I think that this story is connected with the Ceres and Proserpine cycle, only the daughter is lost by a father instead of a mother. It will be seen, also, that at the conclusion of the story the order of the brothers is not the same as in the story itself. And I think the error is in the story, and that the astrologer ought to have been the youngest brother instead of the huntsman. The brothers are the four seasons of the year, which in ancient times began with spring, the cobbler, who mends up all things, and makes them new again; next comes summer, the thief, who gathers the products of the earth; third comes autumn, the huntsman, when the wild animals that have increased and multiplied during the year are destroyed and reduced within limits; last comes winter, the astrologer, when ploughing, sowing, and other agricultural operations that govern the whole year go on by calculation. Thus the princess herself, the earth or its fertility, is assigned to the representative of winter, while the other seasons are lords each in his own district.
This Moravian tale will bear an advantageous comparison with Grimm’s tale of the ‘Four Accomplished Brothers,’ in which neither of the brothers is allowed to obtain the princess.
HUNGARIAN-SLOVENISH STORIES.
THE Slovenes or Slovaks of North Hungary speak a great number of dialects, their literary language being, however, the Bohemian. They seem to be the débris of a much larger nation or assemblage of nations, which was forced out of the plains of Pannonia into the mountains by the invasion of the Magyar or Hungarian horsemen, who, according to the Russian chronicler Nestor, marched past Kief in A.D. 898, on their way to establish themselves in their present abode.
Their stories are not very dissimilar to the Bohemian tales, although they do not resemble them so closely as the Moravian stories do. [No. 10] is one of the tales that especially attracted my attention, and caused me to entertain the idea of translating a considerable selection out of the hundred given by Erben. [No. 11] contains incidents which occur again in the White Russian story ([No. 22]), and in the great Russian tale of ‘Ivan Popyalof,’ given by Ralston, though in other respects the stories are very different. [No. 12] is a superior variant of the German ‘Rumpelstilskin’ given by Grimm, and [No. 13] is a specimen of an entirely different kind of story, illustrating ‘The biter bitten.’
X.—THE THREE LEMONS.
There was once upon a time an old king who had an only son. This son he one day summoned before him, and spoke to him thus: ‘My son, you see that my head has become white; ere long I shall close my eyes, and I do not yet know in what condition I shall leave you. Take a wife, my son! Let me bless you in good time, before I close my eyes.’ The son made no reply, but became lost in thought; he would gladly with all his heart have fulfilled his father’s wish, but there was no damsel in whom his heart could take delight.