Scott describes his copy of 'King Henry' as "edited from the Manuscript of Mrs. Brown, corrected by a recited fragment." This manuscript was William Tytler's, now lost. The story is a variety of that which is found in 'The Marriage of Sir Gawain' (No. 31), and has its parallel, as Scott observes, in an episode in the saga of Hrólfr Kraki. Every point of the Norse saga, except the stepmother's weird, is found in the Gaelic tale 'The Daughter of King Under-waves' (Campbell's Popular Tales of the West Highlands, No. 86, in, 403 f.). Campbell had a fragment of a Gaelic ballad upon this story (vol. xvn, p. 212, of his manuscript collection), 'Collun gun Cheann,' or 'The Headless Trunk,' twenty-two lines. In this case, as the title imports, a body without a head replaces the hideous, dirty, and unkempt draggle-tail who begs shelter of the Finn successively and obtains her boon only from Diarmaid (see Campbell's Gaelic Ballads, p. ix). On the whole matter see Dr. Maynadier's monograph on The Wife of Bath's Tale (p. 55, above).
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