_Source_.--_Folk-Lore Journal_, ii. p. 68, forwarded by Rev. Walter Gregor. I have modified the dialect and changed “Mally” into “Molly.” _Parallels_.--The first part is clearly the theme of “Hop o' my Thumb,” which Mr. Lang has studied in his “Perrault,” pp. civ.-cxi. (_cf._ Köhler, _Occident_, ii. 301.) The change of night-dresses occurs in Greek myths. The latter part wanders off into “rob giant of three things,” a familiar incident in folk-tales (Cosquin, i. 46-7), and finally winds up with the “out of sack” trick, for which see Cosquin, i. 113; ii. 209; and Köhler on Campbell, in _Occident and Orient_, ii. 489-506. XXIII. RED ETTIN. _Source_.--“The Red Etin” in Chambers's _Pop. Rhymes of Scotland_, p. 89. I have reduced the adventurers from three to two, and cut down the herds and their answers. I have substituted riddles from the first English collection of riddles, _The Demandes Joyous_ of Wynkyn de Worde, for the poor ones of the original, which are besides not solved. “Ettin” is the English spelling of the word, as it is thus spelt in a passage of Beaumont and Fletcher (_Knight of Burning Pestle_, i. 1), which may refer to this very story, which, as we shall see, is quite as old as their time. _Parallels_.--“The Red Etin” is referred to in _The Complaynt of Scotland_, about 1548. It has some resemblance to “Childe Rowland,” which see. The “death index,” as we may call tokens that tell the state of health of a parted partner, is a usual incident in the theme of the Two Brothers, and has been studied by the Grimms, i. 421, 453; ii. 403; by Köhler on Campbell, _Occ. u. Or._, ii. 119-20; on Gonzenbach, ii. 230; on Bladé, 248; by Cosquin, _l.c._, i. 70-2, 193; by Crane, _Ital. Pop. Tales_, 326; and by Jones and Kropf, _Magyar Tales_, 329. Riddles generally come in the form of the “riddle-bride-wager” (_cf._ Child, _Ballads_, i. 415-9; ii. 519), when the hero or heroine wins a spouse by guessing a riddle or riddles. Here it is the simpler Sphinx form of the “riddle task,” on which see Köhler in _Jahrb. rom. Phil._, vii. 273, and on Gonzenbach, 215. XXIV. GOLDEN ARM. _Source_.--Henderson, _l.c._, p. 338, collected by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, in Devonshire. Mr. Burne-Jones remembers hearing it in his youth in Warwickshire. _Parallels_.--The first fragment at the end of Grimm (ii. 467, of Mrs. Hunt's translation), tells of an innkeeper's wife who had used the liver of a man hanging on the gallows, whose ghost comes to her and tells her what has become of his hair, and his eyes, and the dialogue concludes “SHE: Where is thy liver? IT: Thou hast devoured it!” For similar “surprise packets” see Cosquin, ii. 77.