forming certain tasks, wins for his wife the daughter of a giant. It is not to be supposed that all tales of this class belong to the particular one now under consideration; but, in the present instance, there are certain incidents which seem to suppose the knowledge, on the part of the recorder of the tale, of a folk-tale answering to our märchen. I should be inclined to suppose that the writer, who does not appear to me to have composed at a time much earlier than the date of the MS., was acquainted with the story of the bird-maiden, then in circulation in Wales, in a form much the same as that which it now possesses, and that he employed this and other märchen for the composition of his work, which, in its present form, is not a popular tale, but a literary product.[1]
An example of the use of our folk-tale in literature is to be found in the drama of the German playwright, Jacob Ayrer (died in 1605), Comedia von der schonen Sidea. The plot is as follows:
Ludolf, prince of Littau, having been defeated and driven from his kingdom by Leudegast, prince of Wittau, in order to avenge himself becomes a magician, and entertains a familiar spirit, Runcifal. The son of his enemy, Engelbrecht, goes to hunt in the forest, and falls into the power of Ludolf, who has been informed by Runcifal of the approach of the youth. Ludolf, by means of his magic art, masters Engelbrecht, and makes a servant of him, committing him to the charge of his daughter Sidea, for whom the captive is to carry wood. Sidea, however, falls in love with the prince, and elopes with him.
In this account may be recognised the bride-winning section of our tale; the giant has been altered into a magician, and the tasks modified into a mere servile obligation; the flight has been reduced to a commonplace elopement. If, however, there were any doubt as to the connection of the tale and the drama, it would be removed by the succeeding part of the story, which
- ↑ Guest, Mabinogion, iii, Z49. The hero is directed by a woman how to find Olwen, who is in the habit of washing at the house of the former. The chief tasks—of sowing in an unploughed field, and of collecting seeds—correspond to those of our märchen; one lame ant brings in the last seed at night. So in a Bohemian tale of the cycle, A. H. Wratislaw, Sixty Folk-tales jrom exclusively Slavonic Sources, Tale 50, 1889. The Welsh writer exhibits some confusion, which shows the Bohemian account to be more primitive.
