same way, playing the doll-trick to prevent discovery. In this tale there is no express prohibition to enter the Corpse Chamber; nor is there generally in tales of this type. But it occurs occasionally, as in the Sicilian story of "Ohimé,"[1] and the Greek one of "The Devil and the Fisherman's Daughter."[2] In the latter the heroine finds the Devil's previous wives petrified in the Forbidden Room, and restores them with the Water of Life, which is the last thing we should expect the Devil to keep a stock of. The Devil's non-theological and purely mythic character is, however, abundantly evident throughout this story, the commencement of which shows traces of the epic imagination of ancient Greece. A fisherman draws up in his net a large iron key, which Belzebub, appearing, claims, but directs him to take it, and return on Thursday to the shore, where he will then see a door before him; this he is to open, enter, and seek for the Devil. The man obeys his directions; and the description, unhappily too long to quote, of the entrance of Hell and the personification of Time, who sits within the gateway, are not without power. Belzebub inquires whether he has any daughters, begs for one of them, and loads him with treasure. The fisherman, dazzled with his kindness, sells him his three daughters, one after the other, without any compunction. Ohimé, the ogre of the Sicilian variant, is a mysterious being, who appears to a poor man gathering sticks, in response to a cry of weariness in which he has unwittingly uttered the monster's name. He demands the eldest of the wood-gatherer's three granddaughters to wait upon his wife. The poor man complies with this request, and the girl is taken into the monster's rock-dwelling, where he shows her his treasures, tells her she is mistress there, and will be his wife if she obey him; and, to enforce his claim to obedience, he exhibits the Corpse Chamber and the direful warnings it contains. The Forbidden Chamber, which is here distinct from the Corpse Chamber, and opened by the youngest of the three sisters, after she has (by the advice of her dead mother, on whom she calls) succeeded in causing the giant to believe that she has eaten the horrible
- ↑ L. Gonzenbach, Sicilianische Märchen, Story No. 23, voL i. p. 139.
- ↑ B. Schmidt, Griechische Märchen, Sagen, und Volkslieder, Märchen No. 24, p. 122.
