The next point is that every single symbol dealt with in detail by this writer is considered to be definitely sexual in its significance. He begins with the story of Oda and the Serpent, passing on through various versions of The Frog King, The Little Hazel Branch, The Singing, Jumping Lark, The Brown Dog, The Grumbling Ox-Maw. In every instance the central animal or object is said to be a sexual symbol. No matter if it appears, as in some instances it does, to be derived directly from some myth, or from some religious belief: in its dream-origin, the significance of the detail is the same.
Take one version of the tale of The Sleeping Beauty: "In olden times there were a king and queen who said every day: 'Oh if we only had a child!' but no child came. Then it happened that once, when the queen was in her bath a frog hopped out of the water and said: 'Your wish will be fulfilled; before a year goes by you will bring a daughter into the world!' What the frog prophesied came to pass, and the queen bore a daughter who was beautiful beyond compare."
To Ricklin the Frog is obviously a symbol having a universal signification. Tear off one veil, and it becomes a human prince; tear off another, and it stands clear as a symbol of fertilisation. There is no need to multiply examples. All instances of transformation from animals to men are treated in the same way; all stories involving particular acts of eating are special transpositions upward involving infantile sexual "theories"; all tales of the sacrifice of maidens or of deliverance from dragons, and the like, symbolise sexual cruelty or insatiability. Such is the theory of "Wish fulfilment and Symbolism in Fairy Tales."
I wish now to offer some remarks in criticism of this theory. And as it professes to be a psychological theory, it is from the psychological point of view that the criticism will be advanced.
