Note 58 — Chapter V · The Grateful Dead and The Ransomed Woman.

It follows from this that the compound The Grateful Dead + The Ransomed Woman is quite independent of the one discussed in the previous chapter, and could not have proceeded from it as Hippe thought.58 It would have been next to impossible for that combined type to divest itself of the features peculiar to The Poison Maiden, and to absorb in their place those of The Ransomed Woman without leaving some trace of the process. Thus the existence of the compound as an independent growth is assured. In this connection it is interesting to note that the rescue of the hero from drowning in consequence of an act of treachery (or from an island) occurs in all the variants of the type save four, Transylvanian, Trancoso, Gasconian, and Straparola I.,59 but in no other version of The Grateful Dead as far as I know.