of Hasan of El Basrah. The hero, wandering on a mountain, finds a trapdoor, which by his great strength he succeeds in pulling up, and he descends into the cavern beneath for a whole day. Arrived at the bottom, he sees and enters a palace, and finds within an old man bound with chains. Having released him, the old man gives him the keys of thirty-nine out of the forty rooms in the palace. After a while the hero asks for the key of the fortieth room, and in spite of the elder's warning he insists on having it. In accordance with the old man's instructions he enters the room and finds a lake, wherein three maidens come to bathe. He hides and waits until the two elder have bathed and the youngest strips herself and plunges. He then seizes her clothes, in which her strength lies, and forces her to follow him back into the palace. The old man gives him a flying steed and a golden wand, and with these he sets out for home with the maiden, who of coarse ultimately obtains her clothes again. Then follow the remaining incidents of search and reconquest.
IX.
By way of conclusion I will just gather up a few tales both within and beyond the great realm of Aryo-Semitic tradition, which seem to be related to the myth of the Forbidden Chamber. And, first, let us see how it is brought into connection with some other of the more celebrated Aryan stories. The King of the Fishes has already been mentioned as the type of a group linking it to the classical Perseus. But it has even a nearer affinity to the still more beautiful tale of Cupid and Psyche. According to a Roumanian story[1] an emperor who has three daughters goes to war, leaving them the keys of all the chambers in his house, but forbidding them to enter a certain chamber. They disobey, and find nothing in the room but a large book lying on a table. The two elder daughters open the book successively, and read that they are to marry emperor's sons. The third daughter, the heroine, refuses to enter for a time, but is at length persuaded. She reads in the book that she is to be married to a swine, and she falls into despondency in consequence. On her father's return he charges
- ↑ Mite Kremnitz, Rumänische Märchen, Story No. 5, p. 48.
