ests that he should desire, not two heads and four hands, but an
obscene and disgusting bodily transformation of another sort. He wishes
the wish, is horrified by the result, and, on the woman's hint, asks to
have all that embarrasses him removed. The granting of the wish leaves
him with 'a frightful _minus_ quantity,' and he expends the third wish
in getting restored to his pristine and natural condition. The woman
explains that she had not counselled him to desire wealth, lest he
should weary of her and desert her. This, at least, is the conclusion in
the Hebrew version, in the _Parables of Sandabas_ (Deulin, _Contes de Ma
Mere L'Oye_, p. 71).

How are we to account for this metamorphosis of the story in the
_Pantschatantra_? Is the alteration a piece of Arabian humour? Was there
another Indian version corresponding to the shape of the tale in the
_Book of Sindibad_? The questions cannot be answered with our present
knowledge.

Another change, and a very remarkable one, occurs in the _Fables_ of
Marie de France. Of Marie not much is known. In the _Conclusion_ of her
Fables, she says--

'Au finement de cest escrit
K'en Romanz ai turne et dit,
Me numerai par remembraunce
Marie ai num, si sui de Fraunce.

* * * * *

Pur amur le cumte Willaume
Le plus vaillant de cest Royaume,
M'entremis de cest livre feire
E de l'Angleiz en Roman treire,
Ysopet apeluns ce livre
Qu'il traveilla et fist escrire;
De Griu en Latin le turna.
Li Rois Henris qui moult l'ama
Le translata puis en Engleiz
E jeo l'ai rime en Franceiz.'

That is to say, King Henry had translated into English a collection of
fables and _contes_ attributed to AEsop, and Marie rendered the English
into French. Now AEsop certainly did not write the story of _The Three
Wishes_. The text before Marie was probably a mere congeries of tales
and fables, some of the set usually attributed to AEsop, some from
various other sources. The Latin version, the model of the English
version, was that assigned to a certain, or uncertain Romulus, whom
Marie, in her preface, calls an emperor. Probably he borrowed from
Phaedrus, though he boasts that he rendered his fables out of the Greek.
M. de Roquefort thinks he did not flourish before the eleventh or
twelfth century[39]. Who was _li rois Henris_ who turned the fables into
Marie's English text? She lived under our Henry III. Perhaps conjecture
may prefer Henry Beauclerk,