betrothed, trees are planted by the respective parties in witness of the contract, and if either tree should happen to wither, the child it belongs to is sure to die."—Tr.]
86.—The Fox and the Geese.
From the neighbourhood of Paderborn. In a beautiful fable, No. 87, in Burkard Waldis, the Goose begs to be allowed to dance once more to her heart's content; as also in Pröhle's Märchen für die Jugend, 3. It is also told in Transylvania, see Haltrich, No. 20. It is a puzzling story, which is told instead of the more usual one of the shepherd, who wants to take several hundred sheep across a wide river in a small boat, in which there is always only room for one. Cervantes has, as is well known, used this very well in Don Quixote, vol. i. chap. 20; and Avellaneda has tried to outdo him in his continuation, chap. 21, by a similar story of the geese which cross a narrow bridge. It is intrinsically much older. Petrus Alfonsus told it in the Disciplina clericalis, p. 129, and Schmidt in the notes gives further information It is to be found in the Old French Castoiement, (Méon's Fabliaux, 2. 89–91), and in the Novelle Antiche, No. 30. Also in a pretty Low German poem in Haupt's Zeitschrift, 5. 469–512. A similar saga lies at the foundation of Æsop's orator Demades (Furia 54, Coray, 178). The proverb, "If the Wolf (here it is the Fox) teaches the geese to pray, he devours them for school fees," refers to this (Sailer, p. 60), and so does Ofterdingen's speech in the Krieg auf der Wartburg (MS. 2, 5a), ("sie,) hânt gense wân so si den wolf erkennent unde wellens ûz den ziunen gân."[1]
END OF VOL. I.
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- ↑ Geese are deluded creatures, for when they see the wolf they wish it get out of the hedge.
