castle, and twenty leagues more in the direction of the town. The King caused it to be proclaimed that whosoever would cure her should be made rich for life. Then the old soldier presented himself disguised as a doctor, and gave her some of the apple-powder, and her nose began to grow once more, and became twenty times longer still. When her anxiety was at its highest point, he gave her some of the pear-powder, and her nose became a little smaller. But next morning in order to make the treacherous woman really miserable, he again gave her some of the apple-powder so that her nose grew again, and gained much more than it had lost the day before. He told her that she must at some time have stolen something, and that if she did not restore it, no medicine would do her any good. She denied this, and he threatened her with death. Then the King said, "Give up the purse and the cloak, and the horn, which thou hast stolen." The waiting-maid was sent for the three things, and when the physician had them, he gave the princess the right quantity of the pear-powder: the nose fell off immediately, and two hundred and fifty men had to come and cut it in pieces. He, however, went back home to his comrades, in great delight with the wishing-gifts which he had recovered. There is another story which is allied to this in Kleist's Phœbus Journal, 1808, pp. 8-17, and one with many variations in Pröhle's Märchen für die Jugend.
Here we most distinctly have the saga of Fortunatus, which also proves itself to be a German one, for this story is clearly not taken from the popular book, where it is much more ancient and simple; compare Nos. 36 and 54. The wishing-cloak and horn do not appear at all there, but a hat and a purse. The Gesta Romanorum (Latin edition, chap. 120, German do., chap. 8) has everything in a still more simple form; instead of a nose, horns grow on Fortunatus, and leprosy ensues.
Two apple-trees appear also in Helwig's Jüdische Geschichten, No. 38, and the fruit of one of them causes leprosy, and that of the other cures it. As the ancients had, like ourselves, many sayings about long noses, they too may have been familiar with a fable of the like kind; in Martial, for instance, there is "nasus qualem noluerit ferre rogatus Atlas." Doctor Faustus may be founded on a real person, round whom many older sagas have grouped themselves but his name is mythical, and as he possesses the wishing-cloak, he is called the gifted, the child of fortune, wishing-child, faustus, and likewise fortunatus. The materials for the printed book were first put in writing in the 15th century, probably from Spanish popular stories, as is proved by the proper names Andolosia and Ampedo which appear in it.
The Little Bird with the Golden Egg, in the Erfurt Collection,
