Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/435

Rh also a story in Le Foyer Breton, of Souvestre, pp. 3, 4, where a mother comes from her grave at night to take care of her children, which are neglected by their stepmother. Although again very different, La biche au bois, D'Aulnoy, No. 18, has some affinity to this.

Fr. Schulz tells this story in his Kleine Romanen (Leipzig, 1790), 5, 269-88, only too diffusely, though undoubtedly from oral tradition. It begins in the following manner: A witch has a young girl with her, to whom she entrusts all her keys, but forbids her to enter one room, When, however, impelled by curiosity, she does enter it, she sees the witch sitting in it with two great horns. The girl is now placed, as a punishment, in a high tower which has no door. When the witch brings her food, the girl has to let down from the window her hair, which is twenty yards in length, and by this, the witch ascends. In these stories it frequently occurs that the father, or more usually the mother, in order to gratify a momentary desire, pledges away her coming child. It is often asked for and given, in veiled or mysterious terms; for instance, the mother is to give what she carries beneath her girdle. In the old Norse Alfskongssage a similar incident is to be found, (chap. i). Othin grants Signy's wish that she may brew the best beer, in return for which she promises him what is between her and the beer-barrel, namely, the child which she is about to bear. Compare the Sagabibliothek of P. E. Müller, ii. 449. In the Danish Volkeslieder, for instance, that of the Wilder Nachtraben, there are promises of the same kind. Salebad, Firdusi (Schack, p. 191) mounts up by the braids of the maiden's hair which she lets down. In Büsching's Volkssagen, p. 287, a story begins with some incidents in common with ours. In the Pentamerone it is Petrosinella, ii. 1.

From two tales, both from Hesse, which complete each other. In the one from Zwehrn, the beginning with the boot being used as a test is wanting. The name of Haulemännerchen by which, in Lower Hesse, the little folks who dwell in caves in the forest (Waldhöhlen), and steal away people's unchristened children, are known; comes from Höhlen-Waldmännlein. In Denmark the common people call them by the very similar name Hyldemänd (Thorlacius, spec. 7. 161). The curse on the wicked daughter, that a toad shall spring out of her mouth with each word that she utters, appears in a third story, which we likewise heard in Hesse, and for that reason have inserted. There