II. the case is different and more difficult of explanation. Here the compound has no definite territorial limits, and it is besides of a very complicated character. We have to suppose that The Lady and the Monster, a märchen allied to The Water of Life, was afloat in Europe somewhat before the early sixteenth century.[1] There it met and united with The Grateful Dead, in its simple form on the one hand, giving rise to three of our variants, and on the other hand separately with the compounds having The Poison Maiden and The Ransomed Woman. The former double compound must have been made fairly early,[2] since it has been found in such widely separated countries as Rumania and Ireland, and furnished one of the most important elements to the making of a sixteenth century English play, Peele's Old Wives' Tale. The second of the double compounds is unfortunately represented on our list by a single folk-tale only, and may possibly be a later formation.
Such, then, seems to be the relationship of The Water of Life and allied motives to the main theme of our study,—purely subsidiary and relatively late. The theory which has been proposed involves the necessity of placing the entrance of the Semitic märchen into Europe not much earlier than the twelfth century, though such matters of chronology must be left somewhat to speculation; it shows the points of contact between the various motives concerned; and it avoids contradictions of space and time. Writer and reader may perhaps congratulate themselves on finding so clear a road through the maze. Should subsequent discovery of material necessitate modification of the views here expressed, it should be welcomed by both with equal pleasure.
