Note 22 — Chapter IV · The Grateful Dead and The Poison Maiden.

The obscurity of motivation in this tale makes apparent the extensive revision that it has undergone. The introduction is nowhere else found combined, as far as I know, with the stories of our cycle. The characteristics of The Poison Maiden are sufficiently evident in the conclusion; but there seems to be no way to account for the peculiar form of demonic possession, together with the actual division of the woman, except by supposing, with Dutz,22 that the variant has lost the part concerning the burial of the dead man. If this be true, the story belongs in the category where it is here placed.