n source for these
incidents may yet be discovered, just as sources already have been for
so many Italian novella and French fabliaux of a similar flavor. The
fact that the earliest form of the "Master Cheat" cycle known is a
Latin poem of the eleventh, possibly tenth, century (Koehler-Bolte,
233-234), is of course no proof that elements F4G1HJ, found in that
poem, were introduced into India from Europe, though it might be
an indication.

TALE 21

IS HE THE CRAFTY ULYSSES?

Narrated by Lorenzo Licup, a Pampango from Angeles, Pampanga.

Balbino and Alaga had only one child, a son named Suguid, who was at
first greatly beloved by them. The couple was very rich, and therefore
the boy wanted nothing that was not granted by his parents. Now,
the son was a voracious eater. While still a baby, he used to pull
up the nails from the floor and eat them, when his mother had no
more milk to give him. When all the nails were exhausted, he ate the
cotton with which the pillows were stuffed. Thus his parents used to
compare him to a mill which consumes sugarcane incessantly. It was
not many years before the wealth of the couple had become greatly
diminished by the lavish expenditure they had to make for Suguid's
food. So Suguid became more and more intolerable every day. At last
his parents decided to cast him away into a place from which he might
not be able to find his way home again.

One day they led him to a dense forest, and there abandoned
him. Luckily for Suguid, a merchant soon passed by that place. The
merchant heard him crying, and looked for him. He found the boy, and,
being a good-natured man, he took the boy home with him. It was not
long before the merchant realized that Suguid was a youth of talent,
and he put him in school. In a few weeks the boy showed his superiority
over his classmates. In time he beat even the master in points of
learning. And so it was that after only five months of studying he left
the school, because he found it too small for his expanding intellect.

By some mathematical calculation, so the tradition says, or by certain
mysterious combinations of characters that he wrote on paper, Suguid
discovered one day that a certain princess was hidden somewhere. She
had been concealed in such a way that her existence might not be known
other than by her parents and the courtiers. Suguid immediately went
to the palace of the king, and posted a paper on the palace-door. The
paper read as fo