Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/499

Rh turn, and during the decisive night he guarded himself against sleep, and saw a white pigeon fly thither which picked off one pear after the other and flew away with it. As it was flying away with the last, Dummling followed, and the pigeon flew into a cleft in the rocks in a high mountain. Dummling looked round and saw a little grey man standing by him, to whom he said, "God bless thee!" The little man replied, "God has blessed me already, for by thy words I am delivered." Then he told Dummling to descend into the cleft, and he would find fortune. He descended and saw the white pigeon caught in a spider's web. As soon as she perceived him, she tore herself loose, and when the last thread was rent asunder, a beautiful maiden stood before him, who was a princess, whom he had likewise set free. Thereupon they married each other.

[Another variant is to be found in Rae's White Sea Peninsula. See the story of Kuobbá the Giant, and the Devil.—]

From three slightly differing stories, the most perfect of which is from Zwehrn, and forms the groundwork of this. The second, likewise from Hesse, has a different beginning. A hind had given birth to a young deer, and asked the fox to stand godfather. The fox invited the sparrow as well, and the latter wished to invite the house-dog, who was his especially dear friend. The dog however had been tied up with a rope by his master, because once after a wedding he had come back to the house drunk. So now the sparrow pecked out one thread of the rope after another, until the dog was released; but at the christening-feast he again forgot himself, was overcome by wine, reeled home, and remained lying in the street. And now came the waggoner, who scoffed at the sparrow's warning, drove over the dog, and killed him. The third story, which is from Göttingen, has no introduction at all. It only says that a bird and a dog go out together, and on the great highway come to a deep rut which the dog cannot get over as the bird does, and, as just then a waggoner with some casks of wine comes driving up, the bird entreats him to help the dog over; he, however, does not trouble himself about it, but drives over the poor beast and kills him. Then the bird avenges him. The end of our story is taken from the second Hessian one. An ancient German poem which is allied to this story is given in Reinhart Fuchs, p. 290, but is derived from the French Renart—compare cxciii. An Esthonian animal story which is also given in Reinhart Fuchs, cclxxxiv., is related to our story.

At the basis of this lies a story from Zwehrn, but the incidents of Catharine compassionately using the butter lor the road, and letting