Page:Grimm's household tales, volume 2 (1884).djvu/403

 as his apprentice, and when one of the princesses orders her wedding-dress to take her her own and then she will recognize him. This he does, and each princess asks for a dress made like that in which she had been stolen. The apprentice promises to supply them, but makes merry with his master, and when at night the latter at length begins to set about the work, tells him he is just to go quietly to bed, and he will get the dress ready during the night. The two elder observe nothing, but the third recognizes her dress, summons the apprentice, hears he is her deliverer, and marries him.

A fourth story with a similar dénouement, but which in other respects coincides with that from Paderborn, only it is told more connectedly, comes from Steinau in Hanau. The little grey man does not submit to the third prince until he has wedged him in between two oak-boughs. Then he discloses to the prince the abode of the princesses who are kept in captivity in a cave by three giants. He is let down, and the attention of two lions is taken off by some meat which is thrown to them. He finds the eldest princess, who however first tries his strength by giving him an iron staff to pick up. The giant approaches; she conceals the prince beneath her bed, makes the giant drunk with sweet wine so that he falls asleep, and then makes a sign to the concealed prince, who with one blow of the iron staff strikes off the giant's head. The other giants are killed in the same way, and the three maidens set free. They take off their silken upper garments and present them to him, and also the gold rings from their fingers. Afterwards, when he is shut up down below, a dwarf comes who has a large scratch on his back; he is the little grey man whom the prince has wedged in between two oak-boughs. He shows the prince a chasm where a deep stream flows; the latter seats himself in a small boat and once more returns to daylight. He becomes apprentice to a tailor, and when the princesses want dresses, he sends them the silken upper garments which they had given him. Then he goes to a goldsmith's, and when they ask for rings, he sends the golden rings which he had received from them in the cave. They recognize these, and everything comes to light. The two wicked brothers are sewn in a sack full of snakes, and thrown into the abyss. Strong Hans (No. 166), is allied to this. A Swedish story (see further on) agrees entirely with the German one. In Hungarian, see Gaal, No. 5.

In our story there is an evident connection with the deliverance of Kriemhild from the Drachenstein. There, as in the Cologne story, she disappears after a festival, doubtless as the spoil of the dragon. The two sisters are amplifications of the one mythical figure, just as of the three who set out to deliver her, the youngest alone is the only real one. The elf is Euglin and Alberich, whom the hero likewise wins over to himself by force (in the Cologne