" The story probably was
introduced into Ceylon by the Tamils; both versions are equally good as
noodle-stories.
CHAPTER VII.
THE THREE GREAT NOODLES.
Few folk-tales are more widely diffused than that of the man who set out
in quest of as great noodles as those of his own household. The details
may be varied more or less, but the fundamental outline is identical,
wherever the story is found; and, whether it be an instance of the
transmission of popular tales from one country to another, or one of
those "primitive fictions" which are said to be the common heritage of
the Aryans, its independent development by different nations and in
different ages cannot be reasonably maintained.
Thus, in one Gaelic version of this diverting story--in which our old
friends the Gothamites reappear on the scene to enact their unconscious
drolleries--a lad marries a farmer's daughter, and one day while they
are all busily engaged in peat-cutting, she is sent to the house to
fetch the dinner. On entering the house, she perceives the speckled
pony's packsaddle hanging from the roof, and says to herself, "Oh, if
that packsaddle were to fall and kill me, what should I do?" and here
she began to cry, until her mother, wondering what could be detaining
her, comes, when she tells the old woman the cause of her grief,
whereupon the mother, in her turn, begins to cry, and when the old man
next comes to see what is the matter with his wife and daughter, and is
informed about the speckled pony's packsaddle, he, too, "mingles his
tears" with theirs.
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