Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/424

 342 the world, the wicked mother-in-law takes it and throws it into the water, sprinkles the sick Queen with blood, and gives out that she has devoured her own child. Thus it happens twice more, and then the innocent Queen, who cannot defend herself, is to be burnt. She is already standing in the fire when the black carriage comes; the maiden steps out of it, and goes through the flames, which instantly sink down and are extinguished; reaches the Queen, smites her on the mouth, and thus restores her speech; the other three maidens bring the three children whom they have rescued from the water, the treachery comes to light, and the wicked stepmother is put into a barrel filled with snakes and poisonous adders, and rolled down a hill.

Allied to this are the Poor Man's Daughter, in Meier, No. 36, a Norwegian story in Asbjörnsen, No. 8, and Graamantel, a Swedish one (see further on). The legend of St. Ottilia has some resemblance to it, as told by Frau Naubert in her Volksmärchen, (Part I.) In the Pentamerone (1. 8) a goat's face is given as a punishment.

In Wendish compare The Virgin Mary as Godmother, Haupt and Schmaler, No. 16, p. 179; in Wallachian, The Walled-up Mother, of Schott, No. 2. The root-idea of many doors which may be opened and one which may not, often re-appears and with various introductions, as in Fitcher's Vogel (No. 46). As regards each apostle being placed in a shining dwelling, compare the Hymn in praise of St. Anno, verse 720, where it is said that the bishops were sitting together in heaven like stars. It is an old incident that maidens who are robbed of their clothes should cover themselves with their long hair. It is related of St. Agnes in the ''Bibl. maxima 27, 82b; of St. Magdalen, by Petrarch, in Latin verse, and there is a picture of the latter in the Magasin pittoresque'', 1. 21. In an old Spanish romance a King's daughter sits in an oak, and her long hair covers the whole tree. (Diez's Ancient Spanish Romances, 177. Geibel's Volkslieder und Romanzen der Spanier, pp. 151, 152).

This story is generally told in other places with new, or differently arranged, trials of courage, and is allied to the sagas Brother Lustig and Spielhansl, Nos. 81, 82. Parzival goes in an enchanted bed through the castle, 566, 567, in the same way as the youth who had no fear. The root of this is a Mecklenburgh story. The game of skittles played with dead men's bones, is inserted from a story from the district of Schwalm, in Hesse. In another from