"See, I pray thee,"
quoth he, "yonder is Great John, the smith, who has four sons; if a man
should ask thee who was their father, wouldst thou not say it was Great
John, the smith?" "Yes," said the brilliant youth; "now I understand
it." Thereupon he went again before the bishop, and being asked a second
time, "Who was the father of the Four Sons of Aymon?" he promptly
replied: "Great John, the smith."[150]
[149] One of the Charlemagne Romances, translated by Caxton
from the French, and printed by him about the year 1489,
under the title of _The Right Pleasaunt and Goodly
Historie of the Four Sonnes of Aymon_. It has been
reprinted for the Early English Text Society, ably
edited by Miss Octavia Richardson.
[150] A slightly different version is found in _A Hundred Mery
Talys_, No. lxix, "Of the franklyns sonne that cam to
take orders." The bishop says that Noah had three sons,
Shem, Ham, and Japheth;--who was the father of Japheth?
When the "scholar" returns home and tells his father how
he had been puzzled by the bishop, he endeavours to
enlighten his son thus: "Here is Colle, my dog, that
hath three whelps; must not these three whelps have
Colle for their sire?" Going back to the bishop, he
informs his lordship that the father of Japheth was
"Colle, my father's dogge.
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