Page:The Grateful Dead.djvu/158

142 The fox, as in the ordinary form of The Thankful Beasts, helps the hero because of a benefit received; the shepherd bestows magical gifts, as in a common type of The Water of Life, because of the hero's kindness; while the dead debtor remains inactive after the burial, and plays no further part in the narrative.

As for The Water of Life, there are fewer complications in this group than in that where the thankful beast does not appear. In all of the variants some of the fundamental traits of the theme remain intact. In all save Walewein and Brazilian (which is a degenerate form presumably carried across the sea by Spaniards or Portuguese) the three brothers set out from home in quite the normal way. Walewein again lacks the water of life, which Brazilian retains. All the other versions, save Tuscan, keep this water or replace it by some other restorative agency. Two variants only fail to make the older brothers act treacherously towards the hero, these being again Walewein and Brazilian. The former thus lacks three of the essentials of the theme, the latter two. Yet since Walewein makes the hero win his princess by going on from adventure to adventure quite in the normal manner, and since Brazilian makes him obtain both water of life and princess, though with loss of interesting details, we are surely justified in placing both in this category.

It is worth our while to note in this connection that all these nine variants come from southern Europe, directly or by derivation. Geographical proximity, though not sufficient in itself as a basis of classification, adds welcome confirmation to other proof in cases like this, where a small group of highly complicated tales is found to exist in neighbouring countries only. That