Note 106. The Magic Hat and the Staff of Life.

106. The Magic Hat and the Staff of Life.

Numbers 106-109 and 133-136 belong to the Little Peasant cycle of stories, Grimm 61, Bolte u. Polívka 2:1-18.

This number contains three episodes. (1) Three men trick another into selling a cow cheap by pretending it is a goat. He avenges himself by selling them (2) a magic hat which he claims will pay the cost of what they buy, (3) a staff of life through which they are themselves destroyed.

The first episode occurs in Heetopades of Veeshnoo-Sarma, Wilkin's translation (London, 1787), 261-262, 266. The second is episode D in Bolte u. Polívka's analysis, The third is episode G in Bolte u. Polívka; see note to 109.

{p. 282}