with this difference, that in the Icelandic fairy tales already quoted the whole fish is swallowed, in others the fish, which is caught by a childless man, is cut up at the house and distributed to the wife, the horse, and the dogs (male sexual animals?).
I refer for the literary references to Rittershaus, p. 71.
Compare also the Russian fairy tale of "Ivan Cowson the Storm Knight."
In Grimm's fairy tale. No. 85, "The Gold Children," the same motive appears.
A poor fisherman caught a golden fish which promised him, instead of his hut, a castle and a cupboard which would contain everything he wished to eat, if he would throw him back into the water. He must, however, not say from whence these splendors came. Afterwards when he betrayed the secret to his curious wife the charm was dispelled and they sat again in the poor hut.
He caught the fish a second time and the same thing was repeated.
The third time the gold fish said: "Take me home and cut me up into six pieces: give two pieces to your wife to eat, two to your mare, and two bury in the earth. This will bring you blessings. From the two last pieces there grew two golden lilies, the mare had two golden foals, and the fisher's wife bore two golden children whose fate the story goes on to follow.
Of the manifold, concentrated, accumulated symbolisms of the fairy-tale fragment, especially the comparison with the fruitfulness of the earth which is repeatedly found in mythology, I will only note that in dreams the same theme is quite as commonly treated in various forms.
In this relation the prophetic dream of Pharaoh of the seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine stands out realistically.
The same theme appears first in the dream of the seven fat and the seven lean cows, then when Pharaoh sleeps again, in the dream of the ears of corn (Moses I, 41).
In the fairy tale of "Kisa" (=Cat, Rittershaus, p. 73, No. XVIII) the king threatens his childless queen, just as he was starting out on a journey, that he would have her killed if she had no child upon his return home. Sadly the queen sat in her garden. An old woman came to her and advised her to drink
