_Source._--From oral tradition, by the late D. W. Logie, taken down by
Mr. Alfred Nutt.
_Parallels._--Lover has a tale, "Little Fairly," obviously derived from
this folk-tale; and there is another very similar, "Darby Darly."
Another version of our tale is given under the title "Donald and his
Neighbours," in the chapbook _Hibernian Tales_, whence it was reprinted
by Thackeray in his _Irish Sketch-Book_, c. xvi. This has the incident
of the "accidental matricide," on which see Prof. R. Köhler on
Gonzenbach _Sicil. Mährchen_, ii. 224. No less than four tales of
Campbell are of this type (_Pop. Tales_, ii. 218-31). M. Cosquin, in
his "Contes populaires de Lorraine," the storehouse of "storiology,"
has elaborate excursuses in this class of tales attached to his Nos. x.
and xx. Mr. Clouston discusses it also in his _Pop. Tales_, ii. 229-88.
Both these writers are inclined to trace the chief incidents to India.
It is to be observed that one of the earliest popular drolls in Europe,
_Unibos_, a Latin poem of the eleventh, and perhaps the tenth, century,
has the main outlines of the story, the fraudulent sale of worthless
objects and the escape from the sack trick. The same story occurs in
Straparola, the European earliest collection of folk-tales in the
sixteenth century. On the other hand, the gold sticking to the scales
is familiar to us in _Ali Baba_. (_Cf._ Cosquin, _l.c._, i. 225-6, 229).
_Remarks_.--It is indeed curious to find, as M. Cosquin points out, a
cunning fellow tied in a sack getting out by crying, "I won't marry the
princess," in countries so far apart as Ireland, Sicily (Gonzenbach,
No. 71), Afghanistan (Thorburn, _Bannu_, p. 184), and Jamaica
(_Folk-Lore Record_, iii. 53). It is indeed impossible to think these
are disconnected, and for drolls of this kind a good case has been made
out for the borrowing hypotheses by M. Cosquin and Mr. Clouston. Who
borrowed from whom is another and more difficult question which has to
be judged on its merits in each individual case.
This is a type of Celtic folk-tales which are European in spread, have
analogies with the East, and can only be said to be Celtic by adoption
and by colouring. They form a distinct section of the tales told by the
Celts, and must be represented in any characteristic selection. Other
examples are xi., xv., xx., and perhaps xxii.