Note 30 — Chapter IV · The Grateful Dead and The Poison Maiden.

Of the three Irish tales, the first two have best preserved the characteristics of the compound as found in Asia and Eastern Europe. Irish I. has all the essential features of Armenian and Gypsy,—for example, the burial, the agreement to divide what is gained, and the removal of the evil things by which the woman is possessed. To be sure, the latter are devils, not serpents, and the woman is beaten, not divided. Yet the division appears in another form, since the hero is ready to share his child with the red-haired man, a trait connected with the theme of Amis and Amiloun.30 Irish II. is in some respects more changed, and in some respects less, than Irish I. The agreement to divide is changed to a promise that the green man shall have the first kiss of the bride. On the other hand, the serpents in the woman’s body are retained, a trait which is very primitive and very important in enabling us to identify the position of these variants. Irish III. has lost most of the typical features of the compound. Kennedy’s evidence shows that Jack the servant is to be regarded as really the thankful dead; but the agreement to divide the gains and the removal of the demons or serpents have entirely disappeared under pressure from the secondary theme, the essential idea of which is the accomplishment by the hero of certain unspelling tasks. In conjunction with the other two variants, however, the position of Irish III. is clear.