Amadas, are of great importance. Since the great majority of the variants which have the child belong clearly to the compound type with The Ransomed Woman, it is only by reference to these three that one can say with assurance that the modified trait indicates no vital connection with The Two Friends. Yet with these in mind there can be little doubt about the matter. The story-tellers have simply extended the division of the hero's possessions from property and wife to child, a process perhaps made easier by the existence of such stories as The Child Vowed to the Devil[1] and some forms of the Souhaits Saint Martin.[2] This might have happened to any particular variant with equal facility. At the same time, the fact that the change was made in only three cases outside the group, which has The Ransomed Woman in combination, gives that family additional solidarity.
In Oliver, Lope de Vega, and Sir Amadas the motive of The Spendthrift Knight appears together with the change or combination just referred to. At first sight, it might appear that there was some essential connection between these two elements foreign to the main theme. Such does not seem to be the case, however, when the matter is further considered. At any rate, I am unable to discover any such link, and am inclined to ascribe the simultaneous appearance of these two factors to chance pure and simple. Neither one is more than a rather late and comparatively unimportant phenomenon as far as The Grateful Dead is concerned.
Not infrequently in the course of this study attention has been called to the substitution of a beast for the helping friend of the hero, and in a few cases to the transference of the ghost's entire rôle to an animal. While considering matters of greater importance, it
