_Source._--"Prosed" from the well-known ballad in Percy. I have changed
the first query: What am I worth? Answer: Twenty-nine pence--one less, I
ween, than the Lord. This would have sounded somewhat bold in prose.
_Parallels._--Vincent of Beauvais has the story, but the English version
comes from the German Joe Miller, Pauli's _Schimpf und Ernst_, No. lv.,
p. 46, ed. Oesterley, where see his notes. The question I have omitted
exists there, and cannot have "independently arisen." Pauli was a
fifteenth century worthy or unworthy.
_Remarks._--Riddles were once on a time serious things to meddle with,
as witness Samson and the Sphynx, and other instances duly noted with
his customary erudition by Prof. Child in his comments on the ballad,
_English and Scotch Ballads_, i, 403-14.