Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/459

Rh little bone begins to sing, and gives an account of everything that has been done. A sixth is in Müllenhoff, No. 49.

The same saga occurs in an old Scotch ballad, a harper makes a harp of the breast-bone of the drowned sister, which begins to play of its own accord, and accuses the guilty sister (Scott's Minstrelsy, 2. 157–162). In the Faroese ballad on the same subject, we have the incident of the harp-strings being made of the murdered girl's hair; see Schwedische Volkslieder, by Geyer and Afzelius, 1. 86. In Polish, see Lewestam, p. 105. See also The Esthonian Tales of H. Neus, p. 56. In a Servian story in Wuk, No. 39, an elder-tube used as a flute reveals the mystery. The Bechuanas also, in South Africa, have a similar story.

From Zwehrn; another story from the Maine district agrees with it on the whole, but is much less complete; three feathers only are demanded by the phoenix-bird, as the Devil is called. A third, also from lower Hesse, contains a portion of the story, and introduces it in this manner. A certain princess sees a woodcutter at work under her window, and falls in love with him for his beauty. It is decreed that whosoever shall bring three golden hairs out of the Devil's head, shall be her husband. Many princes have already undertaken the enterprise unsuccessfully, and now the wood-cutter, in his love for her, ventures it. There is no difference in the method of working this out—there is a slight variation in the two first questions which are put, why a village-fountain had run dry, and why a fig-tree was no longer green. When he brings the answers he receives in recompense besides gold, two regiments of infantry, and with these he compels the aged King to keep his word. Different, but akin to it, is the Swiss story of the Vogel Greif, (No. 165). Büsching's Volksmärchen (No. 59) give us an oral tradition also, the conditions with respect to dissolving the enchantment are much increased, and the whole seems diffuse and amplified in the French style. See The Five Questions in Wolf's Hausmärchen, p. 184. Meier, Nos. 73-79. Prohle's Märchen für die Jugend, No. 8. Die Drachenfedern, Zingerle, p. 69. There is a beautiful Swedish story in the Popular Tales of Afzelius (2. 161-167); a Norwegian story in Asbjörnsen, No. 5; a Wendish in Haupt and Schmaler; a Hungarian, called The Brothers, in Mailáth, No. 8. Compare a Mongolian story, in Gesser Khan, p. 142, and following. Allied to the opening of the story is an old saga of the Emperor Henry III. (see Deutsche Sagen, 2, No. 480; see Gesta Romanorum, under No. 2). The last part, where the questions are put to the Devil, bears some resemblance to an Italian story in the Pentamerone (4. 3). A story in Saxo Grammaticus, in the eighth book, which belongs to this subject, is noteworthy. Thorkill arrives at Utgard, which