Page:Grimm's household tales, volume 2 (1884).djvu/453

Rh my pig Schmortopf, my goat Klipperbein, my cow Gutemuh, my house Guckheraus (peep out of it), my husband Kegelbahn, my child Goldenring, my maid Hatergsagt, my man Haberecht, my cock Wettermann, my flea Hüpfinsstroh (hop in the straw). Jung Stilling only quotes one line (Jugendleben, 1, 62), "Gerberli hiess mein Hüneli;" and a Dutch popular song begins, "Koekeloery heet myn haan, prys heet myn hennetjen." Compare also Schottky's Oestreichische Lieder, p. 40. When Tannhaüser (MS. 2, 67) calls his people Zadel (Blame?), Zweifel (Doubt), Schade (Injury), and Unbereit (Unready), it marks the transition of the epic names into conscious allegory, as, for instance, in the saying, "Much borrowing had a step-mother called Sell-what-thou-hast, who brought forth a daughter called Give-it-cheap; this same daughter had a brother called Out-of-doors." The well-known saying, "Sparebread (father) is dead; Schmalhans (a half-starved creature) is head of the kitchen," is intermediary. There are many instances of single names, such as that of Zeitvertreib or Leidvertreib, for the wife, occurring in old works, viz. in Morolf, 159, 1145. The "Ruprecht mein Knecht" of the Wartburger Krieg, also belongs to this group. Compare the names which occur in Fair Katrinelje (No. 131).

From the principality of Lippe. The end is imperfect, and it only dimly appears that the step-mother believes that she has eaten the little lamb, and orders the cook to cook the fish also. But when the fish begins to talk and to bemoan its lot, the cook does not kill it, but takes it to the lamb, and again deceives the step-mother, whose wickedness comes to the father's ears, and she is punished. Compare The White Bride and the Black One (No. 135), and the notes to it. The counting out, in the beginning, occurs also in the ballad Gräfin Orlamünde, in the Wunderhorn.

It is remarkable that this story, which is told in the province of Münster, is told also in the Hartz, about the Dummburg (Otmar, pp. 235, 238) or Hochburg, and closely resembles the Eastern story, The Forty Thieves (1001 Nights, 6, 345), where even the rock Sesam, which falls open at the words Semsi and Semeli, recalls the name of the mountain in the German saga. This name for a mountain is, according to a document in Pistorius (3. 642), very ancient in Germany. A mountain in Grabfeld is called Similes, and in a Swiss song (Kuhn's Kühreihen, Berne, 1810, p. 20, and Spazier's Wanderungen, Gotha, 1790, pp. 340, 341) a Simeliberg is