The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk StoryGerould, Gordon Hall
General
The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk Story
Gerould, Gordon Hall
Dead -- Folklore; Folk literature -- Themes, motives; Grateful dead (Tale)
Last, but not least interesting of the versions in which the child
appears, is the Factor's Garland or Turkey Factor, which must have
been almost as well known in England at one time as the form of the
story in Jack the Giant-Killer. It has no very remarkable features in
its outline. A young Englishman, while acting as a factor in Turkey,
pays fifty pounds to have the body of a Christian buried. A little
later he pays one hundred pounds to ransom a beautiful Christian
slave, and takes her back to his home, where he makes her his
house-keeper. Later he sets out again, and is told by the woman to
wear a silk waistcoat that she has embroidered, when he comes to
the court whither he is bound. The work is recognized by her father,
the emperor, and the factor sent back to fetch her. While returning
with the princess, he is pushed overboard in his sleep by the captain,
but swims to an island, whence he is rescued by an old man in a canoe,
who bargains with him for his first-born son when three (or thirty)
months old. The hero is recognized at court and marries the princess,
while the captain dies by suicide. In two (or three) years the old man
returns, just when the couple's son is three (or thirty) months old,
and demands the child. On the hero's yielding, he explains that he
is the ghost, and disappears.
Like Gaelic [151] and Simrock VIII.--the latter just discussed--this
version makes the hero undergo his early adventures in Turkey. Indeed,
the similarity to Gaelic throughout is very notable, far more so than
in the case of Basque II. [152] The only point in which it differs
materially is the division of property, which in Gaelic concerns the
wife and the three children, in the Factor's Garland one son only. In
this matter there is agreement between the present variant, Basque II.,
and Simrock VIII. Despite the likeness to Gaelic, there is no good
reason for arguing any immediate connection with that version. They
stand close to one another geographically and in content, that is
all; they cannot be proved to be more than near relatives in the
same generation.
The variants which introduce the division of the child have now all
been considered. It is necessary to turn to a few scattered specimens
in which the compound, The Grateful Dead + The Ransomed Woman, has
been joined with other material.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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