Page:Grimm's household tales, volume 2 (1884).djvu/469

Rh part of Frau Holle only wanted to try the goodness of the girls' heart.

From Wickram's Rollwagen (1590), folio, 30b-31. It is rather different in the Zeitvertreiber (1668), p. 415, 416. It is a humourous popular jest like the story of the Wise Servant (No. 162).

From a story picked up by Pastor Musäus, which is printed in the Schriften des Meklenburger Vereins, and also from another heard by K. Gödeke in Lachendorf. The story is widely distributed and frequently told; see Büchlein für die Jugend (1834), p. 242-248. It is related by Halling, in Mone's Anzeiger, 1835, p. 313; by Firminich in the patois of the Principality of Calenberg, 1. 186; by Pröhle, in the Kindermärchen, No. 64; by Woeste, in the Volksüberlieferungen aus der Grafschaft Mark, p. 93. See also Kuhn's Sagen und Märchen, p. 293, 294. Compare the beginning of this story with the Neue preussische Provinzialblätter, 1. 436, and following. It is proved in Wolf's Zeitschrift, 1. 2, that the story appeared as early as in the second half of the thirteenth century in Barachja Nikdani. But its antiquity is much greater, as is shown by a passage in Pliny, 10, 74, which has been pointed out by Massmann (Jahrbücher der Berliner Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache, 9, 67), "dissident aquila et trochilus, si credimus, quoniam rex appellatur avium;" and in Aristotle we find. Here by his cunning the smallest bird gains the mastery over the eagle, just as dwarfs and crafty little tailors triumph over strong giants. In a negro story (Kölle, p. 168) a bird is victorious in a contest with an elephant.

Like the preceding story, but with a change to the realm of fishes.

Also from Musäus.

From Kirchhof's Wendunmut, p. 161-163, with which the story Courage, 2. 217, in Simplicissimus, should be compared. It is a good piece of fun of the Lalenbürger kind.

From Kirchhof's Wendunmut, p. 176. As however it is derived from Bidpai (Ph. Wolf's translation, 1. 5), the story of The Moon