Note 15 — Chapter V · The Grateful Dead and The Ransomed Woman.

Apart from the dressing of the story, which is unusually good, the variant follows the normal course. The several signs by which the hero is recognized by the king and the princess mark the imaginative wealth of the Celt, though the appearance of a ring, and the fact that the hero is left on a desert island by an infatuated general, show a close correspondence with Hungarian II. The introduction of the children as part of the property to be divided is interesting, since it shows the connecting link by which the simple compound now under consideration passed into combination with the theme of The Two Friends.15 Gaelic, however, clearly belongs where it is here placed. The healing of the princess at the hero’s coming reminds one of the similar trait in Spanish.