nd
Sir Richard Burton, and have made the few changes necessary to fit the
tale to youthful minds. It is from the quasi-literary spread of
stories like this that the claim for an Oriental origin of all folk
tales has received its chief strength, and it was necessary,
therefore, to include one or two of them in _Europa's Fairy Book_
(Androcles is another). But the mode of transmission is quite
different and definitely traceable and, for the most part, the tales
remain entirely unchanged; whereas, in the true folk tale, the popular
story-tellers exercised their choice, modifying incidents and giving
local colour.

XV. KEEP COOL

There is no doubt about the European character of this tale, which is
found in Brittany, Picardy, Lorraine, among the Basques, in Spain,
Corsica, Italy, Tyrol, Germany (though not in Grimm), among
Lithuanians, Moravians, Roumanians, Greeks, Irish, Scotch, Danes,
Norwegians (Cosquin, ii., 50). The central idea of the Rage-Wager is
retained throughout, and in many places the punishment is the
same--the loss of a strip of skin. In all but three instances the
story is told of three brothers, which practically proves its
identity. I have given the Irish version in _More Celtic Fairy Tales_.

The "sells" however change considerably, though in most of them the
final denoument comes with the death or wounding of the wife. The
pigs' tails incident is also very common and is indeed found in
another set of tales, more of the Master Thief type. Campbell's No. 45
had an entirely different set, some of them very amusing.
Mac-A-Rusgaich has all three meals at once and lies down. He holds the
plough and does nothing else; he sees after the mountain; literally
casts ox-eyes at the master, and makes a sheep foot-path out of
sheep's feet. I have taken from Campbell the direction to wash horses
and stable within and without, though it does not occur elsewhere. Yet
Mac-A-Rusgaich has a bout with a giant, in which he slits an
artificial stomach, like Jack the Giant Killer; and this incident
occurs in four other of the European tales, again showing identity.
"Keep cool" is thus an interesting example of identity of framework,
with variation of incident.

XVI. THE MASTER THIEF

The sneaking regard of the folk-mind for the clever rogue who can
outwit the guardians of order (the ever-present enemy of the folk) was
shown in early days by the myth of Rhampsinitus in Herodotus, ii.,
121, which is found to this day