Page:Researches respecting the Book of Sindibad and Portuguese Folk-Tales.djvu/14

ii in the present collection, is that which treats of a supernatural spouse who is temporarily condemned to assume an unattractive appearance. For the sake of convenience it is often designated the Beauty and the Beast, or the Cupid and Psyche, group. To it belong five tales. No. 10, "The Maiden and the Beast," resembles that form of the story with which we are best acquainted, except in its termination; for in it the forgotten Beast dies, and soon afterwards the penitent Beauty does the same. No. 26, "The Prince who had the Head of a Horse," has remained more faithful to its leading idea, which is that of a transformation terminated by a wife's self-sacrificing pertinacity. The best-known form of the story is probably the Countess d'Aulnoy's "Prince Marcassin," an adaptation of one of Straparola's tales: one of the most interesting of its variants is the Calmuc legend of the Bird-husband, which forms the seventh of Jülg's Kalmükische Märchen. No. 20, "The Cabbage Stalk," resembles the Cupid and Psyche variant of the same theme, its supernatural hero being obliged to fly when he is looked at by candle-light at night, and three drops of grease fall upon him. Its main features bear a strong resemblance to those of the Sicilian "Re d'Amuri" (Pitre, No. 18), but it is also closely akin to such tales, current everywhere, as the Norse "King Valemon, the White Bear," and "East o' the Sun and