English Fairy Tales

XLII. MASTER OF ALL MASTERS.
Source.—I have taken what suited me from a number of
sources, which shows how wide-spread this quaint droll is in
England: (i) In Mayhew, London Poor, iii. 391, told by a lad
in a workhouse; (ii) several versions in 7 Notes and Queries,
iii. 35, 87, 159, 398.
Parallels.—Rev. W. Gregor gives a Scotch version under the
title “The Clever Apprentice,” in Folk-Lore Journal, vii. 166.
Mr. Hartland, in Notes and Queries, l.c., 87, refers to Pitré’s
Fiabi sicil., iii. 120, for a variant.
Remarks.—According to Mr. Hartland, the story is designed
as a satire on pedantry, and is as old in Italy as Straparola
(sixteenth century). In passionate Sicily a wife disgusted with
her husband’s pedantry sets the house on fire, and informs
her husband of the fact in this unintelligible gibberish; he,
not understanding his own lingo, falls a victim to the flames,
and she marries the servant who had taken the message.

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169
Joseph Jacobs
XLIII. THE THREE HEADS OF THE WELL.
Source.—Halliwell, p. 158. The second wish has been some-
what euphemised.
Parallels.—The story forms part of Peele’s Old Wives’ Tale,
where the rhyme was
A Head rises in the well,
Fair maiden, white and red,
Stroke me smooth and comb my head,
And thou shalt have some cockell-bread.
It is also in Chambers, l.c., 105, where the well is at the
World’s End (cf. No. xli.). The contrasted fates of two step-
sisters, is the Frau Holle (Grimm, No. 24) type of Folk-tale
studied by Cosquin, i. 250, seq. “Kate Crackernuts” (No.
xxxvii.) is a pleasant contrast to this.
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