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Hessian. The hand growing out of the grave is a widely-spread superstition, and not only concerns thieves, but also trespassers on consecrated trees (see Schiller's Tell, Act 3, Scene 3 ), and parricides (Wunderhorn, 1. 226). In Pauli's Schimpf und Ernst, there is another story of an arm that was stretched out of the grave (Danish edition, p. 218). When a flower or a written paper grows out of the grave from the mouth of a buried man, as a token of his guilt or innocence, it is but another form of the same idea.

It is also said and believed that the hand of any one who strikes his parents will grow out of the earth; thus the Fuchsthurm, on the Hausberg, near Jena, is the little finger of a giant who had beaten his mother.

From Zwehrn. It occurs in Zingerle, with a few variations, p. 82. The Gesta Romanorum (German edition 1489, chap. 37, Latin, chap. 76), contain a similar story. Two skilful physicians, in order to settle all disputes, wish to try their knowledge on each other; the one who is proved to be the worst is to be the other's apprentice. By means of a precious salve one of them takes out the other's eyes without pain or injury, puts them on the table, and replaces them with the same ease. The other wants to perform the same feat too, and extracts his rival's eyes by means of his salve, and puts them on the table. But just as he is preparing to put them in again, a raven comes through the open window, snatches up one eye and devours it. The operator is in great distress, for if he is not able to replace the eye, he will have to be the servant of the other physician. So he looks around, sees a goat, hastily takes one of her eyes, and gives it to his companion in the place of the one which is lost. When he asks his patient how he feels, the latter answers, that he had felt no pain or injury, but that one of his eyes was always looking up at the trees (as, in fact, goats do look at the foliage), and the other down below him.