[393] The difficulty here is the want of a [Greek: pou stô], from which to climb the tree.
[394] These number-riddles or songs are known to every nation of Europe. E. g., Chambers' Popular Rhymes of Scotland, p. 44, ed. 1870, from Buchan's MSS, I, 280:
O what will be our ane, boys?
O what will be our ane, boys?
My only ane, she walks alane,
And evermair has dune, boys, etc.
See Köhler in Orient u. Occident, II, 558-9. A dragon, in Hahn's Griechische u. Albanesische Märchen, II, 210, gives Penteklimas ten of these number-riddles: if he answers them he is to have a fine castle; if not, he is to be eaten. An old woman answers for him: "One is God, two are the righteous, etc.; ten is your own word, and now burst, dragon!" The dragon bursts, and Penteklimas inherits his possessions.
[395] Gozzi retains the first and third riddles, Schiller only the third. By a happy idea, new riddles were introduced at the successive performances of Schiller's play. Turandot appears as a traditional tale in Schneller's Märchen u. Sagen aus Wälschtirol, No 49, p. 132, "I tre Indovinelli."
[396] The castle with walls and gate thus equipped, or a palisade of stakes each crowned with a head, is all but a commonplace in such adventures. This grim stroke of fancy is best in 'La mule sanz frain,' where there are four hundred stakes, all but one surmounted with a bloody head: Méon, Nouveau Recueil, 1, 15, vv 429-37. For these parlous princesses, of all sorts, see Grundtvig, 'Den farlige Jomfru,' IV, 43 ff, No 184.
[397] Von Hammer, Geschichte der schönen Redekünste Persiens, p. 116, previously cited by von der Hagen, Gesammtabenteuer, III, lxii.
[398] The German schwank affixes the forfeit of the head to failure. In the Norwegian the unsuccessful brothers get off with a thrashing. The fire in the English, found also in the German, recalls the third task in the Gesta Romanorum.
[399] Khudyakof, in the Ethnographical Collection of the Russian Geographical Society, Etnografitcheskiy Sbornik, etc., VI, 9, 10, 8. Ralston, The Songs of the Russian People, p. 353.
[400] Vigfusson objects to Thor being the interlocutor, though that is the name in the MS., because cunning does not suit Thor's blunt character, and proposes Odin instead. "May be the dwarf first met Thor (Wingthor), whereupon Woden (Wingi) came up." Corpus Poeticum Boreale, I, 81.