mysterious about their union. He thoughtlessly reveals it, just as Siegfried gives Kriemhild the girdle he has formerly won from Brünhild (Nibel. 793), and misfortune arises from it, as is seen in her second marriage (with Günther). He is her "Deliverer," whom afterwards she is determined to ruin. Here he is represented as conquering spirits; in the Norse saga he rode through the flames; in the Wilkina Sage (chap. 148), he broke through the doors by force. He was appointed to do this by destiny and waited for.
93.—The Raven.
From the Leine district. There is another story varying in some particulars in Zingerle, p. 239. Here too we find the deliverance of Brünhild. In the first place, as in the preceding story (but derived from an entirely different source), we have the giants' contest for their treasures, only in not so clear a form. The golden castle on the Glass Mountain is the hall of flames of the Norse saga, evidently corresponding with the old Danish ballad (Altdänische Lieder und Märchen, p. 31, and notes, pp. 496, 497), where Bryniel is imprisoned on the Glass Mountain, which only a particular horse (Grani) can ascend. The connection between flames and dazzling bright glass is very close. The sleeping draught against which she warns him, and which overcomes him, is the Norse Grimhild's draught which causes forgetfulness. Some likeness to The Seven Ravens (No. 25) is to be seen in this story, but it has an independent existence. We find p. 226, in a story in the Brunswick Collection, which in other respects is entirely different, that the enchanted maiden drives past thrice, and that the knight who is to keep awake to deliver her has fallen asleep because he has drunk from a spring, smelt a flower, and eaten an apple. Each time she passes she lays something by his side, her portrait, a brush which will make money, and a sword bearing the inscription, "Follow me." The colour of her horses too is, as here, different on each occasion. The rest of the story shows a closer affinity to the preceding story, the Golden Mountain, for the knight has also previously delivered the bewitched maiden from her snake form by keeping silence in the presence of frightful spirits. For the incident of the youth's making himself known by throwing the ring in the wine-cup, compare Hildebrands Lied, p. 79.
94.—The Peasant's Wise Daughter.
From Zwehrn. Here we have a distinct trace of the ancient saga of Aslaug, the daughter of Brünhild by Sigurd. Although it is not expressly stated that the girl in our story is a child of royal birth who has fallen into the hands of peasants, yet this relation is plainly visible. She is wiser than the position of her parents
