There was once a poor boy who was very ambitious to learn, and with the consent of his parents he bound himself to an enchanter who was a very wise man.  The boy remained with him for a very long time, until at last his master sent him home, saying that he could teach him nothing more.  The boy went home, but there he found nothing in the way of adventure, so he proposed to his father that he should become a horse, which his father could sell for twenty pesos to his late teacher.  He cautioned his father that, as soon as he received the money for the horse, he should drop the halter as if by accident.

The young man then became a horse, and his father took him to the enchanter, who gave him twenty pesos.  As soon as the money was in the father’s hand, he dropped the halter, and the horse at once became a bird which flew away.  The enchanter metamorphosed himself into a hawk and followed.  The bird was so hard pressed by the hawk that it dived into the sea and became a fish.  The hawk followed and became a shark.  The fish, being in danger from the shark, leaped out on to the dry ground and took the shape of a crab, which hid in a spring where a princess was bathing.  The shark followed in the shape of a cat, which began to search under the stones for the crab, but the crab escaped by changing itself into a ring on the finger of the princess.

Now it chanced that the father of the princess was very sick, and the enchanter went to the palace and offered to cure him for the ring on the finger of the princess.  To this the king agreed, but the ring begged the princess not to give him directly to the enchanter, but to let him fall on the floor.  The princess did this, and as the ring touched the floor it broke into a shower of rice.  The enchanter immediately took the form of a cock and industriously pecked at the grains on the floor.  But as he pecked, one of the grains changed to a cat which jumped on him and killed him.

The young man then resumed his own form, having proven himself a greater man than his master.

Fletcher Gardner.

Bloomington, Ind.

PART IV

A Filipino (Tagalog) Version of Aladdin.

Once on a time a poor boy and his mother went far from their home city to seek their fortune.  They were very poor, for the husband and father had died, leaving them little, and that little was soon spent.  The boy went into the market-place to seek for work, and a travelling merchant, seeing his distress, spoke to him and asked many questions.  When he had inquired the name of the boy’s father, he embraced him with many kind words, and told him that he was the father’s long-lost brother, and that as he had no children of his own the boy should be his heir and for the present live with him as his son.  He sent the boy to call his mother, and when she came he kissed her with many words of endearment, and would have it that she was his sister-in-law, though she told him that her husband had no brother.  He treated her well and made her many presents, so that she was forced to believe he really was her brother-in-law.