Page:The folk-tales of the Magyars.djvu/396

 320 Märchensaal alter Völker, "Die gläserne Hacke"; "Kojata"; "Der Orangenbaum und die Biene."

Polnische Volksagen und Märchen, by Woycicki, translated by Levestam, "Die Flucht."

Hyltén-Cavallius och Steffens. Svenska Folksagor. "Hafs-Firum."

Samlade Smärre Berättelser, af C. F. Ridderstad, Linköping, 1849. "Agnete lille Dei."

Winter, Danske Folkeventyr: "Prindsen och Havmanden."

The reader need not be surprised to hear that the simple Magyar peasant uses classical names like Pluto, Furuzsina (Euphrosiné); for until 1848 Latin was the official language, and many of the scientific works were written in it, and so a great many words found their way into the vulgar tongue, such as: penna, calamus, bugyelláris (pugillares), jus, &c.

Page 32. The chase after the fugitives is a well-known folk-tale incident. See several instances in this collection. Generally the pursuer is stopped by something thrown down by the pursued. See "The Little Magic Pony," p. 160, and notes infra.

In other stories such as the present and "The King and the Devil," p. 193, the pursued change into all manner of wonderful things. Cf. Grimm, vol. i. "Fundevogel," p. 202, and "The Two King's Children," vol. ii. p. 113.

In a Portuguese Folk-Tale, "The Daughter of the Witch," F.L.S. 1882, p. 15, the boy becomes a public road, and the girl an old man with a sack on his back; then the boy becomes a hermitage and the girl a hermit; and lastly, when the mother comes, who, as usual, is the keenest witted, the lad becomes a river, and the girl an eel. The mother, as she cannot catch the eel, pronounces the curse of forgetfulness in case any one should kiss the hero, which one of his sisters does, while he sleeps. See also in the same collection, "May you vanish like the wind," p. 20.

In "Fairy Helena," a story quoted by Kozma in his paper read before the Hungarian Academy, the fairy's father blows across a wide river, and at once it is spanned by a golden bridge. The fairy then strikes a rusty table-fork with a kourbash, and it at once becomes a golden steed, upon which the lovers flee into Italy. When they