Simrock VII., together with some other peculiarities, again has the feat of winning the bride, though it is a feat of another sort. Wilhelm catches a swan-maiden, and later releases her from an enchanted mountain by hewing trees, separating grain, and finding his wife among three hundred women. Thus by her help he breaks the spell, and carries her back home. Later they journey together to her father's court. On the way Wilhelm pays the debts of a corpse, and has it buried. They meet two officers of the king, who toss Wilhelm overboard from the ship in which they sail, but he is saved by the ghost of the dead man and brought to court. He is recognized by the princess, and proves his identity to her father by means of a ring and a handkerchief.
The most salient point here is the fact that the maiden is not ransomed at all, but instead is captured like any other swan-maiden. We have already met with the theme of The Swan-Maiden in combination with The Grateful Dead in simple form;[1] but Servian V. has evidently nothing to do with Simrock VII., since the part played by the borrowed motive is different in each. In the former it is introduced as the reward bestowed on the hero by the ghost, while in the latter the swan-maiden simply replaces the ransomed maiden, as is shown by the subsequent events of the story, which follow the normal order as far as she is concerned. The feats by which the hero disenchants her are essentially like those in Bohemian, Simrock I., and Simrock III., though they are differently placed. Probably the introduction of this new material accounts for the transposition of the ransoming and the burial, as the latter is in other respects regular. It is curious to observe that the process of changing about various features, thus begun, continued in other ways, as in the matter of the signs by which the hero is recognized by his father-in-law and his wife. These
- ↑ See pp. 31 f.
