and flies out in the form of a bird. The prince's aunt sends back the chest, and it is replaced. The prince, however, on his return finds it open, and falls into great distress. One day, as he sits at his window mourning his loss, a rushing of wings and a strange light fill the room; the heroine, in the form of a bird, flies in, and to his joy resumes her proper form. He marries her, and declares war upon his aunt, whom he conquers and beheads.[1]
III.
Turning away for the present from Bluebeard and his ghastly mortuary, let us look at another story of the Forbidden Chamber. We shall find its type in Grimm's tale of "Mary's Child." Here the Virgin appears to a woodman in the forest and offers to take his only daughter, for whom he can scarcely find food. The offer is accepted, and the child is taken to heaven, where she grows up under the care of her august benefactress. One day the Virgin hands her her keys, thirteen in number, and, saying she is going away on a journey, gives the heroine leave to open all the doors but one. The luckless girl opens the forbidden door, and sees within "the Trinity sitting in fire and sheen." She presumes to touch the sheen with her finger, which ib gilded with the touch. The Virgin Mary returning takes the keys and inquires whether the heroine has disobeyed her. Denying it, she is expelled from heaven and stricken dumb. In the midst of a wilderness from which she cannot escape, she is found by a king while hunting. He takes her home, weds her, and in due course she gives birth to a child. Her benefactress now reappears in the silence of the night, and offers to restore the heroine's speech if she will at length confess. On her refusal, the Virgin disappears, taking the child with her. The people murmur that the heroine is an ogress and has eaten her child. On the birth of a second child the Virgin repeats her offer, with the like sequel. When a third child is born the heroine is taken up to heaven, where she is shown her two former children growing up as she herself had done with the angels, and she
- ↑ Schmidt, Griechische Märchen, Sagen, und Volkslieder. Märchen No, 12, p. 93.
