all (of forty, =B=), is willing to stead her mistress in this strait, =A-C=. In =D-G=, =I=, =J=, there is but one nurse or servant, and she assents, or follows her mistress’s directions as a matter of course. The servant is to have the king’s present in =D=. The substitute is elaborately combed and dressed, with a gold band round her hair, and a beautiful ring on her finger. At midnight, or before dawn, the king cuts off the finger that has the ring, =A=, =I=, her finger, =B=, =F=, =G=, =H= (fingers, =B=, v. 43), little finger, =D=, =E=; takes the ring from her finger, =C=, all the rings from her fingers, =J=. He also cuts off her hair (braid), with its golden band, =B= (braids, v. 43), =C=, =I=, her hair (braid), with the golden flowers, =A=, with the pearl, =H=, right braid, =D=, braid, =F=, =G=, =I=, extremity of her braid, =E=. These are to serve as tokens; he puts them in his handkerchief, =A=, =D=. He takes his trophies to the assembly. Maurianos has lost his wager, and is to be hanged. Where is Maurianos, the braggart, and where his precious sister, whom no gifts could seduce? Word comes to the sister. She dresses herself beautifully, and makes her way into the assembly; she would fain know why they are to hang Maurianos. ‘I have seduced his sister,’ says the king, ‘and I will hang Maurianos.’ The girl demands tokens. ‘I cut off her finger, with the golden sapphire; I cut off her hair, with the golden flowers (band).’ She extends her hand; the earth is filled with sapphires. ‘See, lords! are fingers of mine wanting?’ She flings out her hair; the earth is filled with flowers. ‘See, lords! is a braid of mine wanting?’ (=A=, =B=, and the rest to the same effect.) Then she turns to the king. ‘It fits you no more to play the king,’ =A=, =B=. ‘You have slept with my slave, and my slave you shall be,’ =C-I=. ‘Take my mule and go fetch wood.’ In =A=, =B=, the king has to marry Maria. In =F=, John becomes king (as a consequence of winning the wager). In =I=, the people depose the king and make Maurianos’s sister queen. There are numerous tales in which a man wagers heavily upon a woman’s (generally his wife’s) constancy, and, upon plausible evidence, which in the end proves to be nugatory, is adjudged to have lost.[23] We are concerned only with a small section of these stories, characterized by the circumstances that the woman whose virtue is questioned puts another woman in her place in the encounter with the assailant, and that the proofs of success offered are a finger, finger-ring, and head, or braid, of hair[24] (one of these, or more).