Note 26 — Chapter V · The Grateful Dead and The Ransomed Woman.

Oliver has certain elements not to be accounted for by the combination of The Two Friends with The Grateful Dead. Such are the motive of the hero’s journey, for example, which allies it with the tales of incestuous step-mothers; and the tourney in which the hero wins his bride. Yet the burial of the dead man (here a knight and a friend of the hero’s)26 corresponds to the normal form of the episode in that Oliver pays the creditors and the sum necessary for the man’s interment. So, too, the demand made by the ghost for half of all that has been won runs true to the original form. The distinctive trait of Amis and Amiloun, at the same time, comes out more clearly than in the case of such folk-tales as Gaelic—the hero actually kills his little children to save the life of his old friend and foster-brother. One factor leads me to think that the romance and the two romantic plays are to be regarded as forms of the general type treated in this chapter, with additions from other stories. The ghost rescues the hero from imprisonment A rescue of the sort—normally after the hero has been cast into the sea or left behind by his rival—is characteristic of The Grateful Dead + The Ransomed Woman. In Oliver this rescue takes place, to be sure, after the marriage instead of before, which is the normal order, yet it is a factor of considerable importance. The romance takes a position somewhat apart; and even though this is partly due to the literary handling which it has undergone, it must remain doubtfully classed with the immediate circle of variants belonging to the compound type.