Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/438

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GRIMM'S HOUSEHOLD TALES.

The house of sweetmeats (see further on). Also Pröhle's Kinder- und Volksmärchen, No 40. Bechstein, vii. 55. The Eierkuchenhäuschen, in Stöber's elsass. Volksbuch, p. 102. In Danish the Pandekagehuset (see further on). In Swedish, Cavallius, pp. 14, 26. In Hungarian, Stier, p. 43. In Albanian, Hahn, 164, 165. In Servian, Wuk, No 35. The story of Der Fanggen, from the Oberinnthal in Zingerle's Kinder und Hausmärchen, p. 51. Oberlin gives a piece, in the dialect of the district of Lüneville, in his Essai sur le patois. Clearly allied too, especially in the beginning, is Nennillo and Nennilla in the Pentamerone (5-8), and so is the first part of Finette Cendron, in D'Aulnoy, No. 11. In this there are three King's children who are twice brought home by the cleverness of the youngest; the first time by a thread which had been given to her by a fairy, the second by strewn ashes; the third time, the two elder provide an expedient and scatter peas, but the pigeons eat them, and the children cannot find the way back. In a Tyrolese story, Zingerle, p. 138, as here, the boy who is imprisoned reaches out a bit of stick to the man-eater, instead of his finger; but in a Swedish story his captor is a giant (Cavallius, 31). Hänsel is connected with Thumbling (No. 37 and 45), and thus appears in the German stories. There are six children; he is the seventh. When they are in the forest with the man-eater, they have to comb his hair, but Thumbling springs in among it, pulls it, and always comes back again. Afterwards there is the changing the seven crowns during the night for the seven red caps. Thumbling puts all the purses of money and valuables into the seven-league boots. To this group also belongs a Tyrolese story in Zingerle, p. 235, of the Thumbling Hänsel. The old German fable Altd. Wälder iii. 178, 179) of the twelve who go to the giant (Turse), and who are previously warned by his wife, and told to go into the bedroom, is only altered so far as concerns the moral.

From two stories which only differ from each other in trifling matters, the one from Hof am Habichtswald, a village in Lower Hesse, the other from a village near Paderborn. A Greek saga may be traced in it. Polyidus is to restore life to Glaukos, but is unable. The enraged father therefore has him shut up in the tomb with the corpse. Polyidus sees a snake creeping up to the dead body, and kills it. Soon afterwards a second snake comes carrying a herb in its mouth, which it lays on the dead one, by means of which it at once comes to life again. Polyidus quickly snatches the herb, lays it on Glaukos, and he returns to life. See Apollodorus, iii. 3, 1. Compare with this a Hungarian story, in Stier, p. 107, and also a poem by Marie de France Lai d'Eliduc (1. 401), where the part of the snakes is played by two weasels (474).