English Fairy Tales

XL. FAIRY OINTMENT.
Source.—Mrs. Bray, The Tamar and the Tavy, i. 174 (letters
to Southey), as quoted by Mr. Hartland in Folk-Lore, i. 207-
8. I have christened the anonymous midwife and euphemised
her profession.
Parallels.—Mr. Hartland has studied Human Midwives in
the Archaeol. Review, iv., and parallels to our story in Folk-
Lore, i. 209, seq.; the most interesting of these is from Gervase
of Tilbury (xiii. cent.), Otia Imper., iii. 85, and three Breton
tales given by M. Sebillot (Contes, ii. 42; Litt. orale, 23; Trad.
et Superst., i. 109). Cf. Prof. Child, i. 339; ii. 505.

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168
English Fairy Tales
XLI. THE WELL OF THE WORLD’S END.
Source.—Leyden’s edition of The Complaynt of Scotland, p.
234 seq., with additional touches from Halliwell, 162-3, who
makes up a slightly different version from the rhymes. The
opening formula I have taken from Mayhew, London Labour,
iii. 390, who gives it as the usual one when tramps tell folk-
tales. I also added it to No. xvii.
Parallels.—Sir W. Scott remembered a similar story; see Taylor’s
Gammer Grethel, ad fin. In Scotland it is Chambers’s tale of The
Paddo, p. 87; Leyden supposes it is referred to in the Complaynt,
(c. 1548), as “The Wolf of the Warldis End.” The well of this
name occurs also in the Scotch version of the “Three Heads of
the Well,” (No. xliii.). Abroad it is the Grimms’ first tale, while
frogs who would a-wooing go are discussed by Prof. Köhler,
Occ. u. Orient ii. 330; by Prof. Child, i. 298; and by Messrs.
Jones and Kropf, l.c., p. 404. The sieve-bucket task is wide-
spread from the Danaids of the Greeks to the leverets of Uncle
Remus, who, curiously enough, use the same rhyme: “Fill it wid
moss en dob it wid clay.” Cf., too, No. xxiii.