and his Court. But as he confesses that these are his own improvements
on the tailor's narrative I have eliminated them.

_Parallels_.--The search for the Dark Tower is similar to that of
the Red Ettin, (_cf_. Koehler on Gonzenbach, ii. 222). The formula
"youngest best," in which the youngest of three brothers succeeds
after the others have failed, is one of the most familiar in folk-
tales amusingly parodied by Mr. Lang in his _Prince Prigio_. The
taboo against taking food in the underworld occurs in the myth of
Proserpine, and is also frequent in folk-tales (Child, i. 322). But
the folk-tale parallels to our tale fade into insignificance before
its brilliant literary relationships. There can be little doubt that
Edgar, in his mad scene in _King Lear_, is alluding to our tale
when he breaks into the lines:

"Childe Rowland to the Dark Tower came...." His word was still: "Fie,
foh and fum, I smell the blood of a British man." _King Lear_,
act iii. sc. 4, _ad fin_.

[Footnote: "British" for "English." This is one of the points that
settles the date of the play; James I. was declared King of Great
_Britain_, October 1604. I may add that Motherwell in his
_Minstrelsy_, p. xiv. note, testifies that the story was still
extant in the nursery at the time he wrote (1828).]

The latter reference is to the cry of the King of Elfland. That some
such story was current in England in Shakespeare's time, is proved by
that curious _melange_ of nursery tales, Peele's _The Old Wives' Tale_.
The main plot of this is the search of two brothers, Calypha and Thelea,
for a lost sister, Delia, who has been bespelled by a sorcerer, Sacrapant