Cf. Magyarische Sagen von Mailáth. "Die Brüder." Also "Die Thaten des Bogda Gesser Châns" eine ostasiatische Heldensage aus dem mongolischen übersetzt von J. J. Schmidt, Petersburg 1839. And Folk-lifvet i Skytts härad i Skåne wid borjan afdetta århundrade, Barndomsminnen utgifna of Nicolovius, Lund. 1847. "Rike Pehr Krämare." Also Dasent, "Rich Peter the Pedlar"; Grimm, "The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs"; and Sagas from the Far East, in which the king fears when he hears the hermit's prophecy of his son's future, p. 268.
The bed that the devils so much dreaded occurs in the Polish tale, "Madey," Naake's Slavonic Tales, p. 220. A merchant being lost in a wood promises an evil spirit that he will give him something that he had not seen in his house if he will set him in the right road. This something turns out to be a son born in the merchant's absence. When the boy grows up he sets out to get the bond from the devil that his father gave when lost in the wood. As the lad goes on his journey he comes to the hut of a robber of the name of Madey. He had murdered his father, and only spared his mother to prepare his food. Here, as in the Magyar story, the lad is spared on condition that he finds out what sort of bed is prepared for the robber in hell. The lad enters hell by means of holy water and incense, and the lame demon Twardowski[1] is threatened with Madey's bed if he does not give up the bond, which he is loth to do. This at once produces the desired effect, and Madey was so horrified at the lad's account of the bed that he struck his murderous club into the ground, and vowed he would wait till the lad returned as a bishop. Years afterwards, when the little boy had become a bishop, he found a beautiful apple tree and an old man kneeling at its foot. The tree was the robber's club, the old man Madey. As Madey makes his
- ↑ A John Twardowski is said to have been a doctor of medicine in the university of Cracow, who, like Dr. Faust, signed a contract in his own blood with the devil. He is said to have been wont to perform his incantations on the mountains of Krzemionki, or on the tumulus of Krakus, the mythic founder of Cracow. The demon was to do all the magician bade him and to have no power over him until he met him at Rome, where he took good care not to go. Whether this gentleman is supposed to have ultimately become the lame fiend I know not. See Slavonic Folk-Lore, by Rev. W. S. Lach-Szyrma, in Folk-Lore Record, vol. iv. p. 62.
