mon pere
le laboureur
m'a mangé
et rongé.
ma jeune sœur
la Lisette,
m'a pleuré
et soupiré:
sous un arbre
m'a enterré,
riou, tsiou, tsiou!
je suis encore en vie."
Feuilleton du Globe, 1830.
No. 146 by C. S.
That the saga is also current in Scotland is proved by the following rhyme, which Leyden has preserved from a nursery tale. The spirit of a child, in the form of a bird, whistles the following verse to its father:
"Pew wew, pew wew (pipi, wiwi),
My minny me slew."
with which the remarks, by Albert Hofer in the Blätter fur literarische Unterhaltung, 1849, No. 199, should be compared. Lastly, the Bechuanas in South Africa have a kindred story.
Marleenken is Marianchen, Marie Annchen; Machandel[1] is perhaps not Almond (Mandel) but Wacholder (juniper), and very important, as it is a tree which rejuvenates, and is awake so far as is implied by quick, active, vivus, living. In other places it is called Queckholder, Reckholder, Juniperus (from junior, younger) Anglo-Saxon, Quicbeam.[2] The wicked stepmother (an old proverb says, "The Devil is lined with stepmothers") is to be found in many other stories. The beginning where the mother cuts her finger reminds us of Snow-white, and of a remarkable passage in Parzival, which is explained in Altd. Wälder, 1, 1-30. The gathering the bones together occurs in the myth of Osiris and Orpheus, and also in the legend of Adalbert; the bringing to life again, in many others, viz., in the story of Brother Lustig (No. 81); in Fitcher's Vogel (No. 46) in the old
- ↑ In Diefenbach's Hoch und Niederdeutsches Wőrterbuch, under 'Machandelbaum,' we find:
"Machandelbaum, Machandelenbaum, Magand . . . Scabina.
"Machandelbeere, Magandelenbeeren, arciotida = Wacholderbeere Vermittelnde Form: wachanderenberen, Juniperus."—Tr. - ↑ Quicbeam, or cwicbeam, is, however, not the juniper, but the wild, or mountain-ash, a tree whose berries were also said to have possessed rejuvenating power, and a sprig of which, carried about or placed above house or barn doors, was said to "hinder witches of their will." Hence its common name, "witchwood."—Tr.
