Joseph JacobsXVI. TATTY MOUSE AND TATTY MOUSE.
Source.—Halliwell, p. 115.
Parallels.—This curious droll is extremely widespread; ref-
erences are given in Cosquin, i. 204 seq., and Crane, Italian
Popular Tales, 375-6. As a specimen I may indicate what is
implied throughout these notes by such bibliographical ref-
erences by drawing up a list of the variants of this tale no-
ticed by these two authorities, adding one or two lately
printed. Various versions have been discovered in:
ENGLAND: Halliwell, Nursery Rhymes, p. 115.
SCOTLAND: K. Blind, in Arch. Rev. iii. (“Fleakin and
Lousikin,” in the Shetlands).
FRANCE: Mélusine, 1877, col. 424; Sebillot, Contes pop. de
la Haute Bretagne, No. 55, Litterature orale, p. 232; Magasin
picturesque, 1869, p. 82; Cosquin, Contes pop. de Lorraine,
Nos. 18 and 74.
ITALY: Pitrè, Novelline popolari siciliane, No. 134 (trans-
lated in Crane, Ital. Pop. Tales, p. 257); Imbriani, La novellaja
Fiorentina, p. 244; Bernoni, Tradizione popolari veneziane,
punt. iii. p. 81; Gianandrea, Biblioteca delle tradizioni popolari
marchigiane, p.,11; Papanti, Novelline popolari livornesi, p.
19 (“Vezzino e Madonna Salciccia”); Finamore, Trad. pop.
abruzzesi, p. 244; Morosi, Studi sui Dialetti Greci della Terra
d’Otranto, p. 75; Giamb. Basile, 1884, p. 37.
GERMANY: Grimm, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, No. 30;
Kuhn and Schwarz, Norddeutsche Sagen, No. 16.
NORWAY: Asbjornsen, No. 103 (translated in Sir G.
Dasent’s Tales from the Field, p. 30, “Death of Chanticleer”).
SPAIN: Maspons, Cuentos populars catalans, p. 12; Fernan
Caballero, Cuentos y sefrañes populares, p. 3 (“La Hormiguita”).
PORTUGAL: Coelho, Contes popolares portuguezes, No. 1.
ROUMANIA: Kremnitz, Rumänische Mährchen, No. 15.
ASIA MINOR: Von Hahn, Griechische und Albanesische
Märchen, No. 56.
INDIA: Steel and Temple, Wide-awake Stories, p. 157 (“The
Death and Burial of Poor Hen-Sparrow”).
Remarks.—These 25 variants of the same jingle scattered over
the world from India to Spain, present the problem of the
diffusion of folk-tales in its simplest form. No one is likely
to contend with Prof. Müller and Sir George Cox, that we