king’s daughter, has been made to change places with her servant, and the servant is to marry the bridegroom, and she reduced to tend geese. All this the king hears from outside of the room through the stovepipe, and he loses no time in repeating it to his son. The false maid is dragged through the streets in a barrel stuck full with nails, and the princess married to the prince to whom she had been contracted. The passage in the ballad in which the Lord of Lorn relates to the gelding, within hearing of the duke’s daughter, the injuries which he had sworn to conceal has, perhaps, suffered some corruption, though quibbling as to oaths is not unknown in ballads. The lady should be believed to be out of earshot, as the king is thought to be by the goose-girl. Unbosoming one’s self to an oven or stove is a decidedly popular trait; “the unhappy and the persecuted betake themselves to the stove, and to it bewail their sufferings, or confide a secret which they may not disclose to the world.”[50] An entirely similar passage (but without an oath to secrecy) occurs in Basile’s Pentamerone, II, 8, where a girl who has been shamefully maltreated by her uncle’s wife tells her very miserable story to a doll, and is accidentally overheard by the uncle. The conclusion of the tale is quite analogous to that of the goose-girl. * * * * * A Percy MS., p. 73, Hales and Furnivall, I, 180. 1 It was the worthy Lord of Learen, He was a lord of a hie degree; He had noe more children but one sonne, He sett him to schoole to learne curtesie. 2 Lear[n]ing did soe p_ro_ceed w_i_th that child, I tell you all in veretie, He learned more vpon one day Then other children did on three, 3 And then bespake the schoole-m_aster_, Vnto the Lo_rd_ of Learne said hee, I thinke thou be some stranger borne, For the holy gost remaines w_i_th thee. 4 He said, I am noe stranger borne, Forsooth, m_aster_, I tell it to thee; It is a gift of Almighty God W_hi_ch he hath giuen vnto mee. 5 The schoole-m_aster_ turnd him round about, His angry mind he thought to asswage, For the child cold answer him soe quicklie, And was of soe tender yeere of age. 6 The child he caused a steed to be brought, A golden bridle done him vpon; He tooke his leaue of his schoolfellows, And home the child that he is gone. 7 And when he came before his father, He ffell low downe vpon his knee: ‘My blessing, father, I wold aske, If Christ wold grant you wold gine it me.’ 8 ‘Now God thee blesse, my sonne and my heire, His servant in heauen _tha_t thou may bee! What tydings hast thou brought me, child, Thou art comen home so soone to mee?’