In Spanish [115] a young Venetian merchant pays the debts of a Christian at Tunis, and has him buried. At the house of the creditor he also buys a Christian slave girl. He takes her back to Venice and marries her. At the wedding a sea-captain recognizes the lady, and lures the couple aboard his ship. The young man is cast into the sea, but by clinging to a plank reaches land, where he lives seven months with a hermit. At the end of that time he is sent to the coast, where he finds a ship, and is transported to Ireland. There he is entrusted by the captain with two letters to the king. The one says that he is a great physician, who will heal the sick princess; the other that the plank, the hermit, and the captain who has brought him to Ireland are one and all the ghost of the man whom he buried. The hero is recognized at court by the princess, who has been brought thither by the traitor, and has explained all to her father. In these tales the theme of The Grateful Dead is somewhat abbreviated for the sake of the romantic features of the secondary motive. In both, the agreement with the ghost and every trace of a division have disappeared, though they differ in the details of the treachery by which the lovers are separated. In the former [116] much is made of the manner by which the hero gets a favourable reception at the court of the princess's father, while in the latter this is suppressed. Recognition by some such means, it will appear, is an important feature of the majority of the variants in this section. It must be remembered, of course, that Spanish is a semi-literary version, even though popular in origin. Trancoso, the work of a sixteenth century Portuguese story-teller, is even more consciously literary. It shows, besides, the tendency of the narrative to take on a religious colouring. The son of a Lusitanian merchant, while in Fez on a trading expedition, buys the relics of a Christian saint. In spite of his father's anger, he does this a second time, and is so successful in retailing the bones that he is sent out a third time with instructions to buy as many relics as possible. On this expedition, however, he succeeds merely in ransoming a Christian girl, whom he takes home. At her request he carries to the King of England a piece of linen, on which she has embroidered the story of her adventures. He learns that she is the king's daughter, and restores her to her father. Subsequently he wanders over Europe in despair, for he has hoped to marry the princess, till he meets with two minstrels, who accompany him to the English court. There he makes himself known to the princess by a song; and, by the aid of the two minstrels, he wins her hand in a tournament. Later the two friends reveal themselves as the saints whose bones he had rescued from the Moors.