among the Italians (see Crane, No. 44,
and S. Prato, _La Leggenda del Tesoro di Rampsinite_, Como, 1882). But
the more usual European form is that I have chosen for the text, the
formula of which might be summed up as follows:

Apprenticeship in thievery--Purse or life--Hanging "sell"--Master
Thief--Three Tests--Horse from Stable--Sheet off bed--Priest in
bag--Horse from under (Thumb-Bung).

Almost the whole of this is found as early as Straparola i., 2, where
Cassandrino is ordered by the provost of Perugia to steal his bed and
his horse and to bring to him in a sack the rector of the village.

The purse incident occurs in Brittany, Piedmont, Tuscany, and Tyrol;
in Iceland (Arnason, p. 609) occurs the man twice hanged which also
occurs in Norway, Ireland, Saxony, Tuscany, and in Germany (Kuhn and
Schwartz, 362); in Servia (Vuk, 46) the Master Thief steals sheep by
throwing two shoes successively in the road, which also occurs in
Bengal (Day, xi.); the theft of the horse occurs in Brittany, Norway,
Ireland, Tuscany, Scotland (Campbell, 40), Flanders, in Basque and
Catalan, Russia and Servia. The third test of kidnapping the priest
occurs in Brittany, Flanders, Norway, Basque, Catalan, Scotland,
Ireland, Lithuania, Tuscany. In Iceland the persons carried away are a
king and a queen.

The three tests of the Master Thief, the stealing of bed, horse, and
priest, occur as early as Straparola, i., 2, who also has a somewhat
similar story of the "Scholar in Magic," viii., 5, which contains the
zigzag transformation of the _Arabian Nights_. Both forms occur in
Grimm, 68, 192. While the three tests are fairly uniform throughout
Europe, the introduction by which the lad becomes a thief and proves
himself a Master Thief varies considerably; and I have had to make a
selection rather than a collation.

In some forms the farmer has three sons, of whom the youngest adopts
thievery as a profession, which indeed it was in the Middle Ages (as
we know from the Cul-le-jatte of _The Cloister and the Hearth_). In
Hahn, 3, the Master Thief has to bring a "Drakos" instead of a priest.
Curiously enough, in Gonzenbach, 83, the Master Thief has to bring
back a "dragu."

In many of the variants the Master Thief executes his tricks in order
to gain the King's daughter by a sort of Bride Wager. But in most
cases he does them in order to escape the natural consequences of his
thievery.

XVII. THE UNSEEN BRIDEGROOM

The adult reader will