The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk Story

by Gordon Hall Gerould

Walewein, the variant in question, has the following form: Walewein (or more familiarly Gawain) sets forth from Arthur’s court to secure a magical chessboard. He is promised it by King Wonder if only he will get the sword of rings from King Amoris, who in turn will give that up if Walewein will bring him the princess of the Garden of India. On this quest the hero mortally wounds a certain Red Knight, who prays him for Christian burial and is properly interred. He then proceeds to the castle of King Assentin, whose daughter recognizes in him the ideal knight whom she has seen in a dream. He is led under the dark river which surrounds the castle by the Fox Rogès, and wins the princess. The lovers and the fox (a prince transformed) escape by the help of the Red Knight’s ghost. After many adventures they come together to the court with a chessboard, which is given up by King Wonder in exchange for the sword. Walewein is able to keep the princess for his own because of the death of Amoris.

Lotharingian runs as follows: A king has three sons. He sends them successively to seek the water of life. Two of them refuse to help a shepherd on the way, and rest from their search in Pekin. The third, who is deformed, aids the shepherd, and receives from him some arrows, which will pierce well whatever they strike, and a flageolet, which will make everyone dance within hearing of it. Arrived at Pekin, the humpback pays the debts of a corpse, and has it buried. He goes on till his money is exhausted. When he is about to shoot a fox one day, he is stayed by pity, and is directed by the creature to the castle where the water of life is to be found. There he is detained by an ogre, and wins battles for him by the aid of the magical arrows. There is a princess in the castle, who refuses to marry the ogre. The hero makes her dance, and obtains from the ogre as recompense the promise of whatever he wishes. He asks for the most beautiful thing there and the right to circle the castle three times. So he takes the princess, a phial of the water of life, as well as the uglier of the two mules and of the two green birds, as the fox has told him, and flees away. He meets the fox again, and is warned not to help any one in trouble. Nevertheless, he rescues his two brothers from the scaffold in Pekin, and is cast into a well by them. They go home, but are not able to heal the king. Meanwhile, the prince is saved by the fox, and is made straight of body. He goes home, and at his coming the king becomes young again, while the brothers are burned. So the prince marries the lady.

In Tuscan we learn that the youngest of three princes, while wandering, paid the debts of a man whose corpse was being insulted. When he had buried the man, he found himself without a farthing, and so slept in the forest. In the morning he was greeted by a hare (lieprina) with a basket of food in its mouth. He took this gladly, and reflected that the creature must be the soul of the man whom he had buried. He then came to an inn, and took service with the host, whose beautiful daughter he soon discovered to be a princess, who had been bought while an infant. After winning her love, the hero went on into two kingdoms, where he obtained a magical purse and a wonderful horse from two ugly daughters of innkeepers. With these possessions he returned to the princess, and started with her for his home. On the way he saved from death his two older brothers, who had gone out to seek adventures at the same time as himself. They repaid the kindness by trying to drown him and by carrying the princess off home, where only by feigning illness could she frustrate their plan that she choose one of them as husband. Meanwhile, the hero was rescued from drowning by the hare, and came home. By pretending to be a physician he obtained access to the princess, was recognized, and then revealed himself to his father.

The Brazilian tale is brief but not unusual in type. A prince, while seeking a remedy for his father, passes through a town and sees a corpse, which is held for debt. He pays the creditors, and has the corpse buried. Later he is met by a fox, which helps him obtain not only the remedy for his father but in addition a princess as his wife. On its last appearance the beast declares that it is the soul of the man whom he buried.

Basque I. has the following form: Three sons go out to seek a white blackbird by which their father can be healed. Two of them get into debt to the same three ladies, and, according to the custom of the land, are imprisoned. The third son resists the sirens, ransoms his brothers, and also pays the debts of a dead man, whose corpse is being maltreated. He arrives at the house of the king who has the white blackbird, and is told to get a certain young woman from another king. He goes far on till he comes near the castle, where he meets a fox and is instructed by it to enter a certain room, in which he will find the lady dressed in poor clothing. He must have her put on good clothes, and she will sing. He follows the advice, but is interrupted, while the lady is singing, by the king of the castle, who tells him that he must get a white horse from still another king. He meets the fox again, and is instructed that, when he finds the horse with an old saddle on it, he must put on a good one, so that it will neigh. Again he follows the fox’s advice, and is interrupted by people who rush in when they hear the horse neigh. From them he obtains the steed, and retraces his steps, eloping with the lady at the second king’s castle and at the first king’s carrying off the blackbird. On his arrival at home he is thrown into a cistern by his treacherous brothers, who take his spoil to the king. He is saved by the fox, however, which draws him out with its tail. When he comes into the presence of his father, and not till then, is the healing accomplished.

In Breton IV. we find again three sons of a king, who set forth to get the white blackbird and also the lady with locks of gold. Jeannot, the youngest of them, pays for the interment of a beggar on the way. Later a fox comes to him, saying that it is the soul of the poor man. It helps him procure the youth-giving blackbird and afterward the lady with the marvellous hair. He then meets his brothers, who for envy push him over a precipice, but he is saved and sent homeward by the fox.

