62 THE FIRESIDE SPHINX 



and nails one of her paws to the floor. The next 

 morning reveals to him a beautiful young woman, 

 whom, with the customary fatuity of youth, he 

 promptly marries. But, after a year of wedded life, 

 the hole is by some luckless chance uncovered, and 

 the unfaithful wife disappears, never to be seen 

 again. 



Every country adds its quota of dispraise. The 

 story of the nightmare cat appears with variations 

 in the folk-lore of Germany, Austria, and France. 

 Italy tells the fable of the cock who wants to be 

 Pope. His friend, the cat, offers to accompany the 

 foolish bird to Rome, and eats him up comfortably 

 on the first day's journey. In a Bavarian tale, the 

 cat marries the mouse, and sups, without a shadow 

 of remorse, on her small bridegroom. Now and 

 then the picture is brightened by some unexpected 

 touch of fidelity or gratitude, as in the Afanassicff, 

 where a peasant girl gives the witch's cat a piece of 

 ham, and is helped by him generously in return. 

 There is also a grisly Tuscan legend of a servant 

 maid who unwittingly disturbs the procession of 

 ghosts, on the terrible " Night of the Dead." When 

 the phantoms have swept noiselessly past, she finds, 

 to her horror, that she has a human hand in her 

 basket. By the advice of a wise woman, she keeps 

 this hand a year, and on the following Feast of All 

 Souls she ventures once again to stand in the road 



