Tartaro tells him, too, that he will soon have need of him, and that he will only have to call him, and he will be his servant for ever.
He puts the key back; and everyone came to the dinner. When they had eaten well, the king said to them that they must go and see this curious thing. He takes them all with him. When they are come to the stable, he finds it empty. Judge of the anger of this king, and of his shame. He said:
“I should like to eat the heart, half cooked, and without salt, of him who has let my beast go.”
Some time afterwards the two brothers quarreled in presence of their mother, and one said to the other:
“I will tell our father about the affair of the Tartaro.”
When the mother heard that, she was afraid for her son, and said to him:
“Take as much money as you wish.”
And she gave him the Fleur-de-lis.21 “By this you will be known everywhere as the son of a king.”
Petit Yorge22 goes off, then, far, far, far away. He spends and squanders all his money, and does not know what to do more. He remembers the Tartaro, and calls him directly. He comes, and Petit Yorge tells him all his misfortunes; that he has not a penny left, and that he does not know what will become of him. The Tartaro says to him:
“When you have gone a short way from here you will come to a city. A king lives there. You will go to his house, and they will take you as gardener. You will pull up everything that there is in the garden, and the next day everything will come up more beautiful than before. Also, three beautiful flowers will spring up, and you will carry them to the three daughters of the king, and you will give the most beautiful to the youngest daughter.”23
He goes off, then, as he had told him, and he asks them if they want a gardener. They say, “Yes, indeed, very much.” He goes to the garden, and pulls up the fine cabbages, and the beautiful leeks as well. The youngest of the king’s daughters sees him, and she tells it to her father, and her father says to her:
“Let him alone, we will see what he will do afterwards.” And, indeed, the next day he sees cabbages and leeks such as he had never seen before. Petit Yorge takes a flower to each of the young ladies. The eldest said:
“I have a flower that the gardener has brought me, which has not its equal in the world.”
And the second says that she has one, too, and that no one has ever seen one so beautiful. And the youngest said that hers was still more beautiful than theirs, and the others confess it, too. The youngest of the young ladies found the gardener very much to her taste. Every day she used to bring him his dinner. After a certain time she said to him,
“You must marry me.”
The lad says to her,
“That is impossible. The king would not like such a marriage.”
The young girl says, too,
“Well, indeed, it is hardly worth while. In eight days I shall be eaten by the serpent.”
For eight days she brought him his dinner again. In the evening she tells him that it is for the last time that she brought it. The young man tells her, “No,” that she will bring it again; that somebody will help her.
The next day Petit Yorge goes off at eight o’clock to call the Tartaro. He tells him what has happened. The Tartaro gives him a fine horse, a handsome dress, and a sword, and tells him to go to such a spot, and to open the carriage door with his sword, and that he will cut off two of the serpent’s heads. Petit Yorge goes off to the said spot. He finds the young lady in the carriage. He bids her open the door. The young lady says that she cannot open it—that there are seven doors, and that he had better go away; that it is enough for one person to be eaten.
Petit Yorge opens the doors with his sword, and sat down by the young lady’s side. He tells her that he has hurt his ear, and asks her to look at it;24 and at the same time he cuts off seven pieces of the seven robes which she wore, without the young lady seeing him. At the same instant comes the serpent, and says to him,
“Instead of one, I shall have three to eat.”
Petit Yorge leaps on his horse, and says to him,
“You will not touch one; you shall not have one of us.”
And they begin to fight. With his sword he cuts off one head, and the horse with his feet another;25 and the serpent asks quarter till the next day. Petit Yorge leaves the young lady there. The young lady is full of joy; she wishes to take the young man home with her. He will not go by any means (he says); that he cannot; that he has made a vow to go to Rome; but he tells her that “to-morrow my brother will come, and he will be able to do something, too.” The young lady goes home, and Petit Yorge to his garden. At noon she comes to him with the dinner, and Petit Yorge says to her,
“You see that it has really happened as I told you—he has not eaten you.”
“No, but to-morrow he will eat me. How can it be otherwise?”
“No, no! To-morrow you will bring me my dinner again. Some help will come to you.”
The next day Petit Yorge goes off at eight o’clock to the Tartaro, who gives him a new horse, a different dress, and a fine sword. At ten o’clock he arrives where the young lady is. He bids her open the door. But she says to him that she cannot in any way open fourteen doors; she is there, and that she cannot open them, and he should go away; that it is enough for one to be eaten; that she is grieved to see him there. As soon as he has touched them with his sword, the fourteen doors fly open. He sits down by the side of the young lady, and tells her to look behind his ear, for it hurts him. At the same time he cuts off fourteen bits of the fourteen dresses she was wearing. As soon as he had done that, the serpent comes, saying joyfully,
“I shall eat not one, but three.”
Petit Yorge says to him, “Not even one of us.”
He leaps on his horse, and begins to fight with the serpent. The serpent makes some terrible bounds. After having fought a long time, at last Petit Yorge is the conqueror. He cuts off one head, and the horse another with his foot. The serpent begs quarter till the next day. Petit Yorge grants it, and the serpent goes away.
The young lady wishes to take the young man home, to show him to her father; but he will not go by any means. He tells her that he must go to Rome, and set off that very day; that he has made a vow, but that to-morrow he will send his cousin, who is very bold, and is afraid of nothing.
The young lady goes to her father’s, Petit Yorge to his garden. Her father is delighted, and cannot comprehend it at all. The young lady goes again with the dinner. The gardener says to her,
“You see you have come again to-day, as I told you. To-morrow you will come again, just the same.”
“I should be very glad of it.”
On the morrow Petit Yorge went off at eight o’clock to the Tartaro. He said to him that the serpent had still three heads to be cut off, and that he had still need of all his help. The Tartaro said to him,
“Keep quiet, keep
This Fleur-de-lis was supposed by our narrator to be some mark tattooed or impressed upon the breast of all kings’ sons.
This, of course, is “Little George,” and makes one suspect that the whole tale is borrowed from the French; though it is just possible that only the names, and some of the incidents, may be.
Cf. “Ezkabi Fidel,” 112, below.
In Campbell’s “Tale of the Sea-Maiden,” instead of looking in his ear, the king’s daughter put one of her earrings in his ear, the last two days, in order to wake him; and it is by these earrings and her ring that she recognises him afterwards, instead of by the pieces of dress and the serpent’s tongues.
Campbell, Vol. I., lxxxvii., 8, has some most valuable remarks on the Keltic Legends, showing the Kelts to be a horse-loving, and not a seafaring race—a race of hunters and herdsmen, not of sailors. The contrary is the case with these Basque tales. The reader will observe that the ships do nothing extraordinary, while the horses behave as no horse ever did. It is vice versâ in the Gaelic Tales, even when the legends are identical in many particulars.
