[454] v. 55.—In the forty-ninth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, a riddle occurs where the betrothed wife is represented as a duck. A father sends his son to find the wife who is predestined for him, with the following enigmatical order: "Go to Moscow; there there is a lake; in the lake there is a net; if the duck has fallen into the net, take the duck; if not, withdraw the net." The son returns home with the duck—that is to say, with his betrothed wife.
[455] ii. 46.
[456] iv. 11.
[457] iii. 75.
[458] Cfr. Afanassieff, vi. 17, and a variety of the vi. 19.
[459] Cfr. an interesting variety of this story in the Griechische und Albanische Märchen of Hahn.
[460] Thus, in a Norwegian story, the dirty cinder-girl carries silver ducks away from the magicians.—In the eighth Esthonian story, the third brother is sent to hell for the ducks and geese with golden feathers.
[461] In a Scandinavian and Italian variety of this story, instead of the goose we have the eagle and eaglets; the goose returns, in the first story of the fifth book of the Pentamerone, to do the same duty as in the Russian story, but with some more vulgar and less decent incidents.
[462] The image of the legs which, when they move, make flowers grow up, is very ancient; students of Hindoo literature will remember the pushpiṇyâu ćarato ǵanghe of the Âitareya Br., in the story of Çunaḥçepas.
[463] The ninth of the Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia is an interesting variety of this; the beautiful maiden who feeds the geese is disguised in an old woman's skin; the geese, who see her naked, cry out: "Cocò, la bella padrona ch 'i' ho," until the prince, by means of a noiseless file, makes the cook enter the room and carry the old woman's skin away while she sleeps, and then weds her.—The following unpublished story, communicated to me by Signor Greco from Cosenza in Calabria, is a variation of that of the Pentamerone:—