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These stories are unmistakeably identical. Can it be supposed that the same leading idea, that of the taking off the hump or wen of one man, by the agency of elves, and the clapping it on another in reward for his envy and want of skill came into the heads of two different story-tellers, one a Celt and the other a Japanese, independently? Is it credible that one of these stories is not borrowed from the other? But, if so, then at what age of the world did the loan take place, and which country was the borrower and which the lender?
As we know of no recent epoch at which the communication from one country to the other is likely to have taken place, we are led to think that this story may he one of the most ancient traditions of the human race, and that it may date from a time far anterior to history, when a Turanian tribe have occupied Iceland, preceding the Celtic tribes who are now the oldest stratum of humanity remaining in the far west.
In the remarkable Dutch novel, entitled Max Havelaar, of which an English translation by Baron Alphonse Nahuijs, appeared in 1868, a Japanese legend is introduced professedly taken from a periodical paper called “Dutch India,” and attributed to a writer named Jerome. This story entitled “The Japanese Stone-cutter” is told nearly as follows.
‘There was a man who cut stones out of a rock. His labour was heavy and he laboured much, but his wages were small, and he was not content. He sighed because his labour was heavy, and he cried ‘O that I were rich, in order to rest on a couch, with curtains,’
And there came an angel out of heaven, who said ‘Be it as you have said.” And he was rich. And he rested on a couch, and the curtain was of red silk. And the king of the country passed with horsemen before his carriage, and likewise behind the carriage there were horsemen, and the golden umbrella was held over the head of the king.
And as soon as the rich man heard this he was sad because they held no golden umbrella over his head, and
