* * * * * Pur amur le cumte Willaume Le plus vaillant de cest Royaume, M'entremis de cest livre feire E de l'Angleiz en Roman treire, Ysopet apeluns ce livre Qu'il traveilla et fist escrire; De Griu en Latin le turna. Li Rois Henris qui moult l'ama Le translata puis en Engleiz E jeo l'ai rime en Franceiz.' That is to say, King Henry had translated into English a collection of fables and _contes_ attributed to AEsop, and Marie rendered the English into French. Now AEsop certainly did not write the story of _The Three Wishes_. The text before Marie was probably a mere congeries of tales and fables, some of the set usually attributed to AEsop, some from various other sources. The Latin version, the model of the English version, was that assigned to a certain, or uncertain Romulus, whom Marie, in her preface, calls an emperor. Probably he borrowed from Phaedrus, though he boasts that he rendered his fables out of the Greek. M. de Roquefort thinks he did not flourish before the eleventh or twelfth century[39]. Who was _li rois Henris_ who turned the fables into Marie's English text? She lived under our Henry III. Perhaps conjecture may prefer Henry Beauclerk, our Henry I. In any case Marie manifestly did render the fables, or some of the fables, in _Le dit d'Ysopet_ out of English. The presence of English words in her French seems to raise a strong presumption in favour of the truth of the assertion. One of these English words occurs in her form of _The Three Wishes_ (Fable xxiv), called _Dou Vilain qui prist un Folet_, also _Des Troiz Oremens_, or _Du Vileins et de sa Fame_. A Vilein captured a Folet (fairy or brownie?) who granted him Three Wishes. The _Folet_ resembles the tree-bogle of the _Pantschatantra_. The vilein gave two wishes to his wife. Long they lived without using the wishes. One day, when they had a marrow bone for dinner, and found it difficult to extract the marrow, the wife wished that her husband had-- 'tel bec came li plereit E cum li Huite cox aveit.' The Huite cox is an English word, woodcock, in disguise. The husband, in a rage, wished his wife a woodcock's beak also, and there they sat, each with a very long bill, and two wishes wasted. There Marie leaves them-- 'Deus Oremanz unt ja perduz Que nus n'en est a bien venuz,' 'with two wishes lost, and no good gained thereby.' Manifestly the third wish was expended in a restoration of human noses to each of them. The moral is that ill befalls them-- 'qui trop creient autrui parole.'