Parallels.–The story forms part of Peele’s Old Wives’ Tale, where the rhyme was
A Head rises in the well,
Fair maiden, white and red,
Stroke me smooth and comb my head,
And thou shalt have some cockell-bread.
It is also in Chambers, l.c., 105, where the well is at the World’s End ( cf. No. xli.). The contrasted fates of two step- sisters, is the Frau Holle (Grimm, No. 24) type of Folk-tale studied by Cosquin, i. 250, seq. “Kate Crackernuts” (No. xxxvii.) is a pleasant contrast to this.