Fortunatus (book)

The plot of the novel also appears in variants from oral tradition across Europe, Asia, Americas and Africa, which are classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 566, "The Three Magic Objects and the Wonderful Fruits".

The stories of Jonathas and the three jewels in the Gesta Romanorum, of the emperor Frederick and the three precious stones in the Cento Novelle antiche, of the Mazin of Khorassan in the Thousand and One Nights, and the flying scaffold in the Bahar Danush, have all a certain similarity.

His Augsburg chronicle covers the years 1368-1468 and comprises four books, of which the third, an autobiography, is considered the best, and he is praised for giving "Einblicke von seltener Eindringlichkeit in die Lebensrealität des SpätMA" ("outstandingly penetrating insights into the reality of life in the late Middle Ages");[5] The most plausible suggestion to date is that Johannes Heybler – the publisher – was himself the author.

[29] Professor Michael Meraklis noted that the usual objects in Greek variants are a hat that grants invisibility, a rifle that shoots in any direction, a sheet that makes the user fly and a tobacco pipe that summons a servant.

[32] On the other hand, French scholar Claude Bremond put forth a theory that tale types 566 "Fortunatus", 567 "The Magic Bird-Heart" and 938 "Placidus"/"Eustacius" are related and derive from a single source, possibly Indian.

[48] Johannes Bolte and Jiří Polívka list as early literary parallels an Italian story from the 16th century (Historia di tre giovani e di tre fate) and a French literary story from Le Cabinet des Fées with an oriental flair (French: Histoire du Prince Tangut et de la princesse au pied de nez; English: "The History of Prince Tangut and the princess with a nose a foot long").

[49][50] Another literary predecessor pointed by both scholars is Die Prinzessin mit der langen Nase, penned by Friedrich Hildebrand von Einsiedel, whose work was published in the collection Dschinnistan (1789), by Christoph Martin Wieland.

The girl takes the opportunity to caress his hair and stick a bioran suan (a sleeping pin) on his head, sits on the chair and wishes her away, abandoning Cormac on the island.

Instead, it found its place in the third volume of their Kinder- und Hausmärchen (1856 publication), which contained their annotations on the tales:[68] three soldiers stand guard in a forest at night and receive the items from a short old man.

[82] In an Austrian variant, collected by the Zingerle Brothers in Zillertal (Vom reichen Ritter und seinen Söhnen), the father, a famous and beloved local lord, dies and his sons discover the secret of their fortune (the three magical objects: a pipe, a green hat and a ring).

[86] A recent study attested the presence of popular trickster hero Anansi, of West African folklore, in a ATU 566 tale collected from Creole inhabitants of the Netherlands.

[87] In a tale collected from Wallonia, L'arbre a cornes, ou Le cuisinier sans paireil, three brothers stay the night at a haunted inn and each of them receives a gift: a cloak, a tablecloth and the purse.

[88] In a Flemish variant, Van Siepe, Sappe en Sijpe, the titular soldiers return from war with the three magical objects: the inexhaustible purse, a teleporting cloak and a cane that can summon an army.

[109] An early version in Russian was recorded in "Старая погудка на новый лад" (1794-1795), with the name "Сказка об Иване-гостином сыне" ("The Tale of Ivan, the guest son"):[110] the story of two brothers, one eats the head of a magic bird and the other the heart.

Horns grow on their heads; Mykola disguises himself as a doctor and goes to court to cure the royal family; but reserves a special punishment for the princess until she return the three objects she stole.

[132] A variant from the Aromanian language, named Căciula, punga și trâmbița ("The Cap, the Purse and the Horn"), was collected and published in 1967, in a series of Romanian storybooks titled Povești nemuritoare.

[145] Thomas Frederick Crane published another version, The Shepherd Who Made the King's Daughter Laugh,[146] which he translated from Laura Gonzenbach's book of Italian folktales (compiled originally in German).

[154] Heinrich Zschalig collected a tale from Capri (Pfeife, Geldbeutel und Feder), where the magic objects (pipe, purse and feather) are inherited by three brothers and it is the king who steals the items.

He journeys alone and meets three giants-emegen quarreling about their inheritance, three magical objects: a wagon that takes the user where he wishes to go, a cap of invisibility, and a "sakis", a type of chewing gum that, when spat out, produces gold.

[200] Professor Stanley Robe collected, in 1947, a variant named La fruta extranjera (English: "The foreign fruit") from a 24-year-old housewife from Tepatitlán de Morelos, Jalisco who provided many tales, later published in 1970.

[201] British traveller Rachel Harriette Busk registered a version from Matanzas, in Cuba, about a family man named Perrico, who is given the purse, a tablecloth and a stick from a sprite (a goblin).

[202] In a variant collected in Costa Rica with the name Prince Simpleheart, the magical objects are an invisibility cloak, the money knapsack and a violin that forces people to dance.

[203][204] Anthropologist Elsie Clews Parsons recorded a tale from Saint Lucia titled Petit fille mangé pomme la, y tou'né yun choval (English: "The young woman ate a fruit and became a horse").

[209] Reverend James Hinton Knowles collected a variant from Kashmir titled Saiyid and Said: two poor brothers eat the head and breast of a golden bird and gain special abilities.

[212] Writer Adeline Rittershaus pointed to the existence of an "Hindustani" version published in the 1865 edition of Revue orientale et americaine:[213] L'Inexorable Courtisane et Les Talismans, whose translation was provided by Garcin de Tassy.

In his new system, he noted other magical items (e.g., hoe that produces silver from the ground, a cloak that helps cross water safely), and there are other types of fruits that cause the transformation.

[217] Missionary Adele M. Fielde transcribed a Chinese tale from Guangdong (The Three Talismans) where a poor man goes to an island and is gifted a cap of invisibility, a cloak of transportation and a basket that replenishes itself with jewels, and the horn-growing fruits are bananas.

[224] A variant from Egypt (Histoire du musicien ambulant et de son fils) was collected by Guillaume Spitta-Bey in the 19th century[225] and classified by scholar Hasan M. El-Shamy as belonging to the ATU 566 tale-type.

[226] Professor Hasan El-Shamy also states the tale type is distributed throughout Egypt, such as in a New Valley variant where the objects are a magic carpet, a tray and a stone, and the fruits, in two versions, are dates and carrots.

[227] Anthropologist Elsie Clews Parsons collected an untitled variant from the Cape Verde Islands that she dubbed Horns from Figs, where the soldier uses the magical objects to kill the princess and the royal family and make himself king of the realm.