One fault is to be found with these old stories as remembered and told by Mr. Sellers; that is, the introduction of modern ideas into the Old-World fables of a primitive race.  Hits at the Jesuits, the Inquisition, and the government of recent kings take away much of the glamour of what is undoubtedly folklore.  The story of the Black Hand seems to have many varieties.  It is somewhat like our stories of Jack and the Bean Stalk and Bluebeard, but differs, to the advantage of the Spanish ideal, in that the enchanted prince who is forced to play the part of the terrible Bluebeard during the day voluntarily enters upon a second term of a hundred years’ enchantment, so as to free the wife whom he loves, and who goes off safely with her two sisters and numerous other decapitated beauties, restored to life by the self-immolation of the prince.  The White Dove is another curious and pretty fable which has many variations in different provinces—­a story in which the King’s promise cannot be broken, though it ties him to the hateful negress who has transformed his promised wife into a dove, and has usurped her place.  Eventually, of course, the pet dove changes into a lovely girl again, when the King finds and draws out the pins which the negress has stuck into her head, and the usurper is “burnt” as punishment—­an ending which savours of the Quemadero.

The making of folklore is not, however, extinct in Spain, a country where poetry seems to be an inherent faculty.  One is constantly reminded of the Spanish proverb, De poetas y de locos, todos tenemos un poco (We have each of us somewhat of the poet and somewhat of the fool).  No one can tell whence the rhymed jeux d’esprit come; they seem to spring spontaneously from the heart and lips of the people.  Children are constantly heard singing coplas which are evidently of recent production, since they speak of recent events, and yet which have the air of old folklore ballads, of concentrated bits of history.

    Rey inocente—­a weak king,
    Reina traidora—­treacherous queen,
    Pueblo cobarde—­a coward people,
    Grandes sin honra—­nobles without honour,

sums up and expresses in nine words the history of Goday’s shameful bargain with Napoleon.

    En el Puente de Alcolea
      La batalla gano Prim,
    Y por eso la cantamos
      En las calles de Madrid.

    At the bridge of Alcolea
      A great battle gained Prim,
    And for this we go a-singing
      In the streets of Madrid.

Senor Don Eugenio de Olavarria-y Huarte, in citing this copla (Folklore de Madrid), points out that it contains the very essence of folklore, since it gives a perfectly true account of the battle of Alcolea.  Although Prim was not present, he was the liberator, and without him the battle would never have been fought, nor the joy of liberty have been sung in the streets of the capital.  There is seldom, if ever, any grossness in these spontaneous songs of the people—­never indecency or double meaning.  No sooner has an event happened than it finds its history recorded in some of these popular coplas, and sung by the children at their play.