of the people. They are the outcome of a long literary influence, as well as an oral one, which was exercised upon the mind and soul of the people during centuries.
The story of Fortunatus is the source for a great number of tales, where wonderful objects and the vicissitudes their possessors pass through are the chief contents.
To the Descent to Hell of the apocryphal writings (the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Apocalypse of St. Paul, &c.) nearly all the tales can be reduced, where the hero goes to the other world to bring something back and sees while journeying many puzzling things, to which answer is given there.
The biblical history of Samson, of Jephthah and his vow, and other recitals served also as a model for some tales.
At the head of numerous tales stands further Belphegor, ascribed to Macchiavelli and Brevio, the prototype for "the Doctor and Death."
The travels of the Prophet Elijah with a Rabbi, or an angel with a hermit, repeated in the theological literature over and over again, gave the idea to similar travels of saints or God himself in various tales.
Not a few of the novels even of Boccaccio or Cinthio were changed into tales, as, for instance, Griseldis, whose change into a Russian tale was followed out by R. Köhler, step by step, and so on. The examples can be infinitely multiplied.
NOTES AND QUERIES.
Couvade.—In turning over the leaves of the English translation of Peter Bayle's Dictionary, vol. v. 1738, I have found some notices of this custom (pp. 346-347), which, as far as I remember, have not been noticed by folk-lorists. As the book is a common one, and the passages are wordy, no advantage, as I think, would be gained by a