Breton V. does not differ materially from the preceding, though it has interesting minor variations. The three sons of a king seek the bird Drédaine in its golden cage in order to cure their father. The two elder brothers go to England, and there meet jolly companions, but find no trace of the bird. The third brother, the ugly one, comes thither, is mocked and robbed by them, but goes his way. One night he lodges in a forest hut, and there finds a man’s body, which the widow cannot bury for lack of money to pay the priest. He is now poor, but pays for the interment of the corpse, and proceeds. He is followed by a white fox, which instructs him how to achieve his quest. He soon reaches the castle, traverses three courts, comes to one chamber where he finds a piece of inexhaustible bread, enters a second where he gets an unfailing pot of wine and makes love to a sleeping princess, and goes on to a third where he finds a magical sword and the bird. He hastens away with his booty, guided for a time by the fox, sells his bread and his wine to innkeepers on condition that they be given up to the princess if ever she comes for them, and arrives at the city where his brothers are now in prison. He ransoms them by helping the king, and pays their debts by selling his sword. On their way home he is thrown into a well by his brothers, who take the bird to their father, but do not succeed in curing him. Meanwhile, the hero is saved by the fox, which now explains that it is the soul of the man whom he has buried, and definitely disappears. He arrives at his home as a beggar, and takes service with his father. Later the princess comes thither with the son that is the fruit of their union, and brings with her the bread, wine, and sword which she has found on the way. The bird sings, the king is healed, and the wicked brothers are executed.

Breton VI. lacks some of the interesting traits of the variant just given, but embroiders the theme with considerable grace. The three sons of a king set out to find the princess of Hungary, who has the only remedy that will cure their father. The eldest forgets his purpose, and wastes his money in rioting. The second finds him just as he is being led to death on account of debt, ransoms him, and shares his riotous pleasures. The third brother, a humpback, goes out with little money, but on his way procures burial for a man’s corpse, which the widow has been unable to do because of lack of money to pay the priest. The next day a fox with a white tail meets him, and in return for a bit of cake leads him to the castle of a princess. There the prince resists the lady’s advances, which he suspects are derisive, and is sent to her sister’s castle, where he has the same experience. When he arrives at the castle of the third sister, he yields to her proposals, is given the remedy for his father and a magical sword, and is told how to go home. On the way he rescues his brothers from the scaffold by waving his sword, and is robbed and thrown into a well by them. Thence he is rescued by the fox, which comes at his call, and before it disappears explains that it is the ghost. Meanwhile, the older brothers have cured the king by the water of life in a phial; so when the hero comes home he is not believed. In a year and a day the princess arrives there according to her promise, and with a little son. At a feast she proclaims the truth, cuts her husband into bits, sprinkles the heap of fragments with the water of life, and marries the handsome youth who at once arises—the humpback transformed.[27]

According to Simrock IX., finally, the three sons of a king seek the bird phœnix to cure their blind father. The two elder enter the castle of a beautiful maiden, and are lost; but the youngest resists the temptation, and takes lodging at an inn. There at night he is startled by a ghost, which tells him that it is the spirit of a man whom the host has buried in the cellar for non-payment of a score, and which implores his help. The youth arranges for payment of the debt and for proper burial, then goes his way. In the wood he meets a wolf, which instructs him how to find the bird phœnix in a cage in the magical castle, and carries him thither. Because he fails to take the worse-looking bird according to instructions, he has to get a steed as swift as wind for the lord of the castle. Again he is disobedient when told to take the worst-looking horse only, and so has to get the most beautiful woman in the world for the lord of this castle. Again he is brought by the wolf to a castle, where he obediently chooses a black maiden instead of one who is apparently beautiful. With maiden, horse, and bird he turns home. The wolf in parting from him explains that it is the ghost of the dead man, and warns him not to buy gallows flesh. When he meets his brothers on their way to be hanged, however, he forgets this, and ransoms them. In return he is nearly murdered by them and left for dead, but is rescued and healed by the wolf, and so at last reaches his destination.

In none of these nine stories is the burial of the dead, one of the two most fundamental features of our leading motive, in any way obscured. They are thus less difficult to treat than was the preceding group, in spite of the added complications introduced by the advent of the helpful animal. This creature should naturally take the role of the ghost, appear as the embodiment of the dead man’s soul indeed; and with but two exceptions[28] it actually fulfils the part. In those two there has been, apparently, imperfect amalgamation, so that the helper is duplicated, and the motivation obscured. In Walewein, a literary version, consciously adapted to the requirements of a roman d’aventure, this need excite no wonder. The ghost does its part properly, and the fox is merely an additional agency in the service of the hero, acting out of pure kindness of heart[29] as far as one can see. Lotharingian, not contented with duplicating the trait, triplicates it. The fox, as in the ordinary form of The Thankful Beasts, helps the hero because of a benefit received; the shepherd bestows magical gifts, as in a common type of The Water of Life, because of the hero’s kindness; while the dead debtor remains inactive after the burial, and plays no further part in the narrative.