Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/460

378 is described as like hell. There he snatches from Loki one of his long hairs which shines like fire. Here we may compare P. E. Müller upon Saxo Grammaticus (p. 141, and following), who accepts as a fact that this journey of Thorkill's was written after the introduction of Christianity. The superstition of the caul (pileus naturalis, in Lampridius) is also indigenous in Iceland; a spirit is said to dwell in it which accompanies the child its whole life through, on which account the caul is carefully preserved and concealed. In Belgium it is called the helmet (helm), and according to whether it is red, or pale and blackish in colour, they infer the child's future fortunes (Del Rio, disquisitt. magicae, 4. 2, 9, 7); compare Edda Saemundar 2, Note 653. The Devil's mother or grandmother is spoken of in the German Mythology. Here she is good-natured and helps the oppressed, as in the English story of Jack and the Beanstalk. The giant's daughters also seem kindly disposed to the stranger.

From Cassel. It approaches the form of the nursery song, Es schickt der Herr den Jokel aus, er soll den Hafer schneiden, &c. Compare No. 16 in Kuhn and Schwartz, and Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes.

From two stories current in Hesse which, on the whole, complete and agree with each other. The one from Zwehrn lacks the beginning, and only says that a father wanted to have his own daughter to wife, and as she refused, cut off her hands (and breasts), made her put on a white shirt, and drove her out into the world. The sequel of this story, however, which is told almost in the same way, surpasses the other in internal completeness, only in the former the incident of its being the Devil who changes the letters is retained, whereas here it is the old Queen who is from the very first ill-disposed towards her step-daughter, who does it. There are also the distinguishing features, that before the girl marries the King she keeps the fowls for a while in his courtyard, and that afterwards, when she is driven out with her child on her back into the wild forest, an old man bids her fold her maimed arms thrice round a tree, and while she is doing this, they (and her breasts also) will, by God's grace, grow again of their own accord. He also tells her that the house in which she is to live, will only be allowed to open to him who shall thrice beg for admission for God's sake,