Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/519

Rh from Transylvania. He calls it the central point of all the stories of the fox and the wolf.

From Scbweig, in the province of Treves. There is the same saga in an old German poem (Reinhart Fuchs, 363), in Nicolaus von Strasburg (Franz Pfeifler's German Mystics, p. 293) ; also in Hans Sachs (2, 4, 177, Kempten). A Latin story from a manuscript of the 15th century is communicated by W. Wackernagel in Hofmann's Monatsschrift von und für Schlesien, 1829, pp. 471, 472. A sack filled with wisdom occurs hereafter, in No. 175; and in a Negro story, Kölle (No. 9), there is a sack in which reason is lying shut up.

From Zwehrn. Another story, likewise from Hesse, begins differently. The King intends to invite the first person whom he meets, to be godfather. He meets a poor man, who at first refuses to go with him, but follows at last, promises the child the fulfilment of all his wishes as soon as he is eighteen years old, and then disappears. A dwarf conceals himself beneath the table during the christening, and hears everything. He steals the child, accuses the Queen, whom the King causes to be walled up, and goes away with it to a rich merchant, whose daughter he marries. When the prince is eighteen years old, the dwarf is afraid, and wants to persuade his wife to kill him. The remainder of the story agrees with ours, only the dwarf's wife appears no more, and the transformation into a pink is of course also wanting. In a third story from Hesse, there is the following divergence; the christening takes place in a church, the godfather has stood out against any one else being present, but the wicked gardener has stolen in, hears what gift has been promised to the child, and steals it. He sends the child to a forester, under whose care it grows up. The woodman's daughter becomes the youth's sweetheart, whom he takes in the form of a pink, together with the transformed poodle, to the King's court, where he serves as huntsman. He puts the pink in a glass full of water in his window, and when he is alone, he restores her to her human form again. His comrades observe something, and persuade the King to ask for the pink, whereupon the huntsman reveals that he is his son, and everything comes to light. A saying in use among the people seems appropriate here,

The song in the Wunderhorn (2. 11, 12), should be compared,