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Rh by him, and he takes her in his tent as the most beautiful of three women. She returns home unrecognized; she bore a daughter, Isol, and died. (So Isol is by fate made an especially conspicuous being.) Isol found later on the shore a small, very beautiful boy, in a box, named Tistram, rescues him and takes him to herself to espouse. And so Tistram is introduced as a wonder child. (Compare the finding of Moses by the daughter of the Egyptian King!) This motive frequently occurs in fairy tales and dominates a number of examples of sexual transposition symbols to be mentioned later.

The king marries a sorceress for his second wife. When he goes with Tistram on a journey she seeks to destroy the blonde Isol and to give her daughter, the dark Isota, to the returning Tistram to wife. When Tistram first inquires for his true bride the sorceress gives him a potion so that he quite forgets Isol and is willing to take Isota. Isol comes to the court as a poor maiden, and in place of the dark Isota who secretly bears a child, is obliged to ride by Tistram's side in the wedding procession, disguised as his bride but is forbidden to speak to him. In order, however, to awake the old memories, she says, as they pass an old ruin:

Formerly thou hast shone upon the earth, Now thou hast become black with earth, O my house (referring to her burned "Woman's house").

and upon seeing a brook:

Here runs the brook Where Tistram and the fair Isold Pledged her love and faith. He gave me the jar, Gauntlets I gave to him, Now can you remember well.

The prince will not go to bed with Isota that night until she explains to him what these utterances signify that she has given expression to during the ride. As she knows nothing of them she is compelled to go and ask the disguised Isol, whereat the bride-groom discovers the plot, remembers Isol and takes her for his wife.

Also in the fairy story of the "Forgotten Bride" that is met with in many peoples and in which usually a false kiss causes the