Page:WishfulfillmentAndSymbolism.djvu/56

46, to be without doubt, and it is shown by such examples as that the dog is one of the commonest sexual animals, that is symbolic animals, for the masculine-sexual in the dream and in the dream-like experiences of the insane.

The sleeping potion (in other fairy tales it is a sleep-thorn) plays, in the same connection as here, an important rôle in fairy tales, rarely in other significance, that is without dependence upon a sexual wish-structure. The being neglected for another, a rival, is here symbolically indicated in this manner, bearing throughout a character of dream origin. Through some means the spell is finally broken and the prince again recognizes the spurned bride by his side. The matter is so brought about that he has no blame for his forgetting and deserting, but the strange, bad influences are at fault.

In the "Grumbling Ox-maw" (Rittershaus, XI, p. 50) when the queen was dead and her husband appeared inconsolable, there entered the royal halls a beautiful woman with a goblet full of wine. She let fall, unnoticed by him, a drop upon the lips of the king. Then he arouses from his brooding, drains the goblet, and forgets his dead spouse. He now marries the beautiful stranger, who naturally is a sorceress and as a bad stepmother bewitches his only daughter in his absence and changes her into an ox-maw, which in this fairy tale always has the role and attributes of a human being. The ox-maw is delivered by a prince whom she promises to marry. The mother of this prince suddenly sees, on the marriage night, instead of the maw a beautiful princess, takes quickly the put aside covering, that is the maw, and burns it. (For the significance of fire see earlier pages; for the burning of the magic covering on the wedding night see the remarks on the fairy tale "Kisa" in the chapter The Transposition Upward, also the Icelandic Cinderella cited.) According to Rittershaus (p. 52) the drink of oblivion, which the sorceress gives to the sorrowing king, appears already in the Völsunga Saga; then further in the tale of "The True Bride" (Rittershaus, XXVII, p. 113). A royal pair had no children. When the king threatens to kill his wife if she has no child on his return from his voyage, she takes the part of one of his servants on his journey, without being