Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/326

 2,02 mVoIcs oil Orcndel and other Stories.

and the winnintr of the unknown princess — Olwen, Gerd, Menglad — cannot be separated from the more popular stories. It is another case of the " Far-travelled Tale " as stated by Mr. Lang; it is a variety of the story of Jason. The expeditions of Cuchulainn, Kulhwch and Svipdag, must be considered along with The King's Son of Ireland and The daughter of the White-bearded Scolog, and all the other ma re hen of that sort.

Bidding farewell to Orendel for the present, w'e may look at the three stories referred to by Grundtvig in his note on Svipdag. They bring out in a striking way the difficulties of solar myth where the mythological version has relations with popular fairy-tales. The three stories are those of Svipdag himself, of Kulhwch and of Hjalmter.

The story of Svipdag as given in the Icelandic poems Grogaldr and Fjolsvinnsmdl has the following incidents : —

1. The hero is sent under a curse or a spell, by his step- mother apparently, though this is not quite clear, to look for Menglad.

2. He goes to his mother's grave, awakes her from the dead, and gets her blessing on his journey. So far Grogaldr.

3. In the second poem, he has come to Menglad's castle, where he encounters a giant warder, and has a long match at riddles with him before he is recognised as the man of destiny, and is welcomed by Menglad as her deliverer and lord.

In the Danish ballad. Child Svendal, or Sveidal, is sent out by his step-mother to find and wdn the maiden he has never seen. He goes to his mother's grave, and she gives him a horse that rides over sea and land, a magic table- cloth and drinking-horn, a glaive of light, a ship that will run down anything that comes in the way, and a purse that is always full. He comes to the unknown shore, and finds a shepherd there, w^ho tells him that Svendal is to win the prin- cess. Her castle is of marble stone, the gate is of red gold.