“Maiden green and small,
Shrunken old crone,
Crone's little dog,
Crone here and there,
Fetch here the big box.”
The young toad brought the box and the fat toad opened it and gave Simpleton a carpet from it, so beautiful and so fine as up above on the earth could not have been woven. Then he thanked her and climbed up again.
The two others had, however, considered their youngest brother so weak-minded that they believed that he would not find and bring anything back. “Why should we take so much trouble,” said they, and took from the back of the first shepherd's wife that met them her coarse shawl and carried it home to the king. At the same time Simpleton returned and brought his beautiful carpet, and when the king saw it he was astonished and said: “If justice must be done, the kingdom belongs to the youngest.”
But the two others gave their father no peace, and said that it was impossible that Simpleton, who lacked understanding in all things, could be a king, and begged him to make a new condition. Then the father said, “The one that brings me the most beautiful ring shall be king,” led the three brothers out and blew three feathers into the air for them to follow. The two oldest again went east and west, and Simpleton's feather flew straight ahead and fell down near the door in the earth. So he went down again to the fat toad and told her that he needed the most beautiful ring. She immediately had her big box fetched and from it gave him a ring that glittered with jewels and was more beautiful than any goldsmith upon the earth could have made. The two eldest laughed about Simpleton, who was going to look for a gold ring, but they took no trouble, and knocked the pin out of an old wagon ring and brought the ring to the king. But when Simpleton showed his gold ring the father again said, “The kingdom belongs to him.” The two eldest did not cease importuning the king till he made a third condition and declared that the kingdom should go to the one that brought home the fairest woman. Again he blew the three feathers into the air and they flew as before.
So Simpleton without more ado went down to the fat toad and said, “I have to take home the fairest woman.” “The fairest woman, hey? She is not right here, but none the less you shall have her.” She gave him a hollowed out carrot to which were [pg 222] harnessed six little mice. Then Simpleton sadly said, “What shall I do with it?” The toad replied, “Just put one of my little toads in it.” So he took one by chance from the circle and put it in the yellow carriage, but hardly had she taken her seat when she became a surpassingly beautiful maiden, the carrot a coach, and the six little mice, horses. So he kissed the maiden, drove away with the horses and took them to the king. His brothers came afterwards. They had not taken any trouble to find a fair lady but had brought the first good looking peasant woman. As the king looked at them he said, “The youngest gets the kingdom after my death.” But the two oldest deafened the king's ears with their outcry: “We cannot allow the Simpleton to be king,” and gained his consent that the one whose woman should jump through a ring that hung in the middle of the room should have the preference. They thought, “The peasant women can do it easily, they are strong enough, but the delicate miss will jump herself to death.” The old king consented to this also. So the two peasant women jumped, even jumped through the ring, but were so clumsy that they fell and broke their awkward arms and legs. Then the beautiful woman whom Simpleton had brought leaped through as easily as a roe, and all opposition had to cease. So he received the crown and ruled long and wisely.
I offer first a neat psychoanalytic interpretation of this narrative. Like the dream, the fairy tale is regularly a phantastic fulfillment of wishes, and, of [pg 223] such indeed, as we realize, but which life does not satisfy, as well as of such as we are hardly aware of in consciousness, and would not entertain if we knew them clearly. Reality denies much, especially to the weak, or to those who feel themselves weak, or who have a smaller capacity for work in the struggle for existence in relation to their fellow men. The efficient person accomplishes in his life what he wishes, the wishes of the weak remain unfulfilled, and for this reason the weak, or whoever in comparison with the magnitude of his desires, thinks himself weak, avails himself of the phantastic wish fulfillment. He desires to attain the unattainable at least in imagination. This is the psychological reason why so many fairy stories are composed from the standpoint of the weak, so that the experiencing Ego of the fairy tale, the hero, is a simpleton, the smallest or the weakest or the youngest one who is oppressed, etc. The hero of the foregoing tale is a simpleton and the youngest. In his phantasy, that is, in the story, he stamps his brothers, who are in real life more efficient, and whom he envies, as malicious, disagreeable characters. (In real life we can generally observe how suspicious are, for instance, physically deformed people. Their sensitiveness is well known.) Like the fox to whom the grapes are sour, he declares that what his stronger fellows accomplish is bad, their performance of their duty defective, and their aims contemptible, especially in the sexual sphere, where he feels himself openly most injured. The tale treats specifically [pg 224] from the outset the conquest of a woman. The carpet, the ring, are female symbols, the first is the body of the woman, the ring is the vagina (Greek kteis = comb = pudenda muliebria). (The carpet is still more specifically marked as a female symbol in that the brothers take it from the body of a shepherdess. Shepherdess—a coarse “rag”—coarse “cloth”—in contrast to the fine carpet of the hero.)