Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/522

440 flax, and gives them stones to eat instead of food. For the whole, compare J. Grimm's Irmenstrasse.

From Hesse. It varies a little in the Kinderlieder in the third vol. of the Wunderhornm p. 232–6. According to a Bavarian tale, the cock runs to the spring and says, "Ah, spring, do give me some water, that my hen may not be choked." The spring says "I'll give you no water until you so to the lime-tree and bring me a leaf." The lime-tree says, "I'll give you no leaf until you go to the bride and bring me a ribbon." The bride says, "I'll give you no ribbon until you go to the hog and bring me a bristle." The hog says, "I'll give you no bristle until you go to the miller and bring me some bran." The miller says, "I'll give you no bran until you go to the farmer and bring me a dumpling." Then the farmer gives him a dumpling, and he satisfies every one, but arrives too late with the water, and weeps himself to death on the grave. According to another story, when the little hen is going to be buried, all beasts who are friends with them—the lion, wolf, fox, &c.—get into the carriage. When it is time to drive off, the flea comes also and begs to be taken in, as he is small and light, and will not make the carriage heavy. But his weight is too much, and the carriage sinks in the mud. See stories from Swabia, in Meier, No. 71 and 80; and from Holstein, in Müllenhoff, No. 30; from Transylvania, in Haltrich, No. 44; Norwegian, in Asbjörnsen, p. 98. There is a Danish popular tale about the Cock Mountain and the Cock Marsh Antiquarian Annals, 1. 331.

Individual parts of this story are told as if they were separate tales, and the connection is almost always more or less weakened. Here we have followed a story which was taken down from the lips of an old woman in Vienna, by George Passy, and is the most complete and lifelike; but the following incident, which was wanting in it, has been supplied from a very similar but much less valuable story from Hesse, viz. that Brother Lustig, after he has eaten the heart, is tested by St. Peter by means of the water which rises as far as his mouth; which still does not bring him to the point of confession. In this latter, too, it is to be remarked that the soldier brings forward a foolish reason for the lamb's having no heart, namely, because it was a black lamb. The Arnim MS. Meister songs contain No. 232, a poem of the year 1550, which belongs to this group. A trooper comes to St. Peter, and they agree to divide with each other what they earn, the latter by preaching, the former by