views, he seems to regard these incidents as being universally human and having no affiliation with one another, though he entitles his essay, "A Far Travelled Tale."
The modern Folk-Tales, however, make it practically impossible that these at least could have arisen independently. Many of them have an introductory set of incidents, Jephtha-Vow, Herd-Boy, Shepherd-Boy, Prince; this I have adopted in my version. But besides this the Tasks are often identical, Cleaning Stable (Dasent, Campbell), Finger-Ladder (Campbell, trace in Cosquin 32), Building Castle (Grimm 113, Hahn 54); the Oblivion Kiss occurs in Scotland, Germany, Spain, Tyrol, Tuscany, Sicily, and Rome, all in connection with similar stories.
The tale has been especially popular in Celtdom. I have enumerated no less than fourteen versions in my notes on the "Battle of the Birds" (Celtic Fairy Tales, p. 265). There we have the Obstacles to Pursuit mainly in the form of forest, mountain, and river, which the late Mr. Alfred Nutt pointed out to be the natural boundaries of the Nether-World in Teutonic Paganism. It is, therefore, possible that our story has been "contaminated" or influenced by the notion of the "Descent to Hell."
Here, as in the parallel case of Cupid and Psyche, we find a classical story, with many of the incidents clearly reproduced in modern Folk-Tales, while others have been inserted to make the tale longer or more of the folk-tale character.
At the same time the story as a whole is found spread from America to Samoa, from India to Scotland, with indubitable signs of being the same story dressed up according to local requirements. The Master-Maid is, accordingly, one of the most instructive of all folk-tales, from the point of view of the problem of diffusion.
