Two apple-pippins concealed in bread are all that he is to give by way of medicine. The peasant has great success with them, but at last Death fetches him himself. This fable, though with peculiar variations (of which the best consists in the fact that it is not the father but the newly-born child itself which receives the gift of healing), is told by Prätorius in the Glückstopf (1669, pp. 147–149). See Pröhle's Kindermärchen, No. 18. According to a story from the Odenwald, in Wolf's Hausmärchen, p. 365, the physician outwits Death.
The candles with which life is bound up recall Nornagest and the still current expressions, "to extinguish the flame of life," or the taper of life. Already in a Greek myth was life connected with a burning faggot. See Grüber's Mythological Dictionary, 3. 153. The story specially points to deep-seated ideas; compare Wackernagel in Haupt's Zeitschrift, 6. 280, and following pages. Death and the Devil are evil deities, and both are one, in the same way that hell, the nether world and the kingdom of the dead, run into each other in the story of the Smith.[1]
But the Evil One, like the good God, is called Father, and "Tatta" The Godfather is not only called Father, but also "Pathe," " Goth," and "Dod," or "Tod." The baptized child is likewise called "Pathe" and "Gotbel," hence the confusion between the two in the story: compare Altdeutsche Wálder, 1. 104, notes. Grammatically, indeed, the words tôt (mors) and tote (susceptor baptizati) are carefully distinguished.
45.—Thumbling as Journeyman.
From stories current in the districts of the Maine, Hesse, and Paderborn, which reciprocally complete each other. A continuation or special combination of the detached stories, which belong to this group, contains the story of Thumbling (No. 37), see Pröhle's Kindermärchen No. 30. Bechstein, p. 131. The Thumbling in Carol: Stahl's stories also belong to this group. Compare in the Tabart Collection, The Life and Adventures of Tom Thumb, 3 37–52 (see further on). A Danish story similar in substance is given by Nyerup (Morskabsläsning, pp. 238, 239), Svend Tommling, a being not larger than a thumb, wishes to marry a woman three ells and three quarters high. He comes into the world with a hat on his head and sword at his side, drives the ploush, and is caught by a landed proprietor who keeps him in his snuff-box; he springs out and falls on a little pig, which becomes his riding-horse. The Greeks have similar stories of little Thumbs. It is related of Philytas, a poet of Cos, that he wore lead in the soles of his shoes to prevent his being carried away by the wind; of Archestratus, that
- ↑ Gambling Hänsel, No. 82.—Tr.
