At night the duck comes swimming up to the grating and sings,
"Open the door, that I may warm myself,
My brother lies buried among the horses.
Cut off the duck's head."
This gives a reason for the head being cut off, as her deliverance from the spell depended on it. In the end the brother is disinterred from his grave in the stable, and laid in the earth with much pomp; compare The Singing Bone (No. 28). The entire story forms the groundwork of a bad modern reproduction, in the Sagen der böhm: Vorzeit, Prag, 1808, p. 141-185). The beginning treats of flowers and combs of pearl in the usual style. It is a peculiar feature that the beauty with which the girl is endowed must be guarded from the open air and sunshine. On the journey therefore, the wicked witch breaks the carriage window, and the air and sunlight force their way in, on which she is transformed into a golden duck. It is the same in the collection made by Gerle. In D'Aulnoy (see Rosette, No. 6), the story appears with a number of beautiful incidents. On the other hand, Blanchebelle has only a weak foundation, see the collection, Les illustres Fées (Cabinet des Fées, vol. 5). The Lai le Freisne (see further on), by Marie de France, is allied to this. Bertram's Finnisches Mädchen aus dem Meer, is the most valuable and characteristic. In the Pentamerone (4, 7) there is a story compounded half from this of ours, and half from the Goose girl (No. 89), which, like the one before us, recalls the fable of Queen Bertha.
The simple contrast of black and white, to express ugliness and beauty, sinfulness and purity, should be specially observed, as it reminds us of the myth of day and night (and Night's daughter), and the very word Bertha (the white, biort), signifies day or day-break.
When the maiden who is pushed into the water rises up as a snow-white duck, and continues to live, she appears as a Swan-maiden. In the same way the Norse Schwanhild is white and fair as day, in opposition to her raven-black step-brothers; there is also an old German story of a white Dieterich and a black one, who are twins, and a black daughter and a white one, appear in a Swedish popular ballad (Geyer and Afzelius, 1. 81). The name Reginer was probably an old one even at the time of this story; modem popular opinion has turned the marshals, equerries, and charioteers into coachmen, just as the heroes have been turned into soldiers. The brother being with the horses, and being buried among them, reminds us of the steed Falada, whose place in the story he fills. The scullion represents the herd-boy. The bride falls into the water, is drowned, and comes back by night to warm herself at the kitchen fire as she is wet, just as the drowned
