_Source._--Mr. F. Hindes Groome, _In Gypsy Tents_, told him by John
Roberts, a Welsh gypsy, with a few slight changes and omission of
passages insisting upon the gypsy origin of the three helpful brothers.
_Parallels._--The king and his three sons are familiar figures in
European _märchen_. Slavonic parallels are enumerated by Leskien Brugman
in their _Lithauische Märchen_, notes on No. 11, p. 542. The Sleeping
Beauty is of course found in Perrault.
_Remarks._--The tale is scarcely a good example for Mr. Hindes Groome's
contention (in _Transactions Folk-Lore Congress_) for the diffusion of
all folk-tales by means of gypsies as _colporteurs_. This is merely a
matter of evidence, and of evidence there is singularly little, though
it is indeed curious that one of Campbell's best equipped informants
should turn out to be a gypsy. Even this fact, however, is not too well
substantiated.