Note 51 — Chapter V · The Grateful Dead and The Ransomed Woman.

This Swabian story has preserved the decapitation51 in much better form than Bohemian, though the reason for its introduction is still hard to understand. The ghost is obviously released from some spell when it is beheaded, and is thus enabled to help the hero to better advantage than before. The episode also occurs in a more logical position than in Bohemian. It replaces the more ordinary and normal test of the hero by the ghost. Probably the introduction of it in the two cases is sporadic, though some connection between the two is conceivable. As far as The Grateful Dead and The Ransomed Woman proper are concerned, the variant has no peculiarities of special importance, being of the type in which the hero and heroine set out for court together.52 It contains, however, the feat by which the bride is won, in the same form as in Simrock I. and Bohemian, which is due to an alliance with the type of The Water of Life. Yet it differs from them in making the ghost appear first as a bird, which connects it with Jean de Calais II., VII., and X., and with Simrock II. and VIII., variants that have the thankful beast playing the rôle of ghost.53