state of the evidence, as the closely allied theme of The Lady and the Monster. Class III., the most compact of all in the region that it inhabits, preserves The Water of Life better than any other group, though not without frequent admixture and, in many instances, the loss of some elements.
It has been stated above[1] that it would be hard to imagine such various traits coming from a single type of story. This becomes even more evident from the tabulation just made. To suppose that The Grateful Dead first united with The Water of Life, and that this compound gave rise to the varieties, as enumerated, would involve us in the direst confusion. If such were the case, how could Class II. with its introduction of The Lady and the Monster be explained? Why, moreover, should one variant having The Ransomed Woman fall into Class II., while three others fall into Class I.? Such an assumption, it is clear, would be self-destructive.
The only alternative is to suppose that The Water of Life entered into combination with simple or compound types of The Grateful Dead at more than one time and in more than one region. That The Grateful Dead united with The Poison Maiden and The Ransomed Woman rather early and quite independently abundant evidence goes to show; that The Water of Life is an independent motive and that, like at least two of the other themes, it was of Asiatic origin has likewise been made clear; that the latter could not have united with The Grateful Dead so early as did The Poison Maiden and The Ransomed Woman is proved by the discrepancies noted above. If it be assumed, on the contrary, that after the compounds The Grateful Dead + The Poison Maiden and The Ransomed Woman had arisen, both they and the simple theme in one or another form came into connection with one or another
- ↑ P. 143.
