there is one (No. 8) to the same effect. The incident of picking up the pearls will remind the reader of the task of Psyche, in Apuleius, lib. iv., in which she is assisted by the ants.
The Dog and the Sparrow, p. 57.—"Der Hund und der Sperling;" told with variations in Zwehrn, Hesse, and Göttingen.
Frederick and Catherine, p. 61.— "Der Frieder und das Catherlieschen;" from Zwehrn and Hesse. Some of the incidents in this story are to be found in that of Bardiello, in the Pentamerone, i. 4. We have frequently heard it told in our younger days as a popular story in England.
The Three Children of Fortune, p. 67.— "Die drei Glückskinder;" from Paderborn. It is not necessary to point out the coincidence of one of the adventures of this story with that of Whittington, once Lord Mayor of London. But it is not merely in Germany that the same tale is traced. "We learn from Mr. Morier's entertaining narrative that Whittington's cat realised its price in India." In Italy, the merry priest Arlotto told the story in his Facezie, before the Lord Mayor was born or thought of; he describes the adventure as happening to a Geneway merchant, and adds that another upon hearing of the profitable adventure made a voyage to Rat Island with a precious cargo, for which the king repaid him with one of the cats.—Quarterly Review, XLI., p. 100.
King Grisly-beard, p. 70.—"König Drosselbart;" from Hesse, the Main, and Paderborn. The story of "La Soporbia castecata," Pentamerone, iv. 10, has a similar turn. There are of course many other tales in different countries, having for their burthen "The Taming of the Shrew." "It hardly need be observed that our title is not meant as a translation of the German name.
Chanticleer and Partlet, p. 75.—This, comprises three stories, "Das Lumpengesindel," "Herr Korbes," and "Von dem Tod des Hühnchens," from Paderborn, the Main, and Hess, placed together as naturally forming one continuous piece of biography. We shall perhaps be told that the whole is tolerably childish; but we wished to give a specimen of each variety of these tales, and at the same time an instance of the mode in which inanimate objects are pressed into the service. The death of Hühnchen forms a balladised story published in Wunderhorn, vol. iii., among the Kinderlieder. Who "Herr Korbes" is, or what his name imports, we know not; and we should therefore observe that we have of our own authority alone turned him into an enemy, and named him "the fox," in order to give some sort of reason for the outrage committed on his hospitality by uninvited guests.
Snowdrop, p. 81.— "Schneewitchen;" told with several minor variations in Hesse; also at Vienna with more important alterations. In one version, Spiegel (the glass) is the name of a dog, who performs the part of the queen's monitor. The wish of the queen, which opens this story, has been illustrated in the Altdeusche Wälder, vol. i., p. 1, in a dissertation on a curious passage in Wolfram von Eschenbach's romance of Parcifal, where the hero bursts forth into a pathetic allusion to his lady's charms on seeing drops of blood fallen on snow,
Trois gotes de fres sanc
Qui enluminoient le blanc,
as Chretien de Troyes expresses it in the French romance on the same subject:
panse tant, qu'il s'oblie;
Ausins estoit en son avis
Li vermauz sor lo blanc asis,
Come les gotes de sanc furent,
Qui desor le blanc aparurent;
Au l'esgarder, que il faisoit,
Li est avis, tout li pleisoit,
Qu'il veist la color novelle
De la face s'amie belle."
Several parallel wishes are selected from the ancient traditionary stories of different countries, from the Irish legend of Deirda and Navis, the son of Visneach, in Keating's History of Ireland, to the Neapolitan stories in Pentamerone, iv. 9, and v. 8.
"O cielo!" says the hero in the latter, "e non porria havere un mogliere acossi janco, e rossa, comme o chella preta, e che havesse li capello o le ciglia acossi negro, comme fo le penne di chisto cuervo," &c. The unfading corpse placed in the glass coffin is to be found also in the Pentamerone, ii. 8 (la Schiavottella): and in Haralds Saga, Snäfridr his beauteous wife dies, but her countenance changes not, its bloom continuing; and the king sits by the body watching it three years.
The dwarfs who appear in this story are of genuine Northern descent. They are Metallarii, live in mountains, and are of the benevolent class; for it must be particularly observed that this, and the mischievous race, are clearly distinguishable. The Heldenbuch says, "God produced the dwarfs because the mountains lay waste and useless, and valuable stores of silver and gold with gems and pearls were concealed in them. Therefore he made them right wise, and crafty, that they could distinguish good and bad, and to what use all things should be applied. They knew the use of gems; that some of them gave strength to the wearer, others made him invisible, which were called fog-caps; therefore God gave art and wisdom to them, that they built them hollow hills," &c. (Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 41.) The most beautiful example of the ancient Teutonic romance is that which contains the adventures, and the description of the abode in the mountains, of Laurin the King of the Dwarfs. These who wish to obtain full and accurate information on the various species, habits, and manners of these sons of the mountains, may consult Olaus Magnus, or at far greater length, the Anthropodemus Plutonicus of Prætorius.
We ought to observe that this story has been somewhat shortened by us, the style of telling it in the original being rather diffuse; and we have not entered into the particulars of the queen's death, which in the German is occasioned by the truly Northern punishment of being obliged to dance in red-hot slippers or shoes.
The Elves and the Shoemaker, p. 89.—"Die Wichtelmänner—von einem Schuster dem sie die Arbeit gemacht," a Hessian tale. We have no nomenclature sufficiently accurate for the classification of the gobelin tribes of the North. The personages now before us are of the benevolent and working class; they partake of the general character given of such personages by Olaus Magnus, and of
