And thou wilt not waken and speak to me.'

The king and the queen heard this, and came to the bonny
young lady, and she said,

'I canna get Nicht Nought Nothing to speak to me for all that
I can do.'

Then were they greatly astonished when she spoke of Nicht
Nought Nothing, and asked where he was, and she said, 'He
that sits there in the chair.' Then they ran to him and
kissed him and called him their own dear son, and he wakened,
and told them all that the giant's dochter had done for him,
and of all her kindness. Then they took her in their arms and
kissed her, and said she should now be their dochter, for
their son should marry her.

And they lived happy all their days.

In this variant of the story, which we may use as our text, it is to
be noticed that a _lacuna_ exists. The narrative of the flight omits
to mention that the runaways threw things behind them which became
obstacles in the giant's way. One of these objects probably turned
into a lake, in which the giant was drowned.[93] A common incident is
the throwing behind of a comb, which changes into a thicket. The
formula of leaving obstacles behind occurs in the Indian collection,
the 'Kathasarit sagara' (vii. xxxix.). 'The Battle of the Birds,' in
Campbell's _Tales of the West Highlands_, is a very copious Gaelic
variant. Russian parallels are 'Vasilissa the Wise and the Water
King,' and 'The King Bear.'[94] The incident of the flight and the
magical obstacles is found in Japanese mythology.[95] The 'ugly woman
of Hades' is sent to pursue the hero. He casts down his black
head-dress, and it is instantly turned into grapes; he fled while she
was eating them. Again, 'he cast down his multitudinous and
close-toothed comb, and it instantly turned into bamboo sprouts.' In
the Gaelic version, the pursuer is detained by talkative objects which
the pursued leave at home, and this marvel recurs in Zululand, and is
found among the Bushmen. The Zulu versions are numerous.[96] Oddly
enough, in the last variant, the girl performs no magic feat, but
merely throws sesamum on the ground to delay the cannibals, for
cannibals are very fond of sesamum.[97]

* * * * *

Here, then, we have the remarkable details of the flight, in Zulu,
Gaelic, Norse, Malagasy,[98] Russian, Italian, Japanese. Of all
incidents in the myth, the incidents of the flight are most widely
known. Bu