This evil influence could be averted only by the assistance of another fairy, a good one in this case, who relieved you more or less promptly by means of a talisman, a constellated stone, or certain words possessed of magic power.
Now, if we add to these godmothers, to these godchildren, to good and bad fairies, the terrible Ogres, whose very name filled the people of those days with terror, you will know all the mysterious personages which appear in the myths of children and which we have all known in our early days.
If we were to examine these legends and traditions more carefully, we should no doubt easily find “Bluebeard” again among the old burggraves of the Rhine, as “Puss in Boots” has already been discovered there. “The Sleeping Beauty” might very well be the peasant woman who had slept a century under the influence of magic magnetism, and why should not our little dwarf Kreiss and his brothers have furnished the first idea of little Tom Thumb, with Quadragant to play the part of the ogre? In “Cinderella” we might with the same readiness recognize one of the three Undine sisters, who forgot amid the delights of the evening assembly, that their furlough was out at ten o’clock? The same would apply, no doubt, to many others who lived under the influence of wicked Nichus or evil disposed fairies.
Poor Druidesses! If you had at least survived as fairies! If they had met you only in the air travelling simply by the aid of your magic wand! But in proportion as Christianity increased, your power necessarily decreased.
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The day came at last, when they dared transform you into fortune tellers, and finally into accursed witches! Then your enchantress’ wand became that atrocious broomstick upon which you travelled through the air on your way to the witches’ Sabbath! Oh misery! Oh wretchedness! What a fatal overthrow of all earthly glory and grandeur!
When the women thus saw their power of ruling men by prophetic inspiration slip away from them, they one fine day determined to change their tactics, their ways and manners, and, I am sorry to have to say it, almost their sex! They assumed the noisy and truculent manners of their brothers and husbands and affected violent exercises, riding on horseback, wrestling, and even fighting in battles. This was the age of bullying women, of Strong Women in fact.