Page:A Study of Fairy Tales.djvu/255

Rh more barbarous and gruesome elements unsuited to the child of to-day. Of the two forms, the Grimm tale seems the superior tale, however, and if rewritten in a literary form suited to the child, might become even preferable.

Sleeping Beauty, which is another romantic tale that might claim to be the most popular fairy tale, has for its theme the long sleep of winter and the awakening of spring. The Earth goddess, pricked by winter's dart, falls into a deep sleep from which she is awakened by the Sun who searches far for her. This tale is similar to the Norse Balder and the Greek Persephone. Some of its incidents appear also in The Two Brothers, an Egyptian tale of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Seti II, in which the Hathors who pronounce the fate of the Prince correspond to the wicked old Fairy. The spindle whose prick caused slumber is the arrow that wounded Achilles, the thorn which pricked Siegfried, the mistletoe which wounded Balder, and the poisoned nail of the demon in Surya Bai. In the northern form of the story we find the ivy, which is the one plant that can endure winter's touch. The theme of the long sleep occurs in the mediæval legend of The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, in the English The King of England and His Three Sons, poetically as Tennyson has given it in his Day-Dream, and in the Story of Brunhilde in Siegfried. Here a hedge of flames encircles Brunhilde who is awakened at the touch of Siegfried's magic sword, just as Sleeping Beauty is awakened by the