Page:WishfulfillmentAndSymbolism.djvu/85

Rh who had trusted her. Then a maid was sent to the chamber in order to see.

She found both of them well and fresh and sleeping by one another. The grave was filled up before daybreak. Thereupon there was again celebrated a great feast (Tob., VI, VII, VIII).

This tale, in the Bible, is garnished with moral and religious language which in many places absolutely does not suit the story.

Notwithstanding the whole fairy-tale structure is very transparent; the salient point, according to my view, is the disenchantment of Sarah at the marriage (freeing from a bad spirit; these two things are indeed not wholly identical, they indicate, however, fundamentally the same thing), which the young Tobias, after seven men have lost their lives, obtains by means of magic, supplied by a helpful being, here an angel.

Those fairy tales with a cruelty motive, where a savage dragon who rules in a neighboring kingdom daily or yearly desires the sacrifice of a maiden, are now understandable to us.

The solution consists in that the dragon is thought of as the rival of a hero who frees the princess and vanquishes the dragon. In place of the dragon another cruel, masculine principle may appear.

Nikita the Tanner (Afanassiew, No. 30).—In the neighborhood of Kiew there appeared a dragon. He desired from everyone a beautiful maiden to eat. It came finally to the daughter of the Czar, However, the dragon did not eat her, she was too beautiful. He dragged her to his cave and made her his wife. By means of a little dog which had followed her she was able to send a letter back home and get an answer which ran: "Try and find out someone who is stronger than the dragon." Through cajolery she got the dragon to tell her that Nikita the tanner in Kiew was stronger than he. Nikita was induced by the Czar to go against the dragon whom he vanquished and finally drowned in the sea.

From "The Two Soldier's Sons Ivan" (Afanassiew, No. 33). One Ivan, who had turned to the left at the crossroads, rode day and night for three months, then he came to a strange land where grief reigned. In the capital city he learned that every day a twelve-headed dragon rose out of the sea and each time devoured a man. Today the oldest of the three beautiful