Samlade Smärre Berättelser, af C. F. Ridderstad, Linköping, 1849. "Agnete lille Dei."
Winter, Danske Folkeventyr: "Prindsen och Havmanden."
The reader need not be surprised to hear that the simple Magyar peasant uses classical names like Pluto, Furuzsina (Euphrosiné); for until 1848 Latin was the official language, and many of the scientific works were written in it, and so a great many words found their way into the vulgar tongue, such as: penna, calamus, bugyelláris (pugillares), jus, &c.
Page [32]. The chase after the fugitives is a well-known folk-tale incident. See several instances in this collection. Generally the pursuer is stopped by something thrown down by the pursued. See "[The Little Magic Pony]," p. [160], and notes infra.
In other stories such as the present and "[The King and the Devil]," p. [193], the pursued change into all manner of wonderful things. Cf. Grimm, vol. i. "Fundevogel," p. 202, and "The Two King's Children," vol. ii. p. 113.
In a Portuguese Folk-Tale, "The Daughter of the Witch," F.L.S. 1882, p. 15, the boy becomes a public road, and the girl an old man with a sack on his back; then the boy becomes a hermitage and the girl a hermit; and lastly, when the mother comes, who, as usual, is the keenest witted, the lad becomes a river, and the girl an eel. The mother, as she cannot catch the eel, pronounces the curse of forgetfulness in case any one should kiss the hero, which one of his sisters does, while he sleeps. See also in the same collection, "May you vanish like the wind," p. 20.
In "Fairy Helena," a story quoted by Kozma in his paper read before the Hungarian Academy, the fairy's father blows across a wide river, and at once it is spanned by a golden bridge. The fairy then strikes a rusty table-fork with a kourbash, and it at once becomes a golden steed, upon which the lovers flee into Italy. When they discover that they are followed, Helena spits on the floor, the door-latch, and the hinge of the door, and each expectoration speaks, and so deludes the king's messengers, and allows the fugitives more time (Cf. Ralston's Russian Tales, p. 142; Grimm, i.: "Sweetheart Roland," p. 225, where one change of Roland is to a fiddler, who makes the witch dance till dead.) The king following in the form of a gigantic eagle, the tips of whose wings touch heaven and earth, reminds of such stories as the Lapp "Jaetten og Veslegutten," from Hammerfest, Friis. p. 49, where the giant is heard coming like a gust of wind; and in "Jaetten og Drengen hans," from Tanen, id. p. 58, where the giant and his wife pursue the lad, as he walks away, with his bag of silver coins.
See also Finnish "Oriiksi muntettu poika," S. ja. T. i. 142, and variants there given, in which the devil follows in the form of a storm-cloud.
Wonderful transformations of a like sort occur in Indian stories, e.g., "The Phúlmati Rání's arms and legs grew into four houses, her chest became a tank, and her head a house in the middle of the tank; her eyes turned into two little doves; and these five houses, the tank, and the doves, were transported to the jungle. The little doves lived in the house that stood in the middle of the tank. The other houses stood round the tank." Stokes' Indian Tales, "Phúlmati Rání," p. 5, and "The Bél Princess," p. 148, where we read, "Then the girl took a knife in her own hand, and cut out her two eyes; and one eye became a parrot, and the other a mainá (a kind of starling). Then she cut out her heart, and it became a great tank. Her body became a splendid palace and garden; her arms and legs became the pillars that supported the verandah roof; and her head the dome on the top of the palace."
Page [34]. For the curse of oblivion see Panch-Phul Ranee, Old Deccan Days, p. 143, where the conjurors throw some powder in the rice and fire, and no sooner did the rajah receive them than he forgot his wife, child, and all that had ever happened to him. In "Chandra's Vengeance," p. 260, forgetfulness is brought about by enchanted drink. Cf. Grimm, ii. "The Drummer," p. 338.