te the
incidents to be found in it. (For bibliography of stories containing
these situations, see Cosquin.)

A Hero, the youngest of three brothers, becomes a thief. For various
reasons (the motives are different in Grimm 192, and Dasent xxxv)
he displays his skill:--

B1 Theft of the purse (conducted as a droll: the young
apprentice-thief, noodle-like, brings back purse to robber-gang after
throwing away the money).

B2 Theft of cattle being driven to the fair. This trick is usually
conducted in one of four ways: (a) two shoes in road; (b) hanging self;
(c) bawling in the wood like a strayed ox; (d) exciting peasant's
curiosity,--"comedy of comedies," "wonder of wonders."

B3 Theft of the horse. This is usually accomplished by the disguised
thief making the grooms drunk.

B4 Stealing of a live person and carrying him in a sack to the one
who gave the order. (The thief disguises himself as an angel, and
promises to conduct his victim to heaven.)

Other instances of the "Master Thief's" cleverness, not found in
Cosquin, are--

B5 Stealing sheet or coverlet from sleeping person (Grimm, Dasent).

B6 Stealing roast from spit while whole family is guarding it (Dasent).

We may now examine the members of the "Rhampsinitus" group that contain
situations clearly belonging to the "Master Thief" formula. These
are as follows:--

Groome, No. II, "The Two Thieves," B2 (d), B4.
F. Liebrecht in a Cyprus story (Jahrb. f. rom. und eng. lit., 13 :
367-374 = Legrand, Contes grecs, p. 205), "The Master Thief,"
B2(a, c, d).
Wardrop, No. XIV, "The Two Thieves," B4.
Radloff, in a Tartar story (IV, p. 193), B4.
Prym and Socin, in a Syriac story (II, No. 42), B4.

It seems very likely that the Georgian, Tartar, and Syriac stories
are nearly related to one another. The Roumanian gypsy tale, too, it
will be noted, adds to the "Rhampsinitus" formula the incident of the
theft of a person in a sack. This latter story, again, is connected
with the Georgian tale, in that the opening is identical in both. One
thief meets another, and challenges him to steal the eggs (feathers)
from a bird without disturbing it. While he is doing so, he is in turn
robbed unawares of his drawers by the first thief. (Compare Grimm,
No. 129; a Kashmir story in Knowles, 110-112; and a Kabylie story,
Riviere, 13.)

The number of tales combining the two cycles of the "Master Thief"
and "Rhampsinitus's Treasure-House"