servants entrusted with the duty kill a horse and carry its heart to him. The maiden lives in ihe forest "on the plants which the birds brought her, and on the flowers which the bees brought her." This is perhaps a less direct expression of the statement in the Hindoo tale that God sent her food. The king's son (apparently the one before referred to) finds the girl while hunting, and marries her. At the wedding-feast she gives her father bread without salt, and then discovers herself. The two elder sisters suffer poetical justice by remaining old maids.[1]
In a Tirolese variant[2] a king requires his three daughters to bring him each, as a birthday present, some very necessary thing. The youngest presents him with a little salt, whereupon he drives her away. She has her revenge, however, for, after a while, becoming her father's cook, she serves up his food without salt; and this, of course, leads to explanations. The termination of this story approximates closely to the one I have taken as the type of this class; but the catastrophe differs. The latter has more resemblance to a tale found in the south of Italy,[3] where a king going to a fair asks his three daughters what he shall bring them back. One chooses a handkerchief, another a pair of boots, this being possibly the only opportunity a king's daughters would have of indulging in such articles of adornment; but the youngest demands a quantity of salt. The two elder are envious of her, and persuade their father that the salt is to salt his heart; whereupon he drives her from home. She disguises herself in a skin, and takes service at a farmhouse, her duty being to take care of the turkeys. While she is pasturing them, she takes off her disguise, and the turkeys cry out in rhymes with astonishment. She is annoyed, and strikes one of them dead. This happens more than once, and her mistress' suspicions are aroused. She accordingly
- ↑ In another story a girl is condemned to death for the supposed robbery of her master's treasure, but is spared, and an ass' heart taken back to the king instead of hers. She clothes herself in the ass' skin, and the usual course of Peau d'Äne is followed. Ibid. p. 158.
- ↑ Zingerle, Kinder und Hausmârchen aus Tirol, Story No. 31, cited by Köhler in Bladé, op cit. p. 154.
- ↑ Finamore, Tradizioni Popolari Abruzzesi, vol. i. p. 130.
