ransom. The mention of a Jew as traitor is also peculiar and unreasonable, since no motive for his action appears until later, and then incongruously. The variant is likewise defective in not having any bargain between the ghost and the hero. In other respects it is normal save in minor details. As in V., the heroine is made an English princess, which occurs nowhere else. On the whole the version is picturesque, but defective.
Jean de Calais IX. is unique in certain features, though in most respects normal. It is from Asturia in Spain. Juan de Calais goes out into the world to seek his fortune with a single peseta as his store. This he gives to bury a corpse, and proceeds. In a certain kingdom he attracts the notice of a princess, who marries him after considerable opposition. When the wedding is over, he takes his wife to seek his father's blessing, but is cast off the ship by a former suitor of the lady, her cousin. He is carried to an island by invisible hands, where he lives until a phantom bargains to take him to court for half of what he gets by his marriage. He arrives on the day of the princess's wedding. He is recognized by the king, who puts to his guests a parable of an old key found just when a new one has been made, while the suitor flees. On the following night, when Juan is dejected at the thought of giving up half his son, the phantom appears and releases him from his agreement, explaining its identity.
Juan wins the gratitude of the dead man, and obtains his bride in this version on a single journey, as in I. and VI., but its chief peculiarity is the manner in which he gets his wife, with the sequel that the couple set out to seek his father instead of hers. The ransom is replaced by a romantic but more natural wooing, while the ghost appears somewhat unusually in propria persona. One of the oddest traits in the whole version is the parable of the key, by which the king introduces the
