and in one group of tales, where the heroine weds the Devil, the door closes the entrance to hell.[1] In the Greek story of "The Trimmatos,"[2] the wife entering the Forbidden Chamber looks through its window, and for the first time beholds her husband in his true character of a ghoul of monstrous form. But accompanying the dead bodies the heroine occasionally finds the elixir which is capable of restoring them to life.[3] This incident, however; is more common to stories belonging to the next type; nor, when the elixir is found, does the heroine always make use of it. Possibly we may in such cases presume an incompleteness in the version of the story which has come down to us. One instance of this incompleteness is that of "The Three Cauliflowers" cited above, a tale that is marked by other and considerable variations from the type.
In Perrault's tale, which I take as the type, the heroine's disobedience is discovered by a mark of blood upon the key. Sometimes the key is replaced by an egg or a ball[4] which the monster gives the heroine, with injunctions not to put it down, or (where he is identified with the Devil) by a rose he places in her bosom or hair, which is withered by the hot blast from within the door of hell.[5] In these cases the heroine usually escapes detection by carefully putting the test-gift aside before opening the door. In the Portuguese Story of a Turner,[6] the heroine has her reward for venturing to bring her less fortunate sisters back to life in the directions they give for wiping the key quite clean. The same function is performed in one of Campbell's Gaelic stories[7] by a cat who is disenchanted and changed into a
- ↑ Schneller, Märchen, &c. aus Wälschtirol, Story No. 31, p. 86; Story No. 32, p. 88, p. 187; Busk, Household Stories from the Land of Hofer, p. 278; Bernoni, Fiabe Popolari Veneziane, Story No. 3, p. 16; Visentini, Fiabe Mantovane, p. 181.
- ↑ Legrand, Contes Populaires Grecs, p. 115.
- ↑ Tuscan Fairy Tales, loc. cit.; Folk-Lore Record, vol. iv. p. 152; Asbjörnsen and Moe, given by Thorpe, Yule Tide Stories, p. 288.
- ↑ Imbriani, op. cit. Story No. 1, p. 7; Grimm, loc. cit.
- ↑ Bernoni, Busk, Schneller, Visentini, loc. cit. In Imbriani, op. cit. p. 290, a nosegay is given, though the monster is not identified with the Devil, but the heroine escapes before he has a chance to test her disobedience.
- ↑ Folk-Lore Record, loc. cit.
- ↑ Tales of the West Highlands, vol. ii. p. 274, a variant of Story No. 41.
