---
title: XLVII. My Own Self — More English Fairy Tales · full text with trees
description: XLVII. My Own Self, «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: _Source.
---

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# XLVII. My Own Self

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XLVII. My Own Self of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs: the whole text, 16 sentences and 270 words. Every sentence has its own page with its syntax tree and pragmatics, parsed by Mova itself.

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- [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/38/1/) — \_Source.
- [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/38/2/) — \_--Told to Mrs. Balfour by Mrs. W., a native of North Sunderland, who had seen the cottage and heard the tale from persons who had known the widow and her boy, and had got the story direct from them.
- [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/38/3/) — The title was "Me A'an Sel'," which I have altered to "My Own Self."
- [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/38/4/) — \_Parallels.
- [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/38/5/) — \_--Notwithstanding Mrs. Balfour's informant, the same tale is widely spread in the North Country.
- [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/38/6/) — Hugh Miller relates it, in his \_Scenes from my Childhood\_, as "Ainsel"; it is given in Mr. Hartland's \_English Folk and Fairy Tales\_; Mr. F.B.
- [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/38/7/) — Jevons has heard it in the neighbourhood of Durham; while a further version appeared in \_Monthly Chronicle of North Country Folk-Lore\_.
- [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/38/8/) — Further parallels abroad are enumerated by Mr. Clouston in his \_Book of Noodles\_, pp.
- [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/38/9/) — 184-5, and by the late Prof.
- [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/38/10/) — Köhler in \_Orient und Occident\_, ii., 331.
- [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/38/11/) — The expedient by which Ulysses outwits Polyphemus in the Odyssey by calling himself \[Greek: outis\] is clearly of the same order.
- [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/38/12/) — \_Remarks.
- [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/38/13/) — \_--The parallel with the Odyssey suggests the possibility that this is the ultimate source of the legend, as other parts of the epic have been adapted to local requirements in Great Britain, as in the "Blinded Giant" (No. lxi.), or "Conall Yellowclaw" (\_Celtic Fairy Tales\_, No. v.).
- [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/38/14/) — The fact of Continental parallels disposes of the possibility of its being a merely local legend.
- [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/38/15/) — The fairies might appear to be in a somewhat novel guise here as something to be afraid of.
- [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/38/16/) — But this is the usual attitude of the folk towards the "Good People," as indeed their euphemistic name really implies.

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