t. He spread out his gold on a big
stone in the sunlight, and he muttered, "Ye are mouldy, ye are hoary,
ye will be better for the sun." The grandchildren came sneaking over
the knoll, and when they had seen and heard all that they were
intended to see and hear, they came running up with, "Grandfather,
what have you got there?" "That which concerns you not; touch it
not," said the grandfather; and he swept his gold into a bag and took
it home to his old friend. The grandchildren told what they had seen,
and henceforth the children strove who should be kindest to the old
grandfather. Still acting on the counsel of his sagacious old chum, he
got a stout little black chest made, and carried it always with him.
When any one questioned him as to its contents, his answer was, "That
will be known when the chest is opened." When he died he was buried
with great honour and ceremony, and then the chest was opened by the
expectant heirs. In it were found broken potsherds and bits of slate,
and a long-handled, white wooden mallet with this legend on its
head:--

"So am favioche fiorum,
Thabhavit gnoc annsa cheann,
Do n'fhear nach gleidh maoin da' fein,
Ach bheir a chuid go leir d'a chlann."

"Here is the fair mall
To give a knock on the skull
To the man who keeps no gear for himself,
But gives all to his bairns."

Wright, in his collection of Latin stories, published by the Percy
Society in 1842 (pp. 28-29), gives a variant of this tale under the
title of "De divite qui dedit omnia filio suo," and, so far as can be
judged by the abstract, the parallel between the two narratives,
separated by at least five centuries of time, is remarkably close. The
latter part is apparently different, for the Latin version tells how
the man pretended that the chest contained a sum of money, part of
which was to be applied for the good of his soul, and the rest to
dispose of as he pleased. But at the point of death his children
opened the chest. "Antequam totaliter expiraret, ad cistam currentes
nihil invenerunt nisi malleum, in quo Anglice scriptum est:--

"'Wyht suylc a betel be he smyten,
That al the werld hyt mote wyten,
That gyfht his sone al his thing,
And goht hym self a beggyn.'"

Here, then, is a case whereby to test the problem of the position of
folk-tales as historical material. Did the people adopt this tale from
literature into tradition and keep it alive