he helps himself to the treasures in the hag’s cottage, and goes off to the nearest town, where he puts up at the best inn and gets himself fine clothes. Then he determines to requite the King, who had sent him away penniless, so he summons the Dwarf[139] and orders him to bring the King’s daughter to his room that night, which the Dwarf does, and very early in the morning he carries her back to her own chamber in the palace. The princess tells her father that she has had a strange dream of being borne through the air during the night to an old soldier’s house. The King says that if it was not a dream, she should make a hole in her pocket and put peas into it, and by their dropping out the place where she was taken to could be easily traced. But the Dwarf when he transports her the second night discovers the trick, and strews peas through all the other streets, and the only result was the pigeons had a rare feast. Then the King bids the princess hide one of her shoes in the soldier’s room, if she is carried there again. A search is made for the shoe in every house the next day, and when it is found in the soldier’s room he runs off, but is soon caught and thrown into prison. In his haste to escape he forgot to take the Blue Light with him. He finds only a ducat in his pocket, and with this he bribes an old comrade whom he sees passing to go and fetch him a parcel he had left at the inn, and so he gets the Blue Light once more. He summons the Dwarf, who tells him to be of good cheer, for all will yet be well, only he must take the Blue Light with him when his trial comes on. He is found guilty and sentenced to be hung upon the gallows-tree. On his way to execution he asks as a last favour to be allowed to smoke, which being granted, he lights his pipe and the Dwarf appears. “Send,” says the soldier—“send all these people to the right about; as for the King, cut him into three pieces.” The Dwarf lays about him with a will, and soon makes the crowd scuttle off. The King begs hard for his life, and agrees to let the soldier have the princess for his wife and the kingdom afterwards. Thus, it will be seen, popular tales containing all the essential elements of the story of Aladdin are spread over Europe, though hardly any of the versions was probably derived from it; and the conclusion at which I have arrived is that those elements, or incidents, have been time out of mind the common property of European and Asiatic peoples, and that the tale of Aladdin may be considered as an almost unique version. The Mecklenburg legend is the only variant which has the incident of the Magician requiring the Lamp before helping the hero out of the Cave and that of the transporting of the princess from her palace to the hero’s house during the night, but these are not, I think, sufficient evidence that it was adapted from Galland.