_Sources._--Kennedy, _Stories of Ireland_, pp. 38-46; Campbell, _West
Highland Tales_, i. 320 _seq._; "The Shifty Lad," Dasent, _Popular Tales
from the Norse_, pp. 232-51, "Master Thief." Koehler has a number of
variants in his notes on Campbell: _Orient und Occident_, Band ii. Mr.
Clouston has a monograph on the subject in his _Popular Tales_, ii.
115-65. A separate treatise on the subject has been given by S. Prato,
1882, _La Leggenda di Rhampsinite_. Both these writers connect the
modern folk-tales with Herodotus' story of King Rampsinites. Mr. Knowles
in his _Folk-tales of Kashmir_, has a number of adventures of "Sharaf
the Thief." The story of "Master Thief" has been heard among the tramps
in London workhouses (Mayhew, _London Labour and London Poor_, iii.
119).
_Remarks._--Thievery is universally human, and at first sight it might
seem that there was no connection between these various versions of the
"Master Thief." But the identity of the tricks by which the popular
hero-thief gains his ends renders it impossible that they should have
been independently invented wherever they are found.