Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/512

430 people she begs them to take her away with them. "Yes," they say; "get into the wood-cart there, hairy animal." They drive to the King's court, and she serves in the kitchen. As she has made some very good soup, the King sends for her, and says, "Thou art indeed a pretty child; come and seat thyself on my chair." Then he lays his head on her lap, and says, "Comb my hair a little." She does it, and henceforth has to do it every noon. One day while she is doing it he sees her shining star-dress glittering through the sleeve of her mantle, and tears it off; there she stands as the most beautiful princess in the world. According to a third story, from the neighbourhood of Paderborn, Allerleirauh pretends to be dumb. The King one day strikes her with the whip, and the fur-mantle is torn, and the gold dress shines through it. The King makes the rent larger, and she is discovered. The punishment of the father, too, follows in both stories. He himself has to pronounce the sentence that he does not deserve to be King any longer. A fourth story begins differently. Allerleirauh is driven away by a step-mother because a foreign prince has given a betrothal ring to her and not to the step-mother's daughter. Afterwards Allerleirauh arrives at the court of her lover, does menial work, and cleans his shoes, but is discovered, as she lays the betrothal ring among the white bread, as in another saga it is put in the strong broth. (Musäus, 2, 188.) When the King will marry no girl whose hair is not like that of the dead Queen, we are reminded of an incident in the Färöische Sage, where the bereaved King will marry no one whom the dead Queen's clothes do not fit. Sagabibliothek, 2, 481. There is a very flat version of the story in one from the Zillerthal, Zingerle, p. 231. Compare No. 48 in Meier, and No. 10 in Pröhle's Märchen für die Jugend. The story has some affinity to that of Aschenputtel, and Perrault's Peau d'Ane belongs to this group; so does the story of Doralice in Straparola (1. 4), especially the beginning of it. In the Pentamerone see The She-bear (2. 6). In Wallachian, The Emperor's Daughter in the Pig-stye, No 3 in Schott.

From Buckow, in the neighbourhood of Mecklenburg. It has some affinity with Fitcher's Bird (No. 46). The enumeration of the people at the wedding is taken from another version of the story, and recalls the Wendish comical song of The Merry Wedding, (Herder's Stimmen der Völker, p. 139).

From Hesse. The incident of the first betrothed being forgotten is repeated in many stories (Dearest Roland, The Singing,