CHINESE FOLKLORE AND SOME WESTERN ANALOGIES. 587 



finding- the note, comments: " You will yourself some day prove the 

 truth of this saying.'^ He introduces, in course of time, a handsome 

 young disciple, who courts Berurya assiduously, and finally obtains her 

 consent to an assignation. But when she keeps it the master appears 

 instead of the pupil, and Berurya, finding her infamy discovered, goes 

 out and hangs herself. 



Even nearer to its far-eastern original than this harsh Talmudic 

 legend comes the famous tale of Petronius, who lived under the 

 Emperor Nero. The "Matron of Ephesus" is a woman who was 

 so inconsolable after her husband's death that she could not bear to 

 leave the grave, but watched and wept there while a trusty maid 

 brought her provisions. It so happened that hard by the cemetery lay 

 an execution ground where a young soldier was stationed, to watch the 

 bodies of some crucified malefactors. Hearing a sound of sobbing he 

 was touched to find a prettj^ widow in so unusual a situation, and 

 bi'ought his wallet to share with her. She would none of him or 

 his food at first, but presentl}' she succumbed to the fascination of 

 such an unusually handsome fellow, and the pair spent three d'dxii and 

 nights very comfortabl}^ together in the tomb. Then the soldier 

 discovered that the body of one of the malefactors on the cross had 

 disappeared, and was about to forestall the inevitable punishment due 

 to his remissness by committing suicide on the spot, when the widow 

 bade him stay his hand and hang the corpse of her husband on the 

 cross and thereby conceal his dereliction: "For,'' she exclaimed, "i 

 could not bear to have the onh^ two men I ever loved lying dead at 

 once before me!" In this guise the story begins its migrations 

 throughout ancient and mediaeval Europe, appearing, with innumer- 

 able modifications, of course, in the literatures of France, Italy, Spain, 

 Russia, England, and Germany. In England, besides being the theme 

 of many early plays, it is charmingly told in Goldsmith's Citizen of 

 the World, while in France it becomes the plot of Voltaire's Zadig. 



We are hardly prepared, after tracing the per igri nations of this 

 unmerited satire on woman's constancy, to learn that in the land of its 

 origin a slip of a girl is the true hero of our legendary "George and 

 the Dragon." In the Yung Ling Mountains of eastern China there 

 dwelt a dragon 80 feet long and 10 feet round. His diet consisted by 

 choice of likely little girls not more than 13 years old, and upon con- 

 dition of receiving these he consented to spare the neighborhood from 

 indiscriminate ravage. In the course of years the supply of vii-gins, 

 bond servants, and daughters of criminals gave out, and the governor 

 of the country was in sore straits, when the youngest of his six daugh- 

 ters oflfered herself as a sacrifice. She argued that a sixth girl in a 

 family wasn't worth her keep, so despite all opposition she proceeded 

 to the fatal cavern, asking only a sword, a good dog, and plenty of 

 boiled rice. Mixing the food with honey she placed it in the narrow 



