There are tables and magic mirrors to enable one to see and to know everything that goes on over the whole world. There are magic wands for turning living or lifeless beings into what one wishes, apples of life and water of life for the regeneration and preservation of this otherwise all too short existence."[1]
The very things, it will be noticed, which Hermant derives directly from the reduction of the sense of movement, Ricklin traces equally directly to the influence of the wish. All step-mother tales are the wishes of rejected maidens; all tales which have feeble folk for their heroes are the wish structures of weaklings and simpletons.
It is clear, however, that the wish form of the story is not always immediately obvious. This is because such stories are, from beginning to end, full of all manner of symbolism. Ricklin states clearly the character of the symbol: "A symbol is a sign, a short cut for something complex. When I see a post-horn near the name of a station on a railway time-table, it is clear to me that the station has postal connexions with places which are not on the line."[2] The post-horn has this significance because originally it was part of the general institution of the post. The symbol gains its significance by means of some definite association; it is always concrete, and, in a way, carries its history about with it. Seeing, however, that it practically always represents an abbreviation, and may undergo all kinds of change of application in the course of its history, the symbol often comes to be regarded as something mysterious, and can be interpreted only by the initiated. Finally, just because it involves an abbreviation, the sign which is used as a symbol may be a nucleus around which various different meanings cluster: "the sign is a condensation and an accumulation of all the single ideas contained within it." This clearly has the effect of making a true symbol highly ambiguous.
