Page:WishfulfillmentAndSymbolism.djvu/54

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
44
WISHFULFILLMENT AND SYMBOLISM IN FAIRY TALES

the views developed therefrom by the dream observer, primitive man.

This knowledge is a great support for us; we are no longer surprised to find the dream, the fairy tale, and the symbolism of the psychoses all so related.

Several Icelandic fairy stories have motives quite like that of the "Singing, Jumping Lark," for example: "The Prince Bewitched into a Dog" (Rittershaus, "Neuisländische Volksmärchen").

The Brown Dog (first variant of this tale).—A king had four daughters of which the youngest was the favorite of the father. Once while hunting he lost his way (so commonly begins the entrance to the sphere of sorcery). He came upon a small house, in which there was only a reddish brown dog. He and his horse found good shelter. After he had left the house the next day the dog stopped him on the way and took him to task as ungrateful for not having expressed thanks for the hospitality. The king then had to promise him the first thing that he met when he returned home; it was his youngest daughter; the rest of it goes on as in the tale of the Singing, Jumping Lark. The husband of the daughter who had taken her away as a dog, sleeps with her at night as a man in her bed. Further she must bring a lot of proofs of obedience and faithfulness; the children were first taken away from her. Then she permits herself unfortunately to be persuaded to relate the secret of her marriage to her mother, who advises her to hold a light in the sleeper's face so that she can at least see it once. (One compares the corresponding act of Psyche in "Amor and Psyche" by Apuleius. The light serves thus to discover sexual secrets!) He awakes saddened; for he could otherwise have been delivered after a month; now, however, he has fallen into the power of his fiendish stepmother, who has cast the spell upon him, and must probably marry her daughter. Then he gives advice, how help may yet come through his bewitched kinsmen, and disappeared.

She follows his advice, arrives at the right time at the impending marriage of her husband with the daugliter of the sorceress, obtains for her magic jewels, wliioh she wanted, permission to sleep alternate nights with the bridegroom. He was given a sleeping potion, however, each time by the witch bride. His