Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/229

 Rh achieves these adventures, saves his life from the envious minister, and recovers his own pristine form as a prince who had been bewitched.

In both these tales the marvellous animal, or the princess, is given by the giants to the hero as the reward of service, just as in Wenzig's Sclavonic story the monster-magician pays the hero with the dove-maiden. More usually however he steals them, an incident of which we see either a germ or a recollection in the pursuit by the seven giants in the former of the two Icelandic tales. I find the type of one of the groups of stories we are now discussing in a Greek tradition given by Von Hahn, entitled The Teacher and his Scholar. A disguised demon promises children to a childless king on condition of his repaying him with the eldest. The demon gives him an apple, of which the king eats one half and the queen the other. The latter bears three sons. The king tries to foil the demon by building a tower of glass in which he keeps his children; but one day they escape, and the hero is pounced upon by the demon and carried down to his underground palace. This palace contains forty rooms, of which the ogre hands the hero the keys of thirty-nine. He also gives him a book to learn from. The hero gets possession of the fortieth key and opens the Forbidden Chamber. There he finds a fair maiden hanging by her hair, and takes her down. She instructs him to feign inability to learn his lesson when his master next gives him the book; and, lest the demon should find them out, she directs the hero to restore her to her uncomfortable situation and replace the key. He follows her advice; and the demon, like any other master not under wholesome awe of a schoolboard, beats him for his stupidity. The heroine next counsels him to learn the whole book as fast as he can, always however feigning inability, and bids him when he has finished his task to come and fetch her. He complies, and in accordance with the directions in the book he takes certain magical articles, aikd, ungallantly changing the heroine into a mare, rides off on her. The ogre pursues, but is impeded by the stolen goods, which are thrown