Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/517

Rh the spirit of one story. The leader is Rock-splitter (Tranchemont), under whom Drink-all (Pretaboire), Sharp-eye (Percevue), Straight-on (Droitaubut), Air-cleaver (Fendl'air), Strong-back (Bondos), Cloud-grasper (Grippe-nuage), and the Blower (Grossitout), seven in all, practise the arts which their names denote. The fact that they are conquered in spite of these, and that the magician from whom they have received this supernatural strength is annihilated, appears to be a later and intentional alteration for the sake of the moral application.

The story of the Six Servants (No. 134) belongs also to this place. In Colshorn, see Peter Bär, No. 105, and No. 8 and 31, in Meier. In Müllenhoff, Rinroth, p. 453. In Wolf's Deutsche Sagen, No. 25. Münchhausen has used this comic saga in his unveracious Travels (London, i.e. Göttingen, 1788, p. 84, and following), but has on the whole told it ill. Thor and his servant Thialfi should also be named here, as well as the enormous dinner of the giant, in the Altdänische Lieder, when the bride devours whole oxen, and drinks out of hogsheads. In Norwegian, see Asbjörnsen, No. 24. In the Pentamerone, The Simpleton, (5, 8) is allied; and the story of the Flea (1. 5) should be compared. In D'Aulnoy it is called Belle-Belle ou le Chevalier Fortuné, and translated into English form, has come into the Tabart Collection.

From Paderborn. There is another story from Bavaria. The wolf boasts to the fox that there is nothing in the world that he is afraid of, and that he will devour a horseman, and his horse as well. The fox in order to humble the wolf, whom he secretly fears, will not believe this until he sees it with his own eyes. They conceal themselves in the forest by the roadside. Two small weak men seem to the fox to be too insignificant for the trial, but at last a hussar, with a powerful sabre by his side, comes thither. "That is the right one," says the fox, "thou must set on him." The wolf, to keep his word, springs out and seizes the rider, but he draws his sword out of the scabbard, strikes promptly, and mangles the wolf so terribly that he has great difficulty in returning to the fox, " Well," says the fox, "how did the horseman taste?" "Alas!" replies the wolf in a feeble voice, "I should certainly have devoured him, if he had not had a white tongue behind him, which he pulled out and licked me with so terribly, that I never got to the eating." In an old German 13th century poem (Keller's Erzáhlungen, No 528), a young lion appears. He asks his father if he has ever seen an animal stronger than they. "Yes," answers the old lion, "and man is that animal." A boy comes thither, and the old lion says, "He will be a man." Then a grey-beard comes, and the old one says, "He, too, was once a