In the same archives we read of May sports (p. 153). "Opposite the room window of the old maids a large straw man is hung up named 'Mäia-Ma' [May man]. Many old maids had to be satisfied with fool branches" (Narrenästen) (Zindel, "Folk Customs in Sargan and Surroundings"). The male organ of copulation was besides often called "rod" [verge in French].
It may be added that the branch, like other objects: magic wand, the stalk of life, pistols, syringes, rays of from ten to fifteen centimeters long, the raised finger, play a role of absolutely like significance in the sexual symbolism of the mentally diseased.
The German Cinderella.—In the German Cinderella, that we have denominated as the type of wish-fulfilling fairy tales analogous to the dream, we come across at the beginning a similar symbolic motive to that of the "Little Hazel Branch."
Cinderella had a stepmother who neglected her in favor of her own two children in the usual way. The father once went to the fair and promised all three daughters to bring something back for them. The stepdaughters wished for beautiful clothes, pearls and precious stones but Cinderella begged him to break off for her the first branch that hit his hat on the way home (compare "Oda" and "The Little Hazel Branch"). This was a hazel branch. Cinderella took it to her mother's grave, planted it there and watered it with her tears. Instead of directly becoming a fairy prince like Oda's serpent or the bear in the "Little Hazel Branch," the branch grows into a wish-tree from which the maiden receives everything, the most beautiful gold and silver clothes and little golden slippers in order to please the prince and with the help of which she finally makes the wish-prince her husband.
The Singing, Jumping Lark (Grimm).—A man was going to make a long journey and wished to bring back presents for his three daughters. The youngest desired, in this fairy tale, a singing, springing lark (Löweneckerchen = Lerche = lark). Finally, on the way home, after a long search, he sees one seated in a tree, and tells his servant to get it for him.
A lion (Löweneckerchen = Löwe = lion) springs out (such a play upon words one might meet in a dream or in dementia præcox; children's songs and rhymes do the same) and threatens
