_Source._--From memory, by Mr. E. Sidney Hartland, as heard by him from
his nurse in childhood.
_Parallels._--Jacques de Vitry _Exempla_, ed. Prof. Crane, No. xiii.,
and references given in notes, p. 139. It occurs in Swift and in modern
Italian folk-lore.
_Remarks._--The _Exempla_ were anecdotes, witty and otherwise, used by
the monks in their sermons to season their discourse. Often they must
have been derived from the folk of the period, and at first sight it
might seem that we had found still extant among the folk the story that
had been the original of Jacques de Vitry's _Exemplum_. But the
theological basis of the story shows clearly that it was originally a
monkish invention and came thence among the folk.