Tuesday, May 13, 2008

home	submit tales

More Celtic Fairy Tales

XXVIII. Jack The Cunning Thief

Sources.- Kennedy, Stories of Ireland, pp- 38-46 ; Campbell, West Highland Tales, i. 320 seq. ; "The Shifty Lad," Dasent, Popular Tales from the Norse, pp.232-51, " Master Thief." Kshler has a number of variants in his notes on Campbell Orient und Occident Band ii. Mr. Clouston has a monograph on the subject in his Popular Tales, ii. 115-65. A separate treatise on the subject has been given by S. Prato, 1882, La Leggenda di Rhampsinite. Both these writers connect the modern folk-tales with Herodotus' story of King Rampsinites.

Mr. Knowles in his Folk-tales of Kashmir, has a number of adventures of "Sharaf the Thief." The story of " Master Thief" has been heard among the tramps in London workhouses (Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, iii. 119).

Remarks .-Thievery is universally human, and at first sight it might seem that there was no connection between these various versions of the " Master Thief." But the identity of the tricks by which the popular hero-thief gains his ends renders it impossible that they should have been independently invented wherever they are found,