Heaven
grant that you may marry the Evil One himself!" Not long afterward a
rich little man presented himself as a suitor for Panfila's hand. He
was accepted by the mother, and preparations for the marriage went
forward. The old woman, however, began to dislike the suitor, and,
recalling her curse, suspected that he was none other than the
Devil himself. Accordingly, on the night of the wedding, she bade
Panfila lock all the windows and doors of the room, and then beat
her husband with a branch of consecrated olive. So done. The husband
tried to escape from his wife by slipping through the key-hole; but his
mother-in-law anticipated this move. She caught him in a glass bottle,
which she immediately sealed hermetically. Then the old lady climbed
to the summit of a mountain, and there deposited the bottle in an
out-of-the-way place. Ten years the imp remained there a prisoner,
suffering cold, heat, hunger, thirst. One day a soldier, returning
to his native town on leave, took a short cut over the mountain, and
spied