Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/342

 334 of the narrative to the type in the jealousy of the wicked sisters. Generally the meaning of the dream is clear, and in Western Europe, at least, there is no attempt to veil or symbolize it. The conduct of the brothers or sisters is ordinarily indifferent, and they then retire into the background of the story. Occasionally they are actively hostile to the hero; but sometimes, as in Water and Salt, they contrive his escape. Both these attitudes are illustrated in the story of Joseph by the vacillating counsels of the ten elder sons, who, moreover, themselves represent the executioners. This is in accord with the simple pastoral scenes of the early part of the narrative. It would be an interesting enquiry, were this the place for it, how far such stories as these have influenced the relations of analogous bands of brothers in other tales. The treachery of the two elder brothers in Queen Marmot, a Tuscan story collected by Signer Nerucci, is suggestive of the sufferings of the Hebrew youth; and this is only one of many similar traditions.

The Emperor's Son-in-law departs more widely from the type than any other I have mentioned. The absence of the brothers is one difference which brings it nearer to the type we shall next consider, though it is as if to balance this absence that we are treated to the final episode of the challenge by the viziers' sons, the former pretenders as we are apparently to understand, to the heroine's hand. Its polygamous indications are not unnatural in folk-lore which concerns viziers and pashas.

IV.

The next type need not detain us very long. In it the hero's brothers and sisters have disappeared, and his own adventures have but little variety in the different versions with which we are about to deal. I propose to take as the standard the story incorporated in The Seven Sages and known as The Ravens, which runs to the following