demons, frightened by the sight, want to drive him away;
but he will not go until they surrender the parchment signed by his
father. This story differs from ours in the opening, however; for
the father is a poor fisherman, and promises unwittingly "that which
he loves most at home" in exchange for great riches. At the end of
the story, too, is added an episode of the conversion by the hero
of a band of robbers. With the beginning of this Wallachian story
compare the Italian "Lionbruno" (Crane, No. XXXVI). In a Lithuanian
tale (Chodzko, Contes des paysans et des patres slaves [Paris 1864],
p. 107), the hero, before setting out to meet the Devil, arms himself
with holy water and a piece of chalk blessed by the priest. With the
chalk he draws a magic circle about him, from which he throws water
on the demons until they give up the contract. For other variants,
see Cosquin, No. LXXV and notes.

Our story, while somewhat crude in style, is well motivated throughout,
and has one amusing episode for which I know no parallel, the tying
of Satan in his rocking-chair while he is taking his siesta, and
then frightening him into compliance, when he wakes, by displaying,
before him the cross-embroidered gown. The first task the hero is put
to when he enters hell--directing the hauling of logs for fuel--seems
more appropriate than that of draining two ponds, which the hero is
obliged to perform in Cosquin's "La Baguette Merveilleuse," No. LXXV.

The testimony of the narrator that he heard the story from one of
his playmates when he was a little boy, throws an interesting ray of
light on the way in which popular stories circulate in the Philippines.

TALE 24

THE DEVIL AND THE GUACHINANGO.

Narrated by Jose Laki of Guagua, Pampanga. He got the story from his
uncle, who heard it from an old Pampango story-teller.

There once lived in a suburb of a town a very religious old widow who
had a beautiful daughter, Piriang by name. Young men from different
parts of the town came to court Piriang, and the mother always
preferred the rich to the poor. Whenever Piriang's friends told her
that the man whom she rejected would have been a good match for her,
she always answered that she would rather have a devil for a husband
than such a man.

One day a devil heard Piriang giving this answer to one of her
friends. Thus encouraged, he disguised himself as a young man of
noble blood, and went to Piriang's house to offer her his love.