[Contents]
106. The Magic Hat and the Staff of Life. [Story]
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. [282]