[5] Fornm. Sög., 2, 272.
[6] Müller’s Saga Bibl., 3, 359.
[7] See the ballad in Percy’s Reliques.
[8] The following are translations from Saxo, the Wilkina Saga, and the Malleus Maleficarum. The question is completely set at rest by Grimm, D. M. p. 353 fol. and p. 1214.
“Nor is the following story to be wrapped in silence. A certain Palnatoki, for some time among King Harold’s bodyguard, had made his bravery odious to very many of his fellow-soldiers by the zeal with which he surpassed them in the discharge of his duty. This man once, when talking tipsily over his cups, had boasted that he was so skilled an archer, that he could hit the smallest apple placed a long way off on a wand at the first shot; which talk, caught up at first by the ears of backbiters, soon came to the hearing of the king. Now, mark how the wickedness of the king turned the confidence of the sire to the peril of the son, by commanding that this dearest pledge of his life should be placed instead of the wand, with a threat that, unless the author of this promise could strike off the apple at the first flight of the arrow, he should pay the penalty of his empty boasting by the loss of his head. The king’s command forced the soldier to perform more than he had promised, and what he had said, reported by the tongues of slanderers, bound him to accomplish what he had not said”…“Nor did his sterling courage, though caught in the snare of slander, suffer him to lay aside his firmness of heart; nay, he accepted the trial the more readily because it was hard. So Palnatoki warned the boy urgently when he took his stand to await the coming of the hurtling arrow with calm ears and unbent head, lest by a slight turn of his body he should defeat the practised skill of the bowman; and, taking further counsel to prevent his fear, he turned away his face lest he should be scared at the sight of the weapon. Then taking three arrows from the quiver, he struck the mark given him with the first he fitted to the string. But, if chance had brought the head of the boy before the shaft, no doubt the penalty of the son would have recoiled to the peril of the father, and the swerving of the shaft that struck the boy would have linked them both in common ruin. I am in doubt, then, whether to admire most the courage of the father or the temper of the son, of whom the one by skill in his art avoided being the slayer of his child, while the other by patience of mind and quietness of body saved himself alive, and spared the natural affection of his father. Nay, the youthful frame strengthened the aged heart, and showed as much courage in awaiting the arrow as the father, skill in launching it. But Palnatoki, when asked by the king why he had taken more arrows from the quiver, when it had been settled that he should only try the fortune of the bow once, made answer ‘That I might avenge on thee the swerving of the first by the points of the rest, lest perchance my innocence might have been punished, while your violence escaped scot-free’”.— Saxo Gram., Book X, (p. 166, ed. Frankf.)
“About that time the young Egill, Wayland’s brother, came to the court of King Nidung, because Wayland (Smith) had sent him word. Egill was the fairest of men and one thing he had before all other men—he shot better with the bow than any other man. The king took to him well, and Egill was there a long time. Now, the king wished to try whether Egill shot so well as was said or not, so he let Egill’s son, a boy of three years old, be taken, and made them put an apple on his head, and bade Egill shoot so that the shaft struck neither above the head nor to the left nor to the right; the apple only was he to split. But it was not forbidden him to shoot the boy, for the king thought it certain that he would do that on no account if he could at all help it. And he was to shoot one arrow only, no more. So Egill takes three, and strokes their feathers smooth, and fits one to his string, and shoots and hits the apple in the middle, so that the arrow took along with it half the apple, and then fell to the ground. This master-shot has long been talked about, and the king made much of him, and he was the most famous of men. Now, King Nidung asked Egill why he took out three arrows, when it was settled that one only was to be shot with. Then Egill answered ‘Lord’, said he, ‘I will not lie to you; had I stricken the lad with that one arrow, then I had meant these two for you.’ But the king took that well from him, and all thought it was boldly spoken”.—Wilkina Saga, ch. 27 (ed. Pering).
“It is related of him (Puncher) that a certain lord, who wished to obtain a sure trial of his skill, set up his little son as a butt, and for a mark a shilling on the boy’s cap, commanding him to carry off the shilling without the cap with his arrow. But when the wizard said he could do it, though he would rather abstain, lest the Devil should decoy him to destruction; still, being led on by the words of the chief, he thrust one arrow through his collar, and, fitting the other to his crossbow, struck off the coin from the boy’s cap without doing him any harm; seeing which, when the lord asked the wizard why he had placed the arrow in his collar? he answered ‘If by the Devil’s deceit I had slain the boy, when I needs must die, I would have transfixed you suddenly with the other arrow, that even so I might have avenged my death.’”—Malleus Malef., p. ii, ch. 16.
[9] See Pantcha-Tantra, v. ii of Wilson’s Analysis, quoted by Loiseleur Deslongchamps, Essai sur les Fables Indiennes (Paris, Techener, 1838, p. 54), where the animal that protects the child is a mangouste (Viverra Mungo). See also Hitopadesa, (Max Müller’s Translation, Leipzig, Brockhaus, p. 178) where the guardian is an otter. In both the foe is a snake.
[10] Moe Introd. xxxii.-iii
[11] The account in the Nibelungen respecting the Tarnhut is confused, and the text probably corrupt; but so much is plain, that Siegfried got it from Elberich in the struggle which ensued with Schilbung and Niblung, after he had shared the Hoard.
[12] Thus we find it in the originals or the parallels of Grendel in Beowulf, of Rumpelstiltskin, of the recovery of the Bride by the ring dropped into the cup, as related in “Soria Moria Castle,” and other tales; of the “wishing ram”, which in the Indian story becomes a “wishing cow”, and thus reminds us of the bull in one of these Norse Tales, out of whose ear came a “wishing cloth”; of the lucky child, who finds a purse of gold under his pillow every morning; and of the red lappet sown on the sleeping lover, as on Siegfried in the Nibelungen. The devices of Upakosa, the faithful wife, remind us at once of “the Master-maid”, and the whole of the stories of Saktideva and the Golden City, and of Viduschaka, King Adityasena’s daughter, are the same in groundwork and in many of their incidents as “East o’ the Sun, and West o’ the Moon”, “the Three Princesses of Whiteland”, and “Soria Moria Castle”.
[13] J. Grimm, Reinhart Fuchs, cclxiii, Intr.
[14] Kinder and Hausmärchen, vol. 3, 3d edition (Göttingen, 1856) a volume worthy of the utmost attention.